Expert Opinion Required !

Maybe so. But it's not going to make LaPlace transforms, Bessel Functions or Maxwell's equations any easier...

Q: What's the difference between theory and Practice?

A: In theory there is no difference

Bob

Thanks! ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Quoting:

Thanks a lot! My favorite solvent is slowly dissolving my engrams, so I couldn't site. Anyways, I was influenced by a DeVry grad that worked in an electronic shop (sold audio stuff & parts - Olson Electronics). I was in (IIRC) 5th grade, 9yr old. I would come in and buy electronic parts and books by F. M. Mims. A few years later he opened his own shop, and when I came in, he recognized me and offered me a job, and he taught me how to fix guitar amps and glue guitars together, which we sold at flea markets. He said he made more at the flea market than his shop.

Once he warned me about DeVry & the Navy. And that he made more at Motorola than his shop. Perhaps as I have found, he wanted to be free to rise or fall to his own level, rather than have his fate determined by fascists.

The Navy recruiter discouraged me enough to keep me from that path, but after attending a community college where I was given bullshit courses, and seeing DeVry commercials (probably during a cartoon hour getting high with my fellow counter-culture rebels) ridiculing the bullshit courses and promising a no-nonsense path to technical competency, I fell for it.

Philosophically, colleges suck. Study the philosophy of Ayn Rand. If you are religious, understand she has a profound reverence for truth and life, which is the same reverence Christ asserted was most important.

In some profound way, I think we all have our individual destiny and Karma to realize. A few times in my life (before I was 5 years old IIRC), I've experienced a significant event, wisdom's voice.

My own version of the biblical character "Job";

"One day the devil came before God, and asked, "Is America truly a just and free nation, where merit can rise above prejudice, deceit and corruption?". God replied: "I will send forth agents (Scott is one), that you may know the character of the people, whether they value technical merit, the context of global-welfare, or the stupid charisma, popularity & favoritism practice by heard beasts".

Another time I held a rose bud, and tried to open it, destroying it in the process, and Wisdom said, "what you have done cannot be undone". The impatience of peasants is a discriminating factor. Dot your "I's" and cross your "t"'s children; if you are not the fortunate sons of the elite aristocrats.

Shall a Jew serve corporate Nazis? Shall a black serve the corporate KKK? How can one be good by doing good for evil? Or the government and social institutions that honor their socially conferred prestige?

The tech-school fast-track should only be taken by those who dare to bet their lives! But we're all dead in the long run, so let's rock & roll!

Scott

I read in sci.electronics.design that Scott Stephens wrote (in ) about 'Expert Opinion Required !', on Sun, 20 Feb 2005:

I don't know how old you are but your text above strongly suggests to me a late adolescent world-view. Nothing is as clear-cut as you imply. For example:

Now, do you mean the German Nazis in the 1940s or the extreme right-wing corporations that flourish in Israel today, and are at present the major political stumbling block in the way of peace with the Palestinians?

Then again:

The study of moral dilemmas like this (and far more complicated ones) was a major preoccupation of the 'schoolmen' of the 13th century (those that speculated about angels and pinheads).

There are certainly questions in philosophy and morals that can't be answered, whatever Goedel implies about math.

That's easy to say.

Jews have so often been cast as victim minorities I find them convenient to identify with. Really now, you know the difference between the spirit and letter of the law. And if you don't, nothing I can say will matter.

Perhaps I can conform to your modern world view? What do I need to think to be "normal"?

Explain, and we can discuss.

So put the weights aside while you're typing. Pick them up again again after hitting "send". :-)

- YD.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Scott Stephens wrote (in ) about 'Expert Opinion Required !', on Mon, 21 Feb 2005:

I wouldn't presume to say that you should conform to MY view; as Rich G says, you have to work it out for yourself.

That's not sporting. Besides, my typing is still funny; after holding the 8-pound guy at arms length for a while, it feels like my arms want to float away. Weird sensation.

