I took it back in the pascal days. Useless, really. At least going to UCSB the best it'd do is give you credits. It wouldn't get you out of any required CS classes...I don't think.
As far as I could tell, for engineers, math, gov't and history AP were the only tests worth taking unless you plan to be low on units (which is tough as an engineer). Possibly lit, not sure what you got for that. Even chem wouldn't get you out of the required chem for science/engineering majors, it'd just give you credit for the easier one for non-tech majors.
Don't kill yourself senior year with 7 AP classes without double-checking that passing the stupid test'll help you in college. I took five classes (2 APs, gov't and calc) senior year, got to hang out with the other slackers after lunch, got into a UC, graduated and am now at least as successful as my friends who's parents would probably beat them if they didn't take every AP available and spend all waking hours senior year studying for the SATs...
Boy my math major gf would probably kick you in the nuts if she heard you say that "CS doesn't need calculus so CS doesn't need math".
There's a lot more to advanced math than calculus. It's set theory. Graph theory. Linear algebra. And proofs, of course. Lots of proofs. Same stuff I did in my CS classes (although I was CE and focused more on EE stuff).
Incidently, that gf was amazed when I saw some of her graph theory stuff and understood it. It never occured to her that that stuff has actual practical applications all over the place (network routing, etc)
Hmm, don't do much octal myself, but any self-respecting programmer oughta be able to do octal/hex/binary conversions in his (or her) sleep. And as a firmware guy, I would also have to say that decimal is for those who have to count on their fingers:)
Back on topic, I don't do a terrible amount of math. Like I said, I do firmware to drive our particular chips (USB device controllers). The math is trivial. The algorithms themselves are pretty trivial. Now debugging the race conditions...
It's often not within your power to configure it properly. Even the silliest stuff and little apps die horrible deaths when you don't run with Admin privs. I don't know why that is, but I'd wager to say it's the fault of those writing the apps and not so much Microsoft.
That part of windows is ok, I think. Now if they'd just make the driver model more fault-tolerant, I'd be all set...
I haven't had a virus on my Win2k box in years I haven't had an anti-virus program or spyware removal program ever
At the risk of asking the obvious - if you don't have a virus scanner, how do you know you don't have viruses?
That said, I haven't gotten a virus in years either (although I always have a scanner lurking just in case). NAV used to go absolutely *crazy* if I plugged into the LAN on campus with file-sharing enabled, though...
It's marketed to those who don't feel more space is worth $50. Those who value physical size more than disk space (i.e. pretty much everyone I know).
Hell, even as a geek, I think I'd rather have a mini than a full sized ipod. The mini's a lot easier on the pockets and frankly, I don't have that many mp3s anyway. Ok, the gigs/$ isn't as good, but hey - $50 is $50.
Buying based strictly on gigs/$ seems suspiciously close to those who reason "hey! this thing I don't need is marked down from $500 to $250! That means I have an EXTRA $250 to spend on something else I don't need!"
No, it doesn't mean much for you or me, but when you start moving millions of pieces, the lead starts to add up. Yea lots of other nasties are used in the fab process, but hey, why make it worse than it needs to be?
The semiconductor company I work for has pretty high volume (nowhere near intel though...) and we went lead-free not too long ago. Customers demanded it, so we gave it to em.
Oh yeah....I work 45ish hour weeks. I can live with that for now. Also, for the record, I was a Computer Engineer. I expected to go into hardware, but I can hold my own programming. As long as it's firmware/kernel-level stuff. Can't stand programming apps.
All in all it's a good job. Pays well and *tons* of experience. Way more than I think I'd get at a large company (after having interned for 5 summers at Northrop Grumman and one with Agilent). We engineers do *everything*. Code. Document. Support. Meet with customers. Booth duty at trade shows. It definitely helps with the people skills...it's amazing how much better you can get at approaching people after spending 8hrs/day for a week trying to initiate conversations with everyone who walks by.
JESUS H CHRIST!!! That's a whole lotta money. Hope you're saving...Unusually high, I'd say.
I was extrodinarily lucky myself, got in to a small (20 person) company doing firmware for $60k + full benefits in Mountain View after graduating last June. Just got bumped to $62,400 after 6months after taking one for the team and volunteering for a particularly tedious (but in my opinion necessary) restructuring job.
