This post is so far from reality that it has left the planet.
A fresh grad from an elite level school even MIT is not going to be making $150K right out the door. Let's say it is the average salary for the first 20 years of work, $75K starting salary, $150K after 10 yrs, $225K after 20 yrs working. Now wouldn't taking on an extra $100K of student loans be worth it. How many "no-name" colleges or even "second tier" schools offer that kind of career trajectory.
To another point, yes, if you are smart and want to go into medicine and want to specialize in surgery, you can make a really good living. But do you think all surgeons make $800K-$1 million a year. If you do, I have a lot of swamp land to sell you.
Networking + relationships + Ivy League name = $1 million more over your working lifetime.
That is one of the reasons people go to Ivy League schools. That is why those student take on $100K of loans. You don't hear many people here who went to Ivy League school saying that they regretted it. "I went to MIT and now 20 years later I and stuck at this crappy dead-end job" is not something you hear.
This is a subject in which I can speak with some authority on. I came from a good public high school. Had good science and math teachers for the high school level and was totally unprepared for college. Jumping to an elite level college (Caltech) as an engineering, was overwhelming. Homework went from 10 hours a week to 50 hours. Ouch. And I didn't have safety net like I had in high school.
Let's face it STEM is hard. You have to know a lot just to be competent by the time your graduate. The subjects are rigoreous and it takes longer to fully absorb the material. You can't BS your way through like you can with some of the other majors. You don't get to take as many electives outside of them STEM courses and by in large, the students you are competing with for grade are smartest ones in the university.
It took me several years to find my college legs but when I did college was fun again. I aced my junior and senior years.
Looking back, those first couple of years still bring me chills. If I could change the system, I would assign a one-on-one tutor/mentor to every STEM student. I know that this is never going to happen but for the price of college these days, students should demand it.
Twenty years out from college, I can say that working in the STEM field has been quite rewarding. I get to working on cutting edge projects, get paid good money and have plenty of jobs to pick from I want to change. So there you have it.
I know lots of people in federal IT contracting. NOBODY makes that kind of money. I call B.S. on this whole article.
You just don't know the right people. When I was working on a government contract, I was billed at $220/hr. Of course, I only got a fraction of that in salary. But still to the point, there are contractors and contracting companies billing the government at rates that would get them to $268,000/yr.
If you are serious, go the SuperComputing 2011 conference. Pretty much all the supercomputing geeks hang out there and you can get all your question answers by experts.
As for whether to go with IB or 10GbE, go with IB if you can afford it. IB has a bunch of advantages faster bandwidth, lower latency, but you pay for it in price.
The book Gravitation (black with an apple on the cover) by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler is the one you want. The book is thick (over 1200 pages) but it teaches you General Relativity and the math you need to understand it. They teach it to undergrads (juniors and seniors) at Caltech. It also help if you have a grasp of Differential Geometry. It should take about a year to learn.
I am not saying that every little IT shop will be able to bid on every contract. Some contracts just require massive amounts of people, like consolidating 1000's of data centers into 1.
But if the cost to bid on a single contract is that you have to hire a dozen procurement specialists to figure out the requirement and procedures, then the initial cost will be too high for most IT shops. The feds need to simplify the way this whole process is done. And don't even get me started on sole provider contracts. This are just giveaways to big IT shops that then charge outrageous rates.
The article did not name those companies that are in the IT Cartel. Let me start it off with the ones I know.
1. IBM
2. Accenture
3. Booz Hamilton
4. Deloitte
5. SAIC
6. HP
7. CACI
8. CSC
Why do they win all the IT contracts? They have huge staffs dedicated to understanding the myriad of procurement rules. The little guys don't stand a chance.
Anyone who reads Electronic Design knows of Bob Pease. His column was the first thing you read, when you got the new edition. He was clever, witty and a brilliant engineer.
I like to see a certification that shows you have done something. Of course, you can have a degree and/or experience and never need a cert but that wasn't the question. These are the ones I look for, all others are pretty much useless.
PE (Professional Engineering) License
CCIE
TOGAF
These show me that you at least took some time to master something.
I have had this happen to me. I served in an "indispensible" role and wanted larger responsibility, pay and equity, but instead, they let me go. Six months later, they went bankrupt. They certainly showed me didn't they.
Back on topic, if you want an equity share, convert to a permanent employee and make it part of your contract. You have to be willing to give up something, usually like salary or working more hours for the company to go for it. If you want them to put equity on the table, you have to bring something to the table too.
FTFA, "...applying judgments from engineering documents and national standards, and making recommendations," that's technical work a licensed engineer would do, Lacy said."
