patrick.net

Rin says

When I'd first started in an R&D pilot plant, the ppl there thought that Excel was a database, because it had stored data. And these were scientists and engineers.

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Strategist says

Rin says

When I'd first started in an R&D pilot plant, the ppl there thought that Excel was a database, because it had stored data. And these were scientists and engineers.

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Hey, for them, they'd write the numbers down on a notepad and then, input it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Supposedly, their analysis of the data is what made 'em special but I saw similar patterns... yield, degradation, high molecular waste, and a few other important data points. All of that is learn-able by an undergrad student in the sciences.

Rin says

LOL, they probably used slide rules. A fifth grader armed with a calculator from the 99 cent store could replace them.

Hey, for them, they'd write the numbers down on a notepad and then, input it into an Excel spreadsheet.

Supposedly, their analysis of the data is what made 'em special

I know. I have nothing but the highest respect for scientists.
Thank you and keep up the good work. We need you.

Just so you know, I'm the messenger here.

I did not create the executive suites in America and thus, I don't have control on how CEOs and other C levels behave.

With that said, as many of us are technical staff... I'm a techie as well (who's now on the business side), the work we do will eventually be written down, recorded, and sent over to some machine learning algo. So while we may feel safe, temporarily, as expert system apps grow, our services will be rendered obsolete.

I'd spoken to a C level exec about audit automation, he himself being an experienced CPA with executive B-school (plus NYU law graduate) and even he concurred that up to 80%+ of audit jobs could be eliminated in time, if Watson or next gen "Google Brain" lives up to its potential as a correlation/causation type of service bureau. And yes, it'll be very disruptive to an entire generation of folks, studying to want to take the CPA exam in 20 years, as there probably won't be many jobs for them, since the ppl who'll survive the automation carnage, would be the most experience ppl in the field.

One pig in the python will be voice recognition (VR).

Either VR is asymptotically improving towards 100% recognition, or it's asymptotically improving towards 89% recognition. There's a reason video captioners, court reporters, and CART transcribers earn a good living: real-time VR is still a joke.

Turning the sound of the human voice into words, consistently and reliably, by computer, is extremely difficult.

Strategist says

I know. I have nothing but the highest respect for scientists.

Thank you and keep up the good work. We need you.

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

Perfect For:

*Machinists with quirky senses of humor
*Workers who have nothing to lose but their chains, their salaries, their health insurance, their ability to support their families, their self-worth, and their reason to go on living
*Disaffected college students

http://www.despair.com/worth.html

New Renter says

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

I advocate the notion of being independently wealthy and/or putting everyone on welfare, starting with the scientists.

New Renter says

You might think you’re just a gear in the machine, but that’s not true. Gears are delicate, important, and expensive to replace.

One malfunctioning gear could bring down a space shuttle.

Strategist says

could bring down a space shuttle.

Seems like it's happened twice.

Rin says

Strategist says

could bring down a space shuttle.

Seems like it's happened twice.

Its happened each and every time. Every shuttle ever launched has come down in one form or another.

Gears got nothing on gravity!

BTW, a lot of ppl have finally told me that they can afford their kids.

When they were young, dumb, and full of c`m, they thought having a family would be fun and romantic. Now that none of my crowd is in their 20s anymore, there are very few idealistic folks left.

New Renter says

Rin says

they thought having a family would be fun and romantic. Now that none of my crowd is in their 20s anymore, there are very few idealistic folks left.

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids or bought a house to make you cynical, there's always the alternative of liquor, empty career climbing, bored world travel, and having only each other to stare at every night.

Occasionally, in the throes of ennui, we will do things like make up combinations of our dog's name and the word "burrito", or secretly delete each other's DVR shows while the other is off mixing a drink in the dining room. When we are ultimately replaced by robots, we will have even more time for these desperate peccadillos.

Philistine says

, if you haven't had kids or bought a house to make you cynical

Well, I'd bought a home w/o kids and it feels great. I've got gym equipment, books, and computing components, all over the place minus the dining & kitchen areas. None of those meddling toys and silly stuff, which kids leave all over the place.

