[rescue] Small servers (was Re: WTT: 1.5G of PC2700 for 1G of PC100)

[Robert Darlington]

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 11:03 AM, Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> On May 8, 2008, at 11:45 , Robert Darlington wrote:
>
>
> > One of the classic questions I put out for interviewees is "Do you
> > work on your own car?"
> >
>
>  Hopefully you are joking, since a lot of tinkerers don't work on their own
> car.

No, I'm not joking at all.  The answer tells me a lot about the person.

>  Not everyone tinkers on the same things.
>

I agree, that's why there are more questions.


>  Plus, when my car is under warranty, tinkering voids the warranty.
>
>  :)
>

The consumer protection act disagrees with you.


>
>
> > I personally can't imagine going for a CS degree.  It's incredibly
> > boring, not very challenging (unless you count all the crap homework
> > assignments),
> >
>
>  That depends highly on the school you go to.

I agree.  I go to UNM.


>
>
>
> > and I really don't see much change in the field since
> > Knuth laid the groundwork in his books in the 60s.  In other words,
> > it's not for me.  (I'm going for EE currently, specializing in antenna
> > design, fields and waves, and signal propagation -most likely boring
> > to most!)
> >
>
>  EE is one of the easiest degrees to get in some schools.
>

Agreed.  I don't know many EEs that are comfortable around high energy
systems.  I don't know any that have any practical experience working
with high voltage except perhaps those that are ham operators.   A
buddy of mine designs accelerators (ham) and another designs sputter
coating equipment (ham).   The guys at work call me (ham) in when they
need to do something they consider dangerous because they just weren't
trained in school.

>  It depends heavily on where you go to school, and what use you make of the
> facilities of course.

Agreed.

>
>  I took some EE courses in college, and found them easier than most of my
> computer science classes because the engineering work was a lot more
> pragmatic and the theory was far easier.
>

The challenge in CS for me was dealing with the homework.  Writing the
software was the easy part, but test plans were always the killer.
Way too tedious for my short attention span.  1 hour of coding, 20 of
documentation.  I'm not cut out for that line of work.


>  I actually like the "computer engineering" degree some schools offer, but
> it was too late for me to switch by the time it came around to my school.

Ya, it's cool stuff.  I considered going in this direction but I'm
more into antennas than designing a new PC.

>
>  If I got back to school (meaning, if I ever get the money) I'm not totally
> sure what I'd go after.  I'm just as likely to go for an engineering degree
> or something as continue in computer science.

Do it!   I'm 33, my buddy I take classes with is in his 50s.  It's
never too late, although I do know it can be a challenge when raising
a family, going to work, and dealing with classes all at the same
time.

>  A lot depends on what they can offer me.
>
>  Of course, with $11-50 thousand dollars masters degree programs, I don't
> know when I'll ever have the money, and going for a 4 year engineering
> degree is pretty much impossible right now.
>
>
>
>  --
>  "Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."
>
>
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