Harsh? Maybe. But the statement reflects my personal experience...and life is not always pretty.
In my life there have been times I've not done well because I lacked the good guidance. I went to a public school with (in hindsight) excellent teaching but no resources to mentor ambitous but socially immature students (like me). For a long time I blamed my school, but after some further reflection, I now realize that no one wants to mentor socially immature people, unless the person happens to be a parent and maybe not even then. At a private school (like the grad school I attended) more of the students enter in at least survivable social health and these survival qualities tend to rub off on students who need more than a little care. In any institution the qualities of isolation, unrealistic goals, and social immaturity are characteristic of the unsuccessful, yet otherwise intelligent and ambitious, person.
We all need help. Unfortunately there are some who are too far gone to be helped by anyone. And they need the most help...
Sigh. It doesn't matter whether or not the American workforce can compete on any level with workforces in other country. Labor costs in India and China are something like 1/10 that of the United States and liability is virtually nonexistent.
Application of the seeming laws of human nature are in force here. When most people buy a DVD player they want the least expensive model with the most features. Now a few consumers might pay for more, but most definitely want the $25 cyberhome. Even though the workers in the US might be the high end Sonys...the purchasers are much more willing to buy the cheap cyberhome...
Disagree with me? I just graduated with a PhD in engineering from a topflight school and this was the typical thrust of the 'Where is engineering going?' seminars hosted by Deans and top professors from other (better) universities. "Your undergraduate students who want to work in technical fields are screwed. Lucky they went to a top university so they have a good % chance of being picked up by a consulting firm. Your grad students are prolly ok too...pity the poor suckers at the state schools with excellent engineering departments; they are mediocre people and will not prosper here..."
I just finished my PhD and find the whole notion of 'teaching' to be absurd. Before my PhD I thought a great deal of the notion...but after being in the system for awhile I see being a student in a whole new light. Students learn what they want to learn from who they want to learn it. In other words, good students are able to overcome bad teaching any day of the week. Trouble occurs when the teachers either do not know the students or have no contacts for advancing the good students to where they want to go. As far as 'learning', the important thing is that the process be sufficiently hard for the students to have achieved a minium competence level in the subject. I'd say the most important thing about a college or university is the social status and initial job contacts it entails; knowledge rarely matters in a position but your friends do. I say open up as many universities as the market will bear.
I play wow. My main server is the 'Shattered Hand'. My toon's name is 'Yi'. I happen to be an American Polack. Once in awhile someone will ask to check my language skills or ask if I am Chinese. Once in like 1000 groups. I'd say the vas majority of players could care less what my nationality is as long as I can play.
On the other hand, I was once in a group with someone who was apparently French. They were unable to communicate with the team and, in the end, screwed up the session pretty badly because they could not follow simple instructions.
So, yeah. I'd be reluctant to play with someone who lacked skills in the main language of the server...
I am finishing a PhD in Engineering. The recruiters for the large companies are all "MBA/PhD" recruiters; my 3.5 year (really quick) science PhD is equivalent to a ~1.5 year business masters.
Looking back idealism sent me to get a PhD instead of an MBA. My decision was based on my career goal of being one of those profs who gets engineering kids jobs and likes teaching. My chances of getting a teaching position are miniscule and would involve another 3-4 years of miniscule pay at least...
IMHO all this talk about promoting science in the US is bunk. The US wants to promote science in other countries because it is too expensive to develop it here. The only reason to develop science in the US based on idealistic thinking...which doesn't really do too well here.
I think these congressmen try to promote science because they can't think of anything better to do with their time. Want to promote science? Make a real effort to fund space travel, develop alternate fuel sources, and develop practical (read develop technology to enable poor people to circumvent fucked up politics) ways to eliminate poverty and hunger. Judging by the refineries bill that just passed by 2 votes none of these things will happen anytime soon.
The U.S. is soon becoming a debt-ridden agrarian empire. And all agrarian empires depend upon a surplus of slaves.
Full Metal Alchemist for the win.
