You've heard of the glut paper MSCE? People who have an MSCE and no practical experience are close to useless. Same with MBA graduates.
An MBA is useful for someone with at least a few years of practical experience.
An MBA teaches people to manage in very large corporations. If you are not going to go to Harvard, Penn, Northwestern, MIT, or one of a handful of top schools then there is absolutely no point in getting an MBA.
Get work experience instead. If you want to branch out in your knowledge (a great idea), read books on sales, marketing, finance, writing, handling people, etc. Read about one book per month.
Don't waste your time on an MBA unless you are going to Harvard.
The time you spent in school could be spent learning on the job. If you are having trouble finding a job, then take a low-level entry level job to get started.
As for learning, keep reading books at a pace of about 1 per month.
The high school as we know it should be abolished and the money spent on high school should be spent on supporting individual learning plans.
There should be rules governing what is acceptable and the money currently spent on high schools could be spent on these other endeavors. Kids should be strongly encouraged and society should provide strong incentives for kids not to just go to work but to actually develop themselves and continue their education in some way. Counselors would be made available to help the student develop a plan.
For example, one student might attend community college for two years, spend a year volunteering on a Costa Rican nature park, and then on to a university. Another student might go to a technical school and then do an internship. While still a third student might go to a trade school followed by an apprenticeship. There are many combinations.
And again the money currently spent on school buildings, teachers, and lawnmowers, would be spent to support the students educational projects for several years. Without the overhead of high schools I think the money would go a lot further.
All educational plans would have to be approved by some body to insure that frivolous plans did not get through -- however, the bias would be toward approving most reasonable plans. The students would have to articulate their goals, what they hope to accomplish, and specifically how the plan would move them toward the goal.
Some people might worry about this putting teachers out of work. Well, this plan would create work for community college teachers. It would create work for technical and trade school teachers. It would create work for highly qualified counselors who would help students to develop plans and then constantly follow-up to insure the student is meeting his or her committments.
Perhaps the earlier years in school could be made a bit more intense to make sure that all students leave after the ninth grade with the basics. It would set a real deadline to achieve that goal and a huge amount of effort and resources could be put into the early grades to prepare for the day when they would have to take responsibility for their own learning and development.
Would some people fall through the cracks? Of course. But the current system clearly is not working and lots of people already fall through the cracks. Clearly, the self-motivated will do well as they always have. However, I think that those who are not motivated by the current system might be *more* motivated if they could take charge of their education and go to the community college to get that art degree (or whatever) and then on to university.
Of course, government monitoring of its citizens has been going on for as long as there have been governments. However, 9/11 has excellerated this trend considerably. Australia has had a massive backlash against what many there consider excessive immigration. Australians feel they are in danger of being overrun by immigrants and they also fear terrorism. I think they -- like a number of other countries -- feel that these two issues are closely linked.
The backlash against immigration started well before 9/11 but the terrorist attack intensified this backlash. I think that this is happening -- though to a lesser extent so far -- in both the U.S. and in Europe. Surveillance has increased dramatically and will continue to increase.
I think that this is going to lead to massive investment in surveillance by many countries all over the world not just in the West. Governments across the globe will engage in surveillance at levels way, way above anything we have ever seen in history.
You make some excellent points, however, I wonder: Do you worry that your son will have to take care of you when you are old because you have little retirement savings?
I am all in favor of living simply but...I worry that many people, including myself, don't have enough retirement savings to avoid living on dogfood in old age. Social security is going to do next to nothing to support retirement.
I have quite a few years to build up my retirement but it will take conscious effort to make it add up to enough.
I feel less alienated because of the Internet
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 1
Ever since my family and friends discovered email I have kept in close touch with them regardless of where they live. I can keep in touch with my father without making a long distant call. I can find out what is going on in the world by checking several news sites. I can discuss topics of interest on Usenet, email lists, and even forums like Slashdot.
