Hello,

I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

Thanks,
Joshua

The master's says

*you were a good enough student to make it into grad school
*you can handle advanced material
*and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a
thesis

I think you'll find from salary tables that the MS pays for itself, i.e. you
make more in higher pay than you lose in the 18 to 24 months it takes to get
the degree.

However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
team but valuable none the less.

Good luck,
Clark

"panfilero" <panfilero@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1182203977.820765.80400@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>
> Thanks,
> Joshua
>

"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message 
news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> *and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a
> thesis

That sounds more like the "non-thesis project" option to me... My experience 
was that the "thesis" option was, "work on the professor's current pet 
projector that he's been working on for some years prior and will continue to 
work on after you leave."  Nothing wrong with that, but I'd stress that it's 
*very important* to make sure the professor is working on something *you 
actually give a damn about!*

> However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
> time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
> really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
> team but valuable none the less.

I suspect that it'd be very hard to find a school offering an 
off-campus/night-school MSEE in IC or RF design, as these typically require 
the use of large labs outfitted with lots of fancy equipment few people could 
realistically duplicate at home.  For MSEEs that are more "computer science" 
oriented, I'm sure it works fine.

I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of 
the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a 
degree to advance in title and hence salary.  From an employee's point of 
view... ok, fine, I can understand why they do it (no worse than going into EE 
in the first place primarily because the pay if good and you find the work 
"tolerable")... but from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP 
condones such activities.

---Joel

"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> writes:
> [...]
> However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
> time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
> really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
> team but valuable none the less.

I would caution the OP that, from what I've seen, employer-supported
(in either tuition pay and/or time away from work to attend class)
masters degrees are on the downswing. This was the reason I left my
previous employer, even though they advertised support in obtaining
an advanced degree.

If you're accepting a job based on an employer's promise to pay for a
masters, get it in writing. 
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "She's sweet on Wagner-I think she'd die for Beethoven.
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  She love the way Puccini lays down a tune, and
%%% 919-577-9882                %  Verdi's always creepin' from her room." 
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % "Rockaria", *A New World Record*, ELO   
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

On Jun 18, 5:59?pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:

> am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?

Experience counts too.
So, if you were not in the EE workforce before or during your BSEE
years, you might hold off on the Masters program, at least for now.
Here's why:

Time was, a Double-E degree was a guarantee of life-long employment.
Perhaps with a Fortune-500 Company, great benefits, retirement....

Nowadays, a lot of EE's (newly minted and otherwise) find themselves
scrambling for contract work.  (Not all, but a lot.)  Times ain't what
they used to be.  You are at the perfect crossroads, in a sense.  Take
some time, and find out.

If you find yourself leaning towards more education simply because job
prospects appear bleak (be honest!), I personally would face that
situation square in it's own reality.  Jobs are hemmoraging from the
US in general, (and on the whole, they are being replaced by lower-
pay, lower-skill, and much lower-satisfaction jobs IMO.)  Or they are
off-shored.   If that is an underlying reality in your part of the
world, or in your particular field of interest, make sure you bring it
to the surface before making a decision.

Also, I don't personally think 30 is too young to get your BSEE.

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:59:37 -0700, panfilero wrote:
> 
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical 
experience.

If you already have all of the money you need, then retire. ;-)

Good Luck!
Rich

panfilero wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

I too was 30 when I got my BEE. It was too long ago for my experience to 
be relevant, so I can offer only an observation, not advice. I got on 
fine without an advanced degree, but they are more necessary now than 
they were then. And even considering the more than 40-year interval, I 
was lucky to have advances as far as I did. (I was good. The luck was 
working for people who valued achievement more than credentials.)

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843507@example.net,
"Rich Grise" <rich@example.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:59:37 -0700, panfilero wrote:
>> 
>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
> 
> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
> you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
> experience.
> 
> If you already have all of the money you need, then retire. ;-)
> 
> Good Luck!
> Rich
> 
Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice. What do you
want to do? Do you have any passion for some specialty? In my day, I am
retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential EE. That seems
to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. Do you like working
at the bench in preference to design and analysis? Let that guide you.

Good luck!

Bill
-- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.

>
> Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice. What do you
> want to do? Do you have any passion for some specialty? In my day, I am
> retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential EE. That seems
> to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. Do you like working
> at the bench in preference to design and analysis? Let that guide you.
>

 Amateur Radio killed itself off by allowing appliance operators to go
wild. They should have insisted on taxing imported ahm equipment and
put a practical test in place like the one for an A&P license for the
Extra.

 As a career decision the MSEE makes sense only if very, very
carefully evaluated in terms of the future of the H-1B program, which
has killed EE/CS as a desireable career path for many Americans.

You can't compete with an Indian who will work for thirty or forty
thousand a year in Silicon Valley and live eight-up in a one room
apartment. I know a man that with a master's in EE and several years
experience in defense plants bought a bus and headed out to Silicon
Valley with the idea he'd live in the bus for awhile. This was a very
nice MCI MC-8 conversion formerly used by a famous country singer on
tour. He couldn't get hired in any engineering job at any rate of pay,
he even applied for engineering tech positions and they turned him
down, of course, as overqualified. He FINALLY (speaking very good
Spanish) had the wild ass idea of getting a Matricula Consular card
under a fake name-and to understand why it's funny he's a really
Nordic looking guy-and got a job at a big semiconductor company as a
fab maintenance person. He finally was able to get an engineering
support job under his real name, but the pay isn't a lot better. If he
didn't own the bus, and its economical 'toad' (a towed small car
behind it) outright he couldn't possibly live out there. As it stands
he dreads having to get California tags and insurance on the bus: the
toad will never get past CARB.

Salmon Egg wrote:

<snip>
> In my day, I am retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential EE.
> That seems to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. 

How on earth did the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy descend into such idiocy
(except for the homebrew ng)? I hadn't looked there for many years and am
aghast at what I see. This situation is certainly reflected on other
online amatuer radio venues on the Internet as well.

In the US, one could argue that FCC policy that has downgraded licensing
requirements since the late 1970s has played a significant role in
deficits of character, but what explains the online bad conduct of
amateurs from elsewhere?

Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the
amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality?

Regards,

Michael

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:40:40 -0500, msg <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

>Salmon Egg wrote:
>
><snip>
>> In my day, I am retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential EE.
>> That seems to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. 
>
>How on earth did the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy descend into such idiocy
>(except for the homebrew ng)? I hadn't looked there for many years and am
>aghast at what I see. This situation is certainly reflected on other
>online amatuer radio venues on the Internet as well.
>
>In the US, one could argue that FCC policy that has downgraded licensing
>requirements since the late 1970s has played a significant role in
>deficits of character, but what explains the online bad conduct of
>amateurs from elsewhere?
>
>Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the
>amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality?
>
>Regards,
>
>Michael

 Re-edjimucate 'em!

On 6/18/07 6:34 PM, in article
1182216882.444668.298530@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com, "Bret Ludwig"
<bretldwig@yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
>> 
>> Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice. What do you
>> want to do? Do you have any passion for some specialty? In my day, I am
>> retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential EE. That seems
>> to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. Do you like working
>> at the bench in preference to design and analysis? Let that guide you.
>> 
> 
> Amateur Radio killed itself off by allowing appliance operators to go
> wild. They should have insisted on taxing imported ahm equipment and
> put a practical test in place like the one for an A&P license for the
> Extra.

The purpose for most amateur radio activities has vanished. Operation during
emergencies such as Katrina is about the most useful activity I can think
of. Under ordinary circumstances communication is so cheap and more reliable
through submarine cable and satellite that the thrill is gone. In my day,
phone patch traffic for the military and others provided a service that was
not otherwise available. Today, even if I were active, I would prefer paying
a few cents a minute for a transcontinental phone call compared to running a
patch.
> 
> As a career decision the MSEE makes sense only if very, very
> carefully evaluated in terms of the future of the H-1B program, which
> has killed EE/CS as a desireable career path for many Americans.

I was a partial victim of the H-1B program in the 70's. That is why I am
against amnesty and guest workers at this time.
<snip> 

Bill
-- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.

On 6/18/07 6:40 PM, in article 137ectun5v07180@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
<msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

> Salmon Egg wrote:
> 
> <snip>
>> In my day, I am retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a potential
>> EE.
>> That seems to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying.
> 
> How on earth did the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy descend into such idiocy
> (except for the homebrew ng)? I hadn't looked there for many years and am
> aghast at what I see. This situation is certainly reflected on other
> online amatuer radio venues on the Internet as well.
> 
> In the US, one could argue that FCC policy that has downgraded licensing
> requirements since the late 1970s has played a significant role in
> deficits of character, but what explains the online bad conduct of
> amateurs from elsewhere?
> 
> Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the
> amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael

Not really. Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.

Don't blame the FCC. The US Navy no longer uses Morse code as far as I know.
Even short wave broadcasters have given up good frequencies because internet
over fiber gives more reliable and cheaper service.

Bill

-- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.

panfilero wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

Years ago this same question faced me.  Research showed the answer is
clear!  GET THE MSEE!!! Believe me the year or two (you should have
asked this question LONG ago Bunky! Many schools have programs that
let you get a BSEE and MSEE at the same time.) spent getting the
master's degree MORE than pays for itself. This is true in all
engineering fields, but especially in EE. Your starting salary will
jump-start and the BSEE guys who graduated with you will never catch
up!

For what it's worth, getting a PhD. is NOT worth it! The extended time
needed to get that degree, means that you fall back behind the MSEE
guys who are working and getting promoted. You NEVER catch up! Hence
the bottom line is one gets a PhD ONLY for reasons where it is
required, like say teaching but never to try to fast track your
salary.

And there is more. Once you hit industry and the job scene, you'll
find that although everyone makes a huge fuss about how important it
is to get on the job training and how nobody teaches anything in
college that is useful in a job setting (well except for bureaucratic
politics, of course), Fact Is, that the company you chose to work for
will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
me on this!

Get those forms in!

I hope this helps.

Benj

On Jun 18, 4:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>
> Thanks,
> Joshua

Joshua, I am assuming that you are in the United States
and you are interested in jobs in the United States.

It's hard to say anything that holds in generality, but some
companies nowadays don't even accept BS-level, fresh out
of university, new hires.  So at the very least it will open some
doors to you.  Whether those doors are attractive to you
depends on opportunities and the values you assign to them.

That said, given your hesitation (isn't that why you posted
this question), maybe the best thing to do is to go for the
master's if and only if you can get yourself into a good
program that makes you happy, or a project that you think will
make you a better engineer.  The increased potential salary is
worth it only if you can get to it :-).  And that is helped with a
degree from a better-known school or with an improved resume.

I don't think that age has much to do here, except for the higher
likelihood of having dependents.  That always imposes tough
constraints and challenges.

One thing that makes the scene a bit complicated is the
increasing popularity of the 5-year BS/MEng combo in the
United States.  That murks the waters a bit.  I think it's a great
deal for those who stay in school for the 5 years, because it
offers a chance at working on a good project before they leave
school.  But I don't know what that means to those who are
going back from full-time employment to pursue a master's
degree.

Finally, going for a PhD may not be sensible from a salary
perspective, but I'm glad to have done it since I was paid to do
it (albeit only student stipend and/or fellowships), I didn't have
to pay tuition, and now I can work at the level that I want to
within my company.  Your mileage may and probably will vary.

Cheers, and good luck on your decision.
Julius

On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:

> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
> me on this!

This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?

panfilero <panfilero@gmail.com> wrote in news:1182203977.820765.80400
@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

> Hello,
> 
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
> 
> Thanks,
> Joshua
> 
> 

Congrats on asking yourself the hard questions before making a decision.  
When an undergrad informs me of such a decision, I always suggest that 
the student take a really close look at why they want the advanced 
degree.

I think as a fresh BS at age 30, you might stand out a little in an 
applicant pool of other BS's, with employers seeing you as a little more 
mature than the rest of the pool  -- especially if you write the right 
sort of cover letter.  There is also the risk that they view you as 
indecisive, so make sure you have a good story about why your career path 
is just launching now. 

Whether or not the above gives you as much boost as a Masters might, or 
whether the practical experience you'd get as a working engineer would 
offset this, or whether your career clock is ticking too fast right now 
to justify the Masters is a lot harder to pin down, and your own personal 
goals will have much to do with the decision.

-- 
Scott
Reverse name to reply

On Jun 18, 5:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:

> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and

I would suggest you get a foot in the door experience-wise and get
into the workforce now, if you are able - and pursue the MSEE part-
time. Note that this also starts the clock on work experience for the
PE qualification, if you want to become one of the two or three
licensed PEs in your state.

One really good reason for doing it this way: many (most?)
corporations will pay for some or all of the tuition costs. If you
stay in school, you'll be further behind in terms of useful (on the
job) experience and deeper in debt. Free money is good; one of the
main things that pushed me to the job I'm in right now is that I can
soak up $20k of tuition for free (or more; it's limited only by the
number of credits I can take while keeping an A average).

Even if you graduate with an MSEE you will, by and large, still only
be eligible for entry-level positions because of your inexperience.

On Jun 19, 5:59 am, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>
> Thanks,
> Joshua

Without any solid reason i want to say to grab some commercial
opportunity and consider your further education as a part time thing,
perhaps life is itself a learning process. Yes, having a Master degree
does help to get certain jobs but some advertisers do prompt for age
factor as well. Like, Should be having master with below age 26 to or
so;)

Getting BSEE over 30 years does exhibit your passion for particular
profession. So, why not giving a chance to some commercial world?
worth a shot , BTW you can get to school at anytime for your Master.


ali

On Jun 19, 6:32 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> "cpope" <cep...@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
>
> news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
>
> > *and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a
> > thesis
>
> That sounds more like the "non-thesis project" option to me... My experience
> was that the "thesis" option was, "work on the professor's current pet
> projector that he's been working on for some years prior and will continue to
> work on after you leave."  Nothing wrong with that, but I'd stress that it's
> *very important* to make sure the professor is working on something *you
> actually give a damn about!*
>
> > However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
> > time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
> > really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
> > team but valuable none the less.
>
> I suspect that it'd be very hard to find a school offering an
> off-campus/night-school MSEE in IC or RF design, as these typically require
> the use of large labs outfitted with lots of fancy equipment few people could
> realistically duplicate at home.  For MSEEs that are more "computer science"
> oriented, I'm sure it works fine.
>
> I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of
> the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a
> degree to advance in title and hence salary.  From an employee's point of
> view... ok, fine, I can understand why they do it (no worse than going into EE
> in the first place primarily because the pay if good and you find the work
> "tolerable")... but from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
> condones such activities.
>
> ---Joel



In Addition to Joel:

If you feel that your purposed project or expected professor is doing
something  really extra then just go for that.

ali

(repost attempt, first post failed)

Salmon Egg wrote:
<snip>
 > Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
 > economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
 > earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
 > what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
 >

FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
at http://www.cybertheque.org/homebrew/rcvr

I hope to have measurements of its characteristics available
on the site soon also.

Regards,

Michael

msg wrote:
> Salmon Egg wrote:
> 
> <snip>
>> In my day, I am retired now, amateur radio was a passion for many a 
>> potential EE.
>> That seems to be replaced by computers now and ham radio is dying. 
> 
> How on earth did the rec.radio.amateur hierarchy descend into such idiocy
> (except for the homebrew ng)? I hadn't looked there for many years and am
> aghast at what I see. This situation is certainly reflected on other
> online amatuer radio venues on the Internet as well.
> 
> In the US, one could argue that FCC policy that has downgraded licensing
> requirements since the late 1970s has played a significant role in
> deficits of character, but what explains the online bad conduct of
> amateurs from elsewhere?
> 
> Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the
> amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael
I agree with the other posts. If we can't interest students in Ham Radio 
early, it's going down the drain. If anyone wants to speak to someone 
new now, they can get on a chat room...

We are becoming a consumer nation, producing less and less as time goes 
on. Technical jobs, even some computer jobs are being off-shored, 
removing the desire for new students in colleges to pick non-technical 
fields.

Math and Science/Physics is being dumbed down in early schools, and many 
schools can't afford to pay the better teachers. In part due to the need 
to allow Hispanic students to compete. Some schools, I've heard, even 
require Spanish education for prospective teachers!

The PC (Politically Correct) slant is affecting the Universities most of 
all. My son was going for a Math degree but was turned off with the 
requirement of 30 semester hours of multicultural core classes, and 
dropped out with only two Math classes to go! Literature replaced 
American Literature, with only 3 of the required books being written by 
authors in the US!). A BSEE at several Universities now requires 20%-50% 
more hours of Liberal Arts than 30 years ago, probably due to the low 
number of tenured Math/Sciences professors when graduation requirements 
are voted on...

A class in Black Studies was a required course in both my boy's High 
School too. I would expect that to change if the current Amnesty Bill 
passes, as the largest minority would be Hispanic then. (Well, after the 
over 55 who don't count -- we're too old to get "real" jobs when we're 
let go due to downsizing and outsourcing.)

Gary KB9CG

larwe wrote:
> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
> 
>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>> me on this!
> 
> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
> 
True. They will actually promote the guy who wears a suit. I've seen 
smart people wear a suit every day from graduation, and I've seen idiots 
do it. I've never seen anyone wear a suit every day and fail to make 
rapid progress, though.

Steve

In news:137e20k6h1nqpa4@corp.supernews.com timestamped Mon, 18 Jun
2007 15:32:50 -0700, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesSpam@yahoo.com>
posted:
     ""cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
     news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
     [..]
     
     > However, these days you shouldn't have to choose. Many schools have night
     > time MS programs and you can probably get your employer to pay for it. Not
     > really the same experience as being on campus, full time, with a research
     > team but valuable none the less.
     
     I suspect that it'd be very hard to find a school offering an
     off-campus/night-school MSEE in IC or RF design, as these typically require
     the use of large labs outfitted with lots of fancy equipment few people could
     realistically duplicate at home.  For MSEEs that are more "computer science"
     oriented, I'm sure it works fine."

I am aware of two broadly similar software engineering primary degrees
from a faculty: one an evening and weekend version of the regular
version. Almost everybody doing the evening and weekend version had a
normal supposedly fulltime job in information technology while doing
their degrees and the consequences of trying to do a degree and a job
tended to be bad: inferior grades; a much higher failure rate; and
many people would end up failing and repeating a year.

I myself am a Ph.D. candidate in electronic engineering and as such,
attending lessons and trying to pass exams is not as major a component
of the degree, but I still had to do some. Though all the lectures
(and, if the assessment was based on a sat exam instead of project work
after the course, the exams) were held during normal working hours, I
would need to conduct my research during the remaining normal working
hours so I would study for the exams during my supposedly spare time
(e.g. when trying to eat dinner). This was technically doable and my
grades were fairly okay but some of the grades could have been better
and grades do not actually matter for this Ph.D.

Anyway, though I technically could cope for a few weeks with doing
research (or a job) and attending lectures and exams and doing
projects and homework for a subject without a sat exam, I realized
that those people doing primary degrees while also working must have
been suffering. Most people who have responded in this thread
supporting working and studying seem to have tried it themselves, but
I would recommend restricting activities to either chiefly working or chiefly
doing a degree for any stint lasting more than a few months. I do not
wish to suggest which of these options is a good one, just that mixing
them together seems to be a bad idea to me.
     
     "I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of
     the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a
     degree to advance in title and hence salary.  [..]
     from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
     condones such activities.
     
     ---Joel"

Many people attend things because they are forced to and because the
people who force them to attend do not really realize how the
privileges are unappreciated and misused. E.g. people who attend
conferences but do nothing there except read a newspaper instead of
paying attention to the presentations; people whose expenses to attend
conferences actually end up being used to pay for their vacations as
they do not bother to attend the presentations; and people whose
employers pay them to attend C++ standardization meetings who play
computer games during the meetings. I did not make up any of those
examples.

Sincerely,
Colin Paul Gloster

"Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
> On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843507@example.net,
> "Rich Grise" <rich@example.net> wrote:
>> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
>> you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
>> experience.
> Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.

I have to disagree a little here.  If your goal is to be, e.g., an analog IC 
designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult to do these 
days without the formal education.  The problem is that building ICs requires 
big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are notoriously bad 
about using academic credentials as the first "gatekeepers" to employment.

On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some digital 
design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent chance of getting 
a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose useful person), it is 
reasonable to just learn on the job.  Perhaps not the most secure career 
strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route and it 
works just fine for them.

"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>
>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>> me on this!
>
> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>

This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence has 
always trumped credentials every place I have worked.  And an MSEE typically 
fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow thesis area.

We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that the 
engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are much 
more productive.

Mark Walsh

Steve Underwood wrote:
> larwe wrote:
>> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>>
>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>>> me on this!
>>
>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>>
> True. They will actually promote the guy who wears a suit. I've seen 
> smart people wear a suit every day from graduation, and I've seen idiots 
> do it. I've never seen anyone wear a suit every day and fail to make 
> rapid progress, though.

For 25 tears, I wore jeans and flannel shirts (with a sports jacket for 
the pockets) most days at work. I wore a suit when I had to attend a 
meeting with outside people for the first few times, and I kept a 
necktie in my bottom drawer "just in case". I several times turned down 
offers to become a manager. For me, the extra pay wasn't worth the 
hassle, and I would have hated giving up my soldering iron. I was much 
better off doing what I enjoyed.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Mark Walsh wrote:
> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>>
>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>>> me on this!
>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>>
> 
> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence has 
> always trumped credentials every place I have worked.  And an MSEE typically 
> fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow thesis area.
> 
> We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that the 
> engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are much 
> more productive.

I always asked about car and bicycle maintenance when I interviewed job 
candidates. I've rarely seen a good engineer who was a poor mechanic. 
When quizzing new graduates about technical competence, I asked what 
subjects they felt they knew best and concentrated on that. There's no 
good comes of sandbagging someone with a topic he's weak in, and if a 
person's best is poor, I'm ready to accept his word that the rest is poorer.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Jerry Avins wrote:

   ...

> For 25 tears, I wore jeans ...

For 25 *years*, I wore jeans

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> wrote in 
news:pfqdnS0MMaFHmeXbnZ2dnUVZ_uvinZ2d@rcn.net:

> For 25 *years*, I wore jeans

Thanks-- for a second, I though Question Mark (of The Mysterios) might have 
reemerged!

-- 
Scott
Reverse name to reply

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 12:31:20 -0400, Jerry Avins wrote:
> Jerry Avins wrote:
>    ...
>> For 25 tears, I wore jeans ...
> 
> For 25 *years*, I wore jeans

Paging Dr. Freud, Dr. Sigmund Freud....

;-)
Rich

"Bret Ludwig" <bretldwig@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:1182216882.444668.298530@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> Amateur Radio killed itself off by allowing appliance operators to go
> wild.

I have my amateur radio license and all, but at the end of the day, what does 
it get you?  The ability to go out and legally  transmit on a bunch of 
frequencies that you otherwise couldn't.

This is no longer all that horribly interesting to most people, especially 
when you consider that historically hams prmiarily used those frequencies for 
conversing about nothing in particular (their use for, e.g., propagation 
studies, coding studies, etc. has always been miniscule in comparison), and 
today anyone with Internet access or a cell phone can do the same thing... and 
a lot more.  I have a fancy PDA phone that let's me access any web site on the 
Internet -- including secure sites -- at speeds in the "many hundreds of kbps" 
range, and plenty of my colleagues do as well.  What does the *typical* ham 
have today?  A 2m HT that's hitting a voice repeater.  While I expect it's 
primarily lack of interest and funds that precludes hams from building similar 
systems, the fact that the FCC regulates amateur radio with rather obsolete 
rules -- only certain modulation formats are allowable, for instance --  
definitely doesn't help either.  (For every licensed amateur with a 2m HT, I 
suspect that something under 5% have any form of a digital radio system, and 
probably <0.5% have a *high-speed* system, say, 128kbps or better.  With cell 
phones, I'd guess that at least half have some data access, and at least 10% 
have high-speed data access... a number that will only increase over time.)

I'm not trying to "dis" amateur radio... I think it's a great thing, I very 
much enjoy it, and recommend those with an interest in radio give it a try... 
just pointing out that there's no longer the motivation to become a ham as 
there once was (i.e., years ago, if you wanted to talk with people wirelessly 
amateur radio was often the only choice).

> As a career decision the MSEE makes sense only if very, very
> carefully evaluated in terms of the future of the H-1B program, which
> has killed EE/CS as a desireable career path for many Americans.

I'd say it's only killed it as a desirable career path for those who really 
weren't particularly passionate or good at it in the first place.

On the other hand, I can definitely see why someone who's not sure if they 
want to be an engineer or a businessman deciding to go the MBA route instead 
of the EE route these days.  Plenty of competition there as well, of course.

> He couldn't get hired in any engineering job at any rate of pay,
> he even applied for engineering tech positions and they turned him
> down, of course, as overqualified.

It's not a crime to leave out some of your prior job experience and 
educational qualifications on your resume. :-)

There's also a lot more to the country than Silicon Valley.

> As it stands
> he dreads having to get California tags and insurance on the bus: the
> toad will never get past CARB.

It really sounds like he should try to find a job outside of California...

---Joel

"msg" <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote in message 
news:137ectun5v07180@corp.supernews.com...
> Do you see any hope of restoring an engineering orientation to the
> amateur radio services and if so by what instrumentality?

I don't see this happening.  People have successfully argued that many of the 
old tests (such as Morse code!) were outdated and should be dropped (quite 
reasonable, I think), but the culture today is very much against replacing 
those old tests with up-to-date tests in there place.  Hence, getting an 
amateur radio license today is not much harder than getting a driver's 
license.  Even that's not entirely a bad thing, but it makes it clear why hams 
today reflect a pretty "generic" slice of society (plenty of bad in with the 
good) compared to the largley "niche engineering" slice it once did (somewhat 
more good than bad...).