Also:
Bubblegum Crisis (The original, even older than eva)
Crest of the Stars
Gundam: MS 08th Team (Couldn't stand other Gundams...this one rocked)
Robotech (Believe it or not is fun to watch the 1st time)
I just want a sense of the number of IIT grads who post here. The McKinsey people I know are Srikanth, Shajii, and Priya. If I were an Indian working in the west I'd be happy to see my friends back home get a good job with an American company. Why not go home and work in India someday? It will be where the jobs are anyway:).
My kids are more interested in "Full Metal Alchemist" or "Neon Genesis" than Mickey Mouse. If we go to Walt Disney World it will be for the great rides, not the IP.
I'm confident that the new generation will always be capable of producing new and innovative creative works. The spectre is of guys like Disney going after Pokeman because many of the characters have big ears...
Agreed. I have no problem with smart people immigrating to America to get good jobs. My problem is when jobs leave the country. So...more visas for bright people who want a future for themselves and their families...
...Dick Cheney and other senior White House officials with serious medical conditions were noted to have chartered Air Force One to S. Korea yesterday. Mr. Cheney, with a suitcase full of bills and his 'senate gold' health care plan, said that he was taking the trip to S. Korea to investigate the ethics of stem cell research...
IMHO the valuable portion of the usenet are the various groups which answer questions re: programming and review books and the like. When I was learning C++ a while back (on my own) I found the usenet groups/archives accessible through google groups to be invaluable. I, for one, respect those guys who maintain their own archives (is there a place where I may get a copy btw?...don't trust google) Amazon and other websites basically obtain the right to distribute content; at least shut down the servers with all the reviews. The usenet is more freeform, semipermanent, and essentially honest as a ne'er do well disseminator of pure unadulterated opinion...
Movies and the like are essentially worthless compared to the opinions/ideas on usenet. I can't imagine a time when I will be unable to buy something off amazon as opposed to a download from a usenet server. So, strip out the movies, mp3s, and leave the test!
At age 30 and 2/3 of the way through an engineering PhD at an 'elite' school my thoughts are the following:
1) Culture really matters to techies. It really really matters. The culture that says fuck you if you are not a power-broker ass kisser is essentially murderous to actual innovation/implementation of any sort. I envy my indian/chinese colleagues...at least their countries have actually embraced product development.
2) Glad to hear many more people talking about the diminishing ability of those who specialize in technical fields to raise families in America. Raising a family is what it is all about. Given the current trends I wish I'd done the law school thing. Sue successful companies rather than attempting to develop new and successful ideas like engineers do...
3) My experience with the business leadership in the older larger companies tells me that they are mostly like Carly. I will start my own company because I do believe we all ought to be able to raise a family on a hard day's work. My feeling is the current leadership - more than in the recent past - has taken those philosophical notions of amoral behaviour to heart...
4) I will start my own company because I feel the current leadership - in addition to lacking sound principles - is fucking up. I can beat them. My company will be built on the premise there are a lot of guys out there who just want to raise families and will succeed if given a fair chance to do so...Carly and her ilk were and are not about anything real to 99% of us.
Currently I just block all the spamming domains and only allow e-mail from my friends and workplace into my inbox.
At this point, a spammer needs to hijack @northwestern.edu to send me a penis ad.
ent
You need to re-read your history and re-read the first post. You also need to think about your need to believe the US can beat anyone in a war. It tends to imply you believe the US will simply start a war with any country it feels is an economic threat. An opinion which, outside of Texas and the White House, does not represent that of the population at large.
The point of the first poster was sustainability. There are some strong parallels with Rome 1) Farm out production and innovation: They are risky, let someone else take the risk we will buy from them 2)Arrogance: Our army can take care of any trouble, let the trouble brew 3)We have enough resources: In the end we can survive anything. These just name a few of the warning signs.
No one is making the claim that the US will dissolve, just that the shortsighted actions of our leaders (corporate and political) will be soon making life very uncomfortable for the average joe. I tend to agree with that view. As an engineer I know I've learned from my mistakes, too bad the next crop of engineers won't have the opportunity to learn from theirs. They will all be administering databases for WalMart as they watch their paper-DVDs invented in Japan...
