Subject: Re: Which engineers are more in demand?
From: Mike
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 11:59:59 -0700
C. Wayne Parker wrote:
(snip)
> > - TQM
> > - Decision support systems (DSS)
> > - Systems modelling, etc...
>
> (Yes thank you!)
>
> Buzzwords, buzzwords, buzzwords! Buzzwords come and buzzwords go... From a practical
> standpoint, however, you may want to consider mechanical engineering with a touch of
> electrical - they will always be around. The aerospace business has had it's ups and
> downs over the years.
>
> For example, say you get a BSME and go to work in heating, ventilating, and
> air-conditioning (HVAC): design, construction, system checkout, and (snip)
Risking that I'm preaching to the choir...
I agree, BSME holds a lot of promise well into the future. HVAC will
always be around and so will machine design if we expect to keep making
things to consume. The advice to get some electrical and electronic
ability is also well founded. Industrial engineering jobs are being
automated by expert software.
Don't write off civil engineering either though - somebody has to approve
all those structure drawings and design bridges and roads. Sewers have
been needed for a long long time too!
But if you want a really $uccessful carreer - sell pizza. Though most
engineers are comfortable, few ever get rich being engineers.
Mike
Subject: Welcome to sci.engr! (was Re: Pentium 133 Mini-Tower...)
From: rongraham1@aol.com (RonGraham1)
Date: 13 Sep 1996 16:36:57 -0400
John Burnett wrote...
>Greetings Faustino, sci.engr.mech is not an advertising newsgroup.
>Thanks, John Burnett
We've gone around the block on this before, John. Cough up the
charter and show me where it says what you say. Otherwise, it's
your opinion against mine, and mine is as good as yours. :-)
The current charter for sci.engr *allows* for limited advertisements
and places conditions on them. I wrote Mr. Lopez and told him he
was going a little overboard, and he said he would be a little more
careful in future. (Not that I really believe he will. No-one really
obeys
any Usenet "rules." That's why making more is of little use.)
Getting back to you, John: if advertising in sci.engr.mech is so
distasteful to you, then what would possess you to *repeat the ad
in its entirety* before saying "this is not an advertising newsgroup?"
Come to think of it, what would make you *post* your response at
all? (At least you did e-mail it.) I guess that, with all your practice
at being a net-cop, you would be a little better at it by now. :-)
Here's the sci.engr welcome message. Maybe it contains information
relevant to sci.engr.mech as well. Please note modification (1) to
"standard netiquette."
**********
Welcome to sci.engr!
The original and first of the sci.engr family of newsgroups,
established in 1990 and growing in popularity by a constant rate,
as judged by the formation of new groups in the family. Among
those groups are
o sci.engr.{biomed, chem, civil, color, control,
electrical.compliance, geomechanics, heat-vent-ac,
marine.hydrodynamics, manufacturing, mech, safety,
semiconductors, surveying, television.advanced,
television.broadcast}
o alt.engr.{dynamics, explosives, nuclear}
This group was created with the charter of "technical discussions
of engineering tasks." It exists to help engineers solve those
problems that they encounter every day. Among consistent topics
would be the following:
o how to use an equation, or a method
o reference works
o vendors
o Internet sources
o software programs
o professional societies and their activities
o analysis, demonstration, inspection, similarity, and
testing
No-one anywhere in Usenet, of course, *really* obeys the charters
of the groups they post in. But the sci.engr family, although
unmoderated, boasts a pretty high signal-to-noise ratio as long
as some simple courtesies are followed. Those would include the
standard netiquette found anywhere, with the following
modifications:
(1) Sales material and advertisements appear to be acceptable
within these groups under the condition that embedded within
it is useful, non-product-specific and FREE information.
