This is simply another case where the US can do whatever in the hell it pleases, and the rest of the world can do nothing about it.
We are now guilty of illegally invading a foreign country without any direct threat of war or attack or in assistance to another country, but simply based on political agenda, public ignorance, public fear mongering, and propoganda about WMD. Yet, the US is still able to produce WMD as freely as it wishes and can use them to threaten foreign powers. The same with nuclear weapons. The two reasons the US is at war right now to begin with.
The US is not a world democracy, but a world hypocrisy. We can do it, but NOBODY else can. And there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Not all research and discovery will directly impact your life. Most of the theoretical discovery and research is simply done for the sake of completeness. Puzzle pieces building a larger, complete understanding of science. In a way, solving this puzzle may not directly affect you, but it will give a more complete picture of the greater puzzle and understanding, and it's completion may indirectly influence another discovery which may lead to the creation of something that will directly relate to your life.
And doing mathematics for the sake of mathematics is beautiful all in itself, for it is the understanding and basis of all science. Without mathematics, there is only observation.
"One of my professors always said "If you use something often enough it will memorize itself. If you don't use it that often, there is no point in memorizing it, as you can look it up." The only time you really can't when it comes to advanced mathematics is during artificial situations such as tests."
Unless you are a person like me, who can remember everything. You only forget something if you don't care about it. So, on that note, I disagree with your professor.
But, I agree with most of the rest of what you are saying. It is absolutely as much a matter of fault for a teacher, and on the highest level a professor, to not require written work and for creating exams that can be solved by calculator alone. But, I am afraid the problem is much deeper, whereas I tutor students who are almost in college or who are in college who can't figure out basic fractions or exponential functions without the use of a calculator. They never learned how to do it by hand. Especially the students who store notes from class in their calculators so they never even tried to learn it in the first place.
I installed Windows XP in September 2002. About 5 minutes after connecting to the internet, a Windows Messenger message popped up with an advertisment. A simple search on Google told me what was going on. A quick trip to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302089 and I have never worried about it since. Plus, the Microsoft solution allows me to install and configure services that require Messenger as a dependency.
But, WTF?, this is 10-24-2003 and when I installed XP back in 2002 XP had already been out for almost 3-4 months. Why is this story on the front page of Slashdot?
What should really happen is graphic calculators that are able to store any alpha numeric information should be banned in any school below undergraduate level (and even then not until about sophmore/junior year of college).
The problem is that there is now a generation of graduates (who I see all of the time) who can use a calculator like a whiz, but don't know basic physics formulas, can't do simple or complex mathematics, or even explain to me what formula or method they used to solve a problem without first grabbing their calculator. The usage of high powered graphing calculators in the elementary, middle level, and beginning college level students is creating a new society of uneducated 'nobodies' who can't work out a single problem from scratch or learn to create methods to solve them. People have become simple masters of being able to tell you everything you want to know about a problem without having any ability to actually solve.
I am a mathematician and am currently working as an engineer until I return to work on my Ph.D. I also tutor middle level and college level students. Almost 100% of the time, when I ask students how they get answers to everything from a simple algebraic problem to a calculus based problem, they instantly start typing it into their graphing calculators. WTF? The calculator should only exist to help you solve a problem (such as a very long mathematical operation not pertinent to your learning of the material). I always make them put the calculator away. I say "You are here to learn Mathematics, you are not here to learn how to type problems into your calculator". I have had almost 100% success rate in helping students to understand mathematics, physics, and engineering by teaching them how to solve the problem and how to think rather than letting them falsify their learning by taking a easy way out.
It was really the "I too have fond memories of being jealous over the guy who had every physics formula ever programmed into his TI or HP super computer" that set me off. I was always jealous of the guy who could get an A-/B+ by using his brain and a pocket calculator to solve all of the problems on the exam in undergraduate college. You should too.
I'm sure I'll get modded into oblivion by every kid who uses his graphing calculator to cheat in class on his exams (especially the people who store notes on their calculator).
Actually, you should be some of the things you read on Slashdot. Some of the people, myself included, try to post very honestly and to the best of their knowledge and abilities. Although most of the posts are opinion or just plain crap, not all of them are, and if you are intelligent you will be able to tell the correct, honest answers from the rest.