Keep in mind, no one really knows what went wrong in Rome. Even if we did, the fall of Rome (really the fall of the average Roman..rich people always prosper) may have nothing to do with the fall of the average American. We need to worry about the fall of the average. A strong average, or middle, class makes for a more stable society and safe streets....
Speaking as a PhD who could easily go/have gone to law school: "Who will pay the lawyers to sue the engineers who have stopped innovating in America?" I, for one, see no reason why a)taxes b)employment manuals/contracts c)disclaimers and many other common lawyer tasks could not be written by a supersmart Indian lawyer. Said lawyer probably knows how to add and subtract without a computer...which is more than I can say for most US lawyers.
Quite honestly, legal expenses are something I think about as I start my new company. I'd rather pay an excellent Indian lawyer less to do the tasks of a much more greedy average American lawyer. Just wait till Carly Fiorina and Bill Gates think of that. Laws change all the time...we don't need lawyers to change laws.
Well, this would explain why lawyers are typically spineless and lack imaginations. With an 'education' like that.
That said, I'm in a Chemical Engineering PhD program, specializing in bioinformatics and its fucking hard. Craft an original idea into a workable project AND get the support of other people who want to kill your idea? Nasty hard. Add outsourcing and NO peer support to the equation and I wish I'd decided to go to law. All I need to do then is satisfy the wishes of some rich client who wants to smash a twerp...well...a twerp like me or my sisters..
Lawyers got it good, well the ones that got it good have typically lost their souls...It's a Dilbert world...
...friends get you jobs. Make friends, let them know your story, work record means nothing.
Maybe 1/100 people have a job because of their unique qualifications. The rest of us have our jobs because someone decided they wanted us.
ent
...is that I will recommend buying a Cognex product to my friends...while actively attempting to find another printer/scanner/whatever than currently offered by HP...
They know they are screwing the workers for 'one-time' gains. There is no long run for ~75% the managment types. They just want a quick $$$ so they can spend the rest of their lives in the Caribbean.
The west is at a critical point, do we acknowledge one of capitalism's main flaws or do we sink into the ocean and let asia take over.
Hint: The Nazis fled to South America after screwing over Germany.
"... while sales of local music are high, so are illegal copies of New Zealand albums." Unfortunately as always, government bodies don't seem to be able to make the connection even when it stares them in the face."
Nowadays Western Guvmints protect business first, people second. The leadership will do everything to protect the material interests of business, while neglecting the material interests of their constituents. On the other hand, guvmint is pretty good at protecting the 'soft' rights of their people...cause its basically free...unless it costs the people money:)
If I gave that presentation: (0) graphic: shuttle on launch bay (1) graphic: foam/rock hitting wing at takeoff (2) graphic: (possible) hole in wing (3) graphic: aluminum bar at 100C (4) graphic: aluminum bar at 10,000C (5) graphic: remind them that this is how the twin towers went down. (6) graphic: remind them of Challenger. (7) text: indicate how likely it is that #2 occurred
-Field Questions -Insert pertinent technical anlysis, boring but Pro/Con backing of my team's analysis -Reiterate points 1-7
This whole process ought to take ~45 minutes, with questions comprising ~15min.
I almost forgot: get fired by management because they feel insulted by the simplicity of my presentation style
Powerpoint is very effective, but then I know how to use it. NASA wouldn't hire me, my GPA was only a 3.5 from a state school. I didn't make first cut, but I know how to integrate esoteric information into a cause/effect presentation. But management doesn't care, they want the Bohemian who applies the power rule to complex networks...yeah...that'll keep the shuttle crew safe...
The guy whining about PPT is just another jackoff who is more interested in protecting his management buddies than solutions which might really be effective.
Everyone with a BS in engineering ought to just go out and start their own business. Hire these business losers to do the scut work, but don't let them gain real power for just being a golf buddy.
Slashdot Mirror
Harsh? Maybe. But the statement reflects my personal experience...and life is not always pretty.
