Looks More Like a Puma

Caption on a billboard:

Woah, that’s pretty impressive, RIM. You’ve made the first touch-screen phone made by you. Innovative…

It actually reminds me of a phrase that’s become a modern cliche: “First African-American/Hispanic/Asian/Female/Icelandic/Whatever person to do X.” Don’t get me wrong, I believe in celebrating legitimate accomplishments, but usually when I hear this phrase it’s just baloney.

I recently went to an interview at Naval Reactors in Washington DC (which went well), and I observed that everybody that I talked to about it beforehand wished me “good luck”. Everybody save one, that is, and naturally this exception caused me to pause and consider. I know I would have said good luck, but I would have hated it even as I said it. Good luck? I don’t even believe in luck (the concept of random chance is incompatible with that of a sovereign God). And even if I did, what good does it do for me to wish it upon someone. The only function served by the phrase is to express some kind of good will and solidarity (and even that gets thrown out in bizarre situations we’ve all seen such as an individual wishing good luck to both sides in a sporting event). As it turns out, there’s a much better alternative which is what my one exception said. Rather than an empty expression of her hope for my good fortune, she simply said that she’d pray for me. Now that is a meaningful and practical thing to say to someone, and having observed its clear advantages, I have resolved to strike the phrase “good luck” from my vocabulary.

Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten: more on operating systems next time…

Well, I started this blog because I thought it might be interesting to put some of the things I think about down on paper. Or…electrons. So, here’s a thought I thunk yesterday:

This thought I thunk as I was thinking concerned the topic of teaching electrical engineering. As you (might) know, I am a student at Texas A&M University studying Computer Engineering. My major is essentially a blend of Computer Science (software, code, programs) and Electrical Engineering (hardware, metal, electrons). As my professor was going over some of the principles of using transistors, it occurred to me that while all of my computer science courses have been focused on design, all of my electrical engineering courses have been focused on analysis. In CPSC 111, I learned Java (programming language (not not coffee (or an island))). How? By writing programs with Java. In ECEN 214, I learned about basic circuits. How? By studying the voltage, current, etc. of a bunch of complicated circuits, the practical use (if any) of which was not presented. In a word, it was lame. How enthusiastic would I be about programming, if the only way I had learned it was by reading code, and never writing my own? Admittedly, I don’t know how practical any of this is, but it seems to me that students would be (I would have been) more engaged in the principles of electrical circuits if they were using them as a means in the process of creative design. If they were using them to build a useful circuit.

So if you happen to be the Dean of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M, this is what one person thinks.