"Colin Paul Gloster" <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote in message 
news:f58scd$u77$1@newsserver.cilea.it...
> Almost everybody doing the evening and weekend version had a
> normal supposedly fulltime job in information technology while doing
> their degrees and the consequences of trying to do a degree and a job
> tended to be bad: inferior grades; a much higher failure rate; and
> many people would end up failing and repeating a year.

I know someone who used to teach for the University of Phoenix on-line.  She 
said there was a lot of pressure to dumb down the course, and she was having a 
hard time doing that and still making it particularly relevant.  Apparently 
UoP did this enough that at some point they were threatened with having their 
accreditation yanked (for those getting degrees on-line -- I imagine their 
physical campus courses are fine) if they didn't stop!

In my own MSEE program, a significant number of students (including myself... 
<cough>) took jobs after finishing coursework and proceeded to take a 
looonnnggg time (two to three years... <COUGH!>) to get around to finishing 
their theses.  Part of this is funding related -- none of us were given a 
funded quarter to *just* work on our theses, so for most people getting a job 
looked awfully attractive.  In retrospect it probably would be better to just 
bite the bullet and spend three months doing nothing but thesis work and 
remove the albatross around one's neck, so to speak.

I'm sure I sound quite whiney, though -- my late grandfather, who obtained his 
BSEE in l930-something? worked full time while going to school.  He commented 
once that he wished he had had more time to spend on his studies, that he 
literally was doing nothing but working, attending classes, studying, eating 
and sleeping at times.  His grades were fine, but not straight A's, and he 
claimed that they could have been if he had had that extra time for studying. 
Times have changed a lot, of course, and realistically someone without 
financial support today will be taking out student loans.  At least that does 
give them the option of spending more time studying... if they choose to do 
so.

---Joel

On Jun 19, 12:11 pm, "Mark Walsh" <mwa...@rogue-engr.com> wrote:

> >> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
> >> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.
>
> > This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are
>
> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but

It's not even true in this case. I should know; I work in a big, big
multinational with enough bureaucracy to make even a civil servant
gibber in terror. We have people from the senior engineering level all
the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
promoted on a merit/achievement basis.

Mark Walsh wrote:

> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> 
>>On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>>smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>>>me on this!
>>
>>This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>>
> 
> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence has 
> always trumped credentials every place I have worked.  And an MSEE typically 
> fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow thesis area.

It depends.

I found that when hiring a freshman just from school, the BSEEs are 
worseless. They don't know anything, they can do nothing and, what is 
much worse, they don't want to do anything about that. It will be years 
and years till they reach the level of apprentice.

The fresh MSEEs and PhDs are lot better in the general; it takes only 6 
month or so to make them productive. The advanced degree is an indicator 
of diligence, discipline and ambition; this is good.

> We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that the 
> engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are much 
> more productive.

I consider the ability to work independently as the very important 
parameter. This includes setting and accomplishing the goals and the 
self education in the course of the project. BSEEs are not ready for 
that; they expect somebody to change their pants at all time.


> Mark Walsh


Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

http://www.abvolt.com

"Vladimir Vassilevsky" <antispam_bogus@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:wvUdi.2213$vi5.634@newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...
> It depends.

I think you're guilty of making some generalizations as well here, Vladimir. 
Yes, many BSEEs aren't able to "run a project" (even a very small one) on 
their own, but some are.  Similarly, I've had MSEEs and PhDs whose practical 
skills were so poor I honestly think I could have done better standing in the 
an engineering school's student union, talked to a couple dozen students as 
they walked by, and returned with the best candidate.

P.S.: Since this is related to your area... we did have a guy come in to 
interview about doing DSP work, and I asked him how he might go about taking 
some digitized signal he had in the memory of a DSP and reversing its 
spectrum -- preferably as efficiently as possible.  His answer was that he'd 
take the FFT, reverse it, and then perform an iFFT. :-(  That's the sort of 
answer I might expect from someone right out of school, but not from someone 
who'd been in industry for many years as he had.

P.P.S.: I clicked on your web page.  Shouldn't that circuit board photo you 
have at least be of a DSP rather than a microcontroller? :-)  Or do you do a 
lot of "hard core" DSP in microcontrollers?

---Joel

On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  

No.  Enroll in Law School.

"Jerry Avins" <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message 
news:pfqdnTIMMaENmeXbnZ2dnUVZ_uuqnZ2d@rcn.net...
> Mark Walsh wrote:
>> "larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
>> news:1182257764.827189.134090@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>>> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
>>>> me on this!
>>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>>>
>>
>> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but competence 
>> has always trumped credentials every place I have worked.  And an MSEE 
>> typically fails to add any significant competence outside of the narrow 
>> thesis area.
>>
>> We all have strengths and weaknesses in various areas, but I find that 
>> the engineers that I hire who are generalists rather than specialists are 
>> much more productive.
>
> I always asked about car and bicycle maintenance when I interviewed job 
> candidates. I've rarely seen a good engineer who was a poor mechanic. When 
> quizzing new graduates about technical competence, I asked what subjects 
> they felt they knew best and concentrated on that. There's no good comes 
> of sandbagging someone with a topic he's weak in, and if a person's best 
> is poor, I'm ready to accept his word that the rest is poorer.
>
> Jerry
> -- 
> Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.

This is an excellent approach to separating the engineers that can actually 
create a product that works from those who can generate the equations that 
show that it should have worked.  I've hired engineers fresh from school at 
both the BSEE and MSEE level who seemed to think that they should get 
partial credit for getting a project mostly done to spec.

I have received some offline communications:

   I sense some resentment/bias against advanced degrees in some of these
   posts? I'll stick by my original points: getting accepted to grad school
   indicates the person is a good student, they can handle advanced 
material,
  and they've done at least one major project that had a beginning, a 
middle,
  and an end.

My own MS was in applied mathematics.  It has been an valuable part of my 
education, but rarely used in the last 20 years.  I spend most of my days in 
the lab or the machine shop doing what I love to do.  Lifelong learning in a 
formal classroom setting, on the job, and through independent study is an 
integral part of being a competent engineer.  I send my engineers to classes 
of varying value frequently.  I am currently giving full support to one of 
my engineers who is pursuing his masters, both through tuition payment and 
extensive time off.

I have no beef with credentials, but they aren't an acceptable substitute 
nor necessarily an indicator of competence.

Mark Walsh

On Jun 19, 12:38?pm, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> "Bret Ludwig" <bretld...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1182216882.444668.298530@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Amateur Radio killed itself off by allowing appliance operators to go
> > wild.
>
> I have my amateur radio license and all, but at the end of the day, what does
> it get you?  The ability to go out and legally  transmit on a bunch of
> frequencies that you otherwise couldn't.

>From the late 80's until just a few years ago, I was the point-man for
RF Radio Interference issue abatement for an ever-changing number of
tower sites (and company names) (from as little as 12, to as many as
8,000 towers.  And all types: cellular, paging, AM/FM/TV, rotatable
log periodics, C-band uplink, etc...)

At the time, I refused to get my Amateur license.  (Even at the
encouragement of my radio friends, who could never quite understand my
aversion to it.)

What turned me off most were the countless "back-to-back Mitrek mobile
repeaters", and the ensuing interference complaints & extra workload
that would often generate.  And having met many a HAM, I just didn't
feel like I ever fit into that crowd.

Now that I'm a bit older, and more importatnly not doing interference
work anymore (unless someone pays me big bucks!), I've warmed up a
little.  HAMS are definitely a social bunch, but I'm not sure as a
whole, they are advancing the art anymore..??  I think THAT is the
"decline" we're all trying to put our fingers on.  A lot of HAMS just
buy gear off the shelf.
And finite element analysis (which exceeds most amateur's
comprehension) took over the rest.

That's a far cry from "Honey, can you bring home some milk?"

-mpm

"Mark Walsh" <mwalsh@rogue-engr.com> wrote in message 
news:467821fb$0$505$815e3792@news.qwest.net...
> I've hired engineers fresh from school at both the BSEE and MSEE level who 
> seemed to think that they should get partial credit for getting a project 
> mostly done to spec.

This is the same ways most companies operate today, so it's not too 
surprising.  Indeed, it's quite standard business practice that, yeah, 
engineering and marketing come up with a set of specs and deadlines, and its 
understood that engineering will make its best effort to deliver what's agreed 
upon by the deadline, but that doesn't always happen.  Maybe I've been working 
in the wrong companies, but I can think of *very few* occasions where project 
schedules as *originally* set were ever actually met.  What usually happens is 
that features are dropped as deadlines approach, and if something *has* to be 
shipped, if the extra features were based on software, they're promised as a 
downloadable field upgrade.

I'm not suggesting this is necessarily how things should be, just that in the 
commercial world very few schedules and specs are truly set in stone and 
significant "partial credit" is received for getting projects "mostly" done to 
spec.

Look at Microsoft: a lot of what they originally promised for Windows Vista 
isn't there yet, since they ran out of time to implement it... but they 
shipped anyway.

A pragmatic approach with your engineers is to sit down and make it clear what 
features of a widget are absolutely necessary, which are quite desirable but 
can be skipped if push comes to shove, and which really are just icing on the 
cake.  An engineering manager who suggests that all features of a widget are 
equally important and all are absolutely necessary is not one that most 
engineers will respect.

---Joel

"mpm" <mpmillard@aol.com> wrote in message 
news:1182278831.425472.122400@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> Now that I'm a bit older, and more importatnly not doing interference
> work anymore (unless someone pays me big bucks!), I've warmed up a
> little.

I primarily "joined up" so that I would have somewhere to test out higher 
power transmitters legally.  I'm not at all a social person, although I do 
enjoy some of the seminars you see at the hamfests and of course just 
"shopping" for parts.  Hams are generally quite pragmatic, so you can pick up 
a lot more, say,  industry-applicable antenna information at their seminars 
than you would from, e.g., Krauss's excellent book.

> HAMS are definitely a social bunch, but I'm not sure as a
> whole, they are advancing the art anymore..??

No, they aren't that much, and it's understandable when you look at just how 
complicated the "competition" (cell phones!) are.  There *are* hams out there 
doing quite sophisticated work -- folks running EM simulators for antenna 
design, folks creating pretty fancy modulation techniques with FEC using DSP, 
the digital voice guys, etc. -- but it is a tiny proportion of the ham 
community.

Have you ever had the chance to go to Dayton (the annual national conference)? 
It's very much worth it, since one trip gives you a lot of insight into how 
amateur radio encompasses everything from, "I used to be a CB'er, but the FCC 
confiscated my linear and my buddy told me I'd be legit if I passed this here 
35 question multiple-choice test!" to "Yeah, we're implementing some turbo 
codes on top of our OFDM and looking at processing with a few dedicated 32 bit 
DSPs or might move to FPGAs if they run out of steam..."

---Joel

On Jun 19, 1:25?pm, larwe <zwsdot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>We have people from the senior engineering level all
> the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
> promoted on a merit/achievement basis.

In general, I completely concur with this experience.
It doesn't take a BSEE (or any?) degree to get ahead in life.
The two wealthiest people I know didn't even go to college! (And "No",
they weren't born with it.)

I also know a Ph.D. psychiatrist who delivers newspapers for a
living.  (I am not making this up!)
And another brilliant MIT grad from the 60's who frankly has trouble
keeping up with Microsoft Word.

I can also tell you that in Electronics / Communciations, it matters
not what you learned or did six months ago in school.
The field changes so fast, the stuff you were working on yesterday is
probably already obsolete.
Those with the aptitude, ambition, and ability to "keep up" are the
ones who will prevail.

But I would take a slight exception on this one point:
I believe manufacturing entities are much more likely to place (undo?)
emphasis on higher education.
I am fairly convinced this boils down primarily to liability
containment issues, etc...
--which for the original poster, you're not going to get to right out
of school anyway, so it's not relevant.

Is any of this helping??

"Simon S Aysdie" <gwhite@ti.com> wrote in message
news:1182275670.796715.304680@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> > anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> > recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> > question is, is it worth it?
>
> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>

Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark

On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

I worked with two engineers whe were pursuing their masters in night
school, one in EE, the other CS (and I won't bother to mention the MBA
candidates).  The work they did for their thesis work was less
challendging than the projects we were running at work, and they took
too long at it, also.

I avoided the graduate school discipline by taking extension courses
that seemed appropriate to my work (C Programming, Neural Networks,
Kalmann Filtering, Fiber-Optic Communications, etc).  I really missed
an opportunity by not taking an early program in Network Architecture
- live and learn.

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Steve Underwood wrote:
>> larwe wrote:
>>> Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over
>>>> the smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to
>>>> offer.  Trust me on this!
>>>
>>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce,
>>> are you?
>>
>> True. They will actually promote the guy who wears a suit. I've
>> seen smart people wear a suit every day from graduation, and
>> I've seen idiots do it. I've never seen anyone wear a suit every
>> day and fail to make rapid progress, though.
> 
> For 25 tears, I wore jeans and flannel shirts (with a sports
> jacket for the pockets) most days at work. I wore a suit when I
> had to attend a meeting with outside people for the first few
> times, and I kept a necktie in my bottom drawer "just in case".
> I several times turned down offers to become a manager. For me,
> the extra pay wasn't worth the hassle, and I would have hated
> giving up my soldering iron. I was much better off doing what I
> enjoyed.

Whether or not you can get away with all that depends highly on the
firm and position you occupy.  I was lucky, in that I never needed
many clothes.  Or at least that is how I remember it.  (US and
Canada).

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

larwe wrote:
> "Mark Walsh" <mwa...@rogue-engr.com> wrote:
> 
>>>> will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
>>>> smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.
>>
>>> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are
>>
>> This may be true for companies with large bureaucracies, but
> 
> It's not even true in this case. I should know; I work in a big, big
> multinational with enough bureaucracy to make even a civil servant
> gibber in terror. We have people from the senior engineering level all
> the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
> promoted on a merit/achievement basis.

I know you know better than to strip attributions for material you
actually quote :-)

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Jun 19, 4:43?pm, Spehro Pefhany <speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat>
wrote:


> I don't think there are many who would choose to be a broke, unemployed lawyer.


Scooter Libby??


....sorry, could not resist. :)
-mpm

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:17:51 -0400, the renowned "cpope"
<cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>
>"Simon S Aysdie" <gwhite@ti.com> wrote in message
>news:1182275670.796715.304680@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hello,
>> >
>> > I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>> > anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>> > recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> > question is, is it worth it?
>>
>> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>>
>
>Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
>unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark

See, that's the sort of thinking that depresses engineering pay. I
don't think there are many who would choose to be a broke, unemployed
lawyer. 


Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

Joel Kolstad wrote:


> I think you're guilty of making some generalizations as well here, Vladimir.

This is my personal experience with hiring freshmen from school. As 
pointed by many, the grown up engineer is judged by his merits. One of 
the not so many merits of a freshman is the diligence demonstrated in 
obtaining the degree.

> Yes, many BSEEs aren't able to "run a project" (even a very small one) on 
> their own, but some are.  Similarly, I've had MSEEs and PhDs whose practical 
> skills were so poor 

I know :) That sort of people can be good at paperwork though. Somebody 
has to do the boring part, too :)


> I honestly think I could have done better standing in the 
> an engineering school's student union, talked to a couple dozen students as 
> they walked by, and returned with the best candidate.

That is exactly what we tried. It appeared that the percentage of the 
good guys with BSEEs is 1% vs somewhat 10% in MSEEs. It is just more 
economical to draw from MSEEs.

> P.S.: Since this is related to your area... we did have a guy come in to 
> interview about doing DSP work, and I asked him how he might go about taking 
> some digitized signal he had in the memory of a DSP and reversing its 
> spectrum -- preferably as efficiently as possible.  His answer was that he'd 
> take the FFT, reverse it, and then perform an iFFT. :-(   That's the sort of
> answer I might expect from someone right out of school, but not from someone 
> who'd been in industry for many years as he had.

There is a zillion of possible methods for the spectral inversion 
depending on what exactly is required. Perhaps, the simplest is 
multiplying every second sample by -1.

> P.P.S.: I clicked on your web page.  Shouldn't that circuit board photo you 
> have at least be of a DSP rather than a microcontroller? :-)  Or do you do a 
> lot of "hard core" DSP in microcontrollers?

For DSP, ADI BlackFin is the main workhorse. We also work with TMS 28xx 
and 55xx. As for the small MCUs, 68HC12 is the preference, and, indeed, 
we do some DSP work with it as well as with Atmel AVR.


Vladimir Vassilevsky

DSP and Mixed Signal Design Consultant

http://www.abvolt.com

Joel Kolstad wrote:
> "Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message 
> news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
> 
>>On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843507@example.net,
>>"Rich Grise" <rich@example.net> wrote:
>>
>>>It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
>>>you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
>>>experience.
>>
>>Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.
> 
> 
> I have to disagree a little here.  If your goal is to be, e.g., an analog IC 
> designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult to do these 
> days without the formal education.  The problem is that building ICs requires 
> big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are notoriously bad 
> about using academic credentials as the first "gatekeepers" to employment.
> 
> On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some digital 
> design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent chance of getting 
> a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose useful person), it is 
> reasonable to just learn on the job.  Perhaps not the most secure career 
> strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route and it 
> works just fine for them.
> 
> 
He didn't really say what his main interest was, so it is hard to tell...

20 years ago, when I went for my Masters, I picked UCSB for two reasons 
- one, the great location, and two - they were doing free electron laser 
research there, and I had an interest in laser launch systems for space 
travel.

Now, when I got there, I found out that one - you couldn't afford to 
live there, and two - the laser research was all going on in the Physics 
department, not the EE department, and the only faculty member in EE 
that had worked with them retired last year... ;-)

Charlie

"Vladimir Vassilevsky" <antispam_bogus@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:sdXdi.5171$bP5.559@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net...
> There is a zillion of possible methods for the spectral inversion depending 
> on what exactly is required. Perhaps, the simplest is multiplying every 
> second sample by -1.

Yes, exactly -- inverting every other sample is a very good answer.  "FFT, 
reverse, iFFT" is probably about the worst you could do and shows no 
"practical" experience.

> For DSP, ADI BlackFin is the main workhorse. We also work with TMS 28xx and 
> 55xx. As for the small MCUs, 68HC12 is the preference, and, indeed, we do 
> some DSP work with it as well as with Atmel AVR.

I only have experience with TI 55x DSPs, but I've always been told the ADI 
chips are somewhat friendlier to program, if a little slower.

---Joel

"Charlie Edmondson" <edmondson@ieee.org> wrote in message 
news:4678435a$1@news.cadence.com...
> Now, when I got there, I found out that one - you couldn't afford to live 
> there, and two - the laser research was all going on in the Physics 
> department, not the EE department, and the only faculty member in EE that 
> had worked with them retired last year... ;-)

Nice.  I was in the microwaves department (part of the "school of electrical 
engineering and computer sciences"), and ended up doing circuit modeling.  It 
happened to involve components at GHz frequencies, but at least in the 
research I did the frequencies were pretty irrelevant -- they could have been 
1-3Hz or 1-3THz rather than the 1-3GHz they were and my thesis would have been 
the same.  (Much of the time, for numerical accuracy reasons, you ended up 
normalizing a lot of the data to, e.g., 1Hz or 1 rad/s anyway...)

There had been some early discussion of doing some cool RFID stuff, but 
unfortunately we weren't able to get funding for it.  Circuit modeling was 
funded, so there I was...

What *did* you end up researching?

Vladimir Vassilevsky wrote:

   ...

> I found that when hiring a freshman just from school, the BSEEs are 
> worseless. They don't know anything, they can do nothing and, what is 
> much worse, they don't want to do anything about that. It will be years 
> and years till they reach the level of apprentice.

You over generalize. My boss in a small development lab threw me out 
(well,strongly urged me to leave). I was one of two technicians there -- 
the other had been with the firm since before I was born! The boss said 
that I was already doing the work of an engineer, I might as well bet 
the diploma and get paid like one. (One of the engineers there had no 
diploma beyond high school, but he was a real genius. George Gauthrin, 
AKA Crazy George, was the guy who invented the 60-dB low-distortion AGC 
that got us the Mercury capsule audio contract.)

> The fresh MSEEs and PhDs are lot better in the general; it takes only 6 
> month or so to make them productive. The advanced degree is an indicator 
> of diligence, discipline and ambition; this is good.

Some fresh Ph.D.s I worked with were inclined to ignore the importance 
of the curved side on a 'lytic symbol, thereby making loud noises. One 
inserted a wood screw with my chisel-point soldering iron, then asked me 
what the plug and cord were for.

   ...

Jerry

P.S. "Worseless"; a good word. I like it!
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Mark Walsh wrote:

   ...

> I have no beef with credentials, but they aren't an acceptable substitute 
> nor necessarily an indicator of competence.

When I was am MTS at RCA Labs, the division president, when he was 
escorting a visitor, would stop me in the corridor and introduce me as 
"The only staff member we have with a steam-driven pencil sharpener." 
(He neglected to add that I was one of the very few staff members 
without an advanced degree.) I then gave the obligatory explanation that 
in order to avoid tending a boiler, I ran it off the compressed-air 
supply. The visitor and I would then shake hands and go on our ways.

If I decide to abandon retirement, I'll ask you for a job.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
<msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

> (repost attempt, first post failed)
> 
> Salmon Egg wrote:
> <snip>
>> Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>> economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>> earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>> what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
>> 
> 
> FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
> at <snip>
> 
> I hope to have measurements of its characteristics available
> on the site soon also.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michael

I do not know if this poster is malicious, but I ran into problems trying
his site. I had to force quit my browser to continue.

Bill

-- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:57:54 -0700, Salmon Egg wrote:
> On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
> 
>> (repost attempt, first post failed)
>> 
>> Salmon Egg wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>> economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>> earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>> what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
>> 
>> FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>> at <snip>
>> 
>> I hope to have measurements of its characteristics available
>> on the site soon also.
> 
> I do not know if this poster is malicious, but I ran into problems trying
> his site. I had to force quit my browser to continue.

I get a bunch of java crap that doesn't want to talk to me unless I go
through some hoops, which I don't do on websites.

Cheers!
Rich

Salmon Egg wrote:

>>
>>FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>>at <snip>

>  I ran into problems trying
> his site. I had to force quit my browser to continue.
> 

Apologies for any problems you may have experienced. The
main page uses a java applet to handle the remote-control
session with the receiver.  It is known to work well
on Netscape/Mozilla and IE on Win32 using JRE1.4.x and
on Netscape/Mozilla on Solaris; I don't have many reports
of how well it works on MacOS/OS X, Linux or other X-windows
OS implementations.

What browser/OS were you using? Did you look at the Java
Console messages in your browser?

Your newsgroup posting headers include domains 'prodigy.com'
and 'yahoo.sbc.com'; are you using some kind of bundled
browser/Internet access software that may be conflicting
with Java on your machine? I also see reference to
Microsoft Entourage (I am not familiar with that client).

It is difficult to provide a client-side realtime browser-
embedded control method without using Java or undesirably
Microsoft-specific active controls (which I'm not using).

If anyone has problems, I'd appreciate a report.

Regards,

Michael
(msg _at_ cybertheque _dot_ org)

On 6/19/07 2:57 PM, in article C29D9F72.80C89%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net,
"Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
> <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:
> 
>> (repost attempt, first post failed)
>> 
>> Salmon Egg wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>> economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>> earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>> what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
>>> 
>> 
>> FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>> at <snip>
>> 
>> I hope to have measurements of its characteristics available
>> on the site soon also.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Michael
> 
> I do not know if this poster is malicious, but I ran into problems trying
> his site. I had to force quit my browser to continue.
> 
> Bill
> 
> -- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.
> 
> 

It worked for me, as far as I went, but it is klunky.

Don

Rich Grise wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:57:54 -0700, Salmon Egg wrote:
> 
>>On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
>>
>>
>>>(repost attempt, first post failed)
>>>
>>>Salmon Egg wrote:
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>>Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>>>economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>>>earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>>>what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.

My purpose in posting was to suggest that homebrewing can be cost-
effective (I certainly can't afford $500-$2500 for a decent
receiver).

>>>FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>>>at <snip>

I had hoped that actually using my receiver would illustrate the
point that a receiver with useful charactersitics (S/N, sensitivity,
coverage, resolution) can be built by anyone with modest engineering
skills on a budget (I spent perhaps $30.00 total for parts I did
not have on hand).

> 
> 
> I get a bunch of java crap that doesn't want to talk to me unless I go
> through some hoops, which I don't do on websites.

Sorry Rich, I did not intend to promulgate 'crap'; you never accused me
of that in the NG (c.a.e) before.

Regards,

Michael

On 6/19/07 12:17 PM, in article 46782c74$0$16580$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,
"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:

>> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>> 
> 
> Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
> unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark

Many smart people who are interested in making money do go to law school
because it is a better road to wealth than engineering or science is.

Bill
-- 
Iraq: About three Virginia Techs a month

On 6/19/07 3:44 PM, in article 137gmupe7ck90ed@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
<msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

> What browser/OS were you using? Did you look at the Java
> Console messages in your browser?

I was using Safari and got into an infinite loop.

Bill
-- Support the troops. Impeach Bush. Oh, I forgot about Cheney.