In my life there have been times I've not done well because I lacked the good guidance. I went to a public school with (in hindsight) excellent teaching but no resources to mentor ambitous but socially immature students (like me). For a long time I blamed my school, but after some further reflection, I now realize that no one wants to mentor socially immature people, unless the person happens to be a parent and maybe not even then. At a private school (like the grad school I attended) more of the students enter in at least survivable social health and these survival qualities tend to rub off on students who need more than a little care. In any institution the qualities of isolation, unrealistic goals, and social immaturity are characteristic of the unsuccessful, yet otherwise intelligent and ambitious, person.
We all need help. Unfortunately there are some who are too far gone to be helped by anyone. And they need the most help...
Sigh. It doesn't matter whether or not the American workforce can compete on any level with workforces in other country. Labor costs in India and China are something like 1/10 that of the United States and liability is virtually nonexistent.
Application of the seeming laws of human nature are in force here. When most people buy a DVD player they want the least expensive model with the most features. Now a few consumers might pay for more, but most definitely want the $25 cyberhome. Even though the workers in the US might be the high end Sonys...the purchasers are much more willing to buy the cheap cyberhome...
Disagree with me? I just graduated with a PhD in engineering from a topflight school and this was the typical thrust of the 'Where is engineering going?' seminars hosted by Deans and top professors from other (better) universities. "Your undergraduate students who want to work in technical fields are screwed. Lucky they went to a top university so they have a good % chance of being picked up by a consulting firm. Your grad students are prolly ok too...pity the poor suckers at the state schools with excellent engineering departments; they are mediocre people and will not prosper here..."
I just finished my PhD and find the whole notion of 'teaching' to be absurd. Before my PhD I thought a great deal of the notion...but after being in the system for awhile I see being a student in a whole new light. Students learn what they want to learn from who they want to learn it. In other words, good students are able to overcome bad teaching any day of the week. Trouble occurs when the teachers either do not know the students or have no contacts for advancing the good students to where they want to go. As far as 'learning', the important thing is that the process be sufficiently hard for the students to have achieved a minium competence level in the subject. I'd say the most important thing about a college or university is the social status and initial job contacts it entails; knowledge rarely matters in a position but your friends do. I say open up as many universities as the market will bear.
I play wow. My main server is the 'Shattered Hand'. My toon's name is 'Yi'. I happen to be an American Polack. Once in awhile someone will ask to check my language skills or ask if I am Chinese. Once in like 1000 groups. I'd say the vas majority of players could care less what my nationality is as long as I can play.
On the other hand, I was once in a group with someone who was apparently French. They were unable to communicate with the team and, in the end, screwed up the session pretty badly because they could not follow simple instructions.
So, yeah. I'd be reluctant to play with someone who lacked skills in the main language of the server...
I am finishing a PhD in Engineering. The recruiters for the large companies are all "MBA/PhD" recruiters; my 3.5 year (really quick) science PhD is equivalent to a ~1.5 year business masters. Looking back idealism sent me to get a PhD instead of an MBA. My decision was based on my career goal of being one of those profs who gets engineering kids jobs and likes teaching. My chances of getting a teaching position are miniscule and would involve another 3-4 years of miniscule pay at least... IMHO all this talk about promoting science in the US is bunk. The US wants to promote science in other countries because it is too expensive to develop it here. The only reason to develop science in the US based on idealistic thinking...which doesn't really do too well here. I think these congressmen try to promote science because they can't think of anything better to do with their time. Want to promote science? Make a real effort to fund space travel, develop alternate fuel sources, and develop practical (read develop technology to enable poor people to circumvent fucked up politics) ways to eliminate poverty and hunger. Judging by the refineries bill that just passed by 2 votes none of these things will happen anytime soon. The U.S. is soon becoming a debt-ridden agrarian empire. And all agrarian empires depend upon a surplus of slaves.
Full Metal Alchemist for the win. Also: Bubblegum Crisis (The original, even older than eva) Crest of the Stars Gundam: MS 08th Team (Couldn't stand other Gundams...this one rocked) Robotech (Believe it or not is fun to watch the 1st time)
I just want a sense of the number of IIT grads who post here. The McKinsey people I know are Srikanth, Shajii, and Priya. If I were an Indian working in the west I'd be happy to see my friends back home get a good job with an American company. Why not go home and work in India someday? It will be where the jobs are anyway :).
