The problem of course is most employers don't know enough to ask the right questions from prospective employees. And with the glut of CS majors that have been turned out, they don't have time to have someone knowledgeable look at each candidate so they try to whittle down the prospectives by requiring a degree. Probably not the best solution to the issue, but that's the way it is. Figure out how to effectively interview candidates and things might have a chance to correct themselves, but failing that the majority of employers are going to use a college degree as a way of limiting the number of applicants they have to look at.
The issue with degrees really began in 2001 when the Tech crash happened. Before that individuals would review your skills, after the tech crash there were too many "IT" guys and so we got thrown to HR would sorts based on bullet lists. Before the tech crash I had 15 calls or so a month and could expect to be offered positions at least 3 times a quarter, usually more. After the tech crash, I went six months without a call. The difference was too dramatic for anything else to change, my skills didn't change that much and the need for those skills was still out there.
One point of contention with your comment. Although a lot of schools may be like that and a large portion of classes may be as well, memorization isn't going to get you through a lot of the upper level classes in computer science. In other degrees possibly, but with computer science there is a large degree of applied skills and thinking outside the box that you just don't get elsewhere.
In addition to that, being about to do a search on any piece of code that strikes the instructor as hokey, means that copy and paste coding should be caught fairly easily. Now, I know that there are a lot of lazy professors out there and teaching associates, but it only takes one in the four years someone is attending school for their practices to be caught and computer science departments are small enough that everyone knows everyone at the professor level, perhaps even at the graduate level.
For myself, I have the opposite problem, I have a terrible memory, can't memorize a thing. Applied CS is where I shine, it's other courses like musical appreciation and even calculus where I have my problems. In computer science the memorization is at the lower levels, once you reach the upper level courses most of them are not about memorization, most, but about applied skills.
Keep in mind, we are also talking about CS not CIS. CIS is programming, CS is all about the algorithms though I suspect most CS majors go into programming, I really think that's about colleges making money turning out CS majors. I'm there for a "real" CS degree so that I can work on the science not be a programmer.
Certificates are not worth much when everyone can get them and the layman business owner doesn't know which ones are valuable and which ones are not. It's interesting to see how the business environment is changing, but while working as an employee required certs, degrees, etc. In general working as a consultant is all about the referral system, ie who you know and knows you. Put together a portfolio of your work and attend networking events in your area should help. The certifications that some people expect are for business types that are in the industry and have HR screening applicants. Selling your own skills to business owners is all about references, recommendations and what you can show them of your work.
No, you don't have to have anything to make incorporation a good idea. Debts from the business will follow you no matter what you do if you don't incorporate. Get sued, spend the rest of your life paying. Make a mistake, spend the rest of your life paying. et cetra The fact of the matter is that incorporating is the cheapest form of legal protection you can buy. Anyone running a business without it is a fool and likely to get burned unless they get very lucky. I
I'm not sure of the current job market, but in years past while a masters increased earning potential, getting a PhD actually paid less. Most consultants work with a Masters degree whereas those that want to do research and "interesting" stuff generally go on to get a PhD. Business sells, research does not, in the past at least. To get interesting work you generally need to pay more for the education and receive less income.
That being said, I am working on getting my PhD in order to teach computer science at the University level. It's more about job satisfaction than income for me.
I seem to remember another product out around the same time as the clapper. If I remember correctly, it used a plant that when touched turned on and off a light. Seems like this is a similar system, except that it measures the resistance in the circuit in order to determine distance from the base of the plant. Pretty interesting, fun to play around with probably, but I can't think of any particularly useful applications.
Wow, apparently you can't make a rational argument since your not bothering to respond to my comments. It's apparent that you don't feel it's worth your time to read and respond to what I am saying, so I'll move on. Thanks for the conversation, sorry I was too stupid to realize you were just wasting my time.
Sure, if enough voters did that, things might change. I stipulated above if 5% or 10% of the population did this, there would be possible change, but as it stands, this doesn't happen. Your contention was that a vote for someone else was not a wasted vote. Are you now stipulating that it's a wasted vote unless enough people vote this way? If so, it doesn't seem to conflict with my previous statement and yet you were saying I was completely wrong.
