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(Daily Mail) Spiffy Man earns PhD from Cambridge at age 91, tells all the other whippersnappers to get off his lawn. Bonus: His PhD is in trainspotting   (dailymail.co.uk) divider line 53
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strangeguitar 2008-07-19 04:10:45 PM  
But did he bring the cards?
/obscure?

 
Mr_Juche 2008-07-19 04:16:34 PM  
Was he a member of the Society for Cunning Plans?

 
Forced Perspective 2008-07-19 04:41:09 PM  
The university said Colonel Cobb had earned his PhD by creating an atlas which records and maps the railway stations built in Britain between 1807 and 1994.

So... it's already out of date? FAIL.

 
eddyatwork [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 05:01:43 PM  
Good for him. Just looking at his picture makes me want to shake his hand and buy him a beer.

 
tdpatriots12 2008-07-19 06:08:32 PM  
Forced Perspective: So... it's already out of date? FAIL.

You're no fun any more.

 
Bonanza Jellybean 2008-07-19 06:10:54 PM  
strangeguitar: But did he bring the cards?
/obscure?


Successful and attractive African-American, please.

 
mexicymru 2008-07-19 06:12:17 PM  
My general impression is that a whooooole lot of PhD theses are on subjects far less relevant than this.

/ I know one whose topic was the colour of electronic displays.
// Keep on trainspottin'

 
Chunes 2008-07-19 06:12:32 PM  
Forced Perspective: The university said Colonel Cobb had earned his PhD by creating an atlas which records and maps the railway stations built in Britain between 1807 and 1994.

So... it's already out of date? FAIL.


Railway stations being built after 1994?

Also fail.

 
Farking Zardwarks 2008-07-19 06:12:48 PM  
meh, PhDs are overrated

 
mexicymru 2008-07-19 06:15:14 PM  
Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

I think we're of a mind, you and I.

 
IdeasGuy 2008-07-19 06:18:54 PM  
Chunes: Forced Perspective: The university said Colonel Cobb had earned his PhD by creating an atlas which records and maps the railway stations built in Britain between 1807 and 1994.

So... it's already out of date? FAIL.

Railway stations being built after 1994?

Also fail.


Yes, railway stations are being built on a regular basis in Europe. But I guess there are already very good records about those.

 
GBallOSU 2008-07-19 06:19:08 PM  
bp3.blogger.com
Approves.

/ hotlinks from hell!

 
humanshrapnel 2008-07-19 06:20:33 PM  
strangeguitar: But did he bring the cards?
/obscure?


Did you bring the cards?
What?
The cards, the last thing I told you was to mind the cards!
Well, I've not brought them.
It's farking boring after a while without the cards.
I'm sorry.
Bit farking late, like.
Why didn't *you* bring them?
'CAUSE I farkING TOLD YOU TO BRING THEM, YOU DOSS coont!
...Christ.

/Nothing on Fark

 
the man with the screaming brain 2008-07-19 06:20:34 PM  
Chunes: Forced Perspective: The university said Colonel Cobb had earned his PhD by creating an atlas which records and maps the railway stations built in Britain between 1807 and 1994.

So... it's already out of date? FAIL.

Railway stations being built after 1994?

Also fail.


*cough* (new window)

 
msirois 2008-07-19 06:32:20 PM  
humanshrapnel: strangeguitar: But did he bring the cards?
/obscure?

Did you bring the cards?
What?
The cards, the last thing I told you was to mind the cards!
Well, I've not brought them.
It's farking boring after a while without the cards.
I'm sorry.
Bit farking late, like.
Why didn't *you* bring them?
'CAUSE I farkING TOLD YOU TO BRING THEM, YOU DOSS coont!
...Christ.

/Nothing on Fark

 
tonesskin [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 06:46:24 PM  
Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

Who rates them? I got mine so I could get a research job. I didn't get it because it some how made me superior; it was the only way I could do what I wanted for a living.

 
FarkinNortherner [recently expired TotalFark] 2008-07-19 06:48:51 PM  
"the railway stations built in Britain between 1807 and 1994."

That was prescient, given that it would be another 18 years before the first public railway.

 
Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox 2008-07-19 07:01:42 PM  
tonesskin: Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

Who rates them? I got mine so I could get a research job. I didn't get it because it some how made me superior; it was the only way I could do what I wanted for a living.


That is laudable, but many people who get them in engineering just want to be called "Dr."

 
almejita [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 07:03:40 PM  
How could you not love this face?

i.dailymail.co.uk

/Calientelinked

 
Danger Avoid Death 2008-07-19 07:09:31 PM  
eddyatwork: Good for him. Just looking at his picture makes me want to shake his hand and buy him a beer.

He's 91. His hand probably shakes more than enough on its own.

 
tonesskin [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 07:15:46 PM  
Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: That is laudable, but many people who get them in engineering just want to be called "Dr."

