To the general public, an engineer is a very technical person doing some very technical job involving the creation or maintenance of something.
And this is why the word is being bastardised and passed off as a legitimate job title for people who have no right to call themselves an Engineer. The man on the street has generally little to no idea what an Engineer does. To them, anyone who does something technical can be an engineer. I am all for the restriction of the term for just this reason. If anyone starts calling themselves an Engineer, then we'll be just where the IT industry is today with people who know some VB calling themselves "Programmers".
No, I think the term Engineer should be restricted to people who have PE certification. As many other people have said already, it would be like calling anyone who has anything to do with teeth a Dentist or anyone who represents anyone else a Lawyer. If there are programmers out there who want in on the Engineer title, then go to school and get an engineering degree. Try EE. It would help to know how the hardware works. Then get certified and legally responsible for your actions. That iron ring and certification signifies an Engineer.
All but for one Epson I've had the misfortune to have to work with have been some of the crappiest printers ever made. From the 3 minute head cleanings randomly interspersed throughout the print job to the rediculous way they sometimes handle ink, they've just been hell for me.
The one in particular that I had to use would notify that the ink cartridge was empty when it was in fact half full. You would need to remove the cartridge and replace it to get the bottom half used. The other used to regularly spit out upwards of 40 pages of garbage (in colour) with only a few lines at the top of each page. Why? Apparently just for kicks. They all took their sweet time running head cleanings. The running joke at work was that the Epson 777 was actually an Epson 666 and made by Satan himself, but they had to rename it because it wouldn't sell.
My HP at home, however, has been nothing short of beautiful. I've had it for coming up on 3 years now (DeskJet 842c) and no problems to speak of. No smudging, no running, crisp images and excellent almost-photo-quality work on the right paper. Sure ink is rediculously expensive. If I need to print out something I'm usually at school for black & white. However I do print things here on a regular basis and it's still wonderful.
Just to note, however: colour LaserJet printers (I think it's an HP, but the way the computer lab has it boxed in. ..) whichever I've used don't seem to like to print in inverse colour. If you have a white page and try to print solid toner with an image at the centre the image tends to get messed up. Meh. Go figure.
. ..Spending on Iraq instead for no other reason than because it's the right thing to do.
Right! Because what's important here is the safety and comfort of the Iraqi people. I mean, what other reason would there be to spend billions on making sure that everything is reconstructed the way US companies want? It sure wouldn't be the tourist industry. Or the petroleum. Iraq does have oil, doesn't it? Oh! Right! Iraq has oil! And in case I remember my obsure facts, they have a lot of it. Could it be that the powers that be might want to get a chokehold on that oil? Sure Iraq will be demoratized. Texaco gets this part, Mobil this one, and Exxon the last little bit. Then appoint a figurehead and you're set. And as long as the country uses technology primarily manufactured in the US, then there's no chance of those bloody tree-hugging Europeans getting their greedy claws in, is there?
Seriously. Why do you think there isn't $100 billion going to Afghanistan this fast? Maybe it's because they don't have as much oil? Spending taxpayer money "selflessly" is as much the "Right thing to do" as setting up a "temporary petroleum distribution organization" because post-war Iraq has too much reconstruction to do to worry about petty things like oil. "We'll just look after this until you're on your feet. .."
Maybe I just don't have the time anymore to sit and critique the "finer points" of Sci-fi or watch fifteen hours of TV every week or to spend an afternoon debating Buffy plotlines. Maybe I just never was affected by the "But in eposide 12 of season 4 of TNG they said. .." factor. Whatever the reason, I'm actually enjoying Enterprise for probably exactly those reasons. It's not (in general) that futuristic. I thought the flatscreen monitors and transporter paranoias were a nice touch. The whole having a translator on board and the UT failing every now and then is great! The episode with the Tholians was a perfect example of that. Yeah there's inconsistencies and some pretty big plot holes. So what? If I wanted continuity I'd go live my life. Last time I checked It was pretty continuous. I'm not ashamed to admit it, I like Enterprise. A lot.
In all, I'd say about a quarter of the current episodes really made me sit and go "Hey, this is really, really good!" At least half of them I would rate as "very good" Only about two or three would I say that I wasn't a big fan of. To anyone who thinks this is the "Worst. Show. Ever.", Just try suspending the "But this isn't like B5/Farscape/SG1/Buffy" factor for a change. This isn't the same show. It's Star Trek. You aren't supposed to take it this seriously. Yes, Farscape is fantastic. When I get a spare week I'll pick it up again and keep watching. That's when I get a spare week. Enterprise is good as a one-off show and still a hell of a lot better than most shows on TV. I'd much rather watch it than any of this so-called "Reality" TV. If it were that real, all those people would be dead from some mosquito-borne virus. Give me a bit of semi-believable Star Trek over that any day.
