On Wednesday 14 July 2021 10:40:03 Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside wrote: > Hi, > > On 2021-07-14 8:23 a.m., Dan Ritter wrote: > > ellanios82 wrote: > >> - have heard it opined that MDs & Dentists are seldom good > >> investors, for the reason that they are used to usually being > >> 'Right' > > > > I'm not sure what this has to do with Debian, but this overlaps > > with my professional interests. > > > > As far as I can tell, the reason that MDs and dentists are > > notable as bad investors is the same reason that they are > > notable as bad pilots: in the middle to end of their careers > > they have lots of money and no particular life experience other > > than their professions. They look for something that is > > appealing on the surface, put just enough time into it to > > convince themselves that they are going to be quite good at it > > because they are already successful, and then crash. > > I can only agree with you, being MD myself. Well, I'd better say used > to be MD. But again, that's wrong because I still got the diploma but > ain't doing the usual job MD do. > > > https://generalaviationnews.com/2017/03/29/the-doctor-killer/ > > > > Luckily, programming is a useful alternative hobby for medical > > professionals. As long as you stay away from certain obscure > > areas -- say, device drivers and financial software -- the > > penalties for screwing up are much lower. > > > > If you like your doctor or dentist, encourage them to learn > > Debian and get into programming rather than daytrading or > > piloting. > > We maybe don't remember but if we go back 30 years or so ago, most > people who graduated with a master in science, chemistry, physics or > such all had to learn programming. Why ? Because they used it as a > tool for doing research, making library of math function for analysis > of data... My father-in-law as part of his master in geophysics used > some Fortran to do waveform analysis, looking out for sign of > specifics rock formation. All this produced truck load of data and he > had to analyze it. In the early 80s, there was not many math package > like we had today, even less that connected directly to signal > acquisition system. So he built one with a DEC PDP-11.
Off topic reply for sure. And that was his first mistake. As a former TV Chief Engineer I had to deal with all the computerized systems a tv station can acquire, and the PDP-11/23 CBS sold us for satellite dish control was by far the least dependable I ever had to deal with. The Digital Field Engineers changed everything in that machine but the frame rail with the serial number was on, without any effect on the 4 or 5 times a day silent crash. So we aired a crap load of dog food commercials when we were supposed to be selling breakfast foods or diapers, and we don't get paid for those mistakes. Eventually I forced CBS to replace it with an IBM based system which ran from power outage to power outage. Affiliate system wide, on CBS's dime. > Today with the ease of the new software, most people will only use > end-user software but in those days, you build your own. > He even developed a molecule display program for the Commodore 64... We often wrote our own software, but I almost always used a trs-80 color computer, much easier to program in os9 or basic09. But as a learning experiment, the first I wrote was on an 1802 based board but I was the assembler, looking up the hex codes in the rca programmers manual. All the board had was a hex monitor. The finished program then lived in the KRCR control room in Redding CA for 14 years that I know of, in use many times a day. That's a couple eons in the average broadcast facility. > > -dsr- Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
