Assuming the only purpose of universities is to serve the job market. I'd argue that the primary function of the university system is to transfer the collective human knowledge forward. The fact that some of it is sometimes needed in jobs is a secondary effect.
But you're right that there should be schools that teach the practical programming skills. But it's the the trade schools that should be developed towards this goal, not universities.
University aim to serve the education market i.e. people that want to learn or assume they can get a job afterwards. They don't serve the employers or those that are looking to hire.
Lots of degrees have no pathway to a job or career.
There is a huge divide between Europe and the US on this front. Because degrees are so expensive in the US the expectation is that you are going to pay for that with the shiny job you get as a result of the degree.
In Europe where third level is far cheaper, it's more looked upon as continuing education. The way in the US people look at high school. Sure you'd like to get a job after, but it's really just a stepping stone to your career and not a huge financial investment that needs to be repayed.
Either way that doesn't mean it's made for "the job market". All it entails is you were sold a false premise just like how bootcamps promise of 6 figure salaries after a week of training...
It's still made for those that want to be educated.
>Either way that doesn't mean it's made for "the job market".
In the Netherlands the have, for example, the Hoger Beroep Onderwijs (HBO), which translates to Higher Professional Education. It is exactly tailored for the job market.
HBO sounds more like a vocational system that provides diplomas vs a bachelor degree in reference to universities in this discussion.
This type of system definitely exists in many places but I just assume it's out of scope as we're talking about in reference to CS graduates i.e. bachelor courses.
Anecdotally, I was (as probably many here were) ahead of the curve in digital devices usage when I started hanging out in IRC and various web forums as a teenager in early 2000s. At some point I noticed that just using computers induced some amount of anxiety compared to "old tech"; whenever there was some period of time when I used my computer less (like christmas, vacations, etc.) and joined back to the "world of the normal people", I felt much calmer and happier. Even though I noticed this, it was difficult to log off during normal times since most of my life was in the internet.
Now everyone is using digital devices all the time and the "normal people world" has ceased to exist. Also almost everyone is anxious and/or depressed. I think this is not a coincidence. However, I do not think that this is due to social media per se, but using digital devices for anything (social media being just the reason why most people use them).
My theory is that just using digital devices for anything is somewhat stressful; you have to keep the eyes focused all the time (Can you think of other activities that require this? There aren't many and they are all somewhat stressful), you have to navigate all the various applications and menus, you have to occasionally solve minor problems that you run into when using the devices, etc.
Using digital devices is the same for your brain as heavy, repetitive physical labour is to your body; in small amounts it might even be healthy, but several hours every day is going to destroy your body/mind.
> Can you think of other activities that require this?
Well, reading books (and other documents). I also am suspicious of screens (and specially spending too much time on them... I'm certainly guilty), but the existence of books is somewhat confusing in this regard. However, I really don't think the population as a whole was reading quite as many books/documents as we today use digital devices or social media. That could be cutting into other things, like sun exposure, exercising, perhaps face-to-face social relationships, social support networks.
Something I've noticed since about that time as well is a growing unease and pessimism with our collective future (and even present!). Some things are bleak (like climate change, uncertainty with technologies, etc.), but there's a sense of little hope that definitely should have an impact on the youth. I remember the 90s as a quite hopeful time and that definitely had an impact on my mood. My personal contribution would be spreading more hope about life.
My favorite author w.r.t. this right now that I recommend is Jane Goodall:
Growing up in the 2000s I remember there was much more excitement and optimism for the future. Now it seems to range from cynicism to dread to abject paranoia. Or perhaps my liberal use of cannabis in my younger years shifted me into a more paranoid timeline... alas!
Re: books being less stressful, I think e-ink is a great example. It feels more solid, more permanent, even though the text changes when you swipe the page. It seems to be a combination of the "paper" look making it seem less virtual (than the blinkenlights matrix), and the impossibility of scrolling on e-ink making it by necessity a more calming medium.
Real books are even better, of course, in both regards, but can't compete on price / delivery time.
Just as another point of anecdata, I feel the same way in terms of optimism that has shifted more towards dread. It's definitely not cannabis use. It may be a general en fecha of getting older, though.
