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Engineers Explain Why the Galaxy Note 7 Caught Fire (digitaltrends.com)
Engineers with manufacturing technology company Instrumental tore apart a Galaxy Note 7 to try and figure out what may have caused some devices to overheat and explode, causing Samsung to recall and eventually cancel all Galaxy Note 7 devices. In their damning new report, the engineers discovered the root of the problem appears to be that the battery is too tightly packed inside the body of the Note 7. Digital Trends reports: They discovered the battery was so tightly packed inside the Galaxy Note 7's body that any pressure from battery expansion, or stress on the body itself, may squeeze together layers inside the battery that are never supposed to touch -- with explosive results. Batteries swell up under normal use, and we place stress on a phone's body by putting it our pocket and sitting down, or if it's dropped. Tolerances for battery expansion are built into a smartphone during design, and Instrumental notes Samsung used "a super-aggressive manufacturing process to maximize capacity." In other words, the Galaxy Note 7 was designed to be as thin and sleek as possible, while containing the maximum battery capacity for long use, thereby better competing against rival devices such as the iPhone 7 Plus and improving on previous Note models. The report speculates that any pressure placed on the battery in its confined space may have squeezed together positive and negative layers inside the cell itself, which were thinner than usual in the Note 7's battery already, causing them to touch, heat up, and eventually in some cases, catch fire. Delving deeper into the design, the engineers say the space above a battery inside a device needs a "ceiling" that equates to approximately 10 percent of the overall thickness. The Galaxy Note 7 should have had a 0.5mm ceiling; it had none.
Absolutely shocking they cut tolerances to the minimum possible, not the minimum necessary....
This is bad. Very bad. If substantiated, the lawsuits against Samsung are going to be epic.
Why are there not physical insulators between the "risky" parts instead of merely air gaps? I'm not a psychical* engineer, so am I missing something? Do physical protection layers reduce cooling or something?
* I don't mean I'm virtual, but that I don't engineer physical stuff. Software.
Table-ized A.I.
Theory sounds plausible but doesn't carry much weight without experiments that demonstrate the internal battery components actually making contact as a result of the factors they describe.
....and this was not caught during testing because?
Problem exists between smartphone and chair
Doesn't surprise me, hipster doofuses
Koreans are a very light people. ;-)
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Correction, I meant "physical engineer". But if you were a psychical engineer, you'd know that already.
Table-ized A.I.
>"...what may have caused some devices to overheat and explode,..."
To my knowledge, NONE of them "exploded". Those that had actual problems had overheating which led to a fire. That is not an "explosion". That word was used by the media to stir up tons of inaccurate hype.
>"...causing them to touch, heat up, and eventually in some cases, catch fire."
Exactly.
If only Samsung had brought in Mr. Whipple to help educate the public.
the TFA says "engineers" so it must be true.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Instead of being activated at users request it activates at random.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
What about stop making stuff super thin?
If this was the case then a slightly physically smaller battery would have solved the problem. They could have achieved this quite easily, even if it meant sacrificing capacity. And given they started by recalling the phones and replacing the batteries but there were still problems I would suggest they are wrong.
Hopefully this provides some motivation to stop equating thin with better.
Nah, who am I kidding, people are stupid.
Give me a nice THICC tablet any day.
I am sick of this stupid thin fetish for technology. Pisses me off so much.
If it isn't features being removed from the hardware, it is EXPLOSIONS being added as a feature.
I already get my daily dose of explosions. Of the non-damaging kind. I don't need any more, it is exhausting as is.
As in most cases, going to extremes is rarely a good thing.
Can I get next version with bulky size and replaceable battery? I never cared about having phone smaller, as i put it in bulky protector case anyway. I want replaceable battery
So it's not a design flaw, merely people have been handling them wrong. Well, all's forgiven then, we have precedent that bad gripping by users is user fault, not company. Time to dismiss this as non-news.
If this was the case then a slightly physically smaller battery would have solved the problem. They could have achieved this quite easily, even if it meant sacrificing capacity. And given they started by recalling the phones and replacing the batteries but there were still problems I would suggest they are wrong.
