At the time, I remember wondering, how did one guy armed only with handguns take out 40-odd trained soldiers in the middle of a military base? Yes, it was a surprise attack, the shooter had combat training, and since he was a soldier, he could walk past security… but 43 soldiers??? WTF? This crazy bastard had to RELOAD. How is it that those 43 soldiers didn’t return fire seconds after the shooting began?

The soldiers weren’t armed.

Lt. General Robert Cone, the commanding officer at Fort Hood, told reporters that the soldiers were not armed: ““As a matter of practice, we do not carry weapons — this is our home.” WTF do you mean, you don’t carry weapons?

The United States is currently at war. At war in Iraq. At war in Afghanistan. At war in Pakistan and Yemen (even though they’re pretending they’re not). And now Libya. Do you think Iraqi soldiers are unarmed while on base? You think Taliban soldiers get out of bed in the morning without reaching for a pistol? How about Al Queda? You think they’re wondering around their terrorist training grounds, eyes turned to the sky, searching for missle-toting unmanned drones, without a weapon at the ready? How about Libya’s special forces? Can’t suppress a civil war without a few bullets now can they?

This shows that the U.S. military simply doesn’t take these threats seriously. In their arrogance, they don’t really think they can be attacked on domestic soil. In a way, they are right – the Taliban aren’t going to roll into Texas in tanks. But that’s not how it works anymore.

If there really is no threat to “the homeland,” how about you stop occupying sovereign nations. If there is a legitimate threat (and a lone gunman does not constitute a terrorist threat), hows about keeping a sidearm handy while on the military base?

Oh, and do you remember how the shooting at Fort Hood ended? The shooter was dropped by a single civilian police officer.

This was the slogan of the british government during WWII when Germany was actually bombing their cities. Compare that to the American rhetoric of the last few years:

• SARS will kill you! BE AFRAID
• The Bird Flu will kill you! BE AFRAID
• OBAMA’s death panels are coming for Grandma! BE AFRAID.
• The Muslims are coming to kill you! BE AFRAID.
• The New Black Panthers are coming to kill you. BE AFRAID.
• Mexicans are beheading people in the desert! BE AFRIAD.

Detect a pattern? Authoritarian governments and their agent constantly menace the public with imaginary and ginned up threats, but when things actually get out of hand, they switch to trying to keep us calm.

For more than a week now, the Japanese government has urged its people to stay calm as, while grave, the situation is under control. Think about that.

Universities are also supposed to be pure meritocracies, rewarding students and faculty primarily on their academic accomplishments. Unfortunately, the structure of modern universities and their surrounding educational-industrial complex includes myriad insidious elements that exacerbate the disadvantages faced by less financially secure students. Here are some of the worst offenders.

1. Student loans instead of grants

Student loans are supposed to provide funds for full time students to live on during their studies. Student loans systems generally suffer from two serious problems. First, the amount of money a student receives depends on their parents’ income, regardless of whether those parents are willing or able to contribute to their childrens’ education. Second, in the U.S., Canada and many other countries, you have to pay them back. A $120 000 loan to go to medical school is much more daunting to the child of a medical secretary than to the child of a neurosurgeon. (In some countries, like the U.K., you only pay back a portion of your student loan depending on how much money you make after your education.)

2. Busy work

Universities in general (and business schools in particular) inundate their students with repetitive, unchallenging assignments – busy work. Busy work serves no pedagogical purpose (by definition). You learn nothing from it, and it does not separate good students from bad students. It is primarily used in subjects like business where the material is straightforward. Since faculty cannot or will not provide challenging problems, they make getting through the endless barrage of menial tasks the challenge. This discriminates against students who have to work part time (or even full time) to fund their studies.

3. Lack of evening and distance classes

Again, as many poor students have to work to fund their education, offering classes only during conventional business hours forces students to choose between attending the class or making the money to pay for the classes.