Yeah that's a limitation of my memory, my brain was completely different than it is now! It might be that 8 year olds today feel the same excitement for the future that me and my friends did back then.
I sure hope so, but I find it hard to imagine. Most of my excitement came from the constant positive science news at the time. Seems all I hear now is bad news.
> Some things are bleak (like climate change, uncertainty with technologies, etc.), but there's a sense of little hope that definitely should have an impact on the youth. I remember the 90s as a quite hopeful time and that definitely had an impact on my mood. My personal contribution would be spreading more hope about life.
I was a child in the 70s/80s and I was in constant fear of Nuclear War/Winter. The level of fear in kids of that generation I suspect is as bad as any generation after.
> Something I've noticed since about that time as well is a growing unease and pessimism with our collective future (and even present!).
This is why I like movies and stories about the world coming together to overcome great difficulties. Like Pacific Rim, for instance. I'd love to hear more stories like that, no matter how far-fetched. I'd especially like to get some of the pariah states (North Korea, Iran) to be welcomed in for some more team high-fives. We really do need optimistic visions of the future to keep us going.
I think it's the connectivity of the digital devices that is specifically at fault, and that offline-only digital devices wouldn't cause this. At any moment, my phone or computer may deliver unwelcome news to me. My boss asking me about some work shit, my family with some sort of unwelcome sad news, or whatever. In the past these would have been relatively mundane stresses, but now there is a social expectation that everybody be attentive to incoming communications at all times. You get at most a few hours a night where people don't expect you to respond, but even then sometimes they forget about timezones and freak out when they don't get a prompt response. There is never any real reprieve and it's starting to seem like this represents a permanent cultural shift.
I have another hunch: that working as a programmer, and maybe with computers in general, is anxiety-inducing. As Campbell put it, computers are like old testament gods: lots of rules and no mercy.
Exactly, everything (outside some probability (which is still a discrete decision point) comes to 0 and 1. I am a big believer of the core assumptions in any system having outsized effects in practice
> My theory is that just using digital devices for anything is somewhat stressful
I don’t know, talking to the government and figuring out stuff about your taxes or health coverage over the internet is soooo much less stressful than if I have to call, or worse, go there in person, wait an hour, and have to talk to someone who really doesn’t want to solve my problem.
I can now pay my property taxes online and know it’s done, instead of sending them a letter and hoping for the best, that’s such an improvement.
Ugh, I guess it varies from person but for me (nearly?) every human contact is somewhat stressful, even watching humans interact can be very stressful. Using devices is downright bliss and calmness in comparison. I'm so happy when I see people interacting with their devices. I feel they are more like me and I feel safer with them than with people who don't.
Not sure if it's true for everyone, but you can see this when you're staying with others or have guests. When they're gone, you can relax and just sit or read or continue a game you'd started or look at your phone guilt free. That's the calmness you mention. You're not starting/maintaining conversation, maintaining eye contact, am I wearing the right thing, etc.
But how much is that and how much is addiction to the device/content? For most people in 202x, I'd guess these things are part and parcel.
Really? Here in Finland I see a lot of products in the supermarket that claim to be made out of "100% recycled plastic". I can't really compare volumes of plastic waste vs recycled plastic products, but it seems that at least some of the recycled material is put to use.
> As a layman non-scientist, I wonder why we see so many relatively low-value observational studies in diet/nutrition, often with results that get contradicted or fail to replicate a few years later.
On my peak fitness enthusiasm I kept a rigorous food diary for some time and it was such a pain in the ass that I don't believe for a second that food diaries coming from people who are not 100% committed and interested in keeping one are accurate at all. People would often forget to log small snacks they have, or estimate portion sizes completely wrong, or neglect logging sauces, oils, condiments, etc.
> "People who consumed more than 20% of daily calories from processed foods had a 28% faster decline in global cognition and a 25% faster decline in executive functioning compared to people who ate less than 20%,"
I wish they just showed a graph of "decline in cognition" vs "percentage of calories from processed foods" instead of making me try to parse the relevant information out of sentences like that. What 10% of my calories come from processed foods? I'm I completely safe or is the effect linear in percentage of calories or what?
Indeed. I hate the term "ultraprocessed" so much, because I have no idea what to look for if I try to avoid it.
