Deep 6 FaWtL

Happy Birthday!

D-... dang it, CY. I don't think he wanted that kind of a birthday present!

It's mostly gyrating gears and servomotors anyway.

You really gotta be there to get the full effect.

Thanks, Cap. Since I know electronics, I'm not offended by exposed circuitry.

It's mostly gyrating gears and servomotors anyway.

You really gotta be there to get the full effect.

as long as you can eat chocolate cake, I don't care what gyrates.

Happy birthday John ! :)

Happy birthday! :)

Happy birthday there John.

Thanks, Lynora.
Thanks, Limey.
Thanks, GH.

Happy birthday John.

Thanks, Sharoth.

I wish you well on your happy day!

Thanks, Happy.

So, what's it like working for a Global Megacorporation™?

I met with an instructor and, in excruciating detail, showed her how to create users in the application. I emphasized that a certain field had to be set to Sales or a lot of underlying automation would break. She recorded our session.

And then hand-created 50 users with the field set to "Service", did a complete run-through of the class with live students, and signed off on the users.

Which means we had to re-create them in the master image. And with that field set to "Service", we can't auto-generate them. We can't discipline her for her mistake. We can't put them at "Sales" because we have to match whatever she did.

So I got to spend two hours this afternoon doing mindless data entry. Due to someone else's mistake.

Whee?

My condolences.

My condolences.

Well, there's "fun" data entry, where you're copying names and addresses into spreadsheets or databases, and you can sit there wondering, "Who is that? I wonder if they know I'm typing about them? Do they still live there?"

And there's, "You have to enter 50 students, named student01 - student 50, and each one is about 2 minutes of filling in fields with the exact same data, and if you miss so much as a capitalization we have to start all over again."

There's data entry, and then there's boring data entry...

Let me guess. This is the boring data entry. Once again, my condolences.

I did some data entry for university finance team when I was on work experience.

In a reference they said I sang well, i didn't even know I sang.

I only do data entry in regards to the programs I write. Such as filling in arrays of values for integers, doubles, and structures.

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

I once built a set of stairs where each block was 600 pounds by myself only using three poles, a rock climbing strap and the power of leverage.

I had the steps done by lunchtime. :-)

That was also the day I saw my very first bald eagle.

That's why they're buried in the source code. Once I compile the programs, all that data is invisible. So, take a deep breath and calm down.

I AM BLOODY CALM

My alisases are so naughty these days.

Sounds like some of them need to lay off the caffeine.

who asked you !?

Nurse, I need a sedative here, STAT!

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

I do not feel fear. Only hate.

Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

I do not feel fear. Only hate.

And waffles!

Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

I do not feel fear. Only hate.

"Strong with the Dark Side, he is."

Freehold DM wrote:

Chromantic Durgon <3 wrote:

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

I do not feel fear. Only hate.

This is true. Freehold lets the hate flow through him.

Yoda wrote:

"Strong with the Dark Side, he is."

from my point of view it is math that is evil.

*points to the sky* Hey, Freehold. Look! An entire wing of Y-Wings! Aren't they beautiful?!!!

Rosita the Riveter wrote:

Yea, the teacher's an unprofessional jerk, but so are most authority figures. When I get seriously ill, I can't just call out of work. That's the thing about the service sector. Even in situations like food service where you legally need to, you don't have paid sick time (if you're tipped, sick pay still loses you money, anyway), and kitchen managers don't tolerate anything not resembling toughing it out, anyway. You show up if you want to pay your bills and keep your job. Retail is similar, minus the legal requirements to call out. If you want to keep your job, you come in barely functional and tough it out. Just how it is. It's s$+@ty, reduces productivity because sick people can't work well and infect others, and it's not fair, but it's how the modern low wage economy works. Later in life, he's gonna be expected to just tough it out even when that isn't fair or reasonable, and better to learn now before he learns it the hard way in adulthood.

So, this is uber-political and probably offensive to most, so

** spoiler omitted **...

I wouldn't say offensive, just utterly foreign to my own socio-economic experience. I just left a job over a month ago for rescinding a vacation promise, and it came very close to torpedoing me financially and emotionally. I don't actually think it was a sound move, and I probably would have been better off missing the vacation. I'm employed now, but come January I have no job security and no promise of a strong job market.

I guess I'm just used to not really being able to rely on financial security, and when you're of my socioeconomic bracket, sometimes you have to let yourself get taken advantage of to pay the rent.

NobodysHome wrote:

Rosita the Riveter wrote:

Yea, the teacher's an unprofessional jerk, but so are most authority figures. When I get seriously ill, I can't just call out of work. That's the thing about the service sector. Even in situations like food service where you legally need to, you don't have paid sick time (if you're tipped, sick pay still loses you money, anyway), and kitchen managers don't tolerate anything not resembling toughing it out, anyway. You show up if you want to pay your bills and keep your job. Retail is similar, minus the legal requirements to call out. If you want to keep your job, you come in barely functional and tough it out. Just how it is. It's s$+@ty, reduces productivity because sick people can't work well and infect others, and it's not fair, but it's how the modern low wage economy works. Later in life, he's gonna be expected to just tough it out even when that isn't fair or reasonable, and better to learn now before he learns it the hard way in adulthood.

