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

LOL

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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. :-)

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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.

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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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> 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. ^^

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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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