I also live in Germany and am currently writing the thesis for my masters degree in CS. In my case, I wished I left college after getting my bachelor. I had a solid foundation of theoretical CS knowledge after 3 years. I continued to study only because I wanted the degree, in case I "need" it later to get a job.
For over a year now I didn't see any lectures, but have been working at a company instead. I had all my exams, the only thing I have left to do is my thesis. It's hard motivating yourself to do scientific work if you know you can get by just fine without it. And all just for a degree that doesn't matter (to me at least).
What's the cost for a semester these days? Did they introduce fees?
What you're doing would be a very unlikely scenario in systems where studying is setting you back a couple of thousands every term, i.e. Australia, UK or the US.
I used to believe this based purely on having heard it all my life. But a friend of mine recently made an interesting point: he asked me what race homeless people are. My answer (at least here in LA) was that they're almost unanimously black or white. Never Asian. Never indian. Rarely Mexican.
I countered that it could be due to Asian and Mexican cultures being more culturally inclined to take care of their own, but I haven't fully convinced myself that that's the case.
My friend who made this point happens to be black, and his explanation was that having grown up in a black neighborhood, he noticed that black and white people have a sense of entitlement that other races don't often have, both for reasons that don't need explaining, and that that type of attitude begets unfortunate circumstances. I don't know whether I entirely agree with this point either, but it certainly makes you think.
It's very possible I'm off base here. I'm going purely on observation and anecdotal things. Do you happen to have any hard stats off hand?
Edit:
I looked it up. You're right in that Latinos hold the second highest percentage of homelessness at 33%, but when you consider population size, it sort of becomes irrelevant. Latinos make up 47% of the total population in LA. Blacks make up only 9% however they're a full 50% of the homeless population. This means that per capita, Latinos are 5 times less likely to be homeless than blacks.
The SF Chron (check the earlier links) distinguishes between "chronic homeless" and "hardcore homeless". Chronic homelessness appears to be more of an economic condition related to poverty. "Hardcore homelessness" is more severe condition, a permanent and very harsh life on the street, often related to addiction and mental illness. You might not even notice the chronic homeless in your day to day life.
Apparently, San Francisco does stand out in the high incidence of hardcore homelessness. Supposedly SF and NY have the same number of "hardcore homeless", even though SF has about 1/10 the population (though any time you get into these ratios, you have to remember that SF is a small geographic region and population within much larger bay area - if you drew a 48 square mile border around an urban core in NY or LA, the numbers probably wouldn't look so dramatically different - my guess is that SF would still look bad, but not by anywhere near this order of magnitude).
I would venture to guess it has something to do with blacks having historically been isolated from the opportunities that other races have had, and that even though things have improved, we're still seeing the lasting effects of centuries of prohibitive behavior.
Come to think of it, I've never met a homeless Asian on Indian before. I see plenty of Asians working their asses off in shitty conditions in chinatowns to feed their kids so they can go off to college some day. You're right, it does make you think.
"Yet there are homeless Asians. Isabelle Hsu reports in the Pacific News Service that in San Francisco alone there are approximately 6,000 plus people living in the streets. She quickly adds that this is a very rough estimate. Ed Jew (the only Chinese American on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s committee to end chronic homelessness) explains that the official estimate of Asian homelessness is probably low because of cultural sensitivities. It is also a matter of saving face: homeless Asians refuse to go to shelters and admit to their homelessness."
There is some truth to this:
"According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffers from some form of severe mental illness."[1]
Mental disorders prevent people from carrying out essential aspects of daily life, such as self-care, household management and interpersonal relationships. Homeless people with mental disorders remain homeless for longer and have less contact with family and friends. Any type of help from friends and family can be misinterpreted and further pushed towards the cycle of poverty.
First of all, the title of this post is pretty misleading. From reading it, I assumed some privacy nightmare story.
But the point the author makes is great: Think about the price of the customer service you receive. You're getting that service for free, so someone else has to pay for it.
Quite an interesting point. You suggest that the act of doing something mechanical does add emotional value to it. But what adds even more is time. Look at your Facebook posts from five years ago, or even your tweets from last year. Time passing makes you feel different about things.
I think the emotional appeal of those pictures pasted to the wall comes from the sheer age of them, in sharp contrast to the high tech equipment in the same room.
I am more concerned about the preservation of our postings than the emotional value. Things that really matter will produce the same emotions regardless of the medium.
If you have the attention of people now, let them play with the Alpha version now so you can learn truth fast about how others perceive the problem, and your hypothesis that your app has the ability to solve it.
Also, don't sweat all of the negative posts. It is way too easy to pick holes in the work of others, especially at an early stage.
Do however look for the common themes commenters dislike, as your next code/design/pr effort can address these.
I find it interesting to what lengths parents go to improve their children's grades. The fact that grades indeed go up after taking those pills just make this worse: people believe to see "measurable" success.
“We’ve decided as a society that it’s too expensive to modify the kid’s environment. So we have to modify the kid." - To me that is the gist of the article. We failed to provide an enjoyable learning experience for kids, so we have to make them enjoy it.
Or we just switch off the bits inside them that yearn for enjoyment in the first place. Our kids are either academic robots or suffering from a disorder of being human, and thus imperfect.