Don't let the name fool you. Sure, the selection may be limited at times, but in general, this place rocks. Everything you would want to find from drill bits to keyboards to the same SEGA Channel adaptor that's been there for years. There should be one in every Canadian city if you go looking. Otherwise, try Here
Also, from what I can remember, Ribtor Surplus in Calgary is a fantastic shop. I picked up an old WWI-vintage helmet just for kicks but they have much more. More like a Princess Auto for non-auto parts and a lot of military surplus.
In general, it happens that the lower user numbers are more committed to the success of the site. However, just like anything on the 'net or in media at all, you need to take it with a grain of salt.
For example:
Parent post: insightful and relevant
Certain unnamed low-numbered users: immature trolls who just happened to stumble across something early on which later turned out to be big.
It still all depends on the person behind the number.
The windows key can be used in combination with other keys like Win-E to bring up windows explorer Win-R to use the Run command, or Win-F to bring up the find dialog. My personal favourite is Win-D to go to the desktop.
I have to agree, although I don't have a 4275, I am currently using an 8725 that I bought for about 40 bucks three years ago. Firstly, it has no extra crap like multimedia keys. It's small and light, and it keeps all the keys in the places they bloody well should be. Unfortunately, the university that I'm attending is switching over to these new IBM machines that, on the non-keyboard side, are nice to run, but on the keyboard side are the equivalent of a kick in the face with cleats This one, the 10K3849 to be specific. The home and end keys are inconveniently located at the top of the keyboard, and even though they aren't too bad in BSD (woohoo emacs) they're absolutely terrible in any sort of Win environment and I've actually caught myself openly cursing at their keyboard layouts in front of lab sections I'm supposed to be teaching. Whoever authorized the purchase of these keyboards should be fired. Whoever designed these keyboards should be fired, then shot.
However, Fujitsu does make some fantastic keyboards for the "simple, no-frills" experience, which is exactly what I'm looking for. I have to say, however, that I'm a huge convert fan of the "windows" key in any Win environment, just because it saves so many keystrokes and so much time reaching for the mouse. But that's a topic for another post altogether.
Here in Saskatoon, the buses may be as much as 10 minutes off between runs. The bus at 5:07 may be leaving at 5:05 and the one scheduled to arrive at 5:37 may not get there until a quarter to 6. I've had it happen numerous times. Luckily the one I take in the morning is relatively standard as far as time (and passengers) goes.
$30k per year with $0 direct education costs
- And the first to get the axe when it comes time to downsize. Oh well, just get another job. You're trained. Nope. Sorry. Your high school tech-training diploma isn't enough. We're looking for someone with a bit more training.
$50k pery year with $bigint direct education cost.
- And a friend of mine who's barely finished his third year of University (Engineering Physics Degree) just landed a 16-month internship for $30K/year, and there's a pretty good chance of a full-time job afterward for probably $45K+/year starting salary.
As I've said before. Go to tech school. That just leaves more jobs for the rest of us.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't see what you'd possibly be able to get out of a boot camp that you couldn't get out of a good university degree program. (Unless, of course, you're majoring in some sort of liberal art or computer-science derivative diploma program)
Personally, I attribute much of the tech-sector collapse to places exactly like this. I'm looking at these places where you plunk down some cash and they give you a certificate at the end saying you can run some program or another (Cough cough DeVry cough cough). Sure you can do "what" but not "why". It's the difference between "Programming" in Visual Basic or actually programming something in C++/Perl/insert real language here. You end up saying that you're a computer professional and charge way too much for what you're qualified for and eventually, when the market is saturated with overpaid, underqualified "professionals" it collapses.
Yeah I'm spending way too much money right now, too, but I'm pretty confident that when I'm done I'm not just going to be able to say "I can do this and this" but I can put on a resume "I know how this works and I can apply all the proper design theories to make sure it continues to work down the road". If you want to go off and throw some money at the "quick fix" easy way out then be my guest.
Sometimes it's a difference in simple accents that changes the word quite a bit. Like with the monsteras.se domain, there's at least one word in German that varies drastically if you mess with the accents. ..i.e: With accents: humid Without accents: homosexual.
Or at least that's what I remember about it. Sometimes you could be getting yourself into quite a bit of trouble doing something like that.
Of course, the reason they want to kill you has nothing to do with their "tan colored skin" (and everything to do with their f*cked-up religion)
Oh, now I get it! We're supposed to be discriminating against Muslims, not just middle-eastern people! Do you even stop to consider the fact that not every Muslim is a terrorist? It's like saying that every Catholic has 47 kids and will kill a Protestant on sight (a few of them do it in Northern Ireland, that must make it true). Same for Protestants, right? Or what about the undeniable fact that every Hindu either works in a convenience store or lives on the top of a mountain? Les't not even mention the Jews. We all know what THEY're like.
