Cat

any women whose eyes do not glaze over when the conversation gets technical is by definition "hot"

I like that!

Back in the Olden Days when I was growing up, there was no such thing as a "geek". All of the social misfits were called "nerds". There was a sub-set of nerds called "media nerds". These were the guys who were in the Media Club, set up the AV equipment for the school, hung out in the only classroom with an actual modem in it (had to put the phone handset down on the rubber cups). I think they morphed into today's "geeks". So I would have to (respectfully!) disagree -- I think geeks are a subset of nerds.

That's true up through LV 2009. In later versions, ... oh... nevermind.

You are such a tease.

"We're knights of the round table, we're in-de-fati-gable"...

So I *did* know it. I was probably in 8th grade the year that came out!

I'm feeling a little better about this today...

Last night my daughter was wading thru vocabulary words (did I have to know how to use "indefatigable" in a sentence in 8th grade?). I asked to hear the sentences she had come up with so far. One of her words was "maxim". She said, "The only thing I could come up with was, 'The Vulcan maxim is "Live long and prosper."'"

That's my girl!

I think the legend of Edison is larger than the man on several fronts - just ask Nikola Tesla

Exactly. Tesla had it all over Edison. Tesla was just a little too wacky and Edison had better PR.

A few years ago this was circulating around:

http://www.innergeek.us/geek-test.html

I scored embarrasingly high on it, much to the amusement of my fellow geeky cow-orkers. So far only my uber-geeky godson has beat my score and that's because he know all the gaming stuff that I don't.

Back then you got 10 extra points just for being female. I haven't looked over the latest version to see if that's still true.

This is potentially interesting.

I personally find it more than "potentially" interesting.

As the parent of a 13 year old daughter, I find it, and the accompanying article

http://www.livescience.com/health/070827_girls_math.html

fairly disturbing. My daughter is quite smart (not just bragging here -- she's in all honors or gifted/talented classes and gets straight A's) and has always shown an interest in science. But I've seen it decreasing over the past couple years. Maybe I'll print out these articles and talk about them with her.

I believe the life we are lent belongs to God and we are only caretakers of what was is and always be his ("his" generic). So when it came and when it returns is completely his perogative.

Wow! Finally something interesting to read in the alfa thread!

Does the concept of having a "soul" fit into this philosophy somewhere? I'm trying to get at what you think "happens" to us after God takes back the life he lent us.

The biggest cheer I ever heard at NI-Week was when the word "UNDO" appeared on the screen during a presentation!

Oh, but do you remember how there were a few curmudgeons who thought implementing UNDO was the biggest waste of NIs time? "No one needs undo", they said. "NI needs to be spending it's time adding functionality to LabVIEW, not useless bells and whistles. You all should just be more careful when you're programming. "

Rough day for Hooovahh's ego (alter or otherwise)...

Okay, so then I need to apologize to hooovahh for thinking someone had called him an underling, and to crelf for second-handedly calling him nefarious and potentially irksome. And I definitely apologize for the worst insult of all: calling crelf "Senior Management".

Are junior people not allowed to voice their opinions? Are they not allowed to have good ideas?

And here I thought what was being suggested was some sort of nefarious plot by Senior Management to make the Underling do his dirty work. Tho considering the Senior Management allegedly involved, I can't imagine he'd really want/need someone else to do that. He's always seemed willing to irk people all on his own.

(Crud! I promised myself I wan't going to post to this thread anymore!)

I don't understand what you mean -- do you think the insurance industry or health care industry can reform itself?

Of course it can! Just like the financial industries keep themselves under control!

Oh, wait...

Or that someone used the Icon Editor and drew a triangle with a plus sign on it. Occam's Razor, man, Occam's Razor.

Oh but that's so boring! It's much more fun speculating. Kind of like trying to make up figure out what the V I in V I Engineering stands for.

Personally I think it's kinda strange that AQs ideas don't just... automatically happen.

54 kudos and it can't get traction!?

There's no hope whatsoever for any of my ideas....

Bad news: out of the literally hundreds of ideas only 5 are "In Development"

Good news: 1 of those 5 is rankied 24th in # of kudos. I'm assuming ease of implementation is also considered along with kudos. At least that's how I'd do it.

So there's always hope! A little bit, anyway.

Or the "fudge factor" is a correction to the formulas to get models to match the observed data.

If you are coding something up using "y=mx", with the assumption that all of your data starts at the origin, you might find that "y=mx+b" actually fits reality better. That constant "b" could be called a refinement to the model, or it could be called a "fudge factor", especially by someone who doesn't necessary understand the origins of the equations.

I'm not saying that this is what happened - just pointing out that a "fudge factor" can be used for non-nefarious reasons.

