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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> The requirement that you
> have to do something "new" seems pretty hard to meet; almost everything
> has been done already.
I think the idea is that you find an advisor with a topic that interests you.
He/she has ideas that you implement and explore. This leads to new ideas
(yours!) that you can explore. Not many people can walk into a field with
fresh new ideas and no experience.
> They just want to know whether you have skill X. If you do
> not have skill X, not interested. Goodbye.
As was pointed out, a few years of study in field Y should put you in touch with
people who also care about skill Y.
> On that basis, I don't think it would make a difference. (Although I did
> manage to find *one* job that required a PhD. But that was working for a
> bank, which is obviously absurd.)
I was using a computational fluid dynamics code written elsewhere by a grad
student. I guess he now does stochastic modeling for a bank on Wall Street.
> > I've been told that while a PhD may close some doors, it
> > will open up a completely different set of opportunities.
>
> Mm'kay...
Maybe I should elaborate. At a Q&A session, people were worried they would be
viewed as overqualified or not have experience in exactly the right field. The
answer was that if that's the case it's probably not the right job anyway, but
there are certainly jobs out there that do match a different set of
qualifications. Many of these jobs may carry more freedom and responsibility.
> LOL! What a way to live... Monte Carlo sampling of all possible fields
> of human exploration until you hit upon something interesting. :-D
This would lead to two possibilities: either everyone and everything else in the
world is boring, or...
> Heh. I'm only asking because everybody *else* seems to think I should! :-P
>
> Still, I guess it merits further attention...
Forgive me. I'm not trying to convince you to do anything, only trying to
convince you that it's not an impossibility. You obviously want a job that
gives you the freedom to explore and apply yourself. Grad school is one way to
move in that direction, but certainly not the only way.
- Ricky
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> So no Fire Elementals then? ;-)
>
Not unless one turns out to be a pyro ..
--
~Mike
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>> So no Fire Elementals then? ;-)
>
> Not unless one turns out to be a pyro ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuHumXoeV0
Sorry... couldn't resist.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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>> The requirement that you
>> have to do something "new" seems pretty hard to meet; almost everything
>> has been done already.
>
> I think the idea is that you find an advisor with a topic that interests you.
> He/she has ideas that you implement and explore. This leads to new ideas
> (yours!) that you can explore. Not many people can walk into a field with
> fresh new ideas and no experience.
Well sure. But it seems it would take little old me a *long* time to
travel all the way to the frontiers of knowledge to do genuinely new stuff.
OTOH, presumably that's what your supervisor is for? ;-)
>> They just want to know whether you have skill X. If you do
>> not have skill X, not interested. Goodbye.
>
> As was pointed out, a few years of study in field Y should put you in touch with
> people who also care about skill Y.
It has a flavour...
> Maybe I should elaborate. At a Q&A session, people were worried they would be
> viewed as overqualified or not have experience in exactly the right field. The
> answer was that if that's the case it's probably not the right job anyway, but
> there are certainly jobs out there that do match a different set of
> qualifications.
Sounds plausible at least.
> Many of these jobs may carry more freedom and responsibility.
I was under the impression that "freedom" and "responsibility" are polar
opposites.
>> Heh. I'm only asking because everybody *else* seems to think I should! :-P
>>
>> Still, I guess it merits further attention...
>
> Forgive me. I'm not trying to convince you to do anything, only trying to
> convince you that it's not an impossibility. You obviously want a job that
> gives you the freedom to explore and apply yourself. Grad school is one way to
> move in that direction, but certainly not the only way.
Hey, I started this thread to gather opinions. (And practical data too.)
So far it's working. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible wrote:
> 1. I am insufficiently intelligent to actually acheive a PhD. (I nearly
> failed my BSc as it is!)
You think you're failing at what you're doing now anyway, yes? So fail at
something bigger. It's like saying you're not going to take a job just
because some day you might get fired.
Plus, you'll meet girls. :-)
> 2. I have insufficient money. (I'm still paying for my BSc. Very slowly.)
Go where they'll pay for you. They need PhD students to get the grants, so
the grants usually come with provisions for paying you enough to live on
while you're doing the research.
> 3. I don't think I can spare the time. (I have a job to do, sucky as it
> is.)
Go where they'll pay for you. You can't reasonably do a PhD while you're
holding down a full-time job, IMO.
> 4. It is *highly* unlikely that having a PhD will make any kind of
> positive change to my employment situation. Nobody is impressed by a
> BSc, and I doubt a PhD will be any different. Everybody wants
> "experience" and/or "people skills".
