niomosy

Yeah, plus if you're going to actually use something a lot you'll memorize it anyway, and it' silly to memorize stuff you'll never need. It seems like a lot of the prof nowadays don't teach you the concepts but just how to get the answer which pisses me off. I think that's always what they've done. That's why there's always been a noted disconnect between academia and the real world (and why we differentiate between then) It's also why I hear a lot of private universities advertising how their professors have real-world experience. Let's face it, outside a few areas, most people realize that they're only going to get a small bit of knowledge that will actually be useful later. They're there for the piece of paper that many companies still want.

It's common here for engineering profs here to give you the formulas you need(unless it's just a couple). Which IMO is the best. That makes life so much easier unlike the whole open book thing. Basically if you know what you're doing, you're fine. Open book tests here aren't like that here. I don't care what profs are suppose to do, that's how it works here. Having the formulas would be pretty awesome. In many cases, formulas are my key weakness, which is why I tend to do poorly in math even once I finally understand how to do the math. It's actually a small rant of mine, to be honest with much of the educational style tests. When are you ever truly in a situation where you're going to have to rattle math off the top of your head without benefit of other resources to fall back on? The profs remember this stuff because they're getting paid to teach it. Even then, I watched my Trig teacher have to sit for a second and recall things. I don't usually care for the memorization game. I can do pretty decent at non-math memorization, though, so I do well on tests. As Zam was saying earlier, though, it's a cram/dump scenario. You shove a load of crap into your head so you can dump it out onto the test, then forget about it. In the end, you remember some stuff but not nearly as much. Plus who knows how much you actually learned that's pertinent to your career path, but that's another rant

From what you and I talked about 3 or so years ago, I always got the sense that the certs were a necessary but insufficient condition, i.e., that if you didn't have at least 3-4 certs, IT firms or departments wouldn't even look at you? It depends on the group you're in but it can tend to be true. What happens is that no admin thinks they're worth a damn but consulting companies look at them very heavily and you will get managers from companies that kinda want them even if none of the staff actually care. The other place where it's very common is for lower-end positions. Things like PC tech support and such, ie the positions you usually step into from the call center / help desk roles, tend to favor certs. You're probably not going to have much experience in the first place so certs are at least something showing that you can memorize semi-related answers for a test. It's the consulting companies where it becomes important. At least, in the old days, various benefits as a reseller were tied to having a certain number of certified people on staff. Then there are the exception certs. The ones that people really look at. The only one that really comes to mind is Cisco's CCIE cert. This cert now requires you to gain lower certs before going for this one (at least that I recall). Getting one will net you lots of interest and job offers. At least, that used to be the case. Last I heard, it was still a pretty prestigious cert to have. The test itself is pretty brutal, particularly the hands-on where they give you various real-world type problems to work through with actual equipment. For the type of work I do, they tend to be fluff. It's something that the Windows admins like to get when they have very little actual experience and has carried over into Linux as well. Once you start getting up into the high-end Unix stuff, it tends to be less with resellers and independent consultants being the most likely to try for the certs. That and employees of those companies.

This kind of reasoning is why a lot of sys admins would scoff at the so-called certifications. There were only a few out there that really showed that you knew your stuff, CCIE being the big one. Most of the rest were basically memorization of loads of useless crap that you wouldn't likely see in the real world. You then end up with a load of people with their certs and no clue as to what's going on. So when we interview people, we typically discard the certs and go for the straight questions that are going to get us a decent idea about the candidates.

Yeah, you sure put this one in an early grave... Mmmm, that's kinda the point?

Makes sense. In the engineering department here, if a prof says it's open book you {censored} your pants. Because then can give you any problem, which is a bad thing.... It's multiple-guess, too On another plus note, class was canceled last night Though I fear it's going to end up negative in the end. We'll get a 20 minute lecture on material right before the test and that material will be on the test Fortunately, probably not much of it. He's been pretty good about editing stuff out that we really haven't covered. Then giving freebee points when 80% of class misses a specific question... etc. I'm gonna miss community colleges.

He must not be teaching an engineering class.... Microeconomics.

Hmm. I had the opposite. One of my prof's decided that he would curve down everyones grade at the end of the semester. My A- went to a C. And the guy was a great teacher too, its not that the material was easy (it was corporate finance) I guess peeps have a different idea of how it should be. Which is stupid. If people are doing well in the class, they're doing well in the class. Actually, I have an in-law that was asked to town down the test questions a bit. First-year professor and all

I don't understand his logic. Does he have a reputation for failing too many people? Is there some standard saying that if you have too many failures in your class, your out of here? Nope, he just doesn't want anyone to fail his class. For some reason, he doesn't like it. Maybe thinks it's his fault and not the slacker teens that don't bother showing up to take notes each week (since the book's there more for reference)?? I dunno.