Did you even look at the linked report? These engineers have the benefit of hindsight. They knew that the initial attempts to fix the problem failed; it's mentioned in the very first paragraph of the linked report. They said that sources from within Samsung had various theories as to the cause, so whatever fix that Samsung did it was the wrong theory. Just because Samsung got it wrong (twice) doesn't mean that these engineers were wrong.
Your post mirrors what was in the second paragraph of the report:
It's amazing that you can claim that what these engineers deduced wrong when you haven't even read even the first two paragraphs of what they thought. RTFA.
You realize the "T" in TFA stands for "the," right?
My Palm Treo ( the first real Smartphone, rounded Icons and all ) was the perfect size to fit in my back jeans pocket and still be sturdy enough to take a crush or a fall. And its batteries didn't explode.
I hope Samsung's problem with large and thin lead to manufacturers exploring new ( old ) form factors and move away from these laughably inconvenient phablets.
I wouldn't be surprised if this is the kind of design flaw that sneaks in Apple phone in the pursuit of thinner and thinner phones.
If they found the problem, it means that they can reproduce it. They were entirely unable to make their test unit fail due to the tight fit, nor were they able to observe that an increase in pressure of a phone in the off condition (under which at least one of the fires occurred in the v2 Note 7) *led to* a runaway thermal condition.
They're basically just speculating because they are looking for some clicks. This is about as conclusive proof as Trump has of 3 million illegals voting in California.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
These idiots have no idea what caused the fires. They haven't shown a single case where they can identify that the pressure on the battery causes thermal runaway. Remember that several phones failed while idle (not charging) and one failed while turned off (the guy on the plane). This "explanation" is just a couple of guys trying to Monday morning quarterback.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If TFA is correct, then Samsung tried to put the largest battery possible while keeping the phone as thin as possible. If they wanted more profit, they could've gone with a smaller battery or a thicker design with larger tolerances. Both would've been cheaper for them to manufacture and thus would've increased their profit margin. But they eschewed that marginal profit and went the extra mile for the customer - packing in the largest battery possible while keeping the phone as small and thin as possible. Unfortunately they went too far, to the point where it compromised the safety of the device.
If I had to guess, they probably goofed because this was only their second gen all-metal design. They didn't have the experience to tell them how tight was too tight (at least not until now). They could pack the battery this tightly on their older plastic bodies without problems because battery expansion would just push the rear plastic shell up a little.
The "manufacturing technology company" is a small startup with no experience, expertise, or credentials.
Further, they had a single unit to work with. Their testing revealed nothing conclusive and they weren't able to actually discern anything.
All they did was look at it and say it's a very tight fit. Everything else is speculation.
Software "engineers" at best.
This is the company in question. https://www.instrumental.ai/te...
It's a small startup of 9 people with no history. None of the people are even listed as mechanical engineers. They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way) and business people. Not a one among them has the authority to make any claims about the Note 7. None of them have the actual experience with the Note 7 to do so either - they had a single sample that they couldn't actually do anything with other than write the blog post and fish it out to tech sites for hits and to get their name out there.
People should bare in mind that this is at most an educated guess made by disassembling a single unit and speculating about limits of current tech battery design.
They were not hired by Samsung, they are not an official body of investigation, and they didn't have access to anything in the design in manufacturing process.
It's quite possible that they are right, but they are not explaining anything there, just speculating.
Now, it'd be extremely sad if the Note 7 was killed because of such a design oversight, because quite honestly, that's borderline amateurish. It could happen, as similar problems happen in most brands. Just that Samsung made the omission in the worst component possible.
We have examples of problems in antennas, cameras, lenses, connectors, shoddy speakers, crappy GPS chips, poor materials used in bits and pieces, among several other stuff... the difference is that if you have something wrong with battery, the consequences might not be only working poorly, ending up in glitches and whatnot. The consequence might be an explosion. Which is probably the worst thing hardware can do. :P
Anyways, the device is as dead as it can be. Which is plenty bad, because it'd probably be a best seller otherwise. Hopefully though, the lesson is learned by all manufacturers. It simply isn't worth sacrificing battery security to make the device thinner, or to shove extra mAh in there.
The worst part is that I can bet all you want that fans of the Note line would definitely not be bothered much with having a smaller battery or a slightly thicker phone. It's all about the stylus and screen size.
