7 ms·

The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. The Boards interpretation of "engineer" in this context was to mean Traffic

by takk309 10y ago

The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. The Boards interpretation of "engineer" in this context was to mean Traffic Engineer. The Board warned Järlström that he was in violation of the Law and asked him to stop claiming to be an engineer, to which he agreed. It was later, when he continued to claim to be an engineer that legal action was taken. It is also of note, and stated in the Board's documentation of the case, that Sweden has no legal standards for engineers of any kind. Finally, full disclosure, I am a registered and licensed traffic engineer. [edit] grammar

rmxt 10y ago
Completely agreed. He pretty much barked up the one tree that actively cares about use of the title "engineer", and used it in violation of the law (as it is now). Had he sent the letter/formula/math/suggestions to the local state university civil engineering department, the local/state Dept. of Transportation, or the local/state representative, the response would have fallen on less deaf ears, and his use of the title would have likely gone less noticed.
- gtirloni 10y ago
  Fining the man was probably what the law dictates. Yet, it feels so wrong in this case. Reminds me of this talk by Barry Schwartz: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    They didn't fine him at first. They warned him not to do it, and explained why. He acknowledged this and agreed in September 2015 not to present himself as an engineer again. Then he changed his mind and resumed doing so. Barry Schwartz specializes in telling only half the case to people who know nothing about law, while leaving out any facts that would show his clients in a bad light. Like he'll tell you about the plight of an oyster farmer whose business was shut down by the evil federal government, without mentioning that the farmer in question signed a contract for a fixed-term lease and the government extended the deadline several times before finally enforcing the terms of the lease. Pick one or more of his cases then go look up the actual court opinions. The facts always seem to be very different from the version he presents to his audiences. He relies on people taking his claims at face value and not doing any fact-checking of their own.
    - gtirloni 10y ago
      I'm not an expert in Barry Schwartz but I think you're just making his argument stronger. Focusing on the usage of the term "engineer" when what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important, shows such a shortsightness. Of course, everybody was just doing their job, just following the rules.
      - setr 10y ago
        Its more of you shouldn't give legal advice, and let people assume you are a lawyer, if you are not a lawyer. Presumably, if he prefixed this with IANAE, there would be no issue. Well, in this case, a traffic engineer. But essentially he was defining himself to have greater authority over the subject matter than he actually had, which while here is not really problematic, the act itself often can be.
      - anigbrowl 10y ago
        You are being played. Jarlstrom was informed that he wasn't entitled to hold himself out as an engineer and agreed not to do so. The reasons not to do that are valid, for the simple reason that it pretends to a level of expertise he does not have, when trying to influence how public infrastructure is run. I have said many times that Jarlstrom could simply have pitched his idea without claiming to be an engineer. Why didn't he? Probably because people did not listen to him as readily if he did not use that title. what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important Why is it so important? Only because Jarlstrom says it is and claims that his solution is world-changing. But this is sales talk. If his solution is really that good, then he should be happy to present it as an amateur, without pretensions to qualifications he does not hold. His proposal sounds OK, but I know nothing of traffic engineering and can't really evaluate it. Neither, I suspect can anyone else except the one person who posted that they are a licensed professional traffic engineer. It's unclear what, if any, assertions Jarlstrom is making about the benefits of implementing his scheme. Will it save any lives or reduce the number of accidents? No idea. All we have is this: '"hen you make a turn you slow down but that's not accounted for in their solution, so people are getting caught in red light cameras for making safe turns.' OK, I understand he is not crazy about red light tickets because his wife got one when driving around their hometown, but so what? What is so overwhelmingly urgent about this that the Board should make it heir priority? Why doesn't Jarlstrom have the patience to push his idea as a regular driver without making false claims to qualifications he does not in fact possess? I must reiterate that I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with his amateur traffic engineering endeavours...if he would have clearly labeled them as such. but he is calling himself an engineer to leverage social credibility that attaches to that professional term. I can share my legal opinions with you all day but no matter how well-formed those opinions are it doesn't alter the fact that I am not qualified to practice law, so the only person I could legally represent in court in myself. It would be dishonest of me to label myself as a lawyer, because people who didn't know any better would easily believe me and might create all sorts of problems for themselves by relying on that false belief. What's going on here is that you heard a sympathetic story about something you think you understand well - who doesn't understand traffic lights, they are so familiar - with an underdog pitted against the image of a large unresponsive bureaucracy. And that is the point at which pany people in this thread have stopped thinking. Look across the thread, there are even people insisting that Jarlstrom is in fact a licensed