1) That branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.
2) The action of working artfully to bring something about.
3) Work done by an engineer.
Those of us who do software work create structure; we (if we do hardware as well, create and) use and empower machines; we work artfully to bring the desired outcome about; we are therefore, in every sense of the word, doing engineering, and we are engineers. Many are artists as well, in the domain of the very same pursuits.
As far as a license goes, that's in no way a guarantee of competence (any more than a college degree is), nor is the presumptive ability to sue a worthy indirect guarantee. All you have to look at to understand that is take a look at the incredibly incompetent RF systems put in place at a very large number of radio stations by the system designers, and further, at the incredibly incompetent rules and regulations the engineers at the FCC have put in place both to specify the requirements, and to validate the results of said designs. Oh, and WRT RFI as well. (The idiots at the FCC decided that high speed networking over power lines (BPL) was a reasonable idea. In the realm of undertakings that clearly show government licensed engineers up as complete buffoons, that is surely in the running for number one.)
It is perfectly valid to say that professional software types aren't "licensed engineers." But that in no way is the same thing as saying that software engineers aren't engineers at all. Or that they aren't professionals. They are quite often both. And within that context, there are good ones, bad ones, terrific ones, utterly incompetent ones - but still engineers, doing engineering.
from the complacent masses to the corporate shills and everyone in between, including the actors, the writers, the media manufacturers, the game console and television makers, the people who designed HDCP, the people who make sure that I get to suffer through the threats before every film i PAID for, while the actual people who are copying the stuff quite happily remove same... the list is quite well populated.
I benefit directly from media sales, as I own a very successful business in the publishing industry, and I am 100% totally against "copy-protection" of all kinds. But like politics, the masses just won't stand up for themselves, they don't even understand why they should... and so this is what we all end up with. Shite.
Unlike ethernet, which is pretty much standard from platform to platform and basically trivial to support, USB code is completely different between linux, OS X, and Windows, and is a mess, API-wise.
I write software defined radio stuff, and after one incredible nightmare getting a USB SDR to work on all three platforms using conditional compilation (I did succeed), I swore off. No more. If it doesn't have an ethernet interface, or a USB-to-ethernet server app compatible with the standard SDR protocols that makes it appear to me as an ethernet SDR, it's not happening.
Luckily, some of the best SDR manufacturers out there have done it right. Andrus, AFDRI, and RFSPACE. And there are some servers that have been built to hide the abortion of USB, but so far they are very much platform-specific, for the very reason I described above.
Part of it is simply a matter of dongle-count. Yes, ethernet is absolutely needed; yes, the connector should be right there, physically secure. No, USB dongles to provide ethernet won't ever be on my list of things I'm excited to do.
It would be better - a lot better - if there was actual, reliable ethernet hardware on there, and I'd be more than happy to pay a few bucks for it.
The ethernet on the other PI's is not particularly reliable, and that, in my case, is the downfall of the whole enterprise. I have four pis. They all drop their ethernet connections from time to time. It's beyond annoying.
I think most kids of recent generations are being cheated.
I got to play with Lincoln logs, all right, but I also got to play with several different Gilbert chemistry sets, including their largest, and including an "inherited" Gilbert U238 atomic energy kit which my dad bought for my older sister in late 1950. I still have (what remains of) it. Nothing like that is available now, and has not been for some time.
I built the digi-comp mechanical computer (and later built my first one out of TTL, definitely due to the influence of that digi-comp. I can still remember a great deal about the 74181 ALU.:) We built quite a number of Heathkits. I still have some of them. My Heathkit transistor tester is still something I use -- it is quick, easy, and usually tells me what I need to know in one step; it often saves me from having to go through a full curve-tracing undertaking. He got all three of us microscopes, a decent (for the day) telescope, taught us how to build cameras, scoop ponds for paramecia and the like, and took us on multiple rock-hunting and nature trips. We went spelunking, picked mushrooms, learned how to identify some geological formations and quite a few plants. The games my sibs and I played with each other and with our parents were poker, go, chess, mahjong, and scrabble. When other kids were screwing around all summer, he enrolled me in an NRI electronics course so I was occupied with something fun that had a little more focus to it. I'd row out to the middle of the river (the Delaware), drop the anchor, and lay back and read for hours out there, taking the occasional jump in the water to cool off. He would quiz me in the evenings. We got music lessons, martial arts lessons, and dance lessons. We listened to, and discussed in depth, every musical genre they could think to present to us. Including comedy. I still worship at the altar of Tom Lehrer to this very day, one of the funniest and definitely one of the smartest comedians to ever play to an audience. Talented otherwise, too.