Joel Kolstad wrote:

> "Charlie Edmondson" <edmondson@ieee.org> wrote in message 
> news:4678435a$1@news.cadence.com...
> 
>>Now, when I got there, I found out that one - you couldn't afford to live 
>>there, and two - the laser research was all going on in the Physics 
>>department, not the EE department, and the only faculty member in EE that 
>>had worked with them retired last year... ;-)
> 
> 
> Nice.  I was in the microwaves department (part of the "school of electrical 
> engineering and computer sciences"), and ended up doing circuit modeling.  It 
> happened to involve components at GHz frequencies, but at least in the 
> research I did the frequencies were pretty irrelevant -- they could have been 
> 1-3Hz or 1-3THz rather than the 1-3GHz they were and my thesis would have been 
> the same.  (Much of the time, for numerical accuracy reasons, you ended up 
> normalizing a lot of the data to, e.g., 1Hz or 1 rad/s anyway...)
> 
> There had been some early discussion of doing some cool RFID stuff, but 
> unfortunately we weren't able to get funding for it.  Circuit modeling was 
> funded, so there I was...
> 
> What *did* you end up researching?
> 
> 
AH, well, I didn't... ;-)

I took the oral exam route, so no thesis needed.  You see, I didn't have 
a BSEE going in, just a BS Psych, so I wanted all the course work I 
could get.

First thing I learned - If you had a choice between Course A in the 
undergrad classes, or course B in the grad classes, ALWAYS TAKE COURSE 
B!  The material was more interesting, the grading was easier, the 
coursework more practical, and it was more fun.  I almost flunked out 
before learning that...

Of course, it helped that I had been a hobbyiest and technician for a 
few years before doing this...

Charlie

Don Bowey wrote:

>><msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

>>>Salmon Egg wrote:
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>>Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>>>economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>>>earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>>>what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.

<snip>
>>>FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)

> 
> It worked for me, as far as I went, but it is klunky.

The documentation provided at the site admits that it is a preliminary
interface just to get the radio on-the-air after some months of
engineering and construction; I hoped to make a fancy GUI but again
that would require client-side installs or applets...

Anyone who doesn't like the java (used only for an embedded telnet
client and and embedded IRC client) may access the receiver controls
at:

telnet://cybertheque.org 1238

and for the chat to coordinate its use with other users:

irc://cybertheque.org#rcvr

The audio is available in an RTP stream by placing a SIP
call to:

sip:9202@cybertheque.org

These steps may be a little 'klunky' but so far I have not
found an os-agnostic way to handle each of these media types
without requiring client-side installs unless the user is
willing to put up with a little trouble with java or the
user is willing to make the effort to access the streams
using separate clients as above.

Regards,

Michael

(msg _at_ cybertheque _dot_ org)

msg wrote:

> 
>>>> FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
<snip>
> Anyone who doesn't like the java (used only for an embedded telnet
> client and and embedded IRC client) may access the receiver controls
> at:
> 
> telnet://cybertheque.org 1238
> 

However, I forgot to mention that in order to establish a session
if there already is a connection (in other words, to grab the session
from another user) is to use the 'RESET' button on the main web page
(which invokes a cgi program to clear the connection).

Regards,

Michael

On Jun 18, 5:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.

wow, in the U.S. (with 50 states, some of which have only one school
with an EE department), i didn't know there were many more than 200 EE
programs in the country.   are there any other countries with a lot
more than 200 EE departments?

i went to a non-prestigious school (U of North Dakota in Grand Forks),
too, and majored in EE and got both a BSEE and an MS (not an MSEE).
if your school sees their role or niche as one of teaching and
transforming the ignorant (not meant to be derogatory) to the
knowledgeable, given the values that i have, i consider that to be an
asset.  when i arrived at Northwestern (supposedly a prestigious
school), i was amazed at how shallow the EE knowledge and
understanding was amoung my fellow EE grad students that got their
BSEE from Northwestern.  that was, i believe, because the profs were
not encouraged to teach nor to really prepare for classes they
taught.  they were rewarded for publishing in high quantity (quality
was not really measured since the peers of the prof relied on the
journals to judge quality).  publishing several papers per year left
relatively little time to prepare for the teaching that they were
principally paid to do.  i really think, particularly for the
undergrads who paid the most money and got the least attention, that
they got ripped off.

anyway, i think you (and anyone except those who really cannot handle
the advanced content of most graduate courses in EE and Math) should
go to grad school and get an MS, not just for the potentially better
job prospects and likely better earnings, but for the sheer
advancement in knowledge you will get, if the grad school profs are
any good.  do it to be a better, more knowledgeable, and more capable
electrical engineer.  that reason should be sufficient in and of
itself.

r b-j

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:01:53 -0500, msg wrote:
> Rich Grise wrote:
>> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:57:54 -0700, Salmon Egg wrote:
>>>On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
>>>>(repost attempt, first post failed)
>>>>Salmon Egg wrote:
>>>><snip>
>>>>>Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>>>>economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>>>>earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>>>>what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
> 
> My purpose in posting was to suggest that homebrewing can be cost-
> effective (I certainly can't afford $500-$2500 for a decent
> receiver).
> 
>>>>FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>>>>at <snip>
> 
> I had hoped that actually using my receiver would illustrate the
> point that a receiver with useful charactersitics (S/N, sensitivity,
> coverage, resolution) can be built by anyone with modest engineering
> skills on a budget (I spent perhaps $30.00 total for parts I did
> not have on hand).
> 
>> I get a bunch of java crap that doesn't want to talk to me unless I go
>> through some hoops, which I don't do on websites.
> 
> Sorry Rich, I did not intend to promulgate 'crap'; you never accused me
> of that in the NG (c.a.e) before.

What I'm saying is that if you want to showcase your illustrations, that
putting impediments between your site and your viewers is a turn-off. If
I have to sign in, or join some chatroom group or something, the content
just isn't worth the effort.

Here's how I do a showcase:
http://www.neodruid.net/KeyZilla

Cheers!
Rich

On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:50:29 -0500, msg wrote:
> msg wrote:
>>>>> FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
> <snip>
>> Anyone who doesn't like the java (used only for an embedded telnet
>> client and and embedded IRC client) may access the receiver controls
>> at:
>> 
>> telnet://cybertheque.org 1238
> 
> However, I forgot to mention that in order to establish a session
> if there already is a connection (in other words, to grab the session
> from another user) is to use the 'RESET' button on the main web page
> (which invokes a cgi program to clear the connection).

Yes, and that's a pain in the ass.

Why not just make an ordinary plain vanilla HTML page, with your
descriptions and pictures, and let the whole world view it?

Why should I have to join your chatroom or use telnet just to see
your write-up?

To maximize your audience, you need to make it totally browser-neutral,
a la
http://www.anybrowser.com/

Thanks,
Rich

On Jun 19, 4:18 pm, Salmon Egg <salmon...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Many smart people who are interested in making money do go to law school
> because it is a better road to wealth than engineering or science is.

I think I see your problem.

Rich Grise wrote:
<snip>
> 
> Why not just make an ordinary plain vanilla HTML page, with your
> descriptions and pictures, and let the whole world view it?
> 
> Why should I have to join your chatroom or use telnet just to see
> your write-up?
> 

The site is an online interactive remote-controlled HF receiver; how
would one implement this with a vanilla HTML page?  Interactive is
the key element; filling out forms to SUBMIT with a POST tag does
not provide an interactive session (you can't tune a receiver
effectively filling out forms -- any DX'er will confirm this).

There is no chatroom, just an IRC client so that users waiting
to use the receiver can coordinate their activities. I'm running
an IRC server with channels dedicated to the remote-control
features of the site (which also included online access to our
Huntsville Micro/Avocet ICE). At some point I had hoped to
implement a login procedure that precludes the need for IRC.

As for multiple users listening to the audio, that is still a
problem; the audio session is currently set up using SIP/SDP and
a conferencing server would need to be used for more than a few
connections to the UA that now does the streaming.

It ain't trivial to put all these pieces together and especially
to cover all of the browser/os particulars that are out there ;)

Regards,

Michael
msg _at_ cybertheque _dot_ org

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:59:37 -0700, panfilero <panfilero@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Hello,
>
>I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>
>Thanks,
>Joshua

Do you want to be a mangare or an engineer?

I hire based on experience and skill, not degree's.

larwe wrote:
> On Jun 19, 3:26 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:
>
> > will invariably advance the guy with the MSEE sheepskin over the
> > smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
> > me on this!
>
> This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?

I take it you aren't in the workforce!  "Employed" by government or a
university I presume!

Benj

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:
>
>      "I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of
>      the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a
>      degree to advance in title and hence salary.  [..]
>      from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
>      condones such activities.
>
>      ---Joel"

Oh Wait a minute! Larwe already said the above is "utter nonsense"!

> Many people attend things because they are forced to and because the
> people who force them to attend do not really realize how the
> privileges are unappreciated and misused. E.g. people who attend
> conferences but do nothing there except read a newspaper instead of
> paying attention to the presentations; people whose expenses to attend
> conferences actually end up being used to pay for their vacations as
> they do not bother to attend the presentations; and people whose
> employers pay them to attend C++ standardization meetings who play
> computer games during the meetings. I did not make up any of those
> examples.

And many times people are forced to attend things because the boss is
a moron. One of my bosses somehow got the idea that my writing needed
improvement, so I was ordered to attend an "effective writing" class.
Ok, it was free and I was positive about it. You never really know
when you might pick up a useful idea or two from ANYONE you talk
with.

Well, hey, remember the "moron" thing? What the boss didn't know was
that I was a published author who for a time had made a living writing
articles for major magazines! So I started the class and pretty soon
the woman who ran the class is looking at me funny. And finally (a la
Billy Joel... I'm not kidding!) says to me, "What are YOU doing here?"
Heh!
So I explained how I was ordered to go to the class. :)  Mostly she
and I sat around telling writer war stories to each other while the
rest of the class pondered the mysteries of the English language.
Quite frankly it was one of the best times I ever had!

Benj

Rich Grise wrote:
> What I'm saying is that if you want to showcase your illustrations, that
> putting impediments between your site and your viewers is a turn-off. If
> I have to sign in, or join some chatroom group or something, the content
> just isn't worth the effort.

AMEN!

> Here's how I do a showcase:
> http://www.neodruid.net/KeyZilla

VERY nice job, Rich! I only wish more than a handful of programmers
would take a second to consider the user and how things look form
their viewpoint.  The norm seems to be following the path of least
resistance where the project is determined not by how it SHOULD be
done, but rather what is easy in the given language you used, what
code you could borrow from stuff you did before, and what everybody
else does no matter how stupid it is.

When I encounter a huge "enter website" button I always ask the owner
if they were trying to make a porn site and something went wrong.

Benj

On Jun 20, 4:08 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:

> >      degree to advance in title and hence salary.  [..]
> >      from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
> >      condones such activities.
>
> Oh Wait a minute! Larwe already said the above is "utter nonsense"!

The way it was originally stated, it is nonsense. It is the exception,
not the rule - and a management-dependent thing.

> the woman who ran the class is looking at me funny. And finally (a la
> Billy Joel... I'm not kidding!) says to me, "What are YOU doing here?"

I had a similar experience when, in an English class, the professor
said "Your writing is very good; you should write a book" - to which I
replied "I just finished my third and am starting on my fourth".

On Jun 20, 3:44 am, Benj <bjac...@iwaynet.net> wrote:

> > > smartest BSEE with all the company training they have to offer.  Trust
> > > me on this!
>
> > This is utter nonsense. You're not actually in the workforce, are you?
>
> I take it you aren't in the workforce!  "Employed" by government or a
> university I presume!

Fortune 100 multinational. If you're really in the workforce, I pity
you, because your employer sucks.

"Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:C29DB263.80C9C%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
> On 6/19/07 12:17 PM, in article 46782c74$0$16580$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,
> "cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >> No.  Enroll in Law School.
> >>
> >
> > Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
> > unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark
>
> Many smart people who are interested in making money do go to law school
> because it is a better road to wealth than engineering or science is.
>
> Bill
> -- 
> Iraq: About three Virginia Techs a month
>

And what about the smart people who are interested in being useful?

I view the number of employed lawyers in a country as a level of its
sickness. The number of employed engineers is an indicator of health.

Of course when you have lawyers becoming politicians to write laws to make
sure other lawyers have work the measure is somewhat perverted. I mean does
anyone really believe you need a lawyer to close on the garden variety home
sale?

We engineers need to get together and run the lawyers out of business by
streamlining and consolidating the law. You think we could at least get the
tax code to fewer words than the Bible?

If we ran things, the california state code, for example, would just be a
patch applied to some master state law source tree.

-Clark

Benj wrote:

> When I encounter a huge "enter website" button I always ask the owner
> if they were trying to make a porn site and something went wrong.
> 

I won't belabor this subthread any longer, but I must point out
that in my case, the (small) enter button is a "start remote
control" entry point; it hopefully will be pressed by an
interested user who has read the "quick start" document
presented on the entry page.  Shunting every casual link
surfer directly to the remote control page would be bad
practice in my opinion.

Regards,

Michael

msg _at_ cybertheque _dot_ org

On Jun 19, 4:35 pm, CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I know you know better than to strip attributions for material you
> actually quote :-)

You lost me here.

larwe wrote:
> CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> I know you know better than to strip attributions for material
>> you actually quote :-)
> 
> You lost me here.

In what way?  Attributions are 'joe wrote:' initial lines.  One
goes with each block (depth) of quoted material.  You stripped
them.  Look back at the message you originally wrote, and what you
were replying to (if still available).

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

And hopefully a command of English spelling and grammar.


Jim

-- 
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
--James Dean



"The Real Andy" <therealandy@nospam.com> wrote in message 
news:rvlh735k39p8bt45er8hs1e7g5fjudcljf@4ax.com...

>
> Do you want to be a mangare or an engineer?
>
> I hire based on experience and skill, not degree's. 

On Jun 20, 11:47 am, "RST Engineering \(jw\)"
<j...@rstengineering.com> wrote:
> And hopefully a command of English spelling and grammar.

How would he know?

> "The Real Andy" <thereala...@nospam.com> wrote in messagenews:rvlh735k39p8bt45er8hs1e7g5fjudcljf@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > Do you want to be a mangare or an engineer?
>
> > I hire based on experience and skill, not degree's.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

On 6/20/07 5:55 AM, in article 46792456$0$4698$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,
"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:

> And what about the smart people who are interested in being useful?
> 
> I view the number of employed lawyers in a country as a level of its
> sickness. The number of employed engineers is an indicator of health.
> 
> Of course when you have lawyers becoming politicians to write laws to make
> sure other lawyers have work the measure is somewhat perverted. I mean does
> anyone really believe you need a lawyer to close on the garden variety home
> sale?
> 
> We engineers need to get together and run the lawyers out of business by
> streamlining and consolidating the law. You think we could at least get the
> tax code to fewer words than the Bible?
> 
> If we ran things, the california state code, for example, would just be a
> patch applied to some master state law source tree.

EE's and other engineers have said this for at least 50 years. They still do
not have their act together. They will not join unions. Most are against
registering as PE and do look down on politics as you do. I was one of them.

I was mainly interested in work and not organization charts. You gain no
respect that way.

GOOD lawyers, although parasitical, make better livings than do engineers.
There may be a few exceptional good and lucky engineers who do really well.
I do not think that Bill Gates ever got a college degree. Whatever else you
might say about him. he was smart, political, and in the right place at the
right time.

Bill
-- 
Iraq: About three Virginia Techs a month

On Jun 20, 12:45 pm, Salmon Egg <salmon...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 6/20/07 5:55 AM, in article 46792456$0$4698$4c368...@roadrunner.com,
>
>
>
>
>
> "cpope" <cep...@nc.rr.com> wrote:
> > And what about the smart people who are interested in being useful?
>
> > I view the number of employed lawyers in a country as a level of its
> > sickness. The number of employed engineers is an indicator of health.
>
> > Of course when you have lawyers becoming politicians to write laws to make
> > sure other lawyers have work the measure is somewhat perverted. I mean does
> > anyone really believe you need a lawyer to close on the garden variety home
> > sale?
>
> > We engineers need to get together and run the lawyers out of business by
> > streamlining and consolidating the law. You think we could at least get the
> > tax code to fewer words than the Bible?
>
> > If we ran things, the california state code, for example, would just be a
> > patch applied to some master state law source tree.
>
> EE's and other engineers have said this for at least 50 years. They still do
> not have their act together. They will not join unions. Most are against
> registering as PE and do look down on politics as you do. I was one of them.
>
> I was mainly interested in work and not organization charts. You gain no
> respect that way.
>
> GOOD lawyers, although parasitical, make better livings than do engineers.
> There may be a few exceptional good and lucky engineers who do really well.
> I do not think that Bill Gates ever got a college degree. Whatever else you
> might say about him. he was smart, political, and in the right place at the
> right time.

At the time the home/small office PC market took off, a lot of money
was going to fall into someone's lap.  Microsoft, Gates and Co.  were
aggressive enough to corner the market early on, even though MS
Windows is about the third best choice technically.

MS is continuing their hardball marketing ways today.  The state of NY
recently passed an electronic voting law which required open (or at
least escrowed) source code for all software in a voting machine.  MS
is trying to lobby in post-facto exemptions for their products by
devious tactics like adding amendments to unrelated bills.

"RST Engineering (jw)" wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***
> "The Real Andy" <therealandy@nospam.com> wrote in message
> 
>> Do you want to be a mangare or an engineer?
>>
>> I hire based on experience and skill, not degree's.
> 
> And hopefully a command of English spelling and grammar.

This is totally ridiculout.  So I fixed it.

Please do not top-post.  Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material.  See the following links:

-- 
  <http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
  <http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
  <http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
  <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/>  (taming google)
  <http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/>  (newusers)



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Jun 18, 5:32 pm, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> That sounds more like the "non-thesis project" option to me... My experience
> was that the "thesis" option was, "work on the professor's current pet
> projector that he's been working on for some years prior and will continue to
> work on after you leave."  Nothing wrong with that, but I'd stress that it's
> *very important* to make sure the professor is working on something *you
> actually give a damn about!*

You hit the nail right on the head.

There is a situation that is even worse than working on some
professor's pet poodle: having you own ideas and not being able to
pursue them because every researcher in the field automatically
insists that you work on their pet project.  Utterly disgusting.

What is ironic is that, long ago, Ph.D.-like programs were typically
confined to the domain of true thinkers - people who had their own,
original ideas, and were unafraid to be left alone for 2 or 3 years in
a (metaphorically speaking) empty room to come up with something
brilliant.

Today, the Ph.D. program, for many students, is regarded as a program
of entitlement - "If you do X, you can expect Y."  You can test this
assertion very easily.  Go to any Ph.D. program in the country, good
school, bad school, whatever...does not matter, and ask the aspiring
Ph.D. candidates.."What is going to be your focus area?" Until they
start in the program, most of them don't have a clue, and those that
have already started the program are typically working on some
professor's dog.

Now this is not to to say that this is immoral.  Obviously, this
program of entitlement has become institutionalized and is now
consider a normal expectation of the academy.

What is criminal is when you have someone, who has truly original
ideas, and that person is squeezed, unable to find a channel to
explore, create, etc.  Also, if I might continue my misanthropic rant,
I do not believe this situation came about accidentally.  I have
learned that there is a constant struggle between the group and the
individual.  There is a TV commercial in the United States by the
corporation GEICO that makes fun of this fact.  But in truth, it is
very sad.  You have people who have zero creative ability, and rather
than leave those alone who do, they pro-actively engage in behaviors
to abate any distinction that might arise between their work and the
work of others.  I have seen this in the academy.  I have seen this in
industry.  I think this is why there are so many other
responsibilities that researchers might have, like teaching, etc -
there are those who have enough ideas to last 100 generations, and
there are those who could not think of anything original to save their
lives.  If both are in the same department with the same title, the
former will attempt to promulgate any policy that allows him/her to do
serious research, serious thinking, the kind that the great masters
did.  The latter will undermine any such policy.  What's odd is that
you can generally tell within one hour which category these two types
of "researchers" fall in.  The former will not be able to shut up
about new ideas, possibly concocting original ideas in real-time as
the discussion proceeds.  The latter will be evasive of anything that
might test his/her originality.  They will be quick to steer the
subject away from their work.

I think it is a travesty that these two types of people are typically
mixed together in the same department.  I wish someday the thought
leaders of academia will learn that this is foolish, that it only
delays the inevitable [true thinkers eventually find their path
anyway, and charlatans die hard], and separate these people.  One
group will do pure research. The other group can do whatever the hell
they want, so long it is not to interfere with the first group.

> I was a little disappointed that there were various HP employees in some of
> the classes I took who were there only because HP required them to get a
> degree to advance in title and hence salary.  From an employee's point of
> view... ok, fine, I can understand why they do it (no worse than going into EE
> in the first place primarily because the pay if good and you find the work
> "tolerable")... but from a corporate point of view, I'm amazed that HP
> condones such activities.

I've noticed over the last three years that there has been a bit of a
backlash against the technorati.  You might remember back in the
1970's that there were people who had vague, pseudo-technical titles,
like "Business Analyst."

Let's look at this phrase for a moment to see what I am getting at.
It has both the words "Business" and "Analyst".  Most people who see
the word "business" implicitly assume that the holder of the title has
business-related skills, like sales, marketing, etc.  Most people who
see the word"analyst" implicitly assume that the title-holder has
analytical ability, a trait typically possessed only by those with
technical backgrounds or a proclivity to solve technical problems.

Now this title is extremely convenient.  If you meet someone in the
hallway, someone with this title earning $130,000US for essentially
doing nothing butter uttering jibberish that s/he read in a
"management" book at local bookstore,  it becomes difficult to
disprove that person's worth to the company.  If you are a technical
person, the charlatan can be excused of his/her technical incompetence
because s/he can immediately claim, "I only know the business aspect
of our processes."  If you are a business person, the the charlatan
can, again, worm his/her way out of accountability by claiming, "Hey,
I'm just a techie who likes to communicate difficult technical
concepts to executives to help them make informed decisions."
Executives, many of them technically incompetent (not at all
companies), like very much the idea of having a liason between them
and the people who actually know what's going on.

So it's a perfect title.

I watched one company recently, in a shake-up, fire many of the
contracting engineers, and start creating many "Business Analyst"
positions in their place.  There were open requisitions for engineers,
but all the positions except technical positions were getting filled.
I called the head-hunter for the technical positions to give her a
heads-up on what was happening, which she later verified.  This
company has over $1,000,000,000,000US (trillion) under assets, and I
had alway suspected that the management was full of caca, many of them
grossly incompetent.  They were part of an acquired company that had
managed to squeeze every penny of profit out of the company and fatten
their salaries with it.  With 300 employees, there were 40 cases of
nepotism, as could be determined from the last names on company
intranet.  Any how, the parent company got upset, trying to figure out
what happened to all the profit, and called for a shake-up, and that's
when all the engineers got fired and the "business analyst" positions
were created.

This should have been obvious from parking garage.  You can tell a lot
about a group of people by how they drive in a parking garage (New
York notwithstanding).  There were one step away from the cut-throat,
dog-eat-dog, save-my-own-ass first type of people who would cheat on
algebra tests in high school just to get by with a passing grade.

-Le Chaud Lapin-

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
> On Jun 18, 5:32 pm, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> That sounds more like the "non-thesis project" option to me... My experience
>> was that the "thesis" option was, "work on the professor's current pet
>> projector that he's been working on for some years prior and will continue to
>> work on after you leave."  Nothing wrong with that, but I'd stress that it's
>> *very important* to make sure the professor is working on something *you
>> actually give a damn about!*
> 
> You hit the nail right on the head.
> 
> There is a situation that is even worse than working on some
> professor's pet poodle: having you own ideas and not being able to
> pursue them because every researcher in the field automatically
> insists that you work on their pet project.  Utterly disgusting.
> 
> What is ironic is that, long ago, Ph.D.-like programs were typically
> confined to the domain of true thinkers - people who had their own,
> original ideas, and were unafraid to be left alone for 2 or 3 years in
> a (metaphorically speaking) empty room to come up with something
> brilliant.
 > [...]

It sounds like you are falling into a common trap - assuming the past 
must have been better than the present, because its just to awful to 
believe things have always been this bad. In practice very very little 
changes over time.

Steve

CBFalconer wrote:

....

> This is totally ridiculout....

Ridiculout; n. foolish boor.

> Please do not top-post.  Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
> with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
> irrelevant material.

Amen.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:

<snip truly fine rant>

> Today, the Ph.D. program, for many students, is regarded as a program
> of entitlement - "If you do X, you can expect Y."  You can test this
> assertion very easily.  Go to any Ph.D. program in the country, good
> school, bad school, whatever...does not matter, and ask the aspiring
> Ph.D. candidates.."What is going to be your focus area?" Until they
> start in the program, most of them don't have a clue, and those that
> have already started the program are typically working on some
> professor's dog.

Actually it's a bit worse than this. A PhD candidate is supposed to be
required to contribute to the world's knowledge to obtain the title.
The unfortunate aspect of this is that schools are usually highly
centered upon class work. Practical skills (such as original research)
aren't even mentioned, let alone taught. Class work tends to involve
lots of memory and agreeing with the professor (even when he/she is
dead wrong).

I knew this one guy, who was the ace student of the EE department. The
guy never got a grade below an A in his entire life. But then suddenly
classwork was over! He had not the SLIGHTEST clue where to begin doing
research. And let me emphasize that this was not some clown who had no
practical knowledge. He very much knew which end of the soldering iron
to grab. But he had no idea where to start research. The poor guy
literally freaked out! He couldn't handle it. He dropped out and I
don't know if he ever got his degree.

Happily MSEE candidates aren't expected to do anything significant in
the way of original work. Most any kind of bogus study will do.  But I
don't want to imply that the whole exercise is a waste of time. A
masters candidate gets a good up front immersion in the whys and
whatfors of productive work even though the final product may end up
of questionable value.  The Thesis is not the point. It is this
practical experience in real life questions that actually makes the
MSEE so much more valuable to an employer than say the BSEE who
actually doesn't have any idea which end of the soldering iron to
grab.

Benj

In news:1182405222.795896.227040@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
timestamped Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:53:42 -0700, Benj
<bjacoby@iwaynet.net> posted:
     "[..]
     
     [..] A PhD candidate is supposed to be
     required to contribute to the world's knowledge to obtain the title.
     The unfortunate aspect of this is that schools are usually highly
     centered upon class work."

