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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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>>>> 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.
The mark of a Special title. ;-)
> 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.
I wandered into lots of terms like "universal quantification" and got
horribly lost...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Mike Raiford wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> 3 years evaluating the intelligence of a half-mouldy cup of yogurt
> That could be your dissertation. :-D
Or dessert-tation?
--
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:
> I guess I'm still smarting from that guy yelling at me because I keep
> asking how rank-2 types work and I still can't get my head around it.
You need to sit down interactively with someone. There were a handful of
things I just couldn't grok until I got someone more expert to give me a
clue, then it all fell into place. (LISP being one of those, for example.)
> Actually, I'm still not really comprehending why double-entry book
> keeping is really relevant to a computer science degree, but still...
It's as relevant as anything else. Computer science (such as it is) doesn't
solve any problems on its own. :-)
>> Aren't there lots of options for getting funding?
> *shrugs*
Yes. They will pay you to get a PhD.
> is another qualification going to be different?
Because in getting that qualification, you get introduced to all the people
working in the fields that interest you.
>> and will have many more employment options once you are done.
> I currently doubt this one.
OK, put it this way... So what? You're not finding any good jobs now.
After, if you still don't find any good jobs, what did you lose?
> I'm thinking I might make a list of cool stuff just for the hell of it,
> actually. :-D
You definitely should.
--
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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>> 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.
LOL. Riiiight...
> It's like saying you're not going to take a job
> just because some day you might get fired.
Mmm, whatever.
> Plus, you'll meet girls. :-)
Oh. My. GOD! >_<
You cannot *possibly* expect me to take anything else you say seriously
now, can you? :-P
>> 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.
Agreed.
>> 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?
Heh. Actually, a few weeks back I did look at MSRC. But I couldn't
figure out what they were talking about. I surmised this probably means
I'm too stupid to be there. :-}
Much as it would be fun to meet the legendary Simon PJ, I rather doubt
they have any PhD openings to do with Haskell right about now. Sure,
lots of people are working hard on GHC, but most of it is not "new" in
any way, it's just getting around to applying techniques known from
other compilers. It takes a while to alter a codebase that huge.
> 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.
That's pretty impressive, right there.
Other than my lecturers, I didn't meet *anybody* during my degree. And
now I'm trying to track down some of my old lecturers just so I can
maybe get some references out of them...
> And yes, people actually do get impressed by PhDs.
I guess it depends who you're asking...
>> 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.
Hmm, time to track down all those Haskell papers which I carefully
linked from our Haskell group for safe keeping. 8^D
(And if you believe *that*, you'll believe anything...)
> 4) Profit!
Anybody know the origins of this curios meme?
> 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.
Mmm, OK.
>> 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.
Taking a PhD for no apparent reason is slightly crazy, but I'm gradually
coming around to the idea. Leaving the UK is an absurd idea. :-P
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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