(Your mileage may vary. Some readers of these groups will
not accept sales material of any kind and under any
conditions. But since I am the Editor of this document,
what I say goes here. :-)) Examples of such advertisements
would include
o New or improved textbooks and software
o New or updated WWW sites
o Course or lecture announcements
o Job listings -- although be careful here. Headhunters
have laid waste to the misc.jobs family with haphazard
posting habits, and insensitivity to the needs of
*this* audience will not be welcomed. If you are a
headhunter, spend some time thinking about how you want
to approach this group before you do it. Otherwise
don't say I didn't warn you.
o Illegal money-making scams, such as MAKE.MONEY.FAST,
are never welcome. In this group, I (at least) respond
instantly to the postmaster of the sender. (If you
followup to a scam and repeat it in its entirety, I
respond to your postmaster as well.)
o Other things headhunters (and others, usually selling
something) do that should never be done *anywhere*:
- request that no e-mail replies be made to their
postings
- use false addresses so no e-mail *can be sent*
(2) There is a certain level of scholarship present in this
group, and it is cheapened by posting messages that add no
value. Such messages would include any and all of the
following remarks:
o "hear, hear" or the common misspelling "here, here"
o "Get a life"
o "Well said"
o "Keep it out of this group" or "Take it to e-mail"
o "Please send me a copy" or "How can I get a copy?"
and so on. If all you want to do with a posting is to agree
or disagree with it, do so via e-mail, or at least stick
some relevant new information in there with your comment.
Otherwise you look like you are clueless. (Yes, I know
you're not. I'm just telling you what you look like.)
Usenet racial memory is perhaps longer than it should be,
but the fact is that it is long. If you show disrespect for
others there is a good chance that it will be remembered
next time you ask for help, or mention your own service.
(3) There are certain individuals (one individual, anyway) who
will crosspost the most outrageous nonsense regularly to
this group, just to get attention. The lesson to be learned
is that crossposting is not welcomed unless it is
appropriate. Even if you are just following up to an
article -- even if you are flaming someone for posting
something inappropriate -- if you follow up to the same
groups without adding value consistent with the charter of a
group, you are behaving as badly as a common spammer.
One common mistake in following up to a crossposted thread
is the assumption that your followup goes only to the group
you care about. May I point out to you that your comments
regarding "this group" will make you look like a complete
idiot if they are posted to ten groups? (Yes, I know you're
not. I'm just telling you how such actions make you look.)
(4) Here are the threads that surface every now and again and
start arguments. If you want to start an argument in these
groups, most of the hot buttons have already been pushed.
That doesn't mean everything relevant has been said. Say it
again, by all means. For some of these subjects, I keep
summaries of previous debates. You can always check with me
before you start a new one, so you can see if your two cents
are fresh or simply recycled.
o Engineers need more (or less) "practical" education
o Engineers all should (or none should) be licensed
o Engineers need more (or less) liberal arts
o Faculty need more (or less) "real world" experience
o The title "engineer" is abused (or used rightly) by
others, such as "software engineers"
o Total quality management will save (or destroy) the
engineering world
o Engineers are responsible for all (or no) failures
o Engineers need to have more (or less) ethics
o This newsgroup needs to be moderated (or left as is)
If I missed any, please let me know. :-)
(5) Students regularly come to this group looking for help with
homework: either the solution to a textbook problem, or
suggestions for a thesis topic, or ideas on how to do a
project. If you are thinking about this approach, please
make it easy on yourself: give as much information as
possible about *what you have already done* on the problem.
And at least *offer* to summarize for the entire group's
benefit what you learn from your inquiry. Some people in
this group charge a lot of money to help businesses solve
the kinds of problems you are asking them to solve for free.
What incentive do you offer them to solve your problem?
(6) Whatever you post, please make your subject heading as
indicative of the subject as possible. If your subject line
is "HELP ME!" or "INFORMATION REQUESTED," the chance of your
getting help from someone knowledgable goes down. They just
won't take the time to read your article just to see what
you're talking about. (But it happens all the time anyway.)
Likewise, if you change the subject of a thread, change the
subject line accordingly so the people who are interested in
the subject can follow it.
The sci.engr.* family of groups has five FAQs for which I am the
Editor (and if there are any other FAQs for which I am not the
Editor, I would like to add copies of them to my files and would
thus appreciate any pointers). Those FAQs are available to
anyone who asks, in lieu of their not being housed at a
particular WWW or FTP site at this time.
(1) On the PE and EIT Exams
(2) On What Engineers Are and Do
(3) On Failures
(4) On Innovation and Product Development
(5) On Engineers and Quality
Their is a sixth near first draft Completion: On Engineers and
Education. I am always looking for other FAQ subjects and would
welcome suggestions.
Dr. Ron Graham
Project Engineer for Robotics, GreyPilgrim LLC, Philadelphia
"The little men with the slide rules and computers are going to
inherit the earth." -- Jimmy Stewart, in "Flight of the Phoenix"
Subject: Re: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinions?
