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I'm pretty mediocre at math, I can do enough to get by in easy things like statistics and program budgeting but for some reason I find math in general boring and frustrating in equal measure. I am continually mystified by people that are good at it or otherwise enjoy it. It is fantastic those people exist but I don't think it is for everyone or even most people.
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May 14, 2014 03:44
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| # ? Jun 18, 2024 21:42 |
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So in Nebraska news, Ben Sasse is the Republican candidate for Senate. He'll be running against David Domina. Domina is a major player in the fight against Keystone XL in Nebraska, and I hope to god he pulls off the miracle and wins. EDIT: Republican Governor is a cloooose race so far between Pete Ricketts and Jon Bruning for the right to succeed noted terrible person David Heineman.
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May 14, 2014 03:46
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Hey I only have to serve as a buffer between the engineers and the customers part of the time when I'm not holding the plotter together with bailing wire and spit.
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May 14, 2014 03:48
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slightlyslow posted:I guess I misunderstood your point then. I view current fortan usage as mostly maintaining legacy code or begrudgingly accepting its speed at matrix multiplication. I don't see why anyone would willingly choose fortan over something more modern. Or do current programs actually advocate learning fortan77? You'll get forced into it because a PI grew up with it or was forced into it by one that did is my understanding. Programming isn't a core skill so it can get kind of cargo cult. The dynamic languages are weird because they're all about hardware v. labor / learning cost.
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May 14, 2014 03:49
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:So in Nebraska news, Ben Sasse is the Republican candidate for Senate. He'll be running against David Domina. Looking forward to endless hype pieces over the next few weeks on how Sasse is the new Great White Hype every DKos and Nation reader should cower in fear of every time his name is mentioned.
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May 14, 2014 03:57
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Ben Sasse is the picture of "let me ask my manager about knocking a grand off the sticker to see if we can't get you into this here Acclaim."
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May 14, 2014 03:59
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So Chris Hedges uploaded this video today about the left and the necessity and character of mass movements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysf_5LzDZz0
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May 14, 2014 04:02
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FAUXTON posted:Ben Sasse is the picture of "let me ask my manager about knocking a grand off the sticker to see if we can't get you into this here Acclaim." More of a RadioShack type, I've always thought. Welp. As of this post, Pete Ricketts is ahead of Jon Bruning by ~200 votes in the gubernatorial primary. Rooting for Ricketts for no other reason than I can't imagine him being in office for more than two months without finding some magnificent way to embarrass himself.
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May 14, 2014 04:07
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Nebraskans Americans? That's just shameful.
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May 14, 2014 04:20
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An Angry Bug posted:Nebraskans Americans? That's just shameful. That being said there's no way he isn't clobbered in the general, barring a miracle. This is Nebraska after all, a state that voted against their legendary football coach, the patron saint of Nebraska Tom Osborne, in the Republican gubernatorial primaries in favor of David Heineman because Osborne wasn't conservative enough.
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May 14, 2014 04:25
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I feel like I am not understanding the cultural dynamics in deep red states, having never lived in one. What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies?
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May 14, 2014 04:28
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies? I feel like this is one of those times where someone trots out that Lee Atwater quote, but that's what it boils down to as far as I can tell.
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May 14, 2014 04:32
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On Terra Firma posted:I feel like this is one of those times where someone trots out that Lee Atwater quote, but that's what it boils down to as far as I can tell. Nope, several conservative states are white as snow so racial logic doesn't work on them. Mostly it's "this is the way things have been, so let them continue" ad infinitum.
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May 14, 2014 04:33
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Yeah in a lot of those places people easily go decades without seeing a black guy except on TV.
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May 14, 2014 04:37
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computer parts posted:Nope, several conservative states are white as snow so racial logic doesn't work on them. FYGM
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May 14, 2014 04:39
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I feel like I am not understanding the cultural dynamics in deep red states, having never lived in one. What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies? The exact same kind of satisfaction a young psychopath derives from abusing animals. e: In case anyone was wondering about that unstable retired-military looking guy, that's Shane Osborn. His yard signs feature the USAF roundel. Which in his case is, well, a bit like loving around in a spy plane near Chinese airspace "guarding the autopilot," crashing said spy plane into a Chinese jet, causing one of the Bush admin's first diplomatic escapades to be known as "the letter of two sorries," and then thinking it's totally cool to advertise your Air Force cred. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 04:56 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 04:40
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I feel like I am not understanding the cultural dynamics in deep red states, having never lived in one. What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies? Knowing the right people as far as they're concerned are in charge.
