I’m also a software engineer (at least in title). I agree with the social skills but a different thing came to mind. The ability to actually watch and understand what people are trying to do. I’m lucky as all my software is internal to my company. I don’t make what we sell, I make what tests the products we sell. And yes I test the tests and also test the test’s tests 😭.

I’ll give an example. I have an operation where the operator is to scan a number off a paper before testing. That number is for traceability we need to know which test results are for which unit. Previous engineer said since it’s scanned off the unit it will never be incorrect as long on the printed barcode is correct(separately validated) so no need to verify format.

I ran into an issue where units had an extra zero either before or after the number. So if number was 12345 sometimes it would be 012345 or 123450.

I went to watch the process. The operator scanned the unit( I watched them work all day, this was 1 unit out of a whole days work) and when they put the scanner down the scanner’s corner was on the 0 button of the keypad.

We did a 2 phase remiduation. Stage 1. Operator instructed to log in and then place keyboard on shelf away from workplace. Stage 2. Verify the number is in correct format in code. Yes the code update is simple but in our field needs weeks of work to test, validate, and release.

Actually watching the operator closely identified the problem. The code was not the issue, the code passed all requirements and tests. The issue was the tests and requirements did not match the user’s experience but if I stayed in my cube as for weeks I would not of been able to find the bug.

I equate an AI to an intern. It’s useful for some stuff but if I’m going to attach my name to it I’m going to review it and probably change a lot about it.

We can’t let you bring this bottle of “water” on the plane because it me an explosive…so I’m just gonna to throw it into this garbage can full of all the other potential explosives in the most densely packed area of the airport…

my entire family has diarrhea it runs in our jeans…

Sorry the closest I can do is a xj jeep…I don’t know of a js model car

I mean the white house did say we should start building with rust…

Another fun similar idea is drunk chess. Each piece has a value(for example pawns is 1), there are tables you can look up it’s standard in chess. Each piece you take, you take its value in shots(highly recommend shots of beer). There are strategies this brings up. For example your opponent hangs a queen in early game, you can take it but now you would need to 6 shots making you likely to mess up the late game.

Wouldn’t it be Sehor Hitler… No relation?

The theory about Hitler was he was alive in Brazil.

What is fbb? Flexing big bisons?

Mostly but that doesn’t make as good of a story 😁

Long story short… Most of the money the company earned was from the credit union. I went through a depression phase and tried to kill myself (I’m doing better now) so I was inpatient in a mental ward for about a month.

The credit union got a computer security audit from the ncua(similar to fdic but for credit unions). My boss could not access any system. No servers, no firewalls, no intrusion detection systems, nothing. I had the passwords but was unable to be contacted and “documentation was a waste of time”.

They failed the audit. Credit union basically asked “we pay you for computer security, we failed an audit for computer security, so why do we pay you?”

Contract was lost and company went under shortly afterwards.

Ok, I’ll give my experience. I was hired as basically a paid intern. I was in high school, I “knew” computers like a nerdy teenager knows computers… Not real knowledge of their workings but I played with some programming(I got hello world to work using perl) , I could install linux(in the early 2000s, I bought copy of Debian Linux on 7 cds). I was basically told I would be an assistant to the other computer technician.

A week after I got hired, he got fired. For the next several months people got hired and fired after a 2-3 weeks. The company was 3 people, myself, the owner, his wife did the accounting. I didn’t know what I was doing, googling what I could to figure stuff out(i now know that’s normal but also now know how to Google correctly). I leaned on the owner to figure out things. I don’t know if your job is in computers but these are things I learned later were absolutely idiotic.

1. If a computer came in with a suspected virus, standard protocol was no research or investigation… Format and reinstall.

2. We had corporate clients (main client was a credit union), we gave the windows CD and license code to each teller with no record of what they were. He sold the license at the price he bought then for from staples.

3. All servers had local admin accounts. All local admin accounts had similar passwords. I was the only person who knew what those passwords were.

4. My boss thought time spent documenting was time wasted.

Anyways I stayed there for 4 years. It was not perfect and I learned so much wrong stuff. It was a decent job, my boss had really weird rules(why so many people got fired), and my time would of been spent better learning correct information.

That said I ended up causing the company to go bankrupt and the owner and his wife are now Christian consulers…

I’m an expert in bird law but bird doctoring… Ehh…

Put another way “having money isn’t everything, not having it is”

I hired a exorcist but then my credit card got declined… I got reposessed.

I’ve done some gcode but moved onto other programming(mostly c# so completely different. One thing I HATED about gcode, I don’t know if it was just my machines or gcode in general(most of mine were based on fanuc cnc controllers typically seen as top of the line) , we were not able to name variables.

I create a variable and assign it #315. What does #315 do? What does it mean? Who knows… Better have notes or comments to explain or your fucked. I can’t say variable x_offset_tool_15 nope…just #315.

Even that one from 2250?

Unless the light is in a vacuum like space

You might like “the old man’s war” series by John Scalzi. Basically aliens came to earth gave us technology and we created an earth defense army in space to fight the other aliens, but to join the army you must be 70 years old.

Another good series is expeditionary force. Aliens attack earth and one guy takes the fight to the aliens and with the help of a sentient super fast intelligent Ai captains a spaceship fighting aliens. This one is good but after the first few books the story beats and jokes start to repeat. The author should of stopped in my opinion around book 5 but he kept going with the same stories.