4. Participation marks and punishing absenteeism

When a student has to choose between a work shift and a class, between next month’s rent money and this term’s participation marks, poor students’ marks suffer one way or another. Punishing absenteeism also facilitates pandemics, but that’s an issue for another post.

5. Market-priced student housing

The purpose of a University is not to educate the populace and produce high-quality research, not to turn a profit. When universities are located in areas with high real estate prices, they can accommodate financially challenged students by providing housing at cost. However, where “at cost” means $400/month, and similar apartments in the area go for $800/month, universities smell the opportunity to extract more money from students and provide “market-priced student housing”.

6. Pressuring or forcing students into volunteer work

When I was an undergrad, many professional programs pressured students to engage in “resume-building” volunteer work or unpaid internships. Volunteer work is all well and good when you’re on a full scholarship and daddy pays for your Benz. When you’re already pulling 20 hours/week cleaning a movie theatre to pay your tuition, volunteer work is money out of pocket, plain and simple.

7. Pathetic pay rates for research and teaching assistants

Many faculty view students as cheap (if not free) labour. I got paid less per hour as a research assistant in undergrad than most gas station attendants. Worse, foreign students’ visas often stipulate that they can only work within the university, so they take these jobs regardless of the pay, removing the pressure to increase salaries for lack of willing workforce. Poor students have to turn down more educationally beneficial research jobs in favor of better paying menial labour jobs. In the words of Chris Rock, that is fucked up.

8. The tuition-economy link

Recently the UK elected a conservative government, which drastically cut university funding. In response, universities are tripling their tuition fees, in the middle of a recession. Where tuition fees are directly linked to the economy, they are highest when people have the least money. This flies in the face of basic Keynesian principles … but then, since when have conservatives ever understood Keynes?

Conclusion

One could argue that there are good reasons for all of the practices criticized above. I would simply counter that improving social mobility in society and reducing class discrimination is more important.

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1) Learn to shave with a straight razor

While shaving isn’t uniquely male, it is something most men do, and a close shave is something to be proud of. Both men and women will notice a truly close shave. Unfortunately, no two, three, four, five or 16 blade razor can do the job. These fisher-price razors yank and chop your facial hair. The only way to get a perfect shave is with a literally razor-sharp blade placed directly against the skin. Yes, while learning to use a straight razor you will cut yourself and get razor burn. But if anyone notices, you get to say, “oh, yeah, I’m learning to shave with a straight razor.” And when they reply, “why on earth would you do that?” you get to say, “because it’s manly!”

2) Play a team sport

Team sports like football, basketball and hockey are essentially popular war games. Yes, they’re good exercise, fun and improve sexual performance. But aside from that, they allow a man to exercise primitive battle instincts in a constructive environment. And you don’t have to be skilled to have a good time.

3) Cook over an open fire

Ancient man cooked meat over an open fire, and there’s still something deeply satisfying about the sight, sound and smell of roasting meat. Sorry, veggie burgers don’t cut it.

4) Join a martial arts club

We all know guys who sit around drinking beer and watching MMA. This is not manly. Getting intoxicated and gaining weight while arguing about the finer points of movements you have never tried is false manliness. MMA isn’t even manly. When a real martial artist hits you, you go down. Often in pieces. To get in touch with your inner power, try a traditional martial art. The precise art is not as important as finding a teacher who inspires you and club where you can train safely.

5) Play paintball

Like team sports, paintball is just an elaborate, stylized outlet for your battle instincts. With a paintball gun you can live out all your John Wayne fantasies without actually killing anyone, or more likely, getting shot, shooting the wrong guy, or ending up in prison.

