Comments for Engineering Revision

Comment on What engineers have in common (part 3) by Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:30:24 +0000

Thanks for reading through the entire series. It’s a bit lengthy, but I wanted to establish some groundwork for future posts. If asked about this a month ago, I would have, like you, protested having software developers being called engineers. But in thinking about what activities engineers carry out, I came to a different conclusion. If I’ve swayed your opinion, then I’m pleased, as I must not have come across as a total raving loon.

I don’t know that the term “physineer” will ever make it into the popular lexicon, but the engineering community needs to make the wider public aware that asking for an “engineer” is like asking for an “vehicle.” One might end up with a bicycle, or a race car, or a boat, or maybe a train. While all provide transportation, they each have their own strengths, limitations, and domains of operation. That’s why we have different names for each type of vehicle.

Comment on What engineers have in common (part 3) by FrauTech

FrauTech — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:19:13 +0000

Very interesting series. Okay I was little negative on software developers being called “engineers” but you’ve convinced me there’s room at the table, so long as we understand what each discipline brings with it.

Comment on What engineers have in common (part 2) by FrauTech

FrauTech — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:43:05 +0000

Hi, just to let you know I pinged you: http://frautech.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/versatility-coefficient/

Comment on What do engineers have in common? by FrauTech

FrauTech — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:46:09 +0000

I agree entirely. Not to disparage developers, but I hate how they are lumped in with engineers. And then therefore lumped in with STEM employees. And there’s all this media attention that we need more STEM folks when there isn’t as much demand in the science and math employment sectors. And of course when they say we need more engineers they only kind of “engineer” they are hiring is a software developer!

Comment on Making Beamer Better by Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:20:36 +0000

No, I never found a good solution.

Comment on Making Beamer Better by Ricardo S.

Ricardo S. — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:07:14 +0000

Indeed, this is highly needed when you use beamer for all your presentations. Did you find a software/script that does this for you?
R

Comment on Making Beamer Better by Wouter D.

Wouter D. — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 13:11:19 +0000

I, too, wish there was something like this (and was looking for exactly that when I stumbled upon your post). As you suggest, I am using individual files for each slide (or logical succession of a few slides) in a directory tree structure (~/Slides//../slide.tex). Everything is combined in a master file using \include statements. The master file also contains the title page info, the sectioning, and the table of contents. This still doesn’t allow me to prepare the individual slides in the single files (they lack the preamble), but at least I can combine them quickly and don’t have to scroll through long listings of code. I have one master file that I use for preparing the individual slides. It just contains lines like:
\include{slides//../slide.tex}
where slides is a link to ~/Slides because LaTeX does not do absolute paths. Hope this is useful to you or to someone else who passes by.

Comment on Adding MathJax to WordPress by Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 03:36:18 +0000

For some reason, my entire MathJax folder was deleted from /plugins/mathjax-latex/. I’m not sure whether this was due to a software update, or some other glitch. Anyway, all of my instructions above are outdated, as MathJax has moved their software from Sourceforge to Github. The basic process is the same, but all the file names are different. There is no longer a need to load special font files for Firefox. The latest MathJax version (1.1) has deleted the default configuration, meaning that this information must be explicitly added. I included the necessary script command in the footer, as you will find if you scroll to the bottom of the page source.

With all of these changes, it didn’t seem that the mathjax-latex plugin was doing much for me, so I disabled it. Also, MathJax is now hosting their own code, so you have the option of linking to their server if you want to avoid having to install their software on your own machine.

Comment on Adding MathJax to WordPress by Niels

Niels — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:04:09 +0000

Hi, it doesn’t seem to work on your blog anymore. Neither it does on mine, I guess it has something to do with wp 3.1 since I just upgraded (no backups ofcourse) and it broke. Are you running 3.1 as well?

Comment on Adding MathJax to WordPress by Henry

Henry — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 03:37:01 +0000

Thanks a lot.
It helped me install mathjax.