I agree completely with the spirit of what you write, but I wonder about something:
> If you're not a techy, you have my sympathies, but at least get yourself a blog going and start writing like it is going out of style
That's really night and day from the techy option of hacking on stuff. I got my first job because while I was unemployed, I spent my time learning my way around Linux and Perl (this was in 1997) until I had enough experience to be employable at the relatively low rate I was more than happy to accept (and which subsequently went up pretty quickly when I proved myself).
My wife, on the other hand, has a doctorate in biochemistry. While she might get a little mileage out of writing a blog were she unemployed, the advantages would probably be minor compared to the disadvantage of being out of touch with a laboratory and not able to read expensive scientific publications.
Point being, I think that sometimes we forget just how easy it is to get involved with stuff in the tech world. With an internet connection, a $500 laptop, free tools and mostly free documentation, you can do world-class work, and communicate with pretty much anyone you want to about most anything. How many other fields are like that? Hopefully, the world will head in that direction, because it really is a wonderful thing.
> the disadvantage of being out of touch with a laboratory and not able to read expensive scientific publications.
Not everyone can have a lab of their own, but is access to publications really that expensive? Here in Sweden, I just had to register for a course at the local university (which was free), and then get a computer account to have access to all the publications everyone else at the university have access to.
Registering for a single course in Canada will likely cost ~$800 for a single term. That's a lot to pay for access to publications. The other option is subscribe to publications directly, but that can cost much much more than 800.
I think liamk's experience is more typical. I think most countries charge money to attend the university in some way, and/or have a fair amount of bureaucracy associated with signing up.
> If you're not a techy, you have my sympathies, but at least get yourself a blog going and start writing like it is going out of style
That's really night and day from the techy option of hacking on stuff. I got my first job because while I was unemployed, I spent my time learning my way around Linux and Perl (this was in 1997) until I had enough experience to be employable at the relatively low rate I was more than happy to accept (and which subsequently went up pretty quickly when I proved myself).
My wife, on the other hand, has a doctorate in biochemistry. While she might get a little mileage out of writing a blog were she unemployed, the advantages would probably be minor compared to the disadvantage of being out of touch with a laboratory and not able to read expensive scientific publications.
Point being, I think that sometimes we forget just how easy it is to get involved with stuff in the tech world. With an internet connection, a $500 laptop, free tools and mostly free documentation, you can do world-class work, and communicate with pretty much anyone you want to about most anything. How many other fields are like that? Hopefully, the world will head in that direction, because it really is a wonderful thing.