Sir, you are a moron. The odds that terrorism is a factor in this tragedy are sitting at about 0.00000001% right now. They claim that some insulation fell from the shuttle when they launched. Well if my brief experience with thermodynamics is any lesson, it's that things (like space shuttles) get really hot when they have a lot of friction trying to stop their rapid movement (like when they're landing). If something did fall, then I'd be highly suspect that there was some sort of external problem with the shuttle which overheated and caused an explosion. Or maybe not. It's still a lot more likely than your "terrorism".
Pardon my French, but how the hell are London Drugs supporting the fight against the levy? I mean, I like London Drugs a lot, but the last time I bought MiniDiscs from them they more or less openly tacked on a $4 surcharge under the title "Media Levy" (plus tax). $4 on a $15 box of MiniDiscs! No place else that I've bought MDs from has done this, and it was sort of irritating. Now maybe the gov't-required levy had gone through already, but I was under the impression that it wasn't to go through until Jan 1st, 2003 (I bought them in 2002).
Too bad all my MP is good for is getting kicked out of the Canadian Alliance and wasting paper sending me chain letters about how he's calling other people racist when he himself is arguably so. Too bad that out here they would elect a handicapped monkey if it ran under the CA banner.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of getting my computer "serviced" by the monkeys at CompuSmart. Although now I've realised what a stupid move that was (Stupid Mistake #2), I all together too well remember their "we take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your system while in the shop" clause. I mean, it was probably meant to apply to data, but they seemed to mean that they would fix what the immediate problem was, and if something else got broken, then it isn't their fault.
I had a motherboard go because the power supply from Stupid Mistake #1 (buying from them) fried it. They were simply supposed to replace the motherboard and give it back. 3 weeks later, they got around to getting the new board in and I got the system back. The first thing I noticed, however, was that the network card didn't exactly (as we in the industry say). . ..work. Of course, I brought this to their attention when the chip was found to be physically burned (because of their half-assed job) and they told me that it was something I did. Right, I caused the NIC to fail by having it sit on their shop table for almost a month. I guess you could say it was my fault because I gave it to them in the first place. However I've found a shop that's very good about stuff like this, and has never given me any problems since, so there will be no Stupid Mistake #3.
I managed to get an old Atari ST from the local school division just because they were sick of having it around and a friend of mine picked it up. When he moved, I got it. It's quite the system, if only I had enough 720k floppies to use with it. As it happens, it's sort of sitting at my parent's house now, amongst a 286, 2 386s, a 486 that I use for a text file reader while playing old SNES games, and some assorted peripherals. Need more time to get it working, maybe figure out some way to hook it to my network.
Re:No, what this is saying is that. . .
on
E ~ mc^2
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
So far it's all still a lot of waving of hands in the air and ignoring the part where "a miracle happens."
Wow. You really have taken an advanced physics class! (not being sarcastic at all) In my brief experience with quantum mechanics, that's pretty much all it is. Sure, there's math to back up most of it, but a lot is just "classical parallels".
some physicists believe they may be seeing things at the macro level that are unexplainable by Relativitly theory
Something like when you examine a classical system of a partical moving in a one-dimensional region of definite length (the 1D infinite square well), you can see that it is equally probable to find the particle at any distance from the sides. However, quantum mechanically, the particle has a definite probability of being in the centre and said probability decreases like a gaussian distribution as it approaches either boundary. However, this is only for the ground state. As you get to higher and higher energy levels, you start to notice that the QM probability begins to resemble the classical one. But I'll leave with the best quote ever, which means my sig is finally applicable:
Okay, in the high school I went to (a few years back), there was a separate class devoted to computer science rather than taking the time away from maths and sciences. Unfortunately, the class was almost a waste of time, since many of our assignments involved typing tests and learning how to use obsolete DOS-based spreadsheet programs. The programming side of the course taught us how to use Turbo-BASIC and PASCAL, and if your program didn't look enough like the example in the book, you lost marks. I spent an hour or so working on a simple ball bouncing around the screen in Turbo-Basic where the initial angles and velocities were controlled by INPUT statements (the program was to illustrate the use of an INPUT statement) and lost marks for being too different. The jerk-offs in the corner who played Britney and the Spice Girls all day and Win-nuked everyone else copied the program out of the book and changed the variable names. They got full marks. Of course, that didn't take into account the fact that the book itself was over 15 years old. And we were making notes out of it, not for programming of course, but for things like scanners and printers. Apparently, by now we're supposed to have a computer scanner that can scan images as well as text. Oh, won't those be the days.
Personally, I just didn't do the work and sat around learning graphics applications, HTML, javascript, and generally doing whatever I felt like. When the end of the year came around, I just copied a bunch of javascripts and handed them in as project replacements. The 82% I got in the class was just a testament to how badly it was marked and run (I should have gotten much lower in a real CS class), but I learned more than everyone else in class so who's to say.
