I thought it would be interesting to see what diffrent textbooks engineering students are using. If you feel inclined, post your major, school, and any texts you use, and if you think they are any good.
Me:
3rd Year Mechanical Engineering
Queen's University (Canada)
Machine Design, Shingley - Great book, I actually enjoy reading this one
Stats, De Veaux - Never even opened it
Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Incropera et al. - Another great book, Also enjoyed.
Mechanics of Materials, Hibbeler - I've used in a few courses, wasn't bad, but wasn't anything special
Engineering mechanics Dynamics, Meriam - Horrible book, my prof did an amazing job of explaining the course, and this book just confused things
Fundementals of Thermodynamics, Moran - Another great book, can't say enough good thigns about it
Only other book worth mentioning was my fluids text. Also very good, but i can't remember the author (and i dont' have it on hand). But it had a green cover with odd swirly lines on the front. Another good book was a materials science text. I also can't remember the name off hand.
Some books that REALLY sucked: Elec text, it was red, yellow and white on the front. Horrible book. All my math texts sucked, but its really hard to present math in an interesting way
I'm going to have to disagree with you. From my experience sitting through lectures is a waste of time. I usually start the semester by attending all my classes, but after about 6 weeks, I just can't take it. I just find it so pointless. I can replace 4 weeks of lectures with one or two hours of hardcore reading. Not only that, but I come away with a more complete understanding. It takes effort to read the material, take it all in, but the benifit is that you actually understand it. I know far to many students who simply go to lectures, write down the key equations, and just sub-in without any understanding. Personally I think proffessors should ask more qualitative questions, just to see who actually get the material and who doesn't.
Just thought id point out aluminium doesn't have an ultimate tensile strength of 500 MPa. Depending on heat treatment, you might be lucky to get 500 MPa, but usually it's close to 200-300 MPa.
I'm not sure about the laws elsewhere, but in Canada, some forms of intellectual property are taxed. In order to retain a canadian patent you must pay an annual fee. The principle is to stop people from sitting on patents they arn't using or don't intend to use. If you fail to pay the annual fee, you loose the patent. I'm not sure what happens to it afterwards, it probably becomes public domain, or the property of the canadian government. The only problem is it hurts the little guys while having no effect on large corporations. Perhaps we could devide companies into patent brackets the same way we devide tax payers into income brackets.
I'm going to have to dissagree with you. First: Their is a diffrence between a governement monitoring peoples communications, and a private website operator monitoring who is viewing their website. An analogy: If i phone someone, I dont' think it's the governments business to monitor that phone call, but i do think that whoever i am phoning has to right to have caller ID and see who it is phoning them.
Second: The nature of wiki's is that they are open to contributions from just about anyone. The validity of the content has to be questioned as well as the motives of the author.
Lastly: Regarding the whole "encouraging people to lie"... The whole point of wikileaks is to provide a means of EXPOSING lies. I'm not sure how you could reason otherwise.
customer satisfaction.
People are putting a lot of emphisis on the customer's reaction. I dont' think this is so much a case of trying to socially engineer people as much as as simple attempt at reducing costs. From the patent, what is being claimed:
"determining a fulfillment plan specific to the order that minimizes future monetary costs of fulfilling expected future orders"
Thats what they are actually patenting. A method of reducing the cost of handling a specific order by using a prediction of future orders. They go on to talk about how to go about building the fulfillment plan. It in includes a mutltitude of factors, including cost of shipping, cost of stocking, the cost associated with running out of items at a distribution center, ect. Included in this list is the cost in customer satisfaction. From the patent:
"assigning costs to at least some of one or more reductions in customer goodwill"
They put a monetary value on how content or discontent a customer will be. They basically put together a bunch of possible fulfillment plans and choose the one which minimizes their cost. Sounds like good business to me.
This isn't a case of rewarding good customers (although that might be an inadvertent outcome... but it's probably not quite as cut and dry as that) and punishing bad ones. This is a case of allocating resources to maximize profits. All businesses do this. If a customer walks into your store, and you're pretty sure he's looking to make a big purchase, you will devote more time (read money) to pleasing him.
I've been using photoshop for about 10 years now and have become very proficient. I recently made the switch to linux. The only real application i havn't found a replacement for is photoshop. I have tried using GIMP but their are just too many problems with it. While it is probably acceptable for those who have never used photo editing software before, anyone who has touched photoshop will feel severly handycapped. When i first heard about GIMP i was hoping it would simply be an attempt at cloning photoshops capabilities and interface. Perhaps someone has an answer to this question: why during the design stage did the developers not simply stick with the industry standard interms of interface/menus? Does anyone know where the developers are planning on taking GIMP in the future?
Interesting, but i dissagree on a few points. My understanding is that apple has made peopel aware of the upgrade issue and the danger. I don't think refusing to spend more money and time supporting third party modifications can be equated to malicious intent. I do think it would be nice if apple did take the initiative to support community development, but i also feel it is their choice not too.
