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Visiting the World, as a Geek?
Han Onymous asks: "In nine months my contract as a research assistent at my Alma Mater will come to an end. It will not be renewed, I don't want it to be anyway. But outside the economy is too ill to welcome me. I am young. I am healthy. And I want to see the world before I've got the wife and the kids and the double mortgage. I have no money saved, and I don't plan to save some until then. What can a skillful geek (electrical, electronical and software engineer, speaks three languages fluently) like me do to see the world. Volunteer ? Working for a multinational with exchange programs? Something with no connection at all to the tech world? Please share your experience."
You may do well to check out the Peace Corps - especially with your language skills. *NOW* is the time for you to travel about and see the world; if you put it off you probably won't get around to it until retirement.
Try the Army, Navy or Air Force. I have many friends who are part of the US Armed Services and have traveled the World quite extensively in just a few short years.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
One of my Grandpa's buddies did an around the world tour by getting a cabin aboard a merchant marine ship.
It was super cheap and he got to spend a week or so in all sorts of different port towns. I have no idea whether it would interest you or not, but I contemplated doing it before I met my fiancee.
BTW, the guy who did this was 83!
So you don't necessarily have to do it while you are young;-)
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
You point out that you want to see the world before you are burdened down by the realities of life (i.e., wife, kids, mortgage, etc.). So why not go whole-hog and ditch the stuff that will likely dominate your life later on ?
There's plenty of time in life to work at a computer or do tech otherwise. Don't do it when you're young. It will get in the way.
Money = flexibility. You have nine months. If flexibility and adventure are important to you, save some now. Whether you end up in the Peace Corps or whatever, it will help give you room to breathe.
If you are looking for technical work which will further your career, things may be a little harder. I know that the big investment banks have operations around the world, and use lots of expensive IT, and lend people between countries at least occasionally. This is a bad time to be looking for that kind of job, though, and if you want to have a life, and see your surroundings, you don't want to work there.
[1] You don't have to BE a native English speaker, just look like one. If you look Chinese, you will have a hard time convincing the locals that you speak proper English, even if you grew up here and speak no Chinese!
[2]If you want to learn about the place, rather than simply see the sights and move on.
See what I've been reading.
- Hey, it's simple. Really. Book a flight overseas. Pick a return date. Figure out what to do once you get there and just DO stuff. There has GOT to be somet things you'd like to see- Eiffel Tower, Louver, Rome, etc- you know what you WANT to do, so go do it!
I did the same thing, disappeared for a month. Hooked up with total strangers for a couple of days. Drifted apart. Took pictures
No one can make a trip but you- and if it doesn't work out you'll have only your geeky self to blame rather than that 'stupid slashdot crowd'. Figure out what you want out of life and do it, or do you have absolutely no iniative?
All in all, it's not unlike college: do it because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not the beginning of the rest of your life.
--sdem
I served in the Peace Corps in the mid-90s. Although I do admit these are extraordinarily dangerous times, there were plenty of dangers in the world during that time as well. In addition, I recently spent two years traveling all over kingdom come. There were lots of dangers, but what I gained by traveling far outweighed the risks involved.
Upon returning home to the US after Peace Corps, I never felt more unsafe in my entire life. In Cameroon, my host country, my neighbors looked out for me. If something bad was going to happen it would most likely be someone pointing a gun at me and taking my money. If you did what was asked, then you were OK. They weren't doing it for kicks.
In the US, my chances of dying in a car crash were much higher compared to the chances of that happening in Cameroon. Or someone might break into my house and shoot me just for the hell of it... etc. etc. Have you been reading the papers lately???
These times *are* dangerous. But you shouldn't let fear prevent you from experiencing everything the world has to offer. A little common sense during travel goes A LONG LONG WAY in increasing your safety.
Go live and stop hiding in your house.
My hat is off to you sir.
I was going to say go for something unrelated, but there's plenty of volunteers working on normal average stuff that anyone can do. If you want to do good, volunteer in something that allows you to use your specialty.