But that doesn't really compare to the actual math classes we were taking. The teacher for math was more or less incompetent and only kept her job by making the course easier and easier until the class average was something like 80%. Of course we were a small school (80-120 graduating/year), so no AP or such courses around. If you could count, you could pass that class. She was the particular teacher who said "Don't bother memorizing these trig identities. You'll never use them and I'll give you a sheet for the final with them on it." Too bad I was a slacker and actually believed her. Same with complex numbers, matrices, logarithms, and exponentials. Her idea of math was bringing in a TV and letting us watch "The Price is Right" to teach us "consumer math". Yet, somehow the parents and students loved her (and still do). Of course, maybe this is because the best that almost anyone from that school can hope to do with their lives is a commerce degree and only fail Math110 3 times. Is it a surprise that you can count the number of people from that school in the last 5 years who successfully make it into a technical field such as engineering or CS on two hands (and you need to, since you don't need to know how to "plus" things together. You have a calculator now). ..(and no, DeVry does not count as a school). Despite this, I had over a 94% average in the class and no idea of the fun to come with a real math class so the complaints didn't start coming until I was out of the system and she was safe from being fired again.
Thankfully, the Physics and Chemistry programs were well run (the chemistry teacher had a degree in chemistry) which was the only saving feature of that school (except the electronics course offered through the Industrial Arts area). Also, I've heard that the education college is starting to consider your background more and more before letting you in to fill the spots. Finally, no more english teachers trying to teach math.
The problem is that most professors want to see your *work*.
Funny, the profs in the math department here are only concerned about answers. In fact, for most of the first- and second-year classes, the tests are now multiple choice computer-marked tests. If you don't do the correct work, you get a zero. If you do all the correct work, there's still the chance of a simple mistake, and you get a zero. Often, the 10 possible answers are whole numbers from 0 to 9, and once you have your answer, you have to run it through some sort of strange equation to get a whole number out of it. Slightly odd for a multivariable calculus course, but they claim students do better with the tests like that. Probably why the class average usually hovers around 40% with no curving of marks.
Or the other option is that some profs requre you to show ALL your work. However, for the class that I took like that (Series/Diff. Eqns), ALL your work meant proving every series convergence theorem every time you wanted to use it. If you needed to use the integral test, you had to specify every condition to the test, then prove it for that particular example. . ..sometimes as many as 5 times on a 1-hour test. (including other questions)
Oh, and no calculators allowed in any form anywhere near a math exam. The best you get is a 1-page table of integrals in second-year.
Okay, I'm a little rusty on the exact fine details about this, but there are nonetheless a few things that need to be cleaned up. (pun intended)
1. Fission is dirty. We're all familiar with this one. You get radioactive products and energy. Open and shut case.
2. Fusion can be done. We could do it all the time, and I'm talking about break-even fusion with power production. Why don't we? Because this kind of fusion is dirty. When you use Tritium as a reactant, you get radioactive products kicking around after everything is said and done.
3. Deuterium/Deuterium fusion is not "dirty". Deuterium is a non-radioactive isotope. This, however, is the kind of break-even fusion we're having a bit of trouble with. The problem here is that the energy required to get the Deuterium/Deuterium reaction going is a lot more than the comparatively simple Deuterium/Tritium one.
This is, from what I recall, more or less the problem in a nutshell. If anyone with a degree in physics who specializes in plasma physics or such would like to go into more detail, I'd be greatful.
Yes, but I bet you could just as easily find 4 Indians who could code circles around 500 Americans. It's all a matter of which 4 and 500 you pick. Example:
I recently had to do some basic troubleshooting on a system I worked on as a summer student last summer. It was used for public internet access at a park and run by a woman in her 50's. Their internet connection was down and I was asked to get it running after her "computer-tech" daughter had attempted to solve the problem. Now I'd assume by the title that she was trained in something. . ..anything. In fact, all that happened was the DSL modem needed to be reset to handle a switch to DHCP. When I fixed it, she commented "I want you to take that 'Mozolla' thing off. It's only confusing Mom and it isn't doing anything good on there." and sincerely sounded like she thought it was causing the internet problems.
So if this is the quality of "IT" people that are around, then it's not surprising there'd be quite a few "programmers" of the same sort. I'm sure there are a lot of Indian programmers out there like that, but I'm also sure there are a lot of fantastically brilliant Indian programmers out there, just like there are the same calibre of programmers out here. It's all about who you hire and sometimes it might just end up that they are cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
Whether or not they appear, if you put it squarely on your desk you'll have no way of finding out how fast it is.
To the general public, an engineer is a very technical person doing some very technical job involving the creation or maintenance of something.