I get lots of lower-body workout hiking up and down the hill to work (3/4 mile, over 400 vertical feet) but clicking a mouse isn't very good for the top half. That's the disadvantage of electronic design: it's so sedentary, and your mind doesn't work as well if your body gets flabby.

Besides, I figure my typing and spelling don't matter much in a newsgroup; not even worth spell-checking.

John

Going to a serious university is a pretty big bet too, bigger because of the time and expense and difficulty, and because it pitts one against the best and brightest from around the world. Most anybody reasonably bright can get an associates degree, and that's fine if that's what you want to do.

I went to an easy school, Tulane, noted for outrageous partying and the Gentleman's C, which requires showing up for Finals and not getting the Dean's daughter into trouble. But read something like "The Idea Factory" or "Up The Infinite Corridor" about what a serious engineering education is like, and why places like MIT produce so many brilliant scientists and engineers and so many suicides.

John

Yep. Sorta shakes your tree when someone commits suicide on your floor of the dorm :-(

But we had an amusing suicide attempt... just shows you how an engineering mind works:

Guy decides that he'll hang himself by jumping down the stairwell of Goodale (MIT, East Campus, Ames Street, Win will know the location :)

Being a good engineer he figures the rope length so that after falling five floors he'll be just above street level when he runs out of rope, guaranteeing a good neck snap.

Turns out he's falling so fast the rope breaks.

Hits the floor, breaks both legs, survives ;-)

Then there's the cyanide-in-the-tea-guy, terrible gurgling noises while you're trying to break down his door :-(

...Jim Thompson

At Tulane it was mostly accidental alcohol overdoses and motorcycle wrecks.

John

We had many "oriental-roof-route" problems.

Loss of face due to bad grades.

Jump off the highest roof :-(

...Jim Thompson

Some dude offed himself with a shotgun 5 or 6 floors up in my residence- the janitors had to haul quite a few buckets of pink water to remediate that mess.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Seems to me that the reason to go to any school is to learn stuff and get good at something. Once you venture into the real world, the name of the college, the degree, and the grades fade away, and what matters is what you can actually do. There's nothing about being white or European that stops you from learning stuff and getting very good at something.

The problem here in California is that the asian kids are so smart they're coming in with 4.2 averages and 1500 SATs and crowding everybody else out of the good high schools and colleges, and the white and black and hispanic people are calling for race quotas. Funny.

Ooh, do I detect a hint of bitterness?

John

No doubt thousands of other colleges, even public ones, turn out millions of graduates that can't understand why the knowledge & skill they acquired is not appreciated or valued. Supply & demand. But that doesn't make one any less disappointed.

and because it pitts one

One would hope, but with so many legacy, race and other preferences I really wonder. Somewhere I heard skill or test scores are only half the points. Not that motivations, persistence, creativity and extra-curricular factors should be ignored, I just find the idea of the state reverse-discriminating against me because I'm a white European male offensive.

Every so often I see Alan Alda on Scientific American visiting some MIT lab, trying to popularize some tree hugger politically correct cause de-jour, and I'm filled with nothing but loathing and contempt. And my own experience at a state-university run national lab, where overqualified people were doing useless busy-work to justify funding.

But no doubt the worthless 3rd generation aristocrats select the best and brightest peasants they can find to hide themselves among.

Scott

My kid went to public schools here in San Francisco from K through 9th grade. I expected the worst here in fruits-and-nuts land, but was surprised at how good all the schools and nearly all the teachers were. She's no braniac, but went on to a tough Jesuit high school and held her own, and now she's doing OK at Cornell (made the softball team as a walkon, and has her own Big Red web page!)

I guess there are bad public schools, but that's not my experience. It would be interesting to get observations from other people and places.

John

It may also be the sincerest expression of contempt for one's world and value for self.

Scott

Or minimizing the pain function.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

We had a few fall out of closed windows (don't know if they were oritentals though). Several ODs, and perhaps a few on the wrong end of a liquore store heist (likely while drunk; certainly a Darwin moment).

OTOH, my son had a few friends and his closest high school teacher off themselves. Suicide is nothing short of cowardice.