Not all of them are bad. HavenTree did a humorous one some time back:
Text of software license
This is where the bloodthirsty licensing agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
Text of disclaimer
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented.
Hahah! Pretty much. There are some people who do some of the more advanced networking stuff (ie: deploying large-scale systems from Cisco or Juniper, etc), along with handling stuff like directory services, authentication, etc. That generally fits under the IT / sysadmin umbrella, and while it is technical and by no means simple, it does not categorically fall under the category of engineering work.
Another one that causes much frustration is "audio engineer". In the US, it is effectively synonymous with "audio technician", whereas in Canada and Germany, they are not the same thing by any measure. The technician is usually the one setting up audio apparatuses for professionals, bands, etc, while the engineer is working on audio algorithms, maybe designing a new microphone using MEMS, etc.
As colleges and university Political Science departments decide that perhaps they can attract more students if they renamed their major to "Political Engineering". Sadly, these same people that consider PolySci to be "science" are the same idiots that would consider it to be "engineering" in an attempt to artificially boost their salary above minimum wage and hope for a job that doesn't involve asking people if they want to super-size their order of fries,. ..
Not happening in Canada, fortunately.
The title of "engineer" cannot be carelessly slapped onto any job title unless one is registered as a "Professional Engineer" (P.Eng). This requires a four-year degree program at an accredited university in an engineering program (STEM-based; science, technology, engineering, mathematics), resulting in a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) or a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng./B.E.). No artsy degrees count. This also requires four years of full-time work in industry, under the direct supervision of someone who already has his/her P.Eng. status, along with regular work reports, evidence of taking part in continuing professional development (CPD) hours (at least 30 per year if I recall correctly, which may be audited later on, requiring proof of registration at conferences, seminars, etc), and finally, an ethics exam. Why more countries don't have such strict rules in place seems quite silly.
I must admit, it drives me nuts when people attempt to attach the title of engineer to make their job look more respectable. A few common examples:
-Social engineer: fraudster, identity thief, con artist
-Sanitation engineer: typically a euphemism for a garbage man, in most contexts
-Political engineer: political science major who was had to take high-school level remedial math as a mandatory science elective
Beat me to it!
I posted this link about a year ago, but it's still good.
The design of everyday things, by Donald Norman. My personal favorite is the use of "natural mappings" versus "arbitrary mappings". Make things naturally intuitive to the user. Enjoy!
I posted this link about a year ago, but it's still good.
The design of everyday things, by Donald Norman. My personal favorite is the use of "natural mappings" versus "arbitrary mappings". Make things naturally intuitive to the user. Enjoy!
A few of my friends and I had already learned the ins and outs of Linux by Learning on Slackware 3.0 way back when before entering high school. This is pretty late to be starting, but it's a good call to be taking a proactive approach now. In any case, I would recommend getting a simple book on Linux installation, running, etc.
Here's a good one: . There are probably better ones, but it's useful nonetheless.
Once you can install and configure the entire OS via command-line and Vi, as well as write and build a simple C project using makefiles, you should be set. From there you could learn a bit on Bash scripting if you want, or you could even go as far as to learn how to build your own kernel. That is definitely a worthwhile exercise. Also, I strongly agree with Arker above. Go the Slackware route. To paraphrase an old quote: "Learn Ubuntu, know Ubuntu. Learn Slackware, know Linux"
You're attempting to fit a loosely defined term (heck, "hero" can be grossly misinterpreted with respect to discussions about war, rebellion, whistle-blowing, etc), to a petty, narrow-minded, and arbitrary set of conditions.
If you want fictional characters, take a pick from the marvel universe (ie: spiderman (chemist, biologist, engineer[chemical, bio, mechanical]), Mr. Fantastic (physicist), Iron Man (engineer), ), the list goes on. As for real-life heroes - the average kid isn't going to know squat on the subject. I considered Louis Pasteur as one back in grade 4, but I read a lot more than my, ahem, "peers".
Realistically, you might consider finding something that your kid's peer group would appreciate, and picking a scientist/engineer to whom that discovery/invention/idea is attributed. Chances are, it'll still end up being someone inconsequential or a pseudo-scientist who invented something popular. (Insert pun here).