My kids are more interested in "Full Metal Alchemist" or "Neon Genesis" than Mickey Mouse. If we go to Walt Disney World it will be for the great rides, not the IP.
I'm confident that the new generation will always be capable of producing new and innovative creative works. The spectre is of guys like Disney going after Pokeman because many of the characters have big ears...
Agreed. I have no problem with smart people immigrating to America to get good jobs. My problem is when jobs leave the country. So...more visas for bright people who want a future for themselves and their families...
...Dick Cheney and other senior White House officials with serious medical conditions were noted to have chartered Air Force One to S. Korea yesterday. Mr. Cheney, with a suitcase full of bills and his 'senate gold' health care plan, said that he was taking the trip to S. Korea to investigate the ethics of stem cell research...
Exactly. The initial experience is totally in the theatre.
IMHO the valuable portion of the usenet are the various groups which answer questions re: programming and review books and the like. When I was learning C++ a while back (on my own) I found the usenet groups/archives accessible through google groups to be invaluable. I, for one, respect those guys who maintain their own archives (is there a place where I may get a copy btw?...don't trust google) Amazon and other websites basically obtain the right to distribute content; at least shut down the servers with all the reviews. The usenet is more freeform, semipermanent, and essentially honest as a ne'er do well disseminator of pure unadulterated opinion...
Movies and the like are essentially worthless compared to the opinions/ideas on usenet. I can't imagine a time when I will be unable to buy something off amazon as opposed to a download from a usenet server. So, strip out the movies, mp3s, and leave the test!
At age 30 and 2/3 of the way through an engineering PhD at an 'elite' school my thoughts are the following:
1) Culture really matters to techies. It really really matters. The culture that says fuck you if you are not a power-broker ass kisser is essentially murderous to actual innovation/implementation of any sort. I envy my indian/chinese colleagues...at least their countries have actually embraced product development.
2) Glad to hear many more people talking about the diminishing ability of those who specialize in technical fields to raise families in America. Raising a family is what it is all about. Given the current trends I wish I'd done the law school thing. Sue successful companies rather than attempting to develop new and successful ideas like engineers do...
3) My experience with the business leadership in the older larger companies tells me that they are mostly like Carly. I will start my own company because I do believe we all ought to be able to raise a family on a hard day's work. My feeling is the current leadership - more than in the recent past - has taken those philosophical notions of amoral behaviour to heart...
4) I will start my own company because I feel the current leadership - in addition to lacking sound principles - is fucking up. I can beat them. My company will be built on the premise there are a lot of guys out there who just want to raise families and will succeed if given a fair chance to do so...Carly and her ilk were and are not about anything real to 99% of us.
Currently I just block all the spamming domains and only allow e-mail from my friends and workplace into my inbox. At this point, a spammer needs to hijack @northwestern.edu to send me a penis ad. ent
Jameth,
You need to re-read your history and re-read the first post. You also need to think about your need to believe the US can beat anyone in a war. It tends to imply you believe the US will simply start a war with any country it feels is an economic threat. An opinion which, outside of Texas and the White House, does not represent that of the population at large.
The point of the first poster was sustainability. There are some strong parallels with Rome 1) Farm out production and innovation: They are risky, let someone else take the risk we will buy from them 2)Arrogance: Our army can take care of any trouble, let the trouble brew 3)We have enough resources: In the end we can survive anything. These just name a few of the warning signs.
No one is making the claim that the US will dissolve, just that the shortsighted actions of our leaders (corporate and political) will be soon making life very uncomfortable for the average joe. I tend to agree with that view. As an engineer I know I've learned from my mistakes, too bad the next crop of engineers won't have the opportunity to learn from theirs. They will all be administering databases for WalMart as they watch their paper-DVDs invented in Japan...
Keep in mind, no one really knows what went wrong in Rome. Even if we did, the fall of Rome (really the fall of the average Roman..rich people always prosper) may have nothing to do with the fall of the average American. We need to worry about the fall of the average. A strong average, or middle, class makes for a more stable society and safe streets....
