I have degrees in both civil engineering and computer science, am a licensed EIT, and work as a "Software Engineer." The vast majority of "Software Engineers" are indeed not true engineers.
Didn't we abandon the waterfall model in the 90s? There's no clear distinction between design and code any more, therefore no clear distinction between engineers and programmers.
On the contrary, the lack of distinction between design and code makes the distinction between engineers and programmers even more clear. "Making it up as you go along" is exactly the opposite of engineering!
Nuclear... will likely never reach the public support necessary to eclipse the use of fossil fuels.
I hate to break it to you, but there are entire countries (e.g. France) where this has already happened.
I don't think our solar extraction technology is quite efficient enough to cover all of our fuel needs, or we'd already be doing it.
You're wrong. First, we could power the entire world on photovoltaic solar taking up about the same amount of land area as Spain. (That might sound like a lot, but when you realize that you can use wasted area like rooftops and the sky above roads, it doesn't need to take up any new land area.)
Second, the only reason photovoltaics seem more expensive (per watt) than coal-fired turbines is that the price of the latter does not include externalities.
Adjust their salary expectations to reflect the dynamics of the marketplace.
How are they supposed to do that when they don't even get far enough along in the hiring process to express their desired salary? The HR drone already assumed they were too expensive and round-filed the application; they don't even get an interview!
You vastly overestimate how much effort it takes to learn a language, at least for somebody who already knows a similar one. As a "young programmer," I started a job at a company using mostly VB.net a few months ago. I had a decent amount of experience with Java, a tiny bit with C#, and more experience with less-related things like C and Matlab. The last time I looked at anything VB-like was VB 6 in elementary school.
You know how long it took me to start being productive in VB.net? 30 seconds, maybe less. OMG, I've got to declare variables as "dim x as whatever" instead of "whatever x;" -- whoop-de-fucking-do! Yes, I've had to look up syntax occasionally (e.g. figuring out how VB.net maps concepts like C#'s ref and out), but as a percentage of my time it's negligible.
Now, if you're asking somebody to switch from Lisp to Smalltalk or something, then yeah, there's going to be a learning curve. But if a Java programmer can't hit the ground running with C# or VB.net then they were never competent at Java either (or vice-versa).
The biggest part of starting any new programming job is not going to be learning the language, API, or any tools; it's going to be learning the company's codebase -- something which job candidate is ever going to have preexisting experience in, unless the company is rehiring somebody who worked there before!
At 40, a person should be managing a bunch of 20-somethings, not competing with them for a job.
Given that there are just as many 40-somethings (or at least, 40-somethings + 50-somethings) as there are 20-somethings, it's mathematically impossible for them all to be managers. What are the rest of them supposed to do?
For an example, are you a 40 year old programmer with pre-standard C++ experience and 14 years of Java experience, but looking for jobs requiring C# experience?
Anybody who gives a shit if somebody's experience is in Java instead of C# (or vice-versa) has no business making hiring decisions.
The "real company" I work for (which makes boring-as-shit medical billing software) is in Atlanta, and the programmers seem to be pretty evenly distributed in age from 20s to 50s. I'm sure similar companies exist in every decently-sized US city except maybe for the Bay Area and Manhattan.
"So" in reality, hospitals aren't allowed to refuse treatment and there is exactly zero chance in Hell of that policy ever changing, "so" you'd better just fucking deal with it.
Because then instead getting an abortion from a competent doctor for $X, they try to use a coat hanger, injure themselves, and get treated at an emergency room for $100x. Then they don't pay and the ER passes the costs along to everybody's insurance, including yours.
If you think that's a better outcome -- i.e., if you think paying your share of $100x instead of $x is a good idea -- then you're an utter moron (independently of your ideology).
I just re-read the entire thread, and feel I should clarify: my point was not that the US should be able to track the plane, it was that someone (i.e., whichever country handles the airspace the plane is currently flying through) should be able to, and that "but they turned their ID transmitter off mid-flight" was not a reasonable excuse for failure to do so.
