Actually there is stil an immense use for Excel in data processing. As a mathematician, I find Excel excellent for very-short-term data analysis projects. If you need to put the data in a database... you can always dump the whole spreadsheet.
Excel generates graphs very quickly, has quite a powerful set of numerical analysis functions and just works.
Databases aren't the answer when you want fast results.
Is that right? I remember as a junior I had to find the instruction set for an obsolete signal generator. The only source was from an English electronics company.
Maybe your popular penile electronics euphemism (P-PEE) may be serviced here?
All my reports are readable by Windows machines (you may have heard of PDF files).
As for.doc: bad idea. Professionally, anyway. I've worked in a few places that don't allow documents to be sent as Windows.doc files because of the possibility clients can turn tracking on and see previous changes including possibly sensitive data that has been "deleted". It's a good practice that students should follow too.
Where I'm studying mathematics, we write our postgrad reports, essays, assignments in LaTeX.
Word is inefficient for what I need to do. I reckon more university students should learnify it. Bibliographies, indices, TOCs... what more does one need?;-)
I admit it hasn't got the easiest learning curve, but if you're at a postgraduate level, I assume you've got some brains:D (though I somehow slipped in).
It appears that you've never worked with people....
Never underestimate the stupidity of humans. Never. Wasn't there a recent story about people not knowing how to switch the phones off properly and running up huge bills on Global Roaming?
There is nothing idiot-proof. They may as well chop down the number of degrees of freedom (stupidity?) while they're still sane.
How rare. I use ABBA's Dancing Queen* on my cellphone as an alarm to wake me up in the morning.
So am I broadcasting it if I'm sharing the bed with other people?
* = It takes me back to a time at uni. A friend, on his 19th birthday, got horribly drunk and couldn't walk home so I carried him on my back all the way up a hill. The whole time he was singing Dancing Queen while trying not to vomit down the back of my neck. I guess he got the tune stuck in my head. (9 years later?)
companies need that stability to run. I went for a job interview in Oz for a company that processes sugar cane (CRS). When they're crushing the cane to get the sugary goodness out of it, they're running several plants 24/7 for several months. Furthermore these plants are spread over about 1000 km as the crow flies (indeed they use a plane to get between plants in emergencies). In their quest for stability, they use C and Fortran ("What?" I hear some of you young critters say) on VAX to run their automated weighing machines.
No fancy.Net or even [relatively-mature] VB6 for them (the guy who interviewed me had a severe dislike for Microsoft - they tried them and got burned once). They wanted something that worked like a piston and never stopped.
Good on Qantas. Their in-flight meals aren't too bad either (I flew over from New Zealand - the country that sells Dells in shops).
Ah you beat me to it... I was about to post the same thing.
Not only that but The Warehouse also sells Alienware laptops at their Stationery stores (not stationary before some smartarse makes a joke). I haven't paid too much attention to the specs but they're selling them at fairly reasonable prices.
I was quite amazed and impressed. Normally they sell junk... ermmm and Dell isn't? (self-correction algorithm kicking in... must... hit... submit)
I also love Kubuntu and use it on all my machines at home... However I develop for Windows at work. Developing application in Windows can be as easy as VB. As far as I have seen there is nothing on this (OSS) side of the fence that comes close to it for ease of use, with (reasonably) good debugging. From there it's a skip and a jump into C# and beyond.
As a (bad) example of how far UIs have to go, I use Visual Studio 2005 at work and I use Matlab for my postgrad work. Both professional, closed-source products. The Matlab debugging facilities pale in comparison to Visual Studio's power. Makes life so much easier. I find Matlab a bit archaic, but KOctave seems even worse. I guess Matlab only has to do better than Octave on Linux systems.
Of course my argument is omitting things like Eclipse... but I have only used it a few times and found it too slow (slower than VS.Net!!) and user unfriendly.
Engineers aren't infallible. I work with a bunch of them and one in particular was, I'm sure, put on this earth to test my patience. She doesn't build tunnels... she makes me want to go live in an abandoned one.
Ah I wish I had mod points. That's rather funny!:P
My 2c... I'm finding that MySQL stored procedures are going to help me with the increasing complexity of some queries I'm creating. I have arrive in a poorly-designed MYSQL-based project late in the piece... they've chosen a hierarchical DB structure which MySQL doesn't support all that well (cf DB2, Oracle). Turns out the reports they want don't match the data structure at all giving me the chance to execute approximately 10 kilobytes worth of queries just to create one table of about eight. That seems a bit silly. Looking at the query itself... it seems pretty obvious that there has been a balls-up. Alas the original DBA has flown the coop and the manager doesn't want to make my life any easier (much less the life of the schmuck who picks up support of my work when my contract finishes.
