I've applied for jobs across the world. In my experience, organizations in the United States are the worst with not telling you anything. Organizations in east Asia, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand have given me responses the majority of the time, even if it's a simple, "Thank you for your interest. We have decided to hire a candidate who more closely matches our needs at this time."
Although I do get responses from organizations in the United States, too (maybe ten percent of the time).
I agree with this. I've lived in central Africa, the upper Midwest US, and a Nordic country.
The mosquitoes in central Africa (city and rural areas) were definitely less bothersome than summer in rural areas in the other two places. On the other hand, occasionally you come down with malaria.
Anyone else notice how the octopus in the video was the only part of the clump of seaweed not swaying in the current? Guess they have to work on imitating that next.
Huh, I think you may have expressed the reason I'm still here. I've been thinking about it through the entire thread, and it's not really the content of most comments (of course there are gems, but most comments, including the one I'm currently making, are mediocre). The format and style of the comments is just much cleaner than other sites, which makes it easier to read.
This may seem like a silly question, but may I ask what you do with them? Is it the challenge of creating them which is exciting, or what you use them for afterwards?
I'm starting to think about tinkering with electronics, and I have a couple projects in mind which could be cool to do, but literally no idea if they are something which would take me a month to do or 10 years. If it ends up being 10 years, I imagine my interest will start to wane, so I'm wondering if other things will come up along the way to keep the excitement going.
I would say it depends. There are some items at Wholes Foods that I can't find elsewhere. So I'll buy those there.
If you're doing your basic shopping at Whole Foods, well, you may be paying too much. I don't shop there often enough to have done thorough comparisons on product/price.
I've actually seen this in reports on development aid. Projects were put in place to dig wells, which reduced the amount of time families had to spend collecting water (what used to be an hour walk done several times a day was now 10 minutes).
The evaluators found that the family spent their newfound time doing...nothing. The hope (and claim) was that the extra time would be spent on economic activities, thus promoting development. The reality was that didn't happen.
Fault of the evaluation method? Perhaps. It was done a year later. Maybe the gains would have been seen a couple years later. But at least it shows that if you eliminate less-productive work, people aren't guaranteed to partake in more-productive work.
This is a really good point, and not one I'd considered before (the authority figure delivering ads). It could lead to a number of consequences, such as more parents instructing their children to disregard the teacher. Positive would be that people should question authority. Negative would be that can also be carried too far.
I hope we someday we arrive at the point where our society questions our authorities in a respectful manner, while accepting that they are human and will make mistakes.
In addition to TomH123's comment, another difference is that a lot of the photos people take on vacation are of themselves. I don't think people were renting cameras to take selfies of themselves with the eclipse.
Although a Google search shows some hits. And quite a few people saying not to do it. Interesting.
This is one thing I love about French TV: only one commercial break in the middle of a standard "30 minute" (US) program. I can deal with one commercial break.
It's also why I started watching more soccer. I'm tried of commercial breaks. And once you learn a bit about a sport (any sport, I imagine, that is played on a high enough level where there is no way I could replicate what they are doing), it becomes fun, even if it's nothing I was interested in growing up.
<flamewar>EPL is the best league to watch, obviously.</flamewar>
If you read the peer-reviewed article on the test from 2001, you'll find it actually correlates fairly well with clinically diagnosed depression in their tests.
"In 580 patients who underwent a structured psychiatric interview by a mental health professional to determine the presence or absence of major depression using DSM-IV diagnostic criteria."
Not to mention that peanuts are served roasted as a snack, covered in a sugar/water mixture and served as a snack, and ground up into paste and used as a sauce across much of Africa (Francophone Africa, at least...haven't spent that much time elsewhere). I have yet to see someone around here turn down peanuts (groundnuts) in any form due to an allergy.
Do you have a source for that? I would be interested in reading it. I had always learned that it wasn't the lack of oxygen in their lungs that kills them (the typical cause of suffocation). It's the carbon monoxide in the vehicle emissions which has bound to the hemoglobin in their blood and prevented it from transporting oxygen throughout their body.