If I chop my potatoes before boiling them, is that processing? If not, which steps in cooking count as "processing"? And how many of those steps need to be included for the food to be "ultraprocessed"? How can I avoid accidentally "ultraprocessing" my food when I cook it at home?
The definition I heard (apparently by the Brazilian woman that did the first research) was "any ingredient that wouldn't be found in a regular kitchen". Not meaning things like rutabagas or mangosteen, but rather things like xantham gum, soy lecithin, and things with organic chemical names. So by definition you cannot ultra-process your food in your home kitchen.
I think the name is lousy, but I think the reason is that things like xantham gum and soy lecithin are there to provide texture. For example, low-fat yogurt has some of these in it because if you take the fat out, it doesn't have the same texture (probably isn't even solid), so you need to do some processing to get it to the same place. See [1] for a summary.
There's a podcast on the BBC where a doctor tries to get his twin doctor brother of ultra-processed food. Unfortunately, most of the episodes involve emotional issues, but they do have a few minutes of interviews with major researchers. [3] is sort of a summary.
Xanthan gum is sold in major UK supermarkets. I have some myself; I use it for thickening home-made hot sauce. It works well for this because it exhibits "shear thinning". It's viscous enough to hold everything in suspension when it's in the bottle, but when you pour it the viscosity decreases, so it's easy to get it out.
Why are you seeking absolute definitions where none exist? If you have to ask, its probably bad for you. Edges of the grocery store, avoid the aisles, ingredients-not-meals, things not in packaging.... Rules of thumbs abound. Next, a bit of ultra processed stuff is obviously not going to kill you. Some soy sauce, or the ocassional frozen pizza is obviously OK. And its obvious that your example is needlessly contrived. No, its not processing.
This whole thread reads like pedantry for the sake of it.
This is a bit crude way to put it, but maybe you're right.
At least for me, becoming a father changed my perspective on everything so much that it's almost like I'm not even the same species anymore as I was before having them. Sometimes people without children feel like they're not even proper adults even if they are older and/or more senior at work or whatever.
FWIW, This doesn't sound like a healthy place for you to be.
Childless people giving parenting advice to people with children is on average going to be just as off target as most times where humans try to give advice without any personal lived experience. It doesn't indicate anything else though, prima facie.
> Spot on, I’m so different now than I was then I disregard anything anyone without kids says.
I would posit this is universally correct. Us not-parents can "believe" we can accurately imagine what you go through or what we would do in your place. Theoretically speaking, the theory matches reality :)
Yet imagining is literally not enough! People without children do not viscerally know what it is to parent, 24/7 for the rest of your days for the foreseeable future. How the accumulated indescribable-joy and the mounting exhaustion that you simultaneously carry influences slash impacts your decision-making and relentlessly molds the options you'll choose to make for the rest of your life.
Good luck explaining how different this parenting experience can be for every person and child, even within the same family in the same environment two children can be polar opposites with no obvious reason other than "life finds a way".
> I feel like they’re not real adults too.
I say this with all my empathy: the fact that for you parenting is such a core part of the adult experience is not only correct but beautiful, and anybody who tries to invalidate that is extremely wrong.
That said, there is another layer of unkindness in your position that you must unpack yourself, if you wish to have adult-level relationships with people with a different set of adult-core concepts.
> Maybe, but again, I don't see why that should be necessary. Tesla should not have been able to do this, period.
Maybe you're right. However, much of the modern hardware business operates this way. At least Nvidia and Intel have been known to sell the same chips as different models, but just some part of the chip disabled via firmware.
> Sounds like all around bad decisions. The previous owner shouldn't have sold it as a 90 or at least disclosed that, "It's a 60 but Tesla swapped out the batter with a 90 and left it configured as a 90".
To be fair, for people not intimately familiar with the craziness of modern tech business, it's reasonable to assume that whatever capabilities the car has at the moment of purchase, are going to be there indefinitely. On the face of it, cutting car battery remotely via software patch sounds about as reasonable as remotely removing a room from a house you purchased.
Totally different context, but at my company, they started reusing some IDs that are supposed to be unique because they ran out of them and the old-as-fuck computer systems can't handle longer IDs.
But you're right that there should be schools that teach the practical programming skills. But it's the the trade schools that should be developed towards this goal, not universities.