Experience and people skills is what you get with a PhD. You meet bunches of
people doing exciting stuff you enjoy while you're doing a PhD. Do you
think, for example, that if you're doing a PhD having to do with (say)
optimizing functional languages that you're not going to have dinner with
the guys at Microsoft Research working on GHC?
All but one job I had since I got my PhD was through knowing people I met
while I got my PhD. I had a couple of job offers guaranteed by the time I
finished, because I was doing just what they wanted and they knew I could do
it.
And yes, people actually do get impressed by PhDs. Not necessarily the
technical guys, but the guys making the hiring decision do. (Hard to say
about the technical guys, cause all the technical guys I worked for tended
to have PhDs also, but nobody really made a big stink about it except the
guy with the millions of dollars to invest.)
> 5. Presumably a PhD is a serious amount of hard work. It's not exactly a
> pleasure cruise. So I'd need a good reason to do one.
You're not talking about building oil rigs here. It's college like anything
else. If you get a decent advisor, you're in good shape. Suck it up and do
the job and write the paper. :-)
> 6. I rather doubt that you can get a PhD in "doing cool stuff".
> Presumably it must be something rather more specific than that.
You have to pick what you want to do, then find the place that's doing that
sort of stuff, then go there.
Here's how you do it: decide what kind of thing you want to research.
Functional languages? OK, find research papers about functional languages.
Look to see if they're funded by grants (usually mentioned in the ack's on
the front page). See what university got the grant. Surf that university's
web site, and look over the professors. Call them up and ask them what
their interests are because you want to get a PhD. 4) Profit!
Find people who have written papers in things you're interested in who have
PhDs. Ask them who they recommend you go to. Note that *where* you go is
less important than with *whom* you go.
> 7. Where the hell am I going to do a PhD anyway?
Wherever they're doing things you want to do. First ask what you want to
do. Then find the place that will pay you to do that.
> I seem to vaguely recall somebody (I forget who) claiming to know who to
> go to for this kind of thing, and offering to help me arrange it.
I've done it in the USA. Apparently the UK is much different. But don't
limit yourself to the UK. Lots of people travel abroad to do schooling like
that.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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Invisible wrote:
> As I understand it, this is considered one of the "seminal texts" on
> relational databases.
It was some 25 years ago too. :-)
> Even I cannot comprehend the relational calculus though. Relational
> algebra, sure. But relational calculus? Nah.
Same here. I understand that SQL itself is much closer to the relational
calculus than the relation algebra. I'd have to go back and try to read it
again, tho.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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>> As I understand it, this is considered one of the "seminal texts" on
>> relational databases.
>
> It was some 25 years ago too. :-)
OK, so the book I'm worshiping is a little out of date.
Heh... you see what I just did there? :-D
>> Even I cannot comprehend the relational calculus though. Relational
>> algebra, sure. But relational calculus? Nah.
>
> Same here. I understand that SQL itself is much closer to the relational
> calculus than the relation algebra. I'd have to go back and try to read
> it again, tho.
Well, I recall a piece complaining that SQL doesn't actually follow the
relational model very closely. (E.g., you can write querires where the
ordering of colums matters. You can't treat derived relations in the
same way as base relations. etc.) They emplored vendors to add the
missing features, and generally close the gap.
This, I would assume, was completely ignored. :-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Invisible wrote:
> Even so, 10x higher still seems rather large. I would have expected
> something more like a few percent denser.
http://www.dayah.com/periodic/
If anything, it should be closer to a factor of 15 than of 10.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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andrel wrote:
> The number of atoms in a given volume of gas at standard pressure is
> constant, hence the weight of a volume of N2 is 7 times that of H2 and
> O2 8 times. So why did you expect a few percent?
You studied physics and you're confusing atomic number with atomic mass?
<insert asshole PhD comment here>
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> As I understand it, this is considered one of the "seminal texts" on
>>> relational databases.
>>
>> It was some 25 years ago too. :-)
>
> OK, so the book I'm worshiping is a little out of date.
No. That's my point. It's so seminal that it hasn't needed to be replaced in
25 years either.
> Heh... you see what I just did there? :-D
> Well, I recall a piece complaining that SQL doesn't actually follow the
> relational model very closely. (E.g., you can write querires where the
> ordering of colums matters. You can't treat derived relations in the
> same way as base relations. etc.) They emplored vendors to add the
> missing features, and generally close the gap.
Yes. And you can have duplicate rows in your results, and so on. But that's
just practicality.
My understanding is that the calculus describes "this is the result I want",
while the algebra is "follow these steps". Of course, the steps don't have
to be followed in order in the algebra (associative, commutitive, etc), so
that's OK.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
"What's wrong? Noodles too hot?"
"No, I have Chopstick Tunnel Syndrome."
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