You don't have to be mean. Be edgy. Cocky. Look in the mirror and say, "Beautiful women are irresistibly attracted to me!" Does it feel fake? Make it real. Play life like a game.
^^ this ^^ I can't recommend Khan Academy enough. Many people in all the science classes I have taken (chem, biochem, orgo, anatomy, physiology...) have been hitting up YouTube to learn material, and it has been working very well for them. Khan Academy is a constant favorite!
However, there are many ways to learn. Classroom learning is just one. Traditionally, humans learn by imitation, experience, and storytelling in small groups. For many modern young people, it appears that YouTube is taking the role of storyteller.
There are a LOT of students who struggle through a lecture, then promptly go on YouTube to find videos recorded by instructors who are actually interested in teaching. This applies to all levels of classes, from introductory classes to my current head-asploder; biochemistry.
You may have suffered through traditional "higher education," but a new generation is learning a different way. Some of them are learning it better. We have made tremendous progress in many fields, why do we not study the process of academic instruction just as intensely as, say, nuclear physics? Because people like you seem to think that just because you suffered through it, everyone else must suffer as well. It's only fair, right?
Sorry. You were being obtuse.:)
Khan Academy is good, a lot of people use those videos!
I would normally say the same, except for Ron Paul. Are you aware of the man? If so, I'm curious; how do you believe he is not honest, and not working for the benefit of his constituents?
Iceland has an economy today, after they let things crash in 2009. Greece will have an economy again shortly after they let things crash.
There is some historical precedence for this. The crash of 1920 was much larger than the crash of 1929. Question: why did it take 10 years and a world war to recover from the (much smaller) crash of 1929?
Several years previously to this, the SEC granted special privileges -- hedge exemptions, specifically -- to various large investment banks. Goldman Sachs was the first, in 1991, followed by all (most?) of the other large players. These exceptions allowed the big banks to trade the market as if they were primary producers, when in fact they have no actual goods to deliver. This allows them to drive the price in both directions, and is likely the direct cause between the extreme volatility in nearly all the major commodities markets.
These exceptions are not exceptions that you or I could obtain. They are granted by the SEC to certain specific banks, to allow those banks to run their corrupt derivatives trades in our markets. It is with these exceptions that the large investment banks drive the incredible volatility and obscene price gouging that is currently prevalent in the commodities markets.
Your example, of the CME's margin hikes, is actually a textbook example of wrongful government intervention in the market. They used margin hikes to deliberately crush the exponential rise in commodities. Why did they do this? Because at that time, the large investment banks held enormous short positions, which stood to lose tremendous amounts of money. By raising the margins, the CME allowed those banks to continue making enormous sums of money, while simultaneously maintaining the value of the US dollar by obscuring the fact that it is being steadily inflated to worthlessness.
The whole game is rigged, top to bottom, no better than a casino. The problem is caused by government intervention, but you must often look more deeply to determine how. If the government did its job, which is to ensure a free and open market and stay the hell out of everybody's business otherwise, then this whole situation would never be a problem.
Historically, countries have handled this kind of situation with trade tariffs. If you make it very expensive to export, then those materials will tend to remain domestic. An additional bonus is that this method is completely constitutional in the United States, whereas adding restrictions to mining companies' use of product is quite unconstitutional.
Coal is used for more than just gadgets. However, none of the edifices you described last more than a couple generations at best before they must be replaced. I will grant you that the benefit of good schools can uplift a culture for many generations; however, we have many more efficient ways to create these institutions, right now.
This is why increasing domestic energy production does not reduce local energy costs: http://news.yahoo.com/first-gas-other-fuels-top-us-export-200739553.html
Want to bet how much of the oil transported to the Gulf of Mexico via the Keystone XL pipeline would actually end up sold inside the United States?
I drive a car, I enjoy electric light and water provided by the destruction of non-replaceable energy sources. I am at fault.
