Pseudorandom Thoughts

people in the silicon valley who has gone through the so-called "dot bomb" era are probably more familiar with dilution in terms of stocks -- how the management desperate for money to keep the company alive (or, to line their own pockets before jumping ship) dilute the value of the stock held by the rank-and-file by suddenly issuing lots of stock to give to VCs (or themselves). inflation gone wild.

pretty soon, like homeopathic medicine, there's nothing left.

last night we went to see a movie. we got to the theater early, so we had to sit through not only the movie trailers but also the interminable advertisements. you know the kind: slide shows of random ads intermixed with movie trivia questions and answers. now, trailers are often selected based on audience demographics, but i have no idea whether the pre-trailer ads are or not. i suspect not.

but to get the facts down, the movie was downfall.

the ads for restaurants, dentists, florists, and that sort of thing aren't unusual. pretty generic. one was for vocational training. okay, maybe thinking that some audience members might want to become a paralegal, a firefighter, or a paramedic is reasonable. maybe most would qualify.

more restaurants and movie trivia.

wait, here's another educational themed one:

no travelling.

get your master's degree in software engineering from cmu west.

moffett field, mountain view.

my mouth dropped.

as a cmu alumnus, i can't help but feel that its reputation is being sold cheaply. i had first seen the lighted billboard along 101 advertising the MS degree, but the movie theater advertising is the straw that made me put fingers on keyboard. will cmu next advertise in the pennysaver? on the back of matchbooks?

yeah, what you get out of an education is inside, the knowledge, skills, and experiences that one takes away with you. the reputation of the institution, which may have served to draw you there in the first place, doesn't matter as much. and a research graduate degree is different from a terminal MS in SE.

but i can't help feeling that the value of my degree got diluted.