REEEE MM/DD/YYYY Burn it with fire

AI can’t imagine an image full glass of wine because there are barely any images of that in any dataset out there. AI can’t think, just massage it’s dataset into something vaguely plausible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=160F8F8mXlo

This song is near and dear to my heart after having only heard it a handful of times before

Though, the problems described are not from the project managers, it’s the higher ups and owners squeezing every last cent, with disregard for the people who will be killed.

So, so many unnecessary deaths because someone wanted to save money and cut corners in my industry.

This is why people who advocate for small government and lax regulations, are idiots

I don’t work in software, I’m a chemical (aka process) engineer.

Some project managers are superfluous if they don’t have a background being an engineer of some discipline themselves, but the vast majority I’ve worked with are excellent because they have a working knowledge of everything required to progress each stage of the project, and deal with most of the client interactions.

Being able to say: “we’ve done x, but we still need y, z and aa to progress” and then the project manager organising this getting done together with the other discipline leads is a godsend, letting you focus on doing the actual calculations/design/nitty-gritty details. And the fact they manage the annoying role of dealing with clients and the disagreements around that is also great.

This is working as a consultant, but I imagine if you replace clients with higher ups, I’d imagine the same still applies.

Perhaps things are very different in software, but I do think there is some use for them.

But I’ve never had one check up every 15 mins, more like once a day, and only if something is very time sensitive. Otherwise it’s once a week, or by email as required.

While I know that these days, bugs in code can cause real-world harm (personal info leaks, superannuation records lost, lol google), I find it humorous to think of the equivalent, even worse outcomes in my discipline (chemical/process engineering).

“Didn’t do any checks, fuck it, I know this calculation is fire 🔥”

Later: 🔥🔥💥

(Pressure) * (volume) = (# moles) * (gas constant) * (temperature)

The ideal gas law.

In another thread I admit I didn’t explain my position here well enough. I would only not explain this equation given sufficient context (e.g. I’ve shown all those variables in a table, and my intended audience is people familiar with basic chemistry, which I’d expect would be everyone reading the report for this particular example, since this is high school chemistry, and the topic of all reports I work on is chemical engineering.)

People can read the conclusions if they’re not familiar with chemistry, and for the detail, they’re not my intended audience anyway.

Generally I still hold the position that you should define variables as much as possible, unless it’s overly cumbersome, given your intended audience would clearly understand anyway.

In context this simple equation is obvious even if you change the symbols, as long as there is sufficient context to draw from.

No worries friend, no hard feelings and appreciate the engagement!

Yeah, agree it is a bit wishy washy in terms of gauging how much explanation to include ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I suppose (in my opinion) the mindset should be: include as much explanation as possible, without it being cumbersome.

I personally err on the side of over-explanation and have had some senior engineers give me feedback that it’s too much. Still learning for myself how much is too much.

Totally agree though, that there are many cases where people leave things out as assumed, when it’s not really reasonable to do so.

A side-thought on specificity: one of my biggest pet peeves is when people list pressure with the units of kPa, when they really mean kPag. In industry, you are rarely talking in absolute pressure (other than for pressure differences) and people then get lazy/don’t know/assume it’s fine to do something like: set point 100 kPa (when they mean 100 kPag). It isn’t fine though, because at lower pressures atmosphere counts for a pretty large percentage of the absolute value.

Understand your frustration with how I’ve communicated my position, sorry about that:

My justification for the examples I’ve given is there still needs to be other context, is based on complexity of the equation, and the intended audience of that equation.

An example of me not explaining a very simple equation would be perhaps a table of various cases:

| — | mass flow (kg/hr) | density (kg/m³) | Volumetric flow (m³/hr), V = m/ρ | | Case 1 | blah blah | blah blah | blah | | Etc. | … | … | … |

Realising now that markdown tables don’t seem to work 😅, hopefully this is still clear.

It may be a touch better to put variable symbols in the other columns, but:

1. You still have the final answer (the purpose of my report, I’m not writing a thesis here)
2. It should be plainly obvious by the units, and the fact those are the previous two variables, to someone who has the ability to understand (and is the intended audience of that little equation)

As a recent example for this, in a data sheet I recently prepared, I literally just put a * in the references column and said “*calculated from other data sheet values” for the volumetric flow rate, because the intended audience would know how to do that, and the purpose was for me to communicate how that value was determined.

Me putting in the V = m/ρ in the hypothetical example I gave above is a just a little mind jog for the reader.

Where more complicated equations are used, of course these are properly referenced, usually even with the standard or book it’s come from.

I’ll redefine my position to: Clearly define all variables, unless it’s abundantly obvious to your intended audience from context.

My intended audience of the conclusions or final values are the layman. My intended audience of everything else is someone with a very basic chemical engineering understanding.

Your last point is a strawman:

I find it a bit contradicting to the very point you made about defining variables. If anything, one might be some home-grown genius that has real business getting into details but only ever used Chinese characters as variables

Because I’m writing in English, for an English speaking audience, and there is no such thing as a home-grown genius getting into my area because it’s a legal requirement that they have an honours degree. Even still, the two assumed knowledge equations I mentioned, which I would only not reference with sufficient context, would STILL be recognisable with totally random symbols.

| mass flow (kg/hr) | density (kg/m³) | Volumetric flow (m³/hr), 容 = 质/密 | Yup, a bit odd in an English context, but with the units information (always mandatory, of course) completely understandable.

