>> On the one hand, knowing stuff always holds the possibility that one 
>> day it'll somehow be useful.
> 
> But if you spend your whole life learning, you'll run out of time to do 
> anything useful with it :-)

Thanks. Like I don't have enough anxiety to worry about already...

> I'm sure there are a 
> huge number of jobs where knowing the details of logic gates it a 
> requirement.

And, since I'm never going to do any of these jobs, it doesn't really 
matter.

Much as I'd love to spend all day nerding out over logic design, the 
fact of the matter is that I seem to be doomed to spend the rest of my 
life rebooting people's computers for them every time Word crashes. A 
trained monkey could do that.

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> Much as I'd love to spend all day nerding out over logic design,

Get a qualification or training in electronics and apply for some jobs then. 
Don't expect someone to phone you up one day and say they saw your posts 
about building a CPU and want to employ you.  If you really want to do it 
then it's possible, but you have to put in some effort.

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scott wrote:
>> Much as I'd love to spend all day nerding out over logic design,
> 
> Get a qualification or training in electronics and apply for some jobs 
> then. Don't expect someone to phone you up one day and say they saw your 
> posts about building a CPU and want to employ you.  If you really want 
> to do it then it's possible, but you have to put in some effort.

I don't think knowing how to throw a few 7400s together qualifies you as 
a logic designer. Hell, there are kids out there who have spent years 
playing with FPGAs and doing real qualifications and stuff who have 
produced things actually worth having. Why hire me when you can hire one 
of those kids?

My knowledge of logic design is insufficient for me to work as a logic 
designer. My knowledge of computer programming is insufficient to work 
as a programmer. (Everybody wants C. Nobody wants Haskell - and even 
those that do also want you to write device drivers - in C.) My 
knowledge of mathematics is insufficient to work as a mathematician. My 
knowledge and more importantly skill level in music is vastly 
insufficient for me to work as a musician. I could go on... but 
basically it seems that all that's left for me is to sit and rot fixing 
people's wetware issues - and I can't even seem to find anybody to hire 
me for that.

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> I don't think knowing how to throw a few 7400s together qualifies you as 
> a logic designer. Hell, there are kids out there who have spent years 
> playing with FPGAs and doing real qualifications and stuff who have 
> produced things actually worth having. Why hire me when you can hire one 
> of those kids?

Like I said, get a training or qualification if you are really interested.

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>> Learning aside: Hobbies were invented for fun, not for "productive
>> time management". ;-)
>
> Sure. But spending weeks wiring together little black blobs in order to
> make a few LEDs flash in a pattern with hypothetically means something?
> Most people wouldn't regard that as "fun".

Well, but what some people call fun is beyond me, so why bother if "most 
people" consider it fun? The only thing important is if YOU're having 
fun doing it. If so, mission accomplished. :-)

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scott wrote:
>> I don't think knowing how to throw a few 7400s together qualifies you 
>> as a logic designer.
> 
> Like I said, get a training or qualification if you are really interested.

And like I said, every geek on the planet wants to get paid to develop 
mathematical algorithms or design cutting-edge chips or build 
next-generation game engines or... The trouble is, there are a tiny 
handful of such jobs in the entire world, and therefore you are almost 
guaranteed to never be hired.

Normal people don't get paid to do cool stuff. We have to put up with 
doing boring stuff, just like everybody else.

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Tim Nikias wrote:
>>> Learning aside: Hobbies were invented for fun, not for "productive
>>> time management". ;-)
>>
>> Sure. But spending weeks wiring together little black blobs in order to
>> make a few LEDs flash in a pattern with hypothetically means something?
>> Most people wouldn't regard that as "fun".
> 
> Well, but what some people call fun is beyond me, so why bother if "most 
> people" consider it fun? The only thing important is if YOU're having 
> fun doing it. If so, mission accomplished. :-)

Sure. It would just be nice if the entire human race _didn't_ regard me 
as a total loser, that's all...

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>> Like I said, get a training or qualification if you are really 
>> interested.
>
> And like I said, every geek on the planet wants to get paid to develop 
> mathematical algorithms or design cutting-edge chips or build 
> next-generation game engines or... The trouble is, there are a tiny 
> handful of such jobs in the entire world, and therefore you are almost 
> guaranteed to never be hired.

You *vastly* underestimate how many jobs require those skills.  Sure, most 
are not as glamorous as designing the next GPU for the PlayStation 4, but if 
you want to do digital circuit design for a job there are plenty of 
opportunities in a vast range of industries.  If you were degree qualified I 
could point you to an opening we have at the moment.

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>> And like I said, every geek on the planet wants to get paid to develop 
>> mathematical algorithms or design cutting-edge chips or build 
>> next-generation game engines or... The trouble is, there are a tiny 
>> handful of such jobs in the entire world, and therefore you are almost 
>> guaranteed to never be hired.
> 
> You *vastly* underestimate how many jobs require those skills.

Really? Well let's see now...

The Motion Picture Experts Group might need to know the difference 
between a Type-I and Type-II Discrete Cosine Transform, but most people 
only *implement* MPEG standards, not design them.

Most companies do not design ICs. They purchase them off the shelf and 
assemble them. (Indeed, I was under the impression that the number of 
companies world-wide who actually have IC fabrication plants is very 
small - although admittedly you don't need to actually have a fab to 
design new ICs.)

In fact, most companies do not write software either; they purchase it. 
Some of it can be customised to the point that it's almost like 
developing a new product, but more usually it's a case of installing the 
software and configuration a few options and templates and stuff. It 
certainly doesn't call for a C programmer.

And game engines... Well, that's probably way, way less exciting than it 
sounds anyway. ;-)

> Sure, 
> most are not as glamorous as designing the next GPU for the PlayStation 
> 4,

Actually, I imagine most jobs are way less exciting than they sound. ;-)

> but if you want to do digital circuit design for a job there are 
> plenty of opportunities in a vast range of industries.

Seriously... Doing what? Everything seems to be made of off-the-shelf 
parts (which, by definition, already exist). What's to design?

> If you were 
> degree qualified I could point you to an opening we have at the moment.

Really? Are you ser- oh, wait, you work in Germany, don't you?

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On 11/06/2010 11:32 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Tim Nikias wrote:
>>>> Learning aside: Hobbies were invented for fun, not for "productive
>>>> time management". ;-)
>>>
>>> Sure. But spending weeks wiring together little black blobs in order to
>>> make a few LEDs flash in a pattern with hypothetically means something?
>>> Most people wouldn't regard that as "fun".
>>
>> Well, but what some people call fun is beyond me, so why bother if
>> "most people" consider it fun? The only thing important is if YOU're
>> having fun doing it. If so, mission accomplished. :-)
>
> Sure. It would just be nice if the entire human race _didn't_ regard me
> as a total loser, that's all...

It's not the entire human race it is mostly you.

-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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