So this would be the non-intervening type of God then? The one who creates the universe, sets up the rules and sits back to watch the fun?
Possibly- or to put it another way, creates the universe, sits outside of time watching, then messes with the creation every once in a while (which, since it's outside of time, has no real effect as far as we can see- things are different, but they've *always* been different).
Not one of the ones who causes floods that cover the Earth in water because he doesn't like the way things are going (Old Testament God), causes a virgin to become pregnant with a child who grows up to turn water into wine and rises from the dead after taking a sword to the heart (New Testament God), hurls lightning bolts at people he doesn't like (Zeus) or drops down on a battlefield for a bit of personal killing action (Aries in the Trojan War)?
More like these are *human* explainations for completely natural things that happened that people didn't understand, in accordance with the time they were written in (also explains the difference between the vengeful desert God of the Old Testament and the urban, almost Roman Virtue God of the New Testament- same God, different people writing, brings different anthropological explainations for events).
Determinism requires that, given enough knowledge, I can make predictions about what's going to happen. If there is an omnipotent god, who can, by definition, do anything he wants, then there is no determinism because god can always say "oh yeah, think you know what's going to happen? Watch THIS!"
That doesn't neccessarily harm determinism- that just means that an omniscient god knows *more* than you do, and thus, can do things you can't predict because you are finite. The lesson isn't that determancy doesn't exist- the lesson is that we should be more humble about our position within the universe.
Determinism places limits on the power of God. I haven't run into a lot of really traditional religious people who are comfortable with that idea.
To me, it's the non-traditional ones who are uncomfortable with the idea of a Moral God (one that CAN do anything, but chooses not to, because it's not within his plan to do so). This idea has been within Christianity for at least 1900 years ("All things work for the best for those who love the Lord and are called according to His Purposes", wrote St. Paul in the Bible) and in other religion such as Hinduism and Zen Buddhism for MUCH longer. But for some reason, Christianity in America has become infected with a bunch of people who want to make money- and a deterministic God whose actions can be predicted isn't very good for a theology that makes money. They much prefer an indeterministic God so that they can keep people in fear and keep those donations in the Crystal Cathedral's building fund...as opposed to a loving God with a plan, who set up this universe for a reason, albeit possibly one unknowable to such finite beings as us (but even that last is unproven, at least for the forseeable future, we're just not far enough along in our evolution yet).
Had this problem in my parent's house TWICE. The first time was that over 20 years of use, one leg of the mains had worked it's way loose from the screw holding it to the main switchbox. The second time was a halfway blown transformer on the pole. Didn't even think of this as a possible problem for TFA until you said something.
Interesting... I'd suggest that the fear of an absence of God leads us to an indeterministic universe. No universe with an omnipotent god can be deterministic because God can always intervene.
God intervening is the physical laws that science discovers- and thus, by definition, God's actions are always both *natural* and *deterministic*. That's the whole point of natural philosophy to begin with- to discover the mind of God. Any appearance of God's actions being supernatural is kind of like magic- just technology we don't understand yet. Thus any indetermancy in the universe isn't a problem of God or limits of quantum mechanics or whatnot- it's man's finite ability to understand a part of nature at this point in time that is the cause, not any actual change to reality.
Spend a year, at 5 minutes a day, reading the stories of Catholic Saints. Every saint needs a miracle to become a Saint- but few of those miracles are supernatural in view of our current science, and even those that are can be explained by various theories within the limits of science. What is a "miracle" changes with time- and there is no need to fear a God or a lack of God such that we change our language to support either idea.
Restraint and a fear of the concept of a God is what leads us to such nonsense as an indeterministic universe. There is no need to invent new deities when former ones will suffice, just as there is no need to invent dieties when causality will suffice.
Hmm, energy and matter that we can't see being injected into the universe in such a way that both are changing in a way we can't see. Sure sounds like a diety to me. What diety, or which diety, is unknown.
But a very useful typo- nice to know I read it right the first time though. I've got to think on the entire idea of "thinking against the gain"; it's the real center of the success-vs-security debate.