If you find a way to have more than 3% of kids in elementary school (heck, even high school) to take a sincere interest in science and appreciate those who contribute to it, bravo!
You could always learn the language, and excel at it. I've tried Maple, MATLAB, and Mathematica.
Maple was used primarily by undergrads to compute simple indefinite integrals and derivatives, and display them all "pretty" (insert MATLAB pun here) in a Tex-like format.
Mathematica was almost on-par with MATLAB. Meanwhile, MATLAB seems to be the only math package used in all the physics and engineering labs I've visited, runs several orders of magnitude faster, and is excellent for algorithm testing. GNU Octave also mimics it decently enough.
The equivalent of code completion or syntax interpretation/correction is nice, but I've never had any use for it W.R.T. standard or built-in library functions. Maybe for learning a random third-party library, at most. Even them, being a Vi user, it takes just as much time to look up a function prototype in FVWM + Vi as it does to wait on MS Visual Studio's code completion.
This looks like a nice feature for new users, but I can see it being useful for new users or people for whom math is not a strong subject. Sadly, this seems to fill a void: people who can't do math, thinking they now can thanks to the "magic" of technology.The examples demonstrated in TFA are trivial (ie: grade 8 level). Can it, say, determine the conditional variance based on a series of PDFs?
That's not what = means. = is ASSIGNMENT. They're looking for ==.
Also, on a serious note, from what I recall of the US school system, frankly, the most surprising thing about this is that the problem isn't worse than reported.
It would be adequately reported if the statisticians could put two and two together. It's a vicious cycle.
That thought the title was referring to device drivers (ie: firmware) as opposed to the person driving the vehicle? That kind of mis-interpretation pretty much reverses who's to blame.
All of the above was pretty much the standard at my university. Rarely would any problems in studies actually be something that could be remotely attributed to the teaching abilities of my professors.
The most common problem I found was that (especially in upper-year physics) was that nobody wanted to do more than the minimum amount of homework. This is a shame, as one would have to have endured the "weeding out" process of university for at least 3 years in order to reach this level in the first place. People typically hunted down exams and homework solutions from previous offerings of the course in an attempt to create a catalog of "probable questions" for the exams.
My approach was simple: spend the $10 per course for the student solutions manual. The questions are the same as the text book, save for tiny changes so the final evaluated answer isn't identical, and complete, worked-out solutions are provided. I also purchased the "Schaum's Outlines" series of books for every course I possibly could. This was invaluable, as most of my texts would only offer "final solutions" for a fraction of the "odd number questions" (ie: less than 10% of the questions per chapter, and none of the more difficult questions would have these answers provided; Very frustrating as these questions were typically the ones on the exams). This supplementary material was very beneficial for courses in which the textbooks explained a concept poorly, and essentially provided no means for the student to work through the homework, even after reading the chapter 3 times.
These extra materials allowed me to learn the general application of the principles, and helped me to ace my advanced math and physics courses for 3 years straight. The end result is that every week, I probably did at least 60 to 120 sample questions per chapter as opposed to the 10 we had to have on our submitted homework assignments. People have a choice with respect to how well they want to do, and this is coming from someone who worked 2-3 jobs to put himself through engineering and pay rent, so I sincerely doubt the "I have no time or money" argument is applicable here. Mind you, I do recall studies mentioning that people can be driven by adversity more than the average person with fewer obstacles in life. Although this isn't the particular example (below) I was thinking of at the time of writing this comment, it provides some insight with respect to how enduring adversity can push an individual to strive. I am willing to concede on that point, that such circumstances while attending university may have been advantageous for me.:)
The people writing the checques. Seems reasonable enough. Most businesses filter out content that is obviously completely irrelevant to work-related purposes (game-related sites, pr0n sites, etc), but will leave most other sites, even those with mostly obscene material in place, especially if it's hot news. Assuming that a topic is "controversial", by any definition, might indicate that the company simply doesn't want its employees making a post/opinion on the piece, possibly causing harm to the reputation of their employer.
Next, let's assume that the real issue at hand isn't that a topic is "controversial", but that the site being blocked doesn't seem to take the same stance on the matter as your employer. The fact that sites are being filtered strictly based on what would appear to be conflicting political bias on the parts of your employer and the site in question, seems rather silly.