For example, if I were a linux guy, I would find one of the groups that collects old hardware, reconditions it and deploys it with Linux at places (wherever) that cannot afford new computers and/or Windows. If you can do that and train a few locals too you will be making greater impact than volunteering for the Peace corps and handing out leaflets on birth control, vaccines, etc.
The reason I recommend you to pick something that allows you to use your experience is because you don't want to be left out of touch with your field for over a year (this would literally mean professional suicide for an IT person). If you are in IT and you spend a year making old and tired hardware work, you will hone your skills while you do something good, and it will even make good resume fodder later down the road.
Me? If I was single and felt like doing so, I would find a Spanish-speaking country and volunteer to teach programming and "Nerd English" to junior high kids (those of you that, like me, are not native English speakers know what I am talking about). To me teaching is the most challenging and rewarding occupation I could think of when salary is not an issue.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
Hell yeah, man. Where the hell else are you going to get to program AND have a gun attached to your belt?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Fact of life. There are always some parts of the world at any given time you want to avoid. So avoid them. The world is a big place with lots of interesting opportunities. What you hear on the evening news are just all the "man bites dog" stories. They make it sound worse than it really is. Yes, someone was injured in some part of the world recently. Not very likely it was or will be you.
Get out. See the world. Enjoy yourself. Have some stories to tell your kids. (and maybe a few you keep for yourself...)
Make sure you sew a Canadian Flag onto your backpack.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Rather than modding this down, I'll reply.
What you propose will either (a) not work, or (b) get you into deep legal trouble, at least in the US, Canada, and as far as I know, all of the UK.
If you have $20k in cash and $20k in debt, you have a net worth of $0, which won't get you approved for a mortgage on that apartment. Business or residential, you'll still need that mortgage, and the banks WILL find your debt.
Unless, of course, you're planning on hiding it from them. Then you'll be committing fraud, and you still won't get away with it.
Forget this advice. Just go travelling!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
But if you drive a car, you're much more likely to die from *that* than you are from terrorism. Not to mention the fact that September 11 demonstrates that terrorists can just as easily kill you at home as abroad.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
if you put it off you probably won't get around to it until retirement.
WHY? Why does everybody have this mindset that there's no choice after college except to get a boring job in a cubicle, get married, pop out kids, buy a big house, and hopefully, have enough time and money at the end to sit on your ass for a few years? That's so fucking depressing. You've only got one shot at life, and it may not be long. You never know. If you think that the rest of your life will be so bad that you won't get to do what you want to do (or at least, not for another 40 years), then you need to rethink things. Hell, just watch Fight Club a few times and *think* about it.
- From a person living a very unusual, fun, and rewarding life (ie: not a lemming)
Open source projects don't generally provide many travel opportunities.
If you're concerned about general less friendly reception rather than just your security, you might find that going in with a sense of humor, a bit of respect for the local way of doing things, and refrain from regularly proclaiming to anyone who asks and plenty who don't that the US is the greatest country on earth and we do things better at home (even if you think it's true) tends to help ameliorate that problem.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Right. Latin America truly rocks. Great people, great sights, good food, inexpensive. And it's reasonably safe if you don't do anything stupid. Not to mention the fact that you just need to know Spanish to get around most of it.
I recommend Guatemala or Ecuador to start. They're really easy to travel in and have much to recommend them.
Engineers without borders
u ga nda.shtml
http://www.ewb-isf.org/
Here's an internship for a hardware/software project leader in Uganda:
http://www.ewb-isf.org/content/internships/f02/
But there's one big, nasty assumption you're making when you say Which story would you rather tell your grand children: '... and our database design was better than everyone elses' or '... and there I was in my fox hole with bombs exploding all around me ...'?
The assumption you're making is that you'll live to have grandchildren if you have bombs going off around you. I would say that now might NOT be the time to join the military, unless you honestly want to see action. Most geeks I know don't "take orders" very well, and aren't very keen on shooting at others, unless they're driving a remote-control joystick-driven bomb with cool graphics and lots of 'splosions.