The rest of my engineer friends are unemployed except for one who's working for intel making....50 or 55k I think. But he's in Portland so he lives like a king compared to us bay area folks...
Interesting. Here in CA, a lawyer I asked about that said the opposite. Refusing means automatic license suspension (plus I dunno how big a fine, etc.), and if you *are* convicted of a DUI and you had refused, your penalty is going to be a whole lot worse.
So, in CA, his advice was to *never* refuse the test.
Never liked that law. I can't believe that it's allowed by the 4th/5th amendments. Hell they won't even let you talk to a lawyer first...
Of course, IANAL...and I've never driven drunk so I've never been in a position to find out first hand how it works.
No you don't need 100%. But typically to be a monopoly means you need to have the power to exclude competition from your industry. How exactly does Clear Channel exclude competition?
The only real barrier to entering the broadcast radio market is getting space in the spectrum (from the FCC). You could argue that the FCC gives all the space to Clear Channel so CC is the barrier, but that argument *would* require far higher numbers of CC to non-CC stations out there.
So...how *is* CC a monopoly? All I've heard you say is that you don't need 100% marketshare to be one. Fair enough. I don't have 100% marketshare in anything I do either; does that make me a monopoly?
Yup, I wish Howard would be dropped from Infinity, but that's only because it would bring me closer to my dream of seeing all DJs eliminated and replaced with CD changers. But that's just me, so I'll just change the station to 104.9's "music in the morning" instead of staying on 105.3 with Howard and then complaining to the FCC when I hear an "offensive" story on his show (wtf do these whiners expect to hear on that show, anyway???)
In any case, I still think the FCC should just be like ARIN. They manage who gets what frequencies where, but have no control over content. If someone wants to broadcast 24/7 gay sex and they can afford to get into the market, let em. I just won't listen to it....
Be careful, though: If it is legal in your area and illegal in the other person's you can be called to their state and tried there. So if a person in Texas were to save the log of a chat with someone in New Hampshire, they could be brought to New Hampshire and jailed/fined there.
Can you? IANAL, so I have no idea, but....can I really be tried for breaking a law in NH if I'm in CA?
In any case, I'm not sure how this'll all play out. Take my mail server, for example. In the mail server I run for my friends, I've got a/var/spool directory that holds all their email to be read via IMAP. If I get spam from some guy in NH and my users don't delete their email, have I now broken the law?
Why on earth do we have sales tax anyway? Either tax it when I get it (income tax) or tax it when I spend it (sales tax), but why the hell do they get to tax every friggin dollar I get *twice*???
Yeah the government needs money. Yeah it needs a lot, but sheesh. *Alsmost* pisses me off as much as social security...but not quite.
Hey, I agree Linux is better in most respects. But the things like this are the issues that the "real people" who want to switch get really turned off about and they're the "features" they'll bitch about when one of their friends is thinking about switching.
My friends know enough about computers to not run email attachments. They don't know enough about them to add a ZAxisMap to an arcane config file.
Or, better yet, have it *see* what kind of mouse you have and whether it has a wheel or not and get rid of the silly section altogether.
It's one of those stupid things that's a pain in the ass for newbies who wonder why they can't scroll mozilla. And a non-functioning wheel out of the box leaves a *really* negative impression on people I've helped switch to Linux. I even had to manually do that on my Mandrake 9.2 box sitting behind me now.
I shit you not, when I've told people I think Linux is better, one of my friends in particular always chimes in, "Hey - at least I didn't have to fuck with a config file to get my wheel working in Windows"...
That said, I still think linux is easier in general:)
I dunno, I've been using PCs since 96 or so (used macs before then) and have never seen one of these mythical non-CD bootable PCs.
People invariably complain about that here on slashdot when the floppy argument comes up. I don't know what ghetto motherboards these people are using, but even my crappy EFA bargain basement thing could do it back in 96.
If all I can boot into is dos? Why would I boot dos when I've got a knoppix CD which also happens to include USB mass storage class drivers and CD burning software?
Floppy free for >12mo...
(Hell my three PCs at work don't even have drives. Never needed one.)
Word to the wise (or is it stupid?): If you decide to do this, be sure to pour the gooey mess onto some old metal or something.
When I was a kid I did it right on the patio in the back yard. I'm sure that layer of black plastic stuff will be stuck on there for all eternity.
It's not a very impressive flame as-is, but damn it'll go for days, so don't think you can just wait for the fuel to burn off.