Back to the topic, I'd wait for further investigation for a final conclusion. Disassembling a single device and taking guesses is not that much better from theories that have been thrown around so far.
...Dilbert quote.
.. but, can we stop this "thinnest phone" bull**** now? All of the people I know want more battery life and couldn't care less about having the thinnest phone.
IF the manufacturer knew this was *the* cause of the problem, the only cause, and they had confidence in that assessment, then yes they could have fixed it. Or avoided it.
Come to think of it, no matter what the cause(s) is/are, the manufacturer could have avoided the problem in the first place, if they knew all of the above. Obviously they don't magically know all these things.
They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way)
Thanks but I won't take your word for that. Please show your reasoning.
If a software professional can be a member of a recognised professional engineering body - they can be a "Certified Practicing Engineer" just like any other engineer - then I would say that they are by definition a recognised profession.
PR: "we did it all to please you, we wanted you to have the best..." Designers: "You change it, you are on your own" CEO/CFO: "It'll save us how much? do it"
Blackberry would like to have a word with you.
If I had to guess, they probably goofed because this was only their second gen all-metal design.
But even just from the summary, you do not need any experience of any kind to know you need spacing in the battery, which the engineers omitted. It was not a case of not having enough experience with a metal design, it was outright engineering malpractice.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not surprised that a Linux device contains a flaming defect.
I"m a LUDDITE! I like small phones that aren't impossibly thin and obnoxiously wide and tall.. So yeah, I like like a 5S or iPhone SE. Thick enough to not have thermal detonation issues, thick enough for my fingers to actually grab to something other than a near knife-edge, thick enough to not destroy the chips within (touch-disease, anyone?)
5S / SE is perfection. It could be argued that 4 / 4S was perfection, but they were too heavy and in the hands of the clumsy the rear glass could easily break. Beautifully made, though - that stepped bezel - anyone else notice it was a dozen or so little steps milled out of the stainless slab? No? no one else notices little touches like that? Or like the 4 / 4S and 5 / 5S / SE have a very slight concave shape all around the periphery? Maaaaybe to let your fingers lift it from a surface easily?
Huh. I"m betting some of you did notice these little things.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
It limits my mobility since I don't like charging the phone more than necessary. I want to charge it and have it last a couple of days, not charge it every night.
Love the removable batter in my Note 4. Wish they would stay with that. Problem solved.
Hand grenades explode. Batteries overheat and catch fire. They don't explode.
In order to have a fire, the organic liquid electrolyte in the battery must come in contact with air. It's possible the pressure produced by heating the electrolyte and converting it to a high pressure gas caused the battery case to break. The battery case could also have been pierced by some sharp component inside the phone as the case expanded. If these ether containing liquids-turned-to-gas came in contact with air they can spontaneously explode if peroxides formed (which ethers form in air) or undergo self ignition because of their high temperature exceeding their flash point temperature.
One thing's seems for sure: these phone cases are pretty rigid and do not pucker of bend under the intense force produced by the expanding battery case. If the cause of the fires and explosions is because of the volume expansion of the battery case inside the phone's case, that phone case is pretty tough.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Professions are legally protected and regulated trades. Plumbers, electricians, lawyers, doctors, etc. have regulations, standards and codes their work has to adhere to. "Software engineers" are programmers who want a fancier sounding title. (I am a programmer.)
They're all software engineers (which isn't a recognized profession, by the way)
You're not a real engineer unless you roll the petard up to the castle gate! These new-fangled train drivers aren't real engineers at all!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You can get a PE in software engineering in the USA.
Of course to take the test you have to be under the supervision of another PE for a number of years, and the software engineer PE is new. So some interdisciplinary work is required.
Won't be a problem for those who will take it. They are all destined to work in aviation or power.
Most 'software engineers' couldn't pass the EIT. (To start their training period prior to taking the PE.) Most 'software engineers' can't tie their shoes and wave by-by.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Those are shit people from a shit startup talking shit about shit they don't know shit about. I hope Samsung sues the shit out of them, takes all of their shit away, throws them into a shit hole and pays a bunch of incontinent pieces of shit to shit on them night and day. That will teach them not to say shit about shit they don't know shit about. Shit.