So, this is uber-political and probably offensive to most, so

** spoiler omitted **...

I wouldn't say offensive, just utterly foreign to my own socio-economic experience. I just left a job over a month ago for rescinding a vacation promise, and it came very close to torpedoing me financially and emotionally. I don't actually think it was a sound move, and I probably would have been better off missing the vacation. I'm employed now, but come January I have no job security and no promise of a strong job market.

I guess I'm just used to not really being able to rely on financial security, and when you're of my socioeconomic bracket, sometimes you have to let yourself get taken advantage of to pay the rent.

Well, I'm *very* happy you're back -- I was worried I'd gone too far and chased you off.

And yeah, being Lawful and all, employers who take advantage of their employees' financial situations to cheat them out of duly-earned time off really hits a sore spot with me. Working retail sucks. Working retail and not being allowed to take sick time/vacation time/lunch breaks is unconscionable to the point that I actively boycott any stores that I hear doing it. And I don't want my kids supporting any such store by working for them, consequences be damned.
Trouble is, it's not reported nearly enough, because even making a peep about it also endangers you, whistleblower laws be damned.

So two sore spots (kids and unfair labor practices) and it just got me a'fumin'.

Sorry if I came off too strongly.

*points to the sky* Hey, Freehold. Look! An entire wing of Y-Wings! Aren't they beautiful?!!!

so..BEAUTIFUL...

I sense maths happening. I feel fear.

Me too i have to do this expression mat stuff in math and its so frustrating grrr

Which is why I oppose "force-feeding" students Math. Not everyone has the same aptitude for everything. I failed Biology in High School simply because cutting open dead frogs with a dull scalpel wasn't all that exciting. Once a subject becomes too difficult for any given student, the teachers should stop.

I'd like to point out that even though most programming is heavily math-based, it won't be visible in the finished products. Consider Skyrim. There's a lot of math in the simplest ray tracing algorithms that determine what landscape features are visible to the player. But none of that math is ever printed on the screen. Having half a dozen books on game programming, I can state that as a fact.

We get to cut open cow and sheep brains

Yeah

We get to cut open cow and sheep brains

Yeah

Why when I was young growing up on the farm not only did we have to dissect a cow brain I had to watch as your grampy and Henry the crazy old guy that lived down the road ate it afterwards (thankfully I only had to try it).

The audit/site visit that I was planning for since last month, that I sacrificed weekends and sleep for and prepared for for so long....

Has been postponed until next week.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

::leaves kids with Nobody's Impii::

Crookshanks wrote:

We get to cut open cow and sheep brains

Yeah

Why when I was young growing up on the farm not only did we have to dissect a cow brain I had to watch as your grampy and Henry the crazy old guy that lived down the road ate it afterwards (thankfully I only had to try it).

Aw, man. You guys had all the fun. The brains were all in the supermarket. All we got to dissect were deer hearts and sheeps' eyeballs. And worms. Worms were boring. Deer hearts weren't bad after you got past the smell.

Crookshanks goes to an arts and sciences focused school so they spring for the good shit.

Please, no more. I just got done eating a bowl of Ramen.

Happy Birthday, John! Now you and Nobody's Home can hang out on the front porch together yelling at all those pesky younguns.

Which is why I oppose "force-feeding" students Math. Not everyone has the same aptitude for everything. I failed Biology in High School simply because cutting open dead frogs with a dull scalpel wasn't all that exciting. Once a subject becomes too difficult for any given student, the teachers should stop.

I'd like to point out that even though most programming is heavily math-based, it won't be visible in the finished products. Consider Skyrim. There's a lot of math in the simplest ray tracing algorithms that determine what landscape features are visible to the player. But none of that math is ever printed on the screen. Having half a dozen books on game programming, I can state that as a fact.

I'm going to politely disagree. I'd always start off on my first day explaining to my students that, while they were exceedingly unlikely to use anything I was going to show them that semester in their careers, research has shown that studying math trains the brain in logical thinking, and is vital to an educated society. (OK, the second clause was my addition.)

Math hurts because it shapes your brain.

EDIT: But yeah, as I've written before, when my students would say, "I can't do math" I would respond, "No, you just had a bad math teacher", and they'd always come up with a name.

Spoiler for John.

Charlotte's Web it was not.

I see your point. I've never been a teacher, so I'll defer to your experience.

I see your point. I've never been a teacher, so I'll defer to your experience.

May Freehold forgive you...

He does. He knows that I'm more skilled in certain topics. He was just never taught the subject in a way that he could relate to, a victim of one of those "bad teachers."

Happy Birthday my olde friend.
It seems this horror show will never end.
Any moment's your last breath,
Here is to another day closer to death.

The cake is on the table,
And it is awfully bright,
'Cause there's so many candles on top.
But you are so decrepit,
Your chest so tight,
When you blow them out your lungs are gonna pop.
You cannot complain
Each time you feel a pain,
Though you have arthritis and gout.
'Cause when you start kvetching,
All your teeth fall out.