KaiP's comments

KaiP | 9 years ago | on: Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice (2011)

Are certification, accountability, and unions really the defining characteristics of engineering?

Directly from wikipedia: In 1960, the Conference of Engineering Societies of Western Europe and the United States of America defined "professional engineer" as follows:

A professional engineer is competent by virtue of his/her fundamental education and training to apply the scientific method and outlook to the analysis and solution of engineering problems. He/she is able to assume personal responsibility for the development and application of engineering science and knowledge, notably in research, design, construction, manufacturing, superintending, managing and in the education of the engineer. His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a routine mental or physical character. It requires the exercise of original thought and judgement and the ability to supervise the technical and administrative work of others. His/her education will have been such as to make him/her capable of closely and continuously following progress in his/her branch of engineering science by consulting newly published works on a worldwide basis, assimilating such information and applying it independently. He/she is thus placed in a position to make contributions to the development of engineering science or its applications. His/her education and training will have been such that he/she will have acquired a broad and general appreciation of the engineering sciences as well as thorough insight into the special features of his/her own branch. In due time he/she will be able to give authoritative technical advice and to assume responsibility for the direction of important tasks in his/her branch.

I don't see anything about unions in there

KaiP | 13 years ago | on: The Year of Dressing Formally (2008)

This professor works at a private college in Michigan called Hope College, from what I can tell he is not subsisting on taxpayer money.

KaiP | 16 years ago | on: Shorter yellow lights boost red-light camera revenue

Great example of a terrible incentive structure. Obviously, no city should rely on tickets for revenue, but I imagine it is more politically viable to increase ticket revenue than property tax revenue.

KaiP | 16 years ago | on: Where can I get unbiased news?

I'm surprised The Atlantic didn't make it on that list. I always see it mentioned in the same breath as the other sources and have found most of the articles fairly unbiased and interesting.

KaiP | 16 years ago | on: Debate: Can the Internet handle big breaking news?

"Even Google was unable to handle the load."

I was under the impression that Google's problem was due to an automated attack response, not due to bandwidth issues.

Also, the article cited: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10273325-93.html has been updated to say that only CNN "appeared sluggish." It may be true that the news on the Internet was crippled, but there's basically no hard evidence suggesting it from the source he cited.

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