<p>Has anyone seen this? I think it’s inspirational, especially from an educational standpoint.
<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q</a></p>
<p>The fiddle player is atrocious! I had to turn off the sound. It’s a cool video, though.</p>
<p>LOL, I thought it was bagpipes. ;)</p>
<p>Pretty chilling message though.</p>
<p>The music is from Last of the Mohicans:
<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNuRpwZqRU[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNuRpwZqRU</a></p>
<p>Jeebus. I’m going to prepare my daughter as well as I can to survive in this “exponentially” changing world. Then I’m going to climb down into a well and pull in a couple of cedar trees on top of the hole. There I’ll live with the collected works of Vonnegut, John Irving, and Conan Doyle. But I’ll be rooting for y’all.</p>
<p>^^^HAHA. There, I suppose, you will be reading them on your “more powerful than all the brains in the world” laptop?</p>
<p>I was talking to my kids the other day, trying to describe using keypunch cards to write a simple program, handing this giant stack (boxed, of course) over to the computer operators behind big glass windows, and watching them feed the batches. Waiting for hours, then getting the printout back only to find I didn’t get past my signon/password.</p>
<p>Nope. I’m going to have one of those wind-up hundred dollar ones. Hooked to my windmill. ;)</p>
<p>Okay, time to renew my Luddite membership (:::she types into her computer::: )</p>
<p>The video is interesting, especially as it pertains to population changes.</p>
<p>But how much of the ‘new’ info is worthwhile? More Britney? Does anyone remember the book “Megatrends” from the 1980’s. I don’t remember that much about it, but I wonder how accurate it was in forecasting the 21st century. I agree that change happens – I’m just not convinced that anyone can anticipate what those changes may be. </p>
<p>This is another reason why I believe in a good liberal arts education – if someone understands math or physics or english, then he/she can use that foundation to understand new things. If you only understand COBOL programming, you have limited options.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree 100%. What does a Liberal Arts education teach them? It teaches them to think deeply about topics as yet unimagined.</p>
<p>My DH, the engineer, would cringe to hear you say that ^^^.
He would ask … who built all the stuff that makes our world bearable, safe, and civilized (bridges, dams, communications and information systems, transportation, yada yada yada). It always seems like engineers, whether software, mechanical, civil, whatever, get dissed on CC. It’s like everyone thinks they’re a bunch of lugheads who can’t read or write.</p>
<p>“if someone understands math or physics or english, then he/she can use that foundation to understand new things. If you only understand COBOL programming, you have limited options.”</p>
<p>The assumption is that the COBOL programmer does NOT understand phsics or english, which is highly unlikely, don’t you think? Pretty big slap in the face to software engineers.</p>
<p>I don’t know what cobol does or how to write it. LOL. I couldn’t make the bluebird fly across the screen on my Commodore Vic 20. </p>
<p>I wasn’t intending to diss engineers or anyone else for that matter. Only to point out that the future does not need to be one where everybody knows how something works, rather than why it works. We need both. If a particular individual knows both, well… they are well set up for the future. It is my understanding that many heretofore technical fields are seeing the benefit of incorporating a traditional liberal arts approach with their existing curriculum.</p>
<p>Wait a minute. How’d you get from here
to here?
</p>
<p>2+2 = 11? I think that assumption you speak of was a bit of a stretch. At least it was from how I read the first quote. And if the first quote said what you think it said, then I’ll change my answer. “I disagree 100%.”</p>
<p>I thought this was going to be a thread about the San Francisco earthquake a couple days ago. (S1 is in San Fran this week.) </p>
<p>Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming and the Brave New World.</p>
<p>
Hmmmmm. Can it be “the Brave New World with Some Crappy Old World Left For Those Who Won’t Go”?</p>
<p>Maybe I misunderstood- the post was,</p>
<p>“This is another reason why I believe in a good liberal arts education – if someone understands math or physics or english, then he/she can use that foundation to understand new things. If you only understand COBOL programming, you have limited options.”</p>
<p>Understanding math, physics or english and understanding COBOL are not mutually exclusive propositions, was my point.</p>
<p>
Or maybe I did. But I agree with this 100%
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As a former COBOL programmer, to say that we have limited options is an understatement. I recently started selling health insurance, rather than go back to school to learn JAVA. My COBOL training and extensive experience is worthless except in a few large cities that still have a few businesses using mainframes.</p>
<p>Even if I were to start over in JAVA, I’d have to take a major cut in pay and start at the beginning, competing with all the fresh young college grads. </p>
<p>And, even then, more and more IT jobs are being outsourced to India!</p>
<p>Seeing what I went thru in IT has caused my son to question whether he truly wants a degree in Computer Science. He is an incredible geek, worked as a Geek Squad agent at Best Buy, so would be great at it, but he is now thinking that it would be a waste to get a degree in CS and then have to compete for a few $40k jobs. And, the technology is constantly changing. I know from experience that degrees are less important in IT - it is the experience, and in some cases the certification, that they care about. He can always get some sort of Microsoft certification or whatever, and get a job in IT. I’m not sure a CS degree is really all that important to getting a job in IT, although it would undoubtedly make a difference in pay, at least at the beginning. </p>
<p>He’s actually considering a Liberal Arts degree - not sure what, maybe Linguistics or Political Science - and finds the idea much more appealing because he can take a lot of other interesting classes, whereas in the CS degree plan they are almost all technical courses with very little room for electives.</p>
<p>He’s been told that this would be a mistake - that Liberal Arts degrees are next to worthless. This from someone whose son is studying to be an engineer and who is probably biased; still, is there truth in what he said?</p>
<p>He doesn’t want to end up with some useless degree, but at the same time wants to pursue something that is interesting to him.</p>
<p>doubleplay (and anyone else) can you elaborate please about your views of a LA education?</p>
<p>I don’t know much about LA, but know something about CS, IT and engineering. IMHO, IT is not a high tech field. OTOH, if you can get an advanced degree in CS or Computer Engineering and work for the likes of Microsoft or Google, you will not have to worry about your job being outsourced to India (at least as much as one can predict these things.)</p>
<p>I often joke that if I lose my job (I’m in software development) I will start a ditch digging company. Outsource that!</p>
<p>That’s what I thought. Unfortunately, although he loves computers and technology, he loathes math, so engineering is out.</p>