Like all hobbies, it takes time, but you can sure save money, and can also make beer every bit as good as commercial offerings. Of course it takes skill to make really great beer, but it's very doable.
Money-wise, I haven't spent a cent on equipment in over a year, and have probably spent $100 on grain, $30 on hops, $20 on CO2, and $40 on propane. For a YEAR, drinking 2-3 glasses per day. I ferment underground, or in a closet where the temp is already ok. I bought yeast once and only once, a couple years ago. An important note to this is that I have a limited range of styles I make, and that does help keep costs down.
I call BS on the carbonation thing. CO2 from a tank does not in any way change the flavor of a beer. If you under-age it because the keg can carbonate faster, that most certainly can affect things though. I quit bottling everything except mead and some really strong stuff (and then only a few bottles meant for a year or two down the road) due to time considerations quite some time ago, and I'll tell you it tastes the same.
For what it's worth, I'm in the last days of my fourth bad IT job out of five I've had--the one decent job (good pay, ok hours, but no real work satisfaction) ended after a long four months when my department was eliminated wholesale. It was a tech writer, which is a stretch to call IT anyway. The other four have been exactly as described--long hours, not great pay, zero respect, more politics than work, and that whole deal.
I'm going to continue working open source projects and such on the weekends, but consistently bad experiences over several years have convinced me to leave IT for greener pastures. Starting soon, I'm moving to skilled physical labor like I worked back in school. As much as I really do love working on computers, the sweat offers a better life. FYI, I'm 25, been working since I graduated at 20.
From what I've read Japanese is easier to text message in because the object and direct object are usually inferred and there are no cases or articles. A single sentence can be one character and just a verb. Thus by constraining the nuance into discrete choices rather than sparsely populated product space of self-consistent cases, predicates and adjectives, perhaps japanese would be easier to generate turing worthy text. To decide what gets left out (and inferred) takes a judgment call though, and you can't understand the meaning of a lot/most Japanese sentences without knowing the context in which the sentence was spoken (and a lot of times who said it to whom). As a fluent speaker of both English and Japanese, I can't see where one would necessarily be easier, though they would take very different approaches.
Suits at all just aren't, well, suited to some people.
Back a couple years ago when I very unfortunately had to wear suits, I wore summer-weight cotton suits in the winter, and they were just about right, except when I had to be inside a building (cue the sweat). In the summer, I went so far as to cut out all the liner fabric in the pants and jacket with a pair of scissors, wore short sleeved linen shirts under the jacket, and still sweated profusely just standing. Very very uncomfortable. 34in waist, 6'2", I'm not THAT fat.
The average person has much greater emotional intelligence than the average geek. I had to learn that the hard way. We think we are communicating factually, and the average Joe is hearing something completely different, because he is listening on a broader and higher level. The things he is hearing don't invite trust.
Experts are so 1950's. I grew up in the 60's, when "Question Authority" was a radical slogan to put on your bumper. Now days, no one accepts authority automatically, but I remember when they did. Bottom line, the experts put forth a lot of bad information that led many people to do things they deeply regretted. Remember the insulin treatments in "A Beautiful Mind"? That's why I don't trust experts, either.
People learned long ago that experts are just as political and dogmatic as fundamentalists, and they can be just as misguided.
BTW, some of the postings make me embarrassed to be a geek. I don't see disrespect as a sign of intelligence. If by "broader and higher level" you mean shallower, then maybe so. The difference between good science and bad science cannot be understood by emotion. That the average person places more importance on this emotional intelligence than the facts at hand is (in my eyes at least) a HUGE fault in humanity, and one with very nasty consequences. The average Joe in your example is hearing something completely different because he's trying to feel and not think. Bruce Lee quotes make not a good scientist.
Done properly, science is about keeping trust to a minimum (theoretically to none), by requiring repeatable experiments, very detailed records, and so forth. If you have to trust one particular expert, it's not good science. Besides, it's a rare person who doesn't trust somebody claiming to be an expert. I've found that the more scientifically illiterate someone is, the more they tend to trust some self-proclaimed expert, not less.
Maybe your opinion is different, but I can't help but be disgusted by the majority of people who flat out refuse to think. I don't see willful ignorance as worthy of respect.
I had some pictures taken in Japan, and paid quite a bit up front for the sitting, but got the negatives for ~US$50. I believe most studios there sell the negatives for a similar price.
Copyright infringement tends to reinforce the power of existing players though rather than opening the doors to new players. Why download or purchase (at a cheap price) the songs of unknown artist A when you can download the songs of well-known artist B for free? Sure, there may be some people who just download works at random (perhaps within a preferred genre), but those people tend to be in the minority. This tends to drown out the ability of independent artists to get people to listen to their works.
