patrick.net

thunderlips11 says

I believe that a kid who goes to a 1 or 2 year trade school for engine repair, makes $15/hour in a dealership with benefits, and 7 years later decides to go back to school to learn engineering or physics, is in a much better position than the typical college student, who picks English because they like Jane Austen novels, only to end up serving coffee at starbucks, because millions of other liberal arts majors are fighting over generic ho-hum paying office jobs they are all roughly equally qualified to do.

Well I just enjoy reading Jane Austen for her well detailed, death-defying chase sequences, unexpected twist endings, and her incredibly rauchy descriptions of explicit sex-scenes. I could only imagine making a career out of it... how delightful!

HousingWatcher says

And the third option for those who don’t pursue college nobody mentioned yet is enlisting.

Good point, but definitely not for everyone.

terriDeaner says

EXACTLY!… and sometimes I think I am being too sarcastic. If you can figure out that there are more possible outcomes to a CLEAR counterexample of a false dilemma, then why can’t you figure out that YOUR misleading job=happiness/no job = misery false dilemma is irrational???

Perhaps I wasn't being very clear. Yes, you can have a shitty job and not be happy. But I don't know of anyone who is unemployed and happy.

So, in my mind having a job is always better than not having a job. I know--stop the presses, cut in to regular programming to announce that bit of wisdom--but I don't think you are following the logic.

If college educated folks are working at Starbucks, then those are jobs that aren't available for the high school educated. Thus, they end up unemployed at higher rates.

terriDeaner says

I still think you’re still missing the point: DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!
DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!
DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!DEBT!
DEBT!

I'm really not missing it. I promise.

Would you rather have a job and debt or no job and no debt?

Like I said--many times it doesn't make sense to go to a middling private school for liberal arts and rack up $50K of debt. But, don't paint all higher education with that brush.

the House is currently considering legislation that would “staple” a Green Card to the degrees of foreign students.

Which is probably a good idea. This is why IEEE-USA supports this change. We can do away with the indentured servitude aspect of the H1-B program (which is not supposed to exist, but we all know it does).

Morrison testified on behalf of the IEEE at the hearing.
"We are not enforcing H-1B regulations now as a country, we never really have, and despite the best efforts of USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service) and the Department of Labor. I doubt that we ever will," said Morrison.
But green cards don't need all the regulatory protections of H-1B workers, because as permanent residents they "have the power of the marketplace, and employers don't have any special advantage over green card workers because they are just like American citizens -- they can pick up and leave anytime they want," he said.

tatupu70 says

Would you rather have a job and debt or no job and no debt?

Hey wait... this looks like an awfully familiar dilemma.

terriDeaner says

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

So would you rather be employed at minimum wage at home depot with a increasingly outdated bachelors degree and 80K of student loan debt (non-recourse, mind you), or a plumber with a union pension collecting unemployment benefits that keep getting extended by the federal government?

Talk about a false choice there…

EXACTLY!… and sometimes I think I am being too sarcastic. If you can figure out that there are more possible outcomes to a CLEAR counterexample of a false dilemma, then why can’t you figure out that YOUR misleading job=happiness/no job = misery perspective is irrational???

Again, to be clear, this is not a black-and-white issue. That choice depends on the nature of the job/no job and the type and level of debt/no debt.

tatupu70 says

But I don’t know of anyone who is unemployed and happy.

I doubt that there are many that are unemployed and happy, but just because you don't know anyone who is unemployed and happy doesn't make it universally true.

Like I said–many times it doesn’t make sense to go to a middling private school for liberal arts and rack up $50K of debt. But, don’t paint all higher education with that brush.

Alas...and I had such great hope for you... just because I don't support your viewpoint it does not mean that I am anti-higher education. Try again.

terriDeaner says

Alas…and I had such great hope for you… just because I don’t support your viewpoint it does not mean that I am anti-higher education. Try again.

lol--what is my viewpoint? That having a job beats not having a job?

It has nothing to do with my viewpoint. It has everything to do with your posts... Like the one where you wrote "debt" 50 times. That seemed to indicate your thoughts on the matter.

terriDeaner says

Again, to be clear, it depends on the nature of the job/no job and the type and level of debt/no debt.

So, in your view, there are situations where you would rather be unemployed than employed?

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

Alas…and I had such great hope for you… just because I don’t support your viewpoint it does not mean that I am anti-higher education. Try again.

lol–what is my viewpoint? That having a job beats not having a job?

It has nothing to do with my viewpoint. It has everything to do with your posts… Like the one where you wrote “debt” 50 times. That seemed to indicate your thoughts on the matter.