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May 14, 2014 04:44
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:I feel like I am not understanding the cultural dynamics in deep red states, having never lived in one. What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies? Have you ever seen someone (darker than you) cry or get hurt or receive some kind of comeuppance for their 'transgressions'? Have these experiences left you somewhat aroused? If yes, then welcome to the republican party!
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May 14, 2014 04:45
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Dystram posted:FYGM Eh, more or less. They're not states that are important, they probably won't ever be important, and no one really pays them much mind unless they want natural resources or natural parks.
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May 14, 2014 04:45
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VitalSigns posted:The real world is analog, and at the end of the day you have to design things that work in the real world. Just wanted to echo this post, as an engineer whose graduate studies dealt largely with computer models. VitalSigns hit it on the nose, both about the role of modeling and STEM chauvinism, and gently caress capitalism.
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May 14, 2014 04:51
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mooyashi posted:Also the name is similar enough to WhiskeyJuvenile, who, iirc, is a lawyer also jewish, strangely enough
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May 14, 2014 04:53
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:So Chris Hedges uploaded this video today about the left and the necessity and character of mass movements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysf_5LzDZz0
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May 14, 2014 05:05
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Mitsuo posted:Just wanted to echo this post, as an engineer whose graduate studies dealt largely with computer models. Oh God why. I took a computational EM class for my master's where we had to write our own EM solvers in MATLAB and I wanted to kill myself.
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May 14, 2014 05:07
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:So Chris Hedges uploaded this video today about the left and the necessity and character of mass movements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysf_5LzDZz0 Thanks for posting this, I'll try to get around to watching it tomorrow. Hedges is great at keeping it real. If anyone missed his speech from March where he talks about the court case Hedges v. Obama as well as the nature and history of the surveillance state I would highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeDYrKnLDi8
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May 14, 2014 05:08
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AstheWorldWorlds posted:What kind of satisfaction are people there deriving from extremely conservative policies? In my experience, it's culture. Emphasis on two things: assimilation to group norms as a mode of gaining/holding acceptance/standing (like playing football as a mode of gaining social acceptance in high school, graduating and drinking beers over the Sunday game to keep up the affiliations), and defending/asserting them at the group level protects their 'investment' and services social obligations. Also, I pulled this from a study on conservatism I read like 5 years ago but have forgotten. Iirc, the gist of it was, "Interpreting it as motivated reasoning works": 
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May 14, 2014 05:11
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Ghost of Reagan Past posted:So in Nebraska news, Ben Sasse is the Republican candidate for Senate. He'll be running against David Domina. Spoilers, it's Nebraska so the miracle never happen.
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May 14, 2014 05:21
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I remember back when Angus King ran for governor back in '94, my uncle brought me a bumper sticker from his campaign that he cut the 'g' out of his first name so it read Anus King for governor and it was great and I wish I still had it because it's funny that he's still relevant.
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May 14, 2014 05:25
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effectual posted:I'm curious, why would you accept this job that you know is dumb bullshit? Just that desperate for a wage? Dunno your salary, but you can find secular english teaching in China pretty easily, though the pay isn't great. Christ this thread moves fast. Basically, pay is better than the secular entry level jobs available to me with the ink still dripping off my TESL, and the rest of the community helps me pursue my performance stuff.
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May 14, 2014 05:28
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VitalSigns posted:You can't just render every little detail of say a radio transmitter and push the "simulate physics" button because simulating the real universe to arbitrary granularity is computationally impractical. That's why I used the word "eventually." Much like how a physicist becomes a programmer in order to properly test his hypothesis against experiment data, an architect or designer will close that engineer gap by learning to properly identify and apply the needed real-world inputs (with the help of things like climate, weather, geological, and seismic data) for known-quantity materials like steel or concrete or glass in order to generate figures on tolerances as a design is constructed virtually. I'd be the last person to hang my hat on the specter of reductionism but computers are really good at crunching numbers quickly and accurately.
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May 14, 2014 05:31
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I just wanted to offer this up with respect to math education in America, it's pretty great, read it if you care about math education and haven't read it Lockhart's Lament (pdf).