Samsung had stuck with the removable batteries of the Note 3 and Note 4 (which I own and love) this problem would not have occurred as the removable plastic back side would have allowed the battery to expand. This is also the same reason that I stopped buying the Note-series of Phones: No removable battery. So lose-lose :(
I must say that I'm sceptical too.
Especially when they conclude that 'the smalles pressure' would cause the explosion to occur.
1. I'm not an expert on what kind of testing is done on a phone during development but I consider it extremely unlikely that no scenario involving a high level of pressure on the body to be part of it.
2. I didn't study the reports on these explosions but a seem to remember that at least one of them happened when the device was simply lying on a table or something with nobody touching it??
My personaly theory (based on just my lively fantasy only): remeber that article on those batteries with a window in it. Through the window they could study the creation of 'dendrites'. A kind of chemical plant like structures that 'grow' on the walls of the battery cell as the result of charging and uncharging of the battery. When they touch the other side of the battery cell they create tiny wires that induces a small 'short circuit' thus reducing the capacity of the battery.
I think they created a new type of battery with layers that were closer than before. They applied special software to control the charging and uncharging cycles in such a way that they could control the growth of this dendrites sufficiently... in lab conditions. But in the real world people used their phone in a way that they did not take into account. Too many dendrites touching==> short circuit.
As these are well-tested and established design best practices, they carry a lot of weight to any actual engineer. The thinking you demonstrate here is exactly what lead to this fiasco and likely what Samsung management did: "Oh, we need a 0.5mm gap here? You don't say. Lets omit it to make the phone thinner and try it out on a 10 phones or so for a week. No problem found? Let's run with it." Result: Epic fail. Design on very low amateur-level.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What kind of pressure would be that great? Or was the batteries designed so poorly that they did not have good case protection? Its possible the design of the battery was the problem, given that initial replacements did the same thing as the defective one's did. Maybe the design of making the battery too thin to fit into the case was the problem. I personally think Apple has had similar problems with the 6S Plus only not so dramatic as fires but failures none the less. Just seems to me the biggest issues with smartphones has been with batteries. Never really saw this until the obsession with thin began.
Or, maybe we are wrong, and software programmers, by definition, can never strictly be engineers, i.e. "software engineer" is merely a polite euphamism, because there is simply nothing tangible that they engineer (electron positions? magnetic fields?), there is no physical machine, no physical engine. no physical anything, that they are deisigning or building... so programming by definition can not be "engineering." The "engineering" in "software engineering" is a metaphor, and nothing else, for actual engineering.
In California, at least, but I'm fairly sure all the rest of the states are the same:
There is no "practice" or "title" for Software Engineer like there is for Civil, Electrical, Mechanical Engineers (practice) or Petroleum, Traffic, etc. (title). You can't call yourself an Engineer or DO engineering (as defined in the act) without a license (or under the supervision of a licensed engineer). You can call yourself a consultant - anyone can be a consultant.
Software to a small extent shows up on the Electrical Engineer exam, but there's not much of what someone who does software engineering (as taught in the schools and practiced in industry) would find familiar.
The laws in most states say "icensees must demonstrate by education, experience, and examination that they are competent in their field."
The examination is fairly broad on general engineering principles - I would venture that most folks doing software these days would have a tough time passing it without some serious study - Used a Moody Diagram recently? How's your redox reactions? Know how to calculate the forces inside a beam under a specified load?
Then, there's the six years of experience doing engineering under the supervision of another engineer (or under the industrial exemption).
They killed the phone because it was poisoned. Even if they fixed the problem, it was too late. Airlines were already banning the devices. Even if you offer a free fix, not every phone will get fixed. This means you can't tell the fixed phones from the unfixed ones, and they would stay banned. Who wants to be the company with the only phone banned from flying. They did the only thing they could. They shot the product in the head.
Sounds disgustingly bulky to me. I'd rather burst into flames then have that gross nonsense packing my pocket. Ick!
Why did the replacement battery also catch fire? Was the replacement also not in-spec for safety? If so, that was a bad decision.
I think if Samsung replaced the battery that was in-spec for safety and gave a small refund (or credit for a future samsung purchase, such as a microsd card) to each buyer, because of the lower capacity of a smaller battery, would have made the most sense.
Bad indeed. If true.
