I have had a similar experience. I do an hour of exercise a night (mostly riding - about 2500 kj) and lived on 4000 kj daily (yes, I worked it out) and my weight never droped below 110 kg.
I got frustrated and decided to get scientific about it. When I did the maths I was surprised that my daily base intake should be 8000 kj - about twice of what I was getting. I realised that my body was probably in starvation mode and my metabolism was very slow.
Currently, I'm working on an energy intake of about 6000-8000 kj and letting the exercise I do increase my metabolism and burn it off slowly. Consider upping your intake to 1500 calories a day and see how your metabolism reacts.
Knowledge of culture and art and most especially history is very important for a well-rounded human being - they are core skills to being a person. They are not core skills in being an engineer. My ability to critique a Minoan pot has no bearing on my ability to design a UAV.
I don't know where this idea that one requires arts to learn critical or creative thinking come from.
I believe that humanities skills are important things to teach students in high school; people need to be exposed to broad areas of interest so that they can develop a wider perspective and perhaps discover something to be passionate about.
Do not, however, confuse 'educating the person' with 'training the professional'. I did not go to university to find myself or expand my horizons. Sure, those things happened to, but that was my personal development, not something that was taught in a classroom.
I studied engineering to become an engineer. How would you feel if you studied music and were told that you had to do a module on semi-conductors to make you a better rounded person?
How many non-engineers even understand the basic principles of the technology their world is built on like, say, a microwave oven?
I'm not running anyone's business, nor do I ever intend to. I get paid to engineer - I'm good at it.
Even then, I don't need accounting qualifications to do a project cost estimate or add up receipts. While accounting is certainly not a bad thing to know, it's not so useful as to justify a whole semester of training. Certainly not, when there are other areas of technical education that could have been substituted.
And yet my company still hires an accountant, rather than making the engineers do it. Likewise, even though the engineers have studied IP law, the company still hires a patent lawyer. Why? It's because engineers are better at engineering, rather than accounting or law.
I dispute the assertion that university study in the hard sciences must include arts components. When I went to uni it was to study engineering - not history, not interperative dance, not flower arranging, but engineering. Forcing me to study something else I may not care about only burdens me with more fees for a course I may not care about.
Don't get me wrong. I do love literature and I actually care about themes; I agree that broad horizons and an appreciation of human culture is valuable to a well-rounded person. But studying the arts is a hobby for me, like music, not a core skills set.
Basic social skills are something that should be ingrained in earlier life - by the time to reach university, it's well and truly too late.
As an aside, I was infuriated when I was required to do a unit on accounting to get my engineering degree. According to the course coordinators "most engineers end up as managers" and so this justifies making/all/ engineers study it. Do they make accountants study engineering on the off chance they might work for an engineering firm? I think not.
I'm all in favour of making such courses in economics or arts available as electives to engineers and scientists, but I know I would have benefited much more by doing a course on something useful, like optimal control or filtering.
Why not just equip officers with low-velocity paint-ball guns? This has the added advantage of 'marking' the trouble-making person for easy identification after.
I dispute that - of the gamers I know, only two have a serious multiplayer fetish. Everyone else plays single player games all the way through, then dabbles in the multiplayer at our monthly lan once or twice and then never picks up the title again.
We have all been waiting for fresh multiplayer that will knock our socks off, but after four years of nothing new we've burned out on multiplayer. We've done it all before.
I can't speak for my friends, but even single player games are something of a fugue for me. Maybe we're just to old for this stuff?
I said I got the smarts, I never said anything about the humility.;)
In fact - quite the opposite. A result of being the third-born child means that I have never been listened to, even when I did have the right answer or solution, all the while being tormented by other kids for using large words. Consequently, the first two decades of my life were severely lacking in self-esteem. When I finally went to uni and started to be recognised for being intelligent, and listened to by my peers, it made a huge difference to my life. I stood up for myself, I got a boyfriend, I dressed better, I found real friends.
Having gone from thinking my brains a curse to thinking it a blessing I can safely say that pride in my intelligence and achievements is well justified and hard earned. I'll take a leap and say I expect similar stories are not uncommon in the/. crowd.
Definately the case with me. My elder brother did ok at school - 68% on his leaving, and went on to complete a nursing degree. My elder sister got a 48% on her leaving and flunked out of uni (how she even got in eludes me) - she did child care and lousy retail jobs before eventually doing a management diploma at a technical college. I'm the bright one of the three - systems engineering (mechatronics) with first class honours, about to finish my PhD in robotics. I'm not saying my siblings are dumb (hardly... well... except maybe my sister) but I was always the smart one.
