Not everyone thinks that defense or the military is in itself evil. And no ethics code enforced by any governmental board of regulators will ever say so.
Right, it doesn't cost more to cool a hot house than keep it cool. However, unless your A/C is extremely oversized or you have really good passive heat rejection (insulation, cool roof, low heat gain windows), if you don't keep it running most of the day during the hottest days, you won't get it cool by night, so you might as well leave it on.
Texas licensed Software Engineers before there was an exam for such. The only way to get licensed was to get a waiver, which required the 16 years of "creditable" experience. Now you "only" need 8 with a non-accredited degree (CS degrees are not accredited), plus the two exams.
The fact that this comes up as a question at all is the reason CS needs to follow the footsteps of engineering, medicine, and other "professions".
And become moribund as a result?
We really don't need a bunch of largely-self-appointed old guys sitting around in a committee making choices for the entire field in the form of a "code of ethics", which the rest of us will then be bound by now and forevermore. It won't make anything better and it will make a lot of things worse.
Thanks to the EPA and the power of NIMBYs, it's basically impossible to build a new refinery in the US.
Yep, the NIMBYs and BANANAs will scream "No, no, no, no dangerous pipeline, no smelly industries or farms, no ugly windmills or cell towers". Then in the next breath they'll be "Why are we importing all this food and energy? We should buy local. And why does my cell phone reception suck?" And they'll never make the connection, ever.
They're already unenforcable -- against criminals, who steal them (both wholesale and retail, sometimes even from police evidence rooms) and illegally import them.
If you're an enthusiast, they're already unenforceable in the sense they won't stop you from making one; if John Browning could build a machine gun with 19th century technology, and third world armorers can build them in primitive conditions, then someone mechanically adept with the benefit of all those past designs and 21st century tooling can build a gun, even a machine gun, without purchasing any restricted or even suspicious items. Modern ammunition is hard to make but easy to legally obtain, so the only thing stopping an enthusiast is the desire not to get caught and subject to the harsh penalties.
Frankly, getting a PE license is not difficult, provided you are not a totally shitty engineer.
Cut the bullshit. The Texas Software PE license required among other things "At least 16 years of creditable experience performing engineering work" and "References from at least nine people, five of whom must be licensed engineers." Note that "creditable" means "experience working under a professional engineer".
Fortunately, despite the IEEEs push, very few states require licensing of any sort to write or sell software. If they do, I suppose I'll be forced out of my career, which has included working on medical devices. Fuck them and I hope they all die; they're certainly trying to kill me. Also note that the ACM split with the IEEE over this very issue.
Only the New Yorker story where LeMessurier supposedly talked directly to a male engineering student directly conflicts with the others. Maybe the New Yorker made that part up for color.
That's actually an interesting engineering ethics issue: Can you, as a licensed software engineer, in good conscience release software under any license with such clauses, without totally violating your responsibilities and duties as an engineer?
Why not? As long as you explicitly note that you are NOT guaranteeing it under your engineering license, and you aren't providing it under conditions where signed-off software would be required, why would it be unethical?
Ethics -- in general, not in the sense of a legislated code of ethics -- requires I stand by any guarantees I make. It doesn't require I always make such guarantees.
Clearly, the contractor was stupid and more interested in saving money than doing it correctly.
No. They had an idea to save time and money (to use bolts instead of welds for certain braces), and they submitted it to LeMessurier's firm, which approved it after some analysis, which turned out to have been done wrong. It wasn't the contractor's fault, they didn't have the expertise to evaluate whether the change would work or not, and they properly submitted it to those who did.
There's one guy who is constantly begging on the New Jersey Transit trains in Penn Station NYC, he claims he just needs a few bucks for a ticket to get home (common scam actually, this guy is just more regular than most). Of course he's full of shit, as another guy on my car proved by offering him a ticket to where he wanted to go, and when he refused it, lit into him about how he was a pathetic loser who was making his race look bad.
Then there's the "Why Lie, I Need a Beer" guy also in Penn Station NYC. Though I think he's actually not homeless at all but a cop of some sort, he seems a bit too healthy.
And the bunches who fake some sort of deformity. They seem to have shifts worked out; maybe there's an organization who controls it. Anyway, they get in their contorted positions and hold out a cup or a sign or whatever. Then when their shift is up, they straighten up, pick up their stuff, and go.