engineer, repeatedly, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever! People are literally inventing facts to uphold their preferred version of the story. I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy. I have no opinion on the right length of traffic light periods (because I don't drive, thank heavens), and I would have no objection to people evaluating Jarlstrom's proposal and adopting it worldwide. But he chose to go about advancing his proposal in a way that he knew would cause problems, and now he is claiming to be a victim after doing something that he knew in advance would create such a problem. His legal case will go nowhere because he chose to antagonize the very people who were best-positioned to assist him, for no other reason than to inflate his own ego. It would be wise to ask yourself why the story excluded so many important details about the sequence of events, and perhaps to reread pg's famous Submarine essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- chrismcb 9y ago
  Except he didn't use it in violation of the law. He wasn't performing professional work, nor was he designing something for construction or any of the other defintions of "practicing engineering"
echion 10y ago
> The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. That's not the only issue the Board said it had, and not the most important one at that: > [...] you continued to use the title "engineer" in your communication with Board staff and, of more concern, are the documents you provided that indicate you may have engaged in unlicensed engineering work in Oregon. (emphasis mine). It's the emphasized clause, and the Board's Final Report, page 6, Section 14[1], that is concerning: he's being punished mainly ("of more concern"!) for doing thinking and speech that, IMO, should not be prohibited. 1. https://www.scribd.com/document/346354146/mats4#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/346354146/mats4#from_embed
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  No he is not being punished for thinking and speech. You're treating the documents containing his proposal as a completely separate issue from his claim of professional status, but the documents are a doubling down upon his original and repeated false claim of being an engineer, which claim he was warned he should not be making. If I hold out a mystery pill and invite you to swallow it, how you react will differ considerably depending on whether or not you believe I'm a doctor. This is in no way a commentary on the efficacy of the pill, but only on whether I am likely to have the appropriate medical knowledge that would justify my suggestion.
  - echion 10y ago
    The Board's Final Report said, in a separate paragraph (14), that because "thinking and speech" (speech about his thinking, not "I'm an engineer")[1] were a violation of the law. If you're arguing the board doesn't actually think that's a violation unless one also said one is an engineer, great, I've never disagreed with that; but they explicitly said "because [action definition X] you are in violation" and [definition X] pointedly does not include saying anything but "here's a creative application of math and stuff". 1. not the part where he said "I'm an engineer" -- the other paragraphs deal with that
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
hatfieej 10y ago
During college in Indiana, a couple of us software engineers wanted to take the state's "Professional Engineer" certification exam. Just to see how we'd do. We were told plainly, "you cannot register for the PE exam because the state of Indiana does not recognize software engineers as 'real engineers'". However, if we were Electrical Engineers and wrote embedded software, that would make us a "real engineer". They explained that the certification was primarily designed for Civil and Mechanical engineers. One guy looked into changing his major temporarily just to take the test but assumed the college administration wouldn't be thrilled about that.
- John_Cena 10y ago
  "real engineer" here. Computer Engineer freshly graduated from GT and looking for a job in embedded devices. I can tell you on the other side of the coin it's also annoying to be muddling through a sea of software "engineering" jobs to actually find one for an entry level engineer. I believe the problem is that software engineering started as a buzzword then got its degree paths. Also I am under the impression your curricula is nowhere near as rigorous as required for engineering. I have been on HN since the beginning of my studies and after a decade of lurking I have made an account. If anyone is hiring CE's or would like to help me out of the good of their heart please PM me. I have had a tough time landing an entry job since medical reasons extended my college time to 7 years.
  - b_t_s 9y ago
    "curricula is nowhere near as rigorous as required for engineering" this depends on the degree. For a BA that's true, for a BS less so. For a BS, the first 2 years of math and science were virtually identical for all engineering/science/CS student at my uni. That included calc1-3, plus 1-2 semesters each of the "real" physics/bio/chem classes for sicence/engineering students. After that it got a lot more specialized though we still had to take some 400 level maths with the math majors. He was just trying to say "Look I know most people who write to you can't do rudimentary physics calculations, but I most certainly can"
smsm42 9y ago
That's outrageously stupid that saying "I am an engineer" is qualified as "unlicensed practice" and that you can be fined by just describing your qualifications. It's not like he opened a company and took a contract pretending to be licensed, he just described his level of knowledge. Special interest groups privatizing common language is outrageous and shameful. It's also an obvious 1st amendment violation and probably the only reason it's not overturned yet is because nobody brought a lawsuit about it - and it'd be probably hard for a private person to support such a lawsuit over $500. Somebody like ACLU should look into it though, if they're still caring about freedom of speech.