Hells yeah...
Even in high school I see these kids who spend all their fucking time playing an instrument, joining the debate team, being in the school play, playing three varsity sports, etc ad infinitum et ad nauseam... There's no way in hell they can actually *ENJOY* doing all that stuff and having no free time whatsoever, but they want to have a big shitload to put down on their college apps, becuase their worth as a person and future happiness in the world is decided by whether or not they get into one of the Ivies.
If I ever worked for a college admissions office, I'd take all these applicants who are defined as a person by their impressive list of Extracurricular Activities, and shitlist them.
Do stuff you *ENJOY* with your life. Fuck all else.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
This is a common excuse for people reticent about joining the military. The obvious response is 1) You take orders regardless of whether they come from a sergeant or your shift manager at the Taco Bell. Live with it. 2) Someone has got to be giving the orders, so if you think you can do better, get yourself some stripes or a commision and try it yourself tough guy. Seriously, the military is only as good as its personnel. It needs smart kids (geeks even) as much as it needs stereotypical grunts. The majority of manpower aren't people shooting, but supporting those who shoot.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Freedom isn't free. Anty up and kick in.
Yeah, it comes at the cost of civilians lives in [columbia | iraq | serbia | afghanistan | nicaragua | palestine | chile].
Yes, the army! That's the ticket! Which other job in the world allows you divine rights to invade other countries and remove whatever government they have there just because it is not compatible with Uncle Sam's version of democracy?
I mean, where else can you prove the superiority of the US of A's military capabilities as well as the ability to rape native womenfolk just because you are American... and might as well grab some natural resources at that.
Which other job can get you to experiment with new ways to kill? Lab rats??? Hell, no... we kill people here in the Army! And most of them are civillians at that.
Yes man... the Army is the way to go!
Personally, I believe I am responsible for what I do, regardless of who tells me to do it. When you volunteer yourself into a coercive situation, you have handed your soul over to another's judgement. Maybe you think the people you take orders from are going to be good caretakers of your will and your soul, but that's one hell of a risk. Do you really know them that well? Do you even know who the hell they are? It's a long chain of command, and in any situation it's hard to know where it ends... do they even tell you where the command comes from? Do they ever tell you why? Are you willing to live blind?
When you spend your time playing games and doing busywork this doesn't much matter. I wouldn't bet on irrelevence anymore, though.
So wait a minute? Given the two options, it's automatically far better for someone to join the army than the peace corps?
Nah, you're entitled to your opinion - but I think that's completely "apples to oranges". The Peace Corps. seems to thrive on individuals who like to teach or train others. There's a lot of education going on there. The Army, on the other hand, tends to attract those who lack direction in their lives. Perhaps someone who just "needs a change" and hate the routine they're stuck in. But if you want to teach people, the Army isn't the place to be. You're there to pretty much "shut up and learn" and then "do, based on what we told you".
Freedom sure isn't free, but it's also a fact that if you end up dead, you absolutely lost all of your own freedom.
Also, I know this is just a generalization - but an awful lot of people I knew who joined the military came out as sort of "empty shells" of the people they once were. True, they might have been washed clean of their bad habits they used to have -- but they also seemed like their brains got re-loaded with a bunch of indoctrination about the way to be a "real man" in the U.S.A.
There's something eerily "zombie-like" about some of these guys. They're suddenly almost "too polite" and dress a little "too sharp" at any semi-formal occasion. Many times, they suddenly get a strong urge to get married, have kids, and become a cookie-cutter image of the "family man". I know you can't really fault any of this. On the surface, it looks like the guys really "cleaned up their act" -- but it's a little unnatural. I don't think they came to these lifestyle conclusions and changes purely on their own.....
Which would you rather tell your children:
I helped plan and build an irrigation system for African farmers or I shot some people I didn't know in Iraq or wherever GeeDubyah goes hunting next?
