>>> "It didn't change while I was using it, so it won't have changed since
>>> I stopped using it" - that's a bad assumption to make.
>>
>> What, expecting future events to resemble past ones?
>>
>> Isn't that ultimately the basis of all scientific inquiry? ;-)
>
> Certainly in the space of the physical world.  I don't think decisions by
> people really qualify as a 'reproducible experiment'.

Damn. We should go tell the psychology experts... ;-)

>> Depends on whether you want to split hairs between "actually impossible"
>> and "so insanely difficult that it is _effectively_ impossible".
>
> For the average person, it most certainly is possible.  There are tools
> in the basic/cheap versions of Photoshop to do this sort of thing IIRC.

There is no magical "tool" which can correctly guess what is hidden 
behind a solid object.

I'm aware that there *are* people who possess the skill to do utterly 
amazing things with photo editors. But that doesn't mean that everybody 
can do this. It's not a question of having a magic "tool"; it's about 
being sufficiently skilful to find ways to trick the eye. From what I've 
seen, few people have such skills.

>>>> It's perfectly possible for incorrect information to lead you to a
>>>> conclusion that happens to be true
>>>
>>> Only by pure chance.
>>
>> That's my point.
>>
>> If you do not have all of the information (the usual case), then whether
>> your conclusions are correct or not is largely chance.
>
> I don't think this is the "usual case".

Usually what you know about a thing is utterly dwarfed by what you don't 
know. The question is whether you know the important facts - which is 
usually a matter of chance.

>> I've noticed, on multiple forums, that I seem to piss people off. I
>> guess I'm just a bad human being. In the past, people used to just
>> ignore me. Now people talk to me, but only to tell me that I'm an idiot.
>> I'm not sure that's an improvement...
>
> Well, no, it's not my intention to say "Andy, you're an idiot" - I hope
> you know that.  What you do tend to do, though, is start from a very bad
> premise and then make wild assertions that are not accurate and very
> easily verifiable.

Statements like this make me wonder where this vast endless source of 
"easy" counter-examples is... It's as if the entire world knows 
something that I don't.

>> I'll see if I can figure out what my password is. (If not, I guess I can
>> look it up on some Russian forum...)
>
> LOL
>
> There is a forgotten password link you can use to reset it, of course.

Nah, it's probably the same password I use for everything else...

...oh. ****. >_<

>> Or because - as I already suggested - it's perhaps aimed at somebody
>> other than me.
>
> That's certainly possible, but you are a "job seeker", and that's part of
> the target audience.

As I say, I get the impression (I'm not sure precisely why) that it's 
mainly targeted at high-powered business executives in upper management. 
(These are the people who are usually obsessed with "networking", for 
example.) Since I am not one of those people, perhaps this isn't an 
appropriate tool for me, which is why it looks useless when I look at it.

(Alternatively, perhaps I'm just mistaken...)

> But jobs typically don't fall out of the sky into
> your lap (as you know), you have to work to find them (which you also
> know) and it can be difficult (which you also also know).

Sure. As I say, last time I looked, there didn't seem to be anything to 
"work at". Once you've filled in all the fields, that's about it. Unless 
they really have /radically/ altered the capabilities of the site...

>>> There are millions of people who do use it with some success, so it
>>> seems logical to infer from that that perhaps there are better ways to
>>> use it than the way you're trying to.
>>
>> OOC, do you have any factual basis for saying that "millions of people
>> do use it with some success", beyond the fact that the site still exists
>> and hasn't gone bankrupt yet? Or is /that/ merely an assumption? :-P
>
> Oooh, he's got teeth, this one does. ;)  That's a fair question.

Back atcha. ;-)

> Look at the number of people I'm connected to.  I follow a number of
> companies and see people taking positions at new companies that had jobs
> posted on the site.

So, there's indirect evidence that some of the people on the site lead 
quite successful careers. That's a correlation, but not necessarily a 
causal relationship.

> My network (out to three degrees) consists of nearly 5 million people.

So there's a lot of people /on/ the site.

> Every job search professional I have talked to (recruiters, placement
> agencies, etc.) has said that networking is something that's generally a
> good predictor of success in finding employment.

I don't get the whole "networking" thing. I mean, hypothetically I can 
see why it might work. But I have no idea how you'd go about this in the 
real world, nor do I directly know of any instances where this has been 
a successful approach for somebody. Maybe I haven't seen networking 
succeed because I don't do any networking and I don't know anybody else 
that does, IDK... It just seems a slightly strange concept.

>> (Not that a seriously doubt you. But it sounds like exactly the sort of
>> statement that's easy to casually make and almost impossible to
>> objectively verify.)
>
> See above. :)

For example, how do you know that "millions" have found it useful? Not, 
say, "thousands"? The number of people on the site is not necessarily 
the number who have actually found it beneficial.

In general, I imagine it's quite hard to scientifically quantify this. 
(What counts as "beneficial" or "not beneficial"? How do you put a 
number on that?)

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