by takk309 10y ago

rmxt 10y ago

Completely agreed. He pretty much barked up the one tree that actively cares about use of the title "engineer", and used it in violation of the law (as it is now). Had he sent the letter/formula/math/suggestions to the local state university civil engineering department, the local/state Dept. of Transportation, or the local/state representative, the response would have fallen on less deaf ears, and his use of the title would have likely gone less noticed.

gtirloni 10y ago
Fining the man was probably what the law dictates. Yet, it feels so wrong in this case. Reminds me of this talk by Barry Schwartz: https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisd...
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  They didn't fine him at first. They warned him not to do it, and explained why. He acknowledged this and agreed in September 2015 not to present himself as an engineer again. Then he changed his mind and resumed doing so. Barry Schwartz specializes in telling only half the case to people who know nothing about law, while leaving out any facts that would show his clients in a bad light. Like he'll tell you about the plight of an oyster farmer whose business was shut down by the evil federal government, without mentioning that the farmer in question signed a contract for a fixed-term lease and the government extended the deadline several times before finally enforcing the terms of the lease. Pick one or more of his cases then go look up the actual court opinions. The facts always seem to be very different from the version he presents to his audiences. He relies on people taking his claims at face value and not doing any fact-checking of their own.
  - gtirloni 10y ago
    I'm not an expert in Barry Schwartz but I think you're just making his argument stronger. Focusing on the usage of the term "engineer" when what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important, shows such a shortsightness. Of course, everybody was just doing their job, just following the rules.
    - setr 10y ago
      Its more of you shouldn't give legal advice, and let people assume you are a lawyer, if you are not a lawyer. Presumably, if he prefixed this with IANAE, there would be no issue. Well, in this case, a traffic engineer. But essentially he was defining himself to have greater authority over the subject matter than he actually had, which while here is not really problematic, the act itself often can be.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      You are being played. Jarlstrom was informed that he wasn't entitled to hold himself out as an engineer and agreed not to do so. The reasons not to do that are valid, for the simple reason that it pretends to a level of expertise he does not have, when trying to influence how public infrastructure is run. I have said many times that Jarlstrom could simply have pitched his idea without claiming to be an engineer. Why didn't he? Probably because people did not listen to him as readily if he did not use that title. what was in discussion was the traffic lights, which was much important Why is it so important? Only because Jarlstrom says it is and claims that his solution is world-changing. But this is sales talk. If his solution is really that good, then he should be happy to present it as an amateur, without pretensions to qualifications he does not hold. His proposal sounds OK, but I know nothing of traffic engineering and can't really evaluate it. Neither, I suspect can anyone else except the one person who posted that they are a licensed professional traffic engineer. It's unclear what, if any, assertions Jarlstrom is making about the benefits of implementing his scheme. Will it save any lives or reduce the number of accidents? No idea. All we have is this: '"hen you make a turn you slow down but that's not accounted for in their solution, so people are getting caught in red light cameras for making safe turns.' OK, I understand he is not crazy about red light tickets because his wife got one when driving around their hometown, but so what? What is so overwhelmingly urgent about this that the Board should make it heir priority? Why doesn't Jarlstrom have the patience to push his idea as a regular driver without making false claims to qualifications he does not in fact possess? I must reiterate that I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with his amateur traffic engineering endeavours...if he would have clearly labeled them as such. but he is calling himself an engineer to leverage social credibility that attaches to that professional term. I can share my legal opinions with you all day but no matter how well-formed those opinions are it doesn't alter the fact that I am not qualified to practice law, so the only person I could legally represent in court in myself. It would be dishonest of me to label myself as a lawyer, because people who didn't know any better would easily believe me and might create all sorts of problems for themselves by relying on that false belief. What's going on here is that you heard a sympathetic story about something you think you understand well - who doesn't understand traffic lights, they are so familiar - with an underdog pitted against the image of a large unresponsive bureaucracy. And that is the point at which pany people in this thread have stopped thinking. Look across the thread, there are even people insisting that Jarlstrom is in fact a licensed engineer, repeatedly, based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever! People are literally inventing facts to uphold their preferred version of the story. I am a bit depressed to see how easily people are taken in, and abandon reason in favor of their emotional reaction to a piece of obscure public policy. I have no opinion on the right length of traffic light periods (because I don't drive, thank heavens), and I would have no objection to people evaluating Jarlstrom's proposal and adopting it worldwide. But he chose to go about advancing his proposal in a way that he knew would cause problems, and now he is claiming to be a victim after doing something that he knew in advance would create such a problem. His legal case will go nowhere because he chose to antagonize the very people who were best-positioned to assist him, for no other reason than to inflate his own ego. It would be wise to ask yourself why the story excluded so many important details about the sequence of events, and perhaps to reread pg's famous Submarine essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
chrismcb 9y ago
Except he didn't use it in violation of the law. He wasn't performing professional work, nor was he designing something for construction or any of the other defintions of "practicing engineering"