I haven't been able to find any studies which measure oxygen and carbon monoxide levels in a confined space with a running internal combustion engine. From a quick search, it seems that levels over 4000 ppm of carbon monoxide are quickly fatal, while it looks like the dead zone on Everest has about 50 mmHg partial pressure of oxygen. 50 mmHg partial pressure in air at sea level gives a concentration of about 66000 ppm, assuming ideal gases (reasonable for oxygen at standard temperature and pressure). So if we can find a chart of concentration of oxygen and carbon monoxide as a function of time for an engine running in confined space, we can see if carbon monoxide goes above 4000 ppm or if oxygen dips below 66000 ppm, and that'll give us an idea of which is the real killer.
No, worst case the database was improperly updated and your car doesn't come to a stop where a sign is posted, plowing into a driver coming from a different direction with right-of-way.
However, I don't mind them. I think they look cool. Besides that, they kill birds. Birds are pretty much the assholes of the animal kingdom.
Heh, I used to think that, then I started spending time in the jungle. The wild birds are pretty, and generally leave you alone. Ants, on the other hand. If you don't pay attention to where you stop or the tree you're next to, you're gonna have a bad time.
If you want a really good series (IMHO), try the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" by Steven Erikson. Something like 10,000 pages across ten books, so plenty to read, although it might take you 500 pages to feel comfortable in the world. Erikson is not one to hold your hand as a reader, and details in some books might not make sense until you've read an explanation in later books, but I'm okay with that. It makes gives the world a lot of added depth and makes it re-readable. And unlike other long series, he was able to create a new world and actually wrap up a story line. I lost hope that GoT would finish years ago, which is a shame: GRRM is a good writer.
I'm not going to claim the Malazan Book of the Fallen ended how I wanted it to, but it did end, was a heck of an adventure, and felt much more like a complete world than any other series I've read.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Does hydro produce cheap, renewable power? Often times, yes. Does hydropower have significant environmental and social impacts? Sometimes, yes. Is hydropower susceptible to climatic changes? Often times, yes. Just ask Brazil, Venezuela, and southern Africa for recent examples about that.
One of these days, can we please stop talking in generalities and extremes and assuming they are valid for specific projects? It makes more sense to carefully study things on a case by case basis, including all possible options, and looking at all possible positive and negative impacts. Then people can make informed decisions and take responsibility for the inevitable trade-offs.
I agree. Between this and the individual entertainment systems in the seat, I actually had a reasonable trans-Atlantic flight with United. And then I did the same flight on Delta, which didn't have the option, and was pretty uncomfortable with the inch of space between my knees and the seat in front of me.
It's worth enough to me that I'll pay for the upgrade out of my own pocket even if work doesn't cover it.
In my experience, Parisians were extremely nice...except in the touristy areas.
My French is pretty good, and plenty of people (waiters and waitresses included) wanted to speak English to me, not because they couldn't understand my French, or because they thought I was butchering their language, but just because they were excited to practice English.
All bets are off in touristy areas, though. My guess is that after dealing with tourists day in and day out, they get burned out and jaded. Probably similar to working at an IT support desk.
I found that amazing. You can request an extension to file your taxes, but if you owe anything, it must be paid by mid-April in the US, even if you request an extension to not submit your taxes until October. Since you have to calculate your taxes before figuring out if you owe anything (essentially going through all the steps except actually submitting it to the IRS), it rarely seems to be useful.
That being said, there are a few cases where it's required. The Physical Presence Test to be eligible for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, for example, if you don't have your 330 days before the April deadline.
It's funny you dismiss hydro so quickly. There are many potential large hydro sites with very low levelized cost of energy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the governments in Africa think hydro is a great option, and that's where a lot of development is currently going. To quote from an International Energy Agency report in 2016 (Boosting the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: China's Involvement):
"Renewable sources account for 56% of total capacity added by Chinese projects between 2010 and 2020, including 49% from hydropower."
If you take a look at Map 2 in that report, hydropower projects dominate in central and east Africa. Figure 1 shows that Chinese contractors account for 30% of all new capacity additions in sub-Saharan Africa, although elsewhere in the report you read that Chinese contractors are essentially the only ones building large hydro and coal.
So regardless if it's a great option (and I agree, environmental and social risks of large hydro can be very high and need to be addressed), it's happening, and it's happening because it's cheap (enough to be profitable for a developer with a 30 year Built-Operate-Transfer agreement).
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I've applied for jobs across the world. In my experience, organizations in the United States are the worst with not telling you anything. Organizations in east Asia, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand have given me responses the majority of the time, even if it's a simple, "Thank you for your interest. We have decided to hire a candidate who more closely matches our needs at this time."