It should be pointed out that not all engineers are licensed (ie. software engineers) and not all technical work has to be done by a licensed engineer. Lacy's comments are a total smoke screen. Being a licensed engineer is not a prerequisite, the ability to think logically is, as Mr. Cox has demonstrated.
IANAL.This brings up the question, "Is cyber self-defense a legally viable defense in court?"
The analogy goes like this. I was being attacked so I whacked him to may him stop. The corporate equivalent is, My network and computer systems were being attacked to whacked the attacker to make him stop.
The fallacy in your argument is the during his whole life the graduate from the elite school will be earning 40% more than you. True, he will have 200K in student loans to pay back. But during the course of his working lifetime, say 45 years, his will vastly out earn you, even after paying back his loans.
After college, your earning 50K, he is earning 70K. After 10 years, you are earning 100K, he is earning 140k. After 20 years, you are earning 150K, he is earning 210K. After 40 year, you are earning 200K, he is earning 280K. So who is better off now. Who has the better house, the better car, the better wife..
If education is an investment you can't choose such a short time horizon as 10 years.
What has amazed me is that while the population of graduating high school students have grown, the number of admission slots to the elite universities have remained relatively constant. So inevidently the process for getting one of those admission slots has become more selective. What I would like to see is someone create a new university or universities that compete with the Harvards, Princetons, and Yales of the world. Some additional effects would be to bring the cost of college down as there is more competition for students and to employ more PhDs who want to work in academia but are having a hard time finding a job due to the lack of new professorship opening up each year.
1. Start elitist university..
2. Recruit lots of applications for students.
3. Reject 90% of them.
4. PROFIT. . // Universities are supposed to be non-profit but I just had to throw in #4
Slashdot Mirror
This post is so far from reality that it has left the planet.
A fresh grad from an elite level school even MIT is not going to be making $150K right out the door. Let's say it is the average salary for the first 20 years of work, $75K starting salary, $150K after 10 yrs, $225K after 20 yrs working. Now wouldn't taking on an extra $100K of student loans be worth it. How many "no-name" colleges or even "second tier" schools offer that kind of career trajectory.
To another point, yes, if you are smart and want to go into medicine and want to specialize in surgery, you can make a really good living. But do you think all surgeons make $800K-$1 million a year. If you do, I have a lot of swamp land to sell you.
Networking + relationships + Ivy League name = $1 million more over your working lifetime.
That is one of the reasons people go to Ivy League schools. That is why those student take on $100K of loans. You don't hear many people here who went to Ivy League school saying that they regretted it. "I went to MIT and now 20 years later I and stuck at this crappy dead-end job" is not something you hear.
Why are there no child prodigies in Physics (or Chemistry or Biology)?
I cannot think of one in the past 100 years.
Einstein breakthrough year was 1905 and he was 26.
This is a subject in which I can speak with some authority on. I came from a good public high school. Had good science and math teachers for the high school level and was totally unprepared for college. Jumping to an elite level college (Caltech) as an engineering, was overwhelming. Homework went from 10 hours a week to 50 hours. Ouch. And I didn't have safety net like I had in high school.
Let's face it STEM is hard. You have to know a lot just to be competent by the time your graduate. The subjects are rigoreous and it takes longer to fully absorb the material. You can't BS your way through like you can with some of the other majors. You don't get to take as many electives outside of them STEM courses and by in large, the students you are competing with for grade are smartest ones in the university.
It took me several years to find my college legs but when I did college was fun again. I aced my junior and senior years.
Looking back, those first couple of years still bring me chills. If I could change the system, I would assign a one-on-one tutor/mentor to every STEM student. I know that this is never going to happen but for the price of college these days, students should demand it.
Twenty years out from college, I can say that working in the STEM field has been quite rewarding. I get to working on cutting edge projects, get paid good money and have plenty of jobs to pick from I want to change. So there you have it.
Was that you?
There will be an app for that. Click on the picture of the person and then on the auto-tagging app on your iPhone and that's it.
What is scary about this technology is that anyone will be able to tag anyone else and follow them any where they go.
With Facebook, plus facial recognition, plus public video, plus tagging, I can follow/cyberstalk anyone from anywhere.
Welcome to the world where everyone is your Big Brother.
I know lots of people in federal IT contracting. NOBODY makes that kind of money. I call B.S. on this whole article.
You just don't know the right people. When I was working on a government contract, I was billed at $220/hr. Of course, I only got a fraction of that in salary. But still to the point, there are contractors and contracting companies billing the government at rates that would get them to $268,000/yr.