But if it's murder you're looking for 'go army'!
Travel to beatiful locales and blow them up!
Freedom is not free, make friends by being friendly not killing people.
What are you doing on slashdot dan_lamb? 'forget your tech skills'? ummm why?
i'm sorry, but where were you that there were 'bombs exploding all around me'? boot camp? there havn't been any real wars in years, only bombing campaigns -- a real war requires two combatants.
as for the 'prestige' of being in a war... look at vietnam. did we really 'anty up' for freedom? these things always look good on tv, and we can always justify our actions in the movies that follow but the reality is that we don't fight for our fundamental freedoms anymore -- we fight for free trade.
all i'm saying is that being on slashdot, you probably have your own ideas and opinions on situations throughout the world. by joining the military you loose the opportunity to act on your own ideas and instead submit yourself to the wishes of those in power. which brings me to my last question: how well do your ideas and goals match those who are in control, politicians between the ages of 40 and 70 with a net worth of at least 4 million?
i know i don't agree with them so i won't be ordered by them.
fear is the mind killer
Just as you would quit if forced into an unethical situation by the shift manager, military ethics require one to observe that which is moral. There are other things you can do before 'quitting', but the ultimate step is to disobey what you see as an unlawful order.
Personally, I believe I am responsible for what I do, regardless of who tells me to do it.
I agree and so does the military. Those caught doing unethical or downright criminal acts are held accountable. Think Mi Lai or Nuremburg.
When you volunteer yourself into a coercive situation, you have handed your soul over to another's judgement.
That's a contradiction. If you've volunteered, you've made that choice yourself hopefully having given the decision due forethought.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Circular argument. The regret would only be felt if there was some desire to have children in the first place. If that desire never existed (and it doesn't for many people), then there's no regret at not having had children.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
I did pretty much everything in high school except music and drama, and I loved it. I got to do some really cool stuff, event went to DC for a week and met a buncha real politicians. (They look like real people up close!)
Now, don't get me wrong, I spent my fair share of time in front of the computer too, but if oyu'er not doing sports, or part of student council, or on the debate team - what are you doing with your free time? Drinking?
Frankly, I had a lot more fun in high school than my friends who spent most of their time high.
Oh, and there's one other very good reason to get into college:
I got to go to Europe for a YEAR because I got into college and knew some German.
paintball
What bothers me about the military is there is no accountability when it comes to its past. What happened to the people who ordered LSD testing on soldiers? What happened to the people who used chemical warfare in Vietnam (Agent Orange)? What about the person who wrote the manual to teach the Latin American soldiers to torture? What does it mean that someone who tried to cover up My Lai has become Secretary of State? I don't know what has become of all the past military criminals, but it doesn't seem like much -- and anyone who joins the military now doesn't really know what they are going to be asked to do, or what the ultimate intentions of the leaders are. But past performance gives a pretty damn good idea.
And what you do in the military isn't about stupid shit like illegal monopolies. You can do wrong on a scale not normally possible in our everyday lives. Let's be honest: you can do evil. And you might not even realize it... when you flip the switch that drops the bomb, do you know if your cause is really just? Do you know who you are killing? Are you ready to kill a child? Are you ready to kill a mother? Because the military is killing a lot of children and mothers these days, and if the bombs start falling on Baghdad, the number of innocent dead is going to skyrocket, no one can deny it. Are you ready to be part of that killing machine?
It's one thing to bet your own life on a cause, but the military gave up that a while ago -- American soldiers die in accidents, not battle. Now they're betting other people's lives on it. The moral weight of killing is far heavier than the moral weight of dying. I'm not a Christian man, but I have great respect for the teachings of Jesus -- I think we all know on which side of the bomb he'd be on when it falls from the plane, and I think we'd all know which person would receive his blessings.
I'll be the first to admit that the military and the government as a whole as done a whole lot of fucked up shit. Hell, if you haven't already read them, I would recommend reading A People's History of the United States or Deterring Democracy among many fine books on the subject.