Damn- missed it- against the GAIN, not the GRAIN!!!! Yes, in not all instances is quick gain a good thing- but the financial planners usually get their best word-of-mouth advertising out of quick gains, so their advice will always follow the gain.:-)
I had to be forced to think against the grain- but note that the answer for me was NOT neccessarily to leave home ownership behind- but to change the career path instead. I now seek stability in government jobs instead of the wild life of private industry. I hope to be successful soon- and if so, we'll keep the house, and with any luck, find that appreciation again over the course of 30 years. But it was a wrong choice from a career standpoint that I have to live with. If our conversation convinces at least one youngster just out of college to stay in the rental market, OR leave IT for something more stable, it will be worth it.
But even if you sell the house within a year or two its still not a bad thing. You might have gotten some appreciation (average ~6%, or at least stability, so you can sell the house and get that money back.
If the major industry of your area is high tech, and high tech is in a recession, you can't count on that appreciation. Right now my house is worth about $10,000 less than I owe on it.
It sounds like another possibility you are suggestion is the assumption that you might lose your job and have no income for a substantial period. But I've never considered that as a realistic concern. I've always ensured I have 3-6 months living expenses saved up, and I assumed I could either find a new job or sell my house within 6 months. Maybe that's a bad assumption. But I've never been out of work for more than 3 months, and I've been in my career for over 10 years.
I've been in my career for over 10 years as well- but you should never count on any career being stable. And selling within 6 months isn't possible if all of your neighbors are attempting to sell at the same time, which is what happens when a major industry leaves. I had exactly the same assumptions as you prior to 2001- it was 2003 before I was working again. I had about a year's worth of salary saved (well, invested in stocks) which we cashed out to keep the house- and it was still very close in the end to losing the house completely. We ended up losing our health insurance over it- about 3 months into my son's life- it was very hard and we were very lucky to get him insured again between getting the club foot off his medical records and before the cerebal palsy diagnosis. I can't go through that again- so for my lifestyle, the instability of it all is not compatible. FAR better is to rent- and be able to pick up stakes and move across the country, or even to the other side of the world, at the drop of a hat.
Yeah, get on that government job welfare. I like supporting you with my taxes earned at a real company that makes real products. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I'm subsidizing people like you.
For me, the only other choice due to having a kid with cerebal palsy is leaving the only skillset I'm good at and going on welfare. Private industry simply can't be depended upon for a regular paycheck OR health care in this day and age. And I'm not clean enough (in a normal-hygine sort of way) to go into the only private industry left with security, health care.
Because other people commented, I need to say I'm not offended- but also that it's a choice of consequences in which the consequences outweigh the benefits enough to never be seriously considered.
I think it's a beneficial back door- in fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that they'll need to update "Windows Update" after all the patches are in place.
Fair enough. Given equal benefits and salary, the University job will always hae more slack.
But that's exactly why I said it's a lifestyle choice- some people don't do very well with slack. They get bored, then start inventing political messes where there are none. Eventually they self-distruct. The incentives and rewards are almost sure to be better in the Fortune 10 company- but the trade off is that the job is significantly less secure. Some people thrive on that lack of security.
I used to count myself among them- but today? Well, there's a reason why I keep applying every time there is an opening in the state job I'm currently contracting in.
Why do you think that getting a mortgage and buying a house was a stupid mistake? I guess it depends on the type of mortgage. If you have an interest-only ARM then that's a bad situation, but a fixed-rate mortgage is not a bad thing. The money is not disappearing, its turning into equity for your house, and since your house value will most likely increase over the next 10-20 years its actually sort of like a long-term savings account.
When it comes to having an exciting career- a fixed rate mortgage is a bad thing because you don't have 10-20 years in one job- you're more likely these days to have 1-5 years in a given job. You can't guarantee your income for 10, 20, or 30 years- so it's stupid to make a promise to the bank that you can maintain payments for 10, 20, or 30 years. In addition, if I didn't have a house and family, when my industry moved I could have moved with it- emigrated to India to be a project manager instead of spending 2 years and 2 months unemployed only to get a job at a fraction of my former salary.