The mining companies enjoys their ability to extract a profit from the earth because US political entities (state and federal) lease public land to those mining companies. The US government sponsors and profits from these destructive mining activities. The people of the US allow this to continue. We are at fault.
"It's despicable that a private company gets to make so much money from selling a national resource."
I do not think I could have put it better myself. Thank you.
I also do not think government should get to make money from selling a national resource either, because the value is in the conservation of that resource; once you exploit it, it no longer has value.
"We" in this case refers to me, my family, the people in my geographical region who share the burden of local environmental problems, and the people in the political entity of the United States who collectively share the burden of allowing this monumental destruction of our children's land.
The outrage is not in the who, but in the what. The destruction will last for as long as the human species exists, yet benefits only a couple generations. Once burned, the energy is irreplaceably lost, and whatever we are making with it will last for another couple generations at most. The majority of what we make with it won't even last a single generation. Much of it barely lasts five years.
We lose our mountains to make 5-year gadgets? There's no conspiracy; just an incomprehensible degree of greed and waste.
Selfishly, I feel a little better if it at least benefits my own country. For our mountains to be lost to benefit another country feels like a mounded insult on top of a grievous wound.
I do understand, and I do not like it. These mountains are home to me. I am unhappy when they get blown up and shipped away. But for it to be shipped to China? That grates my heart in a peculiar way.
"Progress" is not progress when it destroys the land for your children.
I congratulate you and wish you well in your asbestos underwear!
Speculation is not the problem. The safety net provided by government bailing out the biggest speculators (the big banks) is the problem. Let those folks go out of business like they ought to, and we wouldn't have a speculation problem.
Just like the Appalachian coal that gets shipped to China. To me, that is almost the most despicable part of the whole mess. If we produce cheap oil or cheap coal, it gets shipped out of the country.
Not all of it, of course, but enough to ensure that domestic oil drilling effectively only reduces the international price of oil, where it is comparatively far less effective.
The Appalachian coal really gets my goat. I regularly see the trains heading to the nearby port, loaded over with coal getting shipped out. We are stripping OUR OWN MOUNTAINS and shipping them to China.
Oh, sorry, now I understand what you were trying to say. The jagged edge of steel will make for easier cutting because it works more like a saw? I've never personally used a stone or glass edge for cutting flesh, so I don't know how it compares to a scalpel in ease-of-cutting.
The single-molecule edge indeed wears away quickly. Compared to steel, it wears away extremely quickly, even when cutting soft tissues, because glass is a relatively soft material. Also, it cannot be sharpened.
Amorphous is easier to flake, because you can direct the fracture lines by changing the angle and intensity of the applied force. Crystalline structures tend to bounce, reflect, and disrupt those fracture lines, which makes the force blow out of your piece in weird places.
Can you back that up with a reference, regarding "without special tools/technique you can not make a flint stone or obsidian as sharp as steel"? Knapping is a pretty standard technique, granted you need to develop it as a skill, but the equipment is simple and the technique is well-known.
As I understand it, obsidian is amorphous, and therefore can shear in any plane. The edge of the shear line in good quality obsidian should come out to a single molecule in width. No further sharpening techniques can be applied to the edge. It will dull quickly because glass is relatively soft on Moh's scale.
Steel is crystalline, and the final width of the edge is limited by the size of the carbide crystals. Even in the best steels, these are much larger than a single molecule in width. These crystals are what produce the ripping cut (at a molecular level) rather than slicing. The sharpness of the blade comes from a sharpening process, rather than shearing. Abrasive sharpening will tend to remove the carbide crystals instead of sharpening them, leaving a jagged edge.
Both are extremely sharp, but glass shards are used over steel when making thin slices of specimens for electron microscopy, because glass is sharper. Of course, plasma-polished diamond blades are used over glass, if you have them!