My opinion: If apple took it upon themselves to make sure unlocked iphones became bricked when updated then i feel they are liable for the damages done. On the other hand, if the bricking is a side effect of the update, then i don't think they are responsible. If you are maintaining and updating software, you can't possibly predict what sorts of modifications a user might make to their software. It's possible apple had a ligitimate reason to update the iphones and during testing they realized that their update wasn't compadible with the unlocking software. They even took it upon themselves to inform users that if their iphones were unlocked that the update would render them useless (correct me if im wrong, but this is the impression I got from previous articles on the subject).
As i said before, if the bricking is a malicious response to people unlocking phones, then i feel apple is wrong. If it's simply a side effect of an update, then i dont' fell apple is wrong.
I think there are two seperate issues here. I think the fact that the update broke windows-update and that the update was done without the consent of the user should be considered seperately and don't really have a bearing on each other.
I doupt that this was the first time a windows udpate has broken something, and i doupt it will be the last. I think what is special about this particular update is that it made changes to windows-update itself. In the result that a detail is overlooked, you could damage alot of systems with no way of easily fixing the problem. When patching a critical part of the operating system (i believe the ability to update is critical) more time and money should be spent ensuring no mistakes have been made. Given the large userbase microsoft has and the nature of the patch, i think it's irresponsible to let a bug like this get overlooked. Clearly by the number of "Oh, i had that happen to me" responses i've read on/., this is probably something that should have been picked up on early on.
Now to the question of the 'stealth' update. Alot has been said on the subject, so ill keep it short. A few things concern me:
Microsoft's relative silence in explaining why this specific update had to be done in this manner (I dont' buy the 'technical impossibility' argument). I can't see a reasonable reason to do this.
I think that something as critical as window's update should never have had a backdoor built into it. From the very start the system should have been built so that this was an impossibility. One person with the right know-how could do alot of damage if they wanted too.
Let me start by saying i know very little about the specifics of this case. I also believe that there is a time and place for some sort of patent system (whether the current system is flawed, I don't know). Alot of the posts have critized the patents for stiffling progress. I'm wondering if these responses have been gut reactions reactions, or if these posters know something i do not. Does anyone know which patents are in question? Of those people who do, does anyone have the technical and legal expertise to distinguish a valid patent from one which should never have been granted? Does Sprint have a valid case for any of the patents in question? I'm not posting to defend sprint. I'm just curious what has tipped so many peoples opinion in favor of Vonage. What is it that you know that I don't?
Slashdot Mirror
I thought it would be interesting to see what diffrent textbooks engineering students are using. If you feel inclined, post your major, school, and any texts you use, and if you think they are any good.
Me:
3rd Year Mechanical Engineering
Queen's University (Canada)
Machine Design, Shingley - Great book, I actually enjoy reading this one
Stats, De Veaux - Never even opened it
Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Incropera et al. - Another great book, Also enjoyed.
Mechanics of Materials, Hibbeler - I've used in a few courses, wasn't bad, but wasn't anything special
Engineering mechanics Dynamics, Meriam - Horrible book, my prof did an amazing job of explaining the course, and this book just confused things
Fundementals of Thermodynamics, Moran - Another great book, can't say enough good thigns about it
Only other book worth mentioning was my fluids text. Also very good, but i can't remember the author (and i dont' have it on hand). But it had a green cover with odd swirly lines on the front. Another good book was a materials science text. I also can't remember the name off hand.
Some books that REALLY sucked: Elec text, it was red, yellow and white on the front. Horrible book. All my math texts sucked, but its really hard to present math in an interesting way
I'm going to have to disagree with you. From my experience sitting through lectures is a waste of time. I usually start the semester by attending all my classes, but after about 6 weeks, I just can't take it. I just find it so pointless. I can replace 4 weeks of lectures with one or two hours of hardcore reading. Not only that, but I come away with a more complete understanding. It takes effort to read the material, take it all in, but the benifit is that you actually understand it. I know far to many students who simply go to lectures, write down the key equations, and just sub-in without any understanding. Personally I think proffessors should ask more qualitative questions, just to see who actually get the material and who doesn't.
Correction, No one is doing well. At my school less then 50 is a fail, above 80 is an A.
Just thought id point out aluminium doesn't have an ultimate tensile strength of 500 MPa. Depending on heat treatment, you might be lucky to get 500 MPa, but usually it's close to 200-300 MPa.
I'm not sure about the laws elsewhere, but in Canada, some forms of intellectual property are taxed. In order to retain a canadian patent you must pay an annual fee. The principle is to stop people from sitting on patents they arn't using or don't intend to use. If you fail to pay the annual fee, you loose the patent. I'm not sure what happens to it afterwards, it probably becomes public domain, or the property of the canadian government. The only problem is it hurts the little guys while having no effect on large corporations. Perhaps we could devide companies into patent brackets the same way we devide tax payers into income brackets.
I'm going to have to dissagree with you. First: Their is a diffrence between a governement monitoring peoples communications, and a private website operator monitoring who is viewing their website. An analogy: If i phone someone, I dont' think it's the governments business to monitor that phone call, but i do think that whoever i am phoning has to right to have caller ID and see who it is phoning them.