6) Go camping (not glamping)

Ancient man covered miles of wilderness hunting game, traveling between villages, or just getting some peace and quiet. Hiking and camping is an excellent way to reconnect with your ancestral heritage. Note: camping is not the same as glamping. When you drive to your campsite, set up on a pre-made platform, sit in the nearby hot tub for an hour, party all night, pass out drunk on the picnic table, wake up and hit Starbucks on the way home, that’s glamping. Camping is when you put your gear in a pack, hike to your campsite, cook half a mile away so as not to attract bears, and go to bed early because you’re exhausted from hiking all day with a heavy pack. Glamping is false manliness. Camping makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something.

7) Watch a Manly Movie

And when all else fails, just have the boys over and watch a manly movie.

See also

Macho Men vs. Real Men: Top 15 Differences

Five Things that Make Gyms a Plague Upon Fitness

1. Find a Reasonable Supervisor

The single most important part of a PhD is finding the right supervisor. Most people will tell you to try to work with someone who is 1) a (famous) prolific researcher, 2) brilliant, 3) similar in research interests. Bullshit. The most important quality in a supervisor is reasonableness. Your supervisor can indefinitely forestall your graduation and make your life so miserable you’ll quit. If you get an unreasonable supervisor, you’re hosed.

Many academics become prolific by cracking the whip over an army of grad students and then taking credit for their hard work. Worse, truly important research is often time-consuming, so those who do the most important stuff rarely publish the most articles. Brilliance is nice, but not necessary for the same reason as overlapping research interests: your PhD should be your own. Never mind your supervisor’s agenda, or your department’s, or your school’s. You need to pursue your interests, your project, your way – otherwise your job talk will be uninspiring and you won’t get a good position.

2) When Choosing a Program, Focus on Past Graduates

Most people compare programs based on two factors: the overall reputation of the school and the research reputation of the faculty in your department of interest. This strategy suffers from two problems: 1) famous universities aren’t necessarily strong in your particular field; 2) having a bunch of prolific researchers does not imply that the school’s PhD program is pedagogically sound.

To choose a program, ask consider two questions. First, where did previous students from this program get jobs? Second, how long did they really (not officially) spend in the program? If students like you went to this program, and got the kind of job you want after a reasonable time, then it’s your kind of program. Of course, you also have to watch out for changes in the program or faculty.

3. It Usually Takes Longer than you Expect

Longer than they tell you. Prospective students are commonly told fairlytales about three- to four-year programs. In some countries, like the UK, this is still accurate because university funding is sometimes tied to program duration, but this is unusual. Find out how long previous students took, and don’t take their word for it. PhD’s have ambiguous end-dates: there’s the date you finished writing your thesis, the date of your defense, the date you submit your corrected thesis, the date you accept a position, the date you begin your position, and the date you get your diploma. You want the last one. When did you start, and when did you receive your diploma? Seven or more years is terrible. Six is bad. Five is realistic. Four is fantastic. Three is a myth. But it varies by field.

4) Be Damn Sure you Want to do This

As far as I can tell, PhD students fall into one or more of three categories: aspiring academics, egomaniacs, and people just aren’t sure what else to do with their lives. If you’re not an aspiring academic, think long and hard about whether you really want to go through five to eight years of hell, followed by an anticlimactic post-doc position. Then read every strip at PhD Comics, and think about it again.

5) Difficulty comes from Politics, not Research

PhD’s are supposed to be difficult, and they are. However, they’re not difficult for the reasons you would expect. A PhD is supposed to be difficult because doing good research is wickedly complicated. A PhD is actually difficult because of all the political wrangling, endless debates about inconsequential minutia and general academic assholery.

6) Go Big or Go Home

Doing good research is easy. Pick a real group of people who are in trouble, and use all that expert knowledge you’ve accumulated to improve their lot in life. It doesn’t matter if you’re in physics, medicine, anthropology, or English, helping real people is a powerful thing. The trouble is, all the while you’re trying to do something real, people around you will bitch and moan about how it’s risky, too novel, methodologically questionable, and doesn’t make a clear academic contribution. During my proposal defense, I desperately wanted to say “If you’re not going to help, get the fuck out.” In hindsight, I wish I had.

