If someone asks me to built a bridge in a few weeks, then I should say "no thank you". If I built it anyway, I'm responsible. What you suggest is, I built it while I know it will collapse but go for the money, and then when it collapses blaim the ones that ordered me. Well, define "evil". They are guilty, but I'd be more guilty because I should have been more technically aware it cannot be built in a couple of weeks.
Even if students don't leave.. I wouldn't choose the same carreer path again. Engineers are subject to the horrors of middle-management, among others. Who do you want to be pushed around by today? By some dorks who did a softer study ("eehmm I do not know what I want to do, so let's pick law or business because mom and dad expect me to study"), have no particular skills or brain, thus ended up in middlemanagement, kissing ass up, and kicking down. Now this sounds bitter and overstated. Still, it's the truth. "They" are complaining about a lack of engineers, what they basically want is bright people to do the hard work and be stupid enough to be bossed around by the people who don't have the brains or skills for it. This is a good setup for "them". I should have joined them. As long as hands on work is considered less as any idiot in management, I wouldn't advise e technical study to anyone. Better all become idiot managers and outsource the "dirty" work to Asia.
They seem into copying existing projects and trying to do it better. What they can't copy, they buy.
Search engine. News groups. E-mail. Maps. Start page. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Only I'm talking Google here, not Microsoft. So s/Microsoft/Google:
Google: Who do you want us to copy today? Google: Innovation Through Imitation. Google: Developers. Developers. Developers. We are happy with our overpayed developers, it's good for PR. Only if you look at Job Openings on Google at any time, it's urban legend and the phrase should be: Sales people, sales people, sales people! Microsoft: Screw new ideas, we have java lamps and do no evil.
This just screams out for a list of Top 50 Overrated Sci-Fi Shows.
Number one on this list will be Babylon 5. It includes all the essentials ingredients to make it really, really bad:
1) "Intricate plot" is nothing more than the usual space opera crap you once liked in HIGHSCHOOL
2) Bad actors. The biggest problem with most sci-fi shows. They are designed to run say 5 seasons.
So you need to sign actors on 5 year contracts. Actors which can, say, act, or actors who have
the X-factor like Shatner (note the mutual exclusive here), don't sign these contracts. They want
to be available for stuff like movies. Babylon sports a parade of totally bland actors. I don't
remember any of them except for blandless. All the new Star Trek etc. series have the same problem.
Picard is the only one I remember. I don't wanna watch these bland people each week.
3) Telepaths. Sometime, somewhere, someone decided if you think up a future in a sci-fi series,
it surely much sport telepaths. What?? I left highschool long, long ago, take your sorcery and magic
elsewhere! This is ridiculous.
4) Cheesiness all over. Cheesy clothing. Cheesy animations. Need I go on?
Still it goes on and on here on Slashdot what a great series it is.
This is not surprising looking at the horrible crap on this list.
Number two on my list, for instance, must be Stargate SG-1.
Again, bad, real BAD actors. Boy they're glad they can support the family with their 5 year contracts.
But look at this series. It's based on a movie. This movie was a B movie. It was pulp.
Good fun, but pulp. It had two good actors, one pulp actor (Russel) but he has the X-factor you'll never
see in a sci-fi television series. (This is the first and last time I hail the actor Russel). It's a movie
where you can almost hear the moronic Universal (or whatever) producer tell the scriptwriter: "Hmm nice
concept, but what about throwing in some Egyptian stuff, duuuude?"
So on this crap, they base a tv-series. Which on it's turn gets in the top 10 of all time sci-fi series.
So everything under that, must be even worse utter crap?
So it's fair to conclude that everything under the original Star Trek is crap. And you know what the
original Star Trek is...
Look, I was a huge sci-fi fan as a kid and still am, but most stuff is just utter crap, and I can't
believe the crap people keep seeing, and even more surprising, hailing, just because they're sci-fi fans?
(Movie wise is not much better, just look at the Matrix for instance, which is essentially a stolen mix
of Neuromancer vs tech singularity concepts gone bad by cheesy scriptwriting. I can't believe no one ever
tells these Matrix fans with their crap ever that the concept of a computer fighting a human by generating
characters and have game like fights within computer generated environments and if the human wins, the
computer is, like, defeated duuude! is a really, REALLY stupendous concept.)