Oh, a record for US astronaut spacewalks? Yawn. That Russian has 80+, you know? US triumphs are not so special as to be noteworthy compared to the superior exploits of other nations. This mind-set isn't new - I recall learning about the space race in grade school and god help you if you remembered who Yuri Gagarin was but forgot that first American guy in space, whoever he was.
Mirth aside, it's a fair call. How would the average blogger even know if he or she had a readership of any size? Presumably tools exist for counting hits, but you can hardly tell the diference between unique page hits and individual 'readers'.
-Kell
I agree. I'm a mechatronics engineer working on robotic helicopters, and I regularly program avionics software/and/ design structures/mechanisms/power systems/aerodynamics so I have experience in both software and hardware. My position is that the difference between an engineer and a technician/coder/tradeperson/craftsman is in the mathematical computations done in the execution of the task. An engineer performs calculations to validate his or her design, rather than relying on trial and error or gradual adjustment. The people I regard as software engineers typically have training in control theory, computer vision, tomography, or AI - they take sophisticated algorithms they have formulated, perform the necessary computation validation and then implement them in software. They may not make anything 'physical' but they apply the principles of prior calculation and validation to produce what is unarguably 'engineered' software. I'm sure many people who have degrees in 'software engineering' are probably doing these sorts of tasks, but I imagine they are in the minority. I think a more appropriate term is "software architect" - someone who designs software systems to a high standard with great forethought and professionalism, even if the product is not mathematically rigourous by nature.
I am more familiar with the pronoun "shi" rather than "ze", although I understand that as it is a close homophone for "she" it may be regarded as less desirable as a clearly ungendered/intersex pronoun.
If it's based on intent, then what's to stop me from downloading a whole bunch of empty torrents and claim "My intent was to download a bunch of empty torrents because I'm interested in the phenomenon"? Although you're downloading valuablecontent.something your state intent was not to watch the valuablecontent but to see the file nefariously named valuablecontent.something - this would be an easy defence for downloaders targeted this way.
If my deadman's switch doesn't receive telemetry from the handset after 1/50th of a second, it halts all rotors and scuttles the heli. Extreme? Sure - but given the alternative could be death for anyone nearby, it's sensible. It also stops anyone from trying to engage the robot without having a control console inhand (with additional killswitch).
I'm a robotics post grad student, and I often work on robotics hobby projects in my spare time (little of it that there is!). Something affordable like this would rock my world in so many ways. The biggest question I have is how accurate is a self-assembly kit in practice? If you're trying to build prototype mechanisms or moulds for metal with the parts, how tight are your tolerances going to be? That said, for me, if it came down to a new car or a desktop rapid prototyping machine, the rapid prototyping machine will win every single time.
I won't claim that things are great in the UK, justice-wise, but I suggest you look to the log in your own country's eye before being too critical of others. Many people I've spoken to cite misguided 'justice', overbearing government censorship and insane security measures as good reasons to not travel to the US, let alone emigrate there. Many of my US friends have made clear their intentions to leave the country at their next opportunity unless things turn around. I'll take omnipresent public video surveilance and lax punishment over wiretapping and enthusiastic enforcement any day.
I work in UAVs (grad student, autonomous heli) and I can tell you there are a buttload of potential uses for civillian UAVs that are actually quite acheivable with affordable systems - especially mAVs and rotorcraft. Here's a few:
Powerline maintanance (ie. autonomously filming and assessing widespread infrastructure)
Crop dusting/assessment (ie. releasing chemicals, using sensors to detect time to harvest or the prevalence of bugs)
Mining rescue (ie. fly down mineshafts looking for trapped survivors)
Mining safety (ie. fly over a rock face looking for undetonated explosives)
Dam wall maintanance (ie. fly close to a dam wall looking for cracks and defects)
Inspection of factory ceiling and tall equipment (ie. fly close to obstacles in closed spaces)
All are present or near-future capabilities (although true autonomy is still a little ways off) - and thse only the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I guarantee you that UAVs have more civil uses than are obvious. The catch, though, is that because UAVs are an unproven technology, people don't yet recognise that they're available and don't readily see the obvious applications they have because they aren't used to thinking about the capability.
Some commercial systems you can get now are the Yamaha Rmax (including a fully robotised version), Camcopter, plus more from outfits like UAVVision and Aerosonde. It's not the big contractors who are going to make revolution in UAVs - RPVs aren't a new idea and autopilots that can fly autonomously have been around for ages - it's the newer, smaller developers who can leverage niche applications with small vehicles that will make it big.