This is exactly what my "fudgeFactor" is. It was developed years before I started on this part of the project, so last time I was testing at that lab I insisted they take me thru the derivation. Turns out it was off by quite a bit (new sensors with different sensitivities, different gain settings, etc). So now I have a new, improved (and thoroughly documented) value to throw into the equation. But I still call it "fudgeFactor" because that is more interesting sounding than "refinement to the model".

Addressing this comment purely from a philosophical standpoint, you bear much responsibility if the software you write (intentionally or unintentionally) biases the data one way or the other--moreso if you lock it up and don't let anyone else review it.

Philosophically speaking, I agree completely.

That being said -- we have some very smart people who work here who can come up with all sorts of in-depth analysis algorithms that I don't necessarily completely understand (I'm still puzzling over how our algorithm for a lofargram really works). They hand me an algorithm and I turn it into code. How do I know that algorithm isn't biased somehow? I don't.

Then this must be true too:

Found this when I Googled "Zyrtec vision" http://www.askapatie...835&name=zyrtec Lots of serious stuff, then this:

3 Allergies First few doses were well tolerated. After a week, thought I had lost vision completely...the zyrtec caused me to initially feel better which made me drink more beer and I passed out under my stairs where there is no light...not a safe drug at all! Vision problems continued a few more times without much warning. Do not take with more than a 12 pack or so...not safe!

Ack! I take that every day!

But wait! I drink cases of wine, not 12-packs of beer. I'm sure I'm okay...

Why people would trust so much personal information to an advertising company is beyond me.

Because they aren't evil. It says so right here in a wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil

so it must be true.

BBC is on board. It reveals the most shocking revelation yet IMO. But why am I not shocked?

As programmers we should all start taking this scandal personally.

I have written code that has the exact term "fudgeFactor" for a constant.

I have written code without an audit track.

I've probably written code that if someone wanted to pay another LV programmer big bucks to analyze, they'd probably find some esoteric error in it somewhere. Well, okay, maybe it wouldn't be *that* hard.

I have written code that included perhaps not quite the most professional comments, mostly made late at night (or early in the morning) after too much espresso, or perhaps getting a little over-the-top when completely fed up with a user's anal retentive requirements (I'm thinking about a dialogue box that has two options: T="Continue" F="I don't know. Ask me again." I would have gotten rid of it after the beta release, but the users love it. Most anything is funny after a week on a submarine...)

Unless I missed it, no where in that article does it say the code doesn't do what it's supposed to do. No where does it say that the algorithm behind the code is incorrect or was used to "fudge" data. It does however sound like the programmer needs a little help with his/her self-esteem...

I write software that people use to analyze data. I bear no responsibility for what they do with the results my software gives them.

It seems that a scientist deliberately altered data -- regardless of what the code may have told him. That is wrong and extremely upsetting. But I consider that on a completely different level from someone writing "unprofessional" code. It would be a bit hypocritical of me to do otherwise.

Just don't forget that you'll need Old Glory Robot Insurance

(I can't believe that site hasn't been blocked by Big Brother. Yet.)

Wow. This is pretty powerful stuff. And certainly not what I learned in Civics class in highschool.

So what happens if I make it onto a jury and then tell everyone they have a right to vote their conscience? Does the entire jury get nullified? Do I get dragged off to jail?

This is all very interesting, I don't need to lose any weight; I'm 5'10" and 163 lbs. I've never even been close to overweight. My cholesterol is also well under control (<140), between the low saturated fat intake and Lipitor. I could use a boost to my HDL, which averages in the high 20's, and which I've been told is genetic.

That all sounds pretty good! Which probably just makes your health issues more frustrating for you...

That's why I mentioned the reduction in triglycerides with low-carbing. Do you know if your triglyceride level is okay? We're (obviously) wandering outside my level of research here, but intuitively I would think that high levels of blood fat would mean more of a chance to clog arteries...?

Sorry, this topic is not controversial enough for the LAVA Lounge. Where's that "Report to Moderator" button...?

I don't want to ruin your recovery plans, but the answer to that has already been figured out. It's 42.

Darn! You beat me to it!

If our government comes up with health care reform I will support it 100%, NO QUESTIONS ASKED on ONE condition: that any health care system they come up with MUST provide the same level of health care coverage for the welfare mother with children in inner-city Detroit as it does for 0bama and the rest of the elite in Washington.

Fair enough?

I'm surprised. That's definitely fair enough. Every American should have the option of having just as good health care insurance as their tax dollars are providing their elected representatives.

I had a surreal conversation with someone a few weeks ago on this topic. She was adamently opposed to any sort of gov't intervention in the health care system in any way shape or form. I asked her what she would do if she lost her job and her health insurance and got sick. "Go live with family and have them take care of me" was the reply. Then I asked what she would do if she didn't have any family. She replied, "I would just go off somewhere and die."

Well, alrighty then...