7)Most Academics are Simultaneously Geniuses and Morons

At the end of middle school, someone always gives a motivational speech about how “when you get to high school, you won’t be spoon-fed anymore – you’ll really have to work hard.” And then you get to high school and the spoon-feeding continues. And then you get the same speech at the end of high school, and you get to university, and the spoon-feeding continues. And then at the end of undergrad, you get a similar speech, but with the “now when you get to grad school you’ll meet some of the smartest people in the world and they’ll knock your socks off” twist. Yeah? Where?

Academics are almost all intelligent, because many of the tests you have to pass to get in (LSAT, MCAT, GRE, GMAT, SAT, etc.) are glorified IQ tests. The trouble is, intelligence isn’t the only thing you need to become a great intellectual. You also need rationality, creativity, and persistence. And the other trouble is, none of these are highly correlated with the kind of IQ. The result of this misalignment between entrance criteria and required characteristics is an academic system populated by intelligent yet irrational people. This leads to all sorts of hilariously demotivational exchanges:

“I never authorized you to buy that!”
“Yes you did. You said right here in this email, ‘go ahead and buy it.’”
“Yes but you were supposed to confirm first.”

“You should have used grounded theory”
“Yes, and I would have, if you hadn’t told me not to when I proposed it three years ago.”

“I don’t think you should rely on this reference.”
“Then why did you send it to me?”

“You’re supervisor didn’t actually read your proposal, did he?”
“Considering that the answer to his question was in the abstract, I suspect not.”

“Just pick the survey questions that will give you the answers you want.”

Conclusion

In summary, don’t do a PhD unless you’re absolutely certain you want to be an academic or you have some other extremely compelling reason. If you decide to do one anyway, choose a school that graduates students quickly and gets them reasonable positions. Then find the most reasonable, easy-going supervisor you can. Choose an ambitious topic that matters, and go make someone’s life better. Then do your best to ignore all the negative bullshit around you, and keep putting one foot in front of the other until you can stand up at a conference and identify by name real, living, breathing people whose lives are better today than they were yesterday because of you.

Apparently my hosting provider hijacked the blog and sent all my traffic to some scam/spam site. Please be patient while I recover the site over the next few days.

In other news, stay the hell away from NoAdsFree.com. It’s a scam.

-KW

My apologies for the recent downtime of the War on Bullshit blog. The traffic from my last post (12 Bonehead Misconceptions of Computer Science Professors) blew my bandwidth allocation and I didn’t notice until yesterday (thanks Michelle!). Just my luck that one of my posts would get popular just when I’m ignoring my blog to focus on job hunting.

Many thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll be back in the New Year with brand new stuff.

I have not been updating lately due to some important projects that have been consuming all of my time. I believe it best, at this point, to stop pretending I’m going to get a post up any time now.

I’ll be back to my regular schedule starting the second week of January. Until then, best wishes and happy holidays.

I have personally met computer science professors who believe each of the following things. I make no claims as to how widespread these beliefs are; you can judge that for yourself.

1. Java is a good first teaching language

I don’t know how many computer science programs start teaching programming using Java, but there are more than a few, and that’s too many. When you’re going over variables, loops and conditionals, the object-oriented overhead of a language like java is unnecessary and confusing. Inquisitive students can’t just memorize things (i.e. public static void main (String args[])) without demanding to know what it means and why it’s there.

2. Machine language is “basic”

Comp Sci people seem to be terribly confused about what ‘basic’ means. When one learns to drive a car, starting the car, making a right turn, a left turn, parking, etc. is basic. Building a parallel gas-electric hybrid engine is not basic. Driving a car is more basic than building one because the latter requires significantly more expert knowledge than the former. In the same way, using a simple scripting language requires less depth of understanding that writing in machine language; therefore, computer science education should start with higher level languages and proceed to lower level ones, not vice versa.