Definitely, in the short run. But, there will only be so long a given artist holds real popular sway unless they keep reinventing themselves. Even genuinely good artists don't stay at the top of the stack forever.
With our current system of public water treatment and indoor plumbing, there's no longer any need for investment in the bottling and distribution of water in the United States. 'nuff said.
True--but hey, as long as we're arguing theory, right? \(^_^)
Copyright transferability plays an important role in stimulating demand. If the copyrights were completely non-transferable, then the risk of investing in content would become very high, reducing the demand from content distributors. Again, the marketing power of the content distributors would be much more important than it is today.
It might be better to take a look from a bit higher level and ask why stimulating demand is important. More dollars flowing around is not better for its own sake. The benefit of promoting a particular piece of content at a massive (inter-)national level seems to fall on the few guys at the top of the media company rather than society at large. From a position of social good, if creative work A really is so great, won't it rise on its own merits by word-of-mouth without organized marketing?
With our current systems of digital content production and distribution, I'd take the position that there is no longer any need for a large investment in content by a distributor at all.
Exactly--polls have a long history of turning out to be inaccurate as to the final winner, so the difference between the polls and the results by themselves really doesn't constitute much evidence that the voting was inaccurately counted.
Also, the difference in votes between hand-counted and machine-counted precincts could be to any number of factors as well (i.e. perhaps a distrust for the black-box Diebold machines is linked with a distrust of older politicians?), so it's very hard to draw conclusions from just this. I'm not a fan of the Diebold voting machines by any stretch, but the NH primaries don't offer any real evidence against them.
Even so, a car construction would probably fare better for the occupants than a 2 wheeler, which as I understand is a big point of Tata's. There's no way to be really safe striking a hard object at 40+mph unless you're in something BIG, but you can get better survivability (even if injured) than a light motorbike.
Can't tell the difference visually between a diamond and cut glass myself. Anybody else like that?
On the other hand, a diamond sawblade is great indeed...
There's a two-tier legal structure. Government support programs for children and teens end at 18, but full adulthood doesn't begin until 20. 18 and 19-year-olds are in a sort of legal no man's land, receiving neither the protection of a minor nor the rights of an adult. It's a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Like all hobbies, it takes time, but you can sure save money, and can also make beer every bit as good as commercial offerings. Of course it takes skill to make really great beer, but it's very doable. Money-wise, I haven't spent a cent on equipment in over a year, and have probably spent $100 on grain, $30 on hops, $20 on CO2, and $40 on propane. For a YEAR, drinking 2-3 glasses per day. I ferment underground, or in a closet where the temp is already ok. I bought yeast once and only once, a couple years ago. An important note to this is that I have a limited range of styles I make, and that does help keep costs down. I call BS on the carbonation thing. CO2 from a tank does not in any way change the flavor of a beer. If you under-age it because the keg can carbonate faster, that most certainly can affect things though. I quit bottling everything except mead and some really strong stuff (and then only a few bottles meant for a year or two down the road) due to time considerations quite some time ago, and I'll tell you it tastes the same.
True, but I for one eat plenty already to take me to work and back. Using that much energy at a minimum is good for me anyway.
For what it's worth, I'm in the last days of my fourth bad IT job out of five I've had--the one decent job (good pay, ok hours, but no real work satisfaction) ended after a long four months when my department was eliminated wholesale. It was a tech writer, which is a stretch to call IT anyway. The other four have been exactly as described--long hours, not great pay, zero respect, more politics than work, and that whole deal.
I'm going to continue working open source projects and such on the weekends, but consistently bad experiences over several years have convinced me to leave IT for greener pastures. Starting soon, I'm moving to skilled physical labor like I worked back in school. As much as I really do love working on computers, the sweat offers a better life. FYI, I'm 25, been working since I graduated at 20.
To decide what gets left out (and inferred) takes a judgment call though, and you can't understand the meaning of a lot/most Japanese sentences without knowing the context in which the sentence was spoken (and a lot of times who said it to whom). As a fluent speaker of both English and Japanese, I can't see where one would necessarily be easier, though they would take very different approaches.
Suits at all just aren't, well, suited to some people.
Back a couple years ago when I very unfortunately had to wear suits, I wore summer-weight cotton suits in the winter, and they were just about right, except when I had to be inside a building (cue the sweat). In the summer, I went so far as to cut out all the liner fabric in the pants and jacket with a pair of scissors, wore short sleeved linen shirts under the jacket, and still sweated profusely just standing. Very very uncomfortable. 34in waist, 6'2", I'm not THAT fat.
