No, 2 is a lie, it does not exist.

Ummm, just a point. Experience can be had by working on various projects online. Experience may be slower than if you have someone directly training you, but the same goes for book learning. I feel they can both be accomplished it's just a matter of putting in the time.

The problem of course is most employers don't know enough to ask the right questions from prospective employees. And with the glut of CS majors that have been turned out, they don't have time to have someone knowledgeable look at each candidate so they try to whittle down the prospectives by requiring a degree. Probably not the best solution to the issue, but that's the way it is. Figure out how to effectively interview candidates and things might have a chance to correct themselves, but failing that the majority of employers are going to use a college degree as a way of limiting the number of applicants they have to look at.

The issue with degrees really began in 2001 when the Tech crash happened. Before that individuals would review your skills, after the tech crash there were too many "IT" guys and so we got thrown to HR would sorts based on bullet lists. Before the tech crash I had 15 calls or so a month and could expect to be offered positions at least 3 times a quarter, usually more. After the tech crash, I went six months without a call. The difference was too dramatic for anything else to change, my skills didn't change that much and the need for those skills was still out there.

One point of contention with your comment. Although a lot of schools may be like that and a large portion of classes may be as well, memorization isn't going to get you through a lot of the upper level classes in computer science. In other degrees possibly, but with computer science there is a large degree of applied skills and thinking outside the box that you just don't get elsewhere.

In addition to that, being about to do a search on any piece of code that strikes the instructor as hokey, means that copy and paste coding should be caught fairly easily. Now, I know that there are a lot of lazy professors out there and teaching associates, but it only takes one in the four years someone is attending school for their practices to be caught and computer science departments are small enough that everyone knows everyone at the professor level, perhaps even at the graduate level.

For myself, I have the opposite problem, I have a terrible memory, can't memorize a thing. Applied CS is where I shine, it's other courses like musical appreciation and even calculus where I have my problems. In computer science the memorization is at the lower levels, once you reach the upper level courses most of them are not about memorization, most, but about applied skills.

Keep in mind, we are also talking about CS not CIS. CIS is programming, CS is all about the algorithms though I suspect most CS majors go into programming, I really think that's about colleges making money turning out CS majors. I'm there for a "real" CS degree so that I can work on the science not be a programmer.

Certificates are not worth much when everyone can get them and the layman business owner doesn't know which ones are valuable and which ones are not. It's interesting to see how the business environment is changing, but while working as an employee required certs, degrees, etc. In general working as a consultant is all about the referral system, ie who you know and knows you. Put together a portfolio of your work and attend networking events in your area should help. The certifications that some people expect are for business types that are in the industry and have HR screening applicants. Selling your own skills to business owners is all about references, recommendations and what you can show them of your work.

No, you don't have to have anything to make incorporation a good idea. Debts from the business will follow you no matter what you do if you don't incorporate. Get sued, spend the rest of your life paying. Make a mistake, spend the rest of your life paying. et cetra The fact of the matter is that incorporating is the cheapest form of legal protection you can buy. Anyone running a business without it is a fool and likely to get burned unless they get very lucky. I

I'm not sure of the current job market, but in years past while a masters increased earning potential, getting a PhD actually paid less. Most consultants work with a Masters degree whereas those that want to do research and "interesting" stuff generally go on to get a PhD. Business sells, research does not, in the past at least. To get interesting work you generally need to pay more for the education and receive less income.

That being said, I am working on getting my PhD in order to teach computer science at the University level. It's more about job satisfaction than income for me.

Very cool

I seem to remember another product out around the same time as the clapper. If I remember correctly, it used a plant that when touched turned on and off a light. Seems like this is a similar system, except that it measures the resistance in the circuit in order to determine distance from the base of the plant. Pretty interesting, fun to play around with probably, but I can't think of any particularly useful applications.

Wow, apparently you can't make a rational argument since your not bothering to respond to my comments. It's apparent that you don't feel it's worth your time to read and respond to what I am saying, so I'll move on. Thanks for the conversation, sorry I was too stupid to realize you were just wasting my time.

Sure, if enough voters did that, things might change. I stipulated above if 5% or 10% of the population did this, there would be possible change, but as it stands, this doesn't happen. Your contention was that a vote for someone else was not a wasted vote. Are you now stipulating that it's a wasted vote unless enough people vote this way? If so, it doesn't seem to conflict with my previous statement and yet you were saying I was completely wrong.

While Markdavis's numbers are extremely unlikely to be correct, I know that 96.8% legal use of bittorrent protocol is definitely incorrect. Just to make a note, illegal doesn't mean immoral. Actually, I have no problems illegally downloading information off the web, but that is based on my own morals and not what is legal or illegal.

That being said, I think the number of illegal downloads is around 95%, not quite as bad as 99.5%, but still pretty high. It could be lower, but the problem is that it is hard to track without specifically looking at the packets going in and out of a large number of computers and determining whether each packet is legal or illegal, but doing this would remove network neutrality provisions for the isp that did it and open them to being sued by users and copyright owners, some of which might even be both.

I maintain a torrent server to trade my personal files and photos with friends, family and various business files, but most of my information is just downloaded from either my server or from some website or file server. I like having the torrent server, but frankly not enough people are interested in my files to make it of much use. I do see bittorrent used by several companies to distribute patches and the like and there is definitely a legitimate use for the protocol. That being said, it's the manner in which it is used, not the tool itself that makes it legal/illegal. Using a hammer to hammer in a nail, fine, using a hammer to break into a car and steal stuff, not such a good idea. If you get caught illegally downloading material, it's your choice and you will have to bare the consequences. I'm more than happy to have my day in court if I'm caught.

Yep, always good to call again later, especially if you are in a foreign state. I always appreciate being as inconvinced as possible. It's not his problem that they didn't have any senior staff at the time. And since when is a receptionist in charge? There is always a contact number. But it's all in how you chose to handle it

I'd say that they pretty conclusively proved that the thing isn't ready yet. I agree additional information through telemetry would make it even better though.