Although I do get responses from organizations in the United States, too (maybe ten percent of the time).
I agree with this. I've lived in central Africa, the upper Midwest US, and a Nordic country.
The mosquitoes in central Africa (city and rural areas) were definitely less bothersome than summer in rural areas in the other two places. On the other hand, occasionally you come down with malaria.
I've lived in the US. I've lived in Europe. And I've lived in sub-Saharan African countries.
The US is not even close to a third world country with respect to its infrastructure.
Anyone else notice how the octopus in the video was the only part of the clump of seaweed not swaying in the current? Guess they have to work on imitating that next.
Huh, I think you may have expressed the reason I'm still here. I've been thinking about it through the entire thread, and it's not really the content of most comments (of course there are gems, but most comments, including the one I'm currently making, are mediocre). The format and style of the comments is just much cleaner than other sites, which makes it easier to read.
Ha, okay, I can understand that. It's kinda like a puzzle that might someday be useful. I fully support that!
This may seem like a silly question, but may I ask what you do with them? Is it the challenge of creating them which is exciting, or what you use them for afterwards?
I'm starting to think about tinkering with electronics, and I have a couple projects in mind which could be cool to do, but literally no idea if they are something which would take me a month to do or 10 years. If it ends up being 10 years, I imagine my interest will start to wane, so I'm wondering if other things will come up along the way to keep the excitement going.
I would say it depends. There are some items at Wholes Foods that I can't find elsewhere. So I'll buy those there.
If you're doing your basic shopping at Whole Foods, well, you may be paying too much. I don't shop there often enough to have done thorough comparisons on product/price.
I've actually seen this in reports on development aid. Projects were put in place to dig wells, which reduced the amount of time families had to spend collecting water (what used to be an hour walk done several times a day was now 10 minutes).
The evaluators found that the family spent their newfound time doing...nothing. The hope (and claim) was that the extra time would be spent on economic activities, thus promoting development. The reality was that didn't happen.
Fault of the evaluation method? Perhaps. It was done a year later. Maybe the gains would have been seen a couple years later. But at least it shows that if you eliminate less-productive work, people aren't guaranteed to partake in more-productive work.
This is a really good point, and not one I'd considered before (the authority figure delivering ads). It could lead to a number of consequences, such as more parents instructing their children to disregard the teacher. Positive would be that people should question authority. Negative would be that can also be carried too far.
I hope we someday we arrive at the point where our society questions our authorities in a respectful manner, while accepting that they are human and will make mistakes.
In addition to TomH123's comment, another difference is that a lot of the photos people take on vacation are of themselves. I don't think people were renting cameras to take selfies of themselves with the eclipse.
Although a Google search shows some hits. And quite a few people saying not to do it. Interesting.
This is one thing I love about French TV: only one commercial break in the middle of a standard "30 minute" (US) program. I can deal with one commercial break.
It's also why I started watching more soccer. I'm tried of commercial breaks. And once you learn a bit about a sport (any sport, I imagine, that is played on a high enough level where there is no way I could replicate what they are doing), it becomes fun, even if it's nothing I was interested in growing up.
<flamewar>EPL is the best league to watch, obviously.</flamewar>
Yes, thank you for that distinction. I get the feeling that a lot of comments on this story missed that.
If you read the peer-reviewed article on the test from 2001, you'll find it actually correlates fairly well with clinically diagnosed depression in their tests.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
"In 580 patients who underwent a structured psychiatric interview by a mental health professional to determine the presence or absence of major depression using DSM-IV diagnostic criteria."
Not to mention that peanuts are served roasted as a snack, covered in a sugar/water mixture and served as a snack, and ground up into paste and used as a sauce across much of Africa (Francophone Africa, at least...haven't spent that much time elsewhere). I have yet to see someone around here turn down peanuts (groundnuts) in any form due to an allergy.
Do you have a source for that? I would be interested in reading it. I had always learned that it wasn't the lack of oxygen in their lungs that kills them (the typical cause of suffocation). It's the carbon monoxide in the vehicle emissions which has bound to the hemoglobin in their blood and prevented it from transporting oxygen throughout their body.