- The average person has much greater emotional intelligence than the average geek. I had to learn that the hard way. We think we are communicating factually, and the average Joe is hearing something completely different, because he is listening on a broader and higher level. The things he is hearing don't invite trust.
- Experts are so 1950's. I grew up in the 60's, when "Question Authority" was a radical slogan to put on your bumper. Now days, no one accepts authority automatically, but I remember when they did. Bottom line, the experts put forth a lot of bad information that led many people to do things they deeply regretted. Remember the insulin treatments in "A Beautiful Mind"? That's why I don't trust experts, either.
- People learned long ago that experts are just as political and dogmatic as fundamentalists, and they can be just as misguided.
BTW, some of the postings make me embarrassed to be a geek. I don't see disrespect as a sign of intelligence. If by "broader and higher level" you mean shallower, then maybe so. The difference between good science and bad science cannot be understood by emotion. That the average person places more importance on this emotional intelligence than the facts at hand is (in my eyes at least) a HUGE fault in humanity, and one with very nasty consequences. The average Joe in your example is hearing something completely different because he's trying to feel and not think. Bruce Lee quotes make not a good scientist.Done properly, science is about keeping trust to a minimum (theoretically to none), by requiring repeatable experiments, very detailed records, and so forth. If you have to trust one particular expert, it's not good science. Besides, it's a rare person who doesn't trust somebody claiming to be an expert. I've found that the more scientifically illiterate someone is, the more they tend to trust some self-proclaimed expert, not less.
Maybe your opinion is different, but I can't help but be disgusted by the majority of people who flat out refuse to think. I don't see willful ignorance as worthy of respect.
I had some pictures taken in Japan, and paid quite a bit up front for the sitting, but got the negatives for ~US$50. I believe most studios there sell the negatives for a similar price.
To someone in a position like that, as long as they can do CYA decently well they're fine. Pretense of ignorance works very well.
Copyright infringement tends to reinforce the power of existing players though rather than opening the doors to new players. Why download or purchase (at a cheap price) the songs of unknown artist A when you can download the songs of well-known artist B for free? Sure, there may be some people who just download works at random (perhaps within a preferred genre), but those people tend to be in the minority. This tends to drown out the ability of independent artists to get people to listen to their works.
Definitely, in the short run. But, there will only be so long a given artist holds real popular sway unless they keep reinventing themselves. Even genuinely good artists don't stay at the top of the stack forever.
With our current system of public water treatment and indoor plumbing, there's no longer any need for investment in the bottling and distribution of water in the United States. 'nuff said.
True--but hey, as long as we're arguing theory, right? \(^_^)
Copyright transferability plays an important role in stimulating demand. If the copyrights were completely non-transferable, then the risk of investing in content would become very high, reducing the demand from content distributors. Again, the marketing power of the content distributors would be much more important than it is today.
It might be better to take a look from a bit higher level and ask why stimulating demand is important. More dollars flowing around is not better for its own sake. The benefit of promoting a particular piece of content at a massive (inter-)national level seems to fall on the few guys at the top of the media company rather than society at large. From a position of social good, if creative work A really is so great, won't it rise on its own merits by word-of-mouth without organized marketing?
With our current systems of digital content production and distribution, I'd take the position that there is no longer any need for a large investment in content by a distributor at all.
Exactly--polls have a long history of turning out to be inaccurate as to the final winner, so the difference between the polls and the results by themselves really doesn't constitute much evidence that the voting was inaccurately counted. Also, the difference in votes between hand-counted and machine-counted precincts could be to any number of factors as well (i.e. perhaps a distrust for the black-box Diebold machines is linked with a distrust of older politicians?), so it's very hard to draw conclusions from just this. I'm not a fan of the Diebold voting machines by any stretch, but the NH primaries don't offer any real evidence against them.
Even so, a car construction would probably fare better for the occupants than a 2 wheeler, which as I understand is a big point of Tata's. There's no way to be really safe striking a hard object at 40+mph unless you're in something BIG, but you can get better survivability (even if injured) than a light motorbike.
Can't tell the difference visually between a diamond and cut glass myself. Anybody else like that? On the other hand, a diamond sawblade is great indeed...
There's a two-tier legal structure. Government support programs for children and teens end at 18, but full adulthood doesn't begin until 20. 18 and 19-year-olds are in a sort of legal no man's land, receiving neither the protection of a minor nor the rights of an adult. It's a problem.