Really?

     "[..] Class work tends to involve
     lots of memory and agreeing with the professor (even when he/she is
     dead wrong).
     
     I knew this one guy, who was the ace student of the EE department. The
     guy never got a grade below an A in his entire life. But then suddenly
     classwork was over! He had not the SLIGHTEST clue where to begin doing
     research. [..]

     [..]"

Unfortunately supposed research at the level of a Ph.D. can entail
agreeing with a professor who is mistaken. If the professor can be
mistaken on established fields in classes, the outlook for
comprehending the research issues are not necessarily better.

On Jun 20, 9:47 pm, Steve Underwood <ste...@dis.org> wrote:
> Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
> > What is ironic is that, long ago, Ph.D.-like programs were typically
> > confined to the domain of true thinkers - people who had their own,
> > original ideas, and were unafraid to be left alone for 2 or 3 years in
> > a (metaphorically speaking) empty room to come up with something
> > brilliant.
>
>  > [...]
>
> It sounds like you are falling into a common trap - assuming the past
> must have been better than the present, because its just to awful to
> believe things have always been this bad. In practice very very little
> changes over time.

I think you are right.  As a matter of fact, now that I think about
it, it might have been worse early on.  Back then, if you had original
ideas, the world might have never have known.  Communication was slow,
some letters taking months to reach colleagues.  Today I can spam all
200 or so people on my private email list 1000 times in a single hour.

Also, the "social viscosity" was much higher, so if you were born
poor, you were likely to remain so, same for being born rich, esteamed
(pun intended), etc.

And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
means "The Hot Rabbit".

-Le Chaud Lapin-

Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
<snip>
> And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
> today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
> consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
> means "The Hot Rabbit".
> 
> -Le Chaud Lapin-

Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?

Regards,

Michael

On Jun 20, 8:31 pm, Le Chaud Lapin <jaibudu...@gmail.com> wrote:

[snip]
> What is ironic is that, long ago, Ph.D.-like programs were typically
> confined to the domain of true thinkers - people who had their own,
> original ideas, and were unafraid to be left alone for 2 or 3 years in
> a (metaphorically speaking) empty room to come up with something
> brilliant.
>
> Today, the Ph.D. program, for many students, is regarded as a program
> of entitlement - "If you do X, you can expect Y."  You can test this
> assertion very easily.  Go to any Ph.D. program in the country, good
> school, bad school, whatever...does not matter, and ask the aspiring
> Ph.D. candidates.."What is going to be your focus area?" Until they
> start in the program, most of them don't have a clue, and those that
> have already started the program are typically working on some
> professor's dog.
>
> Now this is not to to say that this is immoral.  Obviously, this
> program of entitlement has become institutionalized and is now
> consider a normal expectation of the academy.
[snip]

One can go back 100 years and say pretty much the same
thing about undergraduate education in the US, too.  It used to
be that admission to the top schools is gained simply by
saying so.  Of course, such choice is limited only to those
coming from the appropriate social standing.  Universities were
supposed to produce fine thinkers (at the undergraduate level!
Imagine!), the nation's leaders, etc.

Unfortunately to this gentlemanly arrangement, more and more
people want to go to college, and thus a standardization effort
began.  In order to rank the candidates, grades have to be given.
Of course, the new breed of candidates focus more and more on
acing the standardized tests, and only the standardized tests.

I'm not saying that this system is ideal, but how can education
at all levels be more democratized -- even at the international
level -- without using some sort of standard measure of
potential?  I will come clean that without such opportunities,
yours truly will not be where he is today.  So perhaps instead
of focusing on the negative, we should examine the positive:
now there is an ever wider pool of talent who could possibly get
a shot at higher education, regardless of where he/she comes
from.

What standards are appropriate, and what are the costs of
implementing such standards?  One can speak of "non-
academic, extracurricular achievements," but to a large extent
such accomplishments nowadays fall into the standard for
evaluation (read:  resume-padding).

It is also instructive to compare countries such as the United
States, France, China, and India -- where there are nation-wide
standardized testing for admissions and students are likely to
travel far from their hometown to go to school -- to countries
where they do not have such a system, such as Italy,
Germany (if I understood the system correctly).  In the first
group of countries, I have found that it is more common for
people to ask where you went to school when just getting
acquainted.  Maybe this is because if you're from the second
group of countries it is easy to guess where you went to school
based on your hometown, but my impression is that in the
first group of countries, people put more stock on what name
shows up on your diploma, or what diplomas you have.

So as a result, I think it is not surprising that there is a lowering
of expectation from the graduates, and there's ever more push
to prove oneself by doing yet more schooling and getting more
degrees.  Maybe it is fair that the expectation is lowered, who
knows.

Your mileage may and probably will vary.
Julius

msg wrote:
> Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
> <snip>
>> And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
>> today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
>> consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>>
>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
> 
> Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?

Cos iff its got gud gramma and speling, it wouldnt luk lik an inginear 
wrowt it.

Steve

On Jun 21, 11:37 am, Spehro Pefhany

> >> means "The Hot Rabbit".
> >> -Le Chaud Lapin-
>
> >Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?
>
> Because he's not actually fluent in Fran=E7ais?

I can't help visualizing this name as part of a deleted scene from
Watership Down, where Hazel and Clover romp in one burrow while Bigwig
and Campion role-play Woundwort and Hyzenthlay in another.

larwe wrote:
> On Jun 21, 11:37 am, Spehro Pefhany
> 
>>>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>>>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
>>> Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?
>> Because he's not actually fluent in Fran�ais?
> 
> I can't help visualizing this name as part of a deleted scene from
> Watership Down, where Hazel and Clover romp in one burrow while Bigwig
> and Campion role-play Woundwort and Hyzenthlay in another.
> 
That's sick. Why doesn't hot bunnies make you think of Playboy, like any 
normal human being? :-)

Steve

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:57:05 -0500, the renowned msg
<msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

>Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
><snip>
>> And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
>> today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
>> consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>> 
>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
>
>Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?
>
>Regards,
>
>Michael

Because he's not actually fluent in Fran�ais? 	


Best regards, 
Spehro Pefhany
-- 
"it's the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

"Benj" <bjacoby@iwaynet.net> wrote in message 
news:1182326917.878337.182900@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> What the boss didn't know was
> that I was a published author who for a time had made a living writing
> articles for major magazines!

Nice story.  I think it's indicative that it wasn't the technical quality of 
your writing that your boss didn't like, it was probably the content!

"julius" <juliusk@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1182431508.272126.235090@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> One can speak of "non-
> academic, extracurricular achievements," but to a large extent
> such accomplishments nowadays fall into the standard for
> evaluation (read:  resume-padding).

Heck, these days many high-schools require "volunteering" for various 
community service jobs for a certain number of hours in order to graduate.

> So as a result, I think it is not surprising that there is a lowering
> of expectation from the graduates, and there's ever more push
> to prove oneself by doing yet more schooling and getting more
> degrees.  Maybe it is fair that the expectation is lowered, who
> knows.

I think there is an expectation, at least in the U.S. today, that everyone 
should go to college even though I don't think the skills truly required by 
industry are significantly more difficult (on average) than they were 
historically.  Yes, today your generic average office worker needs to be able 
to use a word processor, spreadhseet, surf the web, etc., but is that really 
any more difficult than some factory worker who years ago needed to know how 
to assemble and maintain a handful of machines, type up reports, file, etc.? 
In many way I think it's actually simpler...

---Joel

On Jun 21, 11:43 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> I think there is an expectation, at least in the U.S. today, that everyone
> should go to college even though I don't think the skills truly required by
> industry are significantly more difficult (on average) than they were
> historically.  Yes, today your generic average office worker needs to be able
> to use a word processor, spreadhseet, surf the web, etc., but is that really
> any more difficult than some factory worker who years ago needed to know how
> to assemble and maintain a handful of machines, type up reports, file, etc.?
> In many way I think it's actually simpler...
>
> ---Joel

Joel, this is perhaps the result of over-politicization of education
in
the United States?  I agree that college is not for everybody, but no
public figure will dare say it in those terms.

In many other (usually more socialist) countries, there are
vocational schools for those who are less interested in the pursuit
of higher-education at the level of college.  And in most of these
countries, students are already split up into different tracks even
at
the middle and high school levels.  I think this is a great idea, I
don't
see anything wrong with being a very good machinist, or
woodworker, or anything else that is more suitably taught in
vocational school.

In many systems, students have to choose their "major track" in
high school:  the choices are along the lines of "math and physical
science", "life sciences", "social studies", etc.

The argument is then, at what point in one's life should one commit
to one of these many choices?  And that is another big topic that is
hard to answer.

Julius

On Jun 20, 3:57 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> "Salmon Egg" <salmon...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
>
> news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
>
> > On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843...@example.net,
> > "Rich Grise" <r...@example.net> wrote:
> >> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
> >> you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
> >> experience.
> > Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.
>
> I have to disagree a little here.  If your goal is to be, e.g., an analog IC
> designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult to do these
> days without the formal education.  The problem is that building ICs requires
> big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are notoriously bad
> about using academic credentials as the first "gatekeepers" to employment.
>
> On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some digital
> design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent chance of getting
> a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose useful person), it is
> reasonable to just learn on the job.  Perhaps not the most secure career
> strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route and it
> works just fine for them.

Nobody learns on the job any more - not even technicians. How would
you learn basics like Fourier Series,FFTs etc on the job? You need a
firm mathematical background to be a professional engineer. As for IC
designers, at the Analogue end you do learn a lot on the job but
that's after a good honours degree. It would be unthinkable for say
Analog Devices to take somebody right out of school. The apprentice
scheme is gone forever, we are professionals.

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:57:05 -0500, msg <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:

>Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
><snip>
>> And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
>> today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
>> consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>> 
>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
>
>Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?

Oxord dictionary shows the idiom "chaud lapin" (with that word order)
as "randy devil". I guess, equivalent to horny toad, diry old man.
--
John

<gyansorova@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1182451282.977432.165520@a26g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
> Nobody learns on the job any more - not even technicians. How would
> you learn basics like Fourier Series,FFTs etc on the job?

Some companies (especially larger ones) have plenty of formalized in-house 
training.  And of course there are always those things called books... (and 
these days, the Internet).

> You need a
> firm mathematical background to be a professional engineer.

Depends on what you want to be a "professional engineer" in.  There are plenty 
of microcontroller/digital guys out there who are quite good at what they do 
but could no longer tell you much of anything about Laplace or perhaps even 
phasors.  Look at the articles written in, e.g., Circuit Cellar Ink -- most of 
the authors are "professional" engineers -- and notice that many of them 
require no more of a formal academic background than that provided in high 
school to understand.

I'm not at all against continuing education -- I've taken *far* more college 
credits than I ever had to, because I enjoyed learning.  But I also reject the 
whole "ivory tower of academy" myth that says that you need a degree from a 
standard four-year university to be a "professional engineer."  Look up Jeri 
Ellsworth sometime -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth -- she 
barely managed to get out of high school, and while she did later take some 
college courses, she certainly didn't take the "standard" approach to becoming 
an engineer.

---Joel

On Jun 21, 10:53 am, Steve Underwood <ste...@dis.org> wrote:

> That's sick. Why doesn't hot bunnies make you think of Playboy, like any
> normal human being? :-)

I'm ashamed(?) to say I've never read one. But I do clearly remember
seeing Watership Down at the Dendy Cinema in Melbourne, Australia in
the late 1970s. It's now a Christian revival cinema, or was eight
years ago.

"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1182454119.565746.181940@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 21, 10:53 am, Steve Underwood <ste...@dis.org> wrote:
>
>> That's sick. Why doesn't hot bunnies make you think of Playboy, like any
>> normal human being? :-)
>
> I'm ashamed(?) to say I've never read one.


Don't be ashamed.  They aren't for reading anyway. 

Joel Kolstad wrote:
> "Benj" <bjacoby@iwaynet.net> wrote in message 
> news:1182326917.878337.182900@n2g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
>> What the boss didn't know was
>> that I was a published author who for a time had made a living writing
>> articles for major magazines!
> 
> Nice story.  I think it's indicative that it wasn't the technical quality of 
> your writing that your boss didn't like, it was probably the content!

Maybe, but one has to ask why. I was once assigned to write a technical 
manual for a laboratory fermentation controller that had over a dozen 
option cards. I was the new guy, ans everyone else was "busy". Nobody 
even had the time tell me what it was supposed to do. I spent two weeks 
exercising it in all its configurations and writing up the results, 
complete with illustrations of the various screen displays. The boss -- 
I had been hired over his objections -- pointed out several points on 
which my write-up differed from the spec. I told him that I hadn't seen 
the spec -- he had declined to give me one -- and that my write-up 
conformed to the machine as built. His reply was simple: "I know what 
I'm talking about. I designed it myself." I responded  "I know what I'm 
talking about. I tested it myself. Show me different if you doubt it." 
He couldn't.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

gyansorova@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 20, 3:57 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>> "Salmon Egg" <salmon...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
>>
>> news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
>>
>>> On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843...@example.net,
>>> "Rich Grise" <r...@example.net> wrote:
>>>> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that. If
>>>> you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
>>>> experience.
>>> Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.
>> I have to disagree a little here.  If your goal is to be, e.g., an analog IC
>> designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult to do these
>> days without the formal education.  The problem is that building ICs requires
>> big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are notoriously bad
>> about using academic credentials as the first "gatekeepers" to employment.
>>
>> On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some digital
>> design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent chance of getting
>> a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose useful person), it is
>> reasonable to just learn on the job.  Perhaps not the most secure career
>> strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route and it
>> works just fine for them.
> 
> Nobody learns on the job any more - not even technicians. How would
> you learn basics like Fourier Series,FFTs etc on the job? You need a
> firm mathematical background to be a professional engineer. As for IC
> designers, at the Analogue end you do learn a lot on the job but
> that's after a good honours degree. It would be unthinkable for say
> Analog Devices to take somebody right out of school. The apprentice
> scheme is gone forever, we are professionals.

I dropped out of college, and later (when I wanted to get married and 
running the service department in a Hi-Fi boutique didn't seem to have 
an adequate future) I got a technician certificate (T-3) from RCA 
institutes. Not only did I learn to design transmitters and class-B 
plate modulators, but harmonic analysis (both algebraically and 
graphically) and Laplace transforms. Schwartz-Christoffel transformation 
anyone? I carried a lot of credit with me when I went back to college.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Jerry Avins wrote:
> Joel Kolstad wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>>
>> Nice story.  I think it's indicative that it wasn't the technical
>> quality of your writing that your boss didn't like, it was
>> probably the content!
> 
> Maybe, but one has to ask why. I was once assigned to write a
> technical manual for a laboratory fermentation controller that had
> over a dozen option cards. I was the new guy, ans everyone else
> was "busy". Nobody even had the time tell me what it was supposed
> to do. I spent two weeks exercising it in all its configurations
> and writing up the results, complete with illustrations of the
> various screen displays. The boss -- I had been hired over his
> objections -- pointed out several points on which my write-up
> differed from the spec. I told him that I hadn't seen the spec --
> he had declined to give me one -- and that my write-up conformed
> to the machine as built. His reply was simple: "I know what I'm
> talking about. I designed it myself." I responded  "I know what
> I'm talking about. I tested it myself. Show me different if you
> doubt it."  He couldn't.

Now the critical point of the whole tale is 'How were your
relations with that particular boss affected'.  If they improved,
kudos to all.  If you had to go job-hunting, boo.

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

In article <1182389501.511545.83100@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, 
jaibuduvin@gmail.com says...
> I watched one company recently, in a shake-up, fire many of the
> contracting engineers, and start creating many "Business Analyst"
> positions in their place.  There were open requisitions for engineers,
> but all the positions except technical positions were getting filled.
> I called the head-hunter for the technical positions to give her a
> heads-up on what was happening, which she later verified.  This
> company has over $1,000,000,000,000US (trillion) under assets, and I
> had alway suspected that the management was full of caca, many of them
> grossly incompetent.  They were part of an acquired company that had
> managed to squeeze every penny of profit out of the company and fatten
> their salaries with it.  With 300 employees, there were 40 cases of
> nepotism, as could be determined from the last names on company
> intranet.  Any how, the parent company got upset, trying to figure out
> what happened to all the profit, and called for a shake-up, and that's
> when all the engineers got fired and the "business analyst" positions
> were created.
> 

Did you (do you) work there? Sounds like you witnessed this first hand.
Are you sure it was nepotism if more than one person has the same last 
name? Why were all the engineers fired?

CBFalconer wrote:
> Jerry Avins wrote:
>> Joel Kolstad wrote:
>>
> ... snip ...
>>> Nice story.  I think it's indicative that it wasn't the technical
>>> quality of your writing that your boss didn't like, it was
>>> probably the content!
>> Maybe, but one has to ask why. I was once assigned to write a
>> technical manual for a laboratory fermentation controller that had
>> over a dozen option cards. I was the new guy, ans everyone else
>> was "busy". Nobody even had the time tell me what it was supposed
>> to do. I spent two weeks exercising it in all its configurations
>> and writing up the results, complete with illustrations of the
>> various screen displays. The boss -- I had been hired over his
>> objections -- pointed out several points on which my write-up
>> differed from the spec. I told him that I hadn't seen the spec --
>> he had declined to give me one -- and that my write-up conformed
>> to the machine as built. His reply was simple: "I know what I'm
>> talking about. I designed it myself." I responded  "I know what
>> I'm talking about. I tested it myself. Show me different if you
>> doubt it."  He couldn't.
> 
> Now the critical point of the whole tale is 'How were your
> relations with that particular boss affected'.  If they improved,
> kudos to all.  If you had to go job-hunting, boo.

Neither, actually. He worried that I might take his job or try to, but I 
wouldn't have touched it. By the time he actually realized that, I had 
arranged to move on. I took a year off to be with my first wife in her 
last year. We traveled while she could, then we relaxed at home. After a 
breather with my sister in Texas, I got another research lab position 
with Siemens, from which I eventually retired for the third and last time.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:47:43 -0700, "RST Engineering \(jw\)"
<jim@rstengineering.com> wrote:

>And hopefully a command of English spelling and grammar.
>
>
>Jim

Or perhaps one day I will start using the spell checker.

On Jun 20, 8:31 pm, Le Chaud Lapin <jaibudu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I watched one company recently, in a shake-up, fire many of the
> contracting engineers, and start creating many "Business Analyst"
> positions in their place.  There were open requisitions for engineers,
> but all the positions except technical positions were getting filled.
> I called the head-hunter for the technical positions to give her a
> heads-up on what was happening, which she later verified.  This
> company has over $1,000,000,000,000US (trillion) under assets, and I
> had alway suspected that the management was full of caca, many of them
> grossly incompetent.  They were part of an acquired company that had
> managed to squeeze every penny of profit out of the company and fatten
> their salaries with it.  With 300 employees, there were 40 cases of
> nepotism, as could be determined from the last names on company
> intranet.  Any how, the parent company got upset, trying to figure out
> what happened to all the profit, and called for a shake-up, and that's
> when all the engineers got fired and the "business analyst" positions
> were created.

fg

Such eloquent words!

Sounds like an awful place to work. Did you try to explain to them the
error of their ways? The folly of firing all the engineers and
replacing them with business analysts? You should have told them,
explained to them that the world _needs_ electrical engineers. Tell
them, make them see that 1 engineer is worth a dozen--no, 100--
business analysts. We would still be living in the Middle Ages if it
weren't for the electrical engineer, who harnessed the power of
electricity for the comfort and convenience of man. Out of all 300 of
those managers, surely there were some who would see the light! You
should find one or two competent managers, and make a case for keeping
those engineering jobs.

bg

bg_fisted@hotmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 20, 8:31 pm, Le Chaud Lapin <jaibudu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>I watched one company recently, in a shake-up, fire many of the
>>contracting engineers, and start creating many "Business Analyst"
>>positions in their place.  There were open requisitions for engineers,
>>but all the positions except technical positions were getting filled.
>>I called the head-hunter for the technical positions to give her a
>>heads-up on what was happening, which she later verified.  This
>>company has over $1,000,000,000,000US (trillion) under assets, and I
>>had alway suspected that the management was full of caca, many of them
>>grossly incompetent.  They were part of an acquired company that had
>>managed to squeeze every penny of profit out of the company and fatten
>>their salaries with it.  With 300 employees, there were 40 cases of
>>nepotism, as could be determined from the last names on company
>>intranet.  Any how, the parent company got upset, trying to figure out
>>what happened to all the profit, and called for a shake-up, and that's
>>when all the engineers got fired and the "business analyst" positions
>>were created.
> 
> 
> fg
> 
> Such eloquent words!
> 
> Sounds like an awful place to work. Did you try to explain to them the
> error of their ways? The folly of firing all the engineers and
> replacing them with business analysts? You should have told them,
> explained to them that the world _needs_ electrical engineers. Tell
> them, make them see that 1 engineer is worth a dozen--no, 100--
> business analysts. 

And they will laugh at you - as you know full well. If a company is 
making something for 100GBP and selling it for 95GBP - it's being run by 
an engineer. Engineers invent something brilliant which sells in their 
millions - but 99.9% of the sales go to a cheap Chinese rip-off.

Give an engineer an engineering problem and he's as happy as Larry. Give 
him a financial and marketing one and he rolls over and falls asleep.

Engineers can go home happy that their ethics are respected. Financial 
and sales people know that their ethics are a luxury that they can't put 
on their expense sheet.

Even sewerage engineers don't live in the sewer and have to play footsie 
with the rats every day..unlike their management team..

As an engineer you can wear what you like, drive what you like, live 
where you like, eat what you like, befrieind who you like... but your 
salary is only there because of those in the scunge works..

-- 
Sue

bg_fisted@hotmail.com wrote:

>      ... We would still be living in the Middle Ages if it
> weren't for the electrical engineer, who harnessed the power of
> electricity for the comfort and convenience of man. ...

The middle ages were long over before electricity was anything more than 
a drawing-room curiosity. The credit you wish to bestow probably belongs 
to millwrights.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes:

> bg_fisted@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>>      ... We would still be living in the Middle Ages if it
>> weren't for the electrical engineer, who harnessed the power of
>> electricity for the comfort and convenience of man. ...
>
> The middle ages were long over before electricity was anything more
> than a drawing-room curiosity. The credit you wish to bestow probably
> belongs to millwrights.

The invention of the printing press is also probably high on the list of
developments that fostered the exit of the middle ages. 
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "...the answer lies within your soul
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %       'cause no one knows which side
%%% 919-577-9882                %                   the coin will fall."
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           %  'Big Wheels', *Out of the Blue*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

Randy Yates wrote:
> Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes:
> 
>> bg_fisted@hotmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>      ... We would still be living in the Middle Ages if it
>>> weren't for the electrical engineer, who harnessed the power of
>>> electricity for the comfort and convenience of man. ...
>> The middle ages were long over before electricity was anything more
>> than a drawing-room curiosity. The credit you wish to bestow probably
>> belongs to millwrights.
> 
> The invention of the printing press is also probably high on the list of
> developments that fostered the exit of the middle ages. 

The development of printing was certainly important. The press itself 
had been in use for a long time as an artist's tool. Printing as we know 
it was made possible by the development of movable type, which in turn 
depended on the metallurgy of type metal. That alloy of lead, antimony, 
and tin was made possible by an extensive mining and transportation 
infrastructure. Its special properties include expanding upon cooling so 
as to make sharp castings in metal molds, being hard enough to make many 
impressions, and being soft enough to be planed with steel tools to 
uniform height. Although the press itself came to symbolize the process, 
Gutenberg's invention was the details of a type foundry. It seems 
probable that someone else invented the actual metal composition.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

If sales is run by engineering everything will work but nothing will be 
shipped.

If sales is run by marketing everything will ship but nothing will work.

Jim

-- 
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
--James Dean


"Palindrome" <me9@privacy.net> wrote in message 
news:zGLei.253665$d22.140214@fe03.news.easynews.com...

 If a company is
> making something for 100GBP and selling it for 95GBP - it's being run by 
> an engineer. Engineers invent something brilliant which sells in their 
> millions - but 99.9% of the sales go to a cheap Chinese rip-off.

Palindrome wrote:
> And they will laugh at you - as you know full well. If a company is
> making something for 100GBP and selling it for 95GBP - it's being run by
> an engineer. Engineers invent something brilliant which sells in their
> millions - but 99.9% of the sales go to a cheap Chinese rip-off.
>
> Give an engineer an engineering problem and he's as happy as Larry. Give
> him a financial and marketing one and he rolls over and falls asleep.
>
> Engineers can go home happy that their ethics are respected. Financial
> and sales people know that their ethics are a luxury that they can't put
> on their expense sheet.

You've put your finger on a problem of modern civilization that few
take time to ponder. On the one hand there is the rule: "Nothing ever
happens until somebody SELLS something".
It is a true rule and unfortunately has come to drive nearly all
business.

Salesmen are basically bullshitters. They are in the business of
inducing people to buy stuff they really don't want to buy. A "true"
salesman doesn't care what he's selling. The product quality, the
product efficiency, the product utility are all irrelevant to him. He
only cares how many he can sell and what commission he gets for that.

And here's the bad news. Even though sales has a place, the great
tendency is for sales people to rise through managers to CEOs. Most of
the CEOs causing shame these days are all former salesmen. They simply
switched from selling bogus products to selling bogus policies to
employees.

To a salesman-CEO, if the engineers happen to provide a good product
that sells well, it is a plus, but FAR from necessary!

My fav story is in a book about how the president of Xerox "beat the
Japanese at their own game"! How? Well the engineers came up with a
new model copier, the 8000 series that finally had some performance
levels that could match the Japanese products taking over the market
place.  But was that how Xerox got itself back in the market? No WAY!
Product performance is irrelevant, remember?