Slashdot Mirror
I got frustrated and decided to get scientific about it. When I did the maths I was surprised that my daily base intake should be 8000 kj - about twice of what I was getting. I realised that my body was probably in starvation mode and my metabolism was very slow.
Currently, I'm working on an energy intake of about 6000-8000 kj and letting the exercise I do increase my metabolism and burn it off slowly. Consider upping your intake to 1500 calories a day and see how your metabolism reacts.
I believe that humanities skills are important things to teach students in high school; people need to be exposed to broad areas of interest so that they can develop a wider perspective and perhaps discover something to be passionate about.
Do not, however, confuse 'educating the person' with 'training the professional'. I did not go to university to find myself or expand my horizons. Sure, those things happened to, but that was my personal development, not something that was taught in a classroom.
I studied engineering to become an engineer. How would you feel if you studied music and were told that you had to do a module on semi-conductors to make you a better rounded person?
How many non-engineers even understand the basic principles of the technology their world is built on like, say, a microwave oven?
I'm not running anyone's business, nor do I ever intend to. I get paid to engineer - I'm good at it. Even then, I don't need accounting qualifications to do a project cost estimate or add up receipts. While accounting is certainly not a bad thing to know, it's not so useful as to justify a whole semester of training. Certainly not, when there are other areas of technical education that could have been substituted.
And yet my company still hires an accountant, rather than making the engineers do it. Likewise, even though the engineers have studied IP law, the company still hires a patent lawyer. Why? It's because engineers are better at engineering, rather than accounting or law.
Don't get me wrong. I do love literature and I actually care about themes; I agree that broad horizons and an appreciation of human culture is valuable to a well-rounded person. But studying the arts is a hobby for me, like music, not a core skills set.
Basic social skills are something that should be ingrained in earlier life - by the time to reach university, it's well and truly too late.
As an aside, I was infuriated when I was required to do a unit on accounting to get my engineering degree. According to the course coordinators "most engineers end up as managers" and so this justifies making /all/ engineers study it. Do they make accountants study engineering on the off chance they might work for an engineering firm? I think not.
I'm all in favour of making such courses in economics or arts available as electives to engineers and scientists, but I know I would have benefited much more by doing a course on something useful, like optimal control or filtering.
Why not just equip officers with low-velocity paint-ball guns? This has the added advantage of 'marking' the trouble-making person for easy identification after.
I dispute that - of the gamers I know, only two have a serious multiplayer fetish. Everyone else plays single player games all the way through, then dabbles in the multiplayer at our monthly lan once or twice and then never picks up the title again. We have all been waiting for fresh multiplayer that will knock our socks off, but after four years of nothing new we've burned out on multiplayer. We've done it all before. I can't speak for my friends, but even single player games are something of a fugue for me. Maybe we're just to old for this stuff?
Yes, but only murdering them to take their cash. You're not actually allowed to buy their services.
We trade our elephants in Euros, you insensitive clod.
Sounds like a open-source typography terrorist organisation.
I insist we measure temperature on an absolute scale - Rankines specifically.
I said I got the smarts, I never said anything about the humility. ;)
In fact - quite the opposite. A result of being the third-born child means that I have never been listened to, even when I did have the right answer or solution, all the while being tormented by other kids for using large words. Consequently, the first two decades of my life were severely lacking in self-esteem. When I finally went to uni and started to be recognised for being intelligent, and listened to by my peers, it made a huge difference to my life. I stood up for myself, I got a boyfriend, I dressed better, I found real friends.
Having gone from thinking my brains a curse to thinking it a blessing I can safely say that pride in my intelligence and achievements is well justified and hard earned. I'll take a leap and say I expect similar stories are not uncommon in the /. crowd.
Definately the case with me. My elder brother did ok at school - 68% on his leaving, and went on to complete a nursing degree. My elder sister got a 48% on her leaving and flunked out of uni (how she even got in eludes me) - she did child care and lousy retail jobs before eventually doing a management diploma at a technical college. I'm the bright one of the three - systems engineering (mechatronics) with first class honours, about to finish my PhD in robotics. I'm not saying my siblings are dumb (hardly... well... except maybe my sister) but I was always the smart one.
-Kell
ps - captcha is "benefit"
Hell, yes! And it even had a shooting fist launcher gun thing - how's that for realism!