While Markdavis's numbers are extremely unlikely to be correct, I know that 96.8% legal use of bittorrent protocol is definitely incorrect. Just to make a note, illegal doesn't mean immoral. Actually, I have no problems illegally downloading information off the web, but that is based on my own morals and not what is legal or illegal.
That being said, I think the number of illegal downloads is around 95%, not quite as bad as 99.5%, but still pretty high. It could be lower, but the problem is that it is hard to track without specifically looking at the packets going in and out of a large number of computers and determining whether each packet is legal or illegal, but doing this would remove network neutrality provisions for the isp that did it and open them to being sued by users and copyright owners, some of which might even be both.
I maintain a torrent server to trade my personal files and photos with friends, family and various business files, but most of my information is just downloaded from either my server or from some website or file server. I like having the torrent server, but frankly not enough people are interested in my files to make it of much use. I do see bittorrent used by several companies to distribute patches and the like and there is definitely a legitimate use for the protocol. That being said, it's the manner in which it is used, not the tool itself that makes it legal/illegal. Using a hammer to hammer in a nail, fine, using a hammer to break into a car and steal stuff, not such a good idea. If you get caught illegally downloading material, it's your choice and you will have to bare the consequences. I'm more than happy to have my day in court if I'm caught.
Yep, always good to call again later, especially if you are in a foreign state. I always appreciate being as inconvinced as possible. It's not his problem that they didn't have any senior staff at the time. And since when is a receptionist in charge? There is always a contact number. But it's all in how you chose to handle it
I'd say that they pretty conclusively proved that the thing isn't ready yet. I agree additional information through telemetry would make it even better though.
Right now there is no way anyone other than one of the two majority parties could be elected. I admit that should a third party candidate even pull in 10% of the vote, there might be a shift in politics, but since I can't see any third party politician getting even 2% of the vote, not voting is the same as voting for a third party politician. I don't see how anyone voting against Obama in Illinois does any good, there is no second place. I believe NH may have proportional voting, but I don't believe Illinois does so voting for anyone non-Obama doesn't really matter now does it? I mean what do you accomplish by voting for someone else?
Unlike a lot of state/county "fund raising", fines collected by the FTC and other departments are not counted as income. Some of the money may go to the people that file the grievance with the FTC with the balance going to the treasury department. Fines are only about 1 million or so a year, maybe a bit higher, so compared to the trillion or so dollars the government is spending, it doesn't really provide incentive to fine people except as needed in order to protect consumers.
Information comes from http://www.ftc.gov/oig/reports/ar02052.pdf with information about fees collected on page 19 and an explanation that a debit and credit are both entered under section (h) on page 22. I didn't see an exact accounting as to where the fees went specifically, but this seems to be the jist of it.
How does this affect my bnetd server? Oh, that's right Blizzard sued it out of existence and I haven't purchased a blizzard product since then. No worries then, doesn't effect me.
Ummm, where did I say that I wanted to run old plants for 60+ years? I have no idea what it takes to run a plant for that long. My question had to do with the politics of building a new plant and didn't mention old plants at all. But, if you want to know my personal opinion, running a plant for 80 years is probably better than running a coal plant even in the face of an eventual breach. Three mile island was the one that scared everyone, or at least supposedly did, but I bet that coal plants put out far more radiation than three mile every year they are in production, not to mention the other wastes they produce. That doesn't mean I advocate for fission plants either, just that in my opinion coal plants are worse.
Unfortunately, computer science, often falls into this category as well. Most people with a cs degree seem to be primarily focused on being entry level programmers rather than understanding the algorithms and design behind software. They would be much better off in a CIS degree rather than causing "real" computer science majors to be lumped into a "programmer" title. But that is strictly my personal opinion.
Yeah, I've seen that as well, but considering that many cashier's only make minimum wage, if that, I'd be willing to guess it's more of what the business is willing to pay someone to do the job and not education as a whole. Unless, of course, you discussed the cashier's education background with them and found that they had a PhD in nuclear engineering. Likely, the person has that job because they had no other skills and perhaps they never even completed high school. I'd say, it's more about the job applicants that are competing for that job than a statement of what education levels are.
Btw, though I have run into a few cashiers like this, I've run into far more that can give proper change with no problems. It's just that people with basic math, english, thinking skills can get better jobs and that makes room for those that don't have those skills in these positions.