Most kids now seem to grow up sitting in front of the television, not exactly focused on educational programs, either. Later they graduate to game consoles and smartphones. They think comedy is encompassed by asshole "shock jocks" and the like. They don't even know how to make conversation with each other - in a restaurant, what I typically see is a table full of kids, all with their heads buried in their smartphones, rarely even speaking to one another. I guess they're happy, but I look at them and I see failure in progress.
IMHO, the best thing about recent years in this sense is the easy and inexpensive availability of computers of significant power. Including smartphones, though most don't seem to actually realize what they are holding in their hands. In my community, at least, there aren't very many parents seeing to it that the actual standalone small computers are in the hands of their kids. Deb and I bought full Raspberry Pi setups for all the grandkids for them to experiment with (and it's been loads of fun teaching them how to write assembly language and Python), but according to them, none of their friends are familiar with the pi at all.
But hey, football sure is popular around here...:/
Wires, according to TFS. Not much of a circuit, really...
But it's a start. Perhaps they'll also figure out resistors, capacitors and semiconductors. Along with a way for them to self-assemble in such a way as to be able to do something of an intentionally designed nature.
Interesting to see such research going on. I wonder what the eventual consequences might be if they can go further. Rare plants that report to "central" if you try to uproot or poison them? Vegetation that sends out an analysis of the digestive conditions of those that eat them? Weeds that are weather stations? Surveillance built into the trees on a nicely shaded street? Organic LED displays from the garden? Soft, programmable illumination from the tree over your picnic table?
Okay, perhaps I just need more coffee. Not supposed to be dreaming after I wake up.:)
I quit high school in tenth grade - in October - and passed the GED the next day. Easily. It was barely a test at all. This was in the 1970's though... no idea if the current GED is similar. But at least in "my day" (cough) the GED wasn't much of a barrier if you could rub two brain cells together to light an idea.
Yes, they show up alive and doing quite well. They pack them in plastic bags, some of which have black light-shields for the species that are prone to shock from sudden changes in light intensity, all inside said thermal envelope (a Styrofoam cooler, essentially.) They put a heating or cooling chemical packet in there with them, depending on the season, and then ship them overnight by FedEx or UPS. I unpack them immediately upon receipt, gradually acclimate them to the water and temperature they'll be living in, then pop them in the tanks. They have always survived, except when something else in there decides they'd make a good meal, or the corals get into a chemical war, which can be pretty severe and requires re-homing one of the species so engaged.
Where I live (rural Montana), this is about the only practical way to build and maintain a saltwater aquarium. I don't mind. The selection online for live rock, plants, corals, fish and invertebrates -- and gear -- is better than one could ever hope for in a storefront operation. It's a little dear, cost-wise, but I'm old and have a few bucks I can apply to my interests. My oldest tank has been running for about a decade; my most recent, an unusual configuration with a custom sump system I designed located well above the tank, about six months.
Yep. Although I have to say, I really enjoy working with the domain 0.0-1.0; there are so many neat tricks that can be pulled. You can do them in integer too, but there is hoop-jumping involved.
I have my SSDs shipped without a thermal envelope. I just give them time to warm up in the winter before I try to install them or expose them to humidity.
Mods, PS: That was an attempt at humor. I actually do know what a thermal envelope is.:)
PPS: Although I do have my salt water fish shipped to me in thermal envelopes. Otherwise, UPS either overheats them or chills them, and they really don't do well with that.
PPPS: Sometimes I wear a thermal envelope to bed. In winter. Montana, y'see.
I was under the (admittedly vague) impression that was true only if the thread was using floating point.
CPUs that offer more cores and/or threads than they do FPUs is one of the reasons I write a lot of my multi-threaded stuff (image and baseband RF processing) utilizing appropriately scaled integer math.
I have 8 cores with 8 FPUs on my desk, but many of my users are stuck with some of the wheezier I5 variants.
Slashdot Mirror
Engineering is a verb. A thing which engineers do. That's why I wrote that. Not in order to impose a circular definition.
You need to spend some time with a dictionary.
Engineering is:
1) That branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.
2) The action of working artfully to bring something about.
3) Work done by an engineer.
Those of us who do software work create structure; we (if we do hardware as well, create and) use and empower machines; we work artfully to bring the desired outcome about; we are therefore, in every sense of the word, doing engineering, and we are engineers. Many are artists as well, in the domain of the very same pursuits.