echion 10y ago

> The issue that the Board has is that he claimed to be an engineer in a public forum. That's not the only issue the Board said it had, and not the most important one at that: > [...] you continued to use the title "engineer" in your communication with Board staff and, of more concern, are the documents you provided that indicate you may have engaged in unlicensed engineering work in Oregon. (emphasis mine). It's the emphasized clause, and the Board's Final Report, page 6, Section 14[1], that is concerning: he's being punished mainly ("of more concern"!) for doing thinking and speech that, IMO, should not be prohibited. 1. https://www.scribd.com/document/346354146/mats4#from_embed https://www.scribd.com/document/346354146/mats4#from_embed

anigbrowl 10y ago
No he is not being punished for thinking and speech. You're treating the documents containing his proposal as a completely separate issue from his claim of professional status, but the documents are a doubling down upon his original and repeated false claim of being an engineer, which claim he was warned he should not be making. If I hold out a mystery pill and invite you to swallow it, how you react will differ considerably depending on whether or not you believe I'm a doctor. This is in no way a commentary on the efficacy of the pill, but only on whether I am likely to have the appropriate medical knowledge that would justify my suggestion.
- echion 10y ago
  The Board's Final Report said, in a separate paragraph (14), that because "thinking and speech" (speech about his thinking, not "I'm an engineer")[1] were a violation of the law. If you're arguing the board doesn't actually think that's a violation unless one also said one is an engineer, great, I've never disagreed with that; but they explicitly said "because [action definition X] you are in violation" and [definition X] pointedly does not include saying anything but "here's a creative application of math and stuff". 1. not the part where he said "I'm an engineer" -- the other paragraphs deal with that
  - anigbrowl 10y ago

hatfieej 10y ago

During college in Indiana, a couple of us software engineers wanted to take the state's "Professional Engineer" certification exam. Just to see how we'd do. We were told plainly, "you cannot register for the PE exam because the state of Indiana does not recognize software engineers as 'real engineers'". However, if we were Electrical Engineers and wrote embedded software, that would make us a "real engineer". They explained that the certification was primarily designed for Civil and Mechanical engineers. One guy looked into changing his major temporarily just to take the test but assumed the college administration wouldn't be thrilled about that.

John_Cena 10y ago
"real engineer" here. Computer Engineer freshly graduated from GT and looking for a job in embedded devices. I can tell you on the other side of the coin it's also annoying to be muddling through a sea of software "engineering" jobs to actually find one for an entry level engineer. I believe the problem is that software engineering started as a buzzword then got its degree paths. Also I am under the impression your curricula is nowhere near as rigorous as required for engineering. I have been on HN since the beginning of my studies and after a decade of lurking I have made an account. If anyone is hiring CE's or would like to help me out of the good of their heart please PM me. I have had a tough time landing an entry job since medical reasons extended my college time to 7 years.
- b_t_s 9y ago
  "curricula is nowhere near as rigorous as required for engineering" this depends on the degree. For a BA that's true, for a BS less so. For a BS, the first 2 years of math and science were virtually identical for all engineering/science/CS student at my uni. That included calc1-3, plus 1-2 semesters each of the "real" physics/bio/chem classes for sicence/engineering students. After that it got a lot more specialized though we still had to take some 400 level maths with the math majors. He was just trying to say "Look I know most people who write to you can't do rudimentary physics calculations, but I most certainly can"

smsm42 9y ago

That's outrageously stupid that saying "I am an engineer" is qualified as "unlicensed practice" and that you can be fined by just describing your qualifications. It's not like he opened a company and took a contract pretending to be licensed, he just described his level of knowledge. Special interest groups privatizing common language is outrageous and shameful. It's also an obvious 1st amendment violation and probably the only reason it's not overturned yet is because nobody brought a lawsuit about it - and it'd be probably hard for a private person to support such a lawsuit over $500. Somebody like ACLU should look into it though, if they're still caring about freedom of speech.