Hmmm,
If I remember correctly logic/critical thinking was fairly easy because it was basically discrete mathematics for non-science types. Seems like a decent class to give people and introduction to logic and how to analyse arguments. It wasn't about continuously questioning the same statements over and over. It also pointed out some of the main fallacies that people use in arguments, which though I had a course with similar concepts in the 5th grade, I imagine a lot of students don't get that type of education and it falls upon the colleges to at least give students some sort of critical thinking concepts. Does everyone get and understand them, no, but tell me one class where every student understand everything the course was designed to teach.
Sure with a degree in Mathematics the class might have been a waste of time to you, but what about others that don't have your background. Arguing that the class shouldn't be a requirement for all students wouldn't be a bad argument, but stating that the class is a waste of time and implying that the class should be removed is not really a valid argument in my opinion. Also not, that there are a lot of different classes with that title, perhaps the class you took could have been improved especially if all you got from the class was that arguments have to be argued even if they are "proven" Of course, if the argument was proven, then it wouldn't be an argument anymore, it would be a statement correct with supporting evidence, correct?
Be careful about falling into the third group btw. Undergrad is a place to get a degree, not an education. Taking courses that interest you, or even god forbid challenge you can cause your GPA to fall and other education rules nastyness. Might not for everyone, but I know I've screwed myself a bit because of taking courses outside the required courses and it's caused me a few problems. Pretty important to know how the education system works at your school, even the "unpublished" rules that they point out later that because you didn't look at subsection 123.73.1.b in the revised edition of the student guidelines you aren't eligible to take any classes that semester.
Pain in the butt, but in my opinion for undergraduate work, your likely better off strictly following the course guideline the school gives you and not taking interesting or challenging classes until you hit graduate school and perhaps not even then.
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The problem of course is most employers don't know enough to ask the right questions from prospective employees. And with the glut of CS majors that have been turned out, they don't have time to have someone knowledgeable look at each candidate so they try to whittle down the prospectives by requiring a degree. Probably not the best solution to the issue, but that's the way it is. Figure out how to effectively interview candidates and things might have a chance to correct themselves, but failing that the majority of employers are going to use a college degree as a way of limiting the number of applicants they have to look at.
The issue with degrees really began in 2001 when the Tech crash happened. Before that individuals would review your skills, after the tech crash there were too many "IT" guys and so we got thrown to HR would sorts based on bullet lists. Before the tech crash I had 15 calls or so a month and could expect to be offered positions at least 3 times a quarter, usually more. After the tech crash, I went six months without a call. The difference was too dramatic for anything else to change, my skills didn't change that much and the need for those skills was still out there.
One point of contention with your comment. Although a lot of schools may be like that and a large portion of classes may be as well, memorization isn't going to get you through a lot of the upper level classes in computer science. In other degrees possibly, but with computer science there is a large degree of applied skills and thinking outside the box that you just don't get elsewhere.
In addition to that, being about to do a search on any piece of code that strikes the instructor as hokey, means that copy and paste coding should be caught fairly easily. Now, I know that there are a lot of lazy professors out there and teaching associates, but it only takes one in the four years someone is attending school for their practices to be caught and computer science departments are small enough that everyone knows everyone at the professor level, perhaps even at the graduate level.
For myself, I have the opposite problem, I have a terrible memory, can't memorize a thing. Applied CS is where I shine, it's other courses like musical appreciation and even calculus where I have my problems. In computer science the memorization is at the lower levels, once you reach the upper level courses most of them are not about memorization, most, but about applied skills.
Keep in mind, we are also talking about CS not CIS. CIS is programming, CS is all about the algorithms though I suspect most CS majors go into programming, I really think that's about colleges making money turning out CS majors. I'm there for a "real" CS degree so that I can work on the science not be a programmer.
Certificates are not worth much when everyone can get them and the layman business owner doesn't know which ones are valuable and which ones are not. It's interesting to see how the business environment is changing, but while working as an employee required certs, degrees, etc. In general working as a consultant is all about the referral system, ie who you know and knows you. Put together a portfolio of your work and attend networking events in your area should help. The certifications that some people expect are for business types that are in the industry and have HR screening applicants. Selling your own skills to business owners is all about references, recommendations and what you can show them of your work.