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May 14, 2014 05:43
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Broken Machine posted:I just wanted to offer this up with respect to math education in America, it's pretty great, read it if you care about math education and haven't read it Lockhart's Lament (pdf). edit: programming too. My teacher never went into the creative element of programming, just, this is how you make these data structures and so on. I got bored and quit. edit: and Japanese too, to be honest. But thankfully I studied linguistics after that and found out that language is indeed a constantly changing, creative enterprise. That's what I want to pass on to my students. Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 06:04 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 05:54
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FAUXTON posted:I'd be the last person to hang my hat on the specter of reductionism but computers are really good at crunching numbers quickly and accurately. Oh computers absolutely are great at that, you are absolutely right. But that's not the problem engineers solve or have ever solved. Computers are also great at drawing perfect shapes and straight lines but they're not going to take over graphic design without a paradigm shift. Engineering design is about knowing what problem needs to be solved to get to the point that you can plug numbers into an equation and stick it into a computer and get an answer that's accurate enough to be useful in a shorter time than the heat death of the universe. Engineers used to have assistants to use side-rules or tables to look up solutions to logarithms and Bessel functions etc. That's what computers can and do replace, the number-crunching gruntwork. Being a good number-cruncher is necessary as an engineer, but it's nowhere close to the most important thing. FAUXTON posted:That's why I used the word "eventually." Much like how a physicist becomes a programmer in order to properly test his hypothesis against experiment data, an architect or designer will close that engineer gap by learning to properly identify and apply the needed real-world inputs (with the help of things like climate, weather, geological, and seismic data) for known-quantity materials like steel or concrete or glass in order to generate figures on tolerances as a design is constructed virtually. There's not much to say to this except that you are drastically underestimating the cost, time, and difficulty of brute-force modelling the real world. Scaling size or detail in 3-dimensional models geometrically scales the computational resources required. Unless you know how and where to simplify (and how to spot an error if your model is underdetailed), then it's going to be cheaper and faster to do an analog simulation (ie, just build it and see if it works). You can't just fine-mesh your entire design and hit "numerically solve physics", at least not if you want an answer before the sun goes out. Every situation is different; a computer that can design a bridge from scratch for a specific location with nothing but geological surveys and materials data is a computer that can argue specific cases before the Supreme Court. And, anyway you're starting with the work almost done. Yeah, sure once I've selected an amplifier technology or a bridge design I can put it into the computer and get super accurate simulations as detailed as I want to wait for. The human already did the engineering part: surveying the problem, making trade-offs, selecting a design (or a few alternatives), and deciding which aspects of it need finely detailed modeling to be accurate and can use macroscale models. If you want to fantasize about smug STEM degrees getting ground into poverty, it's not the AI revolution that's going to do it. What's going to gently caress over engineers is what's going to gently caress over all of us: the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands, a demand crisis as the poor can't afford slick new consumer goods, and the resulting unempoyment giving owners the bargaining power to push our white-collar wages lower and lower. And if neoliberalism continues to win out, then that will happen and you will be 100% entitled in my book to smug it up to the Libertarian engineers who voted for those policies because as Randian Supermen they thought poverty is something that only happens to stupid lazy people. VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 06:06 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 05:58
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VitalSigns posted:Oh computers absolutely are great at that, you are absolutely right. But that's not the problem engineers solve or have ever solved. Computers are also great at drawing perfect shapes and straight lines but they're not going to take over graphic design without a paradigm shift. You're responding with "yeah, well it's a LOT of math." STEM is likely going to be a flooded market by the time computers can grasp the level of complexity needed to design a suspension bridge that won't flop around like an epileptic terrier. However, the whole point of my argument is that we are approaching a point where gathering the raw data is a non-issue, where science provides plug-and-play models for all sorts of poo poo, and where commercially available computing power is making "brute force" less of a hurdle than it was in the past. At some point the computer is going to be able to make recommendations on design efficiency and tell the architect where to sink pilings or what gauge of wire to run. At some point it is going to be able to evaluate the needs of a design and spit out one or several solutions. Interpretation of data is not some kind of wizardry, it's a challenge for a user interface designer. Chances are you'll see 'STEM degree' become the new 'law school' punchline for short-sighted choices well before computers start giving aesthetics advice so in the end you'll be right before I am  Politics: Bruning has conceded to Rickets in the NE-Gov race so hooray six months of "lol im bald isnt that crazy" ads from him.
