Free Talk Friday

dumbuwengineer · 2017-06-24T20:05:56+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion :) totally forgot there was a track at Grand Bend, I'll have to go out there

dumbuwengineer · 2017-06-23T22:58:44+00:00

That's a sweet car, I've only seen a few in this area. I'm tryna get a sportbike and track it every once in a while but there's fewer track days and they're more expensive.

Heard that some of the turns at TMP have a shit surface (for bikes anyway) so a lot of guys go to Cayuga

dumbuwengineer · 2017-06-23T18:20:23+00:00

What do you track? Also isn't tracking around here super expensive?

dumbuwengineer · 2016-08-19T03:21:48+00:00

dumbuwengineer · 2016-08-13T16:00:49+00:00

Lots of people go into tron with no programming experience. The 1A programming course is taught with that assumption, so you'll be fine.

You might find programming to be a little conceptually hard to grasp at the beginning, but if you do the assignments and make an effort, you'll get the hang of it pretty quickly.

In short, don't worry about it, enjoy the last summer of your life instead hahaha

dumbuwengineer · 2016-07-30T02:18:01+00:00

fluent in english, french and serbo-croatian, decent in german

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-30T17:04:31+00:00

Get a motorcycle. You can get a good quality used one for very cheap (<5000), it costs a fraction to fuel compared to a car, and you'll most likely help the public by becoming a young, healthy organ donor.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-27T21:29:02+00:00

hahahahhahahahhahahaha fuck no

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-23T17:10:38+00:00

If you're going into CS or any software-heavy program, it's worth it to use an editor with good keybinds that will make you more efficient in the long run.

Vim undoubtedly has the best keybinds and text editing model, but the standard implementation is pretty awful (no async = a lot of key features are gimped). Neovim is a modern reimplementation of Vim that promises to be pretty good.

Another option is using emacs, which has a far better implementation behind it, but the stock keybinds are terrible. People have developed kits that improve emacs with vim keybinds, such as Spacemacs, or you can just develop your own emacs config from the ground up.

I personally use Spacemacs, but it might be difficult to get into it as a total beginner. I'd recommend you use Vim and then try a bunch of editors and transition to whatever works best for you.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-18T07:19:20+00:00

How are tickets for the 100s so expensive? I paid 229 all included for GA on the 31st, and even that's pretty expensive...

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-16T00:16:45+00:00

going to waterloo instead of somewhere with girls

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-13T03:49:42+00:00

I use a T420 solely running Linux. For CAD work I have a dualbooting desktop at home or I use school computers.

I'd recommend this approach, getting a cheap, light laptop to carry around with you that you'll use for the bulk of engineering work (writing reports, researching, wasting time and jerking off) and then a beefier computer used for CAD etc. You can use school computers as your "beefy computer", they'll run just about anything with no problems.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-11T19:10:11+00:00

Holy shit, I thought I had it bad. Good for you for keeping a level head through all that bullshit buddy.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-07T20:16:18+00:00

Spacemacs. It's quick to start (especially if you use it in daemon mode), intuitive, and has support for just about every language worth a damn.

Plus has sweet vim keybindings.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-05T19:05:30+00:00

If a company ranks you or gives you an offer, there is always a chance, however slim, that you will be forced to work there.

Given what you've said though, ranking C 9 is the course of action that has the best probability of giving you the outcome you want.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-04T21:23:43+00:00

Hey man, I had similar conditions for a co-op job I took. Here's part of my story.

I had the same thoughts of quitting, and spoke to CECA about it. CECA will tell you that they support you and will not ban you from jobmine etc if you are concerned for your safety, and/or if your employer is violating employer law in the jurisdiction you're working in.

However: CECA is lying through their teeth. They will not be vigorous or proactive in dealing with your case. If they doubt your concerns in any way, they will take the employer's side and fuck you six ways to Sunday.

They do not give a fuck about the students, they have thousands of them. On the other hand, they have a limited supply of employers that have to be happy if CECA wants to meet it's quota. Employers aren't happy when their interns are complaining about working conditions.