I have actually found some incredibly useful information from posts on Slashdot.
Sorry, Anonymous Coward, the facts are correct. Please, Anonymous Coward, go to college, learn Physics, and then come back here and post something intelligent.
That fact came from NASA's website. Why don't you spend some time researching before opening your mouth and looking stupid. Or you must know more about Newtonian Physics than both I and multitudes of other Ph.D.'s.
I spent a lot of time studying this technology while I was working towards my Bachelor's Degree. Okay, let's get some facts straight, for those of you without a degree in Mathematics or Physics:
1) Ion Propulsion is NOT new technology. The Russians and German's have been experimenting with Ion Propulsion since the early 1950's. NASA is actually a late comer to the game, although the first with a completed ion propulsion engine.
2) Ion Propulsion do not work in an environment with an atmosphere. An ion engine does not have enough force to lift a sheet of paper more than a few inches.
3) An Ion Engine is very simple in design. For a simple explanation, an inert gas is ionized and injected into a chamber with an opening on one end. The opening has a magnetized torid ring around it. Using the right hand rule (make a fist, stick your thumb out like you are hitchhiking...your thumb is the direction of the electric current, your fingers are curled in the direction of magnetic field flow) you create an electrical flow around the metal torid ring. The resulting magnetic field 'pulls' the ions through the ring, resulting in propulsion.
4) The reason for slow inital acceleration is because the force of the ions passing through the ring is very small, but the velocity of the ions is very high. So, since there is no friction or other losses in space, after a period of time the velocity of the ions leaving the ring increases the velocity of the engine. After a matter of days the engine can be travelling at 10-30,000MPH.
For more information and history on Ion Propulsion engines you can go to the following websites:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/prop06 ap r99_2.htm
Every except your last sentence is EXACTLY what my bestfriend and I thought after seeing Matrix II. The real world was still another level of control away.
Both the machines and the humans are in a Matrix. The part about Neo being able to control the machines in the 'real world' proves that there is another level beyond the 'real world' we first believed.
Remember, it is all about control. What the humans have to do is break the highest level of control and become in control themselves. The Creator of the Matrix basically said that.
Technically, speaking as someone who is currently working as an engineer in the energy/utility field, there are two fundamental problems with people talking without knowledge of what they are talking about.
1) Yes, you are at the mercy of nature. Let's get some facts straight for the mis-information givers. To begin with, the two largest problems facing solar power is that for one, the farther you are away from the equator, the less solar power you can produce. Most of the US in not on the Equator. Secondly, solar power production is directly related cloud cover, among other factors. Building a solar powered facility in Wisconsin, where I live, never pays off. At night, you need energy storage, and that is a whole other issue. Some states it may work, but 90% of the rest of the US...it doesn't.
2) Now, wind power does not take up large amounts of space. What you don't understand is that the actual footprint of a wind turbine is only around 100-150 square feet. A wind turbine is generally 50-100 meters tall. The taller the wind turbine, the more power it can produce (on flat land like Iowa, Nebraska, etc.) Wind turbines are always built based on worse case scenario wind shear conditions at a design height. Wind turbines do not speed up or slow down, since the generator has a naturally occuring electrical braking action (think Eddy Current braking) and is built to worse case scenario wind shear conditions for minimum operation. The real problem, at least in Iowa where I have done utility studies for the IDNR (Iowa Department of Natural Resources) is that a lot of birds get killed flying to into these huge wind turbine farms and animal activities/tree huggers try to get them shut down. Apparently, the tree huggers want their cake and eat it too. Idiots.
For a great example of wind power helping out on a massive scale is look at Denmark. They are currently working on converting 90% of their entire COUNTRY to using solely wind power. How are they doing this? Simple. They are building large wind farms far out into the ocean and using constant ocean winds to power the wind turbines. Is it working? YES. Here is an internet link to check this out for yourselves
http://www.windpower.org/en/core.htm
Now, the idea has been presented in the United States by several MAJOR utility companies in recent years. The response they have gotten? "We don't want hundreds of wind turbines blocking our view of the ocean."