Nope, this is where the new CEO steps in. He immediately perceives
that the ONLY way to "beat the Japanese at their own game" is change
the product name! It needs to be the 10,000 series, NOT the 8000
series!!! Too bad all the sales literature and manuals had already
been printed. No problem. Just take a million bucks of the
stockholder's money to reprint them all!  Sales soared. THE CEO is a
genius! (and no doubt got his obscene bonus!)

And the engineers who made the new irrelevant product? Well, they got
to keep their jobs! Remember that SALES is the ONLY thing that counts
because "nothing ever happens until somebody sells something"!

So who gets the blame for this state of affairs? I'm sorry to say it's
the engineers. They get it because they are too socially incompetent
to stand up to the sales people of the world and tell them that if
they'd like to go make a living as con men, selling bridges and fake
watches, go ahead, but to work for YOU, they had better start being a
bit more honest because with a good product one doesn't need to lie
about it.

The sad part is most engineering schools do NOT encourage social
competency for engineers. The bottom line is human civilization is the
loser as more and more sizzle passes for steak!

Benj

"Benj" <bjacoby@iwaynet.net> wrote in message 
news:1182536439.819686.285870@c77g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> A "true"
> salesman doesn't care what he's selling. The product quality, the
> product efficiency, the product utility are all irrelevant to him. He
> only cares how many he can sell and what commission he gets for that.

That may be, but presumably a savvy salesman is well aware that he needs to be 
selling a decent product if he expects any *repeat* business... and I think 
that's really where the money is, in most industries (well, that and 
maintenance fees).

> Nope, this is where the new CEO steps in. He immediately perceives
> that the ONLY way to "beat the Japanese at their own game" is change
> the product name! It needs to be the 10,000 series, NOT the 8000
> series!!!

I don't think there's anything immoral about changing the model number of your 
product if you think it'll make it sell better.  Sure, "10,000" might somehow 
imply that the unit is better than the "7,000" model, but I don't have much 
sympathy for anyone who would buy a product based on the name alone and 
doesn't look at the specs.

> So who gets the blame for this state of affairs? I'm sorry to say it's
> the engineers. They get it because they are too socially incompetent
> to stand up to the sales people

In most cases I think it's more a matter of they just don't care. :-)  Many 
engineers are perfectly happy to be given puzzles to solve and proceeding to 
solve them -- what the marketing department does with those results is of 
little concern to them, as long as they get to keep solving new and 
interesting puzzles.  Be glad you don't work at Initech!

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just 
don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't... don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass 
off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime; so where's 
the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses 
right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have 
eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real 
motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you 
know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

---Joel

Benj wrote:
> Salesmen are basically bullshitters. They are in the business of
> inducing people to buy stuff they really don't want to buy. A "true"
> salesman doesn't care what he's selling. The product quality, the
> product efficiency, the product utility are all irrelevant to him. He
> only cares how many he can sell and what commission he gets for that.
> 
> And here's the bad news. Even though sales has a place, the great
> tendency is for sales people to rise through managers to CEOs. Most of
> the CEOs causing shame these days are all former salesmen. They simply
> switched from selling bogus products to selling bogus policies to
> employees.
> 
> To a salesman-CEO, if the engineers happen to provide a good product
> that sells well, it is a plus, but FAR from necessary!
> 
> My fav story is in a book about how the president of Xerox "beat the
> Japanese at their own game"! How? Well the engineers came up with a
> new model copier, the 8000 series that finally had some performance
> levels that could match the Japanese products taking over the market
> place.  But was that how Xerox got itself back in the market? No WAY!
> Product performance is irrelevant, remember?
> 
> Nope, this is where the new CEO steps in. He immediately perceives
> that the ONLY way to "beat the Japanese at their own game" is change
> the product name! It needs to be the 10,000 series, NOT the 8000
> series!!! Too bad all the sales literature and manuals had already
> been printed. No problem. Just take a million bucks of the
> stockholder's money to reprint them all!  Sales soared. THE CEO is a
> genius! (and no doubt got his obscene bonus!)
> 
> And the engineers who made the new irrelevant product? Well, they got
> to keep their jobs! Remember that SALES is the ONLY thing that counts
> because "nothing ever happens until somebody sells something"!
> 
> So who gets the blame for this state of affairs? I'm sorry to say it's
> the engineers. They get it because they are too socially incompetent
> to stand up to the sales people of the world and tell them that if
> they'd like to go make a living as con men, selling bridges and fake
> watches, go ahead, but to work for YOU, they had better start being a
> bit more honest because with a good product one doesn't need to lie
> about it.
> 
> The sad part is most engineering schools do NOT encourage social
> competency for engineers. The bottom line is human civilization is the
> loser as more and more sizzle passes for steak!
> 
> Benj
> 

Ok, I have a tale to tell, but the companies must remain anonomous...

Company A had a great product.  They were run by engineers, but had a 
great sales force.  The sales forces' biggest gripe, was that management 
wouldn't let them be more agressive in their sales tactics.  They had 
achieved 85% market penetration, and realized that they would need to 
broaden out in order to have any growth, so began developing a line of 
products just outside their main area.  Everything looked good, except 
the owner was getting a little tired of running a company, and dealing 
with the gripes and complaints and politics (he was an engineer) and 
began looking for a way out...

In comes Company B.  B is a public company, whereas A was private, and 
is a market leader in the areas that A was branching out into.  B is run 
by managers and sales folks, but has twice the sales of A.  A merger is 
proposed, and accepted, and the two companies get to really see what the 
differences are...

Company A soon realizes that this is a HUGE mistake, but they are 
committed.  Company B has higher sales, but has 4 times the sales force, 
and most of these are of the 'I can sell anything' variety.  Company B's 
products, although industry leaders, are baling wire kludges of bugs and 
patches.  Company B's support team could be moved to India (and was!) 
without any changes in quality or capability!

But, because the owner and biggest stockholder of A was looking for a 
way out, B became the dominant player in the management of the combined 
company.  A's sales, management and production teams are all laid off, 
with a huge drop in sales and massive snafus in fulfillment.  It seems 
that A's sales group sold, per salesman, about 4 times waht B's did, and 
A's sales force wanted them gone as soon as possible! (side note - Comp. 
A sales team was mainly on salary, with a small commission.  B's sales 
team was small salary, big commission.  After the merger, A's salesfolk 
would have been the highest paid members of the sales force if they had 
transitioned to the 'new' companies compensation!)

In the production dept., A had hired qualified pros, and trained them to 
handle what was a fairly complex fulfillment process.  'B' had a group 
of barely trained monkeys.  Shortly after 'A's production team was 
released, they were all brought back at big increases in order to 
continue shipping product...

Bottom line?  The combined company was bought out by an even bigger 
competitor after another year...

Charlie

John O'F wrote:

> On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 06:57:05 -0500, msg <msg@_cybertheque.org_> wrote:
> 
>>Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
>><snip>
>>> And of course, if I had said in public back then what I said earlier
>>> today, I might have been immediately ostracized, with real
>>> consequences, whereas now, I can say what I want under and alias that
>>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>>> 
>>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
>>
>>Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?
> 
> Oxord dictionary shows the idiom "chaud lapin" (with that word order)
> as "randy devil". I guess, equivalent to horny toad, diry old man.
> --
> John
Ahhhh.  The "heat of a rabbit" rather than "a rabbit in heat".
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> In news:1182405222.795896.227040@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com
> timestamped Wed, 20 Jun 2007 22:53:42 -0700, Benj
> <bjacoby@iwaynet.net> posted:
>      "[..]
>      
>      [..] A PhD candidate is supposed to be
>      required to contribute to the world's knowledge to obtain the title.
>      The unfortunate aspect of this is that schools are usually highly
>      centered upon class work."
> 
> Really?
> 
>      "[..] Class work tends to involve
>      lots of memory and agreeing with the professor (even when he/she is
>      dead wrong).
>      
>      I knew this one guy, who was the ace student of the EE department.
>      The guy never got a grade below an A in his entire life. But then
>      suddenly classwork was over! He had not the SLIGHTEST clue where to
>      begin doing research. [..]
> 
>      [..]"
> 
> Unfortunately supposed research at the level of a Ph.D. can entail
> agreeing with a professor who is mistaken. If the professor can be
> mistaken on established fields in classes, the outlook for
> comprehending the research issues are not necessarily better.
So how many of us has not figured out that this is just part of the standing
residue of witch doctors and thug rulers.  Damn few should remain unedified
after this.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

Late at night, by candle light, Rich Grise <rich@example.net> penned
this immortal opus:

>On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:01:53 -0500, msg wrote:
>> Rich Grise wrote:
>>> On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:57:54 -0700, Salmon Egg wrote:
>>>>On 6/19/07 7:06 AM, in article 137fokc4ab1kac9@corp.supernews.com, "msg"
>>>>>(repost attempt, first post failed)
>>>>>Salmon Egg wrote:
>>>>><snip>
>>>>>>Modern electronics and radio is not really feasible or
>>>>>>economical for home construction. I can get an FM stereo radio with
>>>>>>earphones at the 99� store. You cannot buy the parts for a transceiver for
>>>>>>what it costs for a much better piece of equipment commercially.
>> 
>> My purpose in posting was to suggest that homebrewing can be cost-
>> effective (I certainly can't afford $500-$2500 for a decent
>> receiver).
>> 
>>>>>FWIW, please try my homebrew HF receiver (online/interactive)
>>>>>at <snip>
>> 
>> I had hoped that actually using my receiver would illustrate the
>> point that a receiver with useful charactersitics (S/N, sensitivity,
>> coverage, resolution) can be built by anyone with modest engineering
>> skills on a budget (I spent perhaps $30.00 total for parts I did
>> not have on hand).
>> 
>>> I get a bunch of java crap that doesn't want to talk to me unless I go
>>> through some hoops, which I don't do on websites.
>> 
>> Sorry Rich, I did not intend to promulgate 'crap'; you never accused me
>> of that in the NG (c.a.e) before.
>
>What I'm saying is that if you want to showcase your illustrations, that
>putting impediments between your site and your viewers is a turn-off. If
>I have to sign in, or join some chatroom group or something, the content
>just isn't worth the effort.
>
>Here's how I do a showcase:
>http://www.neodruid.net/KeyZilla
>
>Cheers!
>Rich

"Not Found
The requested URL /~sysop/KeyZilla was not found on this server."

- YD.

-- 
Remove HAT if replying by mail.

On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>
> Thanks,
> Joshua


Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.

You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.

Best wishes,

Michael

mpm wrote:

> On Jun 18, 5:59?pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> question is, is it worth it?
> 
> Experience counts too.
> So, if you were not in the EE workforce before or during your BSEE
> years, you might hold off on the Masters program, at least for now.
> Here's why:
> 
> Time was, a Double-E degree was a guarantee of life-long employment.
> Perhaps with a Fortune-500 Company, great benefits, retirement....
> 
> Nowadays, a lot of EE's (newly minted and otherwise) find themselves
> scrambling for contract work.  (Not all, but a lot.)  Times ain't what
> they used to be.  You are at the perfect crossroads, in a sense.  Take
> some time, and find out.
> 
> If you find yourself leaning towards more education simply because job
> prospects appear bleak (be honest!), I personally would face that
> situation square in it's own reality.  Jobs are hemmoraging from the
> US in general, (and on the whole, they are being replaced by lower-
> pay, lower-skill, and much lower-satisfaction jobs IMO.)  Or they are
> off-shored.   If that is an underlying reality in your part of the
> world, or in your particular field of interest, make sure you bring it
> to the surface before making a decision.
> 
> Also, I don't personally think 30 is too young to get your BSEE.
Yeah, so how old were you when you received yours?  Just to clear the air i
was over 40, it opened some doors previously closed to me.  An MSEE will
open other doors, as will a PhD.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

On Jun 22, 3:23 am, Palindrome <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> And they will laugh at you - as you know full well. If a company is
> making something for 100GBP and selling it for 95GBP - it's being run by
> an engineer. Engineers invent something brilliant which sells in their
> millions - but 99.9% of the sales go to a cheap Chinese rip-off.

fg

According to Le Chaud Lapin, the company he was describing has $1
trillion under assets. Companies don't get that big if they are
selling a dollar for 95 cents. The question to Le Chaud is, did this
company get this big because of their engineering? Probably not. He
said "$1 trillion under assets" as opposed to "$1 trillion in
revenues" -- leading me to believe that he is describing a financial
institution, say, a bank or investment firm. Those aren't engineering
firms, like say, Boeing. In fact I'm not sure what a bank would need
electrical engineers for, but Le Chaud didn't say they were electrical
engineers, so I'll assume he's talking about MIS engineers. At best,
those people play a support role. They are a cost center, not a profit
center.

Again, I don't know what the relationship is between engineers and
that company's profits, but if it is a bank or investment fund, then
engineers are not that important. In all likelihood, they will only be
needed until the current project is done. I can see the purpose of a
"business analyst" in financial institutions -- they will find new
markets and new ways to make money. Le Chaud sounds like he's grossy
oversimplifying when he portrays the engineer as the true creative
ones, and the business analysts as the idiots. I know plenty of sharp,
intelligent "business analysts." and I've met plenty of idiots who are
engineers. They usually get weeded out, once they show that they never
produce anything but stupid ideas, like reinventing the wheel,
only...rounder.

> Give an engineer an engineering problem and he's as happy as Larry. Give
> him a financial and marketing one and he rolls over and falls asleep.

Engineers also roll over a fall asleep when you serve them warm milk
and read them the bedtime story "The Little Circuit Board That Could."

> Engineers can go home happy that their ethics are respected. Financial
> and sales people know that their ethics are a luxury that they can't put
> on their expense sheet.

Engineers can go home happy if at the end of the day, their jobs
haven't been sent overseas...

+ fisted stopped.

mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Joshua
> 
> 
> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
> 
> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.

When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year 
before college. All the people I know who took a break between school 
and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better 
perspective on why they were there.

Steve

Steve Underwood wrote:
> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Joshua
>>
>>
>>
>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>
>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
> 
> 
> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year 
> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school 
> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better 
> perspective on why they were there.
> 
It does rather depend on how they spend that time. Staying at home and 
working behind a counter all year, in order to buy a car/expensive 
holiday/etc may not alter their perspective on life very much at all.

I've known quite a few change their minds totally about what they wanted 
to study at Uni and what they wanted as a future career - after a few 
weeks experience of what the career (or a different one) involves.

IMHO - the gap year is an invaluable part of the education process and 
well worth a bit of effort getting it right. There is an unrepeatable 
opportunity.

-- 
Sue

Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org> writes:

> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Joshua
>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
>
> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year
> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school
> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better
> perspective on why they were there.

Steve,

I think that it depends on the person. I started college (well,
DeVry's 3-year program) two weeks out of high school and was finished
and working at a Silicon Valley company (GTE Government Systems) at
21. I was the youngest engineer they had ever had. I thank my father
for putting the boot up my ass (actually at a much earlier age than
18) and not allowing me to sit on my butt.

I count myself lucky, however. Most kids that age don't know what they
want to do. Even so, if a child of mine took some time off right after
high school before going to college, I would want it to be productive,
e.g., going into the military for a couple of years would be a great
option, IMO. 

Tick-tock - time is passing, even at 18.

No matter what we think or hope, they are going to do what they wish at
that age. The best thing a parent can do is train them properly from 0
to 18.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "Though you ride on the wheels of tomorrow,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  you still wander the fields of your
%%% 919-577-9882                %  sorrow."
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % '21st Century Man', *Time*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

Steve Underwood wrote:
> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>
.... snip ...
>
>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of
>> full disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
> 
> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a
> year before college. All the people I know who took a break
> between school and college got a lot more out of college. They
> had a much better perspective on why they were there.

There are varying views on that.  I did, because I finished high
school at the age of 14, and took a year off.  I then took another
off after the first year of college.  But I have unconfirmed doubts
that it was a good thing.  It encouraged me to diversify early.  Of
course in those days college didn't cost the world, so it was
relatively easy ($250 annual tuition!).

-- 
 <http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>
 <http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/423>
 <http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html>
                        cbfalconer at maineline dot net



-- 
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

Randy Yates wrote:
> Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org> writes:
> 
>> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Joshua
>>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
>> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year
>> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school
>> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better
>> perspective on why they were there.
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I think that it depends on the person. I started college (well,
> DeVry's 3-year program) two weeks out of high school and was finished
> and working at a Silicon Valley company (GTE Government Systems) at
> 21. I was the youngest engineer they had ever had. I thank my father
> for putting the boot up my ass (actually at a much earlier age than
> 18) and not allowing me to sit on my butt.
> 
> I count myself lucky, however. Most kids that age don't know what they
> want to do. Even so, if a child of mine took some time off right after
> high school before going to college, I would want it to be productive,
> e.g., going into the military for a couple of years would be a great
> option, IMO. 
> 
> Tick-tock - time is passing, even at 18.
> 
> No matter what we think or hope, they are going to do what they wish at
> that age. The best thing a parent can do is train them properly from 0
> to 18.

Its not a matter of deciding what you want to do. Anyone who hasn't some 
kind of idea about that by 18 needs vigorous prodding until they wake 
up. That year break should be more about refining your goals, and 
working out how to achieve them.

I never met anyone who wait straight from school to college who worked 
nearly as hard as they could have (this was the route I took). I've 
never seen anyone who went to college after a break and sat around 
idling their time away. That break seems to focus the mind. A good part 
of it is no doubt seeing what life is like without a good degree, but I 
wouldn't presume I understood the whole picture. I just observe the outcome.

Steve

Jerry Avins wrote:

> gyansorova@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Jun 20, 3:57 am, "Joel Kolstad" <JKolstad71HatesS...@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>> "Salmon Egg" <salmon...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
>>>
>>> news:C29C7795.8088F%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
>>>
>>>> On 6/18/07 3:55 PM, in article
>>>> pan.2007.06.18.22.55.31.843...@example.net, "Rich Grise"
>>>> <r...@example.net> wrote:
>>>>> It depends what you want. If you love going to school, then do that.
>>>>> If you want to actually do something useful, then get some practical
>>>>> experience.
>>>> Of the responses I have seen so far, this is the best advice.
>>> I have to disagree a little here.  If your goal is to be, e.g., an
>>> analog IC designer, unless you're Jim Thompson's kid it's very difficult
>>> to do these
>>> days without the formal education.  The problem is that building ICs
>>> requires big bucks, which implies big companies, and big companies are
>>> notoriously bad about using academic credentials as the first
>>> "gatekeepers" to employment.
>>>
>>> On the other hand, for someone who wants to write software, do some
>>> digital design, perhaps some power supply stuff, etc. (i.e., decent
>>> chance of getting a job in a smaller company as a "general-purpose
>>> useful person), it is
>>> reasonable to just learn on the job.  Perhaps not the most secure career
>>> strategy, but I certainly know several people who've taken this route
>>> and it works just fine for them.
>> 
>> Nobody learns on the job any more - not even technicians. How would
>> you learn basics like Fourier Series,FFTs etc on the job? You need a
>> firm mathematical background to be a professional engineer. As for IC
>> designers, at the Analogue end you do learn a lot on the job but
>> that's after a good honours degree. It would be unthinkable for say
>> Analog Devices to take somebody right out of school. The apprentice
>> scheme is gone forever, we are professionals.
> 
> I dropped out of college, and later (when I wanted to get married and
> running the service department in a Hi-Fi boutique didn't seem to have
> an adequate future) I got a technician certificate (T-3) from RCA
> institutes. Not only did I learn to design transmitters and class-B
> plate modulators, but harmonic analysis (both algebraically and
> graphically) and Laplace transforms. Schwartz-Christoffel transformation
> anyone? I carried a lot of credit with me when I went back to college.
> 
> Jerry
An interesting technique, but no more difficult than Laplace or rotations of
the Complex Reimann Sphere.  All are extensions of analytic geometry (in
the form that includes projective geometry), a nominal pre-calculus course.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:15:07 +0800, Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org>
wrote:

>Randy Yates wrote:
>> Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org> writes:
>> 
>>> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>
>>>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Joshua
>>>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>>>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>>>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
>>> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year
>>> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school
>>> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better
>>> perspective on why they were there.
>> 
>> Steve,
>> 
>> I think that it depends on the person. I started college (well,
>> DeVry's 3-year program) two weeks out of high school and was finished
>> and working at a Silicon Valley company (GTE Government Systems) at
>> 21. I was the youngest engineer they had ever had. I thank my father
>> for putting the boot up my ass (actually at a much earlier age than
>> 18) and not allowing me to sit on my butt.
>> 
>> I count myself lucky, however. Most kids that age don't know what they
>> want to do. Even so, if a child of mine took some time off right after
>> high school before going to college, I would want it to be productive,
>> e.g., going into the military for a couple of years would be a great
>> option, IMO. 
>> 
>> Tick-tock - time is passing, even at 18.
>> 
>> No matter what we think or hope, they are going to do what they wish at
>> that age. The best thing a parent can do is train them properly from 0
>> to 18.
>
>Its not a matter of deciding what you want to do. Anyone who hasn't some 
>kind of idea about that by 18 needs vigorous prodding until they wake 
>up. That year break should be more about refining your goals, and 
>working out how to achieve them.
>
>I never met anyone who wait straight from school to college who worked 
>nearly as hard as they could have (this was the route I took). I've 
>never seen anyone who went to college after a break and sat around 
>idling their time away. That break seems to focus the mind. A good part 
>of it is no doubt seeing what life is like without a good degree, but I 
>wouldn't presume I understood the whole picture. I just observe the outcome.
>
>Steve

I didn't start college until I was 21, and that was after a career
re-assessment prompted by slicing the tip of a finger off in the
jointer in the millwork shop I was running.

Even then, I concentrated my EE electives in materials science and
microelectronics for silicon fab, as I kind of thought that that was
what I wanted to do.  I was very fortunate in that my first job was
heavy in DSP, I got to do a lot of very interesting and educational
stuff and my specialty focus changed completely.   After three years
of that I returned to grad school with a lot better idea of what I was
really good at and wanted to do.

By then I was 28.

So some people are a little slower than others at sorting things out
and take different routes at getting there.    I've also known people
who just took a year to travel and see the world or whatever either
right after high school or right after college.   I have no criticism
about that as it can give a person a very valuable perspective on life
and what really matters to them.

A person's value/morals/work ethics are already pretty well in place
by the time they get out of high school, so I don't think taking a
trip and not working for a year or so (if they have that privilege
available to them) is going to turn them into a bum.   If they turn
into a bum because of it I wouldn't blame it on the trip necessarily.

One has an entire lifetime to work and develop a career, but
opportunities to travel and expand one's perspective are often
limited.  If one gets that opportunity as a young person, more power
to them, and I'd say go for it.  Even doing some other job or
something can be enriching.   I have no regrets about working as a
skilled laborer for several years, even though I actually didn't like
most of it at the time.   It's a lifestyle that I can understand and
relate to because I lived it.

I wish life was longer as I think it would be fun to try a career as a
lawyer, cartoonist, musician, racing, etc.   Dang, there just ain't
enough hours in a day...   ;)

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 22:15:07 +0800, Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org>
> wrote:
> 
>> Randy Yates wrote:
>>> Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org> writes:
>>>
>>>> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>>>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>>>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>>>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>>>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>>>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>>>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>>>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>>>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Joshua
>>>>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>>>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>>>>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>>>>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
>>>> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year
>>>> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school
>>>> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better
>>>> perspective on why they were there.
>>> Steve,
>>>
>>> I think that it depends on the person. I started college (well,
>>> DeVry's 3-year program) two weeks out of high school and was finished
>>> and working at a Silicon Valley company (GTE Government Systems) at
>>> 21. I was the youngest engineer they had ever had. I thank my father
>>> for putting the boot up my ass (actually at a much earlier age than
>>> 18) and not allowing me to sit on my butt.
>>>
>>> I count myself lucky, however. Most kids that age don't know what they
>>> want to do. Even so, if a child of mine took some time off right after
>>> high school before going to college, I would want it to be productive,
>>> e.g., going into the military for a couple of years would be a great
>>> option, IMO. 
>>>
>>> Tick-tock - time is passing, even at 18.
>>>
>>> No matter what we think or hope, they are going to do what they wish at
>>> that age. The best thing a parent can do is train them properly from 0
>>> to 18.
>> Its not a matter of deciding what you want to do. Anyone who hasn't some 
>> kind of idea about that by 18 needs vigorous prodding until they wake 
>> up. That year break should be more about refining your goals, and 
>> working out how to achieve them.
>>
>> I never met anyone who wait straight from school to college who worked 
>> nearly as hard as they could have (this was the route I took). I've 
>> never seen anyone who went to college after a break and sat around 
>> idling their time away. That break seems to focus the mind. A good part 
>> of it is no doubt seeing what life is like without a good degree, but I 
>> wouldn't presume I understood the whole picture. I just observe the outcome.
>>
>> Steve
> 
> I didn't start college until I was 21, and that was after a career
> re-assessment prompted by slicing the tip of a finger off in the
> jointer in the millwork shop I was running.

That sounds like a somewhat technical activity. At least you'd focussed 
yourself getween arts and sciences. Some teenagers seems unable to even 
do that.

> Even then, I concentrated my EE electives in materials science and
> microelectronics for silicon fab, as I kind of thought that that was
> what I wanted to do.  I was very fortunate in that my first job was
> heavy in DSP, I got to do a lot of very interesting and educational
> stuff and my specialty focus changed completely.   After three years
> of that I returned to grad school with a lot better idea of what I was
> really good at and wanted to do.

At college I was most interested in making computation go fast. The 
first job I got was to make the computations in signal processors go 
fast. Colleges didn't generally have courses on DSP at that time. I got 
Rabiner and Gold, and taught myself what I needed to diversify my work 
from pure logic architecture. I don't consider that a major shift in 
direction. Pretty minor fine tuning, really.

> By then I was 28.

By 28 I had been working 7 years, and I'd done a fairly diverse range of 
things, but all in the same general area.

