On 15/02/2015 02:56 PM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
> I don't get it. We learned about logarithms in high school.

In which country?

For that matter, we learned about fractions in school. But I've yet to 
meet anyone from my own generation who has the slightest clue how 
fractions work... [I suppose that's another one of those "nobody cares; 
the computer does it for you" type things.]

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>> Good body awareness is important. You don't want to knock your coffee
>> over your notes.
>>
> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
> happen :-)

You must never do a tango with an Eskimo. No no no, oh dear no!

[I still don't actually know why...]

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On 15/02/2015 02:42 PM, nemesis wrote:
> they are useful idiots

Why does that sound like a band name...

> Bach (and many other bright composers from the highly specialized and complex
> instrumental music of that era) was much like as autistic as we are.  Hence, his
> many bouts of fury against his patrons, arrests, etc.  He simply didn't know how
> to harmoniously deal with other human beings as he did with an organ.  He did
> teach his children pretty well though.  His oldest 2 sons were as capable as
> himself as performer and just had a different composing style because times had
> changed...

Harmoniously.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE! ;-)

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>> There is something deeply worrying about... OK, so let's try this. Come
>> on this journey with me.
>
> [snip]
>
> As I said, I am truly appalled about what you tell. It is unbelievable
> but I suppose I am naive... ;-)

I sincerely hope this is unique to the computing field.

I *think* it's because what we programmers produce is so intangible. 
Like, if you hire somebody to build an office block, and they bash a few 
bits of wood into the ground in the shape of a rectangle, you tell them 
they're fired, and then you sue them into oblivion. [Which I gather is 
some kind of MMO?] But if you commission somebody to build a payroll 
system, you can't really tell that it's just an MS Access skin - unless 
you're enough of a computer expert that you don't need to hire an expert 
in the first place!

That, I *think*, is maybe what the problem is. Although I do wonder how 
nobody gets electrocuted because the "electrician" they hired doesn't 
actually know how electricity works...

>> I wonder... Does anybody have this much trouble hiring a carpenter?
>
> No, but I am starting to worry.

It does make you wonder, doesn't it?

>> I guess that just leaves us with the problem of nobody wanting to learn
>> then. ;-)
>
> Sad, sad, sad. I believe learning is one of those rare incentives that
> make life worthwhile.

I find all this stuff fascinating - but then again, I'm weird, so...

But still, there *was* a time when the great mathematicians, physicists 
and engineers of the day were lionised as visionary idols... Now we have 
Pop Idol. *sigh*

>> I'm sure if I give a lecture while doing the Charleston to some
>> authentic music, everybody will remember me. No idea if they'll remember
>> a damned thing I said, but... ^_^
>
> Right. You can overdo it. Watching lecturers is a great school for do's
> and dont's. I have seen hilarious examples of dont's... ;-)

"The Charleston lectures" would make a hell of an Internet meme though...

...you know, I mean if I could actually *speak* while doing the 
Charleston, instead of gasping for air...

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On 15/02/2015 20:36, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> Good body awareness is important. You don't want to knock your coffee
>>> over your notes.
>>>
>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>> happen :-)
>
> You must never do a tango with an Eskimo. No no no, oh dear no!
>
> [I still don't actually know why...]

If you do, you'll get the breeze up
And you'll end up with a freeze up

[And you would not want her to break it off.]

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Still, at least he could speak English. Many of my lecturers couldn't
> (or at least not very well). Seriously, if your JOB is to teach people
> who only speak English, not being able to speak English is surely an
> instant disqualification. No?!?

are you sure people in the UK still speak english?

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On 15-2-2015 22:16, Stephen wrote:
> On 15/02/2015 20:36, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>>> Good body awareness is important. You don't want to knock your coffee
>>>> over your notes.
>>>>
>>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>>> happen :-)
>>
>> You must never do a tango with an Eskimo. No no no, oh dear no!
>>
>> [I still don't actually know why...]
>
> If you do, you'll get the breeze up
> And you'll end up with a freeze up
>
> [And you would not want her to break it off.]
>
ROTFL

-- 
Thomas

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On 15-2-2015 16:38, Stephen wrote:
> On 15/02/2015 15:22, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>> happen :-)
>>
>
> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
> Or so someone told me. :-)
>

I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.

No friction? well yes but often to the contrary. The damn things often 
stuck together like hell with static electricity! But as you could put 
them in individual holders they became a manageable pile.

-- 
Thomas

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On 15-2-2015 21:45, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> I wonder... Does anybody have this much trouble hiring a carpenter?
>>
>> No, but I am starting to worry.
>
> It does make you wonder, doesn't it?

It does, and with the trash sent over from China it is often a nightmare 
come true. Nowadays, I often control /where/ devices are put together, 
even the labels with a traditional reputation. :-(

[snip]

>
>>> I'm sure if I give a lecture while doing the Charleston to some
>>> authentic music, everybody will remember me. No idea if they'll remember
>>> a damned thing I said, but... ^_^
>>
>> Right. You can overdo it. Watching lecturers is a great school for do's
>> and dont's. I have seen hilarious examples of dont's... ;-)
>
> "The Charleston lectures" would make a hell of an Internet meme though...
>
> ...you know, I mean if I could actually *speak* while doing the
> Charleston, instead of gasping for air...

