Damn you, I'm a Mech Engineer, not a Mathemetician
on
Happy Tau Day
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· Score: 1
We already use Tau for both torque and for shear area. The nature of both types of calculations typically involves circles, and therefore, pi. Yeah, I'm nitpicking, but the last thing I need is for my simple calculations to have three different uses of the same damned Greek letter.
Everyone knows pi. It's too late, it's been the standard for generations. The same goes for the English language - it sucks, but even though it makes logical sense to change to something better, good luck trying to get everyone on board that train.
If I had mod points, I'd mod up. I came to this conclusion a couple years ago (a couple years after I graduated from a public university) when I noticed more and more 'hobby-like' liberal arts programs, along with much fancier classrooms and hotel-like dorms. Colleges realized that they can sell students on a promise and a dream, and leverage their payment with federally endorsed loans co-signed by the parents. The coming realization for US High Schoolers is going to be that college isn't for everyone, and with the cost continuing to rapidly outpace inflation, you're going to have to have a firm game plan in place before you even apply. It's far from guaranteed to be worth the money. Yeah, the Ivy League will always open doors, but a general "college degree" is becoming a very expensive and poorly defined label.
I fully agree. I know plenty of tech savvy people who still use dumb phones. They simply chose not to take on that expense. It's not even the gadget cost, it's the monthly plan cost and contract.
I only made the move when my company blocked all personal email accounts along with most of the internet. Since I work for a DoD contractor, I can't get my work email outside of the office, either. So it effectively cut off my main form of communication with people. I got a BlackBerry. Since then, I've moved onto a Nexus One. Same data plan...
It's cost me thousands of dollars over the years. While I certainly enjoy the convenience and extra features, I do wish I'd found a better way to keep things simple and cheap, because I can't go back.
Anything fun is blocked on my work computer. I barely got over 1 megaflop (although the counter refresh is slow) but repeatedly using the page makes my Nexus One toasty warm.
That's why I use my neighbor's for my MPAA/RIAA torrents, and mine's on WPA2 and doesn't broadcast. If they get a C&D, they can play dumb, which I don't think will take any actual acting.
Agreed. I have an Engineering degree from UConn, and I was rather embarrassed to read the article. I still live in Connecticut, and I actually seek out unfamiliar, curvy, "slow" roads to drive my roadster on. I realize most people aren't driving enthusiasts, but if you build a twisty road, some people will want to drive on it because of that.
I've come to the determination that the adage amongst driving enthusiasts is true: It's more fun to drive a slow car fast than to drive a fast car fast. It's all about how fast it feels. The same goes for road safety... it's the perception, not actuality, that changes your behavior. You don't really need a study to prove that.
Look at Autocross events... people love'em, and they're a lot of fun. But rarely do you go over 40 MPH.
I completely agree. I have a TiVo HD, and continue to use and enjoy it... but the problem is that I still have to deal with my cable company. I had to pester them for 2 months to get a CableCard out of 'em, and they still charge me $4 a month to rent it.
There's just something ridiculous about paying for information delivery, only to be charged even more money to decode the proprietary signal they send to you.
Before the TiVo, we had analog-only cable, and a Philips stand-alone DVR/DVD burner that worked just fine.
But this day and age, if you want more than 3 or 4 HD channels or even want to think about some of the geekier SD cable stations, you're still stuck having to get equipment from the cable company. And frankly, for the vast majority of people, it's just cheap enough not to care that it sucks.
They respond to problems, they don't reverse engineer things. Does the FDA or the Surgeon General's office have engineers to paw through the lines of code in MRI machines or CT scanners, or anesthesia machines, or respirators, or any other number of computerized medical machines? No... they get tested emperically, just like cars do. It's very difficult to prove that some of these flaws exist.... remember the Audi "sudden acceleration" problems in the late '80s that almost killed the brand? That was pre-computerized throttle and transmission, and STILL was impossible to prove. Audi made pedal spacing changes, but largely to avoid the inevitable suicide of doing 'nothing.'
Engineers or not, it's going to be quite difficult to prove that there's an actual "flaw" in the design, let alone negligence,when there are so many millions of vehicles without issue.
They never were a database to begin with. They were a collection kit that parents kept at home. If the kid goes missing, then you give the fingerprint card/DNA sample to the investigators. Otherwise, it sits at home.
Also in the U.S. we do have 220 volt plugs for high-energy devices that need more energy - things like stoves or hot water tanks. They are bulky three-prong affairs.