I need to find out more about PostgreSQL. But also looking at small databsaes for some telemetry work that I'm doing for a private project counting hedgehogs. (May do the K.I.S.S. and use grep as an earlier poster suggested)
Nice map, as a Kiwi, I'm proud to be a Firefox user. I think it helps that a couple of Firefox developers were Kiwis too. Since then they've been snapped up by Google and are living the high life. New Zealand has a thriving technology sector and I think that has lead to New Zealanders being open to change more than most. While we're a dumping ground for old cellphones, we also trial a lot of cool stuff, like IP-based phone systems (courtesy of our Telecom and Alcatel). We've provided radio systems for the Soccer world cup (the last one and the next one), we are the source of high tech companies like Navman and Tait Electronics... and we even have the Macdiarmid institute that does some great research into nanotechnology.
Back ontopic... I recommend Firefox to anyone. My family all love the tabs especially when using the country's most favourite website TradeMe. However, I recently converted to Konqueror after acquiring an old, low spec iBook. Firefox is way too slow. I'm even considering ditching Thunderbird after a long devotion.
Precisely. My mother is using a Linux box that I set up for her to check her e-mail and read the news online each day.
She boots up, logs on, clicks KPPP (cunningly renamed to "Internet"), then Firefox (cunningly renamed to "News"). Then she shuts down by right-clicking and selecting "Turn off computer".
Simple. And cheaper than a Windows license without the virus risks etc etc (I refer you to Apple's latest ad campaign...)
Yeah, that's a bit of an international thing. We get that here in New Zealand with the little punk-ass kids.
I feel like I'm stuck in the middle... I'm a bicyclist and 100 kg travelling at about 35-40 km/hr through town (I'll let the physicists work out my potential damage factor). However, I'm virtually invisible to BOTH pedestrians and vehicles. Rush hour is the worst. I get people stepping out from the kerb, dickheads cutting me off to double park to pick up their loved ones (funnily enough courier drivers actually aren't as bad as I thought they'd be).
I'd quite like to install a baseball bat holster on my bike.
Slashdot Mirror
My classic iPod works just fine. Reason: Amarok. Far superior to iTunes.
(You insensitive clod)
Mabe the gy iz tesd anlist? ;-)
No Code Required (tm)
Actually there is stil an immense use for Excel in data processing. As a mathematician, I find Excel excellent for very-short-term data analysis projects. If you need to put the data in a database... you can always dump the whole spreadsheet.
Excel generates graphs very quickly, has quite a powerful set of numerical analysis functions and just works.
Databases aren't the answer when you want fast results.
I was reading about his Tardis MAME thing: ... and I soon had Win2k back on the box."
;-)
"Anyway, Linux didn't last long
Maybe a few opinions of his supergeekdom will change based on that line alone!
PS New Zealand is the greatest country in the world.
Is that right? I remember as a junior I had to find the instruction set for an obsolete signal generator. The only source was from an English electronics company.
Maybe your popular penile electronics euphemism (P-PEE) may be serviced here?
Slashdot covered a very similar predicament a while ago:
Clicketh
Given the timestampdiff between the two it looks like it is taking people a while to wake up to the reality of Microsoft licencing.
All my reports are readable by Windows machines (you may have heard of PDF files).
.doc: bad idea. Professionally, anyway. I've worked in a few places that don't allow documents to be sent as Windows .doc files because of the possibility clients can turn tracking on and see previous changes including possibly sensitive data that has been "deleted". It's a good practice that students should follow too.
As for
Where I'm studying mathematics, we write our postgrad reports, essays, assignments in LaTeX.
;-)
:D (though I somehow slipped in).
Word is inefficient for what I need to do. I reckon more university students should learnify it. Bibliographies, indices, TOCs... what more does one need?
I admit it hasn't got the easiest learning curve, but if you're at a postgraduate level, I assume you've got some brains
It appears that you've never worked with people....
Never underestimate the stupidity of humans. Never. Wasn't there a recent story about people not knowing how to switch the phones off properly and running up huge bills on Global Roaming?
There is nothing idiot-proof. They may as well chop down the number of degrees of freedom (stupidity?) while they're still sane.
How rare. I use ABBA's Dancing Queen* on my cellphone as an alarm to wake me up in the morning.
So am I broadcasting it if I'm sharing the bed with other people?
* = It takes me back to a time at uni. A friend, on his 19th birthday, got horribly drunk and couldn't walk home so I carried him on my back all the way up a hill. The whole time he was singing Dancing Queen while trying not to vomit down the back of my neck. I guess he got the tune stuck in my head. (9 years later?)
Grandparent deserves either:
-1 Whoosh
or
-1 Stupid
It was a citation goddammit.
Yeah, it's getting close to things like "wlog".
PS I love mathematics!
PPS ROFL, LMAO, LOL, ROTFPMSL & U (for "you") are my most disliked acronyms
Try POSIX instead...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POSIX
That's perhaps a more accurate reference (though not sure why Microsoft Windows operating systems are listed on there!).
There was only one logic class at my university. I assume you're either a lecturer or a persistent failure :P
For what it's worth, I'm staying with my trusty 56k connection. It rocks my socks.
The Americans invented the secret Reagan a long time ago.
BZZZT F-tang F-tang
It appears the moderators are a bit young for Austin Powers and Dougie... hmmm how long ago was it now? *reaches over to his DVD collection*
Mag-ma!