LOL That would be a great show indeed!

-- 
Thomas

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>> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
>> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
>> Or so someone told me. :-)
>
> I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.

Oh, I don't know. When I was at uni, every time assignments were due, 
you could *guarantee* that some moron will have put overhead sheets 
through the library laser printer - the WRONG overhead sheets. The ones 
that melt in the fuser unit. :-S

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> According to the Academia Stack Exchange portal, it seems if you have a
> PhD, everybody immediately assumes you're going to be hellishly
> expensive to hire and summarily drops you from consideration.
>
> Unless you want to work in the finance industry, which only exists in
> London.

I work for a manufacturing company about 50 miles away from London, and 
we have quite a few PhDs working in our R&D team (physics and chemistry) 
and in more senior positions elesewhere in the company. We certainly 
wouldn't reject your application just for having a PhD.

My previous employer was much more R&D oriented and at least 50% of the 
staff had PhDs. Didn't you have some at your previous job too? Maybe the 
problem you highlight is unique to people with computer science PhDs?

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>> In short, I haven't come across a lesson where people are there because
>> they actually *want* to learn something. Most of them are just seem to
>> want the bit of paper that makes employers think they're awesome.
>>
>
>
> You are too pessimistic I believe (or the world has changed too much).
> Except for the last point (the Microsoft course) with which I agree, at
> all other levels I have been with people who genuinely wanted to /know/
> and to /learn/. Not all of them of course but a substantial part, yes.

I have to agree with Andy here, my experience of school (compulsory up 
to age 16) and sixth form college (optional up to age 18) is that most 
people didn't want to learn. Obviously there were some who did, but the 
majority you felt were there because someone else had told them to be 
there but they didn't want to be. It was a place to meet people and hang 
out, having to go to lessons and do homework was an inconvenience.

It was only when I got to University that it was suddenly full of people 
who actually wanted to be there and wanted to learn. But I think there 
are likely only a few Universities like that with that atmosphere, 
speaking to friends elsewhere it sounded like other Universities were 
just like school and college where people would spend more effort trying 
to avoid doing any work that actually learning anything.

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On 16/02/2015 08:09, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 15-2-2015 16:38, Stephen wrote:
>> On 15/02/2015 15:22, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>>> happen :-)
>>>
>>
>> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
>> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
>> Or so someone told me. :-)
>>
>
> I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.
>
> No friction? well yes but often to the contrary. The damn things often
> stuck together like hell with static electricity! But as you could put
> them in individual holders they became a manageable pile.
>

Now we are getting back to the binary nature of life and Sods Law.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 08:03, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 15-2-2015 22:16, Stephen wrote:

>>
> ROTFL
>

The old ones are the best ones. :-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16-2-2015 9:52, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 08:09, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> On 15-2-2015 16:38, Stephen wrote:
>>> On 15/02/2015 15:22, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>>> Oh dear, no! Nor drop all your overhead sheets on the ground as I saw
>>>> happen :-)
>>>>
>>>
>>> You are giving your age away, now. ;-)
>>> Those sheets seemed to have no friction between them at all.
>>> Or so someone told me. :-)
>>>
>>
>> I know. Overhead sheets are only found in museums nowadays.
>>
>> No friction? well yes but often to the contrary. The damn things often
>> stuck together like hell with static electricity! But as you could put
>> them in individual holders they became a manageable pile.
>>
>
> Now we are getting back to the binary nature of life and Sods Law.
>

Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many 
times, maybe even here...

Settings: Split, in then still existing Yugoslavia; a lecture hall 
during a conference with a huge stage in front of the audience.

Characters: (1) Somebody high up in party hierarchy going to give a 
presentation on mineral resources; (2) his secretary.

Scene 1: The session's president introduces the next presentation 
(applause); the presenter comes up on stage with his secretary; 
presenter takes place behind the lectern; the secretary sits down 
besides the overhead projector, facing us, a little nervously, the 
audience; a few murmurs in the audience.

Scene 2: Presentation begins; English a bit difficult to follow; 
presenter signals to secretary to put up the first overhead, which she 
does; for about a couple of minutes all goes well.

Scene 3: Presenter asks for next overhead; image comes on screen; 
/wrong/ overhead; presenter starts to become irritated; secretary starts 
to become (more) nervous; overheads are successively put up and put down 
again without success; nervousness increases; presenter tries to go on 
from overhead then visible; secretary start to put up another overhead 
before being told to do so; presenter turns red; secretary panics and 
drops all the sheets on the stage;

Meanwhile, the audience: slow grins appearing on faces; bodies settling 
down more comfortably in chairs; hands fold on bellies.