Are you trying to imply that would be a problem? It would just be a list of (plane ID, geographic coordinates, velocity, altitude) tuples updated every minute or so. The records of all flights worldwide in the last 6 months could probably fit on an SD card.
If an aircraft turns off all its identification gear, how do you locate it?
At time t = 0, you have a radar blip at position x with velocity v that's broadcasting an ID. At t = 1, you have a radar blip at position x + v * t that's not broadcasting an ID. Gee, I wonder what the ID could be?
If you had made such claims about the NSA a few years ago on slashdot you would have been ridiculed and marked a troll. It would have been unbelievable to most.
(NB: I am NOT saying this justifies making unsubstantiated claims about the future though)
But where will they be in 5-10 years when they are better at hiding their activities? I am not saying I know and I am not a conspiracy theorist but to be honest whatever it is it looks pretty grim.
The only reasonable thing to do at this point is that if something is imaginable and technically possible (and not some CSI/sci-fi BS) then we should assume the NSA is already doing it.
Who says you can't strap a smartphone to your wrist? Sure, people will look at you funny, but it's not as bad as wearing Google Glass (for example). It'd be like that thing Leela wears in Futurama...
That's because motorcycles have almost universally shit MPG for no goddamned reason. (Or more precisely, because the vast majority of them are built for power and revving to OVER 9000!!! instead of fuel economy.)
If a first-generation Honda Insight from 14 years ago can get 70 MPG average (and it can, and then some), then I have no trouble believing this thing that's newer and smaller can do worse (the page cites 84 MPG highway, but only 49 MPG city)
The invisible hand has always worked way way better at improving people's standard of living than kill/steal from the rich policies ever have.
Oh yes, I agree: the economic boom in the 50s and 60s clearly had nothing to do with the fact that the highest marginal income tax rate was 90%. Clearly.
Adults are responsible for their own attitudes. Children should have their attitudes corrected if necessary, and it is their teacher's responsibility to do so (or, at least, to inform the parents of the problem). That happens way too infrequently.
Hey dumbass, he did tell you where the money is going. If you're too stupid to multiply the reciprocal of his students-per-teacher figure by teacher salary to get dollars-per-student, that's your problem.
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I have degrees in both civil engineering and computer science, am a licensed EIT, and work as a "Software Engineer." The vast majority of "Software Engineers" are indeed not true engineers.
On the contrary, the lack of distinction between design and code makes the distinction between engineers and programmers even more clear. "Making it up as you go along" is exactly the opposite of engineering!
On the contrary; it's a shortage of companies willing to provide on-the-job training and the salaries and rates necessary!
I hate to break it to you, but there are entire countries (e.g. France) where this has already happened.
You're wrong. First, we could power the entire world on photovoltaic solar taking up about the same amount of land area as Spain. (That might sound like a lot, but when you realize that you can use wasted area like rooftops and the sky above roads, it doesn't need to take up any new land area.)
Second, the only reason photovoltaics seem more expensive (per watt) than coal-fired turbines is that the price of the latter does not include externalities.
The "best" part is that there are a bunch of different ways to write that:
etc...
How are they supposed to do that when they don't even get far enough along in the hiring process to express their desired salary? The HR drone already assumed they were too expensive and round-filed the application; they don't even get an interview!
You vastly overestimate how much effort it takes to learn a language, at least for somebody who already knows a similar one. As a "young programmer," I started a job at a company using mostly VB.net a few months ago. I had a decent amount of experience with Java, a tiny bit with C#, and more experience with less-related things like C and Matlab. The last time I looked at anything VB-like was VB 6 in elementary school.
You know how long it took me to start being productive in VB.net? 30 seconds, maybe less. OMG, I've got to declare variables as "dim x as whatever" instead of "whatever x;" -- whoop-de-fucking-do! Yes, I've had to look up syntax occasionally (e.g. figuring out how VB.net maps concepts like C#'s ref and out), but as a percentage of my time it's negligible.