Well,
Speaking as a PhD who could easily go/have gone to law school: "Who will pay the lawyers to sue the engineers who have stopped innovating in America?" I, for one, see no reason why a)taxes b)employment manuals/contracts c)disclaimers and many other common lawyer tasks could not be written by a supersmart Indian lawyer. Said lawyer probably knows how to add and subtract without a computer...which is more than I can say for most US lawyers.
Quite honestly, legal expenses are something I think about as I start my new company. I'd rather pay an excellent Indian lawyer less to do the tasks of a much more greedy average American lawyer. Just wait till Carly Fiorina and Bill Gates think of that. Laws change all the time...we don't need lawyers to change laws.
Well, this would explain why lawyers are typically spineless and lack imaginations. With an 'education' like that. That said, I'm in a Chemical Engineering PhD program, specializing in bioinformatics and its fucking hard. Craft an original idea into a workable project AND get the support of other people who want to kill your idea? Nasty hard. Add outsourcing and NO peer support to the equation and I wish I'd decided to go to law. All I need to do then is satisfy the wishes of some rich client who wants to smash a twerp...well...a twerp like me or my sisters.. Lawyers got it good, well the ones that got it good have typically lost their souls...It's a Dilbert world...
...friends get you jobs. Make friends, let them know your story, work record means nothing. Maybe 1/100 people have a job because of their unique qualifications. The rest of us have our jobs because someone decided they wanted us. ent
Well, someday someone will do a study and find that corporations could screw over 1000 Americans before running into one with the wherewithal to sue.
Now, at what point over 1000 do the poor civilians start shooting back?
Civil liberties are dead.
ent
...is that I will recommend buying a Cognex product to my friends...while actively attempting to find another printer/scanner/whatever than currently offered by HP...
"How long to Dragonlance?" hopefully never...
They know they are screwing the workers for 'one-time' gains. There is no long run for ~75% the managment types. They just want a quick $$$ so they can spend the rest of their lives in the Caribbean. The west is at a critical point, do we acknowledge one of capitalism's main flaws or do we sink into the ocean and let asia take over. Hint: The Nazis fled to South America after screwing over Germany.
"... while sales of local music are high, so are illegal copies of New Zealand albums." Unfortunately as always, government bodies don't seem to be able to make the connection even when it stares them in the face."
:)
Nowadays Western Guvmints protect business first, people second. The leadership will do everything to protect the material interests of business, while neglecting the material interests of their constituents. On the other hand, guvmint is pretty good at protecting the 'soft' rights of their people...cause its basically free...unless it costs the people money
If I gave that presentation:
(0) graphic: shuttle on launch bay
(1) graphic: foam/rock hitting wing at takeoff
(2) graphic: (possible) hole in wing
(3) graphic: aluminum bar at 100C
(4) graphic: aluminum bar at 10,000C
(5) graphic: remind them that this is how the twin towers went down.
(6) graphic: remind them of Challenger.
(7) text: indicate how likely it is that #2 occurred
-Field Questions
-Insert pertinent technical anlysis, boring but Pro/Con backing of my team's analysis
-Reiterate points 1-7
This whole process ought to take ~45 minutes, with questions comprising ~15min.
I almost forgot: get fired by management because they feel insulted by the simplicity of my presentation style
Powerpoint is very effective, but then I know how to use it. NASA wouldn't hire me, my GPA was only a 3.5 from a state school. I didn't make first cut, but I know how to integrate esoteric information into a cause/effect presentation. But management doesn't care, they want the Bohemian who applies the power rule to complex networks...yeah...that'll keep the shuttle crew safe...
The guy whining about PPT is just another jackoff who is more interested in protecting his management buddies than solutions which might really be effective.
Everyone with a BS in engineering ought to just go out and start their own business. Hire these business losers to do the scut work, but don't let them gain real power for just being a golf buddy.
100% agreed here. Paying a 20% media tax entitles me to more than a few 'free' downloads. Yet another reason we should shoot all the lawyers.