Scene 4: panic extending on stage; presenter, secretary, and session 
president reassemble the sheets but no logical order can be found any 
more; presentation ends in chaos. (applause)


-- 
Thomas

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> You see a job advert for an English / French translator. The advert says
> there will be a test during the interview. You don't know a single word
> of French, but you think to yourself "bah, nobody will notice. I'll just
> Google search of the words when I need to. It'll be fine."
>
> WHAT. THE. HELL.
>
> I'm sorry, IN WHICH UNIVERSE IS NOBODY GOING TO NOTICE?! What the HELL
> are you smoking?!!
>
> Nobody thinks this will work. Nobody ever tries this. Because nobody is
> that stupid. But replace being able to write French with being able to
> write C#, and suddenly everybody thinks that somehow "nobody will
> notice". Wuh?!

I assure you the sames happens for French and everything else. My gf 
works for a company that sells stuff mostly outside the UK, so they are 
always recruiting people for customer service that are fluent in German, 
French, Italian etc. People *do* apply for jobs that blatantly state 
"German speaker" that cannot speak more than the 3 words of German that 
everyone knows. Their reasoning is often along the lines of "well I can 
speak a bit of French and I thought you wouldn't notice, and if you did 
you would anyway see how uber cool I was and see I could learn German in 
a few weeks and hire me anyway". Err no, go away!

The same happened to me in Engineering in my last job too. A guy applied 
quoting 20 years experience in analogue electronic circuit design and 
test. We got a bit concerned when he couldn't even say what a simple 
2-component RC circuit was meant to do, let alone how to calculate any 
response. After a bit of drilling down we got to the question of "have 
you ever actually used an oscilloscope?". His answer was No. I mean come on!

> We started doing phone screenings rather than waste our time with
> hopeless people. We find a website where you can watch the other person
> type, in real-time, as they type it. Almost everybody who reaches this
> stage doesn't get to have a face-to-face interview. A few people got
> creative though:
>
> * While talking to one guy, we could *clearly* hear somebody else
> sitting next to him telling him what to type. Er, REJECT!
>
> * Another guy, we asked him to write some code. We can hear typey typey
> typey. Er, can you type into the window please? Typey, typey, typey,
> BAM! Suddenly a huge block of text appears all at once. In other
> words... you just Googled the answer and copy-pasted it, didn't you?
> REJECT!

LOL

> Seriously, how the **** do people think we're not gonna notice this
> stuff? Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that you somehow trick us
> into interviewing you... Do you REALLY THINK it won't instantly become
> EXTREMELY OBVIOUS that you're bluffing? How do you actually see this
> playing out? Are you mental?!

The scary thing is these people will probably be able to get a job 
somewhere and somehow blag there way along. If they're lucky they may 
even get to interview people at some point :-)

> I wonder... Does anybody have this much trouble hiring a carpenter?

Have you ever seen shows like "cowboy builders" or "rogue traders"...

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> But not as disturbing as me getting paid to do C++ when I know nothing
> about it! o_O

Because of your desire to learn though, I'm pretty sure you're going to 
be better at C++ than them already, and if not you will be soon. And 
undoubtedly you've got a wider area of expertise than someone who has 
just spent their entire career coding C++ and nothign else.

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On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
> times, maybe even here...

Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide 
projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the 
ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 09:34, scott wrote:
> The scary thing is these people will probably be able to get a job
> somewhere and somehow blag there way along.

Oi! That's me your talking about. Have a care.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16-2-2015 9:40, scott wrote:
>>> In short, I haven't come across a lesson where people are there because
>>> they actually *want* to learn something. Most of them are just seem to
>>> want the bit of paper that makes employers think they're awesome.
>>>
>>
>>
>> You are too pessimistic I believe (or the world has changed too much).
>> Except for the last point (the Microsoft course) with which I agree, at
>> all other levels I have been with people who genuinely wanted to /know/
>> and to /learn/. Not all of them of course but a substantial part, yes.
>
> I have to agree with Andy here, my experience of school (compulsory up
> to age 16) and sixth form college (optional up to age 18) is that most
> people didn't want to learn. Obviously there were some who did, but the
> majority you felt were there because someone else had told them to be
> there but they didn't want to be. It was a place to meet people and hang
> out, having to go to lessons and do homework was an inconvenience.
>
> It was only when I got to University that it was suddenly full of people
> who actually wanted to be there and wanted to learn. But I think there
> are likely only a few Universities like that with that atmosphere,
> speaking to friends elsewhere it sounded like other Universities were
> just like school and college where people would spend more effort trying
> to avoid doing any work that actually learning anything.
>
My school experience was quite the opposite; there was even a fair 
competition between pupils to get the highest scores. Good teachers were 
venerated; the bad treated with contempt. It was hard work too, from 
8:00 till 18:00 on average, six days a week, with only the thursday 
afternoon free. I don't know. Time (50s and 60s) and place (Paris) may 
play a role here...