You want renewable energy? You change the piss poor, "I only care about me and my pretty ocean view and my pretty birdies, but SAVE THE EARTH and give me FREE CLEAN POWER" Of course, only the US seems to care about points #1 and #2.
PS-According to a multi-year study in Denmark on their ocean wind turbine farm and birds? Guess what, after a couple of years, the birds learned to fly around the wind turbine farm. Gee, figure that.
Re:It's not the size. It's how you use it.
on
Goodbye, Galileo
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately, in 'real' engineering, as long as it is from the United States automotive industry (fortunately this is the space industry) less does NOT mean more, because less also means cheaper, which means lower quality.
Simple is not always better. Less is NOT always more. Only in very specific examples is your statement correct.
Oh, okay, no problem. I just thought I would say something constructive instead of non-productive. Well, please keep trying to contact Apple about your problems. Maybe you should even state your emails in the way your wrote your response to me.
Why don't you go to the XCode link provided above and send an email/phone call to Apple Computer and let them know the reasons why you choose Microsoft Visual Studio over XCode/PB? I think that letting Apple know your reasons would be a great step in the right direction. If it would be the case, let Apple know that you would switch to developing on Apple full-time if the changes you needed implemented got implemented.
As a mathematician, "real" math most certainly requires a fantastic calculator. For some examples:
1) Numerical Analysis 2) Differential Equations 3) Linear Algebra Systems 4) Discrete Mathematical Systems 5) Finite Analysis 6) Probability 7) Statistics
And a hundred more "real" mathematical systems which require a calculator. If you refer to "real" math as symbolic only, which is my passion in life, then no, you don't use a normal calculator. But, the use of a symbolically solving calculator can prove to be invaluable in an almost infinite number of ways.
If these people were so damn smart, then they would have to pay for their health care like the rest of us in the private sector. A good $75 a paycheck for family coverage, like I pay, would be a good start. The healthcare system would fix itself in a matter of 1 month if government had to pay for their own healthcare. And on another point, public sector employment will never go out of business for their mistakes, as private sector employment can. There is no direct accountability in government. Government employment is the place where people go who are too incompetent to compete in the private sector (this does not include college level academia, where government style employment protection is required for academic advancement).
Does it matter what the cause is? Make me a foe if you wish, you are already an idiot for saying something so stupid. A cause is important to the person who believes in the cause. That is not a judgement call on your part or anyone else's. My point was that people should all have the passion, belief, and desire to pursue a cause to its conclusion at all costs, because some people's causes can and would change humanity.
It is not sad or being delusioned. It would be nice if more people had this kind of love, passion, and dedication to something they love and believe in. As it is, this nation has become an entire country or "don't care's" and "whatever's". If the qualities found in this person were found in everyone, subjects such as peace, hunger, hard work, equalism, marriage, and others would not concepts alien to anyone anymore.
He lost his girlfriend because of something he believes in. Do you believe in something so much that you would do anything to make it happen, even losing everything to achieve it? If more people in the world did, we as a human race would be in a better place in the world that we are now.
Actually, I am the farthest thing from technophobic. You see me in the wrong light. This sort of information is fantastic in the hands of the right people. It is the same concept as the "Anarchist Cookbook" that people passed around school and thought was so cool when I was a kid. Of course, people started getting hurt and then it was a problem. That is the point of what I talking about. A tool and knowledge in the hands of people who know what they are doing and know the dangers of its use, that is always better than having some kid who has no idea about the value of life or a tools destructive power download it freely off of the internet. Not all kids are that way, but unfortunately most kids are that way. That was my entire point.
This is a great application of science, but I hope they make it illegal to create. A device such as this one is useful for purposes of destruction only. Some kid standing on a highway overpass could cause hundreds of deaths, randomly spraying this device around could cause telecommunications devices to stop working causing emergency services such as ambulances to not make it to the scene of an accident or crime. As with any person who understands the beauty and power of science, there is always the flaw of human morality that has to be taken into account. Hence, the person should not post this information free on the web for any idiot to read and create. It is like creating a website to show someone exactly how to create a fertilizer bomb. Then some asshole, mentally f'ed up kid who hates his 5th grade teacher could read the website, go into his parents gardening shed, and kill dozen or more people at his school who have nothing to do with his problems, especially his teacher. I hope that this device is never used in public.
