>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>> London"?
>
> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.

Rather than just *say* that, I decided to go and check with someone who 
knows more than me. And according to the Office of National Statistics, 
I'm right. :-P

More precisely: I found income statistics which cover
- Data gathered for 2010.
- All regions of the UK.
- All sectors of employment.
- All ages, races and so forth.
- Full-time employment only.
- Total income. (Base pay + overtime, bonuses, etc.)
According to that data, the 90th percentile for income is roughly 
£50,000/year.

In other words, if you earn more than £50k, you are in the top 10% of 
the entire [full-time employed] population of this country. And that's 
*half* the income you're talking about. :-P

(I can't reliably extrapolate what percentile £100k would be. There 
isn't enough data. Any answer you could come up with would just be 
guessing at this point.)

Looking at a different report covering April 2011 to June 2011, I get 
£47k as the 90th percentile. (This report might include part-time 
employment, I'm not sure. Regardless, it's a very similar figure.)

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On 24/10/2011 10:50 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>>>> London"?
>>>
>>> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.
>>
>> Yes people do. I know several.
>
> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that. 
> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that 
> sort of money.
>
No, trust me normal people do earn that sort of money but they tend to 
be contractors, in my experience.

>> Commuting from MK to Victoria would take at least 75 minutes each way by
>> train and tube and cost about GBP 50 per day.
>
> Yeah, not fun.
>
>> As for driving there, no
>> one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an
>> office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.
>
> The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the 
> traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they 
> had absolutely no alternative...
A nightmare. When I occasionally work in London I take the bus or the tube.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that.
>> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that
>> sort of money.
>>
> No, trust me normal people do earn that sort of money but they tend to
> be contractors, in my experience.

Like I said, the ONS claims that such a figure puts you well beyond the 
90th percentile.

>> The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the
>> traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they
>> had absolutely no alternative...

> A nightmare. When I occasionally work in London I take the bus or the tube.

I usually go by train as well. (Then the fun part becomes figuring out 
where to park at MK station...)

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On 9/30/2011 10:45 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 30/09/2011 04:26 PM, Mike Raiford wrote:
>
>> Some, and maybe all of that is happening, but it isn't done by filling
>> out scientific method worksheets like I had to do in school.
>
> Those scientific method worksheets we had to do at school... I work in a
> company where people perform ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS, and let me
> tell you, it looks /nothing like/ anything you saw at school!
>

Nothing in the real world ever does. :)

> (On the other hand, there /is/ an absurd amount of paperwork involved...)
>

I can imagine the amount of detail they need to go into to produce the 
type of testing feedback their clients need. But, IIRC the company you 
work for provides analysis services, so I would expect that to be thorough

>> Definitely. Rote memorization teaches nothing, except how to memorize.
>
> This.
>
> I still think they should teach String Theory in schools - to
> demonstrate how even though something is widely respected, has brilliant
> people working on it, and involves amazingly complex mathematics, that
> doesn't make it science. Being testable makes it science.

Then your average folk will start whining and crying about how hard 
science is and how it's not practical.
-- 
~Mike

Post a reply to this message

>> Those scientific method worksheets we had to do at school... I work in a
>> company where people perform ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS, and let me
>> tell you, it looks /nothing like/ anything you saw at school!
>
> Nothing in the real world ever does. :)

I swear it's just busy-work to keep the kids quiet for a few hours...

>> (On the other hand, there /is/ an absurd amount of paperwork involved...)
>
> I can imagine the amount of detail they need to go into to produce the
> type of testing feedback their clients need. But, IIRC the company you
> work for provides analysis services, so I would expect that to be thorough

Well, the work we do theoretically affects human health. Like, if one of 
our experiments goes wrong, people could potentially *die*. Law-makers 
get really twitchy when that happens...

>> I still think they should teach String Theory in schools - to
>> demonstrate how even though something is widely respected, has brilliant
>> people working on it, and involves amazingly complex mathematics, that
>> doesn't make it science. Being testable makes it science.
>
> Then your average folk will start whining and crying about how hard
> science is and how it's not practical.

By "teach string theory", I don't mean that people should actually learn 
all the exotic mathematics involved. More that they should be taught why 
string theory isn't science, and atomic theory is.

Post a reply to this message

On 24/10/2011 1:23 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that.
>>> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that
>>> sort of money.
>>>
>> No, trust me normal people do earn that sort of money but they tend to
>> be contractors, in my experience.
>
> Like I said, the ONS claims that such a figure puts you well beyond 
> the 90th percentile.
>
Me! I never said I did.

>
>> A nightmare. When I occasionally work in London I take the bus or the 
>> tube.
>
> I usually go by train as well. (Then the fun part becomes figuring out 
> where to park at MK station...)

You'd have to go early before it fills up.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 09:06:58 +0100, Invisible wrote:

> On 23/10/2011 11:16 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 10/23/2011 13:44, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>>> Who the hell has internet access from a telephone?!
>>
>> I bet the other sysadmins in your company do. Get your company to pay
>> for it. ;-)
> 
> I know a few of the more important members of staff get a company phone.
> People like the CEO, the site managers, and so on. I'm not nearly
> important enough for that. :-P (Besides, who *wants* to be contactable
> 24/7?)

Generally, businesses want their IT support staff to be contactable 24x7 
if the organisation operates during those hours.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:50:44 +0100, Invisible wrote:

>>>> What if they said "We'll give you $150,000 more each year to move to
>>>> London"?
>>>
>>> That's almost a hundred grand in UK currency. Nobody earns that much.
>>
>> Yes people do. I know several.
> 
> Sure, the CEO of a large corporation might earn something like that.
> (Depending on how large, of course.) Normal humans don't earn that sort
> of money.

I know people who do as well, and they're not CEOs of large corporations.

>> Commuting from MK to Victoria would take at least 75 minutes each way
>> by train and tube and cost about GBP 50 per day.
> 
> Yeah, not fun.
> 
>> As for driving there, no
>> one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an
>> office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.
> 
> The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you *seen* the
> traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they
> had absolutely no alternative...

So everybody who is actually driving in London rush hour is insane?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 24/10/2011 5:05 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> As for driving there, no
>>> >>  one in their right mind would drive into central London to work in an
>>> >>  office. AFAIR parking is GBP 4 per hour.
>> >  
>> >  The cost of parking is the least of your worries. Have you*seen*  the
>> >  traffic?! At rush hour? Truly no sane person would do this unless they
>> >  had absolutely no alternative...
> So everybody who is actually driving in London rush hour is insane?

I didn’t say that, Mr Strawman. ;-)

What I did say was that you need your head examined if you drive in 
Central London out of choice during the rush hour.
The week before last, I left Paddington about 5pm and it took me over an 
hour and a half to drive less than 15 miles.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

>> I know a few of the more important members of staff get a company phone.
>> People like the CEO, the site managers, and so on. I'm not nearly
>> important enough for that. :-P (Besides, who *wants* to be contactable
>> 24/7?)
>
> Generally, businesses want their IT support staff to be contactable 24x7
> if the organisation operates during those hours.

Yeah. Fortunately, I don't have that problem. A few of our staff *are* 
contactable at every hour, but I don't need to be one of them.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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