-- 
Thomas

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On 16-2-2015 11:07, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
>> times, maybe even here...
>
> Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide
> projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the
> ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
> Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.
>
A man is entitled to his laugh, ain't he?

-- 
Thomas

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On 16/02/15 10:07, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
>> times, maybe even here...
> 
> Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide
> projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the
> ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
> Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.
> 

Guilty!
Been there, done that. All I need is the t-shirt.

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On 16-2-2015 13:37, Doctor John wrote:
> On 16/02/15 10:07, Stephen wrote:
>> On 16/02/2015 09:26, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>>> Beware of the /binary/ nature though. I must have told this story many
>>> times, maybe even here...
>>
>> Not to my knowledge. I have seen the same, a few times with slide
>> projectors. When the carousel has been loaded in the wrong order and the
>> ensuing panic ends up with the slides on the floor.
>> Ah! Well. It was the best that we had at the time.
>>
>
> Guilty!
> Been there, done that. All I need is the t-shirt.
>
> John
>
Oh dear, oh dear, yes... (once I /forgot/ my slides)...

-- 
Thomas

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On 16/02/15 12:52, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> Oh dear, oh dear, yes... (once I /forgot/ my slides)...
> 

"... and as you can see..."

:-D

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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On 16-2-2015 14:04, Doctor John wrote:
> On 16/02/15 12:52, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> Oh dear, oh dear, yes... (once I /forgot/ my slides)...
>>
>
> "... and as you can see..."
>

Yes, but happily I could draw on an overhead projector what the audience 
was supposed to see :-)

It felt a bit like 'dancing the Charleston and talking at the same time' 
Andrew suggested earlier.

-- 
Thomas

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> My school experience was quite the opposite; there was even a fair
> competition between pupils to get the highest scores. Good teachers were
> venerated; the bad treated with contempt. It was hard work too, from
> 8:00 till 18:00 on average, six days a week, with only the thursday
> afternoon free. I don't know. Time (50s and 60s) and place (Paris) may
> play a role here...

I wish it had been more like that where I was, but it was sadly not the 
case, rather it was "cool" to not do any work and if you weren't "cool" 
you were likely to get bullied about it (mostly verbal but sometimes 
physical). It got slightly easier at age 13 (IIRC) when we got split 
into classes by ability for most subjects, but some subjects were still 
mixed abilility so you had complete losers who were only there to cause 
trouble in the same class as people who were hoping to make something of 
their life.

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On Sun, 15 Feb 2015 22:35:00 +0200, Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:

> On 15/02/2015 02:56 PM, Nekar Xenos wrote:
>> I don't get it. We learned about logarithms in high school.
>
> In which country?
>
> For that matter, we learned about fractions in school. But I've yet to  
> meet anyone from my own generation who has the slightest clue how  
> fractions work... [I suppose that's another one of those "nobody cares;  
> the computer does it for you" type things.]

South Africa. 1988. But my eldest son is now doing his final High-School  
year and they haven't done logarithms yet. So I'm not sure what to make of  
it.

-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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On 16/02/2015 08:40 AM, scott wrote:

> I have to agree with Andy here, my experience of school (compulsory up
> to age 16) and sixth form college (optional up to age 18) is that most
> people didn't want to learn.

At college, every lunchtime my classmates would walk across the road to 
the Winter Gardens, and come back after lunch obviously drunk. Every 
single day. The lecturers claimed we were the worst class they'd ever 
seen. [But they presumably say that *every* year...]

> It was only when I got to University that it was suddenly full of people
> who actually wanted to be there and wanted to learn.

Well, I didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. I went to some no-name 
university that nobody's ever heard of and isn't even there any more...

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On 16/02/2015 08:23 AM, scott wrote:
>> According to the Academia Stack Exchange portal, it seems if you have a
>> PhD, everybody immediately assumes you're going to be hellishly
>> expensive to hire and summarily drops you from consideration.
>>
>> Unless you want to work in the finance industry, which only exists in
>> London.
>
> I work for a manufacturing company about 50 miles away from London,

Wait, I thought you were in Germany?

> and
> we have quite a few PhDs working in our R&D team (physics and chemistry)
> and in more senior positions elesewhere in the company. We certainly
> wouldn't reject your application just for having a PhD.

Mmm, interesting.

> My previous employer was much more R&D oriented and at least 50% of the
> staff had PhDs. Didn't you have some at your previous job too?

I don't call anybody having a PhD.

> Maybe the
> problem you highlight is unique to people with computer science PhDs?

I guess the other problem, of course, is that if you're a salesman or an 
accountant or a purchasing clerk... *every* business needs those people. 
If you program computers... well, not that many people actually need 
such a person. (But then, the same goes for CNC operators, presumably.)

But yeah, the general impression I got from Stack Exchange was that 
unless you intend to spend the rest of your life working for a top-tier 
university publishing academic papers, there is basically *no point* in 
possessing a PhD. You might as well go way 4 years' commercial 
experience instead.