?

I'm not trying to provoke you here... I just don't understand what you're getting at.

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

Again, to be clear, it depends on the nature of the job/no job and the type and level of debt/no debt.

So, in your view, there are situations where you would rather be unemployed than employed?

YES! do you want some examples?

no, my good fellow, I asked you a plain "yes" or "no" question.

"We can do away with the indentured servitude aspect of the H1-B program (which is not supposed to exist, but we all know it does)."

WRONG. Under the proposal, the staple-a-green-card scheme would SUPPLEMENT the current H1-B system, not replace it. You can read some very good commentary from Norm Matloff, a CS professor at UC Davis, on why this is an AWFUL idea:

http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/Archive/HouseHearing.txt

Giving out green cards in addition to H1-Bs will devestate the job market for tech workers. Unemployment will increase and wages will plummet.

Would you people please stop telling kids to stay out of Computer Science? We have a hard enought time hiring as it is. Enrollments never recovered after the dot-com bust. It's a dangerous and self-fulfilling prophecy you people are foolishly and dangeriously spinning, and it's seriously undermining our ability to do good software work domestically. Software isn't like manufacturing: the profit-margins on software are essentially unbounded. For high-margin businesses, companies compete on the skills of their of the workforces, not on the price. Note that we still manufacture our own airplanes, satelites, and automobiles here in the United States --high-margin items, all. Managing remote teams is tricky and introduces several kinds of risk that are each worse than just entrusting your billion-dollar opportunity to the best local talent money can buy. Companies are opening up software shops abroad because that's where they can hire, not because it's where they can hire cheaply.

The United States also has a serious advantage in software in that we've been doing this longer, and have a tremendous well of experience to draw from and perpetuate. It takes time for a technical culture to develop that's capable of shipping and maintaining a codebase with fifty million lines. I've worked with outsourced labor, and I'm here to tell you: it's not the promised land of cheap milk and low-cost honey --I'm proud to report that we still own the cutting edge of software development practice and expertise. Nevertheless: many of our neighbors would scare our chidren out of apprenticing themselves to this tradition of unmitigated fucking excellence because some backwater emerging economies in Asia have figured out the trick of writing "Hello World" in Visual Basic and are willing to do it for cheap.

Well, not me, and not mine. When my much younger brother was contemplating a CS degree, he was worried about outsourcing. I told him this: "If you go into CS, become good at it. There will always be work for good developers." That's the advice I give to my family. I stand by it. The only thing we have to fear from outsourcing is our own goddamned cowardice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/science/17comp.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1301950920-EtG/MwHdhSei/3VmqJacYQ

terriDeaner says

YES! do you want some examples?

Yes, please.

Just please don't say that you might be able to get a job in the future, and then you'd be employed without debt. Because that's the whole point. You are much more likely to be employed with a degree.

shrekgrinch says

For example, ‘walking away’ from a mortgage appeals to different people at different cost/benefit ratio points, wouldn’t you agree? Same for whether a college degree with tons of debt relative to the future job prospects (if any) with said degree or even just enough compensation from a job to pay off the debt AND prosper applies to each decision-maker individually
So, once you acknowledge this then you can acknowledge that there plenty of situations where people might consider it better to be unemployed than employed w/o having to specifically find/think of one.

I can't acknowledge that. It's impossible to prosper without a job.

msilenus says

When my much younger brother was contemplating a CS degree, he was worried about outsourcing. I told him this: “If you go into CS, become good at it.[emphasis added] There will always be work for good developers.” That’s the advice I give to my family. I stand by it.

Agreed. I think you could extend this advice to many fields of study.

But this is simply a broad requirement for success, and not a guarantee. What happens to all of the good students who pay for a degree (in any field), get good at what they do and still don't get a good job? What about the good students that don't get good at what they do? And what about the masses of mediocre students? They are all of likely to be heavily indebted by the time they finish school. And the current job market is damn competitive.

If you're asking if young people should be more serious about what they're spending four years or more to train to do, then the answer is yes. San Francisco has more psychiatrists than the nation of Japan, and it's still one of the most popular majors at the University of California. That is a stupidity and a problem.

If you're asking if we should be fostering a sense that studying for four years and being a good or mediocre student automatically entitles you to a good living, then answer is no. The only thing we have to fear from outsourcing is cowardice; the biggest thing we have to fear from ourselves is entitlement.

I believe those two points are deeply related, by the way.

@msilenus

Yes to #1, No to #2.

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

YES! do you want some examples?

Yes, please.