Oh shiat. If I had a bachelor's in engineering, I'd just get the fark out and start making money. The Ph.D. probably adds very little (exception would be for those who want to go to academics, I suppose).

 
rumpelstiltskin 2008-07-19 07:17:01 PM  
Did his rasping drunkard's cackles fill the desolate barn?

 
mikaloyd 2008-07-19 07:20:34 PM  
strangeguitar: But did he bring the cards?
/obscure?


Yes obscure

 
LoneVVolf 2008-07-19 07:23:35 PM  
Doesn't writing a reference book make you more of an Author than a Doctor?

 
themetalking 2008-07-19 07:30:11 PM  
Hell, if I wanted a PHD just to be called Dr. I would do it in a hell of a lot easier field than engineering. Go to any college and see how many PHDs in fields from Math to Biology have their doctorate in philosophy.

 
tonesskin [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 07:36:02 PM  
themetalking: Hell, if I wanted a PHD just to be called Dr. I would do it in a hell of a lot easier field than engineering. Go to any college and see how many PHDs in fields from Math to Biology have their doctorate in philosophy.

Hehe.

LoneVVolf: Doesn't writing a reference book make you more of an Author than a Doctor?

Doesn't memorizing a bunch of shiat about medicine make you someone with a good memory more than a researcher?

 
Obnox [recently expired TotalFark] 2008-07-19 07:36:57 PM  
A 91-year-old war veteran who collected a PhD from Cambridge University today said he doesn't know what all the fuss is about. "Who are you people? And why are you on my lawn?"

 
Danger Avoid Death 2008-07-19 07:42:10 PM  
tonesskin: themetalking: Hell, if I wanted a PHD just to be called Dr. I would do it in a hell of a lot easier field than engineering. Go to any college and see how many PHDs in fields from Math to Biology have their doctorate in philosophy.

Hehe.

LoneVVolf: Doesn't writing a reference book make you more of an Author than a Doctor?

Doesn't memorizing a bunch of shiat about medicine make you someone with a good memory more than a researcher?


I don't remember. Where can I look it up?

 
FeloniousQ 2008-07-19 07:46:09 PM  
As someone in the last year of a bio PhD I sure wish I could finish by making an annotated Google map of some train stations.

/bitter
//would buy the man however many beers he wanted

 
mepiget 2008-07-19 07:50:50 PM  
Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

I have a two-page-long screeching and whiny screed (one of many, of which I've delivered a few) saved up in me brain that treats of the truly extravagant and irretrievable incompetence of GPs (family doctors and so forth) and various other medical professionals, with which - and a good threadjack - I've been meaning to regale you all when the opportunity should present itself.

But I think I'll save it for a time when I have a bigger audience to piss off, bore, and annoy.

/Just thought I'd inform you.

 
fappityfappityfap 2008-07-19 08:36:50 PM  
'There are a few masters degrees but that's about it.'


/lol

 
GoRedSoxGo 2008-07-19 08:44:36 PM  
Good for him.

/only have a masters
//going for that PhD next year

 
Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox 2008-07-19 08:46:56 PM  
tonesskin: Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: That is laudable, but many people who get them in engineering just want to be called "Dr."

Oh shiat. If I had a bachelor's in engineering, I'd just get the fark out and start making money. The Ph.D. probably adds very little (exception would be for those who want to go to academics, I suppose).


The benefit of a masters in engineering is debatable. While a decade or two ago it might not have been worth it, I'd say that today with globalization, it probably is. A Ph.D. isn't worth any more than a masters in engineering, but it is necessary if you want to do certain kinds of research. I know generic, run of the mill engineers who have Ph.D's and some of them are extremely bitter about it now. They complain every day that lawyers and managers are making 2-4x their salary when they "don't even have a doctorate," as if a piece of paper is the highest ideal you can achieve in life.

 
Alegria 2008-07-19 08:57:44 PM  
I'll have to forward this to my friend who's starting the 8th year of her PhD work. As long as she finishes her dissertation by the time she's 91, she'll be ahead of this guy.

/well done, sir!

 
tonesskin [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 09:03:17 PM  
Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: They complain every day that lawyers and managers are making 2-4x their salary when they "don't even have a doctorate," as if a piece of paper is the highest ideal you can achieve in life.

On a side note, I get to teach future lawyers (research design, no less). There are some who believe their JD merits being called "doctor." There are even more who think it is worthy of the term "doctorate." It is amazing; I've done the law school thing. It's a joke.

I always had a ton of respect for engineers. I work with a few (mostly doing some statistical stuff). The math is over my head; the research designs are simplistic BUT the degree of technical precision required in the research is just unreal. They can get away with "simple" designs (I use "simple" because I can't think of a better word) because their manipulations are so precise. Amazing to me. There are few people that I would say come out of college knowing more useful stuff than engineers.

