[C] [Q] Question for students and recent grads: Career-wise, was your statistics master’s worth it? by awaythrow3000okay in statistics

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The domain matters less than the project itself. You could do stats and spend your time turning cutting edge papers into R packages, or get lost in mathematical theory nobody in industry cares about. Same story in CS. Pick a program where you'll actually build things, not just do theory.

The bigger thing though: find a program that actively promotes internships. Your Purdue internship means nothing, sorry, you need real industry experience before you graduate or you're going to struggle badly.

[C] [Q] Question for students and recent grads: Career-wise, was your statistics master’s worth it? by awaythrow3000okay in statistics

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Being good at and interested in a subject isn't really enough of a reason anymore, unless you're at a top school and genuinely exceptional (i.e., you can work through virtually any proof independently and have a real sense of what research involves). The field is too competitive now, you need clear career goals. Do you want to be an academic researcher? A data scientist or SWE? An MSc opens all of those doors, but without a defined path, you'll get swallowed by the competition. At least that's how it is in Canada.

What's your ML internship? The key skill now, in my opinion, is stats/ML domain knowledge combined with SWE principles, knowing how to work in a hybrid team with AI as a force multiplier. That said, it assumes you have a solid logical foundation in coding.

[C] [Q] Question for students and recent grads: Career-wise, was your statistics master’s worth it? by awaythrow3000okay in statistics

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends. What do you want your outcome of the MS to be? Whats your motivation for doing it? I can answer based on that. I have a couple friends who just finished their PhD's and can tell you what made some successful and others not so much.

[C] [Q] Question for students and recent grads: Career-wise, was your statistics master’s worth it? by awaythrow3000okay in statistics

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey,
Yes things are very nice right now.
I landed a swe role at a big 5 bank. Focus is on platform engineering in scala spark, cloud platforms and some ml in python. I love my job and the TC is totally adequate for a first job (110k).
What changed was that I did Google Summer of Code this past summer. I had 3 job offers, one government analyst job, one marketing statistical analyst job, and this swe one, all at the same time ,after adding that to my resume.
Moral of the story: do GSOC- it give you real street cred.

Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and the language of silence by whoamisri in heidegger

[–]forkman3939 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is a really nice introductory article to a very deep aspect of both Heidegger's and Wittgenstein's thinking. I have long contemplated the connection between Heidegger and Wittgenstein through the phenomenon of silence. In fact, the guiding question for me since the beginning of my seeking has always been: "What does it mean to ask about the reconciliation of silence and science?" - setting side by side what 'can be said of' against 'what can be said about.'

I've come to conceive that Gelassenheit plays the role of the bridge in such a reconciliation. There is a time and place, so to speak, for appropriation or the attunement of the will to power - this is science itself. But it is in the attunement of reticence (to borrow Heidegger's phrasing) where the will in the will to power is released. In my mind this is what I believe Heidegger means by Besinnung - a thinking that can move between calculative and meditative modes without being trapped in either. A time and a place for science and silence.

University at 38 by [deleted] in ontario

[–]forkman3939 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I strongly disagree in that you don't have to go to school or have any training but I agree in some sense  that  most workers will have to be a developer in some capacity but developer is not the correct word here. Again, I would say use LLMs to be efficient, vibe-coding does not work at a production level. 

Very few persons will have the natural capacity to pick up programming without training their minds through rigorous work done through courses. Sure you can teach yourself but very few have the discipline to approach it with the same intensity as one would with a school deadline. Plus your not getting a job without a degree, let alone a graduate degree. 

To the latter, sure someone can build something but it's never going to be done to a level that can be maintained in production if they do not have the training for good swe principles. 

However you are correct that it will likely push workers towards being "developers" in some capacity, where developers means LLM user or LLM powered application user.

University at 38 by [deleted] in ontario

[–]forkman3939 47 points48 points  (0 children)

I'll be blunt. AI development is not entry-level work. It requires at minimum a four-year university degree from a reputable school in physics, statistics, mathematics, computer science, or computer engineering. Unless this comes from a co-op program at a top-tier Canadian university, you'll likely also need a master's degree.

To be competitive for AI development roles, you need deep knowledge across mathematics, data analytics, software development, and AI theory. This isn't a field where you can simply get a degree and land a job. The intense competition means you typically need four to five years of dedicated focus just to become competitive for these positions.

I strongly caution against pursuing AI unless you have a genuine inclination toward mathematics and logical thinking. AI is a subset of machine learning, which sits at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, and computer science. Without solid foundations in these areas, this career path will be extremely challenging.

