Useless Conversation

[Yegolev]

Maybe I can avoid the whole issue by putting a pie chart in there somewhere.  Excel apparently does pie charts.

[Paelos]

Look at it this way and it'll begin to make sense.

Excel is a tool loved by accountants and management.

Therefore it will be as effective as they are at doing tasks you want.

 

Good thing I make a living off how "smart" people think they are at running their own books. That is until the IRS asks questions.

[Viin]

 Just filter it in place. Or see if VLOOKUP would work.

[Merusk]

Look at it this way and it'll begin to make sense.

Excel is a tool loved by accountants and management.

Therefore it will be as effective as they are at doing tasks you want.

 

Good thing I make a living off how "smart" people think they are at running their own books. That is until the IRS asks questions.

Your inferiority complex is showing.  "You can't force them to do what you want" != useless. .

Just filter it in place. Or see if VLOOKUP would work.

vlookup only returns cells out of a table array and not whole rows.   I suppose it could work but it'd be cludgy and a bit of a pain in the ass to maintain.  A vlookup for an index value linked to the initial query that then looks up the exact cell you want in the row with that index value.  Then repeat that for every cell in that row.

[Draegan]

Someone mentions the plague and you silly programmers can't stop talking about excel?

[WayAbvPar]

TBF, they are roughly equivalent.

[Lantyssa]

I'd rather have to deal with the plague...

[Nebu]

I have to sit through a thesis defense this afternoon.  Someone find that cat with the plague and get it to bite me... I need an escape excuse.

[Chimpy]

I have to sit through a thesis defense this afternoon.  Someone find that cat with the plague and get it to bite me... I need an escape excuse.

That post made my day.

[murdoc]

Fuck it - I'm having twizzlers for breakfast.

[Bunk]

Send it here to Colorado, everything seems to be on or catching fire. I had ash falling from the sky on me yesterday.

Sounds like its bad. Had a Colorado customer call to cancel her CRM yesterday, cause she was leaving Real Estate. Asked her why? "All my listings are on fire".

[Der Helm]

I'd rather have to deal with the plague...

[Paelos]

Your inferiority complex is showing.  "You can't force them to do what you want" != useless. .

You know what you wrote, at least stand by it.

Or just don't don't lump in accountants and managers. Seeing as they are wildly different.

[Ironwood]

This is true.  I haven't met an accountant yet that can manage.

[Paelos]

This is true.  I haven't met an accountant yet that can manage.

And vice versa in my experience.

[Yegolev]

I appreciate Excel much more this afternoon, having imported the data into Access this morning.

Also, I was told that the ground squirrels in Yellowstone often carry the plague.  I was like "You mean a plague, or The Plague?"

Some of the information you get from seasonal labor is to be doubted.

[Trippy]

Send it here to Colorado, everything seems to be on or catching fire. I had ash falling from the sky on me yesterday.

Sounds like its bad. Had a Colorado customer call to cancel her CRM yesterday, cause she was leaving Real Estate. Asked her why? "All my listings are on fire".

[Mrbloodworth]

What is up with the site?

Lagging like a bitch recently. ( no errors )

[Trippy]

People are spamming the Wiki

Also LOL 2 GB of RAM.

[Lantyssa]

I appreciate Excel much more this afternoon, having imported the data into Access this morning.

Also, I was told that the ground squirrels in Yellowstone often carry the plague.  I was like "You mean a plague, or The Plague?"

I'd rather get bitten by a ground squirrel while working on an Excel spreadsheet before dealing with Access...

And yes, they often carry The Plague.

[Merusk]

Your inferiority complex is showing.  "You can't force them to do what you want" != useless. .

You know what you wrote, at least stand by it.

Or just don't don't lump in accountants and managers. Seeing as they are wildly different.

Or I'm trolling the local accountant.

I appreciate Excel much more this afternoon, having imported the data into Access this morning.

Also, I was told that the ground squirrels in Yellowstone often carry the plague.  I was like "You mean a plague, or The Plague?"

Some of the information you get from seasonal labor is to be doubted.

Some days I think you have a masochistic streak.   Other days you confirm it.

[Morat20]

I have to sit through a thesis defense this afternoon.  Someone find that cat with the plague and get it to bite me... I need an escape excuse.

Look at it this way -- someone sat through yours. Or probably will sit through yours.

Or you're related to them, so it's family.

That's it. I'm out of reasons to sit through a thesis defense. "I'm going to be defending one", "I'm an academic and defended one and sorta work here" and "It's my cousin's".

[Nebu]

A good defense is a joy to sit through.  The problem is, most defenses don't go well. 

Word to the wise for anyone doing an MS or higher:  NEVER write anything in your thesis or mention anything in a seminar that you aren't willing to discuss.  NEVARRR!

[Lantyssa]

And in the sciences, that you aren't willing to go to the blackboard and derive equations, show mechanisms, or otherwise go on esoteric descriptions thereof.

(Also get a thesis adviser willing and able to steer the conversation to areas they know you're solid in.)

((Have areas you're solid in.))

[Khaldun]

I've never seen a Ph.D thesis defense go actively badly--because usually good advisors keep it from going forward if they think it will.

I've seen some where a single advisor makes a complete ass of themselves, to everyone else's disgust. Never really seen a candidate muff it--they get stopped before putting everyone in the position of having to stop them.

[Xanthippe]

Also, I was told that the ground squirrels in Yellowstone often carry the plague.  I was like "You mean a plague, or The Plague?"

Plague is endemic in the the western US.  Every so often, a case of plague pops up.

Did you hear the biologist who found a dead mountain lion in the Grand Canyon in 2008, took it home for necropsy in his garage, and later died from pneumatic plague? This is why your mother told you not to touch dead animals. (Well, that and rabies and probably other stuff you might be able to catch).

Anyway - don't touch dead animals! And practice flea control.  

[Selby]

(Also get a thesis adviser willing and able to steer the conversation to areas they know you're solid in.)

My committee at my school got off on going after things you didn't know.  The point of the entire exercise was to break you down into tears and if it didn't happen they kept going until they found *something* that you would stumble on.  I've never actually heard of an adviser actually being on your side in a defense besides letting you do the work for him and giving you a degree once they have sufficiently made you their bitch.

[Morat20]

(Also get a thesis adviser willing and able to steer the conversation to areas they know you're solid in.)

My committee at my school got off on going after things you didn't know.  The point of the entire exercise was to break you down into tears and if it didn't happen they kept going until they found *something* that you would stumble on.  I've never actually heard of an adviser actually being on your side in a defense besides letting you do the work for him and giving you a degree once they have sufficiently made you their bitch.

I think that's more true of the PhD level. The Master's stuff isn't quite so bad. It's more like writing a lengthy, quality paper and having a handful of guys with relevant experience poke at it. More a presentation than a defense.

For me, 90% of the "defense" was the last six weeks sending revisions back and forth between my advisor and one of the board members who wanted a bit more statistical analysis on some secondary stuff.

The actual defense was practically a done deal. The committee's view was basically they wouldn't have let me walk up there if they weren't satisified, although they had a few questions and wanted a few points clarified before I turned the whole thing over. The spectators had some interesting questions, though. Sadly most of them were more about the data sets and underlying results, whereas the thesis was about the process.

But there werent' a lot of guy interested in genetic programming and some novel ways of fucking with fitness functions to address some unavoidable and unwanted selection pressures arising from the problem. There were a lot of data miners wanting to know if I'd solved the problem. And the results were "About as good as anyone else, but I made it harder on myself, so go me?"

[Sjofn]

We're back, everyone can relax now. 

Weather wasn't TOO completely bad, had some thunderstorms (which I miss) so that was cool, and it was only really gross one of the days we were there. And yes, none of it has anything on Alabama in August (which we almost had to do for a family thing, but we have WEASELED OUT, which made Ingmar happier than I have seen him in a long, long time).

[Trippy]

People are spamming the Wiki

Also LOL 2 GB of RAM.

I disabled the Wiki cause the number of DB connections the spammers were tying up was getting out of control.

[Chimpy]

I always forgot there even was a wiki.

[Sky]

I always forgot there even was a wiki.

It's over there, by the front page.

[Lantyssa]

We have a front page?

[rattran]

It's just an urban legend.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I like how asking for light ice in a drink results in the cup only being half full of ice instead of 3/4 full.  Fast food places are making bank on their drinks.