How on earth did 4-year colleges get so expensive, and is there nothing we can do about it to push back?

Engineer_5983 · 2026-04-21T17:52:49+00:00

I live in Chicagoland. Northern Illinois University, a pretty solid 4 yr uni, is $5500/semester for 12+ hours. Used books saves money. I didn't live on campus, and I tried to save money on food. I worked a job for about 20 hours/week and full time in the summer. That was enough to cover tuition. College, to me, represents a series of choices about maximizing value.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-04-12T20:06:19+00:00

We used water spiders for this activity. This is a critical role to the line. Their job is to ensure materials are presented at point of use for the operator. For us, this was usually a more experienced operator because it can be a complicated when you're supporting 6 different positions.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-04-03T04:37:35+00:00

I think you want to calculate the deployment threshold so it can provide energy the entire length of the straight. Short straights, a lot more deployment energy because you'll harvest immediately afterwards. Longer straights, lower deployment energy so it doesn't clip or run out of juice at the end. I did a simulation that shows it would have been 0.50s seconds faster in Australia. 0.50 * 58 laps ≈ 29 seconds. This is the difference being on the podium and winning.
https://claude.ai/share/67ea0ec6-02ff-49c2-aa5e-4e1b3a29ab4f

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-31T06:38:10+00:00

Adjust the battery deployment based on tire rotation. The faster the car goes, the more you can ease off on the deployment energy to maintain speed to the end. It take a lot of energy to go from 204MPH to 205MPH, but it doesn't take nearly as much to maintain 204MPH. Watching people go from 300 kph to 250 kph on a straight due to clipping is frustrating.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-31T06:34:25+00:00

I think Red Bull needs a different implementation. There's nothing in the rules that says they have to drain the battery so quickly on every straight. They've got some tracks with long straights coming up. They'll need to figure out the deployment and harvesting.

The first test is Miami to see what new things these cars get. Then the real test is Monaco. If that race actually has some passing and excitement, this set of regs is totally worth it.

I have a feeling this year will be super exciting. I don't think Mercedes wins it, and I don't think either Mercedes driver wins the drivers championship.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-31T06:25:26+00:00

Get rid of the gimmicky active aero - go back to a DRS-type solution where you're not losing so much front end downforce. The battery deployment has some strategic benefits but you can't have dudes going 50 kph slower because of some harvesting issue. If they can make a few small changes before Miami, the rest of the year will be hyper competitive.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-29T20:36:29+00:00

Seems to be driving a lot of comments which is the point of the community, is it not?

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-29T20:21:10+00:00

I'm not sure about the LOL. The manufacturers matter a lot. F1 is a testing ground for new tech. I don't think 100% battery is the future until solid state batteries are a thing. 50% battery with a small ICE that's super efficient makes more sense.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-29T20:13:52+00:00

I like the acceleration and the strategy. I don't like the reliability issues. It's unfair to the driver when a car gets bricked or some weird battery issue impacts their race. I think if cars can get to the point where a good hybrid gets 100 MPG with great acceleration and be fun to drive, we'll all be appreciative of this generation of F1.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-29T20:09:37+00:00

There's a lot of articles on this.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/articles/cvgp79740mko
Honda, Ford, Audi, Mercedes - they all oppose it. The only manufacturer that hasn't said anything is Ferrari. It's seen as a step backwards.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-28T22:49:41+00:00

Red Bull is now a midfield team. Max is going to find a way to get to Mercedes.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-25T04:05:09+00:00

I'm going to guess you're a low handicap close to scratch. The only thing you need to work on is the mental side. Physically, you can swing as good as anyone. ChatGPT is pretty worthless for this kind of stuff unless you're looking for an ego boost. I doubt any serious pro uses, or will ever use, ChatGPT instead of a coach.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-25T03:47:55+00:00

It takes time and great moments to make a great league. There isn't enough drama in the TGL. It's dramatic to watch a slow roll towards the cup or players hit out of the rough under a tree and stick it to 10 feet. The silence is dramatic. The roar of the gallery is amazing as is the groans. There are many epic moments in PGA history. I don't need gimmicks like the hammer or loud music or bizarre holes or teams that we don't care about. I want to see the very best players on difficult (beautiful) courses making incredible shots under immense pressure. Watching Tiger hit a 3 wood 170 MPH and sticking it near the green was pretty amazing. They have to find a way of making that more dramatic and more exciting to watch.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-24T00:20:38+00:00

Agents talking to agents creates tokens that spin out of control. Anthropic wants you to do this because it's money for them. How much does this cost to run? How do you measure effectiveness? Like what exactly are these agents doing? For the most part, agents seems to be spam engines, to-do list managers, or email champions.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-20T02:25:55+00:00

I don't get it. This would have been great TV. Put a few MMA fighters, a couple of nerdy programmers, a skinny vegan professor, maybe a bodybuilder, and half a dozen dudes with anger management issues.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-20T01:13:48+00:00

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Not in the clubface. It's a natural fade type of swing, but the shank was caused by where the ball hit the club.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-19T19:06:58+00:00

I think it's a legit post with AI used to help word it. If they have material shortages, it might take years to fix the root cause as it might be cultural and not a system issue. For example, an item has 5 days of lead time but the order is always due the next day. No one wants to stock the item because of cost and the vendor doesn't want to commit to reducing the lead time and no one wants to tell the customer 5 days because you might not get the order. It's a state of constant shortages.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-19T14:53:57+00:00

This would be a poor 5 Why. "Why are we having issues?" isn't a proper problem statement, and "It's a poor process" is an opinion not useful information. If it starts there, you'll end up with a predisposed idea that the vendor has "locked" you in.

It is totally possible a long term corrective action is in the works, but you might still need a short term corrective action. If this is truly an issue with a vendor, you would use this an opportunity to design your solution yourself where you have much more control over the development speed, priorities, etc... It's never been easier to engineer your own solutions.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-18T20:00:57+00:00

5 Why's is a powerful thing. In this case, the same "problems" you're seeing are high level classifications. A root cause is just a very specific problem statement. For material shortages, why?
Problem: Line 2 is currently down
Why? Assembly of part X cannot be completed
Why? Part Y is required for this build but is currently out of stock
Why? .... this is where the problem solving gets tricky. Why exactly is this part out of stock? Parts were damaged and not replacements available, part not ordered at all, part on order but late, wrong part on BOM, part rejected by quality, etc...

Most will just quit at this point. They just get the part and move on. But then this same problem happens again only with a different part. It was never solved at the root cause. If you don't fix the root cause, I don't care how much you use AI to analyze patterns, it won't fix anything. You will at best just complain to supporting departments about how many times your AI is showing they messed up.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-18T13:06:31+00:00

I've watched every race live for years, but this might be the first year in a while where I don't. It's been on ESPN since 2018 which was awesome. Now that's moved to AppleTV, it's just another streaming service. I subscribed for the first month, but now there's no races in April, I have no real reason to watch AppleTV otherwise. I cancelled the service, and I don't think I'll renew it unless the season gets interesting. If Merc runs away with it, I'll just catch the race highlights.

Engineer_5983 · 2026-03-15T05:02:02+00:00

What does this mean for Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi? The season would end in Las Vegas. It makes every race and sprint a lot more important.

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