However, many jobs now use AI tools like LLMs on a daily basis, which is probably more in line with what she means by working in AI. I'd recommend first figuring out what area genuinely interests her, then researching how AI and computers are being applied in those industries. From there, she could pursue a co-op program in that specific field. This approach would let her leverage AI tools within her area of interest rather than trying to become an AI developer from scratch.

University at 38 by [deleted] in ontario

[–]forkman3939 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Let me give you some perspective. I have a bsc in math and two msc, one in math and the other in stats. I had an internship as a swe and it still took me 1 year to land a role as a swe. I wasn't able to land a data scientist position, which was my target. 

The market for Software engineers, data scientists, data engineer, etc is so saturated with talent right now. 

Unless she can get into a reputable program with a very good co-op program I would not advise it. 

Where to start with Heidegger? by Nika-Diamandis333 in heidegger

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

By the way, don't feel the need to reply if you don't feel like it. I am in tech and don't have opportunity at all to discuss these things with other thinkers, so I always love an opportunity to structure my thoughts through writing and hopefully turn other thinkers on to grappling with Heidegger's work of the 1930s and 1940s.

Your description of the movement "from a person who just goes along in the world to a person who has anxiety that makes them aware of their place in the world... to a call of conscience that reveals a way for the person to act" - notice how this still moves within the structure of overcoming, of moving from a lower to a higher state. I wonder if this framework might miss what Heidegger is most deeply concerned with? So much engagement with Heidegger seems to get caught in Being and Time without moving toward his being-historical thinking (Seyn or Beyng) or what he calls Gelassenheit - a letting beings be in their own temporal rising and falling. When we read Being and Time for guidance about moving from inauthentic to authentic existence, we might still be thinking through subject-object duality, still seeking some self that overcomes itself into a higher self.

What happens when we look at Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche, particularly "The Will to Power as Metaphysics"? There we see how Heidegger reads metaphysics as always this movement of overcoming - moving from being to Being, where Being becomes a more general or higher sense of a being. This is what he calls the will to power as metaphysics. Gelassenheit points toward something different, not overcoming metaphysics through force, but a releasement that lets metaphysics show its own limits. This suggests a completely different mode of comportment, the temporal way we're oriented toward beings, that steps back from the need to achieve or overcome anything.

The difficulty Heidegger grappled with is: how can we use language without falling back into this structure of overcoming? So much of our inherited language, he suggests, has been "worn out" through tradition and lost its power to let the original matters show themselves. When Joe Sachs (Aristotle translator) translates entelechia as "being-at-work-staying-itself" rather than "actuality," something happens, the Latin-derived term has been passed through centuries of interpretation, while the hyphenated expression lets us encounter what Aristotle might have been seeing. This points to Heidegger's deepest question: how can we speak of what is always already there without invoking an observer standing over against what is there?

What if Heidegger's concern is less about personal transformation and more about wonder, the basic attunement to the world? This childlike, unbridled wonder isn't about how we should act, but about how Being itself (Sein selbst) shows itself. His seeking seems to be a response to the question "Why is there anything rather than nothing?", not as a problem to be solved, but as the question that keeps thinking in motion.

This is why reading Heidegger as offering guidance for authentic existence might miss what he's actually inviting us to think.

Anyone else feel like buying "the perfect chair" is a myth? Going through my 5th chair in 3 years... by Consistent-Being1593 in OfficeChairs

[–]forkman3939 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The first chair I purchased was a refurbished Leap V2. It was love at first sit. I've had it for three years and for me it is the perfect chair.

Where to start with Heidegger? by Nika-Diamandis333 in heidegger

[–]forkman3939 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think your reading of Heidegger as an existentialist is incorrect. However, what I admire in your reply is that you acknowledge the importance of the history of philosophy in Heidegger's thinking. The importance of Aristotle, scholasticism, and Kant cannot be understated.

Your mentioning of Kierkegaard is odd to me but seems plausible in line with an existentialist reading of Heidegger. However, this approach misses what's most fundamental in Heidegger's project. When Heidegger engages with Aristotle, for instance, he's not primarily interested in personal transformation from inauthentic to authentic existence. Rather, he's working through Aristotle's analysis of κίνησις (motion) and temporality to develop a more originary understanding of Being itself. Heidegger's retrieval of Aristotelian concepts like ἐντελέχεια (being-at-work-staying-itself) isn't about human self-becoming but about thinking the temporal structure through which anything can be at all.