I haven't been able to find any studies which measure oxygen and carbon monoxide levels in a confined space with a running internal combustion engine. From a quick search, it seems that levels over 4000 ppm of carbon monoxide are quickly fatal, while it looks like the dead zone on Everest has about 50 mmHg partial pressure of oxygen. 50 mmHg partial pressure in air at sea level gives a concentration of about 66000 ppm, assuming ideal gases (reasonable for oxygen at standard temperature and pressure). So if we can find a chart of concentration of oxygen and carbon monoxide as a function of time for an engine running in confined space, we can see if carbon monoxide goes above 4000 ppm or if oxygen dips below 66000 ppm, and that'll give us an idea of which is the real killer.
No, worst case the database was improperly updated and your car doesn't come to a stop where a sign is posted, plowing into a driver coming from a different direction with right-of-way.
However, I don't mind them. I think they look cool. Besides that, they kill birds. Birds are pretty much the assholes of the animal kingdom.
Heh, I used to think that, then I started spending time in the jungle. The wild birds are pretty, and generally leave you alone. Ants, on the other hand. If you don't pay attention to where you stop or the tree you're next to, you're gonna have a bad time.
If you want a really good series (IMHO), try the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" by Steven Erikson. Something like 10,000 pages across ten books, so plenty to read, although it might take you 500 pages to feel comfortable in the world. Erikson is not one to hold your hand as a reader, and details in some books might not make sense until you've read an explanation in later books, but I'm okay with that. It makes gives the world a lot of added depth and makes it re-readable. And unlike other long series, he was able to create a new world and actually wrap up a story line. I lost hope that GoT would finish years ago, which is a shame: GRRM is a good writer.
I'm not going to claim the Malazan Book of the Fallen ended how I wanted it to, but it did end, was a heck of an adventure, and felt much more like a complete world than any other series I've read.
It's a lot more complicated than that. Does hydro produce cheap, renewable power? Often times, yes. Does hydropower have significant environmental and social impacts? Sometimes, yes. Is hydropower susceptible to climatic changes? Often times, yes. Just ask Brazil, Venezuela, and southern Africa for recent examples about that.
One of these days, can we please stop talking in generalities and extremes and assuming they are valid for specific projects? It makes more sense to carefully study things on a case by case basis, including all possible options, and looking at all possible positive and negative impacts. Then people can make informed decisions and take responsibility for the inevitable trade-offs.
I agree. Between this and the individual entertainment systems in the seat, I actually had a reasonable trans-Atlantic flight with United. And then I did the same flight on Delta, which didn't have the option, and was pretty uncomfortable with the inch of space between my knees and the seat in front of me.
It's worth enough to me that I'll pay for the upgrade out of my own pocket even if work doesn't cover it.
In my experience, Parisians were extremely nice...except in the touristy areas.
My French is pretty good, and plenty of people (waiters and waitresses included) wanted to speak English to me, not because they couldn't understand my French, or because they thought I was butchering their language, but just because they were excited to practice English.
All bets are off in touristy areas, though. My guess is that after dealing with tourists day in and day out, they get burned out and jaded. Probably similar to working at an IT support desk.
I know you've been getting a lot of hate lately, creimer, but I still enjoy your posts. You have good responses to a lot of your hecklers.
This.
I found that amazing. You can request an extension to file your taxes, but if you owe anything, it must be paid by mid-April in the US, even if you request an extension to not submit your taxes until October. Since you have to calculate your taxes before figuring out if you owe anything (essentially going through all the steps except actually submitting it to the IRS), it rarely seems to be useful.
That being said, there are a few cases where it's required. The Physical Presence Test to be eligible for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, for example, if you don't have your 330 days before the April deadline.
It's funny you dismiss hydro so quickly. There are many potential large hydro sites with very low levelized cost of energy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many of the governments in Africa think hydro is a great option, and that's where a lot of development is currently going. To quote from an International Energy Agency report in 2016 (Boosting the Power Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa: China's Involvement):
"Renewable sources account for 56% of total capacity added by Chinese projects between 2010 and 2020, including 49% from hydropower."
If you take a look at Map 2 in that report, hydropower projects dominate in central and east Africa. Figure 1 shows that Chinese contractors account for 30% of all new capacity additions in sub-Saharan Africa, although elsewhere in the report you read that Chinese contractors are essentially the only ones building large hydro and coal.
So regardless if it's a great option (and I agree, environmental and social risks of large hydro can be very high and need to be addressed), it's happening, and it's happening because it's cheap (enough to be profitable for a developer with a 30 year Built-Operate-Transfer agreement).