No, you don't have to have anything to make incorporation a good idea. Debts from the business will follow you no matter what you do if you don't incorporate. Get sued, spend the rest of your life paying. Make a mistake, spend the rest of your life paying. et cetra The fact of the matter is that incorporating is the cheapest form of legal protection you can buy. Anyone running a business without it is a fool and likely to get burned unless they get very lucky. I
I'm not sure of the current job market, but in years past while a masters increased earning potential, getting a PhD actually paid less. Most consultants work with a Masters degree whereas those that want to do research and "interesting" stuff generally go on to get a PhD. Business sells, research does not, in the past at least. To get interesting work you generally need to pay more for the education and receive less income.
That being said, I am working on getting my PhD in order to teach computer science at the University level. It's more about job satisfaction than income for me.
Very cool
I seem to remember another product out around the same time as the clapper. If I remember correctly, it used a plant that when touched turned on and off a light. Seems like this is a similar system, except that it measures the resistance in the circuit in order to determine distance from the base of the plant. Pretty interesting, fun to play around with probably, but I can't think of any particularly useful applications.
Wow, apparently you can't make a rational argument since your not bothering to respond to my comments. It's apparent that you don't feel it's worth your time to read and respond to what I am saying, so I'll move on. Thanks for the conversation, sorry I was too stupid to realize you were just wasting my time.
Sure, if enough voters did that, things might change. I stipulated above if 5% or 10% of the population did this, there would be possible change, but as it stands, this doesn't happen. Your contention was that a vote for someone else was not a wasted vote. Are you now stipulating that it's a wasted vote unless enough people vote this way? If so, it doesn't seem to conflict with my previous statement and yet you were saying I was completely wrong.
While Markdavis's numbers are extremely unlikely to be correct, I know that 96.8% legal use of bittorrent protocol is definitely incorrect. Just to make a note, illegal doesn't mean immoral. Actually, I have no problems illegally downloading information off the web, but that is based on my own morals and not what is legal or illegal.
That being said, I think the number of illegal downloads is around 95%, not quite as bad as 99.5%, but still pretty high. It could be lower, but the problem is that it is hard to track without specifically looking at the packets going in and out of a large number of computers and determining whether each packet is legal or illegal, but doing this would remove network neutrality provisions for the isp that did it and open them to being sued by users and copyright owners, some of which might even be both.
I maintain a torrent server to trade my personal files and photos with friends, family and various business files, but most of my information is just downloaded from either my server or from some website or file server. I like having the torrent server, but frankly not enough people are interested in my files to make it of much use. I do see bittorrent used by several companies to distribute patches and the like and there is definitely a legitimate use for the protocol. That being said, it's the manner in which it is used, not the tool itself that makes it legal/illegal. Using a hammer to hammer in a nail, fine, using a hammer to break into a car and steal stuff, not such a good idea. If you get caught illegally downloading material, it's your choice and you will have to bare the consequences. I'm more than happy to have my day in court if I'm caught.
Yep, always good to call again later, especially if you are in a foreign state. I always appreciate being as inconvinced as possible. It's not his problem that they didn't have any senior staff at the time. And since when is a receptionist in charge? There is always a contact number. But it's all in how you chose to handle it
I'd say that they pretty conclusively proved that the thing isn't ready yet. I agree additional information through telemetry would make it even better though.
Right now there is no way anyone other than one of the two majority parties could be elected. I admit that should a third party candidate even pull in 10% of the vote, there might be a shift in politics, but since I can't see any third party politician getting even 2% of the vote, not voting is the same as voting for a third party politician. I don't see how anyone voting against Obama in Illinois does any good, there is no second place. I believe NH may have proportional voting, but I don't believe Illinois does so voting for anyone non-Obama doesn't really matter now does it? I mean what do you accomplish by voting for someone else?
Thanks, I'll look into the loans and NRC policy changes over the last few years. Gives me a good place to start looking.
Ah, but according to others here, the 25 new plants were initiated in 2007 which would put it into Bush Jr's domain and not Obama's.