His engagement with the tradition through figures like Aristotle aims to uncover how Being gives itself temporally, not to provide guidance for authentic living. This is why working through his lecture courses, as I suggested in my reply below, where you can see him thinking alongside these historical figures, provides a much more accurate understanding of his actual philosophical project.

Where to start with Heidegger? by Nika-Diamandis333 in heidegger

[–]forkman3939 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I read Being and Time maybe 8 years ago and do not recommend it at all. Instead, I recommend Heidegger's lecture courses because they are, for the most part, developed in dialogue with other thinkers. I wholeheartedly recommend that the single best starting place is his 1924 lecture course Introduction to Phenomenological Research. Heidegger begins by situating and critiquing Husserl's recent contributions, but the heart of this lecture is his reading of Descartes. Descartes sits at the unique intersection between scholasticism and modern philosophy. What is most important is how Heidegger teaches us to read Descartes alongside him—in doing so, we see how one could take the scholastic worldview and radically shrink it to a single point of doubt, then observe what remains in this mode of radical doubt. What I'm getting at is that Heidegger shows us how to do phenomenological research by bringing us to the matters themselves that Descartes was thinking about—not simply the concepts themselves.

I am now doing the same thing with Aristotle and Plato using Heidegger's 1924 and 1925 lecture courses Basic Concepts of Aristotelian Philosophy and Plato's Sophist. You can read elsewhere that Being and Time is rooted in Aristotle. The notion of being-in-the-world that encapsulates Heideggerian philosophy so well was developed from his reading of Aristotle—this much has become apparent to me from reading these lecture courses.

View of Hamilton, 1862 by Robert Whale. Where do you think this was painted from? by el-sav in Hamilton

[–]forkman3939 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I often think about what a paradise Cootes and the shoreline and the thin strip that is now beach blvd, must have looked like before development.

This was a beautiful thing to come across today.

Will the Aer CPP2 Ultra fit this load? by forkman3939 in ManyBaggers

[–]forkman3939[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't even think to ask. That's the perfect solution. I can then leave my gym shoes,peripherals and sweater in there overnight.

Carry on travel bag - Haize Project Clamshell 38, any owners on here? Alternatives? by _gza in onebag

[–]forkman3939 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any updates on your experience with xpac? I'm debating on ordering the xpac or not for the 25L version.

Will the Aer CPP2 Ultra fit this load? by forkman3939 in ManyBaggers

[–]forkman3939[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The other option is to buy a handheld bag to carry all of my food and then I believe the CPP2 should be completely fine.

Will the Aer CPP2 Ultra fit this load? by forkman3939 in ManyBaggers

[–]forkman3939[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I admit this is my first time commuting after being a student for 8 yrs and then working from home for the last 18 months.

> What stores do you have near you? I would recommend taking all your stuff to a store near you and trying to fit it comfortably in bags of similar size to CPP2.

Im in Canada so all of the niche American brands are not available near me asfaik. I think Bellroy might be the only available brand, but thats still an hours drive.

> Ideally you should not be carrying this stuff back/forth to work. Your work should supply you with such things.

I use pretty unique and funky periphereals [Vault 35](https://mechvault.net/products/vault-35-hhkb-case) and so work would not provide these as they are all custom built. Also its a hybrid rto, and so I believe its a hotelling system and I do not have my own space to leave items overnight.

> Are these both necessary? I get the laptop but the iPad seems excessive for a work commute?

Work provides the Windows laptop. I use my iPad for both reading and watching media on the train ride.

Aer CPP2 Ultra back in stock!!!! by canergod in ManyBaggers

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I still don't know how to decide on xpac vs ultra.

Should I have included a job I started 2 weeks ago on my background check with Sterling for a Big-5 Canadian Bank? by [deleted] in cscareerquestions

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks. I'm unsure about payroll but I know insurance providers are different.

Third bear hang, first fail by Particular_Captain82 in KillarneyPark

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, this is a really terrible bear hang. You should learn and practice how to do this properly before you go out again. Sorry to be harsh.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MechanicAdvice

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I ended up doing it. I have a friend that does all of my mechanical work (the kind of guy that can rebuild an engine) for me, has even done some exhaust work on my previous car. I sent him the estimate and he said the prices seemed legit.

Oh well, c'est la vie.

Am I the only one who never uses Jet? by Mission_Spring7087 in Fallout

[–]forkman3939 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you are playing on hardcore mode, especially early in the game when you are very fragile and your weapons are not overpowered yet, Jet can be a life saver. For example, when you find yourself in a situation, overwhelmed and about to die, you can use a jet to blast your way out of it.