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>> Nobody thinks this will work. Nobody ever tries this. Because nobody is
>> that stupid. But replace being able to write French with being able to
>> write C#, and suddenly everybody thinks that somehow "nobody will
>> notice". Wuh?!
>
> I assure you the sames happens for French and everything else. My gf
> works for a company that sells stuff mostly outside the UK, so they are
> always recruiting people for customer service that are fluent in German,
> French, Italian etc. People *do* apply for jobs that blatantly state
> "German speaker" that cannot speak more than the 3 words of German that
> everyone knows. Their reasoning is often along the lines of "well I can
> speak a bit of French and I thought you wouldn't notice, and if you did
> you would anyway see how uber cool I was and see I could learn German in
> a few weeks and hire me anyway". Err no, go away!

Really? WTF?

I still have to ask: Are 95% of the people applying totally talentless, 
or is it just a small minority? Because where I work, we LITERALLY 
CANNOT HIRE ANYBODY because we just cannot find anybody who knows what 
source code is...

> The same happened to me in Engineering in my last job too. A guy applied
> quoting 20 years experience in analogue electronic circuit design and
> test. We got a bit concerned when he couldn't even say what a simple
> 2-component RC circuit was meant to do, let alone how to calculate any
> response. After a bit of drilling down we got to the question of "have
> you ever actually used an oscilloscope?". His answer was No. I mean come
> on!

I presume such people tend not to get hired, though.

I think perhaps the difference with software is that you can sometimes 
get away with it. If you produce a physical product and it's crappy, 
it's *very obvious* that it's crappy. But you can write software which 
*looks* fantastic, but is actually a steaming pile of failure. It's not 
so easy to spot...

> LOL

For the LOLZ: [I may have posted this already]

We asked a guy to implement the abs() function. It took him about 20 
minutes to write this:

   public int abs(int x)
   {
     int a = x;
     int b = 0;
     while (a < 0)
     {
       a++;
       b++;
     }
     return b;
   }

My boss described this as "the most bizarre thing I've ever seen". The 
correct answer, of course, is a 1-liner. When we pointed out to the guy 
that if x is *already* positive this function won't work, he sat there 
for *literally* half an hour thinking before we asked him to stop. It 
turns out he could work out "which standard library function tells you 
if a number is negative".

We did not hire.

Frighteningly, this function does work for negative arguments. 
Terrifyingly, for *positive* arguments, it still correctly negates them. 
So this abs() function is actually a negate function - one that takes 
about 45 seconds to negate a small positive number. (Can you work out 
why? It blew our minds when we noticed it...)

> The scary thing is these people will probably be able to get a job
> somewhere and somehow blag there way along. If they're lucky they may
> even get to interview people at some point :-)

Indeed. I believe Coding Horror had an article about this very thing. 
The fact that there are so many of these people means they must be 
succeeding somewhere.

You may recall, at my last place, the Director of IT seemingly had no 
clue about how computers actually work... but was very skilful at 
speaking in management power-words.

>> I wonder... Does anybody have this much trouble hiring a carpenter?
>
> Have you ever seen shows like "cowboy builders" or "rogue traders"...

Yeah. And they're a tiny minority, before they get sued out of 
existence. The majority of reputable builders can actually do the job.

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On 16/02/2015 18:03, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> that nobody's ever heard of and isn't even there any more...

LOL

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 18:06, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> But yeah, the general impression I got from Stack Exchange was that
> unless you intend to spend the rest of your life working for a top-tier
> university publishing academic papers, there is basically *no point* in
> possessing a PhD. You might as well go way 4 years' commercial
> experience instead.

That is your impression about everything and why you keep getting your 
ears rattled.
Just mentioning. :-)

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 18:14, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Because where I work, we LITERALLY CANNOT HIRE ANYBODY because we just
> cannot find anybody who knows what source code is...

That makes me think that your company's pay scales are too low.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/02/2015 06:29 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/02/2015 18:14, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> Because where I work, we LITERALLY CANNOT HIRE ANYBODY because we just
>> cannot find anybody who knows what source code is...
>
> That makes me think that your company's pay scales are too low.

I don't know about that. I don't think our adverts actually state what 
we might be willing to pay. It's possible that we're not paying *the 
recruiters* enough money, of course... They all seem pretty disappointed 
that we will only pay them a 6% cut (they seem to be looking for nearer 
40%).

It does make me wonder though - if it's THIS HARD to find anybody 
capable of even the most basic programming tasks, maybe I should find 
another employer and start charging a hell of a lot more money...

(The difficulty with that, of course, is making it clear just from your 
CV that you actually know your stuff and you're not just blatantly lying 
through your teeth!)

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Le 2015-02-14 10:33, Orchid Win7 v1 a écrit :
> Now MP3 does that to sound files, but it does that by DELETING DATA. The
> compressed file has lower fidelity than the original. It's not that
> surprising that you can make a file smaller by removing data from it.
> But LOSSLESS compression algorithms do something seemingly impossible:
> they take a file, somehow make it smaller, and yet the process is
> EXACTLY REVERSIBLE. When you decompress the file again, it is IDENTICAL
> to the original. How is that even possible?