Again, why do you think that a mortgage is a bad thing? I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious? Because perhaps there is some hidden badness that I'm not aware of that I should be.
I don't mind the question at all, perhaps I can persuade a young coder to either choose a different, more stable career OR to keep their financial life more liquid and portable. The problem with real estate is that it's neither liquid nor portable- and can't move with you.
If you call $30k a year an income. I worked University Admin for the first 7 years of my career, and I'll never go back.
Someone who is good at budgeting can live on any given income assuming that the standard of living in the area is low enough to support it. You must have worked for a public university. B-Man has added a clarification message in this list that his choice is roughly equal salary and benefits package between the two. I don't know if this means his offer is with a private university that pays more- or if the Fortune 10 company is so hooked into H-1b and offshoring wage deflation that they're offering that much less. Any job is better than no job- and no guarantee of a job is exactly what private industry offers.
"Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company" pays more than any University job except football coach.
That's what I thought too- but length of job matters as much as the monthly salary when it comes from total money gained, and elsewhere B-Man stated that the offers he's been given are equal. I don't know if that means that it's a private university that pays it's people more- or if "Main technical contact" is yet another technical job that is suffering from H-1b wage deflation. My guess would be the second.
There are probably a few dozen university professors in the whole world who will make as much money as a "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company." Probably a 100 or so administrators will make more, but absolutely no staff ever, ever will.
Used to be that way- before the huge amount of wage deflation in technical jobs we've seen over the last 5 years or so. Now, I'd have a tendency to still agree with you- but I see it as immediate money now for a short period vs less money now for a long, almost unlimited period. For those who know how to budget- the 2nd is a better choice in the long run.
He'll probably make five to twenty times as much in the private sectors as "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company" as he would as a Unix System Administrator at a University.
Once again, B-Man denies this- but I'd point out he'd make 5 to 20 times as much PER YEAR as "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 company", for the first year or 3. But then he'll get fired in a round of layoffs. With the university, he'll make less- but he'll work 5 to 20 times as long, thus making the jobs equal. Fortune 10 companies don't stay Fortune 10 by having loyalty to workers.
Then check with your wife and see how soon she wants kids. Kids change EVERYTHING in this equation- I could have gotten by with no health care and contracting and sporadic layoffs the rest of my life, with occasionaly borrowing money from inlaws. But my kid being diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy changed all that- I can NEVER let him be without health insurance. That's why I need the stability. Well, that and the stupid mistake of taking out a mortgage and getting a house- but if it wasn't for the kid I could eventually just go bankrupt and walk away from that.
And since nobody's posted it up until this point while reading it threaded: Les Barker's Reinstalling Windows, a talking word comedy tape from England (the words to which are on the page I linked to) seems to fit (espeically given that this is from the BBC).
Funny- I had exactly the opposite reaction. For my marriage, we need the stability of being able to depend on my paycheck- and I've completely soured on the idea of private industry EVER being able to provide that kind of stability ever again. The days of being able to depend on a paycheck with a single corporation to pay a 30 year mortgage or college for your two year old 18 years from now are long gone.
WOW! That makes the choice SIGNIFICANTLY harder- or in my case with my tempermant significantly easier- but it still comes down to a similar lifestyle choice as I've already posted. The choice is still between excitement with potential rewards but the downside of possible total failure causing stress; vs stability with politics causing most of the stress but assurance of having a job practically forever. It really depends on your tempermant and what you want to do with your life.
You don't tell us if you have, or want, a family, but that's really what this keys on.
The Fortune 10 company will shower you with money as long as you make choices that save them money- and might very well be worth your while, not to mention the great networking oportunities with such a position will lead you to other riches. But they will drop you in an instant if you're not making money, thus this option is only useful if you have no family and can move at the drop of a hat; or reduce your standard of living to put up with long layoffs.