And this is why the word is being bastardised and passed off as a legitimate job title for people who have no right to call themselves an Engineer. The man on the street has generally little to no idea what an Engineer does. To them, anyone who does something technical can be an engineer. I am all for the restriction of the term for just this reason. If anyone starts calling themselves an Engineer, then we'll be just where the IT industry is today with people who know some VB calling themselves "Programmers".
No, I think the term Engineer should be restricted to people who have PE certification. As many other people have said already, it would be like calling anyone who has anything to do with teeth a Dentist or anyone who represents anyone else a Lawyer. If there are programmers out there who want in on the Engineer title, then go to school and get an engineering degree. Try EE. It would help to know how the hardware works. Then get certified and legally responsible for your actions. That iron ring and certification signifies an Engineer.
All but for one Epson I've had the misfortune to have to work with have been some of the crappiest printers ever made. From the 3 minute head cleanings randomly interspersed throughout the print job to the rediculous way they sometimes handle ink, they've just been hell for me.
.) whichever I've used don't seem to like to print in inverse colour. If you have a white page and try to print solid toner with an image at the centre the image tends to get messed up. Meh. Go figure.
The one in particular that I had to use would notify that the ink cartridge was empty when it was in fact half full. You would need to remove the cartridge and replace it to get the bottom half used. The other used to regularly spit out upwards of 40 pages of garbage (in colour) with only a few lines at the top of each page. Why? Apparently just for kicks. They all took their sweet time running head cleanings. The running joke at work was that the Epson 777 was actually an Epson 666 and made by Satan himself, but they had to rename it because it wouldn't sell.
My HP at home, however, has been nothing short of beautiful. I've had it for coming up on 3 years now (DeskJet 842c) and no problems to speak of. No smudging, no running, crisp images and excellent almost-photo-quality work on the right paper. Sure ink is rediculously expensive. If I need to print out something I'm usually at school for black & white. However I do print things here on a regular basis and it's still wonderful.
Just to note, however: colour LaserJet printers (I think it's an HP, but the way the computer lab has it boxed in. .
. . .Spending on Iraq instead for no other reason than because it's the right thing to do.
."
Right! Because what's important here is the safety and comfort of the Iraqi people. I mean, what other reason would there be to spend billions on making sure that everything is reconstructed the way US companies want? It sure wouldn't be the tourist industry. Or the petroleum. Iraq does have oil, doesn't it? Oh! Right! Iraq has oil! And in case I remember my obsure facts, they have a lot of it. Could it be that the powers that be might want to get a chokehold on that oil? Sure Iraq will be demoratized. Texaco gets this part, Mobil this one, and Exxon the last little bit. Then appoint a figurehead and you're set. And as long as the country uses technology primarily manufactured in the US, then there's no chance of those bloody tree-hugging Europeans getting their greedy claws in, is there?
Seriously. Why do you think there isn't $100 billion going to Afghanistan this fast? Maybe it's because they don't have as much oil? Spending taxpayer money "selflessly" is as much the "Right thing to do" as setting up a "temporary petroleum distribution organization" because post-war Iraq has too much reconstruction to do to worry about petty things like oil. "We'll just look after this until you're on your feet. .
Right. I believe that.
Maybe I just don't have the time anymore to sit and critique the "finer points" of Sci-fi or watch fifteen hours of TV every week or to spend an afternoon debating Buffy plotlines. Maybe I just never was affected by the "But in eposide 12 of season 4 of TNG they said. . ." factor. Whatever the reason, I'm actually enjoying Enterprise for probably exactly those reasons. It's not (in general) that futuristic. I thought the flatscreen monitors and transporter paranoias were a nice touch. The whole having a translator on board and the UT failing every now and then is great! The episode with the Tholians was a perfect example of that. Yeah there's inconsistencies and some pretty big plot holes. So what? If I wanted continuity I'd go live my life. Last time I checked It was pretty continuous. I'm not ashamed to admit it, I like Enterprise. A lot.
In all, I'd say about a quarter of the current episodes really made me sit and go "Hey, this is really, really good!" At least half of them I would rate as "very good" Only about two or three would I say that I wasn't a big fan of. To anyone who thinks this is the "Worst. Show. Ever.", Just try suspending the "But this isn't like B5/Farscape/SG1/Buffy" factor for a change. This isn't the same show. It's Star Trek. You aren't supposed to take it this seriously. Yes, Farscape is fantastic. When I get a spare week I'll pick it up again and keep watching. That's when I get a spare week. Enterprise is good as a one-off show and still a hell of a lot better than most shows on TV. I'd much rather watch it than any of this so-called "Reality" TV. If it were that real, all those people would be dead from some mosquito-borne virus. Give me a bit of semi-believable Star Trek over that any day.