I am quite surprised that this article wasn't taged "frickin lasers" or "sharks".
Agreed x2.
.Net or even [relatively-mature] VB6 for them (the guy who interviewed me had a severe dislike for Microsoft - they tried them and got burned once). They wanted something that worked like a piston and never stopped.
companies need that stability to run. I went for a job interview in Oz for a company that processes sugar cane (CRS). When they're crushing the cane to get the sugary goodness out of it, they're running several plants 24/7 for several months. Furthermore these plants are spread over about 1000 km as the crow flies (indeed they use a plane to get between plants in emergencies). In their quest for stability, they use C and Fortran ("What?" I hear some of you young critters say) on VAX to run their automated weighing machines.
No fancy
Good on Qantas. Their in-flight meals aren't too bad either (I flew over from New Zealand - the country that sells Dells in shops).
Ah you beat me to it... I was about to post the same thing.
Not only that but The Warehouse also sells Alienware laptops at their Stationery stores (not stationary before some smartarse makes a joke). I haven't paid too much attention to the specs but they're selling them at fairly reasonable prices.
I was quite amazed and impressed. Normally they sell junk... ermmm and Dell isn't? (self-correction algorithm kicking in... must... hit... submit)
I also love Kubuntu and use it on all my machines at home... However I develop for Windows at work. Developing application in Windows can be as easy as VB. As far as I have seen there is nothing on this (OSS) side of the fence that comes close to it for ease of use, with (reasonably) good debugging. From there it's a skip and a jump into C# and beyond.
As a (bad) example of how far UIs have to go, I use Visual Studio 2005 at work and I use Matlab for my postgrad work. Both professional, closed-source products. The Matlab debugging facilities pale in comparison to Visual Studio's power. Makes life so much easier. I find Matlab a bit archaic, but KOctave seems even worse. I guess Matlab only has to do better than Octave on Linux systems.
Of course my argument is omitting things like Eclipse... but I have only used it a few times and found it too slow (slower than VS.Net!!) and user unfriendly.
He's a subscriber to the dead scroll no-sees.
Engineers aren't infallible. I work with a bunch of them and one in particular was, I'm sure, put on this earth to test my patience. She doesn't build tunnels... she makes me want to go live in an abandoned one.
Ah I wish I had mod points. That's rather funny! :P
My 2c... I'm finding that MySQL stored procedures are going to help me with the increasing complexity of some queries I'm creating. I have arrive in a poorly-designed MYSQL-based project late in the piece... they've chosen a hierarchical DB structure which MySQL doesn't support all that well (cf DB2, Oracle). Turns out the reports they want don't match the data structure at all giving me the chance to execute approximately 10 kilobytes worth of queries just to create one table of about eight. That seems a bit silly. Looking at the query itself... it seems pretty obvious that there has been a balls-up. Alas the original DBA has flown the coop and the manager doesn't want to make my life any easier (much less the life of the schmuck who picks up support of my work when my contract finishes.
I need to find out more about PostgreSQL. But also looking at small databsaes for some telemetry work that I'm doing for a private project counting hedgehogs. (May do the K.I.S.S. and use grep as an earlier poster suggested)
Nice map, as a Kiwi, I'm proud to be a Firefox user. I think it helps that a couple of Firefox developers were Kiwis too. Since then they've been snapped up by Google and are living the high life. New Zealand has a thriving technology sector and I think that has lead to New Zealanders being open to change more than most. While we're a dumping ground for old cellphones, we also trial a lot of cool stuff, like IP-based phone systems (courtesy of our Telecom and Alcatel). We've provided radio systems for the Soccer world cup (the last one and the next one), we are the source of high tech companies like Navman and Tait Electronics... and we even have the Macdiarmid institute that does some great research into nanotechnology.
Back ontopic... I recommend Firefox to anyone. My family all love the tabs especially when using the country's most favourite website TradeMe. However, I recently converted to Konqueror after acquiring an old, low spec iBook. Firefox is way too slow. I'm even considering ditching Thunderbird after a long devotion.
She boots up, logs on, clicks KPPP (cunningly renamed to "Internet"), then Firefox (cunningly renamed to "News"). Then she shuts down by right-clicking and selecting "Turn off computer".
Simple. And cheaper than a Windows license without the virus risks etc etc (I refer you to Apple's latest ad campaign...)
I feel like I'm stuck in the middle... I'm a bicyclist and 100 kg travelling at about 35-40 km/hr through town (I'll let the physicists work out my potential damage factor). However, I'm virtually invisible to BOTH pedestrians and vehicles. Rush hour is the worst. I get people stepping out from the kerb, dickheads cutting me off to double park to pick up their loved ones (funnily enough courier drivers actually aren't as bad as I thought they'd be).
I'd quite like to install a baseball bat holster on my bike.
Visual Basic is still great! Well it's rather good for slapping together quick, reasonably-good solutions.
I never wanted to use one of those lame /. catchphrases.... but... "You insensitive clod."