I feel less alienated because of the Internet.If it were not for the Internet it is not like I would go out any more than I do now. I think it would have absolutely no effect on my level of involvement in the community. I am involved in a couple different organizations and I have a few friends who I go out and do things with. Having a handful of friends is how things have been for me since I was about 5 years old and that is how things will stay Internet or no Internet.
Since the cold war ended the dominate global system is Globalism. Like the information age itself, Globalism is not reversable. So we might as well make the best of it.
Globalism means that markets, industries, and individuals are unlikely to get much protection from global competition. People will get hurt by that which is the bad news.
The good news is that -- like with the information age itself -- Globalism has created massive global markets and tremendous opportunity. So, it seems, there is more opportunity and more risk.
Think about your options during the industrial revolution. Yuck. Boring. Go to work for 35 years at a extremely boring job and then get that gold watch and some applause on retirement day. Sure, this Globalism thing scares the shit out of me but I would rather be scared and insecure than bored out of my mind for 35 years. It is a tradeoff.
Most of today's core public policy was developed during the industrial era, a time when people were expected to work for the same company or maybe two during the course of a career.
For example, now health care coverage is still tied to employers. That made sense when people had one or two employers for 35 years. But now many people will have 8 or 10 or more employers.
Public policy should assume that each person is kind of their own company and that most people will work for multiple employers during a career or be self-employed or work as a contractors. With that core assumption about how the world works a lot of public policy would need to be changed.
Our public school system was developed during the agrarian era (e.g., summers off to work the farm). And it seems to have adjusted itself to the industrial era of jobs for life. However, the schools have not caught up with the information era because that would mean fundamental change.
School involves getting up and going to the classroom (the factory), punching in, and doing the proscribed work until age 18. Then in college you have more freedom. High school is absolete. It should be replaced with a variety of choices: community colleges and universities, trade schools, practical experience, etc.
The first few years of school should be spent learning the basics of reading, writing, and math. After that, kids should be presented with a menu of options based on their interests and apptitudes. With such a system you would get way more learning going on in the teenage years -- and less boredom and even less violence. I think that things like Columbine are partially the result of the agrarian/factory high school system that crams thousands of kids into an confined space and an obsolete learning environment.
The result of such a flexible system would be that many more students would leave school prepared for college and the real world.
I work for Wirex. Check out our Immunix ISP Appliance Server Software. We think our interface is very easy to use; we built in some mini-expert systems in the form of "wizards" (yes, like them:-) so that the web interface is more intelligent than just filling in fields that would otherwise be the content of conf files.
The appliance software is integrated with Immunix which is a security hardened Linux distribution. Security hardening is important in a web-managed appliance, precisely because the web interface (and the users that accompany them:-) don't have the smarts to address security issues in a timely fashion.
I read that the biggest problem in getting aid to people struck by the earthquake in India was not getting the supplies to the region -- it was distributing the supplies once they arrived. Airplanes can get supplies to disaster areas but it still needs to be distributed efficiently.
There is absolutely no reason for regulators to get involved in this. Look, this is the market. If more people make phone calls over the Internet then that is where the resources are directed. Those who charge for Internet services benefit.
A lot of money is being made providing Internet services. The market is working. There is no need to artificially prop up one class of competitors over another class of competitors. When regulators try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, consumers are always among the losers.
Most Windows users think of Linux as only a command line driven OS for geeks. The vast majority of people do not even know that their are user-friendly desktops available for Linux.
I think that KDE is a better choice for beginning Linux users, so it is appropriate for KDE to try and win more users from outside of the Linux community. Getting more users to come to Linux for the user-friendly desktop will benefit Linux and Open Source in general.
Re:Corporations do not DESERVE to be our communiti
on
Disconnected
·
· Score: 1
You've made some excellent points. If you are competent at your job you will communicate as needed to get the work done. Someone who neglects to communicate with coworkers about important work issues is simply incompetent.
To suggest that they must have extensive emotional ties with coworkers -- a feeling of community -- in order to be competent is simply wrong. Of course, corporations would love you to feel the sort of loyalty toward them that you do towards family and friends. They are trying to make you feel like the company is your family, not merely your livelihood. They want to harness that emotional power.