That was my issue - common room outlets are 110 VAC and 15A (often 20A in kitchens and other high-draw areas) in in the US, but the actual household mains in a typical house here has 220 VAC in the circuit breaker panel. It's merely split in two for the branch circuits. So while 110v is the standard, nearly everyone has 220v available. If you want a 220v outlet, you get a 220v breaker that bridges both buses, and making sure you have adequate branch wiring installed, put a 220v outlet on the other end. Done and done.
Most electric clothes dryers are 220v, and most houses are built with 220v outlets in the laundry area and garage area for large appliances.
A 1500W heater might work to *keep* a small room warm, but it would take quite a while to warm up a cold car with lots of single-pane windows.
Then there are wipers, lights, window defrosters, and heated seats that drivers expect in a car of that price range.
After all that, what's the efficiency of the batteries themselves when the temperature drops. Ever leave a fully charged laptop in a cold car and try to boot it? You'll find you "lost" some energy somewhere.
And who knows what summer a/c will do to the battery life...
I suspect that's the case for many people, at least in the US. It's on my company PC, which I have no control over. The scary part? I work for a gov't contractor. A big one. And the IT people have no interest whatsoever in trying something new.
Even my 11 year old laptop, which is still alive, runs FireFox on Win98. Not very quickly, mind you, but faster than it ran IE.
For reference, it's a Gateway (Gateway 2000 at the time) original Pentium 200 MHz "MMX" with 48 MB of RAM. And it only has a 10-base wired ethernet card anyway, so it's not like browser speed matters much.
It just seems ridiculous to be billed for a matter you had no control over. Who makes the judgement call on how big of a search party and how long to look for? I have a hard time believing this is going to actually end up happening. Unless someone makes a habit of getting lost and repeatedly needing to be rescued, it should remain a taxpayer funded service.
You know, back in college, one drunken conversation ended up with us discussing the breeding of some boneless slug-cow. Basically, a large beefy cow-spotted meat tube with nothing but cartilage for structure. Grow them on trolleys, cart them around, feed 'em, and when they get big enough, it's processing time.
Yeah, it was dumb, but it was amusing at the time. This story reminded me of it.
Or the skills to do it at all. I'm definitely a geek, but I'm a mechanical engineer... while I physically built my computer, I've just never delved into Linux based systems. I just don't program anything, and rarely have the time to start from scratch. But TiVo has pissed me off enough to the point where I think I'd rather have spent the extra time to have something I have full control over, let alone not having to pay a monthly fee to use.
I received a TiVoHD unit for the holidays, and while it has some interesting features, I'm continually frustrated at the nickel-and-dime tactics of TiVo. People often don't realize that TiVo, while still charging a fee for the unit and a monthly service fee, still has advertisements laced into it. The subscriber agreement allows TiVo corp to activate even more intrusive ads if they so chose to. And the "added features" on the box, especially PC-related features, often require paying for TiVo's upgraded computer software to do anything but the basics. And then there's the DRM and non-anonymous statistics reporting.
What concerns me is that TiVo is that these new "features" are just going to end up as more annoying ad clutter, and at every menu option will be a prompt to pay for some new feature. Just like so many other devices spawned of the communication age.
TiVo corp has yet to turn a profit, so I'm sure they're just looking for more revenue streams. I'm sure the latest software update will be just what I'm waiting for.
Bingo. I was born in 1980, and we didn't have internet acccess until 1996 (I know, I know... but I relied on my parents)
Strangely enough, the recycling revolution provided my porn access. My town had a recycling center, and a large dumpster specifically for magazines. And the good people of my town recycled their porn. A LOT of it. In one month's time, I had a stack of porn 3 feet high.
And no, none of the pages were stuck together... I guess the porn recyclers had more self control.
> Cable companies dont give a rats ass, as long as they find a way to charge you more for what you already get and not upgrading their equipment, they are incredibly happy.
This is largely evident by the fact that cable prices are negotiable. For many of them, it's hard to find an actual stated cost for service, since there are so many "intro offers" and "new customer deals" and so forth.
Their business model is entirely based on average subscriber fees. And they know darned well that there is little competition elsewhere, and that most people will just eventually roll over and pay more money rather than haggle every single month to negotiate a cheaper rate.
Part of the issue is that cable companies are partially regulated as a Utility. So while it's not quite a free market for competition, it still allows them to charge whatever they feel like for all ther add-ons.
If you think CT is bad, try crossing the border to Rhode Island. I seriously think the reason the majority of them don't use their turn signals is because they don't want to reveal their plan to the enemy.
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We already use Tau for both torque and for shear area. The nature of both types of calculations typically involves circles, and therefore, pi. Yeah, I'm nitpicking, but the last thing I need is for my simple calculations to have three different uses of the same damned Greek letter.