Second: The nature of wiki's is that they are open to contributions from just about anyone. The validity of the content has to be questioned as well as the motives of the author.
Lastly: Regarding the whole "encouraging people to lie"... The whole point of wikileaks is to provide a means of EXPOSING lies. I'm not sure how you could reason otherwise.
I like how the parent got modded insightful instead of funny...
customer satisfaction.
People are putting a lot of emphisis on the customer's reaction. I dont' think this is so much a case of trying to socially engineer people as much as as simple attempt at reducing costs. From the patent, what is being claimed:
"determining a fulfillment plan specific to the order that minimizes future monetary costs of fulfilling expected future orders"
Thats what they are actually patenting. A method of reducing the cost of handling a specific order by using a prediction of future orders. They go on to talk about how to go about building the fulfillment plan. It in includes a mutltitude of factors, including cost of shipping, cost of stocking, the cost associated with running out of items at a distribution center, ect. Included in this list is the cost in customer satisfaction. From the patent:
"assigning costs to at least some of one or more reductions in customer goodwill"
They put a monetary value on how content or discontent a customer will be. They basically put together a bunch of possible fulfillment plans and choose the one which minimizes their cost. Sounds like good business to me.
This isn't a case of rewarding good customers (although that might be an inadvertent outcome... but it's probably not quite as cut and dry as that) and punishing bad ones. This is a case of allocating resources to maximize profits. All businesses do this. If a customer walks into your store, and you're pretty sure he's looking to make a big purchase, you will devote more time (read money) to pleasing him.
I've been using photoshop for about 10 years now and have become very proficient. I recently made the switch to linux. The only real application i havn't found a replacement for is photoshop. I have tried using GIMP but their are just too many problems with it. While it is probably acceptable for those who have never used photo editing software before, anyone who has touched photoshop will feel severly handycapped. When i first heard about GIMP i was hoping it would simply be an attempt at cloning photoshops capabilities and interface. Perhaps someone has an answer to this question: why during the design stage did the developers not simply stick with the industry standard interms of interface/menus? Does anyone know where the developers are planning on taking GIMP in the future?
Interesting, but i dissagree on a few points. My understanding is that apple has made peopel aware of the upgrade issue and the danger. I don't think refusing to spend more money and time supporting third party modifications can be equated to malicious intent. I do think it would be nice if apple did take the initiative to support community development, but i also feel it is their choice not too.
My opinion: If apple took it upon themselves to make sure unlocked iphones became bricked when updated then i feel they are liable for the damages done. On the other hand, if the bricking is a side effect of the update, then i don't think they are responsible. If you are maintaining and updating software, you can't possibly predict what sorts of modifications a user might make to their software. It's possible apple had a ligitimate reason to update the iphones and during testing they realized that their update wasn't compadible with the unlocking software. They even took it upon themselves to inform users that if their iphones were unlocked that the update would render them useless (correct me if im wrong, but this is the impression I got from previous articles on the subject).
As i said before, if the bricking is a malicious response to people unlocking phones, then i feel apple is wrong. If it's simply a side effect of an update, then i dont' fell apple is wrong.
I think there are two seperate issues here. I think the fact that the update broke windows-update and that the update was done without the consent of the user should be considered seperately and don't really have a bearing on each other.
/., this is probably something that should have been picked up on early on.
I doupt that this was the first time a windows udpate has broken something, and i doupt it will be the last. I think what is special about this particular update is that it made changes to windows-update itself. In the result that a detail is overlooked, you could damage alot of systems with no way of easily fixing the problem. When patching a critical part of the operating system (i believe the ability to update is critical) more time and money should be spent ensuring no mistakes have been made. Given the large userbase microsoft has and the nature of the patch, i think it's irresponsible to let a bug like this get overlooked. Clearly by the number of "Oh, i had that happen to me" responses i've read on
Now to the question of the 'stealth' update. Alot has been said on the subject, so ill keep it short. A few things concern me:
Microsoft's relative silence in explaining why this specific update had to be done in this manner (I dont' buy the 'technical impossibility' argument). I can't see a reasonable reason to do this.
I think that something as critical as window's update should never have had a backdoor built into it. From the very start the system should have been built so that this was an impossibility. One person with the right know-how could do alot of damage if they wanted too.
Let me start by saying i know very little about the specifics of this case. I also believe that there is a time and place for some sort of patent system (whether the current system is flawed, I don't know). Alot of the posts have critized the patents for stiffling progress. I'm wondering if these responses have been gut reactions reactions, or if these posters know something i do not. Does anyone know which patents are in question? Of those people who do, does anyone have the technical and legal expertise to distinguish a valid patent from one which should never have been granted? Does Sprint have a valid case for any of the patents in question? I'm not posting to defend sprint. I'm just curious what has tipped so many peoples opinion in favor of Vonage. What is it that you know that I don't?