grue

Do you understand what being a professional (in the formal sense) actually is? It means your first responsibility is to the public, not your employer, and you are legally responsible for the work that you do. That goes for doctors, lawyers, and yes, engineers.

If you as a civil engineer design an unsafe structure and it kills people, you can go to prison. If your employer demands you approve an unsafe design, the fact that you have to stamp the plans that get filed with the government gives you the power to resist. That's what being licensed means.

If people making software don't have that level of accountability -- again, to the public, not to their megalomaniacal tech bro boss -- then they ain't engineers.

It only varies by jurisdiction in the sense that some jurisdictions care about protecting the public and some apparently don't.

Wait, if that's the case then why does anybody even care?

I still own all but two of the cars I've ever owned. Those two, a Ford Aerostar and a Hyundai Accent, were objectively not special but I kinda miss them anyway.

The other key requirements I hope your licensing has are continuing education requirements and, most importantly, the notion of being a professional and having accountability to the public, not just your employer. Just taking one college class where you learn about Therac-25 isn't enough; a professional software engineer also needs to have the power to refuse unethical demands by their employer (e.g. to build dark patterns or otherwise enshittify the software) and have that judgement be backed up by the state.

Assuming the provincial or national government requires you to have such a license or be working under supervision of someone who does in order to be employed in the practice of making software, then yes.

In theory, the design of a smokeless fire pit creates a convection current where cool air keeps getting drawn into the cavity from outside the fire pit. I'm sure the outer drum surface won't be cool, but it shouldn't be as hot as the inner drum either.

I've considered it, but (a) it's the outer drum that (I'm hoping) won't get very hot, and (b) I'm worried that burning it off would leave a residue.

Simultaneously too complicated and lacking context. Split it into multiple infographics.

Just upload it straight into the post.

Washing machines have an inner (spinning) and an outer (watertight) drum. I plan to use both for my firepit, which should allow it to be smokeless and also mitigate the "it gonna get HOT" problem.

(I haven't actually made it yet because my outer drum has some butyl tape or something I need to remove first. Anybody know the best way to do that?)

You've not experienced Avenue Q until you've seen it in the original World of Warcraft machinima.

"Software engineer" will be a thing when it's licensed by the state. Until then, we're all just glorified cowboy-coders with no accountability.

(Speaking as computer programmer with an EIT in a different field.)