From: Danny Rich
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 17:07:43 -0700
N. Gat wrote:
>
> Subject: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinions?
>
> I'd appreciate any pro and con arguments on the subject of this letter.
> Since this matter touches upon all the sci.*, many comp.* and other
> newsgroups, I'll try to cross post this message.
>
> The TechExpo Web site would like to open up a ScienceExpo section
> dedicated to the publication of scholarly works in HTML format (TechExpo
> already provides an array of services to the science & technology
> community; see http://www.techexpo.com).
>
> THE RATIONALE IS AS FOLLOWS:
>
> 1) The peer-review process of scientific journals may take from many
> months to over a year.
True but there are reasons for this.
>
> 2) The review process is often arbitrary in nature.
More true still ... This is mostly a barrier to young scientists.
>
> 3) The access to the work is limited because many libraries do not carry
> the journal, or it is too expensive for an individual subscription
>Not a problem for serious technologist who will have access to NTIS, ISI
and other search firms. I used to get notices across my desk each week
with lists of articles on topics of my interest only. I initialled the
ones that I wanted to read and by the end of the week I had them in my
hands. Computers and telecommunications were not invented by the
INTERNET.
> 4) A journal in any field carries work that is much broader than that of
> individual researcher or engineer so important papers are often obscured
> because they do not quite belong in any particular journal.
>So why bother reading the whole journal?
> 5) Because of the multi-disciplinary nature of technology and science,
> some topic have applicability in more than one field, and no journal or
> conference may cover such broad fields.
>No, but series technologists can and do.
> 6) Papers posted at ScienceExpo will be searchable not only by key
> words, but the author will be able to select any number of applicability
> categories from a list of over 400 existing categories (see the TechExpo
> classification schedule).
>
> 7) papers will be searchable via all the Web search engines.
>
> 8) The author can still submit the posted paper to refereed journals.
But will it be accepted? Most archival journals have strict rules about
prior publication of papers.
>
> PUBLICATIONS AT ScienceExpo WILL:
>
> a) Appear within 48 hours of submittal
>
> b) The paper will be immediately available to the entire community
>
> c) The paper will indexed and could be found by all researchers via the
> Internet search engines, or internal ScienceExpo search tools (using any
> keyword, author name, institution name, etc.)
>
> d) The author can select any number of fields of science and technology
> form a list of over 400 (see TechExpo Classification Schedule) to reach
> the target audience much broader than any one journal can
>
> e) Authors can hot-link all references directly from their paper
>
> f) On-line discussion of papers can be conducted within the appropriate
> UseNet groups
>
> g) Papers may be copies and printed or forwarded to others
> electronically or by other means.
>
> SOME PROPOSED GROUND RULES:
>
> (A) Work submitted must be of original nature and of value to science or
> technology
>
> (B) The paper must carry the full names of the authors and institution,
> including address, phone number, fax, and e-mail.
>
> (C) Ethical conduct: Papers posted at ScienceExpo should be treated as
> any other publication. They represent the scientific work of colleagues
> and should be treated as such. If information is quoted, the proper
> reference should be given credit.
>
> (D) When copying, forwarding, etc., the entire paper, including the
> authors information, institution, as well as the ScienceExpo source
> should be included.
>
> Obviously ScienceExpo will not referee papers; the authors' names and
> the institution they represent are put on the line -- so posting papers
> ON-LINE should be given as much or more care and thought as submitting a
> paper to prestigious journals
All of the above are both necessary and sufficient for this to be a
meaningful publication forum.
>
> A FEW TECHNICALITIES:
>
> (i) The entire paper must be submitted in HTML, and graphs, figures and
> charts in gif or jpg format (this is a deviation from common formats
> requiring PostScript or TEX, to allow viewing papers using the
> newsreader built into popular browsers, and to allow indexing such
> papers by all the Web search engines)
>
> (ii) Maximum size for text files and graphics will have to be observed
>
> (iii) Equation should be edited using the HTML specifications, or
> scanned and pasted as graphics files
>
> (iv) It is the author's responsibility to secure authorization of the
> institution and/or the research funding authority to submit the
> publication.