 
Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox 2008-07-19 09:24:23 PM  
tonesskin: On a side note, I get to teach future lawyers (research design, no less). There are some who believe their JD merits being called "doctor." There are even more who think it is worthy of the term "doctorate." It is amazing; I've done the law school thing. It's a joke.

I always had a ton of respect for engineers. I work with a few (mostly doing some statistical stuff). The math is over my head; the research designs are simplistic BUT the degree of technical precision required in the research is just unreal. They can get away with "simple" designs (I use "simple" because I can't think of a better word) because their manipulations are so precise. Amazing to me. There are few people that I would say come out of college knowing more useful stuff than engineers.


Law school isn't difficult, it's just a huge expense of time and money. If you show up to the classes, you get your diploma. I only know of one person who was kicked out of law school, and they even let her back in a year later. I think if they give a doctor title to somebody for writing a paper on The Old Man and the Sea or the electrical properties of the particle C108-H68-O158 they should give a doctorate to lawyers. But ideally I'd rather they just reserved the title for medical doctors and end all the pretentious bullshiat once and for all.

As for engineering, it can be extremely specialized and extremely mundane at the same time. For example, where I worked I knew some of the foremost experts in metallurgy in the world. They sat in a cubicle just like anybody else, wrote boring technical reports just like anybody else, sat through general meetings just like anybody else, and probably didn't break 150k at the end of their career. Now that's a good living and the hours most engineers work are incredibly good (35-40 hour workweeks for most of them) but it's a pretty thankless job. At the end of the day, nobody really cares what you are doing in that cubicle and if it wasn't you, it would just be somebody else. Now corporate law is it's own horrible animal, but at least from what I've seen with public defenders, judges, prosecutors, and even defense attorneys, you get an impression that the work they do really matters, to them and to other people. They aren't just working on lugnut 507-B for Conglomo Corporation. They have clients who really need them and the work the do for them. That's the reason I left engineering, it was just so...mechanical. I want to be proud of my work, and most of the engineers I knew simply weren't, whether they explicitly verbalized it or not.

 
baka-san [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 09:26:16 PM  
If it is anywhere near the size of my late uncles dissertation (sitting on the coffee table in my living room) guy deserves Hero tag.

He was at Dunkirk, deserves it anyway.

 
Jim_Callahan 2008-07-19 09:31:59 PM  
Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

I was unaware they were rated at all. Nice to be recognized for your research technique not sucking, though.

 
Danger Avoid Death 2008-07-19 09:34:25 PM  
baka-san: If it is anywhere near the size of my late uncles dissertation (sitting on the coffee table in my living room) guy deserves Hero tag.

He was at Dunkirk, deserves it anyway.


Isn't it improper to have a long dissertation on your briefs?

 
SJKebab [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 09:47:46 PM  
almejita: How could you not love this face?



/Calientelinked


i.dailymail.co.uk

img.timeinc.net


/Just saying...

 
SJKebab [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 09:54:25 PM  
mepiget: Farking Zardwarks: meh, PhDs are overrated

I have a two-page-long screeching and whiny screed (one of many, of which I've delivered a few) saved up in me brain that treats of the truly extravagant and irretrievable incompetence of GPs (family doctors and so forth) and various other medical professionals, with which - and a good threadjack - I've been meaning to regale you all when the opportunity should present itself.

But I think I'll save it for a time when I have a bigger audience to piss off, bore, and annoy.

/Just thought I'd inform you.


I hope its not as annoying as the two page screed you did the other day... (^)

 
homeschooled [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 10:11:31 PM  
I like his belly shirt and his black stomach?

 
BiggusDickus 2008-07-19 10:14:09 PM  
Seems like he got a PhD for following a hobby. Still, good to see he's stil coherent at 91.

 
Herb Utsmelz [TotalFark] 2008-07-19 10:26:34 PM  
PhDs can be over rated, but you should get one from an accredited university before you have the license to say that.

The way it is.

 
WFern 2008-07-19 10:30:50 PM  
Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a farking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of farking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fark you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing farking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, farked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

upload.wikimedia.org

 
Phil Herup 2008-07-19 10:39:41 PM  
blog.wired.com

 
The Third Man 2008-07-19 10:54:41 PM  
I suppose it does take the average Tab about 50 or so years to write a dissertation, so this is only a little more than the usual.

/D.Phil > Ph.D

 
Bug2k 2008-07-19 11:54:03 PM  
I have a PhD from Cambridge so I'm getting a kick out these replies.
/Received at 26, not 91, though.

 
WFern 2008-07-19 11:56:17 PM  
The Third Man: D.Phil

images.businessweek.com

 
Watching_Epoxy_Cure 2008-07-20 12:55:42 AM  
Bug2k: I have a PhD from Cambridge so I'm getting a kick out these replies.
/Received at 26, not 91, though.


You're smart.

 
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