It's not.  The resulting decompressed file is a good* approximation of 
the original, but it's not the same.

*For some arbitrary definition of good.

>
> Well, it ISN'T always possible. Sometimes when you zip a file it gets
> tiny, and sometimes it doesn't get that much smaller. You may not have
> experienced this, but occasionally a file will get LARGER. For example,
> zip a file - any file - and then go zip the zip file. It WILL NOT get
> any smaller. I promise. (Think about it; otherwise you could take an
> arbitrary file and zip it over and over until it gets arbitrarily small.
> But that really IS impossible!)

That's normal.  If the space saved by compressing the file is smaller 
than the dictionary, then you end up with a file that's going to be 
larger than the original.

[Rest of discussion snipped]

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>> I work for a manufacturing company about 50 miles away from London,
>
> Wait, I thought you were in Germany?

I moved back to Oxford with that employer in 2010, then moved on to 
where I am now near Cambridge about a year later. I wasn't sure at first 
but am certainly glad I moved.

> I guess the other problem, of course, is that if you're a salesman or an
> accountant or a purchasing clerk... *every* business needs those people.
> If you program computers... well, not that many people actually need
> such a person. (But then, the same goes for CNC operators, presumably.)

It's pretty evenly split between mechanical, electrical and software 
engineers here, about 8-10 of each. We also have 2 people working in a 
machine shop that are CNC operators (amongst other things). On site 
there's in total about 500 people, although a large proportion of those 
work on the production line, and a lot are dedicated to managing the 
rest of the business away from this site.

> But yeah, the general impression I got from Stack Exchange was that
> unless you intend to spend the rest of your life working for a top-tier
> university publishing academic papers, there is basically *no point* in
> possessing a PhD. You might as well go way 4 years' commercial
> experience instead.

As with most academic qualifications it merely shows you are capable and 
willing to learn to a certain standard, the content is often irrelevant 
to your job. Take a look at people in charge of large R&D departments in 
big companies, most of them have a PhD. It's not because they had a PhD 
they got to that position, but the type of person who gets to that sort 
of position is more likely to have got a PhD.

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>>> Because where I work, we LITERALLY CANNOT HIRE ANYBODY because we just
>>> cannot find anybody who knows what source code is...
>>
>> That makes me think that your company's pay scales are too low.
>
> I don't know about that. I don't think our adverts actually state what
> we might be willing to pay. It's possible that we're not paying *the
> recruiters* enough money, of course... They all seem pretty disappointed
> that we will only pay them a 6% cut (they seem to be looking for nearer
> 40%).

I think it's a plus to put your pay range in the advert. If I see an 
advert that doesn't mention salary or says something wooly like 
£excellent then I'll generally ignore it. If I saw something that looked 
interesting that I cold do and it said £<my_current_salary+X> then I 
might get in contact.

> It does make me wonder though - if it's THIS HARD to find anybody
> capable of even the most basic programming tasks, maybe I should find
> another employer and start charging a hell of a lot more money...

FWIW (if the pay scales here for software are the same as hardware) then 
graduates/no experience people would be earning £25-30k, senior 
engineers (perhaps ones with 10 years experience) would be on around 
£45-£55k and the principal/lead people wouldn't probably be on nearer 
£65-£70k (that's more a guess). I think those are about the going rates 
for mechanical/electronic engineers at least, I can't imagine we pay 
software engineers much different.

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> At college, every lunchtime my classmates would walk across the road to
> the Winter Gardens, and come back after lunch obviously drunk. Every
> single day.

We had a few that would come back completely stoned off their faces - 
they were amusing to watch during the afternoon classes.

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On 17/02/2015 08:59, scott wrote:
>>> That makes me think that your company's pay scales are too low.
>>
>> I don't know about that. I don't think our adverts actually state what
>> we might be willing to pay. It's possible that we're not paying *the
>> recruiters* enough money, of course... They all seem pretty disappointed
>> that we will only pay them a 6% cut (they seem to be looking for nearer
>> 40%).
>
> I think it's a plus to put your pay range in the advert. If I see an
> advert that doesn't mention salary or says something wooly like
> £excellent then I'll generally ignore it. If I saw something that looked
> interesting that I cold do and it said £<my_current_salary+X> then I
> might get in contact.


Salary or rate is a measure to take into account when looking for work. 
The very least I'll look at is "market rate". When a company uses an 
employment agency they will tell them their budget. The Agency will 
probably not waste their time contacting people who want more than the 
budget.
Remember if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys. ^^

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On 17/02/2015 10:06 AM, scott wrote:
>> At college, every lunchtime my classmates would walk across the road to
>> the Winter Gardens, and come back after lunch obviously drunk. Every
>> single day.
>
> We had a few that would come back completely stoned off their faces -
> they were amusing to watch during the afternoon classes.