So long as a site relays the basic facts unaltered, most (intelligent) readers can separate the facts from opinion; filtering out bias, personal annotations, etc along the way. If sites are being filtered by how favorably they report certain things, chances are that the desired effect by the employers is not being achieved, and it only highlights the bias of the company carrying out the blocking/censorship as well.
Just my two bits, but it just seems to be a pointless exercise unless the company simply just wants to prevent people from making post/comments that are out of line with the "official opinion" of the company's execs and causing undue embarrassment and hassle for public relations. A banker making a comment on interest rates and revealing his employer, even if the banker remains anonymous, can have damaging repercussions for the bank he/she works for. And if people are so offended by being only presented news that provides a one-sided skew on events, just wait until you get home to read it, or heaven forbid, we can all just form our own opinions on a subject. I'm pretty sure it's still legal in North America, though I've doubts as to how much that's encouraged by most politicians.:)
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
- Parker, Stone
Seems fair to me. I'll agree, I'm pretty disappointed with Nintendo's approach to resolving this (Virtual Console). All I get to do is pay a second time for a game I already own. I really wish they'd just do their own port of ZSNES/SNES9x to Wii.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all of them are bad. HavenTree did a humorous one some time back:
Text of software license
This is where the bloodthirsty licensing agreement is supposed to go, explaining that Interactive Easyflow is a copyrighted package licensed for use by a single person, and sternly warning you not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory consequences if you do. We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around pirating copies of Interactive Easyflow; this is just as well with us since we worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method of making anything out of all the hard work. If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go around pirating copies of software you probably aren't going to pay much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
Text of disclaimer
We don't claim Interactive EasyFlow is good for anything -- if you think it is, great, but it's up to you to decide. If Interactive EasyFlow doesn't work: tough. If you lose a million because Interactive EasyFlow messes up, it's you that's out the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer: tough. We reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to and including nothing. This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software packages, but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese. We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with the attack shark at which point we relented.
They did!
Hahah! Pretty much. There are some people who do some of the more advanced networking stuff (ie: deploying large-scale systems from Cisco or Juniper, etc), along with handling stuff like directory services, authentication, etc. That generally fits under the IT / sysadmin umbrella, and while it is technical and by no means simple, it does not categorically fall under the category of engineering work.
Another one that causes much frustration is "audio engineer". In the US, it is effectively synonymous with "audio technician", whereas in Canada and Germany, they are not the same thing by any measure. The technician is usually the one setting up audio apparatuses for professionals, bands, etc, while the engineer is working on audio algorithms, maybe designing a new microphone using MEMS, etc.
In any case, it's an abused term, sadly.
As colleges and university Political Science departments decide that perhaps they can attract more students if they renamed their major to "Political Engineering". Sadly, these same people that consider PolySci to be "science" are the same idiots that would consider it to be "engineering" in an attempt to artificially boost their salary above minimum wage and hope for a job that doesn't involve asking people if they want to super-size their order of fries,. . .
Not happening in Canada, fortunately.
The title of "engineer" cannot be carelessly slapped onto any job title unless one is registered as a "Professional Engineer" (P.Eng). This requires a four-year degree program at an accredited university in an engineering program (STEM-based; science, technology, engineering, mathematics), resulting in a Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.) or a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng./B.E.). No artsy degrees count. This also requires four years of full-time work in industry, under the direct supervision of someone who already has his/her P.Eng. status, along with regular work reports, evidence of taking part in continuing professional development (CPD) hours (at least 30 per year if I recall correctly, which may be audited later on, requiring proof of registration at conferences, seminars, etc), and finally, an ethics exam. Why more countries don't have such strict rules in place seems quite silly.
I must admit, it drives me nuts when people attempt to attach the title of engineer to make their job look more respectable. A few common examples:
-Social engineer: fraudster, identity thief, con artist
-Sanitation engineer: typically a euphemism for a garbage man, in most contexts
-Political engineer: political science major who was had to take high-school level remedial math as a mandatory science elective
Beat me to it! I posted this link about a year ago, but it's still good. The design of everyday things, by Donald Norman. My personal favorite is the use of "natural mappings" versus "arbitrary mappings". Make things naturally intuitive to the user. Enjoy!