Just please don’t say that you might be able to get a job in the future, and then you’d be employed without debt. Because that’s the whole point. You are much more likely to be employed with a degree.

As you've requested tatupu, here's a list of job/debt scenarios that I've ranked from least to most desirable financial situation. I think you'll agree that those who are unemployed with little or no debt CAN come out ahead in the end. EVEN IF YOU ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO BE EMPLOYED WITH A DEGREE.

5. Brilliant english scholar with bachelor's degree from lesser Ivy league school, 45 years old, currently working fourth sequential entry level job this year as a commission-based truck stop urinal caker. 150K in debt and growing because this person took 8 years to graduate and never found a decent paying job in their field, or otherwise. Wages forever garnished for past incidences of non-payment. Lives on most recent best friend's couch, and mooches expired milk to make ends meet.

4. 30 yr old former mediocre student, now a medium-term, near-minimum wage employee at home depot with an increasingly outdated technology-based B.S. degree and 80K of student loan debt. Lives at home with parents to get by until student loans are paid off.

3. Unemployed 40 year old plumber with a union pension collecting unemployment benefits that keep getting extended by the federal government. Rents a decent SFH in a decent neighborhood and has minimal consumer debt (like a modest car loan and manageable credit card debt). Interestingly, this person has also managed to save up for a small college fund for their 2.5 kids. Willing to move to find a job if the local job market doesn't pick up.

2. 53 year old high-school graduate who sold their small-town, automotive shop (only one in town mind you) and retired early after 38 years of apprenticeship, hard work, and savvy re-investment. Bought an affordable, modest house with a fixed interest loan and paid it off early, and now rents it out after moving to a lower cost-of-living location where this person rents a smaller place for less. Could work part-time to make some extra money, but does not need to.

1. This one's a gimme: Lazy, oafish 55 year old. Didn't finish college, and has been unemployed since his frat boy days. Living off of a trust fund or inheritance in a wealthy, somewhat upscale suburb of San Diego. Blows money on overpriced housing, luxury cars, fine living, and used Jane Austen novels in order to appear high class and impress his Ivy league-graduate neighbors. Has low self-esteem though, because deep inside this person knows they are all laughing behind his back. Is also resented by his children for being unrealistic and espousing escapist philosophies.

tatupu70 says

I can’t acknowledge that. It’s impossible to prosper without a job.

Well for goodness sake, let's hope you never inherit anything!

WRONG. Under the proposal, the staple-a-green-card scheme would SUPPLEMENT the current H1-B system, not replace it.
HW, well it certainly would be better than raising the H1-B cap (but I do get your point). And then there's this quip from the hearings:
Lofgren said that the average wage for computer systems analysts in her district is $92,000, but the U.S. government prevailing wage rate for H-1B workers in the same job currently stands at $52,000, or $40,000 less.
"Small wonder there's a problem here," said Lofgren. "We can't have people coming in an undercutting the American educated workforce."

I can't believe she went on the record with this. So far, I've only seen it reported by Computerworld, but I can't imagine that will last for long.
What we need now is a geographic distribution of former H1-Ber's in Silicon Valley. Would be interesting to see if you could then overlay data about home prices.

terriDeaner says

tatupu70 says

I can’t acknowledge that. It’s impossible to prosper without a job.

Well for goodness sake, let’s hope you never inherit anything!

Really? We're talking about the merits of going to college and your advice is for kids to get an inheritance?

By all means--I stand corrected. That's great advice.

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

tatupu70 says

I can’t acknowledge that. It’s impossible to prosper without a job.

Well for goodness sake, let’s hope you never inherit anything!

Really? We’re talking about the merits of going to college and your advice is for kids to get an inheritance?

By all means–I stand corrected. That’s great advice.

Aw come on now tatupu, I don't really feel that way. Just funnin' ya. You make an too easy a target when you insist on using absolutist statements that are so easily falsified, like 'It’s impossible to prosper without a job.'

Maybe next time try something like 'In my opinion, it's near impossible to prosper without a job.'

terriDeaner says

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

tatupu70 says
I can’t acknowledge that. It’s impossible to prosper without a job.

Well for goodness sake, let’s hope you never inherit anything!

Really? We’re talking about the merits of going to college and your advice is for kids to get an inheritance?
By all means–I stand corrected. That’s great advice.

Aw come on now tatupu, I don’t really feel that way. Just funnin’ ya. You make an too easy a target when you insist on using absolutist statements that are so easily falsified, like ‘It’s impossible to prosper without a job.’
Maybe next time try something like ‘In my opinion, it’s near impossible to prosper without a job.’