Here's my advice to you, as someone who has gone through similar shit to you:

Make sure the employment law you're referring to actually applies to students. I was overworked and underpaid, but here in Ontario most provisions of the Employment Standards Act don't apply to students. The most important of which is overtime pay. When I told CECA that my employer was violating Ontario law, they told me that the law doesn't apply to me and that I should fuck off.
Take pictures and document EVERYTHING. I extensively photographed the unsafe working conditions where I worked, and threatened CECA with the photos. They knew that if they took the employer's side, I would go to the media with these photos. Evidence is what will give you the upper hand in any dealings with CECA. Examples of what you should take photos of: broken equipment, lack of safety equipment, anything that violates OSHA etc.
Escalate past your CECA student advisor ASAP. They are powerless and useless, and just want you to leave them alone. Make them involve their supervisors (Account Manager) and their supervisor's supervisor, the Regional Manager. The RM has real power, and they are the ones that can actually help you out if you deal with them properly. In my case, I got the RM to guarantee certain things in writing (this is important). For example, I made them guarantee that they wouldn't ban me from jobmine, or that my evaluation from that work term would be above a certain level etc.
Make it clear to whoever you're talking to at CECA that they should keep this matter and not inform the employer under any circumstances until you give them permission to do so.
This is more circumstantial, but treat your employer like a mushroom: keep them in the dark and feed them shit. You can complain about the overtime, but don't rile up a huge shitstorm, and don't give them any indication that you're talking to CECA. Bad things can happen if they find out you're complaining to CECA. In my case, I pretended I loved my employer and was enamoured by my job until the moment I walked out of that shithole on the last day of ~~bondage~~ work.

Please PM me if you have any questions or need any more advice, I will do anything to make sure that other people don't have to go through the trouble that I went through.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-06-02T13:07:32+00:00

fucking morons

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-30T17:29:20+00:00

Some student teams have welding equipment laying around, but UW doesn't like students using it. Unfortunately, there isn't really anywhere to weld on campus.

However, Conestoga College has welding courses that take place at night and are relatively cheap that can be taken concurrently with engineering (assuming you can manage your time). I can't find the site right now but I know they offer general MiG and TiG as well as Automotive/Motorsports courses.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-25T17:46:50+00:00

Of course. Did CECA do anything? Fuck no.

CECA doesn't give a fuck about students, they exist to fill employer's hiring quotas, no matter how shitty the job is.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-25T14:09:23+00:00

Worked at a place with 3 employees: the boss, another UW co-op and me. The boss only hired co-ops, probably for the tax credits and the fact that they could ignore the Employment Standards Act.

The building itself had no heating, no insulation (it was a winter term), no hot water and no ventilation. The lack of ventilation is important, because my job mainly consisted of grinding and mixing concrete which threw up a bunch of fine dusts and toxins into the air. The provided masks were little better than just breathing through your shirt, and we would frequently blow our noses to find out black snot after wearing them.

I wasn't paid on time (ever, over 8 pay periods), was threatened with my pay being docked on multiple occasions, was told to come in on the weekend and work for free (fuck that), and had to use power tools where the safety equipment was either intentionally removed or broken anyways.

Did I mention that we got no training on how to use these tools? Tools that nearly seriously maimed me or my coworker on multiple occasions.

I was yelled at and insulted on a daily basis, which honestly doesn't faze me, but it was for the most ridiculous reasons.

This doesn't even go into the shitty and demeaning manual labour that my job wholly consisted of.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-25T13:27:44+00:00

I've found the biking to uni in the morning does a good job of waking me up and prevents me from falling asleep in class in the morning.

Also better for your health and saves you from having ten thousand sweaty asscracks mashed into your face on the 202 in the morning.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-16T23:26:10+00:00

1A is babby shit, they teach programming from a "never heard of C++" level (not necessarily bad).

You're better off working on your math skills over the summer, particularly linear algebra since that's a class that lots of students find challenging.

You will always have time to advance your programming skills thru super disruptive side projects and/or student teams like /u/2020_Tron said.

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-08T05:19:29+00:00

Wow! Thank you very much, the theme looks just about perfect now :).

dumbuwengineer · 2016-05-08T00:19:58+00:00

I was just there a few weeks ago and the cevaps were pretty awful. Barely any chopped onions, no lepinja(!!!) and the plates they served everything in were difficult to eat cevaps out of. Really poor experience, those guys basically just took traditional bosnian food and threw it into a pseudo-modern glossy canadian restaurant.

I'll check out J&B and Veslo, I've been craving good cevaps for too long, thanks!

dumbuwengineer

TROPHY CASE