Oh and don't stand downwind of this thing. It has one of those Toxic Death Clouds. It tates like burning.
That said, kids, don't play with fire. Not cuz you'll burn yourself (don't touch it, duh) but it's just too damn stressful trying to get rid of the evidence (Ahhh, car's pulling into garage, must put out flaming goo of death!)
Well I was born in 1980 and *did* learn printing (we didn't get to cursive till, I dunno, 3rd grade or so)
That said I was never taught cups, pints, etc. either (and yes, I live in the US). I guess CA never got the memo that we decided we weren't gonna use metrics in the future after all. You'd think that if we had to put up with our crazy system they would at least make an effort to teach it to us. I have to look on google if I ever have to divide/multiply a recipe...
*mutters about metric being so much better....<flamebait>except for temperatures:)</flamebait>*
Ok, yeah my rant there was probably uncalled for. And didn't really make the point I wanted to anyway.
I never said all interference comes from hams. And in fact I do agree that hams have their uses in emergencies. And in contrast to my rant, you get the hams popping out of the woodwork complaining that the broadband'll interfere with them.
I don't question that most hams are good guys who do their best to not trample on other signals, but I *do* question whether they should get priority over other signals (be it broadband, my cordless phone or a cheap baby monitor) during non-emergency situations.
Well it was my dad's 400W RMS/channel beast. Half heat-sink, analog meters and could probably shake the foundation of an apartment building and as I recally it cost an assload of money at the time.
I really don't think it was a lousy amp. And this was a modular setup and as I recall, neither the tuner nor the preamp needed to be on for the signal to come in...
That said it shouldn't even matter. I've lived on military bases and driven around radio towers and never pick up *their* signals. But I only have to be sitting near a truck with a (presumably fairly low power, since it's in the car) ham transmitter it'll completely overload my car stereo...
Yea, I know most hams are responsible and if they have good equipment and USE THE LOWEST NECESSARY POWER FOR THEIR TRANSMISSION you never even know they're there. But man, getting that license just makes it possible to be sooooo obnoxious.
Slashdot Mirror
I took it back in the pascal days. Useless, really. At least going to UCSB the best it'd do is give you credits. It wouldn't get you out of any required CS classes...I don't think.
As far as I could tell, for engineers, math, gov't and history AP were the only tests worth taking unless you plan to be low on units (which is tough as an engineer). Possibly lit, not sure what you got for that. Even chem wouldn't get you out of the required chem for science/engineering majors, it'd just give you credit for the easier one for non-tech majors.
Don't kill yourself senior year with 7 AP classes without double-checking that passing the stupid test'll help you in college. I took five classes (2 APs, gov't and calc) senior year, got to hang out with the other slackers after lunch, got into a UC, graduated and am now at least as successful as my friends who's parents would probably beat them if they didn't take every AP available and spend all waking hours senior year studying for the SATs...
Boy my math major gf would probably kick you in the nuts if she heard you say that "CS doesn't need calculus so CS doesn't need math".
There's a lot more to advanced math than calculus. It's set theory. Graph theory. Linear algebra. And proofs, of course. Lots of proofs. Same stuff I did in my CS classes (although I was CE and focused more on EE stuff).
Incidently, that gf was amazed when I saw some of her graph theory stuff and understood it. It never occured to her that that stuff has actual practical applications all over the place (network routing, etc)
Hmm, don't do much octal myself, but any self-respecting programmer oughta be able to do octal/hex/binary conversions in his (or her) sleep. And as a firmware guy, I would also have to say that decimal is for those who have to count on their fingers :)
Back on topic, I don't do a terrible amount of math. Like I said, I do firmware to drive our particular chips (USB device controllers). The math is trivial. The algorithms themselves are pretty trivial. Now debugging the race conditions...
Whoa. You just blew my mind.
It's often not within your power to configure it properly. Even the silliest stuff and little apps die horrible deaths when you don't run with Admin privs. I don't know why that is, but I'd wager to say it's the fault of those writing the apps and not so much Microsoft.
That part of windows is ok, I think. Now if they'd just make the driver model more fault-tolerant, I'd be all set...
I haven't had a virus on my Win2k box in years
I haven't had an anti-virus program or spyware removal program ever
At the risk of asking the obvious - if you don't have a virus scanner, how do you know you don't have viruses?