Don't let the name fool you. Sure, the selection may be limited at times, but in general, this place rocks. Everything you would want to find from drill bits to keyboards to the same SEGA Channel adaptor that's been there for years. There should be one in every Canadian city if you go looking. Otherwise, try Here
Also, from what I can remember, Ribtor Surplus in Calgary is a fantastic shop. I picked up an old WWI-vintage helmet just for kicks but they have much more. More like a Princess Auto for non-auto parts and a lot of military surplus.
In general, it happens that the lower user numbers are more committed to the success of the site. However, just like anything on the 'net or in media at all, you need to take it with a grain of salt.
For example:
Parent post: insightful and relevant
Certain unnamed low-numbered users: immature trolls who just happened to stumble across something early on which later turned out to be big.
It still all depends on the person behind the number.
The windows key can be used in combination with other keys like Win-E to bring up windows explorer Win-R to use the Run command, or Win-F to bring up the find dialog. My personal favourite is Win-D to go to the desktop.
I have to agree, although I don't have a 4275, I am currently using an 8725 that I bought for about 40 bucks three years ago. Firstly, it has no extra crap like multimedia keys. It's small and light, and it keeps all the keys in the places they bloody well should be. Unfortunately, the university that I'm attending is switching over to these new IBM machines that, on the non-keyboard side, are nice to run, but on the keyboard side are the equivalent of a kick in the face with cleats This one, the 10K3849 to be specific. The home and end keys are inconveniently located at the top of the keyboard, and even though they aren't too bad in BSD (woohoo emacs) they're absolutely terrible in any sort of Win environment and I've actually caught myself openly cursing at their keyboard layouts in front of lab sections I'm supposed to be teaching. Whoever authorized the purchase of these keyboards should be fired. Whoever designed these keyboards should be fired, then shot.
However, Fujitsu does make some fantastic keyboards for the "simple, no-frills" experience, which is exactly what I'm looking for. I have to say, however, that I'm a huge convert fan of the "windows" key in any Win environment, just because it saves so many keystrokes and so much time reaching for the mouse. But that's a topic for another post altogether.
Here in Saskatoon, the buses may be as much as 10 minutes off between runs. The bus at 5:07 may be leaving at 5:05 and the one scheduled to arrive at 5:37 may not get there until a quarter to 6. I've had it happen numerous times. Luckily the one I take in the morning is relatively standard as far as time (and passengers) goes.
$30k per year with $0 direct education costs
- And the first to get the axe when it comes time to downsize. Oh well, just get another job. You're trained. Nope. Sorry. Your high school tech-training diploma isn't enough. We're looking for someone with a bit more training.
$50k pery year with $bigint direct education cost.
- And a friend of mine who's barely finished his third year of University (Engineering Physics Degree) just landed a 16-month internship for $30K/year, and there's a pretty good chance of a full-time job afterward for probably $45K+/year starting salary.
As I've said before. Go to tech school. That just leaves more jobs for the rest of us.
but some would say I'd get more out of it.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't see what you'd possibly be able to get out of a boot camp that you couldn't get out of a good university degree program. (Unless, of course, you're majoring in some sort of liberal art or computer-science derivative diploma program)
Personally, I attribute much of the tech-sector collapse to places exactly like this. I'm looking at these places where you plunk down some cash and they give you a certificate at the end saying you can run some program or another (Cough cough DeVry cough cough). Sure you can do "what" but not "why". It's the difference between "Programming" in Visual Basic or actually programming something in C++/Perl/insert real language here. You end up saying that you're a computer professional and charge way too much for what you're qualified for and eventually, when the market is saturated with overpaid, underqualified "professionals" it collapses.
Yeah I'm spending way too much money right now, too, but I'm pretty confident that when I'm done I'm not just going to be able to say "I can do this and this" but I can put on a resume "I know how this works and I can apply all the proper design theories to make sure it continues to work down the road". If you want to go off and throw some money at the "quick fix" easy way out then be my guest.
I can't resist. . . .
.tied up in a burlap sack and dragged across the Andes on a donkey.
I like my coffee like I like my women. .
Yes it's an awful joke. I just thought it was so fitting here.
Sometimes it's a difference in simple accents that changes the word quite a bit. Like with the monsteras.se domain, there's at least one word in German that varies drastically if you mess with the accents. . .i.e:
With accents: humid
Without accents: homosexual.
Or at least that's what I remember about it. Sometimes you could be getting yourself into quite a bit of trouble doing something like that.
Of course, the reason they want to kill you has nothing to do with their "tan colored skin" (and everything to do with their f*cked-up religion)
Oh, now I get it! We're supposed to be discriminating against Muslims, not just middle-eastern people! Do you even stop to consider the fact that not every Muslim is a terrorist? It's like saying that every Catholic has 47 kids and will kill a Protestant on sight (a few of them do it in Northern Ireland, that must make it true). Same for Protestants, right? Or what about the undeniable fact that every Hindu either works in a convenience store or lives on the top of a mountain? Les't not even mention the Jews. We all know what THEY're like.