>
> Finally here is the most sticky point. If the service if totally free
> of charge, I'm concerned there will be a deluge of frivolous
> publishing. I consider a fee structure to act as a "potential
> Barrier." A low, yet significant fee (hopefully) will discourage the
> unwarranted publications, but will not be too high to discourage worthy
> publications. Perhaps academic institutions will receive a discount,
> but corporations will pay somewhat higher fee also to defray the costs
> of the service.
>
> So one question is whether a fee imposed on publication will completely
> stifle interest? Is for example, a one-time publication fee of $400 for
> a corporation, and $100 for academia too high a fee?
> Why do you assume that you must penalize industrial contributors?
Will their organizations pay the $400? If so, then you will have very
few contributions. My organization supports publicaition only in
journals without page charges. Second, you are far more likely to get
frivolous papers from individuals with no affiliation. What do you
charge them? What do you charge a student? How do you collect these
fees?
> One more comment as to why should TechExpo do this. In my opinion
> technical societies (and I belong to a few) could do the job but the
> problem of cross discipline relevance will not be solved. So being
> unaffiliated with any technical society or technical magazine, TechExpo
> is a neutral ground most appropriate for this job. What's more,
> TechExpo is already providing technology and science information for
> almost two years.
>
> Is this idea totally freakish?
>
> Well, the floor is now open for debate.
>
> Private communications are welcomed but posted comments/debate is
> preferred.
>
> Nahum Gat, Ph.D.
> President
> Opto-Knowledge Systems, Inc. (OKSI)
> Web: http://www.techexpo.com/WWW/opto-knowledge
>
> E-mail: oksi@cerfnet.com
> or
> nahum@techexpo.com
Danny Rich
Subject: Re: Publishing Scholarly Work on the Web -- opinion anyone?
From: ez050640@boris.ucdavis.edu (Theodore Swift)
Date: 14 Sep 1996 01:06:36 GMT
In article <3236561B.37C5@cerfnet.com>, oksi@cerfnet.com wrote:
> THE RATIONALE IS AS FOLLOWS:
>
>
> 1) The peer-review process of scientific journals may take from many
> months to over a year.
>
> 2) The review process is often arbitrary in nature.
I tend to agree with (1) and disagree with (2), and this forms the basis
for my support of the idea of "publishing" electronically, with a few
reservations or amendments to the ideas already presented.
It seems to me the advantage of the electronic medium is speed, and that's
about the only important advantage. But speed can also be a disadvantage:
We want to produce a body of literature that the community of researchers
can rely on for accuracy, logic, etc., and "speed" isn't the best means to
that end.
That being said, I think an electronic "publication" medium provides a
route for rapid feedback on a *draft* of a paper. It occurs to me that
this might blur the definition of "authorship", or at least swell the space
devoted to acknowledgements traditionally found in a paper (e.g. "The authors
wish to thank the 257 reviewers who commented on the text. A full list
can be found at /foo.edu/bar/brickbats" ). Then, after a preliminary round
of feedback, the revised (and, one hopes, improved) paper should go on to
the "traditional" journal revision process, which might be made to respond
faster with the knowledge that the submission has already been run through
a mill.
-Ted Swift
Subject: Re: Publishing Scholarly
From: paul.suleski@pc-aug.com (Paul Suleski)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 12:40:00 GMT
>Looking in the future though, suppose 50 years down the road
>someone wants to find one of these papers. I don't imagine the same
>sites will be around then, and there may be a completely different way
>of storing and accessing these papers. How can one reference a paper
>today in some sort of "permanent" way so that a person could find that
>paper in 50 years? I think a lot of consideration has to made for the
>future of storing these papers so that they will be accessible for quite
>some time in the future.
>
>This isn't that huge of an issue to me. Just something I think needs to
>be considered.
Indeed. OTOH, in 50 years, might not a paper be obsoleted (or
even proven absurd) by more modern research?
That's one side of the polyhedron (the two-sided coin analogy
just doesn't fit, given the gamut of opinions in this thread).
Today we have CDROM, the most permanent medium I can imagine.
A library of such containing all the world's knowledge would not
fill a room at the branch library down the street. Denser storage
will surely be found, eventually. But then, so would the speed of
data transfer. If there were a public, international body to
warehouse these permanent archives, perhaps several, duplicate
archives for security's sake, then what we'd need is a standard,
that, given the way such things evolve as needed, would migrate the
archives from one technological generation to the next.