Everyone knows pi. It's too late, it's been the standard for generations. The same goes for the English language - it sucks, but even though it makes logical sense to change to something better, good luck trying to get everyone on board that train.
If I had mod points, I'd mod up. I came to this conclusion a couple years ago (a couple years after I graduated from a public university) when I noticed more and more 'hobby-like' liberal arts programs, along with much fancier classrooms and hotel-like dorms. Colleges realized that they can sell students on a promise and a dream, and leverage their payment with federally endorsed loans co-signed by the parents. The coming realization for US High Schoolers is going to be that college isn't for everyone, and with the cost continuing to rapidly outpace inflation, you're going to have to have a firm game plan in place before you even apply. It's far from guaranteed to be worth the money. Yeah, the Ivy League will always open doors, but a general "college degree" is becoming a very expensive and poorly defined label.
I fully agree. I know plenty of tech savvy people who still use dumb phones. They simply chose not to take on that expense. It's not even the gadget cost, it's the monthly plan cost and contract.
I only made the move when my company blocked all personal email accounts along with most of the internet. Since I work for a DoD contractor, I can't get my work email outside of the office, either. So it effectively cut off my main form of communication with people. I got a BlackBerry. Since then, I've moved onto a Nexus One. Same data plan...
It's cost me thousands of dollars over the years. While I certainly enjoy the convenience and extra features, I do wish I'd found a better way to keep things simple and cheap, because I can't go back.
Anything fun is blocked on my work computer. I barely got over 1 megaflop (although the counter refresh is slow) but repeatedly using the page makes my Nexus One toasty warm.
Agreed. Wide open WiFi creates reasonable doubt.
That's why I use my neighbor's for my MPAA/RIAA torrents, and mine's on WPA2 and doesn't broadcast. If they get a C&D, they can play dumb, which I don't think will take any actual acting.
Agreed. I have an Engineering degree from UConn, and I was rather embarrassed to read the article. I still live in Connecticut, and I actually seek out unfamiliar, curvy, "slow" roads to drive my roadster on. I realize most people aren't driving enthusiasts, but if you build a twisty road, some people will want to drive on it because of that.
I've come to the determination that the adage amongst driving enthusiasts is true: It's more fun to drive a slow car fast than to drive a fast car fast. It's all about how fast it feels. The same goes for road safety... it's the perception, not actuality, that changes your behavior. You don't really need a study to prove that.
Look at Autocross events... people love'em, and they're a lot of fun. But rarely do you go over 40 MPH.
I completely agree. I have a TiVo HD, and continue to use and enjoy it... but the problem is that I still have to deal with my cable company. I had to pester them for 2 months to get a CableCard out of 'em, and they still charge me $4 a month to rent it.
There's just something ridiculous about paying for information delivery, only to be charged even more money to decode the proprietary signal they send to you.
Before the TiVo, we had analog-only cable, and a Philips stand-alone DVR/DVD burner that worked just fine.
But this day and age, if you want more than 3 or 4 HD channels or even want to think about some of the geekier SD cable stations, you're still stuck having to get equipment from the cable company. And frankly, for the vast majority of people, it's just cheap enough not to care that it sucks.
that this guy just wants politicians to go watch Star Trek again.
Which is probably not a bad idea, now that I think more about it.
They respond to problems, they don't reverse engineer things. Does the FDA or the Surgeon General's office have engineers to paw through the lines of code in MRI machines or CT scanners, or anesthesia machines, or respirators, or any other number of computerized medical machines? No... they get tested emperically, just like cars do. It's very difficult to prove that some of these flaws exist.... remember the Audi "sudden acceleration" problems in the late '80s that almost killed the brand? That was pre-computerized throttle and transmission, and STILL was impossible to prove. Audi made pedal spacing changes, but largely to avoid the inevitable suicide of doing 'nothing.'
Engineers or not, it's going to be quite difficult to prove that there's an actual "flaw" in the design, let alone negligence,when there are so many millions of vehicles without issue.
They never were a database to begin with. They were a collection kit that parents kept at home. If the kid goes missing, then you give the fingerprint card/DNA sample to the investigators. Otherwise, it sits at home.
Also in the U.S. we do have 220 volt plugs for high-energy devices that need more energy - things like stoves or hot water tanks. They are bulky three-prong affairs.
That was my issue - common room outlets are 110 VAC and 15A (often 20A in kitchens and other high-draw areas) in in the US, but the actual household mains in a typical house here has 220 VAC in the circuit breaker panel. It's merely split in two for the branch circuits. So while 110v is the standard, nearly everyone has 220v available. If you want a 220v outlet, you get a 220v breaker that bridges both buses, and making sure you have adequate branch wiring installed, put a 220v outlet on the other end. Done and done.