The university will not pay as much- but you really have to fsck up to get fired from a university. They'll guarantee your income for the forseeable future, and probably also grant you a nice pension. In addition to that, there's always the fun of being the BOFH to a bunch of undergraduates- or play nasty games when that dweeb with the master's thesis exceeds his disk quota. Plus, it gives you the ultimate in with the female co-eds by being "helpful", which leads to dates, and eventually to the family, and the house bought on a 30 year mortgage guaranteed by your small but never-decreasing paycheck.
I know which one I'd take- but that's because I already made the mistake of having the family and mortgage and house and trying to pay for it with private industry jobs that never lasted more than 3 years. Lucky dog you- hopefully I'll be equally lucky soon as I'm currently contracting with the state and a developer's position in my office is opening up soon.
I seriously don't understand what you're on about.
That's right- you don't. You really don't. If you knew the underlying philosophy and religion *behind* science, it would all be obvious- but we're not taught that in modern American public schools, or at least, we're not supposed to be. The idea that science is just another religion for making models of certain people's idea of the way the world works, is totally censored.
There doesn't need to be a sticker in the front of science textbooks that say "evolution is just a theory". There needs to be a good explanation of what a theory is. Shockingly enough, all the science textbooks I've seen have that. Somehow, I managed to get through a public school in the Bible belt with a very clear understanding of science. Frankly, I neither know nor care what you mean by "absolute truth". Observations of the world around me are truth enough for me.
That's fine- as long as you don't try to tell somebody else that THEIR observations are incorrect. That's when we get into trouble.
The stickers, and these curricula, are clearly designed by religious groups to create poorly-founded doubts about the veracity of a very important part of modern science.
I thought you said you had a very good understanding of science. If you had such an understanding you'd know that science makes no claim to "veracity"- it's only the best explaination of the moment, and even then, only the best explaination within a very narrow framework that throws out a lot of observational data as not being objective.
Their intent, as stated by the court in Dover, is clearly to mislead and prejudice students. That is not OK.
I'm saying that the court in Dover is also clearly trying to mislead and prejudice students- anytime you choose censorship over discussion, regardless of who is doing it, you are atempting to mislead and prejudice somebody.
don't know of any religion that's based on testing hypotheses.
Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism, for three.
I intentionally did not say "objective" science, because I don't care to engage you on the subjective vs. objective debate. Scientists observe. If I see a great big rock, I can safely conclude that, if I close my eyes, the rock will still be there.
That is not at all a safe conclusion- an even more unsafe one is assuming the rock disappears merely because you close your eyes. There are no safe conclusions at all- and can never be.
If the rock is not there, I can conclude that some force acted on the rock with a magnitude equal to its mass times its acceleration.
Actually, no you can't- because merely observing the rock is not proof that it was there to begin with.
I would be irresponsible to conclude that invisible, undetectible forces took the rock away to test my faith.
Actually both positions are irresponsible- because conclusions are irresponsible.
Religions don't work that way,
Depends on the religion- there are quite a few that DO work that way, and quite a few more that go further. You obviously know nothing of religions outside of the fundamentalist ones.
which is what distinguishes them from science.
The problem is, coming to conclusions is acting that way- just with a different set of assumptions and beliefs is all. The real danger of fundamentalism isn't the set of beliefs you're being fundamentalist about- it's the certainty that YOUR worldview is right and everybody else's is wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
So this would be the non-intervening type of God then? The one who creates the universe, sets up the rules and sits back to watch the fun?
Possibly- or to put it another way, creates the universe, sits outside of time watching, then messes with the creation every once in a while (which, since it's outside of time, has no real effect as far as we can see- things are different, but they've *always* been different).
Not one of the ones who causes floods that cover the Earth in water because he doesn't like the way things are going (Old Testament God), causes a virgin to become pregnant with a child who grows up to turn water into wine and rises from the dead after taking a sword to the heart (New Testament God), hurls lightning bolts at people he doesn't like (Zeus) or drops down on a battlefield for a bit of personal killing action (Aries in the Trojan War)?