Obsidian cuts will heal more quickly and with less inflammatory response. Final scar formation may not be appreciably different, but the actual healing occurs more quickly with obsidian. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8415970
That would be obsidion that they use in surgery. An properly flaked obsidion edge is much sharper than the sharpest steel. How do you define sharper? Obsidion will flake to a single-molecule edge. Steel must be sharpened, and even when extremely sharp, will rip more than slice.
As I recall, the reason obsidion cuts heal better is because the sharper edge slices between the cells of the body, rather than ripping through them like steel.
Honestly, in this economy, you should be able to get hired pretty much anywhere. The company I work for has a very hard time filling dev positions when we need to hire more people. You wouldn't happen to be somewhere in the US northeast?:)
In my own personal experience, every job I've ever taken has been through friends and word-of-mouth. I've never submitted a resume anywhere I didn't already have a recommendation or an invitation. Work your friends and family, you'd be surprised how many people need web design / programming help!
Also, WORK ON YOUR INTERVIEWING!!! Guy shows up for an IT interview with grease stains on his polo shirt? No fly. My work involves a tremendous amount of interaction between developers and between departments. The work is high-risk and requires thought and care. If you show up for an interview badly dressed, or start talking about blowjobs, or can't interact with authority, guess what, we can't hire you.
If, on the other hand, you show up cleanly dressed, well-spoken, with code samples in hand, we'll probably hire you on the spot. Even if you don't quite have the skill set we're looking for. Code samples are IMPORTANT! Have both UI screenshots, and code samples.
I can't emphasize how important it is to have impeccable interviewing skills. Get a friend who has done job interviewing to quiz your performance. Do a mock interview at a local cafe. Do 10.
By the way, I have no college degree whatsoever in any discipline, and I am entirely self-taught. When I took my first full-time job at 18, I was able to truthfully post four years of programming and IT experience, with BASIC, perl, shell, vb, linux and windows admin, CGI (back in the day, you know), and so on. It was all pretty lightweight on paper, but I got the job.
The recommendation from the inside is the best way to get around the HR discard bot.
You're addicted to a bad, boring, dull job because it is work and security. Walk away now. I always walk away from a job when I get bored. Nobody ever says on their deathbed, "God I wish I worked more late nights on that dumb-ass job when I was 32." No. Quit your job and do something totally different with your life. Anything. Join OWS. Learn to freighthop. Buy a one-way ticket to the Eurozone and travel the world. Go into the wilderness and learn what it is like to harvest your own food with your own wits and hands.
Guaranteed, when you get back from the wilderness, your passion for coding will bloom like a million flowers in springtime. You need to sow the seeds of passion in order to reap the fruit, and it sounds like you are long overdue.
Software engineering is a good field to be in, because demand is high and supply is damn near nonexistant. Even web programmers can find jobs in a heartbeat these days, at least everywhere I've been and according to everyone I've heard. So when you get back, you can take your pick of interesting jobs.
Ron Paul wants the federal government out of student loans.
States can go ahead and make as many student loans as they want.
The money comes out of our pockets anyway; the federal government just adds a layer of non-accountability and administrative overhead. Keep the money local! State-sponsored educational subsidies are OK! Ron Paul has no problem with state-run subsidies!
(In a pure libertarian sense, they are not OK, but Ron Paul is trying to limit the FEDERAL government. He has said many times that state-run programs are fine with him.)
How about this one; we make subsidies available to people who care enough to deserve them.
I attend a local community college, and I have to say, if you start with unmotivated dinks, you end up with unmotivated college-educated dinks. A college degree is nothing in the hands of someone who just doesn't give a shit. Most people don't give a shit.
Subsidize the people who care; i.e., if you work hard or get excellent grades, you get to go to school. If you don't work hard and don't get good grades, no money for you.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't have to be mean. Be edgy. Cocky. Look in the mirror and say, "Beautiful women are irresistibly attracted to me!" Does it feel fake? Make it real. Play life like a game.
cej102937
^^ this ^^ I can't recommend Khan Academy enough. Many people in all the science classes I have taken (chem, biochem, orgo, anatomy, physiology...) have been hitting up YouTube to learn material, and it has been working very well for them. Khan Academy is a constant favorite!
cej102937
To a certain extent, you are correct.
