Im quite competent, but Im back in school furthering my knowledge, and Ive found that schooling backed by experience is very valuable indeed. The current lab im in is a great place to take concepts Im half familiar with, really learn the bits Im weak on, and then apply them then and there.
It sounds like you got lucky with a superior who trained you well. I dont know if I would believe that that was the norm, however. If a HS graduate asked my advice on entering the IT field, direct work experience vs education, I would probably recommend full on schooling, or part time both with lots of internships. Recommending no school dooms them to mediocrity until they realize its value.
Rights, chilling effects, and Sony being an all-around douche aside, it IS a gateway to piracy.
Lets be realistic here, we know how 80% of the system tinkerers use their hacked consoles, and most of the time its not to run Linux, or to cheat. Im sure its wonderful that some niche folks are running OtherOS again, but if you think you represent the majority of PS3 tinkerers, youre badly mistaken.
If theyre using SPDY on google.com, its STILL an HTTP GET. Dont believe me? Go there with Chrome's developer tools open to the network tab. Check the headers.
You know, HTTP IS a protocol, even if it does have the word "protocol" as part of its name. I dont think it is incorrect to refer to it as one, any more than it is incorrect to refer to TCP as a protocol of IP.
Work experience wont teach you the OSI layer, or how it applies to the real world. If you go by work experience alone, you wont understand, for example, that there are multiple data-link layer protocols, nor how to even cope with 2 nodes use different protocols.
Work experience tends towards trial and error solutions, and solutions that work get remembered as "correct" data. The problem is that "working" doesnt always mean "working well" or even "correct"; I have seen routers configured with TCPIP port 47 forwarded because doing so "works" when setting up PPTP vpn (as long as the requisite 1723 is forwarded). The problem is, that its an unnecessary "voodoo magic" step that comes from not understanding the difference between protocol numbers and TCPIP port numbers; and if you had a private application that used port 47, you would have just created a security liability.
Clearly you need 4 years of latin, a full understanding of conjugations and declensions, and several years of translation experience to come up with brand names....
Strikes me as a rather wasted education if thats what it ends up being used on.
TBQH I would much rather a programmer spend 4 years understanding programming theory than learning Latin and Greek, which he will never use. Want to teach him history, or philosophy? Thats great, but I suspect that without an actual interest in those subjects, the teaching will seep back out within a few years. I learned trig in high school, but only remember the rudimentaries of it because I never used it. Why would anyone expect philosophy to be any different?
Thats not to say I dont think history or poly sci should be taught; I think those are so fundamental to understanding our society today that they should absolutely be mandatory. But the other "well rounded" stuff.... dont believe for a second that every bit of information put into a student's head will remain there if he has no interest in it.
Going to university has its place. As someone returning to school with quite a bit of experience under my belt, I can tell you that the practical is great; but shoring up the theory that goes behind it is equally (if not more) important.
It really depends on what field youre in, but I dare say a plumber who understands how to actually do pressure calculations, and how pressure works, what chemical reactions can occur on a pipe, etc, is simply going to be better and more reliable at his job than one who does not. You see it in the IT world all the time-- folks who scraped a CCNA but never bothered to learn the theory, asking WHY it isnt better to have a default gateway set on each interface, or how I can be sure with ARP that there isnt such and such a device on the network with such and such an IP, or what the difference between a DNS failure and a gateway failure is.
Without proper theory and framwork to go with the practical, you can be left performing actions without knowing their significance, how they can fail, and what your possible mitigating courses of action are.
Latin and greek's usefulness generally only come into play if you intend to study works in their original languages. For those of us who raised latin in high school, raise your hand the last time you translated a manuscript from latin....
That math isnt much more than highschool math. The first page is the sort of stuff you learn in late elementary school/early middle school-- division of 'complicated' numbers (ie more than just simple integers), multiplication, reduction. Given about 30 minutes Im reasonably sure I could handle a page full of things like that. The rest of the pages arent too difficult either-- plane geometery was taught in my high school in 9th grade, trig in 11th.
Trig is the only page that would trip me up-- its been too long since Ive needed to use it, and as we werent taught the manual method for cubes, logs, etc, I would have to use an estimation method to calculate them which likely wouldnt go too well on a "show your work" exam.
As for the rest of it, that sort of Latin most certainly IS accessible in high school, and when you study Latin you usually get a hefty dose of history along with it. It is also standard to teach history and geography in general.
Anyone trying to use this to prove that we're less well educated today ends up proving the opposite; I could have done 60% of the math part by 7th grade, even if the "work shown" would end up being less than ideal. The problem, if indeed there is one, is that there seems to increasingly be a fear of failure (or of failing students). I am certain that in the 1800s (and today, in Japanese and Chinese culture-- possibly others), students had an understanding that if they do not work hard, they simply do not go to University (in some cultures, you simply dont make it to high school). So while fewer might make it in, those that did would inevitably be those who were motivated.
"It being ignored" means the person who receives the threat didnt feel the need to press charges. The responsibility lies with the offended party to bring the suit to light.
