hello hey how you doing
hello
not bad not bad What's your name
Fernando
Fernando my name is Nick
wait let me turn off my stereo here
sure
because i've been like waiting like for about ten minutes to get connected to somebody yeah
really
man am i
right what time is it over there are you are you in Dallas
no no i'm in Detroit or not Detroit i'm in uh California
are you
yeah i
because every time i got through i went to Dallas Texas
really
yeah i'm in North Carolina
oh well you're on the uh lets see
on the other coast
yeah twenty one
yeah shoot man it's what midnight almost
what yeah yeah it's uh i'm watching Saturday Night Live here
yeah okay all right well i guess we're supposed to talk what about credit card
what wait what what did how how did you get to know about the TI thing
oh one of my instructors uh said that they were doing something like this and
what what are you working on
a a Master's in uh information systems
really i'm doing my Master's in in Computer Science and Computer Engineering
yeah where at
at North Carolina State University
hey how do you like it out there
uh i don't because uh
i come from a lot a bigger city than this one and i i'm in Raleigh and
yeah
Raleigh Durham yeah
yeah that area and it's really small all all you have is like towns built around universities like Chapel Hill
uh-huh
yeah so it it's basically a bunch of small towns anyway kind of quaint little towns but they don't have a whole lot there
yeah
where are you at
uh well i'm in Monterey California right now
oh okay so so i mean it's like this this town probably has like two hundred and fifty thousand people and that's about it
yeah
two hundred fifty
yeah
okay it it's it's a lot bigger than Monterey is but we're just uh just south of uh San Jose and San Francisco
oh okay
and it's only a couple of hours away or a hour away to a you know to a large city
so so where do you go do you go to Berkeley
no no i go to the it's the Naval Postgraduate school out here
oh okay because um i was looking at at the doctorate degree in Computer Science center at Berkeley
um-hum
and they're asking like for a um GPA of like three point seven or something like that and like they're looking like for uh GRE like ninety nine percentile and this and that and it's like
uh-huh
yeah
well that's what they look for whether or not they get it it's hard to say
yeah i know that's why that's why i didn't apply i mean it was like
yeah
for me it was like practically impossible to get between like ninety and ninety nine percentile on the on the verbal part
yeah it's pretty tough it's pretty tough i mean uh let's face it you know and you know are you did the you know as far as i found it a lot of times with regards to education you know the school only takes you so far you know it's what you do
yeah
you know so uh i don't lose any sleep sleep over stuff like that
so are are you going to go for your doctorate
probably not see i'm in the Navy
yeah
and uh you know unless the Navy funds it i probably won't do it until i if i do do it it will be after i get out of the Navy
when do you get out
oh probably be another twelve years
oh okay
oh you know i like what i'm doing right now
but uh but what if they pay for it
what if they pay for
excuse me
if they pay for a PhD
yeah
nah they won't pay for it they've i think they have maybe two people a year go get get their PhD
because i know i know a couple of people here that work for um the Army um
yeah they civilians or uh military
i think i think they're military but i mean the guy is still in
uh-huh
and um he uh he works over in Maryland
uh-huh
um-hum
and so he's doing his Master's here they gave him like a scholarship like for a year and he's doing it in like in a year and a summer
yeah
um-hum
and so he's getting that and uh they said like they got a lot of benefits and that that's why you want to join
yeah
um-hum
but uh this guy i mean you can earn a lot more money so you say i go why you still there if you can earn a lot more money once you've get your your you know Master's
um-hum
they go well they got a lot of benefits that would go with it so
well a lot of times it's you know a lot of times it's not the money that keeps people that keeps people
yeah
you know they they like what they're doing they you know they feel good about what they're doing that type of thing it's more
but i mean i mean you the once you get your Master's you can be earning between anywhere between like thirty seven forty five thousand a year
um-hum
and
oh easily i'm sure
and that's not what they're paying
no well it depends on what rank you are of course
yeah yeah i know
well i mean like i say if you're if you're you know if you're at an upper level in the rank category you know you're probably pulling down close to seventy grand a year
yeah
but that's uh
yeah those are few and far between though
yeah
it's like uh in IBM in IBM you can get certain points
um-hum
and uh everyone's a manager but nobody can get one more point to become you know like whatever you need to earn so much money
ye ah i imagine it's really competitive
you know it's like no i i mean IBM is like there's a joke about IBM which says you know it's like
uh all all the major companies get into a a boating race right
um-hum
and so IBM says well we have to we have to have a team right
and then they come in last and they have this whole team you know analyze why they came in last right because the person asked for it
uh-huh
yeah
saying he goes uh the problem was that there were five people saying row row row and one person rowing right
so he goes have you come up with a solution uh have you come up with a solution they go yeah change the rower you know it's like everyone's a manager but you know it's like only use like one person does the work so
yeah
too many chiefs and not enough Indians
