It really depends on the project, but where I work (doing system integration) we use oscilloscopes pretty heavily as 'general purpose troubleshooting tools'. Perhaps significantly, we aren't building boards (we have another department to do that) but interfacing those boards with various sensors, motors, equipement from other vendors, and so forth. For example, we use oscilliscopes to help characterize motor/sensor control loops, to quantify noise of all types (in sensors, in power supplies, etc.), to troubleshoot electrical interface problems, and so forth. Especially for the control loop work, I can't imagine being without an oscilloscope.

I wouldn't say 'idiotic' -- I believe you don't need to fix all the problems in the world before you're allowed to do new things. That said, I come from a family of teachers, and that insight leads me to agree with you. I'm especially offended by teachers buying school supplies out of pocket. If I, an employee of a large organization, had to buy office supplies out of pocket, I'd assume the company was on its way down the toilet or at the very least had major management problems. Teachers are somehow conditioned to think having to buy supplies for your classroom and your students/customers is o.k... or they have too much empathy. Again, there's no reason you can't have both makerbots AND fix these problems, but my experience is that investment from technical companies and press celebrate enrichment in either a few affluent schools or in the one poor school that has the luck of being the example case. Meanwhile, there are plenty of schools remaining without enough pens and paper, let alone current generation computers, ipads, makerbots, etc....

I'll admit I'm tempted to look at overall number of stars, and assume a 4 star place is better than a 2 star place. But I usually end up looking more closely (because ALL the restaurants in an area will be suspiciously highly rated) at the negative reviews. Like you, I try to judge the relevance of the complaint. For example, if the worst thing that anyone has to say about a restaurant is that service is a little slow on Saturday nights and that they had trouble seating your party of 10 without a reservation, that's probably a good restaurant. Complaints about food quality, bathroom sanitation, etc. are much more noteworthy.

Maybe they just tell you that to get self-incriminating admissions. "Come on! You'll feel better once you get it off your chest."

Thanks for pointing this out; it goes along with the 'do not volunteer information' rule when dealing with cops/auditors/security people. They aren't looking for reasons to be nice to you. I was thinking more along the lines of having history of topical, well received blog posts of tweets might elevate one's standing... but I'm probably not one of the exception few who can pull that off, and I'm not shooting for a journalism job anyway.

First of all, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I don't work in IT or software so some of the specifics don't directly apply, but the generalities do. The biggest clarification I need to make though is by 'online presence' (with my examples of webpages, blogs, and tweets) I didn't mean social chit chat or tools like facebook. I meant 'having a history of making topical posts that are well received by an audience'. If a twitter feed, it would be a journalistic twitter feed, not a 'what I ate for breakfast' twitter feed. The argument (as it has been made to me) is that regularly generating content, and maintaining an audience, shows that you are an active member of your field, and that your ideas have some influence. Especially given that my current work is bound by NDA (no portfolio, no publications, vague resume) having something outside of that would be useful -- but I can't create a reputation ex nihlo. And, since I'm an engineer and not a journalist, it might not matter that much anyway.

Thanks! Yours ended up being one of the most useful posts, because you successfully read my mind: I wasn't clear by what I meant by online presence, and most readers assumed I meant social chatter on facebook. By online presence I didn't mean facebook at all, and when I mentioned twitter and blogs I meant those in the journalistic sense of "regular, technically topical postings to an appreciative audience". Your view is what I would have guessed. My current employer may not know social media exists, so I don't they use it for hiring, but the rest of the world may differ..

I don't work in software, but my work is covered by NDAs so I understand not being able to share a 'portfoilio' of my work or publish. It's one of the limitations that led to my question. I have no record of existing outside my company.

Some of this I deserve for not being clear -- By 'online presence' I mean things like currating a topical blog or having a followed twitter feed, not purely social stuff. The argument, as made to me, is doing these things demonstrates you are an active, respected member in your field, and that your ideas have traction.

I don't think I mentioned facebook in my post, though I did mention twitter. The idea is that having an online presence (my examples suggested websites, blogs, and twitter feeds) indicates you have ideas, and based on the size of your following, indicates that you've convinced other people that they are good ideas. It shows you are an active participant in your field and are recognized as an authority. Or at least that's the argument that has been made to me.

I was thinking about that the other day. I've had my standalone GPS for 2-3 years now, and I consider it one of my best electronics purchases ever: It still works as well as it did the day I bought it, and still does everything I want it to do -- not true of my similarly aged DVD player, audio receiver, laptop computer, phone, etc. Of course, that's not good for Garmin, because I don't have any pressure to upgrade.

That's what I was thinking. I wasn't even aware that the iPhone had turn-by-turn GPS apps yet. Surely that must be very recent.

Yelling "Install NoScript you n00bs!!1!" won't register noobs... because they're newbs.

And if they were to install noscript, they wouldn't have the skill or patiance to configure all the exceptions, and would complain to you about their broken Internet.

Am I the only one on Slashdot who thinks javascript is a powerful tool adds much more to the web than it risks? I mean, sure, cutting off your arm is a great way to reduce the risk of fingernail infection, but who would want to do that?

"legitimate need to upload a two-hour video of good quality" Who gets to define legitimate?

As others have pointed out, 'The Community.' But I have a hard time believing something of that length could possibly be appropriate for an encyclopedia article. Then again, that applies to be existing wikipedia articles....