Thanks for the tip. My mistake was thinking you actually wanted to have a rational discussion on the issue. From now on I will preface my thoughts with "In my opinion".

tatupu70 says

My mistake was thinking you actually wanted to have a rational discussion on the issue.

But I do! I do! Which is why I gave you that tip on reasoning. I think perhaps you mean that you expect me to have a more SERIOUS discussion with you.

tatupu70 says

From now on I will preface my thoughts with “In my opinion”.

Don't worry, this is not necessary when you are presenting factual information instead of generalized opinions.

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

I’ll be sharpening my pitch fork tomorrow.

Sigh... still waiting.

terriDeaner says

But I do! I do! Which is why I gave you that tip on reasoning. I think perhaps you mean that you expect me to have a more SERIOUS discussion with you.

Nope--I think I had it right. Get back to me when you have a rational argument...

terriDeaner says

Don’t worry, this is not necessary when you are presenting factual information instead of generalized opinions.

Again you are funny. I'll give you a little tip too. 99% of what is written on these boards is opinion. Nobody prefaces it with "In my opinion" because it's understood....

tatupu70 says

Again you are funny. I’ll give you a little tip too. 99% of what is written on these boards is opinion. Nobody prefaces it with “In my opinion” because it’s understood….

Aw, thanks! I currently think that closer to 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999%
of what is written on these boards is opinion, but I'm not certain. It could be less.

See? Rational yet not serious.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rational

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/serious

tatupu70 says

Nope–I think I had it right. Get back to me when you have a rational argument…

There is one local ignoranus oaf who will tell you that I should preface everything I say with "IMAO (in my arrogant opinion)." Ironically, the same guy who says that is probably the most arrogant turkey on these forums.

Everyone who can, should pursue higher education. High school simply isn't enough. I agree that financially it isn't ALWAYS clear. And certainly, if the person is a terrible students who can't focus on a lecture, or read a book to save their life, then yes, maybe don't do college. Although even for these people, it's entirely possible that there is something life enhancing and even career enhancing in the arts that they can benefit from in college.

shrekgrinch says

It would completely eliminate California income tax and sales tax

Actually, it only cuts the income tax rate. (They engage in a bit of false advertising on this). Later on they admit to it:

(1) State personal income tax: The first $150,000 of each person’s annual income will be exempt.

OK, _my_ state income tax would go to zero, and that's what counts! :-)

terriDeaner says

See? Rational yet not serious

OK--we're now wayyyyyy off topic, but I guess I'll just have to disagree. To me, hoping for an inheritance isn't a rational argument against going to college. Perhaps you weren't being serious, perhaps you were, but in either case it wasn't a rational argument.

LOL! A poet and a warrior! Cant beat that.

MarkInSF says

Thanks to prop 13, a lot things that used to be funded at the local level now has to be funded by the State.

I'm reading the book "After the Tax Revolt: California's Proposition 13 Turns 30". Very interesting point I had not realized: Prop 13 got huge support partly because just before that in 1978, there was another law which sent all property taxes to the state instead of keeping them to fund local schools directly.

So people felt their property taxes were going to other school districts, and therefore not supporting their own property values. They didn't like that at all, so they were suddenly much more opposed to paying property tax.

Another excellent point in the book is that Prop 13 strongly appeals to the elderly, who vote for whatever makes them feel more secure. They also strongly support Social Security for the same feeling of security. It's ironic that Prop 13 is basically Republican tax-cutting, and Social Security is basically Democratic tax-spending, but the elderly support them both out of self-interest.

Shrekgrinch is having an Internet moment. The most obvious way to advertise that one is mis-stating an opponent's position is to "translate" it. If he wants to offer an argument, he can feel free. What he's offered are three strawmen, mounted on poles, and labeled with clear signage. The last is rather shabby and difficult to parse, but I'll credit him three.

Of course, no amount of strenuous fallacy can change the fact that it's incredibly hard to hire quality talent in software in the United States, or that strong developers easily command six-figure compensation packages with even a few years of experience. If outsourcing truly were taking all the jobs, then my (mostly domestic) teams would have no problem staffing our QA positions with desperate and hungry developers, and our dev-teams would be packed with all-stars yearning to prove themselves. As things stand, it's very hard to hire good developers and damn-near impossible to hire a good technical software tester. I've only ever worked with about four truly excellent testers, and I've been extremely lucky to count that many.

It should be no surprise that the most determined effort I've seen in mingling outsourced labor with domestic projects has been with the aim of getting technically competent people testing the product. That's damned hard, and it's inefficient, and it puts unique demands on the domestic QA team, but I suspect it still works better than outsourcing the whole job.