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0385267746 My apologies for the double post :(
Beat me to it!
I posted this link about a year ago, but it's still good.
The design of everyday things, by Donald Norman. My personal favorite is the use of "natural mappings" versus "arbitrary mappings". Make things naturally intuitive to the user. Enjoy!
A few of my friends and I had already learned the ins and outs of Linux by Learning on Slackware 3.0 way back when before entering high school. This is pretty late to be starting, but it's a good call to be taking a proactive approach now. In any case, I would recommend getting a simple book on Linux installation, running, etc.
Here's a good one: . There are probably better ones, but it's useful nonetheless.
Once you can install and configure the entire OS via command-line and Vi, as well as write and build a simple C project using makefiles, you should be set. From there you could learn a bit on Bash scripting if you want, or you could even go as far as to learn how to build your own kernel. That is definitely a worthwhile exercise. Also, I strongly agree with Arker above. Go the Slackware route. To paraphrase an old quote: "Learn Ubuntu, know Ubuntu. Learn Slackware, know Linux"
We're always looking for additional beta testers. Please submit your CV to HR.
A chainsaw would likely scare just about anyone enough to grab their attention.
You're attempting to fit a loosely defined term (heck, "hero" can be grossly misinterpreted with respect to discussions about war, rebellion, whistle-blowing, etc), to a petty, narrow-minded, and arbitrary set of conditions.
If you want fictional characters, take a pick from the marvel universe (ie: spiderman (chemist, biologist, engineer[chemical, bio, mechanical]), Mr. Fantastic (physicist), Iron Man (engineer), ), the list goes on. As for real-life heroes - the average kid isn't going to know squat on the subject. I considered Louis Pasteur as one back in grade 4, but I read a lot more than my, ahem, "peers".
Realistically, you might consider finding something that your kid's peer group would appreciate, and picking a scientist/engineer to whom that discovery/invention/idea is attributed. Chances are, it'll still end up being someone inconsequential or a pseudo-scientist who invented something popular. (Insert pun here).
If you find a way to have more than 3% of kids in elementary school (heck, even high school) to take a sincere interest in science and appreciate those who contribute to it, bravo!
You could always learn the language, and excel at it. I've tried Maple, MATLAB, and Mathematica.
Maple was used primarily by undergrads to compute simple indefinite integrals and derivatives, and display them all "pretty" (insert MATLAB pun here) in a Tex-like format. Mathematica was almost on-par with MATLAB. Meanwhile, MATLAB seems to be the only math package used in all the physics and engineering labs I've visited, runs several orders of magnitude faster, and is excellent for algorithm testing. GNU Octave also mimics it decently enough.
The equivalent of code completion or syntax interpretation/correction is nice, but I've never had any use for it W.R.T. standard or built-in library functions. Maybe for learning a random third-party library, at most. Even them, being a Vi user, it takes just as much time to look up a function prototype in FVWM + Vi as it does to wait on MS Visual Studio's code completion.
This looks like a nice feature for new users, but I can see it being useful for new users or people for whom math is not a strong subject. Sadly, this seems to fill a void: people who can't do math, thinking they now can thanks to the "magic" of technology.The examples demonstrated in TFA are trivial (ie: grade 8 level). Can it, say, determine the conditional variance based on a series of PDFs?
C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper\Stonehenge.jpg
Need I say more?
Mynocks. Probably chewing on the power cables.
Don't feel bad. I've been tricked into installing Norton as well :(
Electronic voting is probably the biggest threat to democracy looming in the USA right now.
Didn't Brazil manage to pull off an election with 128 million votes, and zero miscounts?
http://politics.slashdot.org/politics/08/10/07/0029224.shtml
I always thought that voting machines, in general, were designed to provide the illusion of democracy:
http://www.theonion.com/video/diebold-accidentally-leaks-results-of-2008-electio,14214/
That's not what = means. = is ASSIGNMENT. They're looking for ==. Also, on a serious note, from what I recall of the US school system, frankly, the most surprising thing about this is that the problem isn't worse than reported.
It would be adequately reported if the statisticians could put two and two together. It's a vicious cycle.