I mean: it would be a really stupid error to make on a flagship product. My hunch is (but I have no proof) that it's something different entirely.
The theory of the article says that simply applying some pressure on the body would already create the explosion. If that were the case I think many more phones would have exploded. And weren't there cases where the explosion took place without anyone touching the phone?
My little pet theory: the dendrites inside the ultra thin cells of the new type of battery were growing bigger than foreseen. In my mind Samsung engineers were aware of this potential problem that is strongly dependend on how you use your battery. I think (just my fatanasy) that they changed the software for charging the phone to keep the problem under control. They succeeded ... in the lab... and outside the lab...for the most part...
Using adjectives, such as: "damning", in a summary is trash journalism. Might as well run National Enquirer stories on Slashdot if there's going to be no level of professionalism present in editing.
You can certainly be a licensed professional engineer, but to do so requires you to stay within your field of expertise.
I call such "software engineers" by a more accurate term: "Bob who is really good with computers".
The problem there is hubris: People think because they're good at one thing they're good at everything, and as such are experts at finding the solutions that are clear, simple, and wrong.
Then, when someone points out that they've created something that's not workable, they point out how clear, simple, and elegant it is, because all they can see is their very narrow field.
Well-rounded individuals are rare. Those individuals with both soft and hard skills; who know the value of doing and also of communication; who can actually implement things using a specific skill such as programming, but also have the knowledge of systems to understand what they want to do and why. I think it's the duty of individuals who aren't so well rounded to at least recognise their limitations, so they can defer to people who fill out their weaknesses.
ye olde sapper?
Sappers lead the way!
There's one major problem with your post: None of your "engineers" actually engineer anything.
Engineering is the application of mathematics and scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to invent, innovate, design, build, maintain, research, and improve structures, machines, tools, systems, components, materials, processes, solutions and organizations.
Your hairstylist is a tradesperson, but not engaging in engineering.
The "copy engineers" are operators, not engaging in engineering (perhaps in another sense of the word, but not in the sense we're talking about here)
The slave children are manual labourers, not engaging in engineering.
The "parking engineers" are also mere operators, not engaging in engineering.
By contrast, a "software engineer" could absolutely exist (and they do), as someone with theoretical and practical training on software design, who has worked under another engineer to gain practical experience in that respect, who uses that knowledge to produce software.
Licensure takes that "engineer" and makes them a professional.
Self regulation recognizes the maturity of a profession. It honours the special skills, knowledge and experience that a profession possesses.
Self-regulation means that the government has delegated its regulatory functions to those who have the specialized knowledge necessary to do the job. The granting of self-regulation acknowledges a profession’s members are capable of governing themselves.
By contrast, those who can't self-regulate merely have jobs, or occupations. They aren't professionals.
Unfortunately, most "software engineers" are actually code jockeys. They have the equivalent of trade skills, they're capable of manhandling the tools to achieve results, but they aren't using a deep theoretical and practical knowledge to produce the best result, and they certainly don't follow the principles of professionalism.
I agree, good design practices carry a lot of weight. But theories voiced as conclusions without any empirical evidence don't.
Well, yes. But that is not what I get from the blog-post describing their conclusion. I do have personally observed the effect of LiPos getting thicker with use though. Hence I conclude that is a widely-known fact to battery experts and 10% spare space seems to be quite reasonable. I may be wrong on that one though, and I an not a battery expert.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Samsung purportedly did an intensive engineering review of the design during the first recall and was unable to find the source of the issue, which lead them to incorrectly conclude that it must have been caused by a batch of bad batteries. I have to believe that the theories proposed in this article were well considered by Samsung during that review (if not during the design of the phone as well).
Be fair, the EIT and PE have nothing to do with those skills. PEs aren't any more likely to be 'well rounded individuals' than any other technical person.
The hubris you mention isn't limited to techs, need I point out...Lawyers and politicians. 'We write the laws, let's see about changing the laws of physics.'
What you describe sounds more like the business/systems analysts fell on their faces. It isn't the programmer's job to know the industry in detail.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I have a Galaxy Note 3. There has been no compelling reason to upgrade. I think there was one marginally better phone before the one that pen that stuck and the one that burned.
