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>> I very much doubt you can actually do a PhD in "doing cool stuff with
>> a computer".
>
> 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".
> Depends on the subject of course, but nowadays I think most journals and
> other academic resources are available online. For a computing related
> PhD I would imagine most of your time will be spent at the computer.
Well, I guess it depends on what precisely you wanted to tackle. Either
way, I suck at research, so...
>> Meh. I doubt it. It seems everybody just asks "how many years' coding
>> experience do you have?" and "what are your customer service skills
>> like?"
>
> If you have a PhD you are not going to be applying for those sorts of
> jobs, and more importantly companies are not going to expect you to be a
> code monkey 24/7 when you are much more capable than that.
Yes, but does anybody actually employ PhDs? Most of the ones I know of
still hang around universities...
> Here's an interesting CV:
>
> http://www.geisswerks.com/ryan/resume_ryan_geiss.doc
>
> See, just write something cool *and actually finish it* and then
> everyone wants to employ you!
"Seeking: Collaboration with a group of smart, creative people, in order
to produce work of practical or aesthetic value to mankind."
...OK, that's pretty special, right there. o_O
But then, we *are* talking about the legendary Ryan Geiss... (I bet he's
Polish or something! All the best programmers are, for some reason.)
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>> 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:
http://www.liv.ac.uk/~su14/knotgroup.html
http://www.ph.tn.tudelft.nl/PRInfo/reports/msg00512.html
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/vision/default.aspx
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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 :-)
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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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"scott" <sco### [at] scott com> wrote in message
news:499ade73$1@news.povray.org...
> 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 :-)
Wow, what a good job that is. I'd love a job like that.
~Steve~
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>> 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 :-)
>
> Wow, what a good job that is. I'd love a job like that.
What the PhD or the Engineer?
It made me laugh when one of the other departments here announced that one
of their new projects for the next 6 months was to find ideas for new
research projects :-)
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> I asked on IRC, and got this:
>
> http://www.nigels.com/jokes/phd1.pdf
Not to mention this...
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/pgh/thesis.html
Nice. :-S
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> 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?
Exactly, if he can get that then you should be sorted!
> 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...)
But usually they are listed as "Dr" in organisation charts, on business
cards, publications, email names etc.
Most of the people I know who have any position of responsibility in the
companies I deal with have a PhD, it's not a coincidence, it definitely
helps you in your career.
> Most worryingly, I don't think anybody I met at uni had a PhD either...
> o_O
Hmm, most of my lecturers and supervisors were Dr something, or occasionally
students working for their PhDs.
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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote in message
news:499ae4d5$1@news.povray.org...
>>> 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 :-)
>>
>> Wow, what a good job that is. I'd love a job like that.
>
> What the PhD or the Engineer?
Oh, being that type of Engineer. See if this works, see if that works, try
this material, is it too heavy, too light, is it safe, etc.
I'd love that.
>
> It made me laugh when one of the other departments here announced that one
> of their new projects for the next 6 months was to find ideas for new
> research projects :-)
Heh, quite hard to do I would think, especially as, (as Andrew would say),
"Everything in the whole entire universe has already been invented." :)
Personally, I think there's a whole lot of good things to come yet. I
wonder what the very last invention ever would be?
~Steve~
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> Oh, being that type of Engineer. See if this works, see if that works,
> try this material, is it too heavy, too light, is it safe, etc.
At the moment it's more like "see if it can be mass-produced cheaper than
what we make at the moment" - everything else doesn't seem to matter!
> Heh, quite hard to do I would think, especially as, (as Andrew would say),
> "Everything in the whole entire universe has already been invented." :)
>
> Personally, I think there's a whole lot of good things to come yet. I
> wonder what the very last invention ever would be?
The guys here tend to work on improvements to existing stuff, mostly optics
and LCD based things. They seem to churn out a lot of patents on those
subjects but most of which I think "nah, that's never going to be
practical". For instance they came up with the dual-view LCD display which
is just about to make it into cars -
http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/10/mercedes-benz-intros-splitview-command-system/
but it's just too expensive to manufacture and nobody really wants to pay
the premium so I don't see it becoming popular anytime soon.
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On 17-2-2009 17:11, Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
>
> 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?
I am not sure that is true. Anyway I saw it both on Brainiac and on
Mythbusters tried and falsified.
>>> 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...)
I still think you should try. But there is the problem of that BSc.
BTW I am also not very good at reading papers. I have this problem that
I get distracted by possibly unrelated ideas popping into my head so
often that I can hardly finish a sentence. The only place I can read
seems to be in bath. That cuts the reading time to about an hour per
week. I should read at least 4 or 5 hours so...
>>> Yes, but does anybody actually employ PhDs? Most of the ones I know
>>> of still hang around universities...
There should be a couple in your company. At least in the US, but given
what you do, also at least one in the UK. (if there isn't one, that may
explain some things).
>> 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.
At least you met a couple on line.
> (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.
What degrees would that be?
> Most worryingly, I don't think anybody I met at uni had a PhD either... o_O
Could be. In other disciplines than computer science it is quite rare
not to have mainly PhD's in the staff.
>> 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.
Here the interpretation of a PhD is that you are able to define and do
your own research.
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