> So some people are a little slower than others at sorting things out
> and take different routes at getting there.    I've also known people
> who just took a year to travel and see the world or whatever either
> right after high school or right after college.   I have no criticism
> about that as it can give a person a very valuable perspective on life
> and what really matters to them.

If you are just going take a year's holiday between school and college I 
doubt it serves any purpose at all.

> A person's value/morals/work ethics are already pretty well in place
> by the time they get out of high school, so I don't think taking a
> trip and not working for a year or so (if they have that privilege
> available to them) is going to turn them into a bum.   If they turn
> into a bum because of it I wouldn't blame it on the trip necessarily.

I should hope their values and morals are in place. I'm not sure about 
work ethic, though. I've seen a lot of people get their act together 
after a short time in the working world, because for the first time 
they've actually figured out *why* they needed an education. The *why* 
is sadly something the educators have generally not figured out, and so 
are unable to pass on to youngsters.

> One has an entire lifetime to work and develop a career, but
> opportunities to travel and expand one's perspective are often
> limited.  If one gets that opportunity as a young person, more power
> to them, and I'd say go for it.  Even doing some other job or

This is a luxury few can afford. I really doubt be a tourist serves any 
purpose beyond being a holiday. When I travel for work I make a point of 
never being a tourist, unless I'm dragged into seeing things by people 
trying to be kind.

> something can be enriching.   I have no regrets about working as a
> skilled laborer for several years, even though I actually didn't like
> most of it at the time.   It's a lifestyle that I can understand and
> relate to because I lived it.

I'd be interested in how you ended up there, considering you appear to 
have the intellectual capacity to succeed in something more mentally 
demanding.

> I wish life was longer as I think it would be fun to try a career as a
> lawyer, cartoonist, musician, racing, etc.   Dang, there just ain't
> enough hours in a day...   ;)

Given an opportunity to relive my life, I would steer clear of 
engineering, or anything that interests me. Life has taught me that 
working for a living in any activity will suck all the joy out of it. 
Better to do something that seems dull from the outset, and offers 
better career prospects.


Regards,
Steve

Steve Underwood wrote:

> > something can be enriching.   I have no regrets about working as a
> > skilled laborer for several years, even though I actually didn't like
> > most of it at the time.   It's a lifestyle that I can understand and
> > relate to because I lived it.
>
> I'd be interested in how you ended up there, considering you appear to
> have the intellectual capacity to succeed in something more mentally
> demanding.

I know a guy like this. College degree. Worked as Union laborer in
road construction to pay his way through school. It was a pretty sweet
deal.  VERY high pay, only work in the warm months. Work requires
basically no skill, just union suction.  When he graduated. (biology
zoology etc.) kept the job. Boss moved him to supervisor. Now VERY
VERY high pay. Same working benefits. Spends off work time traveling
to rain forests in central America and doing bird-chasing all over the
country. Not a total success as you still spend half your life doing
stupid things for money, but still better than having a job and hating
it and not being able to do anything else.

> > I wish life was longer as I think it would be fun to try a career as a
> > lawyer, cartoonist, musician, racing, etc.   Dang, there just ain't
> > enough hours in a day...   ;)

Then you should just DO it! I used to work for Professor A.H. Benade
(author of the famed music physics books). One day he says to me: "Do
you know what "success" is?" No, say I. "Success", he said, "is
thinking of what you'd rather be doing than anything else in the whole
world and then finding someone who will PAY you do do it!"  He lived
that.

And I sort of have.  My view has always been that when I take a job, I
ALWAYS ask myself the key question: Would I take this job if it paid
NOTHING? If the answer is "yes", I sign on! If you have wide interests
like me, you'll find that finding jobs like that is not as hard as you
might think.  But you have to have the guts if you want to be a
cartoonist, musician, lawyer etc. to actually go HANG with the group
you want to join and start developing the relationships that will make
it work.  I've seen WAY too many engineers who are in it because it
pays well. Feh! I can't think of a worse punishment than doing
engineering if you hate it!

> Given an opportunity to relive my life, I would steer clear of
> engineering, or anything that interests me. Life has taught me that
> working for a living in any activity will suck all the joy out of it.
> Better to do something that seems dull from the outset, and offers
> better career prospects.

This was Einstein's theory. He said that if he had it to do over
again, he'd rather be a plumber. A plumber makes decent cash. The work
is not mentally taxing. So you get to eat well and still have time to
think about the problems that interest YOU. The problem Einstein had
was that once you get a job as a physicist, they keep coming around
asking when you are going to put out your NEXT world-changing theory!

Of course one does have to understand that the reason some people pay
other people money to do certain jobs is because the job is a pain in
the ass. But on the other hand, IF you want an education, a pain in
the ass job may be just the ticket. What better way to start to learn
about sanitary engineering than shoveling gob at the bottom of a
manhole?

On Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:44:15 -0700, Benj <bjacoby@iwaynet.net> wrote:

>Steve Underwood wrote:
>
>> > something can be enriching.   I have no regrets about working as a
>> > skilled laborer for several years, even though I actually didn't like
>> > most of it at the time.   It's a lifestyle that I can understand and
>> > relate to because I lived it.
>>
>> I'd be interested in how you ended up there, considering you appear to
>> have the intellectual capacity to succeed in something more mentally
>> demanding.
>
>I know a guy like this. College degree. Worked as Union laborer in
>road construction to pay his way through school. It was a pretty sweet
>deal.  VERY high pay, only work in the warm months. Work requires
>basically no skill, just union suction.  When he graduated. (biology
>zoology etc.) kept the job. Boss moved him to supervisor. Now VERY
>VERY high pay. Same working benefits. Spends off work time traveling
>to rain forests in central America and doing bird-chasing all over the
>country. Not a total success as you still spend half your life doing
>stupid things for money, but still better than having a job and hating
>it and not being able to do anything else.

I'm from a small midwestern town in a rural area, so most of the
people I went to college with were from pretty hard-working
backgrounds and worked at some job or other like that while we were in
school (I continued in the construction trades until my last year of
college).   One of the most brilliant people that I was friends with,
a girl who was my lab partner, was a manager at a Dairy Queen and was
seriously considering staying there when we graduated.   She didn't
and now she's a senior executive VP at a major defense contractor.

>> > I wish life was longer as I think it would be fun to try a career as a
>> > lawyer, cartoonist, musician, racing, etc.   Dang, there just ain't
>> > enough hours in a day...   ;)
>
>Then you should just DO it! I used to work for Professor A.H. Benade
>(author of the famed music physics books). One day he says to me: "Do
>you know what "success" is?" No, say I. "Success", he said, "is
>thinking of what you'd rather be doing than anything else in the whole
>world and then finding someone who will PAY you do do it!"  He lived
>that.

I'm definitely doing something that I like, and it's something that
takes a long time to really get good at.  I think that's true of
many/most professions, though; you're not going to be really good
until you've been at it a long enough time to have made enough
mistakes and had enough successes to really understand things.   So
that's pretty much what I meant...in one lifetime it's tough to have
more than a couple of careers where you get to spend enough time to
really figure things out.   I'd like to have about eight or nine by
current count of things in which I'm interested, so I already know
life's not long enough to do all that.  

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:16:29 +0800, Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org>
wrote:

>Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>
>> One has an entire lifetime to work and develop a career, but
>> opportunities to travel and expand one's perspective are often
>> limited.  If one gets that opportunity as a young person, more power
>> to them, and I'd say go for it.  Even doing some other job or
>
>This is a luxury few can afford. I really doubt be a tourist serves any 
>purpose beyond being a holiday. When I travel for work I make a point of 
>never being a tourist, unless I'm dragged into seeing things by people 
>trying to be kind.

I think you're really short-changing yourself there, and you're an
unusual business traveller if that's really what you do.  You learn a
lot about the world and about other people and yourself when you're in
a foreign environment (and by foreign I mean anything other than
you're usual surroundings).   I always look forward to being in
different places for that reason.   When you're in some place you've
never been then everything around every corner is new and fresh.

>> something can be enriching.   I have no regrets about working as a
>> skilled laborer for several years, even though I actually didn't like
>> most of it at the time.   It's a lifestyle that I can understand and
>> relate to because I lived it.
>
>I'd be interested in how you ended up there, considering you appear to 
>have the intellectual capacity to succeed in something more mentally 
>demanding.

I'm from a fairly small town in the rural midwest; it was a looong way
to go to get to any real civilization where there were opportunities
other than the sort that I took.   It just seemed the natural thing to
do at the time.

It's just good fortune that we also had a very, very good engineering
college in the same town.   A problem for that state is that they have
good technical education, but the vast majority of graduates leave the
state since there are few local jobs.

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

mpm wrote:

> On Jun 19, 1:25?pm, larwe <zwsdot...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>We have people from the senior engineering level all
>> the way up to the executive level who don't even have a BSEE and were
>> promoted on a merit/achievement basis.
> 
> In general, I completely concur with this experience.
> It doesn't take a BSEE (or any?) degree to get ahead in life.
> The two wealthiest people I know didn't even go to college! (And "No",
> they weren't born with it.)
> 
> I also know a Ph.D. psychiatrist who delivers newspapers for a
> living.  (I am not making this up!)
> And another brilliant MIT grad from the 60's who frankly has trouble
> keeping up with Microsoft Word.
> 
> I can also tell you that in Electronics / Communciations, it matters
> not what you learned or did six months ago in school.
> The field changes so fast, the stuff you were working on yesterday is
> probably already obsolete.
> Those with the aptitude, ambition, and ability to "keep up" are the
> ones who will prevail.
> 
> But I would take a slight exception on this one point:
> I believe manufacturing entities are much more likely to place (undo?)
> emphasis on higher education.
> I am fairly convinced this boils down primarily to liability
> containment issues, etc...
> --which for the original poster, you're not going to get to right out
> of school anyway, so it's not relevant.
> 
> Is any of this helping??

In every entity i have ever worked for, liability containment was always
part of the equation.  restaurants, civil service, aerospace.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

Ali wrote:

> On Jun 19, 5:59 am, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Joshua
> 
> Without any solid reason i want to say to grab some commercial
> opportunity and consider your further education as a part time thing,
> perhaps life is itself a learning process. Yes, having a Master degree
> does help to get certain jobs but some advertisers do prompt for age
> factor as well. Like, Should be having master with below age 26 to or
> so;)
> 
> Getting BSEE over 30 years does exhibit your passion for particular
> profession. So, why not giving a chance to some commercial world?
> worth a shot , BTW you can get to school at anytime for your Master.
> 
> 
> ali
Each to their own, it took me 14 years to complete my BSEE, I was working
full time as an engineer throughout same time.  In the end it opened
(bureaucratic) doors for me.  The MSEE may or may not have the same magic.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

msg wrote:
> Le Chaud Lapin wrote:
>  an alias that
>> means "The Hot Rabbit".
>>
>> -Le Chaud Lapin-
> 
> Why is it not 'Le Lapin Chaud'?
> 

The first is alive, and very much so. (Doing what rabbits like to do.)
The second is dinner.

Jeroen Belleman

Eric Jacobsen wrote:
> I think you're really short-changing yourself there, and you're an
> unusual business traveller if that's really what you do.  You learn a
> lot about the world and about other people and yourself when you're in
> a foreign environment (and by foreign I mean anything other than
> you're usual surroundings).   I always look forward to being in
> different places for that reason.   When you're in some place you've
> never been then everything around every corner is new and fresh.

As a business traveler I get to meet ordinary people in their daily 
lives. I get to drink and eat what they eat (I'll eat almost anything, 
and I'm crazy enough to have drunk the tap water in rural India). Often 
to be invited to their homes. This is a far richer experience that I 
could ever have in tourist mode.

> It's just good fortune that we also had a very, very good engineering
> college in the same town.   A problem for that state is that they have
> good technical education, but the vast majority of graduates leave the
> state since there are few local jobs.

I was lucky enough to attend a world class engineering school in my home 
town too - London :-)

Steve

Steve Underwood wrote:
> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
> 
>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Joshua
>>
>>
>>
>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>
>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
> 
> 
> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year 
> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school 
> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better 
> perspective on why they were there.
> 
> Steve
This really depends on a lot of things...

There are many scholarships and other financial offerings that are 
designed to be used by a student going directly from high school to 
college.  You need to apply for them WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL! (and 
sometimes, in your junior year!) or you can't get them.  To many, this 
financial support is just about required if they are going to go to 
college, so a year off is just going to mean they don't go at all... :-(

Charlie

"Steve Underwood" <steveu@dis.org> wrote in message 
news:f5n1gu$on4$1@nnews.pacific.net.hk...
> When I travel for work I make a point of never being a tourist, unless I'm 
> dragged into seeing things by people trying to be kind.

I think that's rather sad.  I mean, I'm all for working hard and insuring you 
get your job done for your employer when they've sent you on a business trip 
at considerable expense and all, but when you genuinely have free time, I can 
think of nothing sadder than sitting around in a motel room watching TV.  What 
do you spend your time doing?

> Life has taught me that working for a living in any activity will suck all 
> the joy out of it.

This isn't true for everyone; many people are able to true enjoy their careers 
their entire lives.

---Joel

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 20:28:45 +0800, Steve Underwood <steveu@dis.org>
wrote:

>Eric Jacobsen wrote:
>> I think you're really short-changing yourself there, and you're an
>> unusual business traveller if that's really what you do.  You learn a
>> lot about the world and about other people and yourself when you're in
>> a foreign environment (and by foreign I mean anything other than
>> you're usual surroundings).   I always look forward to being in
>> different places for that reason.   When you're in some place you've
>> never been then everything around every corner is new and fresh.
>
>As a business traveler I get to meet ordinary people in their daily 
>lives. I get to drink and eat what they eat (I'll eat almost anything, 
>and I'm crazy enough to have drunk the tap water in rural India). Often 
>to be invited to their homes. This is a far richer experience that I 
>could ever have in tourist mode.

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant by "tourist mode".   I took your
statement to mean that you weren't getting out and seeing things, not
that you weren't using the usual "tourist" means or venues.

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

cpope wrote:

> 
> "Salmon Egg" <salmonegg@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:C29DB263.80C9C%salmonegg@sbcglobal.net...
>> On 6/19/07 12:17 PM, in article 46782c74$0$16580$4c368faf@roadrunner.com,
>> "cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> No.  Enroll in Law School.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Yeah. just what the world needs: more lawyers!? I'd rather be a broke,
>> > unemployed engineer than a rich lawyer anyday, thanks. -Clark
>>
>> Many smart people who are interested in making money do go to law school
>> because it is a better road to wealth than engineering or science is.
>>
>> Bill
>> --
>> Iraq: About three Virginia Techs a month
>>
> 
> And what about the smart people who are interested in being useful?
> 
> I view the number of employed lawyers in a country as a level of its
> sickness. The number of employed engineers is an indicator of health.
> 
> Of course when you have lawyers becoming politicians to write laws to make
> sure other lawyers have work the measure is somewhat perverted. I mean
> does anyone really believe you need a lawyer to close on the garden
> variety home sale?
> 
> We engineers need to get together and run the lawyers out of business by
> streamlining and consolidating the law. You think we could at least get
> the tax code to fewer words than the Bible?
> 
> If we ran things, the california state code, for example, would just be a
> patch applied to some master state law source tree.
> 
> -Clark
Gosh, is that supposed to be a new or different idea?  The California state
code is legally exactly that, a patch on existing Federal code.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

Charlie Edmondson wrote:
> Steve Underwood wrote:
>> mrdarrett@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> On Jun 18, 2:59 pm, panfilero <panfil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
>>>> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
>>>> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
>>>> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
>>>> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
>>>> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
>>>> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
>>>> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
>>>> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Joshua
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Go to work for awhile (if you can), see what you like and don't like.
>>>
>>> You might discover (like I did) that the money is in Project
>>> Management.  Depends on the industry though... in interest of full
>>> disclosure, I'm a chemical engineer, not an EE.
>>
>>
>> When my kids leave school I hope that will do something for a year 
>> before college. All the people I know who took a break between school 
>> and college got a lot more out of college. They had a much better 
>> perspective on why they were there.
>>
>> Steve
> This really depends on a lot of things...
> 
> There are many scholarships and other financial offerings that are 
> designed to be used by a student going directly from high school to 
> college.  You need to apply for them WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL! (and 
> sometimes, in your junior year!) or you can't get them.  To many, this 
> financial support is just about required if they are going to go to 
> college, so a year off is just going to mean they don't go at all... :-(
> 
> Charlie

These things are not mutually exclusive. I remember when applying for 
colleges, a couple of them offered me a place "to be taken in the next 
academic year, or the one following, at your choice". So, it is often 
possible to get college settled while at school, and still take a year 
out to work or hatch evil plots to take over the world.

Steve

Joel Kolstad wrote:
> "Steve Underwood" <steveu@dis.org> wrote in message 
> news:f5n1gu$on4$1@nnews.pacific.net.hk...
>> When I travel for work I make a point of never being a tourist, unless I'm 
>> dragged into seeing things by people trying to be kind.
> 
> I think that's rather sad.  I mean, I'm all for working hard and insuring you 
> get your job done for your employer when they've sent you on a business trip 
> at considerable expense and all, but when you genuinely have free time, I can 
> think of nothing sadder than sitting around in a motel room watching TV.  What 
> do you spend your time doing?

If the only thing that comes to mind as an alternative to being a 
tourist is to sit in a hotel room watching TV, that is truly sad.

>> Life has taught me that working for a living in any activity will suck all 
>> the joy out of it.
> 
> This isn't true for everyone; many people are able to true enjoy their careers 
> their entire lives.

I wonder. It seems few who acquire the financial means to give up their 
jobs don't.

Steve

"Steve Underwood" <steveu@dis.org> wrote in message 
news:f5q2va$bne$1@home.itg.ti.com...
> If the only thing that comes to mind as an alternative to being a tourist is 
> to sit in a hotel room watching TV, that is truly sad.

I'm basing that on an experience I had back in... mmm... 1995, where I was on 
a field install in East St. Louis -- that's all the other guy I was with did 
after we had spent 10 hours working.  That, and occasionally strolling down to 
the motel bar to get a drink.

> I wonder. It seems few who acquire the financial means to give up their jobs 
> don't.

That would be an interesting statistic.  I'd like to believe it's in the high 
single-digits (those who have the financial means to quit work but don't), but 
I really have no idea.

---Joel

"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> The master's says
>
> *you were a good enough student to make it into grad school
> *you can handle advanced material
> *and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a
> thesis
>
> I think you'll find from salary tables that the MS pays for itself, i.e.
you
> make more in higher pay than you lose in the 18 to 24 months it takes to
get
> the degree.

Maybe so; maybe no.

Obviously, many engineers aren't smart enough to even start in grad school.
Others are smart enough to get in but don't have the energy and
self-discipline to get the degree(s).

But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
do well regardless of credentials.

Note that the richest man in the world (Bill Gate$ is a college dropout.)

Advanced degrees are useful if:

1)   You want an academic career (the original meaning of "doctor" was
teacher).

2)   There is some truly leading edge technology you can master more quickly
in school than on the job.   Note than in engineering, innovation as often
as not comes from industry rather than the university.

3)   You get a "management" degree like a MBA from a GOOD school.   This
"signals" your intent to join the ranks of management.  In case you didn't
know, managers make more money than engineers.

If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal that you might
get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published at a young
age it's possible to quickly get an advanced degree.   A solid record of
publications is more impressive than a MS or even a Ph.D. and a grad school
might rush you through the system just so they can take "partial credit" for
your future publications.

> But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
> do well regardless of credentials.
>

This is a good point and has been used to show that ivy league schools are
not worth the money. The alumni make more money but they would make more
money anyway because they are in the top few percent of all students.

So I can agree in one respect that grad school may just be another gate
keeper statistic like number of years of experience. It may or may not have
relevance to a particular job.

I guess one could say that one should strive to get into grad school but
once accepted it may not matter whether they go? I have some problems with
this. First, it's like saying as long as you have good grades through your
junior year you may or may not finish your senior year. You can extend this
logic back to going to school at all, right? Certainly if a bachelor's
degree has value then a master's degree has value.

The second problem I have is that, as a person who has been in continuing
education since my master's degree, I know that the corporate training and
education are totally different. In corporate you go for a couple days,
learn one tool or management practice, you're never tested and you may or
may not retain the information for more than a week. In school I have to
learn topics/material that I might never encounter in my direct job but
still teach me useful engineering principles and forces me to be current on
the latest tools.

In all, I think every engineer should be in continuing education. You don't
know what you don't know. I think a lot of the folks who claim to know it
all based on their work history would be quite surprised to enroll in a
modern graduate class on a topic even in their own field.

-Clark

In article <mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com>, gilmer@nni.com 
says...
> 
> "cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:467704e5$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> > The master's says
> >
> > *you were a good enough student to make it into grad school
> > *you can handle advanced material
> > *and (for most schools) you can handle a large independent project, e.g. a
> > thesis
> >
> > I think you'll find from salary tables that the MS pays for itself, i.e.
> you
> > make more in higher pay than you lose in the 18 to 24 months it takes to
> get
> > the degree.
> 
> Maybe so; maybe no.

I've found it's usually not the case.  If one wants to do a true 
financial justification, the years of earning potential have to be  
amortized over a lifetime.
> 
> Obviously, many engineers aren't smart enough to even start in grad school.
> Others are smart enough to get in but don't have the energy and
> self-discipline to get the degree(s).

For a MS?  I started my MS, while working, and quite because it was 
such a joke.  I was learning far more on-the-job than I could ever 
get out of class.

> But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
> do well regardless of credentials.
> 
> Note that the richest man in the world (Bill Gate$ is a college dropout.)

BillyG is a little "different".  ;-)

> Advanced degrees are useful if:
> 
> 1)   You want an academic career (the original meaning of "doctor" was
> teacher).

Exactly.
 
> 2)   There is some truly leading edge technology you can master more quickly
> in school than on the job.   Note than in engineering, innovation as often
> as not comes from industry rather than the university.

Yep. The degree is often the entrance fee for these jobs in industry 
though.

> 3)   You get a "management" degree like a MBA from a GOOD school.   This
> "signals" your intent to join the ranks of management.  In case you didn't
> know, managers make more money than engineers.

Depends on the company.  The difference, except at the corporate 
executive level, can be small.
 
> If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal that you might
> get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published at a young
> age it's possible to quickly get an advanced degree.   A solid record of
> publications is more impressive than a MS or even a Ph.D. and a grad school
> might rush you through the system just so they can take "partial credit" for
> your future publications.
> 
If you want to show how smart you are, go into politics.  ;-)

-- 
  Keith

"John Gilmer" <gilmer@nni.com> wrote in message 
news:mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com...
> Note that the richest man in the world (Bill Gate$ is a college dropout.)

Yes, but he did drop out of Harvard, which says something a little different 
than just dropping out of your local no-name community college.  Another thing 
to keep in mind is that, while Bill Gates is clearly a savvy guy, the 
*technical* knowledge he required to start Microsoft was pretty limited.  This 
is the start of my rant on how it was rather silly to think that someone who 
wants to do general-purpose computer programming or web design or similar 
needed a four-year degree... but what's happened in the past handful of 
decades has been that the four-year degree has been dumbed down instead 
(although I'm not suggesting it's been to the point of where two-year degrees 
used to be).

> If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal that you might
> get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published at a young
> age it's possible to quickly get an advanced degree.

Have you read about these guys? --> 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair

Somewhere in there it mentions that at least one guy kind of defends them by 
saying (very much paraphrased here), "Well, you know, they've been little 
better than slave labor for a number for years now, we sort of owe them their 
PhDs even if it is a bunch of hooey."

---Joel

"cpope" <cepope@nc.rr.com> wrote in message 
news:46827b46$0$16562$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> In school I have to
> learn topics/material that I might never encounter in my direct job but
> still teach me useful engineering principles and forces me to be current on
> the latest tools.

Which school did you go to?  My experienece is that there's a large variation 
in whether any given department has new or old equipment and software.  Where 
I went to school, the PCs were quite shiney (and there we LOTS of them spread 
around campus), we had 20" flat panel monitors, the PC software was generally 
up-to-date, etc.  However, the UNIX boxes -- that were still used for many 
graduate-level engineering courses -- were pretty long in the tooth and ran 
quite out-of-date versions of HSPICE and Cadence's IC design tools.  Some labs 
had quite new equipment, whereas others still had "boat anchor" oscilloscopes, 
spectrum analyzers, etc. that had *tubes* in them (this last bit probably says 
more about the departmental professors and their ability to obtain funding 
than the school itself, though).

> In all, I think every engineer should be in continuing education.

I agree 100% (although note that some engineers are able to pull this off 
without formal instruction).

---Joel

cpope wrote:
>>But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
>>do well regardless of credentials.
>>
> 
> 
> This is a good point and has been used to show that ivy league schools are
> not worth the money. The alumni make more money but they would make more
> money anyway because they are in the top few percent of all students.

Yeah sure ;)
I am an alumnus of a certain Ivy League school whose founder is quoted 
BY STUDENTS as saying "I *would* found an _INSTITUTION_."

I must be an alumnus. The Alumni Association kept trying to get money 
from me. "Alumnus" denotes attendance NOT graduation.
	Give my regards to Davy, remember me to Tee Fee Crane.
	Tell all the pikers on the hill that I'll be back again.

On Jun 27, 11:17 am, Richard Owlett <rowl...@atlascomm.net> wrote:
> cpope wrote:
> >>But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
> >>do well regardless of credentials.
>
> > This is a good point and has been used to show that ivy league schools are
> > not worth the money. The alumni make more money but they would make more
> > money anyway because they are in the top few percent of all students.
>
> Yeah sure ;)
> I am an alumnus of a certain Ivy League school whose founder is quoted
> BY STUDENTS as saying "I *would* found an _INSTITUTION_."
>
> I must be an alumnus. The Alumni Association kept trying to get money
> from me. "Alumnus" denotes attendance NOT graduation.