There ya go (only used it up until highschool physics, in Australia, iirc), I definitely have no business reading anything regarding voltage then 😅

Thanks for sharing

You only have to define it once in a document, book, whatever. Also, it’s not like you’d ever need to do this for handwritten notes, only for a wider audience, or if you intend for something to be read by not just you.

No one is suggesting you don’t use symbols, just that you define them, and not assume the reader uses the same symbols as you. Which, so often, they don’t. (How many different ones have you come across just in highschool and uni. I came across multiple)

I’m no physicist, but surely there is a huge range of symbols for the same thing, especially the more niche you get.

Lol fair point regarding Eng: “Engineering”.

But Nah, I think assumed knowledge of PV=nRT is fair in context, since if you don’t know what it is, you’ll only be reading the conclusion, not getting into the weeds of a calculation document.

I’m not going even going to be explaining if I have a column that’s says volumetric flow rate, with V=m/ρ. If I give mass flow rate and density (with units, of course), and use these extremely common symbols, and someone doesn’t understand, then they have no real business getting to this level of detail anyway.

I do agree that in most cases not defining your variables is bad practice, but there is some nuance, depending on the intended audience and how common a formula is, and the format of whatever it is you’re writing.

I should specify when I say physical engineering I just mean chemical, mechanical, electrical, etc. (not software), rather than physics in theory/academia.

I guess engineers are applied physics (in a particular area each), and we need to distribute our deliverables to people who aren’t necessarily experts in every discipline.

It just also makes sense to always define variables.

It’s so funny because I’ve never seen voltage defined as U, and not V haha, proving how if you’re going to have an equation, you’d better define everything, there’s so many reused letters!

Thanks for sharing

Thing is, you usually define all your variables. At least we do in engineering (of physical variety, rather than software).

Mostly because we can’t expect everyone reading the calculation to know, and that not everyone uses the same symbols.

Not explaining each variable is bad practice, other than for very simple things. (I do expect everyone and their dog reading a process eng calc to know PV=nRT, at a minimum).

Just like (in my opinion) not defining industry specific abbreviations is also bad practice.

Mathematicians don’t do this? Shame on them.

Or, ooor, the obvious answer of mandating the UTC in the backend.

Actually moving societies all to UTC is a really bad idea, as outlined by many others, dozens of times on Lemmy.

24 hour time though, that’d be nice. Everyone already knows how it works anyway!

Which I think we can all agree is more work than what we currently need to.

It’s not just one addition, it’s 2 operations following knowing what time midnight is to understand what the solar time it is: what time is it now, minus what time is their midnight, and then you have to add that back to what your midnight is to get a sense of the time. Or you just start thinking in solar time WHICH IS WHAT WE ALREADY DO.

That’s 2 calculations. Currently we do 0.

Innately knowing what time means in films, talking to people over the phone, going to a new country. It would be a huge pain in the arse.

"They met up at 13:00“ great. So where are they in this film? Forcing exposition where currently you might let it be vague.

People who advocate for one timezone simply haven’t thought it through.

Could you elaborate a little, I’m not quite sure how it’s related to timezones

Because it makes getting an intuitive sense of what solar time it is somewhere harder.

Can I call my grandma in a different country? Hmm what time is average midnight there. Okay 8 (so far, same thing as looking up a timezone), and it’s 18:00 now, so 10 hours after midnight, which is like my 23:00. Needlessly complicated with extra steps for the average person.

Sure, you can say, I’ll call you X and that will mean the same thing everywhere, but does not have any information about solar time. And these days, it’s automatically converted if you use a calendar (which you should). This is the point of programming, to make the USERS life easier, not the dev. The end is more important than the means, I think we can agree.

Or: what time is it where my grandma is? Okay, cool, I have a sense of what that is immediately after knowing the answer.

There are reasons we do things this way. Working roughly to solar times has more benefits than being able to say a time and it mean the same moment everywhere.

I say we leave things the way they are, works okay.

Thank you! Drives me up the wall that when people suggest this and they haven’t thought it through, and that it might make other things worse.

I’d say for everyday usability, what we have is way better. Sure, you deal with timezones, but at least once you know what time it is there you have a good sense of what part of the day they are in.

Currently you look up the timezone, maybe do some maths (but let’s be real, you just search and get given the time) and then you immediately have a good sense of what the time is there, oh cool it’s 7AM.

If we all had the same timezone: you look it up, and then you HAVE to do maths. Why? Oh their midnight is 8, and it’s 15 now, so 7 hours after midnight.

Your mind immediately has gone to oh it’s 7AM, but NO, in this new reality, it’s 15:00 everywhere and where you live midnight is 14:00, so that means where you live it would be like your 21:00.

No matter what time you pick to anchor what time of day that place is, the problem persists. And now you just have replaced the problem of looking up timezones, with looking up when the sun is at some point, and then needing to convert that to get a sense of what time it is there according to the sun.

This would be shit, when you get to a new country when travelling you have to relearn what the numbers “feel” like.

Let’s just keep what we have, this is a solved problem.

As a non-software engineer, feels weird that they’re making this distinction.

I don’t have much to do with engines either.

I take engineer to mean: designs stuff that does some task, involving SOME kind of calculation.

Visual designer: not an engineer

Piping designer: not an engineer (although this one felt weird, that’s what the piping designer corrected me to say, so)

Chemical engineer: ya

Mechanical engineer: yeah

Software engineer: totally different flavour, but still yeah

Language is what we want it to be.

Web designers presumably still need to script things, I reckon that counts 👍

You will snooze for 9 minutes and you will like it.