Yes, those statistics are nonsense for these purposes. They include foreign language speakers (1st generation immigrants) as well as people who are illiterate in all languages. They're probably not fine-grained enough to separate your crackheads and tweakers from the rest of the population. And of course including black population as an input means you'll see it as an output.
It's scary how much "cowboy configuration" there is out there, and yet in the programming world, "cowboy coding" is frowned upon.
Oh yeah, it's frowned on. Every senior developer will sternly tell you that "cowboy coding" is a terrible idea, then they will saddle up their horse and ride away.
Are we ever going to get an "oopsie, so sorry" from all the environmentalists who squashed the US nuclear power industry?
No, they and their heirs are too busy trying to keep wind and solar and geothermal energy down in the US. They'd like to stop oil, gas, and coal too, but those guys seem to have bought a better quality of politician. Shivering in the dark is the way they'd like us to live, if we live at all.
At that point, we can start imposing a much higher standard of driver education and much harsher penalties, and it will be what it should be -- simple revocation of the privilege of driving -- rather than an act that can potentially be financially ruinous far out of proportion to the offense.
If revocation of a drivers license couldn't be financially ruinous far out of proportion to the offense, it wouldn't be nearly so popular among the law-n-order crwoed.
Anyway, when I see numbers like "multiple of 23.2", I know someone's playing fast and loose with the truth. Where's the buckets of blood if using a cellphone and driving is so dangerous? Personally I don't talk or text while driving, because I'm an asocial geek anyway. But I expect the main effect of the laws being pushed and passed is I'll end up spending a few nights in jail because I was using my phone as a navigation device ("a likely story") and told the cop so in rather strong language.
The crazy thing is, if we weren't spending trillions on the force projection necessary to secure our unsustainable fossil based energy infrastructure, we could easily use that wealth to build a sustainable solar/nuclear-based infrastructure - no drastic controls or raised taxes required.
And you know this... how? Anyway, nuclear is a non-starter politically, and for political reasons it is non-sustainable; we can neither reprocess waste nor store it long term. Thermal solar is a non-starter politically, as it impacts various desert habitats. PV... forget about it.
I don't believe there isn't a way to manage a peaceful transition. We went to the moon because we had the will to do it. We could do the same with our energy infrastructure.
The moon was a one-shot (well, six-shot) publicity deal. Energy infrastructure is an ongoing thing. Not really comparable.
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Not everyone thinks that defense or the military is in itself evil. And no ethics code enforced by any governmental board of regulators will ever say so.
Right, it doesn't cost more to cool a hot house than keep it cool. However, unless your A/C is extremely oversized or you have really good passive heat rejection (insulation, cool roof, low heat gain windows), if you don't keep it running most of the day during the hottest days, you won't get it cool by night, so you might as well leave it on.
Texas licensed Software Engineers before there was an exam for such. The only way to get licensed was to get a waiver, which required the 16 years of "creditable" experience. Now you "only" need 8 with a non-accredited degree (CS degrees are not accredited), plus the two exams.
Ah,the circle of life. Somehow I always thought it would be larger though.
And become moribund as a result?
We really don't need a bunch of largely-self-appointed old guys sitting around in a committee making choices for the entire field in the form of a "code of ethics", which the rest of us will then be bound by now and forevermore. It won't make anything better and it will make a lot of things worse.
I'm using "unenforceable" in the same sense that Wilson is; that anyone who cares to break the law can, and in nearly all cases won't get caught.
They should love the sociology project I suggested, then -- feeding endangered species to members of oppressed communities.
Yep, the NIMBYs and BANANAs will scream "No, no, no, no dangerous pipeline, no smelly industries or farms, no ugly windmills or cell towers". Then in the next breath they'll be "Why are we importing all this food and energy? We should buy local. And why does my cell phone reception suck?" And they'll never make the connection, ever.
They're already unenforcable -- against criminals, who steal them (both wholesale and retail, sometimes even from police evidence rooms) and illegally import them.
If you're an enthusiast, they're already unenforceable in the sense they won't stop you from making one; if John Browning could build a machine gun with 19th century technology, and third world armorers can build them in primitive conditions, then someone mechanically adept with the benefit of all those past designs and 21st century tooling can build a gun, even a machine gun, without purchasing any restricted or even suspicious items. Modern ammunition is hard to make but easy to legally obtain, so the only thing stopping an enthusiast is the desire not to get caught and subject to the harsh penalties.