You mean, like, when they start doing cpaddy races?

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Nice long posting. :-D

Have you ever heard of the Hutter Prize? http://prize.hutter1.net/

The initiators of that prize also claim that good (lossless) compression
is strongly related to AI and learning neuronal networks. :-)

Perhaps you've got some ideas how to beat the current best record?

Lars R.

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>>> That makes me think that your company's pay scales are too low.
>>
>> I don't know about that. I don't think our adverts actually state what
>> we might be willing to pay. It's possible that we're not paying *the
>> recruiters* enough money, of course... They all seem pretty disappointed
>> that we will only pay them a 6% cut (they seem to be looking for nearer
>> 40%).
>
> I think it's a plus to put your pay range in the advert.

Only if it's good. If you actually do pay peanuts, it's probably best 
not to advertise that fact.

> If I see an
> advert that doesn't mention salary or says something wooly like
> £excellent then I'll generally ignore it. If I saw something that looked
> interesting that I cold do and it said £<my_current_salary+X> then I
> might get in contact.

I agree.

IME, recruiters are scum. If I see £excellent, it just looks like BS to 
me. It always astonishes me that employers expect your CV to be this 
immaculate work of art or they won't hire you - and then they themselves 
post job adverts that look like arse...

...and then I saw my boss write a job advert, and the job agent 
completely changed it all *for absolutely no reason*. Broke all the 
sentences, screwed up the grammar, rearranged everything so it had no 
logical order, and inserted lots of BS sentences about "excellent 
company culture" which mean precisely nothing and just make it look like 
you have nothing real to say. They also *removed* several critical, 
non-negotiable requirements from the advert. (I'm talking about *legal* 
requirements - stuff we legally can't waive.)

Naturally, we called them to demand why they took our perfectly good 
advert and messed it up. After several iterations, we gave up trying to 
make the actual published advert not look like arse.

All these recruiters seem to do is run Google searches for CV documents 
who's buzzword content vaguely matches the buzzword content of the job 
spec. They all *claim* to be doing all this candidate vetting stuff for 
you, and yet we still end up interviewing people who don't know what 
"operating system" means. And yet, the recruiters think we're going to 
pay them 40%? Er, NO!

> FWIW (if the pay scales here for software are the same as hardware) then
> graduates/no experience people would be earning £25-30k

Glad to know my salary isn't *completely* crazy...

A while back I did find a site with some statistics on this. (Damned if 
I can remember where though...) Their data was based on *advertised* 
salary for new hires. [Presumably nobody ever gets paid what it actually 
says in the advert.] But the histograms seemed to suggest that for a C# 
programmer in Milton Keynes, the minimum is around £25k, the lower 
quartile is about £29k, the median is around £34k, and I forget the 
upper quartile. It was a year or two ago now, so I may be remembering 
this wrong [and market rates may of course have changed].

I do recall suggesting to our boss that I go show the graph to the head 
of finance. Everybody agreed it would be utterly *hilarious* to see the 
look on her face - you know, for the remaining 17 seconds of my 
employment with the company...

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On 17/02/2015 11:08 PM, Lars R. wrote:
> Nice long posting. :-D

TY.

> The initiators of that prize also claim that good (lossless) compression
> is strongly related to AI and learning neuronal networks. :-)

Like I said, PAQ uses several statistical models together with an 
*artificial neural network* to combine the estimates into a final total. 
In other words, the ANN is there to "learn" which model(s) work best for 
this specific file.

*sigh* Oh how I haven't missed our GAANN lectures... Mostly because of 
the lecturer involved, not the content.

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> ...and then I saw my boss write a job advert, and the job agent
> completely changed it all *for absolutely no reason*. Broke all the
> sentences, screwed up the grammar, rearranged everything so it had no
> logical order, and inserted lots of BS sentences about "excellent
> company culture" which mean precisely nothing and just make it look like
> you have nothing real to say. They also *removed* several critical,
> non-negotiable requirements from the advert. (I'm talking about *legal*
> requirements - stuff we legally can't waive.)

Sounds to me the same as how scammers deliberately put bad grammar in to 
improve their hit rate. If you're paying peanuts you don't want to waste 
your time with people expecting double the salary :-)

> All these recruiters seem to do is run Google searches for CV documents
> who's buzzword content vaguely matches the buzzword content of the job
> spec. They all *claim* to be doing all this candidate vetting stuff for
> you, and yet we still end up interviewing people who don't know what
> "operating system" means. And yet, the recruiters think we're going to
> pay them 40%? Er, NO!

I get emails from recruiters offering me staff, sometimes I honestly 
don't know if they are spam or real emails.

> I do recall suggesting to our boss that I go show the graph to the head
> of finance. Everybody agreed it would be utterly *hilarious* to see the
> look on her face - you know, for the remaining 17 seconds of my
> employment with the company...

If you don't ask... I only found out recently but our directors here get 
about 40 requests (as in official written requests from managers) every 
year for pay rises, separate from the annual pay rise system. Apparently 
there's about a 50% success rate.