More like these are *human* explainations for completely natural things that happened that people didn't understand, in accordance with the time they were written in (also explains the difference between the vengeful desert God of the Old Testament and the urban, almost Roman Virtue God of the New Testament- same God, different people writing, brings different anthropological explainations for events).
Determinism requires that, given enough knowledge, I can make predictions about what's going to happen. If there is an omnipotent god, who can, by definition, do anything he wants, then there is no determinism because god can always say "oh yeah, think you know what's going to happen? Watch THIS!"
That doesn't neccessarily harm determinism- that just means that an omniscient god knows *more* than you do, and thus, can do things you can't predict because you are finite. The lesson isn't that determancy doesn't exist- the lesson is that we should be more humble about our position within the universe.
Determinism places limits on the power of God. I haven't run into a lot of really traditional religious people who are comfortable with that idea.
To me, it's the non-traditional ones who are uncomfortable with the idea of a Moral God (one that CAN do anything, but chooses not to, because it's not within his plan to do so). This idea has been within Christianity for at least 1900 years ("All things work for the best for those who love the Lord and are called according to His Purposes", wrote St. Paul in the Bible) and in other religion such as Hinduism and Zen Buddhism for MUCH longer. But for some reason, Christianity in America has become infected with a bunch of people who want to make money- and a deterministic God whose actions can be predicted isn't very good for a theology that makes money. They much prefer an indeterministic God so that they can keep people in fear and keep those donations in the Crystal Cathedral's building fund...as opposed to a loving God with a plan, who set up this universe for a reason, albeit possibly one unknowable to such finite beings as us (but even that last is unproven, at least for the forseeable future, we're just not far enough along in our evolution yet).
Had this problem in my parent's house TWICE. The first time was that over 20 years of use, one leg of the mains had worked it's way loose from the screw holding it to the main switchbox. The second time was a halfway blown transformer on the pole. Didn't even think of this as a possible problem for TFA until you said something.
Interesting... I'd suggest that the fear of an absence of God leads us to an indeterministic universe. No universe with an omnipotent god can be deterministic because God can always intervene.
God intervening is the physical laws that science discovers- and thus, by definition, God's actions are always both *natural* and *deterministic*. That's the whole point of natural philosophy to begin with- to discover the mind of God. Any appearance of God's actions being supernatural is kind of like magic- just technology we don't understand yet. Thus any indetermancy in the universe isn't a problem of God or limits of quantum mechanics or whatnot- it's man's finite ability to understand a part of nature at this point in time that is the cause, not any actual change to reality.
Spend a year, at 5 minutes a day, reading the stories of Catholic Saints. Every saint needs a miracle to become a Saint- but few of those miracles are supernatural in view of our current science, and even those that are can be explained by various theories within the limits of science. What is a "miracle" changes with time- and there is no need to fear a God or a lack of God such that we change our language to support either idea.
Restraint and a fear of the concept of a God is what leads us to such nonsense as an indeterministic universe. There is no need to invent new deities when former ones will suffice, just as there is no need to invent dieties when causality will suffice.
Hmm, energy and matter that we can't see being injected into the universe in such a way that both are changing in a way we can't see. Sure sounds like a diety to me. What diety, or which diety, is unknown.
But a very useful typo- nice to know I read it right the first time though. I've got to think on the entire idea of "thinking against the gain"; it's the real center of the success-vs-security debate.
Damn- missed it- against the GAIN, not the GRAIN!!!! Yes, in not all instances is quick gain a good thing- but the financial planners usually get their best word-of-mouth advertising out of quick gains, so their advice will always follow the gain. :-)
I had to be forced to think against the grain- but note that the answer for me was NOT neccessarily to leave home ownership behind- but to change the career path instead. I now seek stability in government jobs instead of the wild life of private industry. I hope to be successful soon- and if so, we'll keep the house, and with any luck, find that appreciation again over the course of 30 years. But it was a wrong choice from a career standpoint that I have to live with. If our conversation convinces at least one youngster just out of college to stay in the rental market, OR leave IT for something more stable, it will be worth it.