3. You should write code on paper before you write it on a computer

Writing code by hand is stupid. It is entirely inconsistent with the interactive and iterative design process that comes naturally to hackers and painters alike. Professional software developers make extensive use of API documentation, reference guides, forum discussions, etc. to make troubleshoot problems and make their code more efficient and effective. Writing code by hand tests your ability to write trivially simple software without making errors. Real programmers must be capable of making complex software and detecting their errors with a variety of automated tools. Teaching or testing coding using pencil and paper is inconsistent with both the natural mode of human action and the practical realities of software development.

4. Lectures are an effective method of teaching programming

Programming is like algebra. You can’t learn how to write code by watching someone write code on a blackboard or listening to elaborate explanations from professors. You can’t learn math from watching someone do math. You learn to do things by doing them.

5. Algorithm design is learned by reading existing algorithms

Designing algorithms is about finding innovative solutions to difficult problems. Algorithm design courses are about studying existing solutions to rather simple problems. Learning how a particular problem can be solves provides approximately zero insight into how to solve problems you’ve never encountered before.

6. You can just ‘pick up’ prolog in a week for a course

There’s this crazy belief among Comp Sci. faculty that all languages are basically the same, so after learning the principles behind languages you can use whatever. This is bullshit. This is like claiming that since someone studied Spannish grammar in grade school, they can speak Spanish fluently, in any of Spanish, Mexican or Columbian accents. The leap between structured and object-oriented programming is huge, and it pales in comparison to the leap between object-oriented languages and declarative languages.

7. Exams measure understanding of programming

Teams of professional programmers spends months and years building intricate software systems in response to poorly-understood, ill-defined and changing problems. To accomplish this, they employ API documentation, online tutorials and forum discussions, team problem-solving sessions, reference books and an infinite number of phone-a-friend lifelines. Exams test your ability to write simple code to solve a trivial, well-defined static problems, without consulting and references. One is about resourcefulness, the other about memory. Exams test the wrong thing.

8. GUI’s are not an important aspect of learning to code

At the university where I did my undergrad, it was easy to finish a B.Sc. in computer science without ever building a graphical interface. While I agree that many software projects do not have graphical components (e.g., developer APIs), to marginalize GUIs as some kind of specialty endeavor is short-bus crazy!

9. Programming Requires Calculus

I have been told that development involving sophisticated work with graphics and animation involves calculus. Outside of this particular subfield, however, I haven’t seen much calculus in software development. Certainly I’ve seen a lot more GUI development than graphics.

10. Linux will rapidly overtake Windows among consumers

Comp. Sci. profs have been saying this for years. Hasn’t happened. And it’s not going to happen until Ubuntu and company take the dicking around out of computing the way Apple has.

11. LaTeX will overtake WYSIWYG text editors because LaTeX gives you more control

Yes, believe it or not, a computer science prof said this during one of my classes in undergrad. It goes directly to a deeper misunderstanding among Comp. Sci. academics that power and control are the primary factors driving adoption. They’re not. Simplicity and ease of use are far more important.

12. You can buy gates at RadioShack

The same idiot who thought LaTeX was the future also told his class to go buy gates (the things transistors are made of) at RadioShack and play with them to see how they work. Again, this evidences how completely out of touch some of these people are. Gates are microscopic. You can’t go buy them at an electronics store.

Update (25MAR2011): As so many helpful readers have pointed out, 1) gates are made of transistors, not the other way around, and you can now buy gates at Radio Shack online. However, the prof in question told me to go buy gates at a physical Radio Shack store in 2001, and they had no such thing. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote “the things transistors are made of.”

Conclusion

I have long argued that society needs a professional certification for software developers and that universities need undergraduate programs dedicated to training people for these certifications. It’s worked for accounting, engineering and medicine. There’s no reason it can’t work for software development. One of the primary barriers to this sort of progress is the raging incompetence of academics in computer science, computer engineering, management information systems and related disciplines.

Have one or a few to add? Comment away.

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