Actually, no, you would simply be a computer science major who trivially tinkers with hardware. It is the same idea of you being a school bus driver who does a part time job as a mechanic and claiming to be doing the work of a real Mechanical Engineer. The US ideology of tacking the word "engineer" onto everything is because true engineering is too hard for 99% of the population, yet those same 99% want to be "equal" and "I'm just as smart and important and doing just as much of the same difficulty of work as any engineer does." I have a degree in Pure and Theoretical Mathematics (with 20 credit hours of Electrical Engineering/Microprocessor Design) and I am currently working as a Mechanical Engineer (EIT) on track to my Ph.D. in Mathematics in a few years (I stopped pursuing my EE degree because I was pursuing two degrees and my true passion for Mathematics and the fact that EE didn't interest me in the end caused me to drop me EE degree and I am currently working as a Mechanical engineer to pay for my fiance's bachelor's degree while she is still in school). I laugh my ass off when the "Sanitation Engineer" comes and cleans our office. The "Building Engineer" comes and cleans the air handling units and makes sure the air temperature is set right in the office. The "Facilities Engineer" who cleans the snow and leaves from the parking lot. And on and on. Give me a fucking break. Electrical Engineering happens to be one of the most difficult engineering degrees to obtain. You do not have one. You are not doing electrical engineering work. And programmer's are not engineers. Mathematicians, Physicists, and Engineers can program. And they do a fantastic job of it. Programmers cannot do engineering. Can you pass an EIT exam? Can you pass a PE exam? No and no. That answers your questions between a true engineer and anybody else (granted some exceptions, such as people who have been in their fields for 20-30 years and never obtained their PE, although could pass the exam if given the opportunity, but have been denied because of rule changes at the state level). Period.
Slashdot Mirror
This is simply another case where the US can do whatever in the hell it pleases, and the rest of the world can do nothing about it.
We are now guilty of illegally invading a foreign country without any direct threat of war or attack or in assistance to another country, but simply based on political agenda, public ignorance, public fear mongering, and propoganda about WMD. Yet, the US is still able to produce WMD as freely as it wishes and can use them to threaten foreign powers. The same with nuclear weapons. The two reasons the US is at war right now to begin with.
The US is not a world democracy, but a world hypocrisy. We can do it, but NOBODY else can. And there is NOTHING you can do about it.
Do we need ANOTHER WMD? The answer is, we don't.
Not all research and discovery will directly impact your life. Most of the theoretical discovery and research is simply done for the sake of completeness. Puzzle pieces building a larger, complete understanding of science. In a way, solving this puzzle may not directly affect you, but it will give a more complete picture of the greater puzzle and understanding, and it's completion may indirectly influence another discovery which may lead to the creation of something that will directly relate to your life.
And doing mathematics for the sake of mathematics is beautiful all in itself, for it is the understanding and basis of all science. Without mathematics, there is only observation.
Is the actions of AOL within the contract license agreement? Has anyone asked that question yet?
"One of my professors always said "If you use something often enough it will memorize itself. If you don't use it that often, there is no point in memorizing it, as you can look it up." The only time you really can't when it comes to advanced mathematics is during artificial situations such as tests."
Unless you are a person like me, who can remember everything. You only forget something if you don't care about it. So, on that note, I disagree with your professor.
But, I agree with most of the rest of what you are saying. It is absolutely as much a matter of fault for a teacher, and on the highest level a professor, to not require written work and for creating exams that can be solved by calculator alone. But, I am afraid the problem is much deeper, whereas I tutor students who are almost in college or who are in college who can't figure out basic fractions or exponential functions without the use of a calculator. They never learned how to do it by hand. Especially the students who store notes from class in their calculators so they never even tried to learn it in the first place.
I installed Windows XP in September 2002. About 5 minutes after connecting to the internet, a Windows Messenger message popped up with an advertisment. A simple search on Google told me what was going on. A quick trip to http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=302089 and I have never worried about it since. Plus, the Microsoft solution allows me to install and configure services that require Messenger as a dependency.
But, WTF?, this is 10-24-2003 and when I installed XP back in 2002 XP had already been out for almost 3-4 months. Why is this story on the front page of Slashdot?