As far as a license goes, that's in no way a guarantee of competence (any more than a college degree is), nor is the presumptive ability to sue a worthy indirect guarantee. All you have to look at to understand that is take a look at the incredibly incompetent RF systems put in place at a very large number of radio stations by the system designers, and further, at the incredibly incompetent rules and regulations the engineers at the FCC have put in place both to specify the requirements, and to validate the results of said designs. Oh, and WRT RFI as well. (The idiots at the FCC decided that high speed networking over power lines (BPL) was a reasonable idea. In the realm of undertakings that clearly show government licensed engineers up as complete buffoons, that is surely in the running for number one.)
It is perfectly valid to say that professional software types aren't "licensed engineers." But that in no way is the same thing as saying that software engineers aren't engineers at all. Or that they aren't professionals. They are quite often both. And within that context, there are good ones, bad ones, terrific ones, utterly incompetent ones - but still engineers, doing engineering.
will not = can not?
Apple orphaned a large swatch of macbook pros; 10.6.8 is the last build that will install on them.
I own one.
.
Oh, no. I blame everyone involved.
from the complacent masses to the corporate shills and everyone in between, including the actors, the writers, the media manufacturers, the game console and television makers, the people who designed HDCP, the people who make sure that I get to suffer through the threats before every film i PAID for, while the actual people who are copying the stuff quite happily remove same... the list is quite well populated.
I benefit directly from media sales, as I own a very successful business in the publishing industry, and I am 100% totally against "copy-protection" of all kinds. But like politics, the masses just won't stand up for themselves, they don't even understand why they should... and so this is what we all end up with. Shite.
Unlike ethernet, which is pretty much standard from platform to platform and basically trivial to support, USB code is completely different between linux, OS X, and Windows, and is a mess, API-wise.
I write software defined radio stuff, and after one incredible nightmare getting a USB SDR to work on all three platforms using conditional compilation (I did succeed), I swore off. No more. If it doesn't have an ethernet interface, or a USB-to-ethernet server app compatible with the standard SDR protocols that makes it appear to me as an ethernet SDR, it's not happening.
Luckily, some of the best SDR manufacturers out there have done it right. Andrus, AFDRI, and RFSPACE. And there are some servers that have been built to hide the abortion of USB, but so far they are very much platform-specific, for the very reason I described above.
USB. Ugh.
Part of it is simply a matter of dongle-count. Yes, ethernet is absolutely needed; yes, the connector should be right there, physically secure. No, USB dongles to provide ethernet won't ever be on my list of things I'm excited to do.
It would be better - a lot better - if there was actual, reliable ethernet hardware on there, and I'd be more than happy to pay a few bucks for it.
The ethernet on the other PI's is not particularly reliable, and that, in my case, is the downfall of the whole enterprise. I have four pis. They all drop their ethernet connections from time to time. It's beyond annoying.
You're kind of hilarious, really.
But carry on.
Underrated. No Ethernet, no buy.
I think most kids of recent generations are being cheated.
I got to play with Lincoln logs, all right, but I also got to play with several different Gilbert chemistry sets, including their largest, and including an "inherited" Gilbert U238 atomic energy kit which my dad bought for my older sister in late 1950. I still have (what remains of) it. Nothing like that is available now, and has not been for some time.
I built the digi-comp mechanical computer (and later built my first one out of TTL, definitely due to the influence of that digi-comp. I can still remember a great deal about the 74181 ALU. :) We built quite a number of Heathkits. I still have some of them. My Heathkit transistor tester is still something I use -- it is quick, easy, and usually tells me what I need to know in one step; it often saves me from having to go through a full curve-tracing undertaking. He got all three of us microscopes, a decent (for the day) telescope, taught us how to build cameras, scoop ponds for paramecia and the like, and took us on multiple rock-hunting and nature trips. We went spelunking, picked mushrooms, learned how to identify some geological formations and quite a few plants. The games my sibs and I played with each other and with our parents were poker, go, chess, mahjong, and scrabble. When other kids were screwing around all summer, he enrolled me in an NRI electronics course so I was occupied with something fun that had a little more focus to it. I'd row out to the middle of the river (the Delaware), drop the anchor, and lay back and read for hours out there, taking the occasional jump in the water to cool off. He would quiz me in the evenings. We got music lessons, martial arts lessons, and dance lessons. We listened to, and discussed in depth, every musical genre they could think to present to us. Including comedy. I still worship at the altar of Tom Lehrer to this very day, one of the funniest and definitely one of the smartest comedians to ever play to an audience. Talented otherwise, too.