The alumni association of the Unversity of Vermont has created a
membership class for those born in the veteran's trailer park
(actually in the hospital up the hill) on campus during the years
following WWII.  The park was located in a parking lot for the
baseball stadium.

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 08:57:09 -0300, John Gilmer wrote:
....
> 3)   You get a "management" degree like a MBA from a GOOD school.   This
> "signals" your intent to join the ranks of management.  In case you
> didn't know, managers make more money than engineers.

Well, you know who you are:
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/the_characters/index.html

Cheers!
Rich

Richard Henry wrote:
> On Jun 27, 11:17 am, Richard Owlett <rowl...@atlascomm.net> wrote:
> 
>>cpope wrote:
>>
>>>>But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
>>>>do well regardless of credentials.
>>
>>>This is a good point and has been used to show that ivy league schools are
>>>not worth the money. The alumni make more money but they would make more
>>>money anyway because they are in the top few percent of all students.
>>
>>Yeah sure ;)
>>I am an alumnus of a certain Ivy League school whose founder is quoted
>>BY STUDENTS as saying "I *would* found an _INSTITUTION_."
>>
>>I must be an alumnus. The Alumni Association kept trying to get money
>>from me. "Alumnus" denotes attendance NOT graduation.
> 
> 
> The alumni association of the Unversity of Vermont has created a
> membership class for those born in the veteran's trailer park
> (actually in the hospital up the hill) on campus during the years
> following WWII.  The park was located in a parking lot for the
> baseball stadium.
> 
> 

Interesting. A friend was born in Vt, was a nurse in VA hospital on 
VT/NH border and now at a VA hospital in Florida.

krw wrote:
> In article <mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com>, gilmer@nni.com
> says...
> > > I think you'll find from salary tables that the MS pays for itself, i.e.
> > you
> > > make more in higher pay than you lose in the 18 to 24 months it takes to
> > get
> > > the degree.
> >
> > Maybe so; maybe no.
>
> I've found it's usually not the case.  If one wants to do a true
> financial justification, the years of earning potential have to be
> amortized over a lifetime.

The salary tables show that "usually" which is to say on average it IS
the case.  It's pretty hard to somehow discount all those future years
at a salary higher than the average person without the degree and say
that somehow a higher salary for all those years "amortized" over a
lifetime will be less!

However, we are talking about PEOPLE and LIFE here!  What happens on
average may not be what happens to you!  So "maybe so, maybe no" has
validity. And more important than that is how one FEELS about various
things. If you hate classwork and school life, trying to force
yourself to do more is probably not going to be very successful for
you.

> For a MS?  I started my MS, while working, and quite because it was
> such a joke.  I was learning far more on-the-job than I could ever
> get out of class.

I don't think getting an MS has ANYTHING to do with job-related
knowledge! Contrary to some misconceptions among freshman, they do NOT
teach you how to solder or design stereo amplifiers at college.  It
has to do with credentials and a demonstration of energy and self-
discipline (which obviously you didn't have) Maybe doing a thesis
would have helped you learn to spell "quit".  Same thing goes for an
MBA. I doubt you'll find anything there that will really make you a
business whiz. But in the corporate bureaucracy it's a badge and a key
to a number of things. It's symbolic in many ways, but sometimes
symbols are important. (especially in politics).

> > But, but ... Folks with smarts and with energy and self-discipline tend to
> > do well regardless of credentials.

True. But every little bit helps.

> > Note that the richest man in the world (Bill Gate$ is a college dropout.)

(who had rich and influential parents!)

> If you want to show how smart you are, go into politics.  ;-)

You mean if your goals are financial, go into politics. But generally
speaking, this is not an option for most engineers who have any
engineering skills at all. Politics and the law are usually best left
for those who have the social and speaking (lying) skills. Engineers
usually have the social skills of a paperweight.

Engineer joke.
Girl is at party. Meets this good-looking guy. Tries to strike up a
conversation with him. Nothing! Can't seem to get more than a grunt or
a single word out of him. She gives up and continues circulating.
Pretty soon she comes back to where the guy is standing by the punch
bowl and takes him by the hand. "Follow me!" she says, And leads him
outside to where another good looking guy is sitting on the edge of
the fountain.  "You two guys should get to know one another!" she
says, and stomps off. The two of them sit there saying absolutely
nothing for maybe 20 minutes. Finally one of them says to the other: "
So, what motherboard are you using?"  :)

In article <1182977324.883253.48190@k79g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, 
bjacoby@iwaynet.net says...
> 
> krw wrote:
> > In article <mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com>, gilmer@nni.com
> > says...
> > > > I think you'll find from salary tables that the MS pays for itself, i.e.
> > > you
> > > > make more in higher pay than you lose in the 18 to 24 months it takes to
> > > get
> > > > the degree.
> > >
> > > Maybe so; maybe no.
> >
> > I've found it's usually not the case.  If one wants to do a true
> > financial justification, the years of earning potential have to be
> > amortized over a lifetime.
> 
> The salary tables show that "usually" which is to say on average it IS
> the case.  It's pretty hard to somehow discount all those future years
> at a salary higher than the average person without the degree and say
> that somehow a higher salary for all those years "amortized" over a
> lifetime will be less!

Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 
IME, a shiny MS pays about the same as a BS with two years 
experience, or less.  IMO, a MS is worthless by itself.  As a 
stepping-stone to a PhD, fine.

> However, we are talking about PEOPLE and LIFE here!  What happens on
> average may not be what happens to you!  So "maybe so, maybe no" has
> validity. And more important than that is how one FEELS about various
> things. If you hate classwork and school life, trying to force
> yourself to do more is probably not going to be very successful for
> you.

Of course.  Plumbing is a fine career too.

> > For a MS?  I started my MS, while working, and quite because it was
> > such a joke.  I was learning far more on-the-job than I could ever
> > get out of class.
> 
> I don't think getting an MS has ANYTHING to do with job-related
> knowledge! Contrary to some misconceptions among freshman, they do NOT
> teach you how to solder or design stereo amplifiers at college.  It
> has to do with credentials and a demonstration of energy and self-
> discipline (which obviously you didn't have) Maybe doing a thesis
> would have helped you learn to spell "quit".  Same thing goes for an
> MBA. I doubt you'll find anything there that will really make you a
> business whiz. But in the corporate bureaucracy it's a badge and a key
> to a number of things. It's symbolic in many ways, but sometimes
> symbols are important. (especially in politics).

I didn't say that you learn how to solder better in MS school!  
<sheesh>

<snip>
 
> > If you want to show how smart you are, go into politics.  ;-)
> 
> You mean if your goals are financial, go into politics. But generally
> speaking, this is not an option for most engineers who have any
> engineering skills at all. Politics and the law are usually best left
> for those who have the social and speaking (lying) skills. Engineers
> usually have the social skills of a paperweight.

No I didn't mean that, or I would have said it.  Since we're 
obviously ignoring ethics; if you want to make real money become a 
lawyer and buy a politician.
 
> Engineer joke.
> Girl is at party. Meets this good-looking guy. Tries to strike up a
> conversation with him. Nothing! Can't seem to get more than a grunt or
> a single word out of him. She gives up and continues circulating.
> Pretty soon she comes back to where the guy is standing by the punch
> bowl and takes him by the hand. "Follow me!" she says, And leads him
> outside to where another good looking guy is sitting on the edge of
> the fountain.  "You two guys should get to know one another!" she
> says, and stomps off. The two of them sit there saying absolutely
> nothing for maybe 20 minutes. Finally one of them says to the other: "
> So, what motherboard are you using?"  :)

;-)

-- 
  Keith

krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in news:MPG.20ecbade13c32e1f98a6c4
@news.individual.net:

> Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
> in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 


If you're paying for the Master's, you're doing something wrong.


-- 
Scott
Reverse name to reply

On 27 Jun 2007 23:34:41 GMT, Scott Seidman
<namdiesttocs@mindspring.com> wrote:

>krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in news:MPG.20ecbade13c32e1f98a6c4
>@news.individual.net:
>
>> Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
>> in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 
>
>
>If you're paying for the Master's, you're doing something wrong.

Well, crap.   I paid for mine.   :(

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

In article <Xns995CC7287EFD0scottseidmanmindspri@130.133.1.4>, 
namdiesttocs@mindspring.com says...
> krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in news:MPG.20ecbade13c32e1f98a6c4
> @news.individual.net:
> 
> > Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
> > in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 
> 
> 
> If you're paying for the Master's, you're doing something wrong.
 
Tain't nothing free.


-- 
  Keith

On June 27th, 2007, Joel Kolstad posted:

     ""John Gilmer" <gilmer@nni.com> wrote in message 
     news:mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com...
     [..]

     > If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal that you might
     > get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published at a young
     > age it's possible to quickly get an advanced degree.
     
     Have you read about these guys? --> 
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
     
     Somewhere in there it mentions that at least one guy kind of defends them by 
     saying (very much paraphrased here), "Well, you know, they've been little 
     better than slave labor for a number for years now, we sort of owe them their 
     PhDs even if it is a bunch of hooey."
     
     ---Joel"

I am grateful to Joel Kolstad for this example, which I do 
not recall already being aware of. I am already aware that 
reviewing of refereed papers allows falsehoods to be 
published because reviewers are not attentive enough and as 
such, science suffers from miscarriages. An example I am 
fond of is an accidental mistake in Fernie, J. D.; Kamper, 
Karl W.; Seager, S., "Goodbye to Polaris the Cepheid", 
"Astrophysical Journal", v.416, p.820, 1993, 
HTTP://ADSAbs.Harvard.edu/abs/1993ApJ...416..820F
which was eventually detected by one or two of the coauthors 
and documented in Kamper, Karl W.; Fernie, J. D., "Polaris 
Revisited", "The Astronomical Journal", Volume 116, Issue 2, 
pp. 936-940, 1998,
HTTP://ADSAbs.Harvard.edu/abs/1998AJ....116..936K
:"[..]
While assembling Table 2, we discovered that in an
earlier paper (FKS) we had made a major error. That paper
had been prepared and written by J. D. F., but all the 
results
from our DDO radial velocities had been arrived at by
K. W. K. It was assumed by J. D. F. that the amplitudes
supplied by K. W. K. from these data were full, peak-to-peak
ones, when in fact they were semi-amplitudes. The
latter is the number that emerges naturally from a Fourier
analysis. We were both potentially aware that such an error
could arise, but most unfortunately, we failed to check 
with
each other about it. As a result, of course, our diagram of
amplitude versus year in FKS underplotted these amplitudes
by a factor of 2. [..]"

N.B. for those of you who do not want to read the papers, 
the overall effect of this was much worse than an inaccuracy 
of a factor of two.

As a result of reading 
HTTP://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics 
bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
news:sci.physics.research so I used 
HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and 
one of Google's resulting advertisements displayed today for 
that old discussion was:
"[..]

Sponsored Links 
   

Thesis- We do it for you
US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
www.thesisexpress.com

[..]"

The remainder of this post contains further details in 
relation to the advertisement for Thesis Express and 
attempts I have made so far to make a complaint to Google in 
relation to this matter.

I had noticed other types of unethical advertisements 
displayed by Google despite claims on
HTTP://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504142742/ds1a.htm
such as:
"[..] For example, we don't accept ads for hard liquor, but 
we accept ads for wine. It's just a personal preference. We 
don't allow gun ads, and the gun lobby got upset about 
that. We don't try to put our sense of ethics into the 
search results, but we do when it comes to advertising.

[..]"

It is perhaps merely an accident that Google advertizes for 
ThesisExpress, Inc., but how could Google Inc. check the 
contents of other advertisements without checking the 
contents of ThesisExpress's advertisement?

I telephoned four of the supposed telephone numbers listed 
on
WWW.Google.com/intl/en/corporate/address.html
, one of them was answered by a fax machine, the other 
three were not of any use for conducting an initial 
conversation. Perhaps I will receive a response to something 
in writing but I will not be contactable for most parties 
including Google from the evening (according to local time) 
of June 29th to approximately the morning of July 9th. 
The current fax number for me is +390502217522 and the 
current telephone number is +390502217625, but when I will 
be away I will not have access to these.

It is written on
WWW.ThesisExpress.com/main.htm
:"[..]

We accept the following easy mode of payments:

[..logos of Visa; MasterCard; American Express; something 
containing the word "DISCOVER"; Diners' Club 
International; a logo which I do not recognize and which I 
can barely read; and Western Union]"
so it should be possible to find many of Thesis Express's
former customers (unless it suits such companies to 
withhold such information in order to e.g. protect customers
who do not earn their salaries). Other methods of payment 
are mentioned on WWW.ThesisExpress.com/payment.htm
including XOOM.com and:
"[..]

Swift Code MBTCPHMM 
Account Number 098309830462-3 
Account Name RODEL O. OLESCO 
Address B4 L20 VILLA CONCEPCION TOWNHOUSES, CONGRESSIONAL 
AVE. CORNER MINDANAO AVE. PROJECT 6, QUEZON CITY  
Name of Bank METROPOLITAN BANK AND TRUST COMPANY (TIMOG 
BRANCH) 
Bank Address 70 TIMOG AVE., CORNER SCT. TORILLO Quezon City 
Philippines 
[..]"

Contact details for ThesisExpress claimed on
WWW.ThesisExpress.com/about.htm
are:
"[..]

Suite 203 Yrreverre Square Building 
888 Mindanao Avenue, 
Quezon City, Philippines 

Hotline Number: +63917-8831043
Fax Number: +632-9200703 

[..]"

I will reply to this post with a screenshot of the 
advertisement.

The following postscripts are merely reproductions of whois 
output related to Thesis Express.

Regards,
Colin Paul Gloster

P.S. A result today from
whois ThesisExpress.com
:"[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.godaddy.com]
[Querying whois.godaddy.com]
[whois.godaddy.com]
The data contained in GoDaddy.com, Inc.'s WhoIs database,
while believed by the company to be reliable, is provided 
"as is"
with no guarantee or warranties regarding its accuracy.  
This
information is provided for the sole purpose of assisting 
you
in obtaining information about domain name registration 
records.
Any use of this data for any other purpose is expressly 
forbidden without the prior written
permission of GoDaddy.com, Inc.  By submitting an inquiry,
you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of 
warranty.  In particular,
you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or 
otherwise make possible,
dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its 
entirety, for any
purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited 
advertising and
and solicitations of any kind, including spam.  You further 
agree
not to use this data to enable high volume, automated or 
robotic electronic
processes designed to collect or compile this data for any 
purpose,
including mining this data for your own personal or 
commercial purposes.

Please note: the registrant of the domain name is specified
in the "registrant" field.  In most cases, GoDaddy.com, 
Inc.
is not the registrant of domain names listed in this 
database.


Registrant:
   Domains by Proxy, Inc.
   DomainsByProxy.com
   15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
   Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
   United States

   Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. 
(http://www.godaddy.com)
   Domain Name: THESISEXPRESS.COM
      Created on: 01-Jul-04
      Expires on: 01-Jul-08
      Last Updated on: 06-Jul-06

   Administrative Contact:
      Private, Registration  
THESISEXPRESS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
      Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      DomainsByProxy.com
      15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
      United States
      (480) 624-2599      Fax -- (480) 624-2599

   Technical Contact:
      Private, Registration  
THESISEXPRESS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
      Domains by Proxy, Inc.
      DomainsByProxy.com
      15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
      Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
      United States
      (480) 624-2599      Fax -- (480) 624-2599

   Domain servers in listed order:
      NS1.STARTLOGIC.COM
      NS2.STARTLOGIC.COM
"

P.P.S. Today it is written on 
WWW.ThesisExpress.com/main.htm
:"[..]

We are with StartLogic, a leading web hosting site which 
provides the backbone of our online existence. [..]

[..]"
So a result today from
whois StartLogic.com
:"Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be 
registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to 
http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.


   Domain Name: STARTLOGIC.COM
   Registrar: REGISTER.COM, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.register.com
   Referral URL: http://www.register.com
   Name Server: NS1.STARTLOGIC.COM
   Name Server: NS2.STARTLOGIC.COM
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Updated Date: 08-dec-2006
   Creation Date: 13-aug-2003
   Expiration Date: 13-aug-2009

>>> Last update of whois database: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 
09:30:00 UTC <<<

NOTICE: The expiration date displayed in this record is the 
date the
registrar's sponsorship of the domain name registration in 
the registry is
currently set to expire. This date does not necessarily 
reflect the expiration
date of the domain name registrant's agreement with the 
sponsoring
registrar.  Users may consult the sponsoring registrar's 
Whois database to
view the registrar's reported date of expiration for this 
registration.

TERMS OF USE: You are not authorized to access or query our 
Whois
database through the use of electronic processes that are 
high-volume and
automated except as reasonably necessary to register domain 
names or
modify existing registrations; the Data in VeriSign Global 
Registry
Services' ("VeriSign") Whois database is provided by 
VeriSign for
information purposes only, and to assist persons in 
obtaining information
about or related to a domain name registration record. 
VeriSign does not
guarantee its accuracy. By submitting a Whois query, you 
agree to abide
by the following terms of use: You agree that you may use 
this Data only
for lawful purposes and that under no circumstances will 
you use this Data
to: (1) allow, enable, or otherwise support the 
transmission of mass
unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations via 
e-mail, telephone,
or facsimile; or (2) enable high volume, automated, 
electronic processes
that apply to VeriSign (or its computer systems). The 
compilation,
repackaging, dissemination or other use of this Data is 
expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of VeriSign. 
You agree not to
use electronic processes that are automated and high-volume 
to access or
query the Whois database except as reasonably necessary to 
register
domain names or modify existing registrations. VeriSign 
reserves the right
to restrict your access to the Whois database in its sole 
discretion to ensure
operational stability.  VeriSign may restrict or terminate 
your access to the
Whois database for failure to abide by these terms of use. 
VeriSign
reserves the right to modify these terms at any time.

The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU 
domains and
Registrars.

The data in Register.com's WHOIS database is provided to 
you by
Register.com for information purposes only, that is, to 
assist you in
obtaining information about or related to a domain name 
registration
record.  Register.com makes this information available "as 
is," and
does not guarantee its accuracy.  By submitting a WHOIS 
query, you
agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes 
and that,
under no circumstances will you use this data to: (1) 
allow, enable,
or otherwise support the transmission of mass unsolicited, 
commercial
advertising or solicitations via direct mail, electronic 
mail, or by
telephone; or (2) enable high volume, automated, electronic 
processes
that apply to Register.com (or its systems).  The 
compilation,
repackaging, dissemination or other use of this data is 
expressly
prohibited without the prior written consent of 
Register.com.
Register.com reserves the right to modify these terms at 
any time.
By submitting this query, you agree to abide by these 
terms.

   Registrant:
      Hosting Inspectors
      Web Hosting Manager
      3540 W. Sahara Ave. #1400
      Las Vegas, NV 89102
      US
      Email: steve@webdevaz.com

   Registrar Name....: REGISTER.COM, INC.
   Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
   Registrar Homepage: www.register.com

   Domain Name: startlogic.com

      Created on..............: Wed, Aug 13, 2003
      Expires on..............: Thu, Aug 13, 2009
      Record last updated on..: Sun, May 21, 2006

   Administrative Contact:
      Startlogic
      Webmaster StartLogic
      919 E. Jefferson St, Suite 100
      phoenix, AZ 85034
      US
      Phone: 800-725-8064
      Email: hostmaster@startlogic.com

   Technical Contact:
      Startlogic
      Webmaster StartLogic
      919 E. Jefferson St, Suite 100
      phoenix, AZ 85034
      US
      Phone: 800-725-8064
      Email: hostmaster@startlogic.com

   DNS Servers:

   ns2.startlogic.com
   ns1.startlogic.com


Visit AboutUs.org for more information about startlogic.com

<A HREF="http://www.aboutus.org/startlogic.com">AboutUs: 
startlogic.com</A>

Register your domain name at http://www.register.com
"

P.P.P.S. Today it is written on
WWW.ThesisExpress.com/main.htm
:"[..]

We are in tandem with 2CheckOut, our authorized dealer and 
the leading online retailer of many legitimate writing 
services and other online retailers.

[..]

2Checkout.com is an authorized retailer for ThesisExpress, 
Inc.

[..]"
So a result today from
whois 2Checkout.com
:"[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.tucows.com]
[Querying whois.tucows.com]
[whois.tucows.com]
Registrant:
 2Checkout.com Inc.
 1785 O'Brien Rd.
 Columbus, OH 43228
 US

 Domain name: 2CHECKOUT.COM

 Administrative Contact:
    Master, Web  webmaster@2checkout.com
    1785 O'Brien Rd.
    Columbus, OH 43228
    US
    614-921-2450    Fax: 614-921-2451

 Technical Contact:
    Master, Web  webmaster@2checkout.com
    1785 O'Brien Rd.
    Columbus, OH 43228
    US
    614-921-2450    Fax: 614-921-2451



 Registration Service Provider:
    This company may be contacted for domain 
login/passwords,
    DNS/Nameserver changes, and general domain support 
questions.


 Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
 Record last updated on 01-Nov-2006.
 Record expires on 28-Dec-2009.
 Record created on 28-Dec-1999.

 Domain servers in listed order:
    UDNS03.PROLEXIC.NET
    UDNS04.PROLEXIC.NET
    NS1.TWTELECOM.NET
    NS2.TWTELECOM.NET


 Domain status: clientDeleteProhibited
                clientTransferProhibited
                clientUpdateProhibited

The Data in the Tucows Registrar WHOIS database is provided 
to you by Tucows
for information purposes only, and may be used to assist 
you in obtaining
information about or related to a domain name's 
registration record.

Tucows makes this information available "as is," and does 
not guarantee its
accuracy.

By submitting a WHOIS query, you agree that you will use 
this data only for
lawful purposes and that, under no circumstances will you 
use this data to:
a) allow, enable, or otherwise support the transmission by 
e-mail,
telephone, or facsimile of mass, unsolicited, commercial 
advertising or
solicitations to entities other than the data recipient's 
own existing
customers; or (b) enable high volume, automated, electronic 
processes that
send queries or data to the systems of any Registry 
Operator or
ICANN-Accredited registrar, except as reasonably necessary 
to register
domain names or modify existing registrations.

The compilation, repackaging, dissemination or other use of 
this Data is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of 
Tucows.

Tucows reserves the right to terminate your access to the 
Tucows WHOIS
database in its sole discretion, including without 
limitation, for excessive
querying of the WHOIS database or for failure to otherwise 
abide by this
policy.

Tucows reserves the right to modify these terms at any 
time.

By submitting this query, you agree to abide by these 
terms.

NOTE: THE WHOIS DATABASE IS A CONTACT DATABASE ONLY.  LACK 
OF A DOMAIN
RECORD DOES NOT SIGNIFY DOMAIN AVAILABILITY."

"Colin Paul Gloster" <Colin_Paul_Gloster@ACM.org> wrote in message 
news:20070628162908.R82623@docenti.ing.unipi.it...
> Colin Paul Gloster posted:
>
>     "[..]
>
>     As a result of reading
>     HTTP://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
>     I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics
>     bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
>     news:sci.physics.research so I used
>     HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and
[etc]

Can you please stop posting this rubbish? Do you not know how to use UseNet? 
Attachments, especially large ones, are not considered acceptable in not 
binary newsgroups. Why must the whole world download it. You clearly knew 
what you were doing since you put a warning in the subject, bt that doesn't 
make it any more acceptable.

.... newsgroups reduced to those I read

-- 
Peter 

Scott Seidman wrote:

> krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in news:MPG.20ecbade13c32e1f98a6c4
> @news.individual.net:
> 
> 
>>Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
>>in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 
> 
> 
> 
> If you're paying for the Master's, you're doing something wrong.
> 
> 
I paid for mine, too, but it didn't cost anywhere near 150K.  Maybe 20K, 
counting living expenses and everything, but I went to a state school - 
UCSB!

Charlie

I doubt anyone is reading this thread anymore, but I can't let the posts
that are marginalizing formal education stand. Maybe it's cognitive
dissonance that I don't want to admit I've wasted time/money in school, but
I think it's more some of these comments smack of the "I don't need no
schoolin'" attitude you hear from 16 year old dilinquents. Growing up in the
American school system there was always a bunch of chuckle heads deriding
and teasing the students who studied. I'll guarantee that our Indian and
Chinese competitors/friends aren't debating the value of graduate school!

During my continuing education over the last several years I've
1. coded an e-commece site based on an open source CMS but heavily
customized with PHP scripting
2. designed a microwave filter using coax sections and plotted the response
on a Smith chart
3. coded a 3-d rendering engine in verilog and simulated with synplicity
4. performed bch ecc syndrome and error correction by hand
5. wrote an algorithm in matlab to find the shortest path through a graph

and a lot more, all of which I've been able to incorporate to varying
degrees in my day job. We use vhdl at work, now I know some verilog. I set
up a web site on the intranet for engineering to communicate. And so on.

I don't know that the piece of paper matters in the big picture but
certainly the knowledge and experience does. If someone can show me a job
where the products are so eclectic as to require all these different fields
please send me an application.

-Clark

In article <4683e37c@news.cadence.com>, edmondson@ieee.org says...
> Scott Seidman wrote:
> 
> > krw <krw@att.bizzzz> wrote in news:MPG.20ecbade13c32e1f98a6c4
> > @news.individual.net:
> > 
> > 
> >>Take that $150-$200K, plus interest, for the two years in school, add 
> >>in any loans required to pay for school, and run the real numbers. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > If you're paying for the Master's, you're doing something wrong.
> > 
> > 
> I paid for mine, too, but it didn't cost anywhere near 150K.  Maybe 20K, 
> counting living expenses and everything, but I went to a state school - 
> UCSB!

I didn't say $150K (perhaps $200K) was the cost of the education, 
rather the opportunity cost.  One could have spent that two years in 
industry making real $$.

