This is entirely false. I've never had any difficulty whatsoever obtaining employment related to software development or systems/infrastructure roles, and neither have most of my peers who hold similar credentials. Perhaps this trend has been partially related to our ability to demonstrate skills on demand, i.e. "get the job done, and done properly" rather than an appeal to a piece of paper that essentially says "trust this guy; he passed some exams that may or may not actually bear any relation whatsoever to the work your business needs done right now."

I am perpetually amazed by the volume of collective myth parroting that persists on this topic. To be perfectly clear: lack of a college degree may indeed greatly reduce your chances of employment in many fields, but it matters a hell of a lot less than you've been led to believe for software development and systems/infrastructure positions.

That's a fundamentally flawed statement. The question isn't whether I'm representative of most individuals with GEDs, but whether I'm representative of individuals holding GEDs who happen to have pursued careers involving substantial software development duties. You may wish to reference my last reply for clarification.

On a side note, in my experience these discussions tend to invite emotionally-driven responses from people who spent an awful lot of time and money obtaining a CS degree because somebody told them they needed it to pursue any kind of career associated with information technology. I certainly hope you aren't one of those people.

This is the sort of reply I expected, so please allow me to bring my core point into sharper perspective. In the course of my fifteen years of employment in a variety of roles in assorted industries (network infrastructure, hosting, finance, biological sciences, etc), my firsthand experience has been that software developers "lacking" a CS degree have displayed a marked tendency to produce more functional, reasonably secure, and efficient/scalable code than their CS counterparts. They have also, on average, commanded substantially higher salaries in software development roles than their CS counterparts.

Degree mills and some otherwise respected educational institutions may not be happy about these facts, but it's important to note that they're not exclusively to blame for the situation. A computer science degree simply doesn't translate to skill in software development, largely because formal computer science has relatively little to do with programming. Thus, my original post is entitled "missing the point."

I've worked with a few CS graduates who purportedly had a specialized focus on information security. As it turned out, their ability to actually perform in their professional roles was woefully lacking.

I have a GED, and I assure you I earn substantially more than most CS graduates. Additionally, I continue to note a marked absence of (1) actual programming ability, (2) knowledge of even the most rudimentary information security practices, and (3) adequate understanding of core systems principles among recent CS graduates. Perhaps your perspective is the result of having grown acclimated to working with people with substantially reduced capabilities.

A huge number of software development jobs don't require a CS degree, including many highly paid positions. In fact, having a CS degree may reduce the odds of being hired for some positions. It seems the trend of misunderstanding the term "computer science" hasn't lost any momentum.

Any anti-fungal compounds found on your local whores probably came from a tube procured from the corner drugstore, but the potential efficacy of pizza and cocaine substrates may indeed warrant further investigation. I'll start printing up the requisite applications.

Setting aside the GP's bit about pulling out a rack to use as a work surface, some ovens are larger than others. Given the magic mushrooms context and the odd historical trend of certain folks employed in mortuary roles adding embalming fluid to recreational substances in the 90s (is that still a "thing?"), maybe the GP was operating out of a full service Dearly Departed Disposal Department facility.

That said, I don't know why a thinking person wouldn't just opt for a home-built laminar flow cabinet, which can be constructed at very little expense if a bit of effort is put into sourcing the required components. In a pinch, a unit suitable for basic biological specimen work can be built for USD $100 or less. Clearly, anyone building such a unit with the intention of handling potentially hostile materials should seriously consider needs versus risks, but in my experience dudes wishing to conduct personal mystical fungi pharmacology trials are not noted for being particularly receptive to cautionary notes.

I don't think you understand what the term fork means in this context.

Fascinating

I'll add that although it's merely a clever proverb that is not perfectly aligned with the discussion at hand, I find the QOTD in the page footer as of this writing to be at least peripherally relevant:

"Don't discount flying pigs before you have good air defense." -- jvh@clinet.FI

The energy production device/method under discussion here may indeed be a fake. You've still entirely missed the point and failed to even begin to attempt to use appropriate evaluation methodology in this situation. Perhaps my earlier reply will prove useful in explaining this in more detail.

Your repeated use of the same misdirection tactic is demonstrative of a lack of creativity, but I have faith that you must have only the best intentions at heart. Would you care to read the cited paper and provide your insights on the relative trustworthiness of the authors? For your convenience, and in the interest of minimizing your risk of misinterpreting the cover page of the paper, I have repeated the names of the authors here:

Giuseppe Levi
Bologna University, Bologna, Italy

Evelyn Foschi
Bologna, Italy

Bo Hoistad,
Roland Pettersson and Lars Tegner
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

Hanno Essen
Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

In deference to Slashdot's inability to properly handle Unicode, I have taken the added measure of producing an image of the names. Once again, this is for your convenience.

Please let us know when your evaluation of the these researchers' credentials has been completed. Your expert assistance is deeply appreciated.

This makes a lot of sense. It may be that my habit of frequently re-reading a freshly opened browser tab for a thread immediately before finally pushing the "Submit" button isn't a common practice for others, and my habit probably implies that I have relatively higher personal sensitivity to duplication. The part about the error rate (in a logical fallacy sense) still seems open to speculation, though, as it's largely independent of chronological factors, and is instead mostly dependent upon the ability to ingest and properly analyze sequential commentary that is by design difficult to miss. The best (worst?) example of this would seem to be failure to read even a single comment in its entirety before replying to it in a fallacious manner. Thoughts?

You and I have a lengthy history of ideological differences, some of which have been rather stark at times, at least to the extent that our comments on this site have accurately represented our views. However, I believe the situation you've described (if accurate, as I admit I haven't done any independent verification on it) represents a fine example of a case where our respective desired outcomes are closely aligned.

Caution: extreme run-on sentences ahead, as I believe it is critical to be very specific when discussing matters like imprisonment, and logical continuity matters greatly here.

(1) If this sequence of events is true, and (2) if it were proven that the actions of the elected officials were made in bad faith via intentional exclusion of factual data which should have been reasonably interpreted as favoring continued municipal energy production, with (3) accompanying direct and improper financial influence over the officials in question, and (4) optimally in terms of rating the eventual severity of the consequences, (a) strong evidence of the presence or lack of external conditions which would in retrospect be reasonably viewed as more likely root causes of the cited rapid energy cost increases, (5) I would be delighted to see the mayor and town council members serve lengthy prison terms. Their prison time would hopefully be followed up with personal financial sanctions, of greater or lesser severity depending upon the nature of (a) above, if only to serve as a clear warning to others. Unfortunately, I suspect any funds recovered via such penalties would fail to even begin to approach the total economic damage done to the community.

Regardless of our varied views on appropriate roles of government, and with clear acceptance that I am suggesting judicial and executive intervention on behalf of the people to determine whether egregious abuses of public office and trust have occurred in this case, how do you suggest we might encourage the people who appear to have been wronged to force such an investigation and prosecution if consequently warranted?

I support the "TLDR" here is: if this is true, it seems the community as a whole either doesn't care or doesn't have the capacity to understand that it has been wronged. How can we fix this? Looking forward to your reply.