But even if you sell the house within a year or two its still not a bad thing. You might have gotten some appreciation (average ~6%, or at least stability, so you can sell the house and get that money back.
If the major industry of your area is high tech, and high tech is in a recession, you can't count on that appreciation. Right now my house is worth about $10,000 less than I owe on it.
It sounds like another possibility you are suggestion is the assumption that you might lose your job and have no income for a substantial period. But I've never considered that as a realistic concern. I've always ensured I have 3-6 months living expenses saved up, and I assumed I could either find a new job or sell my house within 6 months. Maybe that's a bad assumption. But I've never been out of work for more than 3 months, and I've been in my career for over 10 years.
I've been in my career for over 10 years as well- but you should never count on any career being stable. And selling within 6 months isn't possible if all of your neighbors are attempting to sell at the same time, which is what happens when a major industry leaves. I had exactly the same assumptions as you prior to 2001- it was 2003 before I was working again. I had about a year's worth of salary saved (well, invested in stocks) which we cashed out to keep the house- and it was still very close in the end to losing the house completely. We ended up losing our health insurance over it- about 3 months into my son's life- it was very hard and we were very lucky to get him insured again between getting the club foot off his medical records and before the cerebal palsy diagnosis. I can't go through that again- so for my lifestyle, the instability of it all is not compatible. FAR better is to rent- and be able to pick up stakes and move across the country, or even to the other side of the world, at the drop of a hat.
Yeah, get on that government job welfare. I like supporting you with my taxes earned at a real company that makes real products. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing I'm subsidizing people like you.
For me, the only other choice due to having a kid with cerebal palsy is leaving the only skillset I'm good at and going on welfare. Private industry simply can't be depended upon for a regular paycheck OR health care in this day and age. And I'm not clean enough (in a normal-hygine sort of way) to go into the only private industry left with security, health care.
Because other people commented, I need to say I'm not offended- but also that it's a choice of consequences in which the consequences outweigh the benefits enough to never be seriously considered.
I think it's a beneficial back door- in fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that they'll need to update "Windows Update" after all the patches are in place.
Fair enough. Given equal benefits and salary, the University job will always hae more slack.
But that's exactly why I said it's a lifestyle choice- some people don't do very well with slack. They get bored, then start inventing political messes where there are none. Eventually they self-distruct. The incentives and rewards are almost sure to be better in the Fortune 10 company- but the trade off is that the job is significantly less secure. Some people thrive on that lack of security.
I used to count myself among them- but today? Well, there's a reason why I keep applying every time there is an opening in the state job I'm currently contracting in.
Why do you think that getting a mortgage and buying a house was a stupid mistake? I guess it depends on the type of mortgage. If you have an interest-only ARM then that's a bad situation, but a fixed-rate mortgage is not a bad thing. The money is not disappearing, its turning into equity for your house, and since your house value will most likely increase over the next 10-20 years its actually sort of like a long-term savings account.
When it comes to having an exciting career- a fixed rate mortgage is a bad thing because you don't have 10-20 years in one job- you're more likely these days to have 1-5 years in a given job. You can't guarantee your income for 10, 20, or 30 years- so it's stupid to make a promise to the bank that you can maintain payments for 10, 20, or 30 years. In addition, if I didn't have a house and family, when my industry moved I could have moved with it- emigrated to India to be a project manager instead of spending 2 years and 2 months unemployed only to get a job at a fraction of my former salary.
Again, why do you think that a mortgage is a bad thing? I'm not trolling, I'm honestly curious? Because perhaps there is some hidden badness that I'm not aware of that I should be.
I don't mind the question at all, perhaps I can persuade a young coder to either choose a different, more stable career OR to keep their financial life more liquid and portable. The problem with real estate is that it's neither liquid nor portable- and can't move with you.
If you call $30k a year an income. I worked University Admin for the first 7 years of my career, and I'll never go back.