On second thought, maybe Shrekgrinch should stick with fallacy, because reality likely won't admit him even a token logical defense. We need more excellent developers. Telling our kids that they should fear ourtsourcing is bad for the country's competiveness in one of our strongest and most competitive disciplines. Instead, we should be telling them to strive for excellence, and cautioning them that a degree doesn't cut it without hard work and constant effort, but that the rewards are there for those who want them and are willing to put in the effort necessary to hack it.

I have no problem getting a CS degree. But do it as a part time student. Many employers pay for tuition. And of course my favorite: goarmy.com

"Telling our kids that they should fear ourtsourcing is bad for the country’s competiveness is bad"

I don't see any problem telling kids REALITY. Telling them sugar coated nonsense is BAD. Between outsourcing, H1-Bs, and age discrimination, why should anyone pursue a CS degree?

I think he buys in the area he lives in. Bay / Delta, but I could be worng.

I do not know how directly his living wages are tied to rental prices. I am 100% sure he'll answer any question you may have about pretty much anything.

tatupu70 says

terriDeaner says

See? Rational yet not serious

OK–we’re now wayyyyyy off topic, but I guess I’ll just have to disagree. To me, hoping for an inheritance isn’t a rational argument against going to college. Perhaps you weren’t being serious, perhaps you were, but in either case it wasn’t a rational argument.

Sigh... poor, gentle, tatupu. Please assure me that you will use the dictionary as a stepping-stone to better things in at least SOME part of your life... for instance, as a stool for gathering hard-to-reach foodstuffs from the top of your fridge. You know, where you keep the tastiest of treats.

And one last time for the record... acquiring an inheritance is not an argument against going to college. It is simply an exception I stated to demonstrate that your hard and fast personal rule was not true:

tatupu70 says

It’s impossible to prosper without a job.

Alas!

Be careful about pinpointing a top. Demand for silver in industrial applications unknown only a few years ago is exploding. Read the Silver Institute's numbers on worldwide production as well.

In response to HousingWatcher:

Outsourcing: I've spoken to this. A good developer will never starve. Bad developers? Developers who show up to an interview so stale they can't code up a linked list on the spot? Good riddance to both. (Note those classes don't always overlap, and speak to different but valid concerns about the candidate.) The realilty is that you can be pulling down six figures in your mid-twenties with a decent programming job. People have been sounding the doom-drums of outsourcing since at least 1999, but not much of consequence has changed. Some ditch-digging work went offshore, the big interesting projects stayed here. That's reality, sir. The doom-drums you beat fail to banish the excellent pay of the hundreds of men and women I've been working with as the drums have been droning on and changing little of concern. Young, good American programmers will still be capable of making two median incomes in 2021. It's the margins. They afford a vast premium for quality of craft.

H1-Bs: This program is excellent for the nation, and we should stop thinking of it as some kind of stop-gap. We should embrace our savage brain-draining of Asia as a cornerstone of our international competitiveness strategy. It increases our capability at the expense of our prime competitors'. We should value working with the intellectual cream of six continents, and encourage them to settle and raise their families here; to add their uniqueness to our own; as is our tradition. I, like about thirty percent of most of my teams, am both white and was born in the United States --fourth generation Euromutt-American. If you read the subtext of my advice to my brother above, it was guarded. The message was not "go into CS and you'll make lots of money." It was "if you go into CS, get good at it, and you will do well." We should encourage more domestically grown talent to strive for that, because they do need to strive. The datastructures instruction is as useful as they make it, but neither the paper nor birthright entitles them to anything.

Age discrimination: This is mostly a myth. I've worked with people who've dated theselves well into their sixties or early seventies. Even two non-managers. Excellent technicians, both. There is plenty of discrimination against people who are tired, listless, cynical, with dated skills they can't apply to modern problems. There is no discrimination against old workers who have excellent attitudes, pull their weight, and apply their vast experience while embracing new technologies. Their old-school work ethic is invaluable, and worth refreshing in our culture. The discrimination --such as it is-- isn't against old workers, it's against workers who act old. It's a hazard to be aware of as we age, but doesn't merit the fatalistic treatment applied to it by the doom-droners.

Msilenus, a place I used to work at before outsourced their entire programming department to India, another place where my wife works outsourced their accounting and their IT/Programmers as well. It's happening, just it's not outsourcing as fast as many thought.

I'm not sure how the job market will be for this industry in 10 or 20 years. It looks like it's leaving the country slowly bit at a time.