Watergate-gate?
Just wait until a RAM manufacturer botches a major shipment of DDRx:
:)
NAND-gate
Seems "valid" to me :)
At first I thought POS meant "Point of Sale", but as I read through your post I realized it actually stands for "Piece of..."
...software?
That thought the title was referring to device drivers (ie: firmware) as opposed to the person driving the vehicle? That kind of mis-interpretation pretty much reverses who's to blame.
All of the above was pretty much the standard at my university. Rarely would any problems in studies actually be something that could be remotely attributed to the teaching abilities of my professors.
:)
The most common problem I found was that (especially in upper-year physics) was that nobody wanted to do more than the minimum amount of homework. This is a shame, as one would have to have endured the "weeding out" process of university for at least 3 years in order to reach this level in the first place. People typically hunted down exams and homework solutions from previous offerings of the course in an attempt to create a catalog of "probable questions" for the exams.
My approach was simple: spend the $10 per course for the student solutions manual. The questions are the same as the text book, save for tiny changes so the final evaluated answer isn't identical, and complete, worked-out solutions are provided. I also purchased the "Schaum's Outlines" series of books for every course I possibly could. This was invaluable, as most of my texts would only offer "final solutions" for a fraction of the "odd number questions" (ie: less than 10% of the questions per chapter, and none of the more difficult questions would have these answers provided; Very frustrating as these questions were typically the ones on the exams). This supplementary material was very beneficial for courses in which the textbooks explained a concept poorly, and essentially provided no means for the student to work through the homework, even after reading the chapter 3 times.
These extra materials allowed me to learn the general application of the principles, and helped me to ace my advanced math and physics courses for 3 years straight. The end result is that every week, I probably did at least 60 to 120 sample questions per chapter as opposed to the 10 we had to have on our submitted homework assignments. People have a choice with respect to how well they want to do, and this is coming from someone who worked 2-3 jobs to put himself through engineering and pay rent, so I sincerely doubt the "I have no time or money" argument is applicable here. Mind you, I do recall studies mentioning that people can be driven by adversity more than the average person with fewer obstacles in life. Although this isn't the particular example (below) I was thinking of at the time of writing this comment, it provides some insight with respect to how enduring adversity can push an individual to strive. I am willing to concede on that point, that such circumstances while attending university may have been advantageous for me.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10511821
The people writing the checques. Seems reasonable enough. Most businesses filter out content that is obviously completely irrelevant to work-related purposes (game-related sites, pr0n sites, etc), but will leave most other sites, even those with mostly obscene material in place, especially if it's hot news. Assuming that a topic is "controversial", by any definition, might indicate that the company simply doesn't want its employees making a post/opinion on the piece, possibly causing harm to the reputation of their employer.
:)
Next, let's assume that the real issue at hand isn't that a topic is "controversial", but that the site being blocked doesn't seem to take the same stance on the matter as your employer. The fact that sites are being filtered strictly based on what would appear to be conflicting political bias on the parts of your employer and the site in question, seems rather silly.
So long as a site relays the basic facts unaltered, most (intelligent) readers can separate the facts from opinion; filtering out bias, personal annotations, etc along the way. If sites are being filtered by how favorably they report certain things, chances are that the desired effect by the employers is not being achieved, and it only highlights the bias of the company carrying out the blocking/censorship as well.
Just my two bits, but it just seems to be a pointless exercise unless the company simply just wants to prevent people from making post/comments that are out of line with the "official opinion" of the company's execs and causing undue embarrassment and hassle for public relations. A banker making a comment on interest rates and revealing his employer, even if the banker remains anonymous, can have damaging repercussions for the bank he/she works for. And if people are so offended by being only presented news that provides a one-sided skew on events, just wait until you get home to read it, or heaven forbid, we can all just form our own opinions on a subject. I'm pretty sure it's still legal in North America, though I've doubts as to how much that's encouraged by most politicians.
Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
- Parker, Stone
Seems fair to me. I'll agree, I'm pretty disappointed with Nintendo's approach to resolving this (Virtual Console). All I get to do is pay a second time for a game I already own. I really wish they'd just do their own port of ZSNES/SNES9x to Wii.
Yep.