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Stephen Hawking Looking For Personal Techie
kaptink writes "One of the great grandmasters of space, time and the history of our existence is seeking an assistant to help develop and maintain the electronic speech system that allows him to communicate his vision of the universe. An informal job ad posted on Stephen's website said the assistant should be computer literate, ready to travel and able to repair electronic devices 'with no instruction manual or technical support.' He lost his real voice in a tracheotomy in 1985, but has something based on NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesizer mounted on his wheelchair that helps synthesize speech by interpreting the twitches of his face. The synthesizer's robotic monotone has become nearly as famous as Hawking himself, but the computer — powered by batteries fastened to the back of Hawking's wheelchair — isn't just for speaking. It can connect to the internet over mobile phone networks and a universal infrared remote enables the physicist to switch on the lights, watch television, or open doors either at home or at the office. It's a complicated, tailor-made system, as the ad makes clear. A photograph of the back of Hawking's wheelchair, loaded with coiled wires and electronic equipment, is pictured under the words: 'Could you maintain this? If your answer is "yes", we'd like to hear from you!'. Hawking's website says that the job's salary is expected to be about $38,500 a year."
also he will steal your girlfriend if you have one.
The significant drop in salary could well be worth it. Being able to talk to the man every day, see how he works. What an interesting job indeed!
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If you make a mistake the world will say you broke Stephen Hawking.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/
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That salary is peanuts.
The salary is for a "Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking".
Most Graduate Assistants don't make 38k...
It might be fun to take the job and program in some bogus speeches for him to give. Something about him finding religion, discovering creationism to be true and so on and have it end with a comment about maybe he should pay his chair engineer a decent salary so his stuff would actually work right.
You have to admit it would be funny at least once.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
most likely goes like this:
- some genius put that original backpack computer together
- he barely made it work, but he was not sure why it worked and he never bothered to write any documentation
- he left as soon as it was up and running, out of fear that it might break any moment and he had no idea what to do then
- now it is breaking apart and the genius is gone.
- it is your job to fix it, good luck
It's on the low-end in southern California. That's around what most grocery store clerks make out here.
"Good, Fast, Cheap: Pick any two" -- RFC 1925
This entails a lot more than just technical aspects:
Sounds like a lot of direct PR stuff is involved, including scheduling and logistics, and even graphics design, which are probably not skills the typical techie would be strong in. Also, the pay sounds kind of low considering it's a whole lot more than just maintaining his technology.
Better known as 318230.
Finding someone for that kind of pay who is able to do all of this and do it well won't be easy:
Sorry if I did not immediately jump for joy when I saw that "salary". If you're a janitor with that salary you might be underpaid.
Once you say "computers" and "maintain" you have to get ready to to pay a bit extra, add "without support" and "electronics" and you've just gotten a license to bleed from your wallet.
Goodluck with the search Mr. Hawking.
WTF? Really you wouldn't want to pimp his ride? I bet MTV would give you a show and shit... Dang!
Easy £50K for an EE? You're not talking about the the UK, are you?
So, it's totally irrelevant to a job based in the UK.
Which might explain why he's got a totally undocumented piece of shit to begin with.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"You don't want more than $38,500." Oh, wait, sorry. :P
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
This is for a graduate assistant to STEPHEN HAWKING.
My stipend was 1/4 of that at best and, oh yeah, did I mention... This is for a graduate assistant to STEPHEN W. HAWKING.
I know you guys are all so F'ing incredible that you don't need resume bullets or care about other peoples' ideas, but how's about
Um, if I were eligible I'd be making them KNOW I was their man!
Does he read /.?
That may be important to consider, before you post.
So, here we have a golden opportunity to work for one of the most brilliant humans to ever exist, tinkering with an amazing if poorly documented system, jetsetting around the globe, being paid to attend sold-out physics lectures... and all half the /. community can think to do is bitch about the pay grade.
Seems the Green-Eyed Monster (and this global recession) has ruined a lot of folks. The way I see it, the fact that Hawking is likely footing the bill for the room, board, and travel expenses of whoever gets the gig (as they would be considered a member of his 'care team'), not to mention getting to hang out with Stephen fucking Hawking, $38,000 per annum seems like a pretty damn good deal.