Philistine says

alternative of liquor, empty career climbing, bored world travel, and having only each other to stare at every night.

One can drink periodically, study the applied sciences, go to some of the world's finest broth#ls, and engage one's true interests in life as well.

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

dublin hillz says

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

No doubt kids cost a lot of money and your finances will be negatively impacted, but having children is the greatest happiness ever. Sure we want to give those little brats away, and what do we do? have another one.
I would have gone for more then 2, but my wife booted me out of the bedroom.

Strategist says

dublin hillz says

Philistine says

In your mid-30s, if you haven't had kids

Out of the people we know, about 65% of those who had kids had their quality of life decline. Those odds don't exactly inspire confidence.

No doubt kids cost a lot of money and your finances will be negatively impacted, but having children is the greatest happiness ever. Sure we want to give those little brats away, and what do we do? have another one.

I would have gone for more then 2, but my wife booted me out of the bedroom.

One of my friends had asked me if I wanted to adopt his kids, so that he could go drink himself to death. Though it was intended to be a joke, I'm too certain anymore.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/here-s-where-all-those-middle-class-jobs-went-113102720.html

Excerpt: "it’s better to have a nonroutine job than a routine one. The more your job involves thinking, creativity, innovation and problem-solving, the better off you’re likely to be.

Women, it turns out, have adapted better to this workplace dichotomy than men. Men have been more likely to move from the middle of the skill ladder to the lower end, while women tend to move from the middle to the higher end. That’s probably because women have been earning a larger share of college and graduate degrees, with better education making them more adept at climbing the skill ladder. Men at risk of falling in the other direction might want to heed the example."

Again, I ask, what does education have to do with climbing a skill's ladder? Most ppl use less than 10% of what they learned in college.

Or perhaps its because women doninate HR, the gatekeepers to employment in most companies.

I'm also curious to know the truth about funding and resources available to either gender. While in graduate school my lab was mostly women. In my teaching labs I never thought wow, where are the women students. No, there was a good mix of both.

What I DID notice were several professional organizations exclusive to women or minorities. None just for men or non minorities. Women and minorities had access to more grants and scholarships than I did.

I had a good laugh when one of the women in my lab applied for a scholarship claiming minority status. She was half (white) american and half Persian (and 100% SMOKING hot).

Where did her Persian ancestry come from? The Caucasus mountains making her white caucasian.

And as we all know smoking hot white caucasian women have little chance in the professional world.

Rin says

Again, I ask, what does education have to do with climbing a skill's ladder? Most ppl use less than 10% of what they learned in college.

It's not strictly about what you learned in college, although sometimes it is (e.g. engineering/science). It's about the overall mindset. For many employers, college serves as a sorting tool -- those people who had the smarts, discipline, and motivation to do it often are a cut above those who didn't.

Are there non-college grads who make worthy employees? Of course there are. But when you get 500 resumes for a single job opening, you have to figure out how to streamline the process because you can't interview them all to figure out which non-college grads aren't dumbasses.

I think the flaw that article makes is that it might be that women who are more adept at climbing the skill ladder are likely to seek and have better education, rather than the other way around.

New Renter says

She was half (white) american and half Persian (and 100% SMOKING hot).

Where did her Persian ancestry come from? The Caucasus mountains making her white caucasian.

Not really the way it works. Persian = brown. Caucasian is used to refer to white people for some weird reason, even though it makes no sense -- it comes from some old German dude, if I remember correctly. In any case, why couldn't you be a black person who was born in the Caucasus mountains?

Some of our terminology doesn't make sense, like African American. People I know from the Caribbean can't really figure out that term. "What? I'm not African and I'm not American. Why would you call me African American?" Is a white American born in Zambia an "African American?"

Another idiotic German term is Aryan. Aryans are from India and Persia. They do not have blond hair. No idea how this came about other than Nazis are idiots.

corntrollio says

Not really the way it works. Persian = brown. Caucasian is used to refer to white people for some weird reason, even though it makes no sense

Not really, in America, near easterners are put in the white category including Persians, Turks, and Armenians. Thus, this woman is bluffing, as she can't say she's from the Sudan.

corntrollio says

I think the flaw that article makes is that it might be that women who are more adept at climbing the skill ladder are likely to seek and have better education, rather than the other way around.