That said, I haven't gotten a virus in years either (although I always have a scanner lurking just in case). NAV used to go absolutely *crazy* if I plugged into the LAN on campus with file-sharing enabled, though...
It's marketed to those who don't feel more space is worth $50. Those who value physical size more than disk space (i.e. pretty much everyone I know).
Hell, even as a geek, I think I'd rather have a mini than a full sized ipod. The mini's a lot easier on the pockets and frankly, I don't have that many mp3s anyway. Ok, the gigs/$ isn't as good, but hey - $50 is $50.
Buying based strictly on gigs/$ seems suspiciously close to those who reason "hey! this thing I don't need is marked down from $500 to $250! That means I have an EXTRA $250 to spend on something else I don't need!"
No, it doesn't mean much for you or me, but when you start moving millions of pieces, the lead starts to add up. Yea lots of other nasties are used in the fab process, but hey, why make it worse than it needs to be?
The semiconductor company I work for has pretty high volume (nowhere near intel though...) and we went lead-free not too long ago. Customers demanded it, so we gave it to em.
Oh yeah....I work 45ish hour weeks. I can live with that for now. Also, for the record, I was a Computer Engineer. I expected to go into hardware, but I can hold my own programming. As long as it's firmware/kernel-level stuff. Can't stand programming apps.
All in all it's a good job. Pays well and *tons* of experience. Way more than I think I'd get at a large company (after having interned for 5 summers at Northrop Grumman and one with Agilent). We engineers do *everything*. Code. Document. Support. Meet with customers. Booth duty at trade shows. It definitely helps with the people skills...it's amazing how much better you can get at approaching people after spending 8hrs/day for a week trying to initiate conversations with everyone who walks by.
JESUS H CHRIST!!! That's a whole lotta money. Hope you're saving...Unusually high, I'd say.
I was extrodinarily lucky myself, got in to a small (20 person) company doing firmware for $60k + full benefits in Mountain View after graduating last June. Just got bumped to $62,400 after 6months after taking one for the team and volunteering for a particularly tedious (but in my opinion necessary) restructuring job.
The rest of my engineer friends are unemployed except for one who's working for intel making....50 or 55k I think. But he's in Portland so he lives like a king compared to us bay area folks...
Interesting. Here in CA, a lawyer I asked about that said the opposite. Refusing means automatic license suspension (plus I dunno how big a fine, etc.), and if you *are* convicted of a DUI and you had refused, your penalty is going to be a whole lot worse.
So, in CA, his advice was to *never* refuse the test.
Never liked that law. I can't believe that it's allowed by the 4th/5th amendments. Hell they won't even let you talk to a lawyer first...
Of course, IANAL...and I've never driven drunk so I've never been in a position to find out first hand how it works.
Ok, IANAL yadda yadda yadda...
No you don't need 100%. But typically to be a monopoly means you need to have the power to exclude competition from your industry. How exactly does Clear Channel exclude competition?
The only real barrier to entering the broadcast radio market is getting space in the spectrum (from the FCC). You could argue that the FCC gives all the space to Clear Channel so CC is the barrier, but that argument *would* require far higher numbers of CC to non-CC stations out there.
So...how *is* CC a monopoly? All I've heard you say is that you don't need 100% marketshare to be one. Fair enough. I don't have 100% marketshare in anything I do either; does that make me a monopoly?
Yup, I wish Howard would be dropped from Infinity, but that's only because it would bring me closer to my dream of seeing all DJs eliminated and replaced with CD changers. But that's just me, so I'll just change the station to 104.9's "music in the morning" instead of staying on 105.3 with Howard and then complaining to the FCC when I hear an "offensive" story on his show (wtf do these whiners expect to hear on that show, anyway???)
In any case, I still think the FCC should just be like ARIN. They manage who gets what frequencies where, but have no control over content. If someone wants to broadcast 24/7 gay sex and they can afford to get into the market, let em. I just won't listen to it....
Can you? IANAL, so I have no idea, but....can I really be tried for breaking a law in NH if I'm in CA?
In any case, I'm not sure how this'll all play out. Take my mail server, for example. In the mail server I run for my friends, I've got a
Why on earth do we have sales tax anyway? Either tax it when I get it (income tax) or tax it when I spend it (sales tax), but why the hell do they get to tax every friggin dollar I get *twice*???