Now, if only I could get my wife on board... I wonder if he needs an economist, too...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The summary actually overstated the technical aspects, the actual job advert states that maintaining the speech system is only part of the position.
Managing national and international travel for Prof. Hawking and his care team. Expect to spend around 3 months per year abroad! Development and maintenance of Professor Hawking's communication and speech systems Procurement and maintenance of his wheelchairs and accessible van Preparation of lecture graphics and public speaking Dealing with the media and press Answering inquiries from the public and maintaining the website
Christ you're a prick.
1. Cambridge is not California. Californian salaries - or, indeed, any other salaries - are utterly irrelevant.
2. The salary is actually about the level of a first postdoctoral position. It's not that low.
3. The salary is higher than the UK national average salary.
4. It's unlikely to be for a very long time.
5. It will increase the impact of the CV of the guy who gets the job quite impressively.
Someone who wants more money doesn't apply for the job. Someone who thinks the money is OK and thinks that two years' working as Hawking's mixture of web admin, techie and travel organiser might look good on their CV, does.
It's only temporary until you learn to make it say to give you a pay increase...
However, gets this Job needs to change the voice to glaDOS!!!!!!
I'd settle for a patch to the speech system that ends each sentence with "puny human".
If he can get Majel to record the voice, then he will have once again turned our understanding of the linearity of time completely upside down.
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Even people that sweep floors on shows that "pimp rides" on MTV earn more. Perhaps the appeal is not in the salary but rather in proximity to the godemperor of text2speech cyborgs.
Of course, most of us poor bastards work for a salary, not "for the love". Some of us have kids to feed, bills to pay, taxes, that sorta thing. The rest, that have nothing better to do with the money just wanna get paid fairly. You can maintain nails with better pay. Dang indeed.
No no you are not thinking this out. Greed has gotten in the way of what is really important in life... Think about it, you will have total control of one of the most important physicist of our time! Just install a joystick controller and you can make him do your biding and say whatever you want.
You would win the Internet. Trolling people with statements like "By my calculations the LHC has already begun breaking down the fabric of our universe as was prophesied. Soon the great mighty Cthulhu shall return. Hail Cthulhu! MU HA HAHA MU!!!
or something more simple like HAIL SATIN! or HITLER or S.H.I.T I am so wasted right now.
First of all, I doubt that Steven would introduce the employee as "My bitch", he would certainly be more respectful than that. He would probably refer to the person as "My technical assistant" or "The genius that makes it possible for me to communicate".
The circles that he would travel in would be quite prestigious. In the science community he'd be regularly in the presence of some of the greatest minds alive today. In the political community, he's among the "Rock Stars" that politicians want to have pictures of themselves standing next to... as if the association would make them smarter.
On top of that... companies focused on making hardware/software solutions would almost certainly consider a person who worked directly with Steven Hawkings on his accessibility solutions as an ideal CTO for their company. If a person is interested in accessibility solutions as a career and would be interested in starting a business, obtaining government grants or simply raising money for the company would be simple having had that position earlier.
I'd imagine that there are even some great UN posts for someone who held this position. Technical adviser or chairman of this committee of another.
So... while the pay sucks majors balls... if a person sticks around in this position for 4-5 years... they can almost certainly gain the visibility and even a certain level of prestige which would secure their future indefinitely.
Oh... the fact that the person could in theory learn something along the way or even have the opportunity to test their system upgrades by having high level conversations about theoretical physics with a person, who though not as amazing as the press makes him, but still certainly capable of holding his own might be a big bonus for some.
If I weren't married with kids, I would seriously consider this position.
The description sounds pretty bad - they're trying to combine the job of a personal assistant, PR manager and technician into one position and are pretty clear that Prof. Hawking has no interest in conversing with you about physics. You're just his bitch. I'm not overly familiar with typical salaries in the UK, but here in the states I'd consider that salary pretty low for the qualifications they're looking for.