What should really happen is graphic calculators that are able to store any alpha numeric information should be banned in any school below undergraduate level (and even then not until about sophmore/junior year of college).
The problem is that there is now a generation of graduates (who I see all of the time) who can use a calculator like a whiz, but don't know basic physics formulas, can't do simple or complex mathematics, or even explain to me what formula or method they used to solve a problem without first grabbing their calculator. The usage of high powered graphing calculators in the elementary, middle level, and beginning college level students is creating a new society of uneducated 'nobodies' who can't work out a single problem from scratch or learn to create methods to solve them. People have become simple masters of being able to tell you everything you want to know about a problem without having any ability to actually solve.
I am a mathematician and am currently working as an engineer until I return to work on my Ph.D. I also tutor middle level and college level students. Almost 100% of the time, when I ask students how they get answers to everything from a simple algebraic problem to a calculus based problem, they instantly start typing it into their graphing calculators. WTF? The calculator should only exist to help you solve a problem (such as a very long mathematical operation not pertinent to your learning of the material). I always make them put the calculator away. I say "You are here to learn Mathematics, you are not here to learn how to type problems into your calculator". I have had almost 100% success rate in helping students to understand mathematics, physics, and engineering by teaching them how to solve the problem and how to think rather than letting them falsify their learning by taking a easy way out.
It was really the "I too have fond memories of being jealous over the guy who had every physics formula ever programmed into his TI or HP super computer" that set me off. I was always jealous of the guy who could get an A-/B+ by using his brain and a pocket calculator to solve all of the problems on the exam in undergraduate college. You should too.
I'm sure I'll get modded into oblivion by every kid who uses his graphing calculator to cheat in class on his exams (especially the people who store notes on their calculator).
Actually, since I am a RPN fanatic (and passionate supporter of RPN), it would correctly be:
'Reverse' ENTER
'Polish' ENTER
'Notation' ENTER
+
+
Sorry, I should have clicked Preview. I meant to type 'believe' instead of 'be' in my previous post.
Actually, you should be some of the things you read on Slashdot. Some of the people, myself included, try to post very honestly and to the best of their knowledge and abilities. Although most of the posts are opinion or just plain crap, not all of them are, and if you are intelligent you will be able to tell the correct, honest answers from the rest.
I have actually found some incredibly useful information from posts on Slashdot.
Family Guy RULES!!!
Sorry, Anonymous Coward, the facts are correct. Please, Anonymous Coward, go to college, learn Physics, and then come back here and post something intelligent.
Have a nice day, kid.
That fact came from NASA's website. Why don't you spend some time researching before opening your mouth and looking stupid. Or you must know more about Newtonian Physics than both I and multitudes of other Ph.D.'s.
Have a nice day, kid.
I spent a lot of time studying this technology while I was working towards my Bachelor's Degree. Okay, let's get some facts straight, for those of you without a degree in Mathematics or Physics:
6 ap r99_2.htm
t ar /
1) Ion Propulsion is NOT new technology. The Russians and German's have been experimenting with Ion Propulsion since the early 1950's. NASA is actually a late comer to the game, although the first with a completed ion propulsion engine.
2) Ion Propulsion do not work in an environment with an atmosphere. An ion engine does not have enough force to lift a sheet of paper more than a few inches.
3) An Ion Engine is very simple in design. For a simple explanation, an inert gas is ionized and injected into a chamber with an opening on one end. The opening has a magnetized torid ring around it. Using the right hand rule (make a fist, stick your thumb out like you are hitchhiking...your thumb is the direction of the electric current, your fingers are curled in the direction of magnetic field flow) you create an electrical flow around the metal torid ring. The resulting magnetic field 'pulls' the ions through the ring, resulting in propulsion.
4) The reason for slow inital acceleration is because the force of the ions passing through the ring is very small, but the velocity of the ions is very high. So, since there is no friction or other losses in space, after a period of time the velocity of the ions leaving the ring increases the velocity of the engine. After a matter of days the engine can be travelling at 10-30,000MPH.
