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[Reply #15 on:]

perhaps its time for some work by Marx or is it a bit too early for that still?

[Reply #16 on:]

Its time you read something philosophical like Calvin & Hobbes...

Been there and read all of that.  ;D

[Reply #17 on:]

No sweat:  the U.S. economy is terminally %*^$ed,  and there's no way you can compete with the H-1Bs they're importing to reduce the cost of our decline into Third World colony status,  so it doesn't matter whether you passed the test...

I have never used any of the certifications that I have "earned" in a professional setting, and currently do not work anywhere close to the industry

so your statement is pretty much spot on

[Reply #18 on:]

Certifications are a joke.  

A person can have a certification and not be able begin to be useful in a real work environment because all they did was take a course to help them pass a certification test.

[Reply #19 on:]

darn [glow]e[/glow]nglish can be as confusing as the Arduino IDE, [glow]A[/glow]nalogWrite(),

Yes, as any fule kno*, it should be "analogueWrite".



*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Molesworth

[Reply #20 on:]

so your statement is pretty much spot on

Well,  it was a bit over-the-top,  but not terribly so  

When I wrote it,  I had just watched a C-SPAN interview with some foreign trade policy wonk who was touting our trade surplus in "services" as an encouraging sign in the face of our continuing record merchandise trade deficits,  and suggesting that all we really needed was to increase our services exports to overcome the fact that we're no longer capable of competitively manufacturing and exporting anything simpler than a 747.

When pressed for an example,  he cited a company that is managing a group of Indian Ph.D.s and post-grads,  renting them out as "tele-teachers" and paying them $10 a day.  Unfortunately,  the host was too gracious to beat him over the head with her clipboard and scream "You microcephalic moron!  THAT's why Americans are increasingly reluctant to risk going a quarter-million dollars into debt to get Ph.D.s!".  Not to mention that no sane person could believe that the Indians are too stupid to figure out that they can cut out the American middleman and sell their own services as soon as they're established.

I saw Petraeus being interviewed on PBS this afternoon,  expounding at length on the difficulties of dealing with the complexities of conflicting factions and historical attitudes in the Middle East and Afghanistan,  and the need for pragmatic strategies and long-term commitments to achieve enduring results.  I'm beginning to wonder if our only hope is military rule:  they seem to be the only large group left who can remember events older than yesterday's newscasts,  grasp concepts too complicated to fit on a bumper sticker,  and plan further ahead than the current quarter's financial report filing...