Most kids now seem to grow up sitting in front of the television, not exactly focused on educational programs, either. Later they graduate to game consoles and smartphones. They think comedy is encompassed by asshole "shock jocks" and the like. They don't even know how to make conversation with each other - in a restaurant, what I typically see is a table full of kids, all with their heads buried in their smartphones, rarely even speaking to one another. I guess they're happy, but I look at them and I see failure in progress.
IMHO, the best thing about recent years in this sense is the easy and inexpensive availability of computers of significant power. Including smartphones, though most don't seem to actually realize what they are holding in their hands. In my community, at least, there aren't very many parents seeing to it that the actual standalone small computers are in the hands of their kids. Deb and I bought full Raspberry Pi setups for all the grandkids for them to experiment with (and it's been loads of fun teaching them how to write assembly language and Python), but according to them, none of their friends are familiar with the pi at all.
But hey, football sure is popular around here... :/
Poster is not hearing you. Because you can't get his reader to say d3^1!_w0r$h/p3r.
Ouch. :)
But just think of the buzz you could get!
I want Furies*. Because that would really sting.
* Keith Roberts "The Furies"
Wires, according to TFS. Not much of a circuit, really...
But it's a start. Perhaps they'll also figure out resistors, capacitors and semiconductors. Along with a way for them to self-assemble in such a way as to be able to do something of an intentionally designed nature.
Interesting to see such research going on. I wonder what the eventual consequences might be if they can go further. Rare plants that report to "central" if you try to uproot or poison them? Vegetation that sends out an analysis of the digestive conditions of those that eat them? Weeds that are weather stations? Surveillance built into the trees on a nicely shaded street? Organic LED displays from the garden? Soft, programmable illumination from the tree over your picnic table?
Okay, perhaps I just need more coffee. Not supposed to be dreaming after I wake up. :)
I quit high school in tenth grade - in October - and passed the GED the next day. Easily. It was barely a test at all. This was in the 1970's though... no idea if the current GED is similar. But at least in "my day" (cough) the GED wasn't much of a barrier if you could rub two brain cells together to light an idea.
Well said.
I meant exactly what I said, just the way I said it. You are free to disagree, of course.
Only when it's wrong, you see. Doesn't mean you still aren't entitled to it.
I've averaged far more than a hundred lines a day, I guarantee you that, pal. :)
Yes, they show up alive and doing quite well. They pack them in plastic bags, some of which have black light-shields for the species that are prone to shock from sudden changes in light intensity, all inside said thermal envelope (a Styrofoam cooler, essentially.) They put a heating or cooling chemical packet in there with them, depending on the season, and then ship them overnight by FedEx or UPS. I unpack them immediately upon receipt, gradually acclimate them to the water and temperature they'll be living in, then pop them in the tanks. They have always survived, except when something else in there decides they'd make a good meal, or the corals get into a chemical war, which can be pretty severe and requires re-homing one of the species so engaged.
Where I live (rural Montana), this is about the only practical way to build and maintain a saltwater aquarium. I don't mind. The selection online for live rock, plants, corals, fish and invertebrates -- and gear -- is better than one could ever hope for in a storefront operation. It's a little dear, cost-wise, but I'm old and have a few bucks I can apply to my interests. My oldest tank has been running for about a decade; my most recent, an unusual configuration with a custom sump system I designed located well above the tank, about six months.
I generally buy them from liveaquaria.com. For my aquariums, not for my dinner. :)
Yep. Although I have to say, I really enjoy working with the domain 0.0-1.0; there are so many neat tricks that can be pulled. You can do them in integer too, but there is hoop-jumping involved.
I have my SSDs shipped without a thermal envelope. I just give them time to warm up in the winter before I try to install them or expose them to humidity.
Mods, PS: That was an attempt at humor. I actually do know what a thermal envelope is. :)
PPS: Although I do have my salt water fish shipped to me in thermal envelopes. Otherwise, UPS either overheats them or chills them, and they really don't do well with that.
PPPS: Sometimes I wear a thermal envelope to bed. In winter. Montana, y'see.
PPPPS: Flannel is awesome. :)
It's not that straight-forward. Depends on how much time the threads spend in the cache, and how much time they spend waiting on the FPU.
I was under the (admittedly vague) impression that was true only if the thread was using floating point.
CPUs that offer more cores and/or threads than they do FPUs is one of the reasons I write a lot of my multi-threaded stuff (image and baseband RF processing) utilizing appropriately scaled integer math.
I have 8 cores with 8 FPUs on my desk, but many of my users are stuck with some of the wheezier I5 variants.