For more information and history on Ion Propulsion engines you can go to the following websites:
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/prop0
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/ds1.htm
http://space-power.grc.nasa.gov/ppo/projects/ns
Every except your last sentence is EXACTLY what my bestfriend and I thought after seeing Matrix II. The real world was still another level of control away.
Both the machines and the humans are in a Matrix. The part about Neo being able to control the machines in the 'real world' proves that there is another level beyond the 'real world' we first believed.
Remember, it is all about control. What the humans have to do is break the highest level of control and become in control themselves. The Creator of the Matrix basically said that.
Technically, speaking as someone who is currently working as an engineer in the energy/utility field, there are two fundamental problems with people talking without knowledge of what they are talking about.
1) Yes, you are at the mercy of nature. Let's get some facts straight for the mis-information givers. To begin with, the two largest problems facing solar power is that for one, the farther you are away from the equator, the less solar power you can produce. Most of the US in not on the Equator. Secondly, solar power production is directly related cloud cover, among other factors. Building a solar powered facility in Wisconsin, where I live, never pays off. At night, you need energy storage, and that is a whole other issue. Some states it may work, but 90% of the rest of the US...it doesn't.
2) Now, wind power does not take up large amounts of space. What you don't understand is that the actual footprint of a wind turbine is only around 100-150 square feet. A wind turbine is generally 50-100 meters tall. The taller the wind turbine, the more power it can produce (on flat land like Iowa, Nebraska, etc.) Wind turbines are always built based on worse case scenario wind shear conditions at a design height. Wind turbines do not speed up or slow down, since the generator has a naturally occuring electrical braking action (think Eddy Current braking) and is built to worse case scenario wind shear conditions for minimum operation. The real problem, at least in Iowa where I have done utility studies for the IDNR (Iowa Department of Natural Resources) is that a lot of birds get killed flying to into these huge wind turbine farms and animal activities/tree huggers try to get them shut down. Apparently, the tree huggers want their cake and eat it too. Idiots.
For a great example of wind power helping out on a massive scale is look at Denmark. They are currently working on converting 90% of their entire COUNTRY to using solely wind power. How are they doing this? Simple. They are building large wind farms far out into the ocean and using constant ocean winds to power the wind turbines. Is it working? YES. Here is an internet link to check this out for yourselves
http://www.windpower.org/en/core.htm
Now, the idea has been presented in the United States by several MAJOR utility companies in recent years. The response they have gotten? "We don't want hundreds of wind turbines blocking our view of the ocean."
You want renewable energy? You change the piss poor, "I only care about me and my pretty ocean view and my pretty birdies, but SAVE THE EARTH and give me FREE CLEAN POWER" Of course, only the US seems to care about points #1 and #2.
PS-According to a multi-year study in Denmark on their ocean wind turbine farm and birds? Guess what, after a couple of years, the birds learned to fly around the wind turbine farm. Gee, figure that.
Unfortunately, in 'real' engineering, as long as it is from the United States automotive industry (fortunately this is the space industry) less does NOT mean more, because less also means cheaper, which means lower quality.
Simple is not always better. Less is NOT always more. Only in very specific examples is your statement correct.
Oh, okay, no problem. I just thought I would say something constructive instead of non-productive. Well, please keep trying to contact Apple about your problems. Maybe you should even state your emails in the way your wrote your response to me.
Why don't you go to the XCode link provided above and send an email/phone call to Apple Computer and let them know the reasons why you choose Microsoft Visual Studio over XCode/PB? I think that letting Apple know your reasons would be a great step in the right direction. If it would be the case, let Apple know that you would switch to developing on Apple full-time if the changes you needed implemented got implemented.
As a mathematician, "real" math most certainly requires a fantastic calculator. For some examples:
1) Numerical Analysis
2) Differential Equations
3) Linear Algebra Systems
4) Discrete Mathematical Systems
5) Finite Analysis
6) Probability
7) Statistics
And a hundred more "real" mathematical systems which require a calculator. If you refer to "real" math as symbolic only, which is my passion in life, then no, you don't use a normal calculator. But, the use of a symbolically solving calculator can prove to be invaluable in an almost infinite number of ways.