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May 14, 2014 06:29
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Install Windows posted:Yeah in a lot of those places people easily go decades without seeing a black guy except on TV. I always said there was no racism in my state because there were no people of color. As you can imagine, I offended a lot of other white people with that statement. I'll never forget when my family moved to a really small town and there was a mixed race family. I made friends with one of their kids, and my mom about passed out when she opened the door after I invited him over for dinner. Later, she told me that I should have told her that my new friend was 'black'. I was in 5th grade. I'll never forget that, because it was when I realized how hosed up everything really was.
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May 14, 2014 06:31
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FAUXTON posted:You're responding with "yeah, well it's a LOT of math." STEM is likely going to be a flooded market by the time computers can grasp the level of complexity needed to design a suspension bridge that won't flop around like an epileptic terrier. However, the whole point of my argument is that we are approaching a point where gathering the raw data is a non-issue, where science provides plug-and-play models for all sorts of poo poo, and where commercially available computing power is making "brute force" less of a hurdle than it was in the past. At some point the computer is going to be able to make recommendations on design efficiency and tell the architect where to sink pilings or what gauge of wire to run. At some point it is going to be able to evaluate the needs of a design and spit out one or several solutions. Interpretation of data is not some kind of wizardry, it's a challenge for a user interface designer. Fortunately design optimization, especially anything ANSYS wise, uses poo poo software.
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May 14, 2014 06:51
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computer parts posted:Nope, several conservative states are white as snow so racial logic doesn't work on them. Install Windows posted:Yeah in a lot of those places people easily go decades without seeing a black guy except on TV. I can see why you'd think that, but you don't actually need for minorities to be around in order to otherize the gently caress out of them. Actually, it helps a ton when your only working examples come from mainstream media and your own racist family members.
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May 14, 2014 06:52
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I'm not responding "but it's so much math", but I'm going to drop the derail, because (and not to be mean) you're handwaving away issues that you don't understand. If the person reading the printout just does what the computer says and can't tell whether the computer's figures make sense, things are going to go tits-up in a hurry. Oddly, you sound almost like the young engineer saying psychologists are wasting their time because the brain is just some extra-complicated meat-tronics and it's just a matter of solving the math so leave it to an engineer.  But anyway, I like your politics and I completely agree with you that engineers tend to have an over-inflated sense of their economic worth and therefore vote against their interests with the most infuriating smug ignorance imaginable. Please don't hate us. Some of us get it  In politics, the Texas Lt Gov primary runoff is coming up. I'm actually going to vote in a Republican primary, because the GOPe incumbent is trailing crazy racist rear end in a top hat Dan Patrick. Enjoy this clip of December's Lt Governor debate, where the least radical opinion is to add creationism to textbooks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUnB5CVeza8 Yeah, the second guy there with the punchable face whining about why isn't elementary school like Sunday School is the guy who won the plurality in the primary. I did not think I would say this but: I am casting a vote for David loving Dewhurst  VVVVVV You could always move to Austin! Most of the engineers I work with are either liberal or apathetic about politics. We have the occasional  totally-not-Republican Libertarian who thinks gays are immoral and the government should protect the rights of the embryo...but by and large you don't have to deal with that poo poo. Any kind of racism, even dog-whistles, is a quick way to make everyone think you're an rear end in a top hat and hold back your career.
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:22 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 07:23
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VitalSigns posted:But anyway, I like your politics and I completely agree with you that engineers tend to have an over-inflated sense of their economic worth and therefore vote against their interests with the most infuriating smug ignorance imaginable. Please don't hate us. Some of us get it When Herman Cain had his 999 plan going around my coworkers and my boss all thought it sounded like a loving great A+ plan. They love flat taxes, companies that incorporate in "tax havens" that they have no presence in, and of course squarely blame gently caress sorry for the venting. Software may be a career path that will see me to retirement, but I may also intentionally inflict permanent deafness on myself before I turn 40. Bhaal fucked around with this message at 08:19 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 08:14
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FAUXTON posted:The exact same kind of satisfaction a young psychopath derives from abusing animals. You're not allowed to do that are you?
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May 14, 2014 08:25
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Holy poo poo, the Dan Patrick Ad. Not education and health care!!  I want a man who will keep immigrants uneducated, sick, and dependent on emergency rooms. (Just kidding, Dan Patrick's real position is that all Mexicans should be shot!)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRkBRd8ePTw The video is great. Reagan cameo, attacking Dewhurst's wealth (my favorite Republican tactic. Democrats hate the rich, class warfare! Also, my opponent is rich and therefore untrustworthy!) VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 08:35 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 08:32
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