Most electric clothes dryers are 220v, and most houses are built with 220v outlets in the laundry area and garage area for large appliances.
For now. But the last paragraph of the MIT article indicates newer cameras will have their own emitters.
I thought they co-wrote all their songs?
Sorry.
A 1500W heater might work to *keep* a small room warm, but it would take quite a while to warm up a cold car with lots of single-pane windows.
Then there are wipers, lights, window defrosters, and heated seats that drivers expect in a car of that price range.
After all that, what's the efficiency of the batteries themselves when the temperature drops. Ever leave a fully charged laptop in a cold car and try to boot it? You'll find you "lost" some energy somewhere.
And who knows what summer a/c will do to the battery life...
I suspect that's the case for many people, at least in the US. It's on my company PC, which I have no control over. The scary part? I work for a gov't contractor. A big one. And the IT people have no interest whatsoever in trying something new.
Even my 11 year old laptop, which is still alive, runs FireFox on Win98. Not very quickly, mind you, but faster than it ran IE.
For reference, it's a Gateway (Gateway 2000 at the time) original Pentium 200 MHz "MMX" with 48 MB of RAM. And it only has a 10-base wired ethernet card anyway, so it's not like browser speed matters much.
...it seems that most of the debate centers around how you define "head" and "tail".
Bill? Bill Clinton? Is that you?
It just seems ridiculous to be billed for a matter you had no control over. Who makes the judgement call on how big of a search party and how long to look for? I have a hard time believing this is going to actually end up happening. Unless someone makes a habit of getting lost and repeatedly needing to be rescued, it should remain a taxpayer funded service.
You know, back in college, one drunken conversation ended up with us discussing the breeding of some boneless slug-cow. Basically, a large beefy cow-spotted meat tube with nothing but cartilage for structure. Grow them on trolleys, cart them around, feed 'em, and when they get big enough, it's processing time.
Yeah, it was dumb, but it was amusing at the time. This story reminded me of it.
Or the skills to do it at all. I'm definitely a geek, but I'm a mechanical engineer... while I physically built my computer, I've just never delved into Linux based systems. I just don't program anything, and rarely have the time to start from scratch. But TiVo has pissed me off enough to the point where I think I'd rather have spent the extra time to have something I have full control over, let alone not having to pay a monthly fee to use.
I received a TiVoHD unit for the holidays, and while it has some interesting features, I'm continually frustrated at the nickel-and-dime tactics of TiVo. People often don't realize that TiVo, while still charging a fee for the unit and a monthly service fee, still has advertisements laced into it. The subscriber agreement allows TiVo corp to activate even more intrusive ads if they so chose to. And the "added features" on the box, especially PC-related features, often require paying for TiVo's upgraded computer software to do anything but the basics. And then there's the DRM and non-anonymous statistics reporting.
What concerns me is that TiVo is that these new "features" are just going to end up as more annoying ad clutter, and at every menu option will be a prompt to pay for some new feature. Just like so many other devices spawned of the communication age.
TiVo corp has yet to turn a profit, so I'm sure they're just looking for more revenue streams. I'm sure the latest software update will be just what I'm waiting for.
Bingo. I was born in 1980, and we didn't have internet acccess until 1996 (I know, I know... but I relied on my parents)
Strangely enough, the recycling revolution provided my porn access. My town had a recycling center, and a large dumpster specifically for magazines. And the good people of my town recycled their porn. A LOT of it. In one month's time, I had a stack of porn 3 feet high.
And no, none of the pages were stuck together... I guess the porn recyclers had more self control.
I've got a bad feeling about this...
> Cable companies dont give a rats ass, as long as they find a way to charge you more for what you already get and not upgrading their equipment, they are incredibly happy.
This is largely evident by the fact that cable prices are negotiable. For many of them, it's hard to find an actual stated cost for service, since there are so many "intro offers" and "new customer deals" and so forth.
Their business model is entirely based on average subscriber fees. And they know darned well that there is little competition elsewhere, and that most people will just eventually roll over and pay more money rather than haggle every single month to negotiate a cheaper rate.
Part of the issue is that cable companies are partially regulated as a Utility. So while it's not quite a free market for competition, it still allows them to charge whatever they feel like for all ther add-ons.
If you think CT is bad, try crossing the border to Rhode Island. I seriously think the reason the majority of them don't use their turn signals is because they don't want to reveal their plan to the enemy.
Well, it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.