If these people were so damn smart, then they would have to pay for their health care like the rest of us in the private sector. A good $75 a paycheck for family coverage, like I pay, would be a good start. The healthcare system would fix itself in a matter of 1 month if government had to pay for their own healthcare. And on another point, public sector employment will never go out of business for their mistakes, as private sector employment can. There is no direct accountability in government. Government employment is the place where people go who are too incompetent to compete in the private sector (this does not include college level academia, where government style employment protection is required for academic advancement).
Does it matter what the cause is? Make me a foe if you wish, you are already an idiot for saying something so stupid. A cause is important to the person who believes in the cause. That is not a judgement call on your part or anyone else's. My point was that people should all have the passion, belief, and desire to pursue a cause to its conclusion at all costs, because some people's causes can and would change humanity.
It is not sad or being delusioned. It would be nice if more people had this kind of love, passion, and dedication to something they love and believe in. As it is, this nation has become an entire country or "don't care's" and "whatever's". If the qualities found in this person were found in everyone, subjects such as peace, hunger, hard work, equalism, marriage, and others would not concepts alien to anyone anymore.
He lost his girlfriend because of something he believes in. Do you believe in something so much that you would do anything to make it happen, even losing everything to achieve it? If more people in the world did, we as a human race would be in a better place in the world that we are now.
Actually, I am the farthest thing from technophobic. You see me in the wrong light. This sort of information is fantastic in the hands of the right people. It is the same concept as the "Anarchist Cookbook" that people passed around school and thought was so cool when I was a kid. Of course, people started getting hurt and then it was a problem. That is the point of what I talking about. A tool and knowledge in the hands of people who know what they are doing and know the dangers of its use, that is always better than having some kid who has no idea about the value of life or a tools destructive power download it freely off of the internet. Not all kids are that way, but unfortunately most kids are that way. That was my entire point.
This is a great application of science, but I hope they make it illegal to create. A device such as this one is useful for purposes of destruction only. Some kid standing on a highway overpass could cause hundreds of deaths, randomly spraying this device around could cause telecommunications devices to stop working causing emergency services such as ambulances to not make it to the scene of an accident or crime. As with any person who understands the beauty and power of science, there is always the flaw of human morality that has to be taken into account. Hence, the person should not post this information free on the web for any idiot to read and create. It is like creating a website to show someone exactly how to create a fertilizer bomb. Then some asshole, mentally f'ed up kid who hates his 5th grade teacher could read the website, go into his parents gardening shed, and kill dozen or more people at his school who have nothing to do with his problems, especially his teacher. I hope that this device is never used in public.
Actually, no, you would simply be a computer science major who trivially tinkers with hardware. It is the same idea of you being a school bus driver who does a part time job as a mechanic and claiming to be doing the work of a real Mechanical Engineer.
The US ideology of tacking the word "engineer" onto everything is because true engineering is too hard for 99% of the population, yet those same 99% want to be "equal" and "I'm just as smart and important and doing just as much of the same difficulty of work as any engineer does." I have a degree in Pure and Theoretical Mathematics (with 20 credit hours of Electrical Engineering/Microprocessor Design) and I am currently working as a Mechanical Engineer (EIT) on track to my Ph.D. in Mathematics in a few years (I stopped pursuing my EE degree because I was pursuing two degrees and my true passion for Mathematics and the fact that EE didn't interest me in the end caused me to drop me EE degree and I am currently working as a Mechanical engineer to pay for my fiance's bachelor's degree while she is still in school).
I laugh my ass off when the "Sanitation Engineer" comes and cleans our office. The "Building Engineer" comes and cleans the air handling units and makes sure the air temperature is set right in the office. The "Facilities Engineer" who cleans the snow and leaves from the parking lot. And on and on. Give me a fucking break.
Electrical Engineering happens to be one of the most difficult engineering degrees to obtain. You do not have one. You are not doing electrical engineering work. And programmer's are not engineers. Mathematicians, Physicists, and Engineers can program. And they do a fantastic job of it. Programmers cannot do engineering. Can you pass an EIT exam? Can you pass a PE exam? No and no. That answers your questions between a true engineer and anybody else (granted some exceptions, such as people who have been in their fields for 20-30 years and never obtained their PE, although could pass the exam if given the opportunity, but have been denied because of rule changes at the state level). Period.