What happened to Samsung that they can't make a phone anymore?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Quote: "In other words, the Galaxy Note 7 was designed to be as thin and sleek as possible, while containing the maximum battery capacity for long use..."
Yet another casuality of the 'thinner is better madness." With the exception of the too-bendy iPhone 6 plus, Apple has managed to avoid disaster for its obsession. Not so Samsung.
Both companies need to offer EL (for Extended Life) models for those who need a longer battery life and don't mind more thickness.
I have a BLU Life One X, and it is pretty thin. When I first got it, someone at work said "can you shave with that thing?" I have long wondered why makers don't add a few more mm and make all that extra space battery. More battery life is probably the ONE feature that everyone can agree on. I mean, they had to invent cases that acted as supplemental batteries for crying out loud.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The testing was carried out by the company founders - CEO (Anna) and the CTO (Sam). Both of them hold MS degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University (click on their LinkedIn icons).
They probably prevented pillowing by tightly controlling charge voltage, then tested a ton of batteries and a bunch of assembled phones simulating some sort of usage lifecycle, and conclusively demonstrated that all was well.
But.
1. Simulating the lifecycle of a phone has got to be incredibly difficult - I can't think of any consumer electronic devices that get so abused by heat, stress and strain. The phones in the real world may have been subjected to different stuff than the phones being tortured by robots in environmental chambers.
2. Something might have changed after manufacturing commenced that invalidated the testing - e.g., a change in the battery manufacturing process, a voltage regulator had a die-shrink, or other change that affected control of the battery, etc.
I'm not defending Samsung - good engineers and good processes should catch this kind of thing. But I've seen these kinds of things happen often enough, albeit not in products whose failures cause them to burst into flames in a user's pocket!
From my experience with engineering screw-ups really large companies, I would say that it is likely that some people at Samsung did know the whole time what was wrong, but never were asked. Also take into account that some low-level design engineer would have to accuse somebody really high up of having screwed up badly. Even if that person has the integrity to do that, it is not going to be escalated up. Escalationg bad news is not a move that advances a career. Before I made those observations (fortunately all as an external expert), I had the same opinion as you just expressed. Not anymore. If anything, engineering screw-ups in large organizations are worse than in small ones.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
There's one major problem with your post: None of your "engineers" actually engineer anything.
Alright, let's see is your criticism is valid, shall we? :-)
Engineering is the application of mathematics and scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to invent, innovate, design, build, maintain, research, and improve structures, machines, tools, systems, components, materials, processes, solutions and organizations.
No argument there. I am in complete agreement. that is a fine definition of engineering!
Your hairstylist is a tradesperson, but not engaging in engineering.
Well, that is a statement with nothing to back it up. Is not my hair engineer inventing, innovating, designing, building, maintaining, researching and improving structures? What is a hair style if not a structure? The evidence on its face clearly shows that you are incorrect. A hair stylist is a fine example of a hair engineer, engineering original hair styles using.. hair, which is clearly a structure, like a bridge, yet made of hair.
The "copy engineers" are operators, not engaging in engineering (perhaps in another sense of the word, but not in the sense we're talking about here)
Well. I thought you were going to make a case, an argument. That is not an argument, that is yet another declarative statement with no evidence to back of up your criticism of my label. Sentences are structures! Thus, literate journalists, by your very definition of engineering, are clearly engineering words (structures) out of letters, sentences (higher formed structures) out of words, and stories (higher yet formed structures) out of sentences. Nothing says an engineer must necesssarily work with steel beams, these engineers work with letters, words, sentences to produce stories, instead of iron and steel and cable to produce bridges. The pen is mightier than the sword!
The slave children are manual labourers, not engaging in engineering.
Again, you are not debating, but merely gainsaying my statements with no proof. This strategy is unconvincing. Look back at your engineering definition. Is it even possible to do anything whatsoever without applied mathematics? Are not textiles structures? They, in fact, are. Thread is woven, not unlike steel can be woven for structural strength. Textile workers are merely another kind of engineer, applying knowledge to materials such as thread, cloth, etc., to create more complex structures, clothing. They are, by your own precise definition, engineering their products.
The "parking engineers" are also mere operators, not engaging in engineering.