Yeah the government needs money. Yeah it needs a lot, but sheesh. *Alsmost* pisses me off as much as social security...but not quite.
Hey, I agree Linux is better in most respects. But the things like this are the issues that the "real people" who want to switch get really turned off about and they're the "features" they'll bitch about when one of their friends is thinking about switching.
My friends know enough about computers to not run email attachments. They don't know enough about them to add a ZAxisMap to an arcane config file.
Yes, that's actually correct. I'd actually swapped the PS/2 without a wheel for a USB one with a wheel.
I do that all the time on the lab PCs running Windows at work and never have any trouble with it...
Or, better yet, have it *see* what kind of mouse you have and whether it has a wheel or not and get rid of the silly section altogether.
:)
It's one of those stupid things that's a pain in the ass for newbies who wonder why they can't scroll mozilla. And a non-functioning wheel out of the box leaves a *really* negative impression on people I've helped switch to Linux. I even had to manually do that on my Mandrake 9.2 box sitting behind me now.
I shit you not, when I've told people I think Linux is better, one of my friends in particular always chimes in, "Hey - at least I didn't have to fuck with a config file to get my wheel working in Windows"...
That said, I still think linux is easier in general
The hypothetical mugger is going to have a hell of a time getting away without getting shot in the back.
:)
True, although most states frown upon shooting people in the back as they're running away...maybe if you lived in Texas
A lot? Try all...
I dunno, I've been using PCs since 96 or so (used macs before then) and have never seen one of these mythical non-CD bootable PCs.
People invariably complain about that here on slashdot when the floppy argument comes up. I don't know what ghetto motherboards these people are using, but even my crappy EFA bargain basement thing could do it back in 96.
If all I can boot into is dos? Why would I boot dos when I've got a knoppix CD which also happens to include USB mass storage class drivers and CD burning software?
Floppy free for >12mo...
(Hell my three PCs at work don't even have drives. Never needed one.)
Word to the wise (or is it stupid?): If you decide to do this, be sure to pour the gooey mess onto some old metal or something.
When I was a kid I did it right on the patio in the back yard. I'm sure that layer of black plastic stuff will be stuck on there for all eternity.
It's not a very impressive flame as-is, but damn it'll go for days, so don't think you can just wait for the fuel to burn off.
Oh and don't stand downwind of this thing. It has one of those Toxic Death Clouds. It tates like burning.
That said, kids, don't play with fire. Not cuz you'll burn yourself (don't touch it, duh) but it's just too damn stressful trying to get rid of the evidence (Ahhh, car's pulling into garage, must put out flaming goo of death!)
Well I was born in 1980 and *did* learn printing (we didn't get to cursive till, I dunno, 3rd grade or so)
:)</flamebait>*
That said I was never taught cups, pints, etc. either (and yes, I live in the US). I guess CA never got the memo that we decided we weren't gonna use metrics in the future after all. You'd think that if we had to put up with our crazy system they would at least make an effort to teach it to us. I have to look on google if I ever have to divide/multiply a recipe...
*mutters about metric being so much better....<flamebait>except for temperatures
Ok, yeah my rant there was probably uncalled for. And didn't really make the point I wanted to anyway.
I never said all interference comes from hams. And in fact I do agree that hams have their uses in emergencies. And in contrast to my rant, you get the hams popping out of the woodwork complaining that the broadband'll interfere with them.
I don't question that most hams are good guys who do their best to not trample on other signals, but I *do* question whether they should get priority over other signals (be it broadband, my cordless phone or a cheap baby monitor) during non-emergency situations.
Well it was my dad's 400W RMS/channel beast. Half heat-sink, analog meters and could probably shake the foundation of an apartment building and as I recally it cost an assload of money at the time.
I really don't think it was a lousy amp. And this was a modular setup and as I recall, neither the tuner nor the preamp needed to be on for the signal to come in...
That said it shouldn't even matter. I've lived on military bases and driven around radio towers and never pick up *their* signals. But I only have to be sitting near a truck with a (presumably fairly low power, since it's in the car) ham transmitter it'll completely overload my car stereo...
Yea, I know most hams are responsible and if they have good equipment and USE THE LOWEST NECESSARY POWER FOR THEIR TRANSMISSION you never even know they're there. But man, getting that license just makes it possible to be sooooo obnoxious.