scott wrote:
>>> Of course you can, just substitute "cool stuff" for a subject that 
>>> you actually find cool.
>>
>> Such as...?
>>
>> There's lots of stuff that interests me, but none of it is exactly 
>> "new" or "revolutionary".
> 
> People are doing PhDs in lots of things that you seem to be interested 
> in, quick Google results:
> 
> Just try googling "PhD "+thing you are interested in.  You will be 
> surprised what is on offer.  I was surprised to hear from my 4th year 
> project supervisor that if I wanted I could carry on my project "how 
> brake pedal feedback in vehicles affects driver response" as a PhD, I 
> would have thought such a specialist topic to be of no interest to 
> anyone, but now I see how companies would be very interested.

I'm still impressed about the guy who got a grant to find out whether or 
not a duck's quack really does echo. WTF?

>> Well, I guess it depends on what precisely you wanted to tackle. 
>> Either way, I suck at research, so...
> 
> You seem to have demonstrated otherwise here, frequently you seem to 
> have taken ideas and material and then expanded upon it yourself.  It 
> doesn't matter if you were unaware that someone else had already done 
> the same, if you were doing a real PhD you would search a bit more 
> thoroughly before starting work.

Surfing Wikipedia for a few hours is one thing. Somehow finding and 
actually reading academic papers is much harder. (I failed epically at 
this last time around...)

>> Yes, but does anybody actually employ PhDs? Most of the ones I know of 
>> still hang around universities...
> 
> Over half the people working at my employer in Oxford have PhDs, it's 
> mainly a research lab (my department is the exception, we deal with 
> developing technology for specific customers).  Surely a lot of people 
> at your place have PhDs too?  I think a lot of people who hand around 
> Universities do so because they want to (they just enjoy academia) 
> rather than because they can't find a job outside.

I don't think I've ever met anybody who has a PhD. (Of course, it's not 
like they have labels on them, so I can't be sure...) Most of the people 
who work here have degrees.

Most worryingly, I don't think anybody I met at uni had a PhD either... o_O

> People with the PhDs are the ones inventing new things at the concept 
> stage, then the Engineers like me get to work out how to actually make 
> it into a product :-)

Heh, yeah.

I asked on IRC, and got this:

http://www.nigels.com/jokes/phd1.pdf

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