yeah so
yeah oh that can be that that can really slow you down
yeah that well that's the way it works i mean that's that's why they're having problems i mean everyone's a manager and
yeah
i didn't realize that
yeah i mean it's like it's like the people that actually do the work there
um-hum
are uh very few and then the other people just plan it you know it's like it's like have you have have you ever seen the commercial like for Federal Express where the with uh the think tank
yeah push paper around
uh-huh
you know like all these people are just standing sitting sitting sitting around just going you know like what shall we do has anybody thought of anything no And then this guy from Federal Federal Express comes along they go what's that this track
which it's going around the world and they can tell you where your package is anywhere any time
um-hum
and so it's like the same thing with IBM you know so they have this think tank and they got to come up with ideas but see uh the the thing is that IBM is so stabilized that everybody will buy their stuff
yeah
oh yeah they've got a they've got basically a uh you know a lock on a lot of the market
yeah
and a lot of times you figure you know with the support that they provide you know people generally go with that because they figure that the you you you probably won't get fired for getting IBM material where's if you try something different
and it fails and you're dead
they'll they'll say yeah why didn't you buy why didn't you try something more mainline
yeah well IBM doesn't fire anybody
because uh what they do is they they put you in a different job
no
um-hum
which you you actually are like sitting around not doing anything so you quit
uh
i mean that's their policy they never fire anybody unless you're caught doing something illegally
illegal illegal or something like that yeah
yeah like if you're stealing something or doing anything like that
but they won't let you off what they'll do is like
uh-huh
suppose you know like you're a manager so they'll put you into
uh-huh
keeping up the paper you know it's like how much paper is going in
um-hum
and then you say that's not my job so you quit
so in other words that's the way they force people out
right
that's why they can say you know there's no layoff policy
right
but it doesn't they don't really say that you know you're you're always going to have great career conditions
right
yeah hey that's kind of sad
no but i mean it's like it's like
they they have like this different policy i don't know my dad works for them but it's like IBM like never in their commercials they never put down any other company you know it's like
no
they won't say
well they're the standard right now or as far as that goes you know people think of computers they think of IBM a lot of times and the main
yeah because see what happens is they have a good backup policy and anybody can fix it
and so that's what you're gonna go for
um-hum
yeah well you know that's that's a that's a big thing
and and you know it's like for example like Leading Edge have you ever heard of Leading Edge
yeah they are out of Korea right
what
leading edge don't they
they they made like uh small personal computers
yeah small PCs aren't they're out of Korea right
i don't know i i don't know but what they do is
what they did i don't know is buy all the parts that IBM would throw away
and build an IBM PC with all the parts that IBM would throw away yeah
uh-huh
oh yeah
yeah because so is it like for example you test a chip
it can't last seven years but it can last five
IBM says let's throw it away Leading Edge will say we'll buy it from you
okay
and so that's i mean they're still around i think
yeah i've seen well i've seen them around anyway you know
so that's what that's what they do they buy all all the things that IBM throws away and they that's why they're so compatible
um-hum
because i mean and by the time you have computer for five years you're going to throw it away anyway
most people do or they have to anyway
you know
well i mean there's like
when when you realize teachers one of my teachers got this computer and it was like voice synthesis and stuff
um-hum
and he got that he said you know it's like um
i was testing it and it was wonderful and then when you tried to erase and correct you know all the errors in your voice it takes up all your memory
and i want more you know and it's like
wow
Jesus Christ you know it's like why do you want more because it's like one second
of recording i mean you put into a Wave
and you want to correct the errors into Wave
um-hum
it takes so much i mean it's like of course it does i mean by the times it transforms into Wave by mark off model
and you put it in there and you want to correct those and then you know you're trying to make the the Wave smooth so you can approximately of course it's going to take a lot
um-hum
imagine imagine what it is for us to make mark off models you know it's like Jesus Christ
that's amazing yeah
well when you get yeah when you get right down to it the uh the more they can do for you the more uh like i say the more the more memory they're gonna require
yeah yeah
yeah both both in terms in RAM as well as uh you know standard memory or disk memory disk base
yeah
well like they say like nobody can get enough you know it's like
so
once you have something and it's like i was watching this program on TV yesterday in nineteen seventy six NASA came up with Three D graphics right
well yeah you find out more
yeah
uh-huh
and they were showing this like Three D graphics Three D graphics view of like
like those hologram deals
what no no no no this is like this is like video game stuff okay but the only thing was that it was just lines okay like if you
like a hologram with just graphics on a on a
okay