You have got to be kidding
on
Disconnected
·
· Score: 1
Your methodology was measuring bathroom breaks? The only thing that measures is who takes a lot of bathroom breaks -- it says nothing else about the person in question.
Isolates might just be the ones who, while others are chatting, are actually getting work done. While you were taking pictures of people in the bathroom, the isolates were probably getting work done.
But again you were kidding I am sure??
These problems pre-date the Internet
on
Disconnected
·
· Score: 1
This book seems assumes that every person living in the developing world would achieve prosperity and happiness if only he or she could have that nice DSL connection. Let's face it the real issue here is more fundamental than just access to information -- it is poverty.
If you don't have decent roads, a working sewer system, unpolluted water to drink, and enough food -- then access to information isn't your primary problem. If you don't have the rule of law and a relatively un-corrupt government then you really don't have a chance.
These are the sorts of problems that many developing countries had before the Internet was an issue. To focus on information and to suggest that access to information is somehow a primary cause of the gap between rich and poor, is to have no sense of history.
The isolates are often the most productive
on
Disconnected
·
· Score: 1
This book seems to be about two completely different topics -- isolates and the truelly disconnected. I will address the first topic.
At companies I have worked for the isolates were often the most productive people. They may not have chatted a lot or gone to company social events -- but day after day they got things done. The super involved people are often so focused on being involved that they end up getting a lot less work done.
On the other hand isolation can be taken to such an extreme that it hurts productivity. There are people who won't communicate with people they work with even when it is important to do so. I have seen that extreme but the majority of isolates do care about their jobs and communicate as much as is necessary to get work done.
Slashdot Mirror
Dreamweaver does this well. You "clean" up the HTML and it cleans things up nicely.
I have climbed Mt. St. Helen's about 10 times.
Time to climb it again!
If you are going to have a farm animal why not a Pig? Much more interesting and smarter.
Call the product the "BIG PIG" and maybe I will buy it.
You've heard of the glut paper MSCE? People who have an MSCE and no practical experience are close to useless. Same with MBA graduates.
An MBA is useful for someone with at least a few years of practical experience.
An MBA teaches people to manage in very large corporations. If you are not going to go to Harvard, Penn, Northwestern, MIT, or one of a handful of top schools then there is absolutely no point in getting an MBA.
Get work experience instead. If you want to branch out in your knowledge (a great idea), read books on sales, marketing, finance, writing, handling people, etc. Read about one book per month.
Don't waste your time on an MBA unless you are going to Harvard.
The time you spent in school could be spent learning on the job. If you are having trouble finding a job, then take a low-level entry level job to get started.
As for learning, keep reading books at a pace of about 1 per month.
--
Paleolithic
The high school as we know it should be abolished and the money spent on high school should be spent on supporting individual learning plans.
There should be rules governing what is acceptable and the money currently spent on high schools could be spent on these other endeavors. Kids should be strongly encouraged and society should provide strong incentives for kids not to just go to work but to actually develop themselves and continue their education in some way. Counselors would be made available to help the student develop a plan.
For example, one student might attend community college for two years, spend a year volunteering on a Costa Rican nature park, and then on to a university. Another student might go to a technical school and then do an internship. While still a third student might go to a trade school followed by an apprenticeship. There are many combinations.
And again the money currently spent on school buildings, teachers, and lawnmowers, would be spent to support the students educational projects for several years. Without the overhead of high schools I think the money would go a lot further.
All educational plans would have to be approved by some body to insure that frivolous plans did not get through -- however, the bias would be toward approving most reasonable plans. The students would have to articulate their goals, what they hope to accomplish, and specifically how the plan would move them toward the goal.
Some people might worry about this putting teachers out of work. Well, this plan would create work for community college teachers. It would create work for technical and trade school teachers. It would create work for highly qualified counselors who would help students to develop plans and then constantly follow-up to insure the student is meeting his or her committments.