I agree.

New Renter says

women doninate HR, the gatekeepers to employment in most companies.

Well, HR is the problem, to begin with.

corntrollio says

In any case, why couldn't you be a black person who was born in the Caucasus mountains?

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

Rin says

Not really, in America, near easterners are put in the white category including Persians, Turks, and Armenians. Thus, this woman is bluffing, as she can't say she's from the Sudan.

In some school districts subject to segregation orders, everyone except black people were considered "white" including Latinos, Arabs, Chinese, whatever. Just because certain orgs have different categorizations of who is "white" doesn't mean she couldn't have counted as a minority under the scope of the scholarship.

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

corntrollio says

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

When the committee sees a Anglo-Dutch guy, it's pretty obvious to them that they were geographically hoodwinked, since Apartheid insured that one of his parents wasn't black.

Rin says

corntrollio says

Rin says

Some European-South Africans did claim to be African-American, before they got strict about the rules.

What "rules"? The people offering the scholarship set the rules. If she didn't qualify, they would have figured it out.

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

When the committee sees a Anglo-Dutch guy, it's pretty obvious to them that they were geographically hoodwinked, since Apartheid insured that one of his parents wasn't black.

Well even Strom Thurmond broke that rule. Its a safe bet there are plenty of mixed race south africans out there.

Actually, given how this thread is turning into another affirmative action type of thing, it gives even more credence to the idea that even more ppl will be let go, as meeting demographic targets has nothing to do with the bottomline, outside of let's say having an international sales staff, who tends to clients globally.

Rin says

Actually, given how this thread is turning into another affirmative action type of thing

At least from my standpoint, I wasn't talking about affirmative action -- I was talking about terminology and also pointing out that different orgs have different definitions.

Generally speaking, affirmative action doesn't really help fix the problem -- it's just a cheap way to mask it. What would really fix the problem is more investment into poor minority communities' education and things like that, but we probably don't have the political will to do that because politicians are lazy and don't think long-term, and a lot of "those people" don't vote.

It's pretty clear that affirmative action isn't enough when poor white and Asian kids (under $30K household income) have better MCAT scores than upper-middle black kids (over $80K household income), as the AAMC mentioned in its amicus brief in the Grutter case. There's some other problem there.

In addition, even if we're to accept the slavery explanation for why blacks get affirmative action, affirmative action doesn't really explain why we treat Latinos and Asians differently.

corntrollio says

PolishKnight says

This kind of attention to inane detail reminds me of my dealing with security auditors.

Nice attempt to detract from your made-up anecdote, but okay -- I'm more than fine with having attention to detail.

I'll name names in my "made up" anecdote and you can say that these are fictional too. Here goes:

The company was Freddie Mac and the modem was in place to receive the orders and go through JCL to the IBM mainframe. I don't know which series the mainframe was. I did see the modem though and it was running with link lights present and that's what the guy who ported that application to TCP/IP told me. He wrote a wrapper to take orders from a connection stream and send it to the order module that was running on JCL and also COBOL. The modem has now been decommissioned.

The project to convert the mainframe/JCL/COBOL applications was called Advantage (you can google this on linked in) and supposed to cost about 30 million (that's the number I heard). TCS/TATA was the agency. After 10 million, the code generated by TATA was bad so they cancelled but didn't get the money back. The mainframe was then outsourced to CGI Federal.

But I made that all up. OK.

PolishKnight says

The modem has now been decommissioned.

You didn't even say what year this was for one thing, and second, you didn't really explain why it was unique.

Just as an example, it wasn't that long ago that banks were still sending ACH transactions via uploading a text file via FTP. They might still be doing so, in fact. Any attempt to change the status quo here would necessarily be a large infrastructure project.

