R_Edward
- Karma
- 263
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- January 31, 2012 (14y ago)
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Senior Technical Analyst at Viking Electric Supply in Minneapolis. BSCS from University of Michigan, MSSE from University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, MN). 25 years experience in the IT industry, including 6 years in formal management.
I'm exactly the same way. I have a weekly gig that occasionally gets recorded and thrown up on the web. I hate watching the video, because whenever I do, all I hear are my own mistakes. People tell me it sounded great,…
It may or may not have been in customary informal usage for that long [citation needed], but it is still considered incorrect in strict, rigorous, formal usage. (Yes, this is on the cusp of changing, but for now, it's…
I was wondering: if it starves the fuel of oxygen, it stops the fuel from burning, even if it's still hot, yes? So if it could scale from frying-pan-level to house-level, at the very least, couldn't it be used to…
17 years ago, I worked for a hearing aid manufacturer. The common terms in use there were BTE and ITE, for "behind the ear" and "in the ear." Frankly, I thought the initialisms were poorly conceived. ITE is three…
I didn't realize there were non-outlets there. The prices are strange--I've bought a handful of items, and they were all stickered at or below nearby retail, but when they rang them up, the actual price was even lower.…
My town just built a "Premium Outlet Mall." I was dubious of the wisdom of that plan, but I just visited it last weekend, and it seems to be pretty popular, even with the Mall of America just minutes away, and with…
Fascinating. I had known for some time that oak trees will commingle their roots, forming an oak internet. In good times, this helps smaller trees become better established through resource-sharing with mature trees.…
On my first day at one job, HR called me into a conference room to review my compensation package and everything. The HR rep wrote a number on a Post-It and handed it to me, saying, "This is your salary. Here at BigCo…
The stuff that means the most to me would look like junk to anyone else: an origami crane, inexpertly folded; a used sock with buttons sewn on it; a styrofoam heart with tissue paper and googly eyes glued to it; a few…
>Four people need to cross a rickety bridge at night. Unfortunately, they have only one torch and the bridge is too dangerous to cross without one. The bridge is only strong enough to support two people at a time. Not…
Although, if one's interest level were continuously poked into a particular memory location every time it changed, you might find that if you peeked when it piqued you would find that it also peaked. On an unrelated…
Plus, do those 50% of the people tend to get lost going from place to place in their daily lives? And do members of the other 50% have a need to be able to precisely locate any of those people without maps, addresses,…
Do you mean to tell me that those crates of my dad's 78 rpm records sitting in my basement might actually be worth something? I was thinking about playing them on a 33.3 rpm turntable into my PC, then using Audacity to…
Or at least Dr. Emmet Brown.
Hmmmmm... I have a knee-jerk reaction to initiatives with names like "Everyone can <fill in the blank>." Everyone may benefit from being exposed to the rudiments of whatever activity you're promoting, but it is clearly,…
When I'm grinding out Cobol or Algol code (yes, I am a dinosaur), I stick with 80 columns per line. Because, for better or worse, that's all my compiler sees. One compiler squawks when a line extends beyond Col 80,…
I looked at the nightly order-processing workflow for the regional retailer I worked for one time. I was gobsmacked to find that one section of it consisted of launching the same suite of 5-6 programs one time for each…
I would further refine this to, "Learning to code is like learning to write prose: Easy to learn, and easy to do, but not so easy to do well. Especially since 'well' is at least a little bit subjective." There are…
I found doing tech support for my software to be a very valuable experience. It wasn't nearly as disruptive to my coding process as some of my brethren seem to find it; perhaps because when I'm puzzling out a thorny…
I make extensive use of e-books and audio books. I especially like audio books because they make my commute bearable. But some books, which may be great stories in the dead-tree edition, are downright aggravating in the…
Gonna encourage one of the kids to name their firstborn L'eaughanne! (Don't worry--they don't do any of the things I tell 'em to do, no matter much amusement it would give me.)
I share a first name with my father, so to save confusion, they called me by my middle name. If it were strictly a matter of social convenience, that would be fine. But you can't do anything in the modern world without…
There'll be plenty of time for doin' physics and livin' in a van down by the river, when you're doin' physics and livin' in a van down by the river.
It's kind of a neat thing, for sure, but what are we thinking are its practical applications? Possible use as an assistive device for the disabled, perhaps?
I'm not sure we do our students any favors by suggesting that math is "magical."