Slashdot Mirror
If someone asks me to built a bridge in a few weeks, then I should say "no thank you". If I built it anyway, I'm responsible. What you suggest is, I built it while I know it will collapse but go for the money, and then when it collapses blaim the ones that ordered me. Well, define "evil". They are guilty, but I'd be more guilty because I should have been more technically aware it cannot be built in a couple of weeks.
Even if students don't leave.. I wouldn't choose the same carreer path again.
Engineers are subject to the horrors of middle-management, among others.
Who do you want to be pushed around by today? By some dorks who did a softer
study ("eehmm I do not know what I want to do, so let's pick law or business
because mom and dad expect me to study"), have no particular skills or brain,
thus ended up in middlemanagement, kissing ass up, and kicking down.
Now this sounds bitter and overstated. Still, it's the truth. "They" are
complaining about a lack of engineers, what they basically want is bright
people to do the hard work and be stupid enough to be bossed around by the
people who don't have the brains or skills for it. This is a good setup
for "them". I should have joined them. As long as hands on work is considered
less as any idiot in management, I wouldn't advise e technical study to anyone.
Better all become idiot managers and outsource the "dirty" work to Asia.
They seem into copying existing projects and trying to do it better.
What they can't copy, they buy.
Search engine. News groups. E-mail. Maps. Start page. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Only I'm talking Google here, not Microsoft.
So s/Microsoft/Google:
Google: Who do you want us to copy today?
Google: Innovation Through Imitation.
Google: Developers. Developers. Developers. We are happy with our overpayed developers, it's good for PR. Only if you look at Job Openings on Google at any time, it's urban legend and the phrase should be: Sales people, sales people, sales people!
Microsoft: Screw new ideas, we have java lamps and do no evil.
This just screams out for a list of Top 50 Overrated Sci-Fi Shows. Number one on this list will be Babylon 5. It includes all the essentials ingredients to make it really, really bad: 1) "Intricate plot" is nothing more than the usual space opera crap you once liked in HIGHSCHOOL 2) Bad actors. The biggest problem with most sci-fi shows. They are designed to run say 5 seasons. So you need to sign actors on 5 year contracts. Actors which can, say, act, or actors who have the X-factor like Shatner (note the mutual exclusive here), don't sign these contracts. They want to be available for stuff like movies. Babylon sports a parade of totally bland actors. I don't remember any of them except for blandless. All the new Star Trek etc. series have the same problem. Picard is the only one I remember. I don't wanna watch these bland people each week. 3) Telepaths. Sometime, somewhere, someone decided if you think up a future in a sci-fi series, it surely much sport telepaths. What?? I left highschool long, long ago, take your sorcery and magic elsewhere! This is ridiculous. 4) Cheesiness all over. Cheesy clothing. Cheesy animations. Need I go on? Still it goes on and on here on Slashdot what a great series it is. This is not surprising looking at the horrible crap on this list. Number two on my list, for instance, must be Stargate SG-1. Again, bad, real BAD actors. Boy they're glad they can support the family with their 5 year contracts. But look at this series. It's based on a movie. This movie was a B movie. It was pulp. Good fun, but pulp. It had two good actors, one pulp actor (Russel) but he has the X-factor you'll never see in a sci-fi television series. (This is the first and last time I hail the actor Russel). It's a movie where you can almost hear the moronic Universal (or whatever) producer tell the scriptwriter: "Hmm nice concept, but what about throwing in some Egyptian stuff, duuuude?" So on this crap, they base a tv-series. Which on it's turn gets in the top 10 of all time sci-fi series. So everything under that, must be even worse utter crap? So it's fair to conclude that everything under the original Star Trek is crap. And you know what the original Star Trek is... Look, I was a huge sci-fi fan as a kid and still am, but most stuff is just utter crap, and I can't believe the crap people keep seeing, and even more surprising, hailing, just because they're sci-fi fans? (Movie wise is not much better, just look at the Matrix for instance, which is essentially a stolen mix of Neuromancer vs tech singularity concepts gone bad by cheesy scriptwriting. I can't believe no one ever tells these Matrix fans with their crap ever that the concept of a computer fighting a human by generating characters and have game like fights within computer generated environments and if the human wins, the computer is, like, defeated duuude! is a really, REALLY stupendous concept.)