It's inevitable, it seems to me.
___
* UniQWK v4.2 * The Windows Mail Reader
Subject: Re: WHAT YOU KNOW versus WHO
From: paul.suleski@pc-aug.com (Paul Suleski)
Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 15:04:00 GMT
>From: klwasson@aol.com (Klwasson)
>Subject: WHAT YOU KNOW versus WHO YOU KNOW
>
>I was told at an early age that it's not what you know, it's who you
>know, that will determine your success in life. So far I have
>found that is true to some extent. Networking and smoozing are
>clearly important.
>
>I would be very curious to hear from you all on this: Based on your
>experiences and observations in your careers, do more engineers get hired
>(1) based largely on their background, capabilities and experience or (2)
>based largely on who they knew at the place that hired them. Please
>indicate what industry or field you are in.
>
It took me some time to respond, because it involved some
soul-searching about my somewhat checkered career. Over the recent
fifteen years, I was hired by very large companies which had major
systems projects that were in trouble or needed a sudden influx of
particular expertise which I had in unique combination. These
include Intel, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing. Prior to that, I
worked on the vendor side of the material handling hardware systems
industry, working my way up from engineering special transfer
devices, to systems engineering, to sales engineering, to
consulting before the company I thought would dominate the industry
went belly up for some non-technical (read bean counter screw up)
reason. Because I thought it was the peak of my career, I crossed
the line to become an in-house consultant for major corporations.
Until then, I counted solely on technical expertise for my
advancement. I'm at my best with "mission impossible" situations
and so far have always come through. But when layoffs are in the
works, I wind up on the list, anyway. Why? Lot's of reasons, some
favorable in my mind; others, a blow to my ego. On the whole,
though, I'd say my lack of skill at schmoozing has hurt me.
Schmoozing can mean a lot of things. I could schmooz HR by
getting a master's in my field; but, I haven't the time, despite
the writings I've done that are that level. In fact, this
December, I'll be presenting a paper to the 1st International
Conference on Industrial Engineering Applications and Practice at
the University of Houston. I'm going as Mr., not Dr. or anything
else like that. The conference emphasizes traditional; but, when I
submitted my abstract for approval, I noted my subject was about
two NON-traditional approaches to analyzing inventory and using a
mathematical model spreadsheet for designing warehouse
storage/retrieval systems. I asked my company about sponsoring my
trip (to cover my expenses). The answer was no, for "the company
wouldn't get anything out of it for the money." In fact, my new
boss suggested a new hire should go instead, because that's his
responsibility (planning our expansion). Why am I not on that team?
I wonder, too. I guess I'll just have to wait until the project is
in serious trouble, then come in and fix it.
While working for Boeing in Seattle, I was guest speaker at an
APICS dinner on automated factory subjects. I'd probably get APICS
certification, locally, myself, if I'd take the time.
But I got one flaw: I hate paperwork! That's why I so heavily
rely on computers to get the job done - any kind, any OS. My
office is a mess, for the many working, but undocumented projects I
initiated. My filing method is CHAOS; but, I can find what I want,
unless some neatnik has visited me. My operating style is "tackle
the problem head on, solve it, and move on to the next one." After
a while, you have to really look hard for the next one.
I do get top dollar for my time; but, given the periods of
unemployment, I probably average out as mediocre in income.
Getting the top of my salary range likely also makes me a
downsizing target, for human nature usually asks "what have you
done for me lately?" OTOH, being at the right place at the wrong
time is no picnic, either. Boeing desparately needed a warehouse
designer when 777 was starting up and I was loaned to BAC by BCS,
the division that hired me, to work on the composites factory; but
when BCS did its layoffs, guess who doesn't have a MSCS? Last time
I saw a layout, my uncompleted work was badly screwed up by the
thoughtless addition of a structure that could have been better located.
Am I bitter? Sometimes I do get depressed over why I'm not a
millionare; but then I take a look at my "Most Satifying
Accomplishments" document and it makes me feel much better. I may
not get the recogition I deserve for my "significant contributions
to the state of the art," but I can point to that and say proudly,
"I did it."
While many of my wins are individual efforts, as I get older, I
increasingly appreciate the value of a teamwork environment for
major projects. Perhaps my "luck" will now change.
___
* UniQWK v4.2 * The Windows Mail Reader