Spartaco Pécora {🇻🇪 ⋂ 🇮🇹} @zpartacoos@social.cleverlibre.org

@CameoJiraffe your story reminds me of my cousin. She actually tried to finish college for about 9 years and kept lying to the family claiming that she had switched from one engineering degree to another. In the end, she realized that for what she wanted to do (business management) the degree didn't matter too much and the only real reason for her wanting to do it in the first place was due to my uncle forcing it on her and saying that if you don't get an education you'll be a nobody.

I think in this day and age, this is certainly not the case. So, if you want to be a doctor, sure get a degree. Almost any other career makes it optional. Accountants can get certified without degrees. Even in more technical fields like software engineering or if you want to be a mechanical engineer you can learn math up to differential equations online (i.e Khan academy) then take some coursera courses on fluid mechanics, thermodynamics and CAD modelling then apply that to a real project and fill a personal portfolio. You'll probably learn more than in the degree and be better prepared for industry where you'll always need to be teaching yourself new things anyway. Idk, that's my 2 cents.

@code4cville welcome 👋

@jmw150 Hmm. That's somewhat true. If you live in a big city you probably have internet access but in more rural places it can be more difficult due to electricity being very inconsistent and you can go several hours and sometimes days without it. Also, at least in Venezuela not long ago (around 2012), less than 50% of population had access to internet and just because you have access to it doesn't mean it's reliable, on top of that, the Gov nationalized internet service with "CanTV" and it's basically utter shit + they censor the crap out of it.

I guess a much cheaper version of Elon's Starlink + consistent electric grid would could solve this issue and once you have widespread easy internet it's fair game for all in terms of information availability as you mentioned.

Pfizer has been accused of “bullying” Latin American govts in COVID-19 vaccine negotiations ...
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Even as somebody who is economically conservative it seems clear to me that a company shouldn't be able to put entire governments and people's lives at risk in this way just so they can cash in some extra $$.

I guess that one of my old teachers in Venezuela was right when he kept banging on about how we needed to be more self sufficient in Latin America and not depend on Western medicine and devices. I used to disagree. I have reconsidered my position on this matter and now believe that most countries should have enough self sufficiency to develop their own tech, not necessarily to the same standard as USA/UK/EU/JN, etc.. but at least good enough that if somebody tries to bully us we can depend on our own stuff and not be forced to just give in to all their demands.

Probably unfeasible in the short-mid time frame but perhaps in the next 50-70 years if high quality education and infrastructure reaches our Barrios then we'll see more local startups and innovation.
 https://science.thewire.in/health/pfizer-demands-governments-gamble-with-state-assets-to-secure-vaccine-deal/

@pedrohgb@mastodon.online nice to meet you. I'm also interested in IoT and more generally in embedded systems. Looking forward to great conversations.

@lucifargundam I've been sticking to ubuntu for the last few years (with all telemetry off) as in my [limited] experience it's the least crash prone distro. I also have Zorin, Kali and Ubuntu mate on my secondary machines. So, I'd say Ubuntu-based distros but that's due practicality. Like, in principle I'd like to be able to use something like Trisquel that is 100% foss but unfortunately I need Nvidia drivers for my work.

@freemo I figured this was the right place when I saw that it was for scientist and that it stood for "Question Others, Teach Others".

#introductions Hi sentients of Qoto. I'm an AI student from 🇻🇪 living in 🇬🇧. My biggest intellectual interest is in theoretical neuroscience. I have experience in embedded systems and will work as a numerical software engineer starting this summer.

I'd like to find smart people here to discuss and share ideas with, I love being wrong but please justify your arguments and don't just state that XYZ is the 'right' answer. Particularly when it comes to politics. If you oversimplify arguments then I will ignore you.

Fav music -> Latin American indie + Lo-Fi

Tech-> Love all things GNU/Linux

-- Español
#introducción
Hola gente de Qoto. Soy un estudiante de inteligencia artificial. Me encanta aprender sobre la neurociencia teórica. Tengo experiencia en sistemas embebidos y software en general. Me gusta la música indie y todo relacionado con GNU+Linux.

Espero conocer gente inteligente para discutir y cambiar ideas. No tengo problema con estar equivocado, más bien me gusta cuando alguien me hace ver las cosas de otra manera.

Just transferred from mastodon.online