I guess maybe you have never seen an empty lot be maximized for space by parking engineers. What they are doing is using applied mathematics on the fly to engineer a parking structure, which is a structure made of cars, such that the space taken up by the cars is efficently utilized. That's engineering, bro.
By contrast, a "software engineer" could absolutely exist (and they do), as someone with theoretical and practical training on software design, who has worked under another engineer to gain practical experience in that respect, who uses that knowledge to produce software.
Licensure takes that "engineer" and makes them a professional.
Self regulation recognizes the maturity of a profession. It honours the special skills, knowledge and experience that a profession possesses.
Self-regulation means that the government has delegated its regulatory functions to those who have the specialized knowledge necessary to do the job. The granting of self-regulation acknowledges a profession’s members are capable of governing themselves.
By contrast, those who can't self-regulate merely have jobs, or occupations. They aren't professionals.
Unfortunately, most "software engine
If recalled and compensation paid or new phone, why law suit?
Regards Eion MacDonald
Part of the code of ethics is only doing work you're qualified by experience or training to do. Unlike "bob who is good with computers", who is not held to any standard as long as they don't get themselves fired.
I agree with all you wrote. I'd be interested to know what all was involved in their initial post-recall investigation that lead them to conclude the problem was with the battery itself and thus green-light the production release of the camera for replacements/new-sales.
I think you missed my point. There can be software engineers. But not all programmers -- in fact, not many programmers -- are software engineers.
I'm uniquely qualified to speak about the differences between engineers and tradespeople, because I've done both (Internet qualifications and all that jazz, caveat emptor).
An operator is someone who takes something that is already built, and operates it. An automobile driver is simply operating a device, nothing more. Someone who works on an assembly line and commits rote actions to operate a piece of equipment is simply operating that equipment, nothing more. That isn't to say that operators don't have skills, it's just to say they don't have trade or craft skills, and they don't have the skills to design something based on sound engineering principles.
A tradesperson is (ideally) someone who is taking something that has already been designed, or using pieces that have already been designed, and uses those tools and methods to complete a plan -- ideally, one that was created by an engineer. The skills a tradesperson learns are more about specific application of known quantities -- Running cables to code for an electrician, installing large mechanical equipment for millwrights, using scissors and combs and hair spray for hair dressers. They have craft skills, but they don't have the breadth of theoretical knowledge to design something based on sound engineering principles. At best, they can emulate previous experience. I do say ideally because sometimes tradespeople are put in the uncomfortable situation of designing stuff.
An engineer is someone who actually designs a new something, or makes major design changes to something based on sound engineering principles. They are the one who is supposed to be doing the design, and their breadth of theoretical knowledge is how they have a chance at spending tens of millions of dollars of someone else's money and actually having a reasonable chance of a successful outcome at the end.
Each person has their place, each person has unique and important skills, but each person is definitely not the other.
Most programmers aren't mere equipment operators. Many programmers are basically 'code tradespeople'. Very few programmers are software engineers. Fewer still are professional engineers in any sense of the term.
I should also mention that a software engineer certainly might be working on an "engine" as you consider it, in a way at least as real as an electrical engineer.
For example, if an electrical engineer is designing a relay cabinet, or using karnaugh maps and other tools to determine the optimal logic gates for a purpose, that isn't substantially different than programming. Instead of physically wiring some chip I/O together, he or she could be using software to wire fpga I/O together, or implementing the same logic in software. If you're operating a multi-million dollar piece of equipment with relays, or with a software approximation of those relays, is one engineering but the other not?
But that's why I say most programmers aren't software engineers, because the same level of sound engineering practice and theoretical understanding that goes into the relay cabinet ought to go into the processor memory. Otherwise, you're not really engineering, you're just playing around.
Uh, what you describe cannot be an engine. An engine is a machine that does work. There is no software on the planet that can do work, work as in W = F x d. What programmers create is a metaphorical engine. Therefore, they are at best metaphorical engineers.
Indeed. I would like to know that too.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Engineering work. PEs are allowed to (slop paint/wrench their cars/fuck their wives) at their homes, just like anybody. Even if they aren't very good at it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A Software Engineer is a person with degrees in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. As I do... 8-)
So if they replaced the battery with a more conventional smaller and less powerful one then the phones could still be used as phones...Might help to recoup some of the loss due to the recall..
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