However, there are many ways to learn. Classroom learning is just one. Traditionally, humans learn by imitation, experience, and storytelling in small groups. For many modern young people, it appears that YouTube is taking the role of storyteller.
There are a LOT of students who struggle through a lecture, then promptly go on YouTube to find videos recorded by instructors who are actually interested in teaching. This applies to all levels of classes, from introductory classes to my current head-asploder; biochemistry.
You may have suffered through traditional "higher education," but a new generation is learning a different way. Some of them are learning it better. We have made tremendous progress in many fields, why do we not study the process of academic instruction just as intensely as, say, nuclear physics? Because people like you seem to think that just because you suffered through it, everyone else must suffer as well. It's only fair, right?
Sorry. You were being obtuse. :)
Khan Academy is good, a lot of people use those videos!
--cej102937
I would normally say the same, except for Ron Paul. Are you aware of the man? If so, I'm curious; how do you believe he is not honest, and not working for the benefit of his constituents?
cej102937
That works unless they put the phone in a shielded bag. Then it won't receive text messages.
Iceland has an economy today, after they let things crash in 2009. Greece will have an economy again shortly after they let things crash.
There is some historical precedence for this. The crash of 1920 was much larger than the crash of 1929. Question: why did it take 10 years and a world war to recover from the (much smaller) crash of 1929?
cej102937
Agreed 100 percent.
Thus I find myself in a strange conundrum; I am frustrated at the rising cost of gasoline and electricity, yet I look forward to its increase.
cej102937
But you are late to the party.
Several years previously to this, the SEC granted special privileges -- hedge exemptions, specifically -- to various large investment banks. Goldman Sachs was the first, in 1991, followed by all (most?) of the other large players. These exceptions allowed the big banks to trade the market as if they were primary producers, when in fact they have no actual goods to deliver. This allows them to drive the price in both directions, and is likely the direct cause between the extreme volatility in nearly all the major commodities markets.
These exceptions are not exceptions that you or I could obtain. They are granted by the SEC to certain specific banks, to allow those banks to run their corrupt derivatives trades in our markets. It is with these exceptions that the large investment banks drive the incredible volatility and obscene price gouging that is currently prevalent in the commodities markets.
Your example, of the CME's margin hikes, is actually a textbook example of wrongful government intervention in the market. They used margin hikes to deliberately crush the exponential rise in commodities. Why did they do this? Because at that time, the large investment banks held enormous short positions, which stood to lose tremendous amounts of money. By raising the margins, the CME allowed those banks to continue making enormous sums of money, while simultaneously maintaining the value of the US dollar by obscuring the fact that it is being steadily inflated to worthlessness.
The whole game is rigged, top to bottom, no better than a casino. The problem is caused by government intervention, but you must often look more deeply to determine how. If the government did its job, which is to ensure a free and open market and stay the hell out of everybody's business otherwise, then this whole situation would never be a problem.
cej102937
Historically, countries have handled this kind of situation with trade tariffs. If you make it very expensive to export, then those materials will tend to remain domestic. An additional bonus is that this method is completely constitutional in the United States, whereas adding restrictions to mining companies' use of product is quite unconstitutional.
Coal is used for more than just gadgets. However, none of the edifices you described last more than a couple generations at best before they must be replaced. I will grant you that the benefit of good schools can uplift a culture for many generations; however, we have many more efficient ways to create these institutions, right now.
This is why increasing domestic energy production does not reduce local energy costs:
http://news.yahoo.com/first-gas-other-fuels-top-us-export-200739553.html
Want to bet how much of the oil transported to the Gulf of Mexico via the Keystone XL pipeline would actually end up sold inside the United States?
cej102937
I drive a car, I enjoy electric light and water provided by the destruction of non-replaceable energy sources. I am at fault.