Oh, a record for US astronaut spacewalks? Yawn. That Russian has 80+, you know? US triumphs are not so special as to be noteworthy compared to the superior exploits of other nations. This mind-set isn't new - I recall learning about the space race in grade school and god help you if you remembered who Yuri Gagarin was but forgot that first American guy in space, whoever he was.
Mirth aside, it's a fair call. How would the average blogger even know if he or she had a readership of any size? Presumably tools exist for counting hits, but you can hardly tell the diference between unique page hits and individual 'readers'. -Kell
I agree. I'm a mechatronics engineer working on robotic helicopters, and I regularly program avionics software /and/ design structures/mechanisms/power systems/aerodynamics so I have experience in both software and hardware. My position is that the difference between an engineer and a technician/coder/tradeperson/craftsman is in the mathematical computations done in the execution of the task. An engineer performs calculations to validate his or her design, rather than relying on trial and error or gradual adjustment. The people I regard as software engineers typically have training in control theory, computer vision, tomography, or AI - they take sophisticated algorithms they have formulated, perform the necessary computation validation and then implement them in software. They may not make anything 'physical' but they apply the principles of prior calculation and validation to produce what is unarguably 'engineered' software. I'm sure many people who have degrees in 'software engineering' are probably doing these sorts of tasks, but I imagine they are in the minority. I think a more appropriate term is "software architect" - someone who designs software systems to a high standard with great forethought and professionalism, even if the product is not mathematically rigourous by nature.
I am more familiar with the pronoun "shi" rather than "ze", although I understand that as it is a close homophone for "she" it may be regarded as less desirable as a clearly ungendered/intersex pronoun.
If it's based on intent, then what's to stop me from downloading a whole bunch of empty torrents and claim "My intent was to download a bunch of empty torrents because I'm interested in the phenomenon"? Although you're downloading valuablecontent.something your state intent was not to watch the valuablecontent but to see the file nefariously named valuablecontent.something - this would be an easy defence for downloaders targeted this way.
Touche. ;)
If my deadman's switch doesn't receive telemetry from the handset after 1/50th of a second, it halts all rotors and scuttles the heli. Extreme? Sure - but given the alternative could be death for anyone nearby, it's sensible. It also stops anyone from trying to engage the robot without having a control console inhand (with additional killswitch).
I'm a robotics post grad student, and I often work on robotics hobby projects in my spare time (little of it that there is!). Something affordable like this would rock my world in so many ways. The biggest question I have is how accurate is a self-assembly kit in practice? If you're trying to build prototype mechanisms or moulds for metal with the parts, how tight are your tolerances going to be? That said, for me, if it came down to a new car or a desktop rapid prototyping machine, the rapid prototyping machine will win every single time.
It's life Jim, but not as we know it.
I won't claim that things are great in the UK, justice-wise, but I suggest you look to the log in your own country's eye before being too critical of others. Many people I've spoken to cite misguided 'justice', overbearing government censorship and insane security measures as good reasons to not travel to the US, let alone emigrate there. Many of my US friends have made clear their intentions to leave the country at their next opportunity unless things turn around. I'll take omnipresent public video surveilance and lax punishment over wiretapping and enthusiastic enforcement any day.
I work in UAVs (grad student, autonomous heli) and I can tell you there are a buttload of potential uses for civillian UAVs that are actually quite acheivable with affordable systems - especially mAVs and rotorcraft. Here's a few: Powerline maintanance (ie. autonomously filming and assessing widespread infrastructure) Crop dusting/assessment (ie. releasing chemicals, using sensors to detect time to harvest or the prevalence of bugs) Mining rescue (ie. fly down mineshafts looking for trapped survivors) Mining safety (ie. fly over a rock face looking for undetonated explosives) Dam wall maintanance (ie. fly close to a dam wall looking for cracks and defects) Inspection of factory ceiling and tall equipment (ie. fly close to obstacles in closed spaces) All are present or near-future capabilities (although true autonomy is still a little ways off) - and thse only the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I guarantee you that UAVs have more civil uses than are obvious. The catch, though, is that because UAVs are an unproven technology, people don't yet recognise that they're available and don't readily see the obvious applications they have because they aren't used to thinking about the capability. Some commercial systems you can get now are the Yamaha Rmax (including a fully robotised version), Camcopter, plus more from outfits like UAVVision and Aerosonde. It's not the big contractors who are going to make revolution in UAVs - RPVs aren't a new idea and autopilots that can fly autonomously have been around for ages - it's the newer, smaller developers who can leverage niche applications with small vehicles that will make it big.