Perhaps the earlier years in school could be made a bit more intense to make sure that all students leave after the ninth grade with the basics. It would set a real deadline to achieve that goal and a huge amount of effort and resources could be put into the early grades to prepare for the day when they would have to take responsibility for their own learning and development.
Would some people fall through the cracks? Of course. But the current system clearly is not working and lots of people already fall through the cracks. Clearly, the self-motivated will do well as they always have. However, I think that those who are not motivated by the current system might be *more* motivated if they could take charge of their education and go to the community college to get that art degree (or whatever) and then on to university.
Will bars start serving a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
My guess is yes, well, if the movie does well. I suspect it will do quite well.
Exactly! It is like animal rights activists concentrating on a few rats, while not realizing it is their lifestyle that is destroying the most life.
People living in sprawling, ugly suburbs are destroying vital habitat.
Worrying about light is for those without enough to think about.
Urban sprawl is far more destructive than light. In the grand scheme of things, light should be about the least of our worries.
I would love to reduce light pollution but it could be part of efforts to conserve energy generally.
Of course, government monitoring of its citizens has been going on for as long as there have been governments. However, 9/11 has excellerated this trend considerably. Australia has had a massive backlash against what many there consider excessive immigration. Australians feel they are in danger of being overrun by immigrants and they also fear terrorism. I think they -- like a number of other countries -- feel that these two issues are closely linked.
The backlash against immigration started well before 9/11 but the terrorist attack intensified this backlash. I think that this is happening -- though to a lesser extent so far -- in both the U.S. and in Europe. Surveillance has increased dramatically and will continue to increase.
I think that this is going to lead to massive investment in surveillance by many countries all over the world not just in the West. Governments across the globe will engage in surveillance at levels way, way above anything we have ever seen in history.
Paleolithic
Do some research and you will see that Australia is run by the right -- Conservatives not liberals.
You make some excellent points, however, I wonder: Do you worry that your son will have to take care of you when you are old because you have little retirement savings?
I am all in favor of living simply but...I worry that many people, including myself, don't have enough retirement savings to avoid living on dogfood in old age. Social security is going to do next to nothing to support retirement.
I have quite a few years to build up my retirement but it will take conscious effort to make it add up to enough.
Ever since my family and friends discovered email I have kept in close touch with them regardless of where they live. I can keep in touch with my father without making a long distant call. I can find out what is going on in the world by checking several news sites. I can discuss topics of interest on Usenet, email lists, and even forums like Slashdot.
I feel less alienated because of the Internet.If it were not for the Internet it is not like I would go out any more than I do now. I think it would have absolutely no effect on my level of involvement in the community. I am involved in a couple different organizations and I have a few friends who I go out and do things with. Having a handful of friends is how things have been for me since I was about 5 years old and that is how things will stay Internet or no Internet.
Since the cold war ended the dominate global system is Globalism. Like the information age itself, Globalism is not reversable. So we might as well make the best of it.
Globalism means that markets, industries, and individuals are unlikely to get much protection from global competition. People will get hurt by that which is the bad news.
The good news is that -- like with the information age itself -- Globalism has created massive global markets and tremendous opportunity. So, it seems, there is more opportunity and more risk.
Think about your options during the industrial revolution. Yuck. Boring. Go to work for 35 years at a extremely boring job and then get that gold watch and some applause on retirement day. Sure, this Globalism thing scares the shit out of me but I would rather be scared and insecure than bored out of my mind for 35 years. It is a tradeoff.
Most of today's core public policy was developed during the industrial era, a time when people were expected to work for the same company or maybe two during the course of a career.
For example, now health care coverage is still tied to employers. That made sense when people had one or two employers for 35 years. But now many people will have 8 or 10 or more employers.
Public policy should assume that each person is kind of their own company and that most people will work for multiple employers during a career or be self-employed or work as a contractors. With that core assumption about how the world works a lot of public policy would need to be changed.