Take home exams = horrible. If you know your stuff, in class, closed notes, closed book exams are the best IMO. In take homes and open notes/book exams the professors have an excuse to make it hard as hell. This is a professor that's making a deal with students; if your grade on this test is higher than the last one, they'll both get the new score. He did it with the 2nd test updating the first tests score. He doesn't want to fail anyone. So this isn't a reason to be a hardass, it's an excuse to get people higher test scores so he doesn't fail anyone.

Yay. My take-home test that we got over the weekend and was supposedly due this Thursday is now due Dec 3rd. Now I'll have a weekend where I can casually do it rather than trying to squeeze it in while I'm sick at night.

Originally Posted by oldivor What are you talking about? Oh, nothing. Look! There's something shiny over there!

Originally Posted by 82Daion Hello, last two weeks. Shhhh, his memory isn't that good right now

I've created a monster

Actually, speaking of kids stories. One that gets me... My girl was playing with a toy. A boy came over and asked if he could play with the toy. She wanted it still so she said, "no you may not." This, from a 3 year old (well, almost 4). The boy started whimpering. His mom starts asking him, "well what could she say instead." Instead!? INSTEAD!? What the holy hell do you want out of a 3 year old?! What I've noticed is that people seem to think the use of "may" is too strong. Had she just said, "no." That probably would have been fine. "You may not," just seems to be something strongly worded for too many people. Then there was another time where the mom wanted an apology because her kid's feelings were hurt. My wife went along with it because she had done something wrong but.... I told her we don't correct or admonish on feelings hurt. We do it when our daughter does something wrong.

Originally Posted by Zamfir Hm. Daddy have a story for us? A story as a daddy? Well, she's already strong willed and not taking crap from other kids for the most part (she used to get bullied around by this one boy in the group my wife was in within the local mom's club... and I think she got sick of it). But then there's stories like my mom kicking a guy in the balls in high school because he kept... I forget if it was kicking her shins or what but he was bugging the hell out of her and she'd had enough

Originally Posted by oldivor Just kick him in the nuts. Takes all the fun out of a good smack-down, doesn't it? Besides, I'll leave that to my daughter. If she's anything like most of the females in both mine and my wife's families, she'll learn to do that pretty quick

Originally Posted by oldivor Or you could just learn to sound like Bruce Lee. That'll scare away the chicken {censored}s and provide a nice joke with the ones with balls. Meh, might as well actually learn just in case one of the hot shots wants to call my bluff

Originally Posted by oldivor *hands nioms a shotgun* I think you're going to need it more than ever now. And this wouldn't have happened at all if you shipped your wife over here. Silly man. No guns allowed. I'm just gonna have to take some kind of martial arts with my kids so they know daddy means business and can follow through on it if boyfriend steps out of line

Originally Posted by Bonoman I'm sure if I wasn't so exhausted I could figure out a joke about tachyons to work in here since I just watched Land of the Lost (cute, but not a must-see movie), but I'm so tired I'm just going to go to sleep instead... Heh. Yeah I'm pretty beat. Friday night has become the night Nioette sleeps in bed with us. At almost 4, she gets a kick out of it. Except... a queen bed with a kid that moves all over the place during sleep is not really conducive to good sleep I'll also take this as a segway to announce, Coming This February! Nioette #2: The Revenge. Yup, another little girl due. I'm screwed beyond belief now And most of the "parent" friends we know have boys. All seem quite eager and pleased that we're having another girl. Sigh.

Originally Posted by Zamfir No, that was HCBF, not the universe... The universe is keeping a close eye on things. Bonoman and I posting in the same forum again has set off an alarm, I'm sure.

Originally Posted by Zamfir Nah, it's just another sign the universe has gas...that's why it's doubled over... Naa, it saw both of back and went on a drinking binge to ease the pain

Originally Posted by Zamfir B-man AND niomosy back? I think the universe is folding in on itself... I think of it more as restoring balance to the universe

Heh, I recall one time having to salvage lug's signature out of my browser cache when he lost it years back. It was more of a bitch finding it than I thought it would be. Hence the quote I have from lug in my sig

Originally Posted by Super_Donut_Man Well thats what I had to do . Kazaa was like Limewire, except way more spyware was involved. Keep in mind I got "high speed" (i.e. above dial-up) internet only about 3 years ago. Ahhh. I've had high speed since.... '98 or so. I don't even remember Napster on dial-up. Kazaa wasn't always bad. The Morpheus client was nice until they shut it down, there were tips on spyware removal in the early Kazaa versions as well. Eventually Kazaa-lite came out which was really nice. Then that died off as well.