Sir, you are a moron. The odds that terrorism is a factor in this tragedy are sitting at about 0.00000001% right now. They claim that some insulation fell from the shuttle when they launched. Well if my brief experience with thermodynamics is any lesson, it's that things (like space shuttles) get really hot when they have a lot of friction trying to stop their rapid movement (like when they're landing). If something did fall, then I'd be highly suspect that there was some sort of external problem with the shuttle which overheated and caused an explosion. Or maybe not. It's still a lot more likely than your "terrorism".
Pardon my French, but how the hell are London Drugs supporting the fight against the levy? I mean, I like London Drugs a lot, but the last time I bought MiniDiscs from them they more or less openly tacked on a $4 surcharge under the title "Media Levy" (plus tax). $4 on a $15 box of MiniDiscs! No place else that I've bought MDs from has done this, and it was sort of irritating. Now maybe the gov't-required levy had gone through already, but I was under the impression that it wasn't to go through until Jan 1st, 2003 (I bought them in 2002).
Too bad all my MP is good for is getting kicked out of the Canadian Alliance and wasting paper sending me chain letters about how he's calling other people racist when he himself is arguably so. Too bad that out here they would elect a handicapped monkey if it ran under the CA banner.
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of getting my computer "serviced" by the monkeys at CompuSmart. Although now I've realised what a stupid move that was (Stupid Mistake #2), I all together too well remember their "we take no responsibility for anything that may happen to your system while in the shop" clause. I mean, it was probably meant to apply to data, but they seemed to mean that they would fix what the immediate problem was, and if something else got broken, then it isn't their fault.
.work. Of course, I brought this to their attention when the chip was found to be physically burned (because of their half-assed job) and they told me that it was something I did. Right, I caused the NIC to fail by having it sit on their shop table for almost a month. I guess you could say it was my fault because I gave it to them in the first place. However I've found a shop that's very good about stuff like this, and has never given me any problems since, so there will be no Stupid Mistake #3.
I had a motherboard go because the power supply from Stupid Mistake #1 (buying from them) fried it. They were simply supposed to replace the motherboard and give it back. 3 weeks later, they got around to getting the new board in and I got the system back. The first thing I noticed, however, was that the network card didn't exactly (as we in the industry say). . .
I managed to get an old Atari ST from the local school division just because they were sick of having it around and a friend of mine picked it up. When he moved, I got it. It's quite the system, if only I had enough 720k floppies to use with it. As it happens, it's sort of sitting at my parent's house now, amongst a 286, 2 386s, a 486 that I use for a text file reader while playing old SNES games, and some assorted peripherals. Need more time to get it working, maybe figure out some way to hook it to my network.
So far it's all still a lot of waving of hands in the air and ignoring the part where "a miracle happens."
Wow. You really have taken an advanced physics class! (not being sarcastic at all) In my brief experience with quantum mechanics, that's pretty much all it is. Sure, there's math to back up most of it, but a lot is just "classical parallels".
some physicists believe they may be seeing things at the macro level that are unexplainable by Relativitly theory
Something like when you examine a classical system of a partical moving in a one-dimensional region of definite length (the 1D infinite square well), you can see that it is equally probable to find the particle at any distance from the sides. However, quantum mechanically, the particle has a definite probability of being in the centre and said probability decreases like a gaussian distribution as it approaches either boundary. However, this is only for the ground state. As you get to higher and higher energy levels, you start to notice that the QM probability begins to resemble the classical one. But I'll leave with the best quote ever, which means my sig is finally applicable:
That would imply that the teacher actually marked the assignments and/or knew how to program.
And before you act all high and mighty try learning how to spell and use punctuation, Jackass.
*Begin major rant mode*
.(and no, DeVry does not count as a school). Despite this, I had over a 94% average in the class and no idea of the fun to come with a real math class so the complaints didn't start coming until I was out of the system and she was safe from being fired again.
Okay, in the high school I went to (a few years back), there was a separate class devoted to computer science rather than taking the time away from maths and sciences. Unfortunately, the class was almost a waste of time, since many of our assignments involved typing tests and learning how to use obsolete DOS-based spreadsheet programs. The programming side of the course taught us how to use Turbo-BASIC and PASCAL, and if your program didn't look enough like the example in the book, you lost marks. I spent an hour or so working on a simple ball bouncing around the screen in Turbo-Basic where the initial angles and velocities were controlled by INPUT statements (the program was to illustrate the use of an INPUT statement) and lost marks for being too different. The jerk-offs in the corner who played Britney and the Spice Girls all day and Win-nuked everyone else copied the program out of the book and changed the variable names. They got full marks. Of course, that didn't take into account the fact that the book itself was over 15 years old. And we were making notes out of it, not for programming of course, but for things like scanners and printers. Apparently, by now we're supposed to have a computer scanner that can scan images as well as text. Oh, won't those be the days.