Are you kidding me? The rich have been conducting class warfare since the pharohs. What makes you think they are going to change now.
If you are serious, go the SuperComputing 2011 conference. Pretty much all the supercomputing geeks hang out there and you can get all your question answers by experts.
As for whether to go with IB or 10GbE, go with IB if you can afford it. IB has a bunch of advantages faster bandwidth, lower latency, but you pay for it in price.
Good Luck.
byteherder
I want to second this. Mod up the parent.
The book Gravitation (black with an apple on the cover) by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler is the one you want. The book is thick (over 1200 pages) but it teaches you General Relativity and the math you need to understand it. They teach it to undergrads (juniors and seniors) at Caltech. It also help if you have a grasp of Differential Geometry. It should take about a year to learn.
byteherder
I am not saying that every little IT shop will be able to bid on every contract. Some contracts just require massive amounts of people, like consolidating 1000's of data centers into 1.
But if the cost to bid on a single contract is that you have to hire a dozen procurement specialists to figure out the requirement and procedures, then the initial cost will be too high for most IT shops. The feds need to simplify the way this whole process is done. And don't even get me started on sole provider contracts. This are just giveaways to big IT shops that then charge outrageous rates.
The article did not name those companies that are in the IT Cartel. Let me start it off with the ones I know.
1. IBM
2. Accenture
3. Booz Hamilton
4. Deloitte
5. SAIC
6. HP
7. CACI
8. CSC
Why do they win all the IT contracts? They have huge staffs dedicated to understanding the myriad of procurement rules. The little guys don't stand a chance.
Can you name some more.
Has someone notified the Borg?
Have you not heard of Samali pirates?
They have boats and we now have a huge laser cannon to deal with them. *evil grin*
Anyone who reads Electronic Design knows of Bob Pease. His column was the first thing you read, when you got the new edition. He was clever, witty and a brilliant engineer.
Bob, you will be sorely missed.
Rocket flies up AND comes down. News at 11.
I like to see a certification that shows you have done something. Of course, you can have a degree and/or experience and never need a cert but that wasn't the question. These are the ones I look for, all others are pretty much useless.
PE (Professional Engineering) License
CCIE
TOGAF
These show me that you at least took some time to master something.
I have had this happen to me. I served in an "indispensible" role and wanted larger responsibility, pay and equity, but instead, they let me go. Six months later, they went bankrupt. They certainly showed me didn't they.
Back on topic, if you want an equity share, convert to a permanent employee and make it part of your contract. You have to be willing to give up something, usually like salary or working more hours for the company to go for it. If you want them to put equity on the table, you have to bring something to the table too.
Don't we have something like this already. Isn't it called StarWars.
I secretly like reading the X-Men comics. There I am out of the closet. Oh, the shame, the shame of it all.
FTFA, "...applying judgments from engineering documents and national standards, and making recommendations," that's technical work a licensed engineer would do, Lacy said."
It should be pointed out that not all engineers are licensed (ie. software engineers) and not all technical work has to be done by a licensed engineer. Lacy's comments are a total smoke screen. Being a licensed engineer is not a prerequisite, the ability to think logically is, as Mr. Cox has demonstrated.
IANAL.This brings up the question, "Is cyber self-defense a legally viable defense in court?"
The analogy goes like this. I was being attacked so I whacked him to may him stop. The corporate equivalent is, My network and computer systems were being attacked to whacked the attacker to make him stop.
The fallacy in your argument is the during his whole life the graduate from the elite school will be earning 40% more than you. True, he will have 200K in student loans to pay back. But during the course of his working lifetime, say 45 years, his will vastly out earn you, even after paying back his loans.
After college, your earning 50K, he is earning 70K. After 10 years, you are earning 100K, he is earning 140k. After 20 years, you are earning 150K, he is earning 210K. After 40 year, you are earning 200K, he is earning 280K. So who is better off now. Who has the better house, the better car, the better wife..
If education is an investment you can't choose such a short time horizon as 10 years.
What has amazed me is that while the population of graduating high school students have grown, the number of admission slots to the elite universities have remained relatively constant. So inevidently the process for getting one of those admission slots has become more selective. What I would like to see is someone create a new university or universities that compete with the Harvards, Princetons, and Yales of the world. Some additional effects would be to bring the cost of college down as there is more competition for students and to employ more PhDs who want to work in academia but are having a hard time finding a job due to the lack of new professorship opening up each year.
// Universities are supposed to be non-profit but I just had to throw in #4
1. Start elitist university..
2. Recruit lots of applications for students.
3. Reject 90% of them.
4. PROFIT.
.