Someone who is good at budgeting can live on any given income assuming that the standard of living in the area is low enough to support it. You must have worked for a public university. B-Man has added a clarification message in this list that his choice is roughly equal salary and benefits package between the two. I don't know if this means his offer is with a private university that pays more- or if the Fortune 10 company is so hooked into H-1b and offshoring wage deflation that they're offering that much less. Any job is better than no job- and no guarantee of a job is exactly what private industry offers.
"Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company" pays more than any University job except football coach.
That's what I thought too- but length of job matters as much as the monthly salary when it comes from total money gained, and elsewhere B-Man stated that the offers he's been given are equal. I don't know if that means that it's a private university that pays it's people more- or if "Main technical contact" is yet another technical job that is suffering from H-1b wage deflation. My guess would be the second.
There are probably a few dozen university professors in the whole world who will make as much money as a "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company." Probably a 100 or so administrators will make more, but absolutely no staff ever, ever will.
Used to be that way- before the huge amount of wage deflation in technical jobs we've seen over the last 5 years or so. Now, I'd have a tendency to still agree with you- but I see it as immediate money now for a short period vs less money now for a long, almost unlimited period. For those who know how to budget- the 2nd is a better choice in the long run.
He'll probably make five to twenty times as much in the private sectors as "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 Company" as he would as a Unix System Administrator at a University.
Once again, B-Man denies this- but I'd point out he'd make 5 to 20 times as much PER YEAR as "Main Technical Contact at a Fortune 10 company", for the first year or 3. But then he'll get fired in a round of layoffs. With the university, he'll make less- but he'll work 5 to 20 times as long, thus making the jobs equal. Fortune 10 companies don't stay Fortune 10 by having loyalty to workers.
Then check with your wife and see how soon she wants kids. Kids change EVERYTHING in this equation- I could have gotten by with no health care and contracting and sporadic layoffs the rest of my life, with occasionaly borrowing money from inlaws. But my kid being diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy changed all that- I can NEVER let him be without health insurance. That's why I need the stability. Well, that and the stupid mistake of taking out a mortgage and getting a house- but if it wasn't for the kid I could eventually just go bankrupt and walk away from that.
Les Barker's spoken word poem seems to fit this story:
I bought a new computer.
It cost a thousand pound,
But every time I switch it on
It keeps on falling down.
I used to think it was my friend,
But now it drives me 'round the bend.
You'd be surprised the time I spend:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I switch it on -
What is this?
Something wrong with CONFIG SYS
This isn't my idea of bliss:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I want to share my printers and
I want to share my files.
I want to share my anger
'Cause it drives me blooming wild.
My songs, they say, are sublime;
I've conquered cadence, mastered rhyme.
But now-a-days I spend my time:
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Reinstall - oh what fun!
It says it helps you get things done.
Every day now, everyone's
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Look again. It will say
All you do is plug and play.
How do I spend every day?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
It can't find my printer and
It can't locate my mouse.
The other day it drove me
Right out of the bloomin' house.
Still unplugged, still unplayed,
I e-mailed God in search of aid.
He's far to busy, I'm afraid...
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
Up at dawn for one more try
Will it work? - Can pigs fly?
How do I expect to die?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
I used to like a drink or three.
No time now - don't call for me.
How will I spend eternity?
REINSTALLING WINDOZE.
And since nobody's posted it up until this point while reading it threaded: Les Barker's Reinstalling Windows, a talking word comedy tape from England (the words to which are on the page I linked to) seems to fit (espeically given that this is from the BBC).
Funny- I had exactly the opposite reaction. For my marriage, we need the stability of being able to depend on my paycheck- and I've completely soured on the idea of private industry EVER being able to provide that kind of stability ever again. The days of being able to depend on a paycheck with a single corporation to pay a 30 year mortgage or college for your two year old 18 years from now are long gone.
WOW! That makes the choice SIGNIFICANTLY harder- or in my case with my tempermant significantly easier- but it still comes down to a similar lifestyle choice as I've already posted. The choice is still between excitement with potential rewards but the downside of possible total failure causing stress; vs stability with politics causing most of the stress but assurance of having a job practically forever. It really depends on your tempermant and what you want to do with your life.