Pretending that outdated, but simple, systems that work are limited to government is silly. Pretending that large infrastructure projects to replace legacy systems are limited to government is also silly. Pretending that some of these infrastructure projects running into problems and cost overruns is limited to government is silly too. All of these things occur among many large institutions with legacy systems. In fact, the whole Y2K thing was premised on exactly this.

You gave this anecdote as evidence for a cheap political point, when in reality, this kind of stuff happens everywhere all the time, private and public sector. I wasn't really intending to point this out, because most of the posts on this thread have turned into drivel, but you kept badgering me about a line that was originally meant to be a joke and was never originally intended to be critical of your argument. :)

http://www.wfs.org/futurist/2014-issues-futurist/july-august-2014-vol-48-no-4/what-does-moore%E2%80%99s-law-mean-for-rest-socie

Excerpt from article ...

"Businesses are charged with making profits (and in this economy, surviving). Their disposition toward job creation is, “You’ve gotta be kidding. I’m trying to stay in business.”

The next time you think about job creation, try a little word exchange: Replace the word jobs with the term payroll expense. Try it and see how it feels to say this: “We need more payroll expense!” or “Why haven’t you created more payroll expense?!” It sounds weird, doesn’t it?

That’s what is truly relevant, because that’s how a potential employer sees the labor force. If a company is in survival mode, its goal is to increase profitability, not to create jobs.

The disconnect between governmental goals of creating jobs through spending and other stimulus and the virtually opposite goals of those who are expected to do the heavy lifting that solves the unemployment problem (the private sector) is undoubtedly the most confounding economic enigma today."

Rin says

The disconnect between governmental goals of creating jobs through spending and other stimulus and the virtually opposite goals of those who are expected to do the heavy lifting that solves the unemployment problem (the private sector) is undoubtedly the most confounding economic enigma today."

And that is at the very core. Government is completely fucking irrelevant to creating jobs. We need to get completely rid of these, now you are supposed to ass wipes, and allow business to do what it does. Jobs will follow.

Rin says

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

What's preventing you from using a photo of a black person to get the scholarship?

zzyzzx says

Rin says

When a South African (w/ US citizenship) applies for a scholarship, as an African-American, usually some photo has to follow.

What's preventing you from using a photo of a black person to get the scholarship?

As in Laurence Olivier here ...

Last I'd checked, Olivier was a white-Britisher, not a Sudanese actor.

All it takes is a good makeup artist.

Rin says

If a company is in survival mode, its goal is to increase profitability, not to create jobs.

That's always true, not just in survival mode. Companies love to run chronically understaffed for as long as they can get away with it.

The only exception are the empire builders. Those managers for whom headcount is power. Generally those people are shed as the empire crumbles.

New Renter says

Rin says

If a company is in survival mode, its goal is to increase profitability, not to create jobs.

That's always true, not just in survival mode. Companies love to run chronically understaffed for as long as they can get away with it.

The only exception are the empire builders. Those managers for whom headcount is power. Generally those people are shed as the empire crumbles.

Well, the real point is that headcount, is a continuous operating cost. And in the end, corporations want to reduce costs.

Thus, the whole notion of hiring, given the proliferation of information technologies, is becoming the contradiction of the times ahead.

indigenous says

And that is at the very core. Government is completely fucking irrelevant to creating jobs. We need to get completely rid of these, now you are supposed to ass wipes, and allow business to do what it does. Jobs will follow.

Govt will keep ppl off the streets.

Corporations, as information tech uses more expert systems, will generate profits, using less headcount.

And thus, jobs will not follow, at least not starting 2025-2035. Today, we're in a bit of a transition phase before that new era of diminishing work.

Rin says

Corporations, as information tech uses more expert systems, will generate profits, using less headcount.

At one time farming employed 95% of the work force now it is less than 5%. Same with manufacturing. If what you say is true we would have 100% unemployment.

The real problem is the bailouts prevented the market from clearing out and starts up from growing.

A contributor factor is that China devalued the Yuan for the past 20 years.

Another factor is demographics.

Rin says

Govt will keep ppl off the streets

One way or another the labor problems will be solved.