Greetings.

Frequent flyer here. Moscow and San Francisco are my homes, and I travel for business around 3 out of every 4 weeks (I've been to Novosibirsk, New York City, Kiev, and Paris for at least 3 days each in the last 3 weeks). I deal with airport security screenings several times a week. The only difference I see in the security screenings from the US is that removing your shoes isn't a requirement in most of the rest of the world. I've even ran into the body scanners a few times outside the US. I dislike the current TSA at the same level as I dislike every other screening group because they all offer almost the same experience.

International airports and airlines with connections to the US must enact similar policies and procedures to allow flights into American territory. I've been traveling like this since 1993, and I always noticed that any policy or procedure implemented in the US is soon followed by similar one (or even more draconian, like in Poland) by the rest of the world.

Mr. Hawley's Top 5 Things to Improve would be a welcome boon to us travelers. I overall enjoyed the article and agree with the information it provides, and look forward to the improvements, if our hated asshat politicians manage to heed his advise and enact most (or all!) of his recommendations. Security theater isn't a US-only travel issue; doing away with it at the TSA will soon result in better travel conditions everywhere else.

Cheers!

Dammit - I meant "astronaut candidate applicant" - my bad. Cheers!

The title is "astronaut candidate".

You undergo about 2 years of training, and then you may become eligible to participate in a space mission.

As soon as you fly in a mission you earn the title of "astronaut" followed by "pilot", "EVA specialist", "payload specialist", or "mission specialist", depending on what you were doing.

Cheers!

Howdy - astronaut candidate here.

Contacts or glasses. Laser surgery is only admissible if it was done over a year before the final job interviews take place *and* you had no side-effects from it.

I mentioned that here, earlier in this thread: http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2768227&cid=39600169

Cheers!

Hi Surt!

FYI - unless your vision isn't correctable to 20/20 via glasses or contacts, eyesight isn't an impediment for becoming a non-piloting astronaut (you can become a mission or payload specialist, EVA specialist, and so on). If you really want to become an astronaut, keep your eyes open on the http://www.usajobs.gov/ site. They open astronaut candidate vacancies every 3 - 5 years.

I know about the glasses because my application is under consideration. Here's what NASA replied:

So... good luck with your application!

Howdy!

I split my time between my homes in San Francisco and Moscow, and more than 50% of my time I'm traveling around major cities in Europe and Asia. I seldom use cars in Moscow, London, Paris, Tokyo, or pretty much anywhere else where trains, metro, buses, trolley cars, etc. are available. I never owned a car or motorcycle anywhere in Europe or in Tokyo because I just don't need to. If necessary, I rent a car for a day or two, then it's back to the metro.

Public transportation in San Francisco just *sucks* in comparison to other cities, both in the US and worldwide. My beloved city (SF!) doesn't have the flexibility of underground trains like NYC or DC do. MUNI is a joke -- they have lots of buses that have the most inefficient passenger pickup areas in the world -- never have I seen a bus line with bus stops at almost every flipping corner along the route, like in San Francisco. Taxis? More suckiness. Trains? Forget it. San Francisco without your own wheels becomes a pain in the ass very fast.

"The bus system was great!" - try planning your trip by bus, and being on time without having to leave too early, from any point in San Francisco to your destination within the city. You often have to wait for 20-30 minutes without a bus in sight, then four or five come together, in a bunch, because the MUNI drivers decided to take a smoke or lunch break and end it at the same time. This is a far cry from a place like say, Zurich or Oslo, cities of the same approximate area and with a high automobile density, where the bus schedule is met at exact times (e.g."next bus will be a 10:43" and it shows up at exactly that time).

I love San Francisco more than any place in the world. Hearing someone praise its public transportation, though, is like hearing someone praise my mentally handicapped kid brother's arithmetic ability as if he were solving differential equations.

Cheers!

I agree with the spirit of what you say, perhaps disagree a bit on the details.

When hiring a civil or mechanical engineer I'd certainly put the guy through the paces (I did that when I was in charge of building industrial robots, early 2000s) to ensure that he or she doesn't kill someone by swinging a fingerboard to far, too fast, or too close to where people might be, and so on. Or cause an explosion. Or... you get the idea.

You wouldn't let a civil or mechanical junior engineer design a bridge or industrial tool either. You'd invite her as part of a team, watch them contribute, and build accountability over time in response to their ability to deliver, to learn the details of the job, and to deal with human factors ranging from management to on-site security.

I do find a more cavalier attitude in software development, where computer "science" graduates are thrown to develop mission-critical or business-critical system without much thought IN SOME SHOPS. Throughout my career my teams tried to be responsible about who's building what, to prevent hurting our users, clients, or employers. But then I'm a computer *engineer*, not a computer *scientist* -- different animals. We had a joke back at the university: "Please don't call me 'computer scientist' -- I do know math, physics, and statistics, and didn't go to college just to get credits."

Cheers!

E

Howdy.

I'm a VP of technology for several companies, and have been in a position to hire software, network, and system engineers since at least 1997. In all honesty, neither I, nor any of the people who've reported to me, ever paid much attention about where someone went to school, what their actual degree was, or whether they had earned some honor -- as long as the guy could deliver. From certs to prestigious schools, we never really bothered. Eventually I found out that I had a couple of MIT grads and at least one Stanford kid. I also had a pile of people whose degrees were awarded by foreign universities (including my own) and really... nobody really cares.

If you have the skills and you have the work experience, then you should be fine.

Right now I sit on the tech board for a couple of companies in Europe and the US, and I'm driving the technology at a very large social network with dev operations in the UK and Russia. I do notice that Europeans pay more attention to "schooling" and "degrees" and "titles" than US companies do, but not by much. My former employers and clients include some of the largest companies in Silicon Valley, rest of the US, Europe, Japan, and Mexico. The only occasions when I had to produce some kind of official proof of education were:

* When getting my US labor certification (1991... long time ago...), and when getting my Russian labor certification (last year) -- bureaucrats just love the fsck-ng paperwork
* When applying for a US federal job -- even then, they clarified that all they care about is whether I completed the degree or whether it was accredited, the date, and some accreditation equivalence since my degrees are from foreign institutions

Pro Tip: see if your employer will pitch in for part or whole course. Tech departments have educational budgets ranging from a couple of hundred dollars/year for books per employee, to full scholarships. I've auth'd books, on-line courses, conferences, PIM, and university courses for my peeps many times in the past. Check that out with your supervisor or with HR. A lot of people don't realize the option might be there -- and, if others in your group aren't taking advantage of it, your manager may be amiable to extend your budget a bit more (since money she doesn't spend is money she may have to cut next year).

So -- get your education wherever you can as long as they are legit, kick some butt, take names, and good luck in your career advancement!

Cheers!

...and the fast-path treatment they're getting from Obama's FCC.

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