You don't tell us if you have, or want, a family, but that's really what this keys on.
The Fortune 10 company will shower you with money as long as you make choices that save them money- and might very well be worth your while, not to mention the great networking oportunities with such a position will lead you to other riches. But they will drop you in an instant if you're not making money, thus this option is only useful if you have no family and can move at the drop of a hat; or reduce your standard of living to put up with long layoffs.
The university will not pay as much- but you really have to fsck up to get fired from a university. They'll guarantee your income for the forseeable future, and probably also grant you a nice pension. In addition to that, there's always the fun of being the BOFH to a bunch of undergraduates- or play nasty games when that dweeb with the master's thesis exceeds his disk quota. Plus, it gives you the ultimate in with the female co-eds by being "helpful", which leads to dates, and eventually to the family, and the house bought on a 30 year mortgage guaranteed by your small but never-decreasing paycheck.
I know which one I'd take- but that's because I already made the mistake of having the family and mortgage and house and trying to pay for it with private industry jobs that never lasted more than 3 years. Lucky dog you- hopefully I'll be equally lucky soon as I'm currently contracting with the state and a developer's position in my office is opening up soon.
True- I forgot about that- never saw it in person, but I've seen video on KATU....
I seriously don't understand what you're on about.
That's right- you don't. You really don't. If you knew the underlying philosophy and religion *behind* science, it would all be obvious- but we're not taught that in modern American public schools, or at least, we're not supposed to be. The idea that science is just another religion for making models of certain people's idea of the way the world works, is totally censored.
There doesn't need to be a sticker in the front of science textbooks that say "evolution is just a theory". There needs to be a good explanation of what a theory is. Shockingly enough, all the science textbooks I've seen have that. Somehow, I managed to get through a public school in the Bible belt with a very clear understanding of science. Frankly, I neither know nor care what you mean by "absolute truth". Observations of the world around me are truth enough for me.
That's fine- as long as you don't try to tell somebody else that THEIR observations are incorrect. That's when we get into trouble.
The stickers, and these curricula, are clearly designed by religious groups to create poorly-founded doubts about the veracity of a very important part of modern science.
I thought you said you had a very good understanding of science. If you had such an understanding you'd know that science makes no claim to "veracity"- it's only the best explaination of the moment, and even then, only the best explaination within a very narrow framework that throws out a lot of observational data as not being objective.
Their intent, as stated by the court in Dover, is clearly to mislead and prejudice students. That is not OK.
I'm saying that the court in Dover is also clearly trying to mislead and prejudice students- anytime you choose censorship over discussion, regardless of who is doing it, you are atempting to mislead and prejudice somebody.
don't know of any religion that's based on testing hypotheses.
Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism, for three.
I intentionally did not say "objective" science, because I don't care to engage you on the subjective vs. objective debate. Scientists observe. If I see a great big rock, I can safely conclude that, if I close my eyes, the rock will still be there.
That is not at all a safe conclusion- an even more unsafe one is assuming the rock disappears merely because you close your eyes. There are no safe conclusions at all- and can never be.
If the rock is not there, I can conclude that some force acted on the rock with a magnitude equal to its mass times its acceleration.
Actually, no you can't- because merely observing the rock is not proof that it was there to begin with.
I would be irresponsible to conclude that invisible, undetectible forces took the rock away to test my faith.
Actually both positions are irresponsible- because conclusions are irresponsible.
Religions don't work that way,
Depends on the religion- there are quite a few that DO work that way, and quite a few more that go further. You obviously know nothing of religions outside of the fundamentalist ones.
which is what distinguishes them from science.
The problem is, coming to conclusions is acting that way- just with a different set of assumptions and beliefs is all. The real danger of fundamentalism isn't the set of beliefs you're being fundamentalist about- it's the certainty that YOUR worldview is right and everybody else's is wrong.
don't forget the copper pipes! :-)