Cut the bullshit. The Texas Software PE license required among other things "At least 16 years of creditable experience performing engineering work" and "References from at least nine people, five of whom must be licensed engineers." Note that "creditable" means "experience working under a professional engineer".
Fortunately, despite the IEEEs push, very few states require licensing of any sort to write or sell software. If they do, I suppose I'll be forced out of my career, which has included working on medical devices. Fuck them and I hope they all die; they're certainly trying to kill me. Also note that the ACM split with the IEEE over this very issue.
I think ATF or DEA is more likely.
Only the New Yorker story where LeMessurier supposedly talked directly to a male engineering student directly conflicts with the others. Maybe the New Yorker made that part up for color.
Why not? As long as you explicitly note that you are NOT guaranteeing it under your engineering license, and you aren't providing it under conditions where signed-off software would be required, why would it be unethical?
Ethics -- in general, not in the sense of a legislated code of ethics -- requires I stand by any guarantees I make. It doesn't require I always make such guarantees.
No. They had an idea to save time and money (to use bolts instead of welds for certain braces), and they submitted it to LeMessurier's firm, which approved it after some analysis, which turned out to have been done wrong. It wasn't the contractor's fault, they didn't have the expertise to evaluate whether the change would work or not, and they properly submitted it to those who did.
A warrant obtained from a rubber-stamp magistrate buddy of the mayor or through a falsely sworn affadavit doesn't turn a witchhunt into "rule of law".
There's one guy who is constantly begging on the New Jersey Transit trains in Penn Station NYC, he claims he just needs a few bucks for a ticket to get home (common scam actually, this guy is just more regular than most). Of course he's full of shit, as another guy on my car proved by offering him a ticket to where he wanted to go, and when he refused it, lit into him about how he was a pathetic loser who was making his race look bad.
Then there's the "Why Lie, I Need a Beer" guy also in Penn Station NYC. Though I think he's actually not homeless at all but a cop of some sort, he seems a bit too healthy.
And the bunches who fake some sort of deformity. They seem to have shifts worked out; maybe there's an organization who controls it. Anyway, they get in their contorted positions and hold out a cup or a sign or whatever. Then when their shift is up, they straighten up, pick up their stuff, and go.
If you don't like C++ (and who does?) or C, what DO you suggest as a systems programming language?
Rule 1: If it runs under a VM, it's out
Rule 2: If it requires a garbage collector, it's out.
Rule 3: COBOL and FORTRAN are out too.
Yes, those statistics are nonsense for these purposes. They include foreign language speakers (1st generation immigrants) as well as people who are illiterate in all languages. They're probably not fine-grained enough to separate your crackheads and tweakers from the rest of the population. And of course including black population as an input means you'll see it as an output.
Just set up an Omni Consumer Products division and take over Detroit.
Oh yeah, it's frowned on. Every senior developer will sternly tell you that "cowboy coding" is a terrible idea, then they will saddle up their horse and ride away.
No, they and their heirs are too busy trying to keep wind and solar and geothermal energy down in the US. They'd like to stop oil, gas, and coal too, but those guys seem to have bought a better quality of politician. Shivering in the dark is the way they'd like us to live, if we live at all.
If revocation of a drivers license couldn't be financially ruinous far out of proportion to the offense, it wouldn't be nearly so popular among the law-n-order crwoed.
But I'm a bourgeoisie materialist!
Anyway, when I see numbers like "multiple of 23.2", I know someone's playing fast and loose with the truth. Where's the buckets of blood if using a cellphone and driving is so dangerous? Personally I don't talk or text while driving, because I'm an asocial geek anyway. But I expect the main effect of the laws being pushed and passed is I'll end up spending a few nights in jail because I was using my phone as a navigation device ("a likely story") and told the cop so in rather strong language.
...a one-man shop.
And you know this... how? Anyway, nuclear is a non-starter politically, and for political reasons it is non-sustainable; we can neither reprocess waste nor store it long term. Thermal solar is a non-starter politically, as it impacts various desert habitats. PV... forget about it.
The moon was a one-shot (well, six-shot) publicity deal. Energy infrastructure is an ongoing thing. Not really comparable.