• Noble Shift@lemmy.world
    18·
    1 day ago

    As a child I was derided for doing the least amount possible. As an engineer that’s exactly what I get paid to do. Take that Mom.

    • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
      26·
      2 days ago

      Math Teacher: You won’t be carrying a calculator with you every where you go.

      Me: Umm actually I will.

      Math teacher: yeah but in the future Microsoft will force you to log in to use the calculator App, harvest your data and sell it to your insurance company forcing you to pay thousands more.

      Me: Oh umm, I’ll be using Android?

      Teacher: LOL, Ok.

      Me: Ok, I’ll just carry a regular calculator around.

      Teacher: Trust me if you don’t want to be a nerd you need to stay inside and do your homework.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      34·
      2 days ago

      “Calculators can’t solve word problems!” Line also seems to be failing the test of time lol

        • cm0002@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 day ago

          Eh, it’s not like that’s not a solvable problem. Electric cars and AC also suffer from the same issue wherein they’re as clean or dirty as the electric generation they’re connected to.

          Hook an AC to a renewable energy source and it’s not all that dirty (provided no leaks), AI data centers are the same way.

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 day ago

            The problem is is that, for the most part, AI isn’t solving any problems. That work isn’t accomplishing anything. Have generated images or those Google AI Summaries done anything for you? It’s a huge, new energy expense that we don’t need right now. Any solar that goes up for an AI data center could have gone to a EVs or HVAC hat currently use fossil fuels. We need to stop using those data centers to produce celebrity deepfakes and start fixing the material science issues of fusion energy.

            • cm0002@lemmy.world
              2·
              1 day ago

              Not entirely true, there is absolutely a lot of AI going on in science and medicine, it’s definitely doing some good for humanity on that front. And thanks to stupid VC investors money chasing unicorns everywhere, it does have a trickle down effect to the actual “good” AI.

              It’s just that Medicine and Science AI articles aren’t money making articles, so you don’t see them as much.

      • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        4·
        2 days ago

        Until you need to verify if the computer understood and solved the problem properly

        It’s like, sure, a calculator can help you solve equations… but what is the proper equation for the situation?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      2 days ago

      I would argue the problem is not having a calculator in my pocket but getting it out of my pocket when I’m juggling a baby.

      • humorlessrepost@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        2 days ago

        The trick is to throw the baby higher than the calculator so you have time to press a few buttons on the calculator each time.

  • NABDad@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    2 days ago

    I give my mom credit. In the 80’s she found summer classes for me where I could learn about programming.

    To this day I’m not sure if she was responding to an interest I expressed, or if she planted the interest in my mind. However, for more than 30 years people have been paying me to stare at computer screens all day.

    Thanks, Mom!

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      14·
      2 days ago

      I give my mom credit. In the 80’s she found summer classes for me where I could learn about programming.

      In the early 80s we we NOT well off. However, our entire household chose to go without christmas (and went into debt) to buy a Commodore 64 computer. It allowed me to experiment, make mistakes, and learn in a safe environment. When I started using computers in school was already very comfortable with it. When I started in the working world, I was not only comfortable, but highly knowledgeable about using and fixing computers.

      My sibling and I are both successful IT professionals. I absolutely attribute having that computer (even a very under powered c64) in the house growing up.

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
    33·
    2 days ago

    She was right. They’re actually paying me to stare at my phone most of the time I’m supposed to be staring at the computer screen.

  • superkret@feddit.org
    21·
    2 days ago

    My mom supported me all the time, while I was failing first my Electrical Engineering, then my Environmental Science degree.
    She still trusted I would make it!
    And now I am better off than her and my dad, and can financially support my partner’s dreams, simply by doing what I did for fun while I was failing my studies.

    My mom couldn’t have known that, and she doesn’t fully understand why I make so much money doing this, but she always believed in me.

    Thanks, mom!

  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
    16·
    2 days ago

    “You will never have a job where you can wear comfortable clothes”

    To this day that’s been wrong about 99% of my working life

    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      we had to put signs up around one office I worked at warning when clients would be dropping by, because half of the back office worked in pajamas most days

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
            2·
            21 hours ago

            That sucks. People expect their engineer to look sort of alive but thankfully they’re ok with disappointment in that regard. Other than that my career has had everything from “wear your Union tshirt when you think the boss is gonna be mad at you” to “why do you expect me to wear these shoes on a factory floor” to “Japanese companies wear uniforms, get over it”. Seriously hated having to wear flats instead of my boots

  • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
    23·
    2 days ago
          IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
      PROGRAM-ID. YOURWRNG.
      ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
      PROCEDURE DIVISION.
          DISPLAY 'YOU WERE WRONG MOM'.
          STOP RUN.
      • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
        3·
        2 days ago

        That’s the fun thing about some of the older systems. Program names were limited to eight or ten characters so you had to get creative with naming within a library (basically the equal of a folder on AS/360 … AS/400 systems) if it got large.

        • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          We have a few systems with data from the 90s that carried over the 8 character limit and a few older devs who are still in the habit of shortening names. Everyone once in a while I have to remind them to spell things out, they aren’t being charged by the letter!

          • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
            2·
            2 days ago

            Oh my goodness. I have a hard time getting folks to stop using QRPGLESRC and QCBLLESRC and start using the IFS so that we can put source in places like /home/devname/src. And don’t even get me started, we still have DDS defined files even after IBM deprecated them in favor of SQL DDL tables.

            The newest IBM i machines (formerly AS/400) even come with git but can’t use that because that’s too confusing for some still. And oh my goodness, RPGLE now comes with a builtin %upper() and %lower() but folks still using %xlate(), which doesn’t work with things like UTF-8. I can’t with some of the older devs at my place and I’m not exactly a spring chicken.

            All these tools IBM packs in to help people make more modern software and convert the older stuff to more modern implementations, but biggest problem I have is getting others to learn the new stuff and getting legal to be okay with major changes.