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> Have you ever heard of the Hutter Prize? http://prize.hutter1.net/

Interesting!

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On 18/02/2015 08:07 AM, scott wrote:
> Sounds to me the same as how scammers deliberately put bad grammar in to
> improve their hit rate. If you're paying peanuts you don't want to waste
> your time with people expecting double the salary :-)

Well, it would explain why we never interview anybody actually worth 
speaking to. :-P

> I get emails from recruiters offering me staff, sometimes I honestly
> don't know if they are spam or real emails.

Same here.

Mind you, when I was looking for a house, I emailled an estate agent 
about viewing a particular property. They never bothered to arrange that 
viewing - but they've been spamming me on an almost daily bases ever 
since. (I moved house well over a year ago now.)

>> I do recall suggesting to our boss that I go show the graph to the head
>> of finance. Everybody agreed it would be utterly *hilarious* to see the
>> look on her face - you know, for the remaining 17 seconds of my
>> employment with the company...
>
> If you don't ask... I only found out recently but our directors here get
> about 40 requests (as in official written requests from managers) every
> year for pay rises, separate from the annual pay rise system. Apparently
> there's about a 50% success rate.

I'm guessing your employer *isn't* teetering on the edge of financial 
ruin though?

If the company has no money, they ain't gonna give you a raise.

(Having just said that, a few days ago I had my annual review, and I did 
in fact get a small increase. So it would be particularly pointless to 
ask for me right now...)

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On 18/02/15 18:40, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

<snip>

> (Having just said that, a few days ago I had my annual review, and I did
> in fact get a small increase. So it would be particularly pointless to
> ask for me right now...)

I don't know how your employers conduct their annual reviews but IMHO
they should be a two-way process. You have a right to respond their
criticisms and offers.
Assuming that you have hit or exceeded your targets (set in last year's
annual review), they offer a 5% pay rise; don't accept it. Instead
counter-offer with a request for 15%. This, of course, will be rejected
- but now you have started a bargaining process. Your target is 10% or
7.5% with additional perks. BTW don't forget to get the agreement in
writing before you leave the room ;-)

John
-- 
Protect the Earth
It was not given to you by your parents
You hold it in trust for your children

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> I don't know how your employers conduct their annual reviews but IMHO
> they should be a two-way process. You have a right to respond their
> criticisms and offers.
> Assuming that you have hit or exceeded your targets (set in last year's
> annual review), they offer a 5% pay rise; don't accept it. Instead
> counter-offer with a request for 15%. This, of course, will be rejected
> - but now you have started a bargaining process. Your target is 10% or
> 7.5% with additional perks. BTW don't forget to get the agreement in
> writing before you leave the room ;-)

Our annual rises are non-negotiable and totally separate from any other 
request for a rise. For the annual rise you are put into a category 
(1-5, most people are 3) as previously agreed with (or told by!) your 
manager based on your performance against targets etc. The rise % is 
determined for each category based on the company performance.

But there is no problem at all with asking and starting the process for 
a rise the day after you get an annual pay rise. If you have a valid 
reason in the eyes of your manager then they will help you write the 
request, or write it for you if you're lucky. After that it's up to 
various directors to consider which applications to accept.

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On 19/02/2015 07:52 AM, scott wrote:

> Our annual rises are non-negotiable and totally separate from any other
> request for a rise.

Likewise.

> But there is no problem at all with asking and starting the process for
> a rise the day after you get an annual pay rise. If you have a valid
> reason in the eyes of your manager then they will help you write the
> request, or write it for you if you're lucky. After that it's up to
> various directors to consider which applications to accept.

On the one hand, in the last few days I implemented a fairly major 
feature. Our Director specifically mentioned that several customers 
desperately want this feature, and so I went and implemented it. [It 
turned out to be unexpectedly easy.]

On the other hand, the company seems to be severely struggling for cash 
right now. (To the point that I've just been updating my CV. I think it 
may be curtains time soonish.) Asking for more money seems futile.

Remember, I don't work for some huge multi-national conglomerate. We 
employ less than ten people! If a few customers are a bit slow to pay, 
that severely upsets our cashflow.

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> On the other hand, the company seems to be severely struggling for cash
> right now. (To the point that I've just been updating my CV. I think it
> may be curtains time soonish.) Asking for more money seems futile.

Yes that seems a bad idea under those circumstances - updating your CV 
seems the right thing. If you're interested in moving to Cambridge:

"Develop cost-effective and innovative embedded software solutions, 
meeting technical, business and quality requirements. Ideally degree 
qualified, you must have excellent C++ programming skills, working 
knowledge of STL plus proactive approach to work and ability to work as 
part of a team."

> Remember, I don't work for some huge multi-national conglomerate. We
> employ less than ten people! If a few customers are a bit slow to pay,
> that severely upsets our cashflow.

Indeed, and without cashflow you're in trouble.

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