The dilemma for the thinking individual is how to deal with all this history. I would recommend engagement. In that I reiterate what I said earlier, if you can do a better, more ethical job, I would encourage you to do so. The military is not made up of heartless monsters, but by people like you making sometimes very difficult decisions.
Are you ready to be part of that killing machine?
I have been a part of 'that killing machine' and with a clean conscience. I did the best I could in my small role in the service. I obeyed my ethics as best as I was able. Perhaps if those responsible for those horrible things had done the same, they never would have happened. Perhaps if persons with your moral integrity were making decisions, our nation as a whole would have the same clean collective conscience as I. I mean that seriously. The military needs people just like you.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
If you simply want to travel and do good in a tangibly fruitful way, join the US Peace Corps. My cousin did this and actually speaks well of it *after* getting so sick she had to leave early. You get a really solid lifeline in case you suddenly require medical attention or quick evacuation. Almost everyone will respect what you did, regardless of their national, political, and/or philosophical background. And the experience lasts a lifetime, usually in a positive way.
If you want to do good and (also) find out lots about who/what you are, join the US Army. I guarantee this experience too will last a lifetime; but it might not be so sweet. You'll find out things about yourself, and about people in general, that don't surface during the medi[c]ated experience most of us accept as everyday life.
Now that I've exposed some of my own biases, let's explore a bit of reasoned counterpoint to some of Ian Bicking's writings:
----------------
Surprising this assertion is. I've reviewed a fair number of the primary documents without coming across anything to support this observation. I'm aware of at least two US Navy fliers who got courtmartialed for not following orders whilst in the aeroplane; but their crime was deviation from course and an unauthorized weapons release, not a mission refusal. Can you recall which historian made this claim/when/where/to whom/citing what? The question of what makes a target 'military' is the subject of numerous thick books. A restrictive definition would have precluded, for instance, turning out the lights in Ho Chi Minh City. But Operation LINEBACKER doing that, and things like that, brought the North to the negotiating table at a time when they were already correctly confident that they would win the war. Whether or not you accept that US intervention was morally right, it's hard to argue that bloodshed is presumptively preferable to negotiation. (The same argument applies, more recently, to Kosovo/Belgrade/Yugoslavia.) Orange was used *as* a defoliant. There were technicians who knew how toxic it was, but it's not clear that the decisionmakers in Vietnam did. MAC-V also dropped Orange on its own troops -- difficult to reconcile with a desire for victory, if the release authority meant to employ it as a chemical weapon. Really? Where? Are you referring to the human shields whom Saddam voluntold they'd go stand next to the air defence systems that were about to start shooting at US and British pilots? US soldiers do die in battle. The US Army has had some success in reducing the numbers, but a dispassionate review of US military history over the last, say, twenty years reveals that US soldiers died in battle in Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The US Army's deployment to Albania in 'support' of the Kosovo Air Campaign killed US soldiers only in accidents. It also killed zero persons of any other nation, since it never executed a combat mission. No, they're betting *their* lives on their Army's ability to protect them. And they know an uncomfortable lot about how finite that ability is. Soldiers in battle generally do not fight for causes. They fight for survival, frequently for the survival of their buddies, occasionally for a charismatic leader. Citizens who enlist might do so for a specific cause, but more often than not they do so for a complex combination of reasons. Patriotism is usually one of these. Yeah. True. If you aren't comfortable with the fact that you'll remember the nameless people you killed for the rest of your life, stay away from the US Army. There are nations that win wars, but no soldier ever won a war. All the soldiers in a war lose something. But until a universal substitute for war comes along, the US will need something that can fight one and win. Leave that job to those who have reflected on their willingness to do that specific thing. If you want to die for a cause, just write a lucid note and cut your throat. The US Army is a lot harder and more effective than suicide. Oh yeah, the guy who beat the temple moneychangers with a stick hard enough to drive them all away? Yeah, that was definitely a guy who would shrink from employing force in a righteous cause. The teachings of Christ emphasize personal responsibility and explicitly de-emphasize the manner of one's death. Do you really mean to claim that an 'ethnic cleanser' killed whilst shelling civilians would be preferentially blessed by Christ *because* he died from a US munition? Although Christ's blessings are denied to no repentant sinner, there's no basis in scripture for such an exceptional claim.----------
Please take to heart bugnuts' advice to get IN WRITING the recruiter's promise about where you'll be assigned and what you'll do.