Now, if you're asking somebody to switch from Lisp to Smalltalk or something, then yeah, there's going to be a learning curve. But if a Java programmer can't hit the ground running with C# or VB.net then they were never competent at Java either (or vice-versa).
The biggest part of starting any new programming job is not going to be learning the language, API, or any tools; it's going to be learning the company's codebase -- something which job candidate is ever going to have preexisting experience in, unless the company is rehiring somebody who worked there before!
Given that there are just as many 40-somethings (or at least, 40-somethings + 50-somethings) as there are 20-somethings, it's mathematically impossible for them all to be managers. What are the rest of them supposed to do?
Anybody who gives a shit if somebody's experience is in Java instead of C# (or vice-versa) has no business making hiring decisions.
The "real company" I work for (which makes boring-as-shit medical billing software) is in Atlanta, and the programmers seem to be pretty evenly distributed in age from 20s to 50s. I'm sure similar companies exist in every decently-sized US city except maybe for the Bay Area and Manhattan.
"So" in reality, hospitals aren't allowed to refuse treatment and there is exactly zero chance in Hell of that policy ever changing, "so" you'd better just fucking deal with it.
Now quit being a dumbass.
Because then instead getting an abortion from a competent doctor for $X, they try to use a coat hanger, injure themselves, and get treated at an emergency room for $100x. Then they don't pay and the ER passes the costs along to everybody's insurance, including yours.
If you think that's a better outcome -- i.e., if you think paying your share of $100x instead of $x is a good idea -- then you're an utter moron (independently of your ideology).
...which means you abolish the import/export law, and nothing of value was lost!
I just re-read the entire thread, and feel I should clarify: my point was not that the US should be able to track the plane, it was that someone (i.e., whichever country handles the airspace the plane is currently flying through) should be able to, and that "but they turned their ID transmitter off mid-flight" was not a reasonable excuse for failure to do so.
If the farmers used more sustainable (organic, biodynamic, whatever) techniques it would never have become a problem in the first place!
Are you trying to imply that would be a problem? It would just be a list of (plane ID, geographic coordinates, velocity, altitude) tuples updated every minute or so. The records of all flights worldwide in the last 6 months could probably fit on an SD card.
What does the US have to do with anything? The people operating the foreign radar should have received the ID broadcast.
At time t = 0, you have a radar blip at position x with velocity v that's broadcasting an ID. At t = 1, you have a radar blip at position x + v * t that's not broadcasting an ID. Gee, I wonder what the ID could be?
The only reasonable thing to do at this point is that if something is imaginable and technically possible (and not some CSI/sci-fi BS) then we should assume the NSA is already doing it.
Who says you can't strap a smartphone to your wrist? Sure, people will look at you funny, but it's not as bad as wearing Google Glass (for example). It'd be like that thing Leela wears in Futurama...
That's because motorcycles have almost universally shit MPG for no goddamned reason. (Or more precisely, because the vast majority of them are built for power and revving to OVER 9000!!! instead of fuel economy.)
If a first-generation Honda Insight from 14 years ago can get 70 MPG average (and it can, and then some), then I have no trouble believing this thing that's newer and smaller can do worse (the page cites 84 MPG highway, but only 49 MPG city)
Oh yes, I agree: the economic boom in the 50s and 60s clearly had nothing to do with the fact that the highest marginal income tax rate was 90%. Clearly.
Adults are responsible for their own attitudes. Children should have their attitudes corrected if necessary, and it is their teacher's responsibility to do so (or, at least, to inform the parents of the problem). That happens way too infrequently.
So... what about the smart girls? Shouldn't the geeks be wanting to fuck them instead of the sexy ones?
Hey dumbass, he did tell you where the money is going. If you're too stupid to multiply the reciprocal of his students-per-teacher figure by teacher salary to get dollars-per-student, that's your problem.