Our public school system was developed during the agrarian era (e.g., summers off to work the farm). And it seems to have adjusted itself to the industrial era of jobs for life. However, the schools have not caught up with the information era because that would mean fundamental change.
School involves getting up and going to the classroom (the factory), punching in, and doing the proscribed work until age 18. Then in college you have more freedom. High school is absolete. It should be replaced with a variety of choices: community colleges and universities, trade schools, practical experience, etc.
The first few years of school should be spent learning the basics of reading, writing, and math. After that, kids should be presented with a menu of options based on their interests and apptitudes. With such a system you would get way more learning going on in the teenage years -- and less boredom and even less violence. I think that things like Columbine are partially the result of the agrarian/factory high school system that crams thousands of kids into an confined space and an obsolete learning environment.
The result of such a flexible system would be that many more students would leave school prepared for college and the real world.
I work for Wirex. Check out our Immunix ISP Appliance Server Software. We think our interface is very easy to use; we built in some mini-expert systems in the form of "wizards" (yes, like them :-) so that the web interface is more intelligent than just filling in fields that would otherwise be the content of conf files.
The appliance software is integrated with Immunix which is a security hardened Linux distribution. Security hardening is important in a web-managed appliance, precisely because the web interface (and the users that accompany them :-) don't have the smarts to address security issues in a timely fashion.
I read that the biggest problem in getting aid to people struck by the earthquake in India was not getting the supplies to the region -- it was distributing the supplies once they arrived. Airplanes can get supplies to disaster areas but it still needs to be distributed efficiently.
It seems that way to me...
There is absolutely no reason for regulators to get involved in this. Look, this is the market. If more people make phone calls over the Internet then that is where the resources are directed. Those who charge for Internet services benefit.
A lot of money is being made providing Internet services. The market is working. There is no need to artificially prop up one class of competitors over another class of competitors. When regulators try to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, consumers are always among the losers.
Most Windows users think of Linux as only a command line driven OS for geeks. The vast majority of people do not even know that their are user-friendly desktops available for Linux.
I think that KDE is a better choice for beginning Linux users, so it is appropriate for KDE to try and win more users from outside of the Linux community. Getting more users to come to Linux for the user-friendly desktop will benefit Linux and Open Source in general.
You've made some excellent points. If you are competent at your job you will communicate as needed to get the work done. Someone who neglects to communicate with coworkers about important work issues is simply incompetent.
To suggest that they must have extensive emotional ties with coworkers -- a feeling of community -- in order to be competent is simply wrong. Of course, corporations would love you to feel the sort of loyalty toward them that you do towards family and friends. They are trying to make you feel like the company is your family, not merely your livelihood. They want to harness that emotional power.
Your methodology was measuring bathroom breaks? The only thing that measures is who takes a lot of bathroom breaks -- it says nothing else about the person in question.
Isolates might just be the ones who, while others are chatting, are actually getting work done. While you were taking pictures of people in the bathroom, the isolates were probably getting work done.
But again you were kidding I am sure??
This book seems assumes that every person living in the developing world would achieve prosperity and happiness if only he or she could have that nice DSL connection. Let's face it the real issue here is more fundamental than just access to information -- it is poverty.
If you don't have decent roads, a working sewer system, unpolluted water to drink, and enough food -- then access to information isn't your primary problem. If you don't have the rule of law and a relatively un-corrupt government then you really don't have a chance.
These are the sorts of problems that many developing countries had before the Internet was an issue. To focus on information and to suggest that access to information is somehow a primary cause of the gap between rich and poor, is to have no sense of history.
This book seems to be about two completely different topics -- isolates and the truelly disconnected. I will address the first topic.
At companies I have worked for the isolates were often the most productive people. They may not have chatted a lot or gone to company social events -- but day after day they got things done. The super involved people are often so focused on being involved that they end up getting a lot less work done.
On the other hand isolation can be taken to such an extreme that it hurts productivity. There are people who won't communicate with people they work with even when it is important to do so. I have seen that extreme but the majority of isolates do care about their jobs and communicate as much as is necessary to get work done.