The mining companies enjoys their ability to extract a profit from the earth because US political entities (state and federal) lease public land to those mining companies. The US government sponsors and profits from these destructive mining activities. The people of the US allow this to continue. We are at fault.
"It's despicable that a private company gets to make so much money from selling a national resource."
I do not think I could have put it better myself. Thank you.
I also do not think government should get to make money from selling a national resource either, because the value is in the conservation of that resource; once you exploit it, it no longer has value.
cej102937
"We" in this case refers to me, my family, the people in my geographical region who share the burden of local environmental problems, and the people in the political entity of the United States who collectively share the burden of allowing this monumental destruction of our children's land.
cej102937
The outrage is not in the who, but in the what. The destruction will last for as long as the human species exists, yet benefits only a couple generations. Once burned, the energy is irreplaceably lost, and whatever we are making with it will last for another couple generations at most. The majority of what we make with it won't even last a single generation. Much of it barely lasts five years.
We lose our mountains to make 5-year gadgets? There's no conspiracy; just an incomprehensible degree of greed and waste.
Selfishly, I feel a little better if it at least benefits my own country. For our mountains to be lost to benefit another country feels like a mounded insult on top of a grievous wound.
cej102937
I do understand, and I do not like it. These mountains are home to me. I am unhappy when they get blown up and shipped away. But for it to be shipped to China? That grates my heart in a peculiar way.
"Progress" is not progress when it destroys the land for your children.
cej102937
Certain specific banks. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley stand out in particular.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904070604576514761171756944.html?mod=WSJ_topics_obama
cej102937
I congratulate you and wish you well in your asbestos underwear!
Speculation is not the problem. The safety net provided by government bailing out the biggest speculators (the big banks) is the problem. Let those folks go out of business like they ought to, and we wouldn't have a speculation problem.
cej102937
effectively/effective, welcome to the department of redundancy department, sorry
Just like the Appalachian coal that gets shipped to China. To me, that is almost the most despicable part of the whole mess. If we produce cheap oil or cheap coal, it gets shipped out of the country.
Not all of it, of course, but enough to ensure that domestic oil drilling effectively only reduces the international price of oil, where it is comparatively far less effective.
The Appalachian coal really gets my goat. I regularly see the trains heading to the nearby port, loaded over with coal getting shipped out. We are stripping OUR OWN MOUNTAINS and shipping them to China.
cej102937
Oh, sorry, now I understand what you were trying to say. The jagged edge of steel will make for easier cutting because it works more like a saw? I've never personally used a stone or glass edge for cutting flesh, so I don't know how it compares to a scalpel in ease-of-cutting.
The single-molecule edge indeed wears away quickly. Compared to steel, it wears away extremely quickly, even when cutting soft tissues, because glass is a relatively soft material. Also, it cannot be sharpened.
Amorphous is easier to flake, because you can direct the fracture lines by changing the angle and intensity of the applied force. Crystalline structures tend to bounce, reflect, and disrupt those fracture lines, which makes the force blow out of your piece in weird places.
cej102937
Can you back that up with a reference, regarding "without special tools/technique you can not make a flint stone or obsidian as sharp as steel"? Knapping is a pretty standard technique, granted you need to develop it as a skill, but the equipment is simple and the technique is well-known.
As I understand it, obsidian is amorphous, and therefore can shear in any plane. The edge of the shear line in good quality obsidian should come out to a single molecule in width. No further sharpening techniques can be applied to the edge. It will dull quickly because glass is relatively soft on Moh's scale.
Steel is crystalline, and the final width of the edge is limited by the size of the carbide crystals. Even in the best steels, these are much larger than a single molecule in width. These crystals are what produce the ripping cut (at a molecular level) rather than slicing. The sharpness of the blade comes from a sharpening process, rather than shearing. Abrasive sharpening will tend to remove the carbide crystals instead of sharpening them, leaving a jagged edge.