5) Remember the "normal" programmers are getting paid little to work a lot. The rockstars/architects of the system still get paid very well.
Granted maybe not at EA but plenty of other places.
Unlike a lot of state/county "fund raising", fines collected by the FTC and other departments are not counted as income. Some of the money may go to the people that file the grievance with the FTC with the balance going to the treasury department. Fines are only about 1 million or so a year, maybe a bit higher, so compared to the trillion or so dollars the government is spending, it doesn't really provide incentive to fine people except as needed in order to protect consumers.
Information comes from http://www.ftc.gov/oig/reports/ar02052.pdf with information about fees collected on page 19 and an explanation that a debit and credit are both entered under section (h) on page 22. I didn't see an exact accounting as to where the fees went specifically, but this seems to be the jist of it.
How does this affect my bnetd server? Oh, that's right Blizzard sued it out of existence and I haven't purchased a blizzard product since then. No worries then, doesn't effect me.
Ah, thank you. Any idea what changed the political environment? Or is it just an energy issue that slowly built up until it reached a critical mass?
Ummm, where did I say that I wanted to run old plants for 60+ years? I have no idea what it takes to run a plant for that long. My question had to do with the politics of building a new plant and didn't mention old plants at all. But, if you want to know my personal opinion, running a plant for 80 years is probably better than running a coal plant even in the face of an eventual breach. Three mile island was the one that scared everyone, or at least supposedly did, but I bet that coal plants put out far more radiation than three mile every year they are in production, not to mention the other wastes they produce. That doesn't mean I advocate for fission plants either, just that in my opinion coal plants are worse.
Unfortunately, computer science, often falls into this category as well. Most people with a cs degree seem to be primarily focused on being entry level programmers rather than understanding the algorithms and design behind software. They would be much better off in a CIS degree rather than causing "real" computer science majors to be lumped into a "programmer" title. But that is strictly my personal opinion.
Yeah, I've seen that as well, but considering that many cashier's only make minimum wage, if that, I'd be willing to guess it's more of what the business is willing to pay someone to do the job and not education as a whole. Unless, of course, you discussed the cashier's education background with them and found that they had a PhD in nuclear engineering. Likely, the person has that job because they had no other skills and perhaps they never even completed high school. I'd say, it's more about the job applicants that are competing for that job than a statement of what education levels are.
Btw, though I have run into a few cashiers like this, I've run into far more that can give proper change with no problems. It's just that people with basic math, english, thinking skills can get better jobs and that makes room for those that don't have those skills in these positions.
Hmmm,
If I remember correctly logic/critical thinking was fairly easy because it was basically discrete mathematics for non-science types. Seems like a decent class to give people and introduction to logic and how to analyse arguments. It wasn't about continuously questioning the same statements over and over. It also pointed out some of the main fallacies that people use in arguments, which though I had a course with similar concepts in the 5th grade, I imagine a lot of students don't get that type of education and it falls upon the colleges to at least give students some sort of critical thinking concepts. Does everyone get and understand them, no, but tell me one class where every student understand everything the course was designed to teach.
Sure with a degree in Mathematics the class might have been a waste of time to you, but what about others that don't have your background. Arguing that the class shouldn't be a requirement for all students wouldn't be a bad argument, but stating that the class is a waste of time and implying that the class should be removed is not really a valid argument in my opinion. Also not, that there are a lot of different classes with that title, perhaps the class you took could have been improved especially if all you got from the class was that arguments have to be argued even if they are "proven" Of course, if the argument was proven, then it wouldn't be an argument anymore, it would be a statement correct with supporting evidence, correct?
Be careful about falling into the third group btw. Undergrad is a place to get a degree, not an education. Taking courses that interest you, or even god forbid challenge you can cause your GPA to fall and other education rules nastyness. Might not for everyone, but I know I've screwed myself a bit because of taking courses outside the required courses and it's caused me a few problems. Pretty important to know how the education system works at your school, even the "unpublished" rules that they point out later that because you didn't look at subsection 123.73.1.b in the revised edition of the student guidelines you aren't eligible to take any classes that semester.
Pain in the butt, but in my opinion for undergraduate work, your likely better off strictly following the course guideline the school gives you and not taking interesting or challenging classes until you hit graduate school and perhaps not even then.