Thats because you have to file a complaint in order for something to be done. We dont have an internet police running around looking for death threats; in this country you usually have to press charges against someone for something to be done.
Flip-side of the argument: what do you think the government should be teaching children?
Precious little-- publicly offered education is a great thing when it raises literacy rates, but it shouldnt be the biggest game in town. I would be far more comfortable with vouchers (since the money to put our kids in school is basically our money to begin with) and a greater number of competing private schools, or parent run schools (aka homeschools, which tend to do remarkably well when it comes to various performance metrics).
It is rather scary that some states are (and have been for a hundred years or so) trying to make it so that you dont even have a choice in the matter; i cant think of a more serious threat to ones freedom than to deny you the right to raise your own child. How perfect can tyranny be when the only things a teenager knows have been instilled in him by that government? (its partly for this reason I dont think NPR should even be accepting government money; tying news outlets to the government seems equally dangerous)
History warns us against having an uneducated population, but it also warns us against letting the government control every aspect of a child's learning. Theres a point at which it becomes TOO easy to propagandize them.
Holy smokes are you seriously arguing that we need the government to raise kids when the parents fail at it?
Are you AIMING at setting up a tyrants dream here? And what on earth must you think of freedom, that you dont think raising your own kids is a freedom worth protecting?
I never said standardized testing was the answer, and Im no big fan of "no child left behind"; if we take our heads out of the sand, you realize that failure is one of the most important ways we learn in life.
Nevertheless, the idea of paying a teacher based simply on their seniority, not based on how many students graduate (measured perhaps in comparison with other teachers in the district, or that school, or whatever metric you use), is silly. What kind of sane organization rewards ineptness with a salary?
What you just described is a behavior of man, which Im fairly certain would be studied in a course on religion, which itself would fall into the field of anthropology, not theology.
If you dont believe that God has revealed himself to us in understandable ways, it is silly to talk of studying Theology, as you really dont believe in Theology itself at that point.
Over 92% of americans polled in as theists might be more accurate. Whether or not they actually are, or do, is an entirely different matter, and not really possible to pin down by poll.
You vote for merit-based teacher pay and school vouchers, and the entire problem is solved. Dont like the creationist teaching at this school? Go to a different school.
Slashdot Mirror
There are large wind turbines that power 500 homes already, for example
So, hands up: Who wants to finance 50 million large wind turbines?
And whos willing to take the heat when the public gets outraged because they're killing migratory birds?
Im quite competent, but Im back in school furthering my knowledge, and Ive found that schooling backed by experience is very valuable indeed. The current lab im in is a great place to take concepts Im half familiar with, really learn the bits Im weak on, and then apply them then and there.
It sounds like you got lucky with a superior who trained you well. I dont know if I would believe that that was the norm, however. If a HS graduate asked my advice on entering the IT field, direct work experience vs education, I would probably recommend full on schooling, or part time both with lots of internships. Recommending no school dooms them to mediocrity until they realize its value.
Rights, chilling effects, and Sony being an all-around douche aside, it IS a gateway to piracy.
Lets be realistic here, we know how 80% of the system tinkerers use their hacked consoles, and most of the time its not to run Linux, or to cheat. Im sure its wonderful that some niche folks are running OtherOS again, but if you think you represent the majority of PS3 tinkerers, youre badly mistaken.
Yea, and look what happened to Chromium!
Oh wait...
If theyre using SPDY on google.com, its STILL an HTTP GET. Dont believe me? Go there with Chrome's developer tools open to the network tab. Check the headers.
You know, HTTP IS a protocol, even if it does have the word "protocol" as part of its name. I dont think it is incorrect to refer to it as one, any more than it is incorrect to refer to TCP as a protocol of IP.
Work experience wont teach you the OSI layer, or how it applies to the real world. If you go by work experience alone, you wont understand, for example, that there are multiple data-link layer protocols, nor how to even cope with 2 nodes use different protocols.
Work experience tends towards trial and error solutions, and solutions that work get remembered as "correct" data. The problem is that "working" doesnt always mean "working well" or even "correct"; I have seen routers configured with TCPIP port 47 forwarded because doing so "works" when setting up PPTP vpn (as long as the requisite 1723 is forwarded). The problem is, that its an unnecessary "voodoo magic" step that comes from not understanding the difference between protocol numbers and TCPIP port numbers; and if you had a private application that used port 47, you would have just created a security liability.
Clearly you need 4 years of latin, a full understanding of conjugations and declensions, and several years of translation experience to come up with brand names....
Strikes me as a rather wasted education if thats what it ends up being used on.
TBQH I would much rather a programmer spend 4 years understanding programming theory than learning Latin and Greek, which he will never use. Want to teach him history, or philosophy? Thats great, but I suspect that without an actual interest in those subjects, the teaching will seep back out within a few years. I learned trig in high school, but only remember the rudimentaries of it because I never used it. Why would anyone expect philosophy to be any different?
Thats not to say I dont think history or poly sci should be taught; I think those are so fundamental to understanding our society today that they should absolutely be mandatory. But the other "well rounded" stuff.... dont believe for a second that every bit of information put into a student's head will remain there if he has no interest in it.