Personally, I just didn't do the work and sat around learning graphics applications, HTML, javascript, and generally doing whatever I felt like. When the end of the year came around, I just copied a bunch of javascripts and handed them in as project replacements. The 82% I got in the class was just a testament to how badly it was marked and run (I should have gotten much lower in a real CS class), but I learned more than everyone else in class so who's to say.
But that doesn't really compare to the actual math classes we were taking. The teacher for math was more or less incompetent and only kept her job by making the course easier and easier until the class average was something like 80%. Of course we were a small school (80-120 graduating/year), so no AP or such courses around. If you could count, you could pass that class. She was the particular teacher who said "Don't bother memorizing these trig identities. You'll never use them and I'll give you a sheet for the final with them on it." Too bad I was a slacker and actually believed her. Same with complex numbers, matrices, logarithms, and exponentials. Her idea of math was bringing in a TV and letting us watch "The Price is Right" to teach us "consumer math". Yet, somehow the parents and students loved her (and still do). Of course, maybe this is because the best that almost anyone from that school can hope to do with their lives is a commerce degree and only fail Math110 3 times. Is it a surprise that you can count the number of people from that school in the last 5 years who successfully make it into a technical field such as engineering or CS on two hands (and you need to, since you don't need to know how to "plus" things together. You have a calculator now). .
Thankfully, the Physics and Chemistry programs were well run (the chemistry teacher had a degree in chemistry) which was the only saving feature of that school (except the electronics course offered through the Industrial Arts area). Also, I've heard that the education college is starting to consider your background more and more before letting you in to fill the spots. Finally, no more english teachers trying to teach math.
The problem is that most professors want to see your *work*.
.sometimes as many as 5 times on a 1-hour test. (including other questions)
Funny, the profs in the math department here are only concerned about answers. In fact, for most of the first- and second-year classes, the tests are now multiple choice computer-marked tests. If you don't do the correct work, you get a zero. If you do all the correct work, there's still the chance of a simple mistake, and you get a zero. Often, the 10 possible answers are whole numbers from 0 to 9, and once you have your answer, you have to run it through some sort of strange equation to get a whole number out of it. Slightly odd for a multivariable calculus course, but they claim students do better with the tests like that. Probably why the class average usually hovers around 40% with no curving of marks.
Or the other option is that some profs requre you to show ALL your work. However, for the class that I took like that (Series/Diff. Eqns), ALL your work meant proving every series convergence theorem every time you wanted to use it. If you needed to use the integral test, you had to specify every condition to the test, then prove it for that particular example. . .
Oh, and no calculators allowed in any form anywhere near a math exam. The best you get is a 1-page table of integrals in second-year.
Okay, I'm a little rusty on the exact fine details about this, but there are nonetheless a few things that need to be cleaned up. (pun intended)
1. Fission is dirty. We're all familiar with this one. You get radioactive products and energy. Open and shut case.
2. Fusion can be done. We could do it all the time, and I'm talking about break-even fusion with power production. Why don't we? Because this kind of fusion is dirty. When you use Tritium as a reactant, you get radioactive products kicking around after everything is said and done.
3. Deuterium/Deuterium fusion is not "dirty". Deuterium is a non-radioactive isotope. This, however, is the kind of break-even fusion we're having a bit of trouble with. The problem here is that the energy required to get the Deuterium/Deuterium reaction going is a lot more than the comparatively simple Deuterium/Tritium one.
This is, from what I recall, more or less the problem in a nutshell. If anyone with a degree in physics who specializes in plasma physics or such would like to go into more detail, I'd be greatful.
Taken in context, that's hilarious.
All I can think of right now is Francis at the side of the panel going "Gaaaaaaayyyyyy".
Yes, but I bet you could just as easily find 4 Indians who could code circles around 500 Americans. It's all a matter of which 4 and 500 you pick. Example:
.anything. In fact, all that happened was the DSL modem needed to be reset to handle a switch to DHCP. When I fixed it, she commented "I want you to take that 'Mozolla' thing off. It's only confusing Mom and it isn't doing anything good on there." and sincerely sounded like she thought it was causing the internet problems.
I recently had to do some basic troubleshooting on a system I worked on as a summer student last summer. It was used for public internet access at a park and run by a woman in her 50's. Their internet connection was down and I was asked to get it running after her "computer-tech" daughter had attempted to solve the problem. Now I'd assume by the title that she was trained in something. . .
So if this is the quality of "IT" people that are around, then it's not surprising there'd be quite a few "programmers" of the same sort. I'm sure there are a lot of Indian programmers out there like that, but I'm also sure there are a lot of fantastically brilliant Indian programmers out there, just like there are the same calibre of programmers out here. It's all about who you hire and sometimes it might just end up that they are cheaper.