Finally, regarding kasparov's comment in this thread:
He's right. The entire US DoD reflexively punishes defiance. Paradoxically, those US citizens who pledge themselves to defend the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are less free than those they defend.Orders are fundamentally about trust. The soldier issuing them believes they'll get done. The soldier receiving them believes they're right. When this breaks down, so does the US Army. If trust is at issue, then *before* it breaks down, the issuer and the receiver owe a frank discussion to each other and to the Constitution they pledged they'd defend. If you're not ready to have that discussion, face to face, with a guy who can put you in jail, don't join the US Army. Sometimes it really *can* feel like an Army of One.
There are easy answers in the US Army, just as there are in 'everyday' US life. You can keep your head down, learn exactly what is required, do it as well as you can, and ignore/forget the inconvenient remainder. But if you are a geek, your predilections will force you along a harder, more rigorous, and ultimately more illuminating path. This is no more a fact of the US Army than of US 'everyday' life; but in the US Army both the situations and the outcomes will matter more to you. The answers you find might not be comfortable, or even unambiguous; but they will be true.
Also you'll have lots less bandwidth :-)
Actually, he purposely put the "ein" in the sentence "Ich bin ein Berliner". All of the Germans understood what he meant - just foreigners got the wrong message w/ the literal translation.
What he meant was, "I am one _among many_ Berliners".
Just because a few "get" the army and do well, doesn't mean it's statistical significant. If you hate being mindless and are not the well-built, well-witted person the army requires, you're going to absolutely hate it, or end up being hated. Worse, you're going to be worse for it. Sure, there are some stuff you could learn there. But so you can by moving out of your parents house, travel abroad etc. It's about learning to take responsibility for your life. You don't really learn that in an institution, but you can "get" it if you're lucky.
Given the choice now, I would volunteer to do work in 3rd world countries or something like that. It's hard, but it's also peaceful and loving. You'll learn more about life than in a strict institution where everybody have to conform.
However, some people fancy money, armies, war, agressiveness and domination. If you do, then I say, go for it. I hope you'll enjoy it. It's not for me though. I'm sure I'm not alone.
> I've seen the same thing - eerie politeness and
> rigid values.
I believe the phenomenon you're referring to is LGAT -- Large Group Awareness Therapy, something the Armed Forces used to build the Army.
You can watch the same sort of phenomenon with groups such as Landmark Education
Six weeks (30 working days) is the minimum amount of paid vacation you'll have working for a continental European firm, as proscribed by law. There are usually more holidays than in the US. Transportation is cheap. Your own home city will be a cultural gold mine.
Living and working in Europe, you'll get started building your technical career, and have plenty of time off to travel. Based in Europe, unique and historical places will be just a short train ride away (London, Paris, Prague, Budapest, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Florence, Berlin...). Flights are much cheaper from Europe to everywhere except the Americas: you could zip down to Greece or Turkey for less than $200 on a charter flight, check out Thailand for $250. From Germany, you could drive down to Venice for a long weekend. And so on.
Works for me, living in Munich.
Don't think those things are required elements in life. They're not. Be your own individual. Do what's best for you. After all, it's your life. If a wife and kids and a house with a white picket fence is what you really want, then by all means go for it. But don't do it just because one society (or even all societies) expect you to.
This world is very big with all kinds of people, places and ideas. Don't lock yourself into one way of doing things or one place of doing things. See the world, talk to people, take the knowledge and understanding from their experiences and add it to your own. Then make up your own mind. Otherwise, you're doomed to live someone else's life.