Going to university has its place. As someone returning to school with quite a bit of experience under my belt, I can tell you that the practical is great; but shoring up the theory that goes behind it is equally (if not more) important.
It really depends on what field youre in, but I dare say a plumber who understands how to actually do pressure calculations, and how pressure works, what chemical reactions can occur on a pipe, etc, is simply going to be better and more reliable at his job than one who does not. You see it in the IT world all the time-- folks who scraped a CCNA but never bothered to learn the theory, asking WHY it isnt better to have a default gateway set on each interface, or how I can be sure with ARP that there isnt such and such a device on the network with such and such an IP, or what the difference between a DNS failure and a gateway failure is.
Without proper theory and framwork to go with the practical, you can be left performing actions without knowing their significance, how they can fail, and what your possible mitigating courses of action are.
Latin and greek's usefulness generally only come into play if you intend to study works in their original languages. For those of us who raised latin in high school, raise your hand the last time you translated a manuscript from latin....
That math isnt much more than highschool math. The first page is the sort of stuff you learn in late elementary school /early middle school-- division of 'complicated' numbers (ie more than just simple integers), multiplication, reduction. Given about 30 minutes Im reasonably sure I could handle a page full of things like that. The rest of the pages arent too difficult either-- plane geometery was taught in my high school in 9th grade, trig in 11th.
Trig is the only page that would trip me up-- its been too long since Ive needed to use it, and as we werent taught the manual method for cubes, logs, etc, I would have to use an estimation method to calculate them which likely wouldnt go too well on a "show your work" exam.
As for the rest of it, that sort of Latin most certainly IS accessible in high school, and when you study Latin you usually get a hefty dose of history along with it. It is also standard to teach history and geography in general.
Anyone trying to use this to prove that we're less well educated today ends up proving the opposite; I could have done 60% of the math part by 7th grade, even if the "work shown" would end up being less than ideal. The problem, if indeed there is one, is that there seems to increasingly be a fear of failure (or of failing students). I am certain that in the 1800s (and today, in Japanese and Chinese culture-- possibly others), students had an understanding that if they do not work hard, they simply do not go to University (in some cultures, you simply dont make it to high school). So while fewer might make it in, those that did would inevitably be those who were motivated.
"It being ignored" means the person who receives the threat didnt feel the need to press charges. The responsibility lies with the offended party to bring the suit to light.
Nothing was done.
Thats because you have to file a complaint in order for something to be done. We dont have an internet police running around looking for death threats; in this country you usually have to press charges against someone for something to be done.
Yes, noone has ever been tried for harrassing a normal person over the internet, much less threatening them.
Wait, hes going to Gitmo? Do tell.
Hyperbole at eleven.
Why on earth is the government (or anyone else) responsible for teaching *anything* to children?
I think thats a valid question in a nation that started out valuing freedom and a limited government above all other considerations.
Flip-side of the argument: what do you think the government should be teaching children?
Precious little-- publicly offered education is a great thing when it raises literacy rates, but it shouldnt be the biggest game in town. I would be far more comfortable with vouchers (since the money to put our kids in school is basically our money to begin with) and a greater number of competing private schools, or parent run schools (aka homeschools, which tend to do remarkably well when it comes to various performance metrics).
It is rather scary that some states are (and have been for a hundred years or so) trying to make it so that you dont even have a choice in the matter; i cant think of a more serious threat to ones freedom than to deny you the right to raise your own child. How perfect can tyranny be when the only things a teenager knows have been instilled in him by that government? (its partly for this reason I dont think NPR should even be accepting government money; tying news outlets to the government seems equally dangerous)
History warns us against having an uneducated population, but it also warns us against letting the government control every aspect of a child's learning. Theres a point at which it becomes TOO easy to propagandize them.
Holy smokes are you seriously arguing that we need the government to raise kids when the parents fail at it?
Are you AIMING at setting up a tyrants dream here? And what on earth must you think of freedom, that you dont think raising your own kids is a freedom worth protecting?
I never said standardized testing was the answer, and Im no big fan of "no child left behind"; if we take our heads out of the sand, you realize that failure is one of the most important ways we learn in life.
Nevertheless, the idea of paying a teacher based simply on their seniority, not based on how many students graduate (measured perhaps in comparison with other teachers in the district, or that school, or whatever metric you use), is silly. What kind of sane organization rewards ineptness with a salary?
What you just described is a behavior of man, which Im fairly certain would be studied in a course on religion, which itself would fall into the field of anthropology, not theology.
If you dont believe that God has revealed himself to us in understandable ways, it is silly to talk of studying Theology, as you really dont believe in Theology itself at that point.
The universe IS a closed system, and the earth is part of that system. Entropy is related in one way or another to EVERYTHING.
Over 92% of americans polled in as theists might be more accurate. Whether or not they actually are, or do, is an entirely different matter, and not really possible to pin down by poll.
Where do you draw the line?
You vote for merit-based teacher pay and school vouchers, and the entire problem is solved. Dont like the creationist teaching at this school? Go to a different school.