...and you are completely ignoring chemistry. In fact, WÃhler had produced urea and kickstarted the branch of "organic chemistry" in 1828.
Furthermore, their understanding of physics and chemistry was closely tied in those days, and they were familiar with such concepts as valency and the like. So, there was a good amount of science back then, I'd say.
Poor example. I wish someone had taught you the basics of statistics in school -- your selection group is awful. 70 year old people, really? Have you looked at the scope of cognitive development in a 70 year old?
Assuming you take a normal age group, your assumption is blatantly false. You've clearly not worked with refugees, or people from societies that have not seen or used modern devices. My wife (who, incidentally, goes to Harvard) volunteers with healthy policy organizations. She works with people people from the middle of nowhere in Africa, who have been granted asylum and arrive in the US. These are folks who have never seen or heard of things such as cellphones and cars, who go on to get driver's licenses, use computers, and cellphones on a regular basis.Some of them are quite easily in their 40s, even, and learn these things.
Indeed -- I have always assumed that a liberal arts education in the truest sense of the word includes engineering and the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, languages, and philosophy (include the philosophy of law, commerce, morality etc).
Indeed -- I have always assumed that a liberal arts education in the truest sense of the word includes engineering and the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, languages, and philosophy (include the philosophy of law, commerce, morality etc).
So, why is that all dropouts try and stress how and why they dropped out, as if to justify to themselves and to the world that dropping out has helped them somehow solve their raison d'Ãtre? It's almost as if they all have chips on their shoulders...
The idea behind a liberal arts education is to become a well-rounded person, with a (hopefully) better understanding and appreciation of the world around you.
This is something that is sorely missing in the vast majority of the population today, thanks to the transactional view of education. The idea of applicability to real life is something that was perpetuated by the likes of corporations, who needed skilled people but did not want to train. In fact, until fairly recently, companies offered training programs outside of your acceptance, and it was a given that you would learn those skills when you joined a company. These days, that is passe.
Colleges have become trade schools, and are expected to teach trades that are applicable to a job, with little else. Except for a handful of top notch schools, the vast majority lack depth in what they teach. This lack of appreciation and understanding stretches to both the sciences and engineering as well as the arts and humanities. No one wants to learn computer science, they want to learn programming. No one wants to learn the philosophy of morality, they want to get a law degree. No one wants to learn how to paint or understand the fundamentals of the visual arts; they would much rather learn "animation" and "game design" join a design studio.
The unfortunate side effect is that this is a shift in perception, one from when people wanted to be well rounded and enlightened, to one where people merely want to learn a skill and make money.
And if you think that historical philosophy is not enlightening, or even applicable to the real world, you are missing out on some of the greatest thinkers that this world has ever produced.
It's a stupid reason to like a character because he had girls after him -- especially if getting girls wasn't a problem in school anyway (or for that matter, at any point in life).
You like fiction because it inspires you, and Dilton inspired me. Girls and relationships were... too much like real life.
I know this sounds weird, but one of the first "geeky" comics character I was blown away by was Dilton Doiley, part of Archie's crew, in the Strange Science editions.
It was short, it was funny, and he was a geek who got the girl. All these other guys are great, but they had supernatural powers or wealth, or other things going for them. Dilton just... conducted home experiments! Of course, he had his own lab, but still, as a regular kid, you could aspire to be him.
The other character I remember from childhood, of course, was Tom Swift. Amazingly inspirational -- although, not a lot of comics of him out there (I've seen a few, but not many).
I believe you are mistaking charging the market price with reputable -- just because they are a reputable company does not mean that they should discount all profits from a free market enterprise.
At the end of the day, the fact remains that if they do not do it, someone else will. Yes, that sounds like a bad and facetious argument, but unfortunately, it is a true one.
Now, one could argue that there is no need for the bigger companies to do this (e.g. McAfee), but the smaller ones will take whatever they can to survive (an unfortunate reality of capitalism). And if the bigger ones don't, then they could stifle the smaller ones (i.e. we are not doing this, you shouldn't, so where do you draw the line?).
At the end of the day, it is up to each individual country to determine, and the people to seek such rights from the government. Liberty should be earned -- and unless a civilization is mature enough to realize this, and fight for it, they will be stuck in a rut.
And unfortunately, once-enlightened societies such as the US are quickly giving up their liberty because newer generations have a fundamental lack of understanding of liberty, and what it takes to keep it.
Well, here is the thing -- technology is inevitable. Imagine when wetware becomes common, and your brain is always "connected".
While misuse -- such as playing a game -- shouldn't be condoned, it is no different than reading a book, doodling on a notepad, or staring off into space. If folks are uninterested, there is nothing you can do to get them interested.
Are you sure your regrets are not a case of the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence? As a math grad student, there have been times when I wonder what would have happened had my first two econ classes not been dumbed down and my interest in the area had grown enough to pursue a quant career.
No, not really. I have been on both sides, and as I pursue school part-time and work full-time, I have come to realize how important it is to follow your heart.
Trust me, few things are as frustrating as feeling your brain rot when you're not challenged.
When the work gets to be a chore, it's your passion that's going to snap you out of the rut you'd be stuck in.
...since when is attempting to convince people to make a specific choice considered slavery?
It is not. However, Vivek Wadhwa does have a point. As someone who went from a tech/engineering background into management consulting, I have reached a point where I wish I had remained in technology, and in building something tangible.
Yes, the salary is better and the incentives are great -- I get to travel, I get to work on a variety of problems (marketing, revenue management, even technology recommendations), and in my late 20s, I work with C-level executives. It's great exposure.
However, as I near my 30s, I have to ask -- have I done anything tangible? Have I built something that made a true difference to the world? I wish I had joined a tech company and worked on my programming capabilities, so that I can build something, even if in my spare time. I wish I had used my undergrad engineering degree in working on VLSI design or something. And with the 60-80 hour work weeks and travel Monday through Thursday, I wish I had enough time for personal interests or activities -- in a past life, I used to do a lot of rock and ice climbing; it's been 2 years since I did any. Open source contributions? Zilch. Even playing with Lego seems like a chore, because I've 3 million other things to do. And you know you've a problem when you start getting worried about play being a chore, since it takes time away from other "important stuff" -- i.e. building pointless decks and excel models.
The other problem with most of what you do in finance and management consulting is that your skills are limited in the outside world, and you are so busy with your work that you've little time to learn other things.
So, I've decided to go the entrepreneurial route. I may try and fail, but at least I would have tried. With a couple of my friends (both of whom, incidentally, are from i-banking and quite burnt