Is College a Worthwhile Investment 28 June 2009
Posted by Lao Tzu in business, economy, sociology, technology.add a comment
As I predicted, soon, in the US, college would end up being a bad investment from a business perspective. There is now a recent article echoing these concerns. Of course, the real value of education depends on the individual and what they do with it, but the economic value must be evaluated from the resulting salary (multiplied by the probability of getting such as job and the years in service), vs. the full cost of acquiring the education needed for the position (including all living expenses and missed opportunity income and years of service). Hence, there will be a point, if it has not been realized already, where a good paying job that does not require a degree (and there are still some out there), will be a better investment (ecomomically) than a low paying 4 year degree.
There are many examples or individuals acquiring wealthy salaries without a college education (some actors, athletes, musicians, etc.). A common joke when fellow engineers make a brilliant accomplishment is, “Now if I could just hit a ball with a stick, I would be a millionaire.” However, this phenomenon is tempered by the low probability of scoring such an opportunity, based on the assumption that these positions are destined for the creme de la creme – which may or may not always be the case, but it is a safe assumption.
On the flip side, a weekend with a Java book will give someone all the necessary skills for a high tech position that would otherwise be reserved for someone with a 4 year degree.
My Windows Vista Experience? 26 June 2009
Posted by Lao Tzu in computers, software engineering, systems engineering, technology.Tags: microsoft, vista, windows
2 comments
I just purchased a laptop with Windows Vista installed. The machine is 64 bit and has 4 GB of RAM. When I am not doing anything, the OS is using at least 30% of my memory. WOW! But I could live with that if I were getting some high speed performance as a trade off. Haven’t see it. But that is not the worst part. They have merely amplified everything that microsoft has been doing wrong in the OS business.
The file system (or at least how it is displayed) is insane. There is this folder on the desktop that is named after the computer login name – similar to that useless folder/directory called “My Documents” that has been on the last several versions of Windows. At least they got rid of the space in the name. However, this new desktop folder is very interesting. I am not sure where it “physically” resides on my hard drive. Of course by physically here I am merely referring to the next level of abstraction below this one. It looks like it is under C:/User/Owner/ when I browse from the C drive, but the path is different if I browse from the desktop. In fact, the computer appears as a subdirectory under the desktop. Huh? To make it worse, the actual directory names in the path are different????
In addition, not only did they not fix that eternal problem of having a directory named “Program Files” (it contains a space and the word Files is not necessary), they made it worse by making two of them. There is another directory called “Program Files(x86)”. Incredibly stupid. I always make a directory simply called “Programs” and install everything there.
Finally, there were all these “special” folders preinstalled, like Favorites, Documents, Photos, etc. This is like buying a house and someone else putting furniture in it you don’t like. So I deleted some of these, and that caused all sorts of problems. Now the browser cannot save my favorites, and I have no idea where files I download go to.
Vista is the worst OS I have ever worked with. I do give Microsoft credit for leading the Windows movement (if not inventing it). However, the pioneers must have left the company. They obviously traded sanity for useability here. Microsoft is in desparate need of a systems engineer for their OS.