-- 
  Keith

In article <4683f1f0$0$20613$4c368faf@roadrunner.com>, 
cepope@nc.rr.com says...
> I doubt anyone is reading this thread anymore, but I can't let the posts
> that are marginalizing formal education stand. Maybe it's cognitive
> dissonance that I don't want to admit I've wasted time/money in school, but
> I think it's more some of these comments smack of the "I don't need no
> schoolin'" attitude you hear from 16 year old dilinquents. 

Don't get all hyperbolic on us, now.

> Growing up in the
> American school system there was always a bunch of chuckle heads deriding
> and teasing the students who studied. I'll guarantee that our Indian and
> Chinese competitors/friends aren't debating the value of graduate school!

Different economics at work.

> During my continuing education over the last several years I've
> 1. coded an e-commece site based on an open source CMS but heavily
> customized with PHP scripting
> 2. designed a microwave filter using coax sections and plotted the response
> on a Smith chart
> 3. coded a 3-d rendering engine in verilog and simulated with synplicity
> 4. performed bch ecc syndrome and error correction by hand
> 5. wrote an algorithm in matlab to find the shortest path through a graph

This is somehow relevant to the economics of a masters degree?

> and a lot more, all of which I've been able to incorporate to varying
> degrees in my day job. We use vhdl at work, now I know some verilog. I set
> up a web site on the intranet for engineering to communicate. And so on.

This is somehow...

> I don't know that the piece of paper matters in the big picture but
> certainly the knowledge and experience does. If someone can show me a job
> where the products are so eclectic as to require all these different fields
> please send me an application.
> 
Show me how much money you made doing all these wunnerful things. 

-- 
  Keith

On Thursday 28th June 2007, Colin Paul Gloster sent:

     "On June 27th, 2007, Joel Kolstad posted:
     
          ""John Gilmer" <gilmer@nni.com> wrote in message 
          news:mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com...
          [..]
     
          > If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal that you might
          > get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published at a young
          > age it's possible to quickly get an advanced degree.
          
          Have you read about these guys? --> 
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
          
          Somewhere in there it mentions that at least one guy kind of defends them by 
          saying (very much paraphrased here), "Well, you know, they've been little 
          better than slave labor for a number for years now, we sort of owe them their 
          PhDs even if it is a bunch of hooey."
          
          ---Joel"
     
     [..]

     As a result of reading 
     HTTP://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
     I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics 
     bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
     news:sci.physics.research so I used 
     HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and 
     one of Google's resulting advertisements displayed today for 
     that old discussion was:
     "[..]
     
     Sponsored Links 
        
     
     Thesis- We do it for you
     US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
     24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
     www.thesisexpress.com
     
     [..]"
     
     The remainder of this post contains further details in 
     relation to the advertisement for Thesis Express and 
     attempts I have made so far to make a complaint to Google in 
     relation to this matter.
     
     [..]

     It is perhaps merely an accident that Google advertizes for 
     ThesisExpress, Inc., but how could Google Inc. check the 
     contents of other advertisements without checking the 
     contents of ThesisExpress's advertisement?
     
     I telephoned four of the supposed telephone numbers listed 
     on
     WWW.Google.com/intl/en/corporate/address.html
     , one of them was answered by a fax machine, the other 
     three were not of any use for conducting an initial 
     conversation. Perhaps I will receive a response to something 
     in writing [..]
     
     [..]"


I received an email from "AdWords Support" 
<adwords-support@google.com> timestamped "Thu, 28 Jun 2007 
22:05:28 -0000" whose body contains:
"Hello Colin,

Thank you for reporting an ad for 'www.thesisexpress.com' 
that possibly
violates one of our policies. Please know that ads in our 
program are
reviewed per our advertising guidelines. While we make 
every effort to
ensure that ads which may violate our policies do not run 
prior to review,
it's possible that some ads run on Google before our 
AdWords Specialists
check them.

We assure you that we are working diligently to apply the 
same criteria to
all of our ads. We will investigate this matter and, if 
necessary, will
take the appropriate action.

Thank you for informing us of your concern, and we 
appreciate your
understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team"


I admit that since I received that email I used Google to 
look at the same part of the discussion "Physics bitten by 
reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" and I also used Google searching 
with the term "thesis" and so far Google has not displayed 
an advertisement for WWW.ThesisExpress.com to me again.
However, on 16th July 2007 Google displayed advertisements 
for:
Ma-Dissertations.com
;
www.dissertationsandtheses.com
;
Mostpopular-Term-Papers.com
;
www.ukessays.com (which even contains a boast "Read the 
amazing story about how The Times tested one of our essays 
here!" hyperlinked to
WWW.TimesOnline.co.UK/tol/life_and_style/education/student/news/article852486.ece
("Student cheats fuel online essay boom", by Geraldine 
Hackett and Gareth Walsh, July 27th, 2003));
http://www.thesisexpert.co.uk/
;
http://www.masterpapers.com/
;
http://www.academicblueprint.com/
;
www.1stessays.com
;
www.thesisexperts.com
;
Dissertation-Advice.co.uk
;
www.ivythesis.com
;
www.DissertationsAndAssignments.com
;
www.Akademisches-Ghost-Writing.de
;
www.DrFranke.de
;
www.EssaysEdit.com
and
www.MonsterPapers.com
so why does Google still accept advertising from entities 
whose speciality is facilitating cheaters?

Regards,
Colin Paul Gloster

Someone writes:
>     I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics
>     bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
>     news:sci.physics.research so I used
>     HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and
>     one of Google's resulting advertisements displayed today for
>     that old discussion was:
>     "[..]
>
>     Sponsored Links
>
>     Thesis- We do it for you
>     US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
>     24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
>     www.thesisexpress.com
>
>     [..]"
>
>     The remainder of this post contains further details in
>     relation to the advertisement for Thesis Express and
>     attempts I have made so far to make a complaint to Google in
>     relation to this matter.

Educational fraud ought to be flatly illegal.  It's a gap in our criminal 
law system.

panfilero wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I know this isn't really a technical question, but I was wondering if
> anyone in here might be able to offer some insight on this.  I
> recently got my BSEE, and am considering going for a Masters, and my
> question is, is it worth it?  Does anyone know what the major
> differences would be graduating with a BSEE or a MSEE, I don't know if
> it would be better to start working and trying to learn stuff in
> industry or continuing school, I'm 30 right now, which is a bit older
> to have just got a BSEE.  The University I attend isn't a top 100 or
> top 200 in the country as far as EE goes either.
> 
According to one view,
BS  - (hey, we all know what that stands for)
MS  - More of the Same
PhD - Piled High & Deep

;-)

On Jul 16, 11:15 am, "mc" <l...@www.ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote:
> Someone writes:
> >     I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics
> >     bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
> >     news:sci.physics.research so I used
> >     HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and
> >     one of Google's resulting advertisements displayed today for
> >     that old discussion was:
> >     "[..]
>
> >     Sponsored Links
>
> >     Thesis- We do it for you
> >     US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
> >     24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
> >    www.thesisexpress.com
>
> >     [..]"
>
> >     The remainder of this post contains further details in
> >     relation to the advertisement for Thesis Express and
> >     attempts I have made so far to make a complaint to Google in
> >     relation to this matter.
>
> Educational fraud ought to be flatly illegal.  It's a gap in our criminal
> law system.

i think that whatever law that applies to misrepresenting credentials
(whether it's educational degree or prior work experience) should
apply.  if they write laws that toss people in jail for
misrepresenting their previous jobs (and heck, maybe they do that if
you are applying for the CIA or similar) then, in the same context, we
can toss them in jail for misrepresenting their degree or the school
they got it from.   of course the present "gap in our criminal law
system" about this does not prevent a prospective employer from doing
his/her due diligence in verifying specific claims of educational
degree or of prior work experience, nor of firing someone due to cause
for misrepresenting either when they were hired.

BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
Wikipedia) i was involved in the early bruising Wikipedia battles
about that article because the Bogdanov brothers themselves were
trying to edit out the embarassing (but factual) information out of
that article.  it really exposed them (but there were some other
exposes, mostly written in French, in some of the magazines) for what
they are.  i guess it has to take a really egregious case like the
Bogdanovs (or the Alan Sokal affair) to get some folks to wake up to
the racket some in the higher education system have going.  it's sorta
criminal, but i don't ever expect people to go to jail for it.  it's
not like they're misrepresenting themselves as an MD and start cutting
people.  but frauds should be exposed, and if such frauds took your
money, i think there is already enough law to deal with that.

r b-j

robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes:
> [...]
> BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
> Wikipedia) i was involved [...]

Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.
Please tell us more.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "She tells me that she likes me very much,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %     but when I try to touch, she makes it
%%% 919-577-9882                %                            all too clear."
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           %        'Yours Truly, 2095', *Time*, ELO  
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

On Jul 16, 8:18 pm, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:
> robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> writes:
> > [...]
> > BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
> > Wikipedia) i was involved [...]
>
> Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.

oh, they can keep registered editors from editing.  and block IP
addresses, too (but alas, in the final state of things, they didn't
block the Kurzweil IP, so i and other Kurzweil people can edit
anonymously - but i am *not* editing Wikipedia until there is some
reform).

> Please tell us more.

oh, i s'pose you can see my user page:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rbj

and user talk page:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rbj

and the description from the admin who did it (he claims he had
"consensus" for a "community ban" which is Wikipedia's version of mob
rule):

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_banned_users#R

and my last appeal for justice:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=138464426#Indefinite_block_of_User:Rbj


Randy, you'll have to click the other links to drill down to exactly
who said what.

L8r,

r b-j

robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes:

> On Jul 16, 8:18 pm, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:
>> robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> writes:
>> > [...]
>> > BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
>> > Wikipedia) i was involved [...]
>>
>> Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.
>
> oh, they can keep registered editors from editing.  and block IP
> addresses, too (but alas, in the final state of things, they didn't
> block the Kurzweil IP, so i and other Kurzweil people can edit
> anonymously - but i am *not* editing Wikipedia until there is some
> reform).
>
>> Please tell us more.
>
> oh, i s'pose you can see my user page:
>
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rbj
>
> and user talk page:
>
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rbj
>
> and the description from the admin who did it (he claims he had
> "consensus" for a "community ban" which is Wikipedia's version of mob
> rule):
>
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_banned_users#R
>
> and my last appeal for justice:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=138464426#Indefinite_block_of_User:Rbj
>
>
> Randy, you'll have to click the other links to drill down to exactly
> who said what.

I followed a couple of the links, but I think I've seen enough. Wikipedia
is broken.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "Though you ride on the wheels of tomorrow,
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  you still wander the fields of your
%%% 919-577-9882                %  sorrow."
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % '21st Century Man', *Time*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

>> >     Thesis- We do it for you
>> >     US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
>> >     24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
>> >    www.thesisexpress.com

>> Educational fraud ought to be flatly illegal.  It's a gap in our criminal
>> law system.

> i think that whatever law that applies to misrepresenting credentials
> (whether it's educational degree or prior work experience) should
> apply.  if they write laws that toss people in jail for
> misrepresenting their previous jobs (and heck, maybe they do that if
> you are applying for the CIA or similar) then, in the same context, we
> can toss them in jail for misrepresenting their degree or the school
> they got it from.   of course the present "gap in our criminal law
> system" about this does not prevent a prospective employer from doing
> his/her due diligence in verifying specific claims of educational
> degree or of prior work experience, nor of firing someone due to cause
> for misrepresenting either when they were hired.

The fraud I had in mind is where you really have the degree, but you got it 
by defrauding the university (having someone else write your papers, for 
example).  And it should be illegal to offer this service.

robert bristow-johnson wrote:

<snip>

>>Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.
> 
> 
> oh, they can keep registered editors from editing.  and block IP
> addresses, too (but alas, in the final state of things, they didn't
> block the Kurzweil IP, so i and other Kurzweil people can edit
> anonymously - but i am *not* editing Wikipedia until there is some
> reform).
> 
> 
>>Please tell us more.
> 
> 
> oh, i s'pose you can see my user page:
> 
>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rbj
> 

<snip>

Thanks for these references; it sure leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I always have disliked wikis in general and feel that they are a
very flawed medium. Reading the disingenuous remarks of some of
those 'admins' reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode or some
frightening social-hell science fiction.

Regards,

Michael

Randy Yates wrote:
> robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes:
> 
>> On Jul 16, 8:18 pm, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>> robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> writes:
>>>> [...]
>>>> BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
>>>> Wikipedia) i was involved [...]
>>> Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.
>> oh, they can keep registered editors from editing.  and block IP
>> addresses, too (but alas, in the final state of things, they didn't
>> block the Kurzweil IP, so i and other Kurzweil people can edit
>> anonymously - but i am *not* editing Wikipedia until there is some
>> reform).
>>
>>> Please tell us more.
>> oh, i s'pose you can see my user page:
>>
>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rbj
>>
>> and user talk page:
>>
>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rbj
>>
>> and the description from the admin who did it (he claims he had
>> "consensus" for a "community ban" which is Wikipedia's version of mob
>> rule):
>>
>>    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_banned_users#R
>>
>> and my last appeal for justice:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=138464426#Indefinite_block_of_User:Rbj
>>
>>
>> Randy, you'll have to click the other links to drill down to exactly
>> who said what.
> 
> I followed a couple of the links, but I think I've seen enough. Wikipedia
> is broken.

You think that's bad? There are folk with commercial interests going 
through all the references to anything vaguely competitor-like, and 
removing them. Nobody stops this.

Wikipedia is a war zone.

Steve

Colin Paul Gloster wrote:

> On Thursday 28th June 2007, Colin Paul Gloster sent:
> 
>      "On June 27th, 2007, Joel Kolstad posted:
>      
>           ""John Gilmer" <gilmer@nni.com> wrote in message
>           news:mKadnXBEybTY7R_bnZ2dnUVZ_rLinZ2d@nni.com...
>           [..]
>      
>           > If you want to just show how smart you are, find some journal
>           > that you might
>           > get yourself published in.   If you can get yourself published
>           > at a young age it's possible to quickly get an advanced
>           > degree.
>           
>           Have you read about these guys? -->
>           http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
>           
>           Somewhere in there it mentions that at least one guy kind of
>           defends them by saying (very much paraphrased here), "Well, you
>           know, they've been little better than slave labor for a number
>           for years now, we sort of owe them their PhDs even if it is a
>           bunch of hooey."
>           
>           ---Joel"
>      
>      [..]
> 
>      As a result of reading
>      HTTP://En.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogdanov_Affair
>      I noticed a mention of an old discussion entitled "Physics
>      bitten by reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" of
>      news:sci.physics.research so I used
>      HTTP://Groups.Google.co.UK to retrieve posts from it, and
>      one of Google's resulting advertisements displayed today for
>      that old discussion was:
>      "[..]
>      
>      Sponsored Links
>         
>      
>      Thesis- We do it for you
>      US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
>      24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
>      www.thesisexpress.com
>      
>      [..]"
>      
>      The remainder of this post contains further details in
>      relation to the advertisement for Thesis Express and
>      attempts I have made so far to make a complaint to Google in
>      relation to this matter.
>      
>      [..]
> 
>      It is perhaps merely an accident that Google advertizes for
>      ThesisExpress, Inc., but how could Google Inc. check the
>      contents of other advertisements without checking the
>      contents of ThesisExpress's advertisement?
>      
>      I telephoned four of the supposed telephone numbers listed
>      on
>      WWW.Google.com/intl/en/corporate/address.html
>      , one of them was answered by a fax machine, the other
>      three were not of any use for conducting an initial
>      conversation. Perhaps I will receive a response to something
>      in writing [..]
>      
>      [..]"
> 
> 
> I received an email from "AdWords Support"
> <adwords-support@google.com> timestamped "Thu, 28 Jun 2007
> 22:05:28 -0000" whose body contains:
> "Hello Colin,
> 
> Thank you for reporting an ad for 'www.thesisexpress.com'
> that possibly
> violates one of our policies. Please know that ads in our
> program are
> reviewed per our advertising guidelines. While we make
> every effort to
> ensure that ads which may violate our policies do not run
> prior to review,
> it's possible that some ads run on Google before our
> AdWords Specialists
> check them.
> 
> We assure you that we are working diligently to apply the
> same criteria to
> all of our ads. We will investigate this matter and, if
> necessary, will
> take the appropriate action.
> 
> Thank you for informing us of your concern, and we
> appreciate your
> understanding.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> The Google AdWords Team"
> 
> 
> I admit that since I received that email I used Google to
> look at the same part of the discussion "Physics bitten by
> reverse Alan Sokal hoax?" and I also used Google searching
> with the term "thesis" and so far Google has not displayed
> an advertisement for WWW.ThesisExpress.com to me again.
> However, on 16th July 2007 Google displayed advertisements
> for:
> Ma-Dissertations.com
> ;
> www.dissertationsandtheses.com
> ;
> Mostpopular-Term-Papers.com
> ;
> www.ukessays.com (which even contains a boast "Read the
> amazing story about how The Times tested one of our essays
> here!" hyperlinked to
>
WWW.TimesOnline.co.UK/tol/life_and_style/education/student/news/article852486.ece
> ("Student cheats fuel online essay boom", by Geraldine
> Hackett and Gareth Walsh, July 27th, 2003));
> http://www.thesisexpert.co.uk/
> ;
> http://www.masterpapers.com/
> ;
> http://www.academicblueprint.com/
> ;
> www.1stessays.com
> ;
> www.thesisexperts.com
> ;
> Dissertation-Advice.co.uk
> ;
> www.ivythesis.com
> ;
> www.DissertationsAndAssignments.com
> ;
> www.Akademisches-Ghost-Writing.de
> ;
> www.DrFranke.de
> ;
> www.EssaysEdit.com
> and
> www.MonsterPapers.com
> so why does Google still accept advertising from entities
> whose speciality is facilitating cheaters?
> 
> Regards,
> Colin Paul Gloster

Because it is lots of business / money?
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

mc wrote:

>>> >     Thesis- We do it for you
>>> >     US $10/page- APA, MLA & Harvard
>>> >     24/7 Support Secured & Confidential
>>> >    www.thesisexpress.com
> 
>>> Educational fraud ought to be flatly illegal.  It's a gap in our
>>> criminal law system.
> 
>> i think that whatever law that applies to misrepresenting credentials
>> (whether it's educational degree or prior work experience) should
>> apply.  if they write laws that toss people in jail for
>> misrepresenting their previous jobs (and heck, maybe they do that if
>> you are applying for the CIA or similar) then, in the same context, we
>> can toss them in jail for misrepresenting their degree or the school
>> they got it from.   of course the present "gap in our criminal law
>> system" about this does not prevent a prospective employer from doing
>> his/her due diligence in verifying specific claims of educational
>> degree or of prior work experience, nor of firing someone due to cause
>> for misrepresenting either when they were hired.
> 
> The fraud I had in mind is where you really have the degree, but you got
> it by defrauding the university (having someone else write your papers,
> for
> example).  And it should be illegal to offer this service.

While i agree with your position, it has been the choice of the ruling class
for over 2600 years that it be so.   Small wonder, it helps keep them in
power.
-- 
 JosephKK
 Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.  
  --Schiller

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 02:33:44 -0000, robert bristow-johnson
<rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:

>On Jul 16, 8:18 pm, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:
>> robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> writes:
>> > [...]
>> > BTW, about the Bogdanov Affair, (long before getting kicked outa
>> > Wikipedia) i was involved [...]
>>
>> Huh?!? You got kicked out of Wikipedia? I didn't think that could happen.
>
>oh, they can keep registered editors from editing.  and block IP
>addresses, too (but alas, in the final state of things, they didn't
>block the Kurzweil IP, so i and other Kurzweil people can edit
>anonymously - but i am *not* editing Wikipedia until there is some
>reform).
>
>> Please tell us more.
>
>oh, i s'pose you can see my user page:
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rbj
>
>and user talk page:
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Rbj
>
>and the description from the admin who did it (he claims he had
>"consensus" for a "community ban" which is Wikipedia's version of mob
>rule):
>
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_banned_users#R
>
>and my last appeal for justice:
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration&oldid=138464426#Indefinite_block_of_User:Rbj
>
>
>Randy, you'll have to click the other links to drill down to exactly
>who said what.
>
>L8r,
>
>r b-j

Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.   You can add this to your list
of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.

Congrats.  ;)

Eric Jacobsen
Minister of Algorithms
Abineau Communications
http://www.ericjacobsen.org

On Jul 19, 3:21 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
>
> Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.

you mean "infamy", no?

>   You can add this to your list
> of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.

i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.

> Congrats.  ;)

thank you.

r b-j

robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes:

> On Jul 19, 3:21 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.
>
> you mean "infamy", no?
>
>>   You can add this to your list
>> of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.
>
> i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
> good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
> to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
> argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
> hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
> Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
> stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
> correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
> clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.
>
>> Congrats.  ;)
>
> thank you.
>
> r b-j

Don't ever change, Robert. The world has far too few people who have
the balls to speak their peace without regard to political correctness
or the prevailing socio-political wind.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "The dreamer, the unwoken fool - 
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  in dreams, no pain will kiss the brow..."
%%% 919-577-9882                %  
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % 'Eldorado Overture', *Eldorado*, ELO
http://home.earthlink.net/~yatescr

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:31:31 -0700, robert bristow-johnson
<rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:

>On Jul 19, 3:21 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.
>
>you mean "infamy", no?
>
>>   You can add this to your list
>> of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.
>
>i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
>good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
>to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
>argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
>hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
>Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
>stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
>correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
>clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.
>
>> Congrats.  ;)
>
>thank you.
>
>r b-j

Hi r b-j,

   Liberals, the hard-core ones at least, want 
a society:

   "where tolerance is is strictly enforced."

Ha ha.  I love that phrase.  
See Ya',
[-Rick-]

Rick Lyons wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:31:31 -0700, robert bristow-johnson
> <rbj@audioimagination.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Jul 19, 3:21 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>> Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.
>> you mean "infamy", no?
>>
>>>   You can add this to your list
>>> of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.
>> i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
>> good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
>> to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
>> argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
>> hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
>> Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
>> stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
>> correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
>> clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.
>>
>>> Congrats.  ;)
>> thank you.
>>
>> r b-j
> 
> Hi r b-j,
> 
>    Liberals, the hard-core ones at least, want 
> a society:
> 
>    "where tolerance is is strictly enforced."
> 
> Ha ha.  I love that phrase.  

Here's another ha-ha for you: "I'm a pacifist. My goal is to kill all 
advocates of violence."

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:59:33 -0400, Jerry Avins wrote:
> Rick Lyons wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:31:31 -0700, robert bristow-johnson
>>> On Jul 19, 3:21 pm, Eric Jacobsen <eric.jacob...@ieee.org> wrote:
>>>> Dude, your fame just keeps spreading.
>>> you mean "infamy", no?
>>>
>>>>   You can add this to your list
>>>> of honor badges along with the comp.dsp blacklist.
>>> i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
>>> good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
>>> to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
>>> argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
>>> hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
>>> Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
>>> stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
>>> correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
>>> clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.
>>>
>>>> Congrats.  ;)
>>> thank you.
>> 
>>    Liberals, the hard-core ones at least, want
>> a society:
>> 
>>    "where tolerance is is strictly enforced."
>> 
>> Ha ha.  I love that phrase.
> 
> Here's another ha-ha for you: "I'm a pacifist. My goal is to kill all
> advocates of violence."
> 

Isn't it interesting to note that in the only country that's been at peace
for over 100 years, every able-bodied adult citizen has a military assault
rifle at home?

And knows how to use it?

There's not a whole lot of crime in Switzerland either, but that's
probably just because the Swiss are so boring.

In heaven, the British run the police, the Germans do the repairs, the 
Swiss run the railroads, the French do the cooking, and the Italians are
the lovers.

In hell, the Germans run the police, the French do the repairs, the
Italians run the railroads, the British do the cooking, and the Swiss
are the lovers.

;-)

Cheers!
Rich

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 11:07:14 +0000, Rick Lyons wrote:

>    Liberals, the hard-core ones at least, want
> a society:
> 
>    "where tolerance is is strictly enforced."
> 
> Ha ha.  I love that phrase.

Thought Police: "What are you thinking"
Citizen: "Why, the same thing as you, officer."

;-)
Rich

Hi

off  NG as it stops flames :-)

In article <1184949091.692633.289830@o61g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
robert bristow-johnson <rbj@audioimagination.com> writes
>i *try* not to be nasty. i really do.  but when there is a perfectly
>good *dictionary* definition for "Intelligent design", i see no reason
>to replace it with "attack on evolution" or simply as the teleological
>argument.  the article is written and controlled by people who simply
>hate ID (i don't support ID myself, as promoted by the Discovery
>Institute) who are simply not willing to admit that their own shit
>stinks.  i had trouble putting a lid on the obvious "political
>correctness" imposed on the articles on Marriage and Homophobia by a
>clear LGBT influence group.  talk about liberal fascism.

I am curious what was the contentions editing on Excommunication?
Thought it was fairly straight forward if uncommon practice.

Whilst you mention it  what is LGBT?   And the PC imposition on the
marriage and homophobia articles?

I have always had by doubts about Wiki as it is too easy to get it
edited by well meaning idiots and those with an axe to grind.

It was always less so with printed encyclopaedias due to the cost of
(re) printing and the shelf life of the books. People tried to get it
right AND moderated by named experts who had more to loose if seen to be
getting it wrong.

Regards
   Chris

-- 
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

In article <vg5R03MZy0pGFAcc@phaedsys.demon.co.uk>, Chris Hills 
<chris@phaedsys.org> writes
>Hi
>
>off  NG as it stops flames :-)

OK... So I hit the wrong button :-(

-- 
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills  Staffs  England     /\/\/\/\/
/\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org      www.phaedsys.org \/\/\
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/