Both are extremely sharp, but glass shards are used over steel when making thin slices of specimens for electron microscopy, because glass is sharper. Of course, plasma-polished diamond blades are used over glass, if you have them!
Obsidian cuts will heal more quickly and with less inflammatory response. Final scar formation may not be appreciably different, but the actual healing occurs more quickly with obsidian. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8415970
cej102937
That would be obsidion that they use in surgery. An properly flaked obsidion edge is much sharper than the sharpest steel. How do you define sharper? Obsidion will flake to a single-molecule edge. Steel must be sharpened, and even when extremely sharp, will rip more than slice.
As I recall, the reason obsidion cuts heal better is because the sharper edge slices between the cells of the body, rather than ripping through them like steel.
Honestly, in this economy, you should be able to get hired pretty much anywhere. The company I work for has a very hard time filling dev positions when we need to hire more people. You wouldn't happen to be somewhere in the US northeast? :)
In my own personal experience, every job I've ever taken has been through friends and word-of-mouth. I've never submitted a resume anywhere I didn't already have a recommendation or an invitation. Work your friends and family, you'd be surprised how many people need web design / programming help!
Also, WORK ON YOUR INTERVIEWING!!! Guy shows up for an IT interview with grease stains on his polo shirt? No fly. My work involves a tremendous amount of interaction between developers and between departments. The work is high-risk and requires thought and care. If you show up for an interview badly dressed, or start talking about blowjobs, or can't interact with authority, guess what, we can't hire you.
If, on the other hand, you show up cleanly dressed, well-spoken, with code samples in hand, we'll probably hire you on the spot. Even if you don't quite have the skill set we're looking for. Code samples are IMPORTANT! Have both UI screenshots, and code samples.
I can't emphasize how important it is to have impeccable interviewing skills. Get a friend who has done job interviewing to quiz your performance. Do a mock interview at a local cafe. Do 10.
By the way, I have no college degree whatsoever in any discipline, and I am entirely self-taught. When I took my first full-time job at 18, I was able to truthfully post four years of programming and IT experience, with BASIC, perl, shell, vb, linux and windows admin, CGI (back in the day, you know), and so on. It was all pretty lightweight on paper, but I got the job.
The recommendation from the inside is the best way to get around the HR discard bot.
You're addicted to a bad, boring, dull job because it is work and security. Walk away now. I always walk away from a job when I get bored. Nobody ever says on their deathbed, "God I wish I worked more late nights on that dumb-ass job when I was 32." No. Quit your job and do something totally different with your life. Anything. Join OWS. Learn to freighthop. Buy a one-way ticket to the Eurozone and travel the world. Go into the wilderness and learn what it is like to harvest your own food with your own wits and hands.
Guaranteed, when you get back from the wilderness, your passion for coding will bloom like a million flowers in springtime. You need to sow the seeds of passion in order to reap the fruit, and it sounds like you are long overdue.
Software engineering is a good field to be in, because demand is high and supply is damn near nonexistant. Even web programmers can find jobs in a heartbeat these days, at least everywhere I've been and according to everyone I've heard. So when you get back, you can take your pick of interesting jobs.
Ron Paul wants the federal government out of student loans.
States can go ahead and make as many student loans as they want.
The money comes out of our pockets anyway; the federal government just adds a layer of non-accountability and administrative overhead. Keep the money local! State-sponsored educational subsidies are OK! Ron Paul has no problem with state-run subsidies!
(In a pure libertarian sense, they are not OK, but Ron Paul is trying to limit the FEDERAL government. He has said many times that state-run programs are fine with him.)
cej
How about this one; we make subsidies available to people who care enough to deserve them.
I attend a local community college, and I have to say, if you start with unmotivated dinks, you end up with unmotivated college-educated dinks. A college degree is nothing in the hands of someone who just doesn't give a shit. Most people don't give a shit.
Subsidize the people who care; i.e., if you work hard or get excellent grades, you get to go to school. If you don't work hard and don't get good grades, no money for you.
cej