> You might notice that these real engineering jobs also don't have a way to verify the product via tests like that though, which was my point.
The electrical engineers at my employer that design building electrical distribution systems have software that handles all of the calculations, it’s just math. Arc flash hazard analysis, breaker coordination studies, available fault current, etc. All manufacturers provide the data needed to perform these calculations for their products.
Other engineering disciplines have similar tools. Mechanical, civil, and structural engineers all use software that simulates their designs.
Okay, honestly asking: do you really think your outlined simulation meet the same bar as automated regression tests like
> E.g you technically don't need to look at the code if it's frontend code and part of the product is a e2e test which produces a video of the correct/full behavior via playwright or similar.
> Same with backend implementations which have instrumentation which expose enough tracing information to determine if the expected modules were encountered etc
If not, your quoted sentence was "tests like that". If yes... I guess we would have to disagree.
Basically every apartment building built in the last 25-30 years that is 6 stories or less (which is the vast majority of units constructed) will be a concrete base floor and then stick built apartments on top.
It’s called a 5-over-1 and it’s so much cheaper than doing five stories of metal pan and concrete deck that the economics force the decision. You see these everywhere.
Anything over 6 stories will be concrete and steel, or rarely, engineered wood or timber framed.
Concrete and steel apartment buildings do not have vertical concrete partitions or wood stud walls between the units, they have steel stud walls with two layers of double 5/8” drywall on each side to provide a 4-hour fire rating.
Running conduit for electrical wiring in a house is a huge waste of labor and material. PVC insulation and a nylon jacket is just fine for 2.5mm^2 (#14AWG) conductors, which is what 90% of the wiring in a house will be.
The only place that conduit is mandatory in residences in the US is Chicago.
Hell, most office buildouts in the US use very minimal amounts of conduit, most of the lightning and receptacle branch circuits are metal-clad cable (MC cable).
> They're happy until the long-term effects hit them, as stick frame houses need repairs a lot more often.
Please explain why you think this is true, I disagree and I work in construction.
Once you get a roof and siding on a building, the framing material doesn’t matter. As long as it’s strong enough for the application, the building will remain standing, provided you maintain the roof and siding. I’m living in a balloon framed stick-built house that is 140 years old right now.
The average quality of construction, due to use of low skill workers, is very bad. That's been my experience living and owning houses in Canada and the US.
Newer houses can have issues with mold if the HVAC is not designed or operated correctly due to the building envelope being wrapped in a vapor barrier, trapping moisture inside. Most of the housing stock is not from this time period, older houses do not have vapor barriers so they breathe a lot better.
All that being said, I’d be skeptical as hell about buying a Lennar or similar tract house built in the last 30 years for the same reasons you stated. I run union electrical work and trust my electricians to do good work, but residential construction is a whole different ballgame, lower skill levels and lots of corner cutting. I will lose money on a job to complete a project correctly, if that’s what it takes. My company has to compete locally and our reputation matters. I don’t trust the people working at home builders to make the same choice, they shit out a bunch of houses and move on, while I have to maintain my reputation and keep customers coming back for a couple decades if I want to keep my job.
Let’s just say if I was having a house built, I’d GC it myself and conduct frequent site visits, probably daily.
My main point was a well-constructed stick built house can last a long time if it’s maintained, but determining if a house is well-built is not particularly easy without cutting walls open and so on.
My main point is that modern European houses, if well built, don't need maintenance at all. The expectation if you buy a new house or renovate one, is that you won't have to do any maintenance beyond cleaning the roof gutters, for your lifetime (50 years). No siding to repaint or repair, no roof repairs, no sump pump, if there's a basement (likely not) it's fully built in cement on the sides as well.
And how much more does such a building cost? If it's significantly more than a "stick house", you invest the savings, and in 50 years, tear it down and build another one. Of course, if you had to wait until you're 45 to buy a "good" house, it doesn't matter.
I'm just saying - different people prefer different tradeoffs. My dad was his own GC in W. Germany in the late 60s and built our house. Took him years of working after-hours, etc. Sure, it's still standing. So is the "stick" house built around the same time in Canada that we bought used in the 80s. And the "stick" house I bought in the 00s in CA. Yes, we did the roof back then, and it's probably going to need a new roof soon - probably like 2-3% of the total value of the house. And possibly, putting solar panels on the house reduced it's lifespan. Oh yeah, our neighbors put clay tiles on the roof, which is an option.
The former TV personality slash alcoholic slash sexual predator that is running the DoD probably gave it to DHS at the request of the cowboy hat wearing psychopathic domestic animal killer that runs that agency.
Using absurd language to describe absurd people is a rhetorical device that is suitable for HN.
If the administration hired serious people who don’t wear costumes and act ridiculous to get publicity, I wouldn’t have to write absurd descriptions about them.
Jim Mattis and John Kelly were serious people who did not wear costumes and treated their offices and the people below them with respect. They were Trump’s first SecDef and DHS Secretary, respectively.
This absurd language idea is good. Let me have a try...
Clearly everyone except the nerdy web developers that populate HN is completely incompetent. The aforementioned web developers though - they know everything due to all the time they spend on Twitter. I wonder why they aren't in charge of the country, must be a great conspiracy.
> Oh no the burden of actually explaining why you want to de-emphasize a comment.
One single square meter of land in direct sunlight receives a constant 6kW (21MJ) of energy. The heat rejected by industrial and other processes is absolutely minuscule in comparison, a rounding error.
Comments that are incorrect but posted in an authoritative voice get downvoted, for good reason.
>One single square meter of land in direct sunlight receives a constant 6kW (21MJ) of energy. The heat rejected by industrial and other processes is absolutely minuscule in comparison, a rounding error.
This is incorrect, at ground level its about 1 kW of sunlight per square meter if that square meter is orthogonal to the line of sight to the sun, otherwise it gets diminished with cos(theta) where theta is the angle between the line of sight to the sun and the normal of the square meter of land, it can not receive 6 kW no matter the orientation. And 6 kW is a power, while 21 MJ is an energy.
> Comments that are incorrect but posted in an authoritative voice get downvoted, for good reason.
Indeed your incorrect comment in an authoritative voice might get downvoted, for good reason, but I won't be the one doing it...
Welp, turns out I should verify information better. I thought 6kW seemed high when a 1 square meter solar panel that is ~25% efficient can generate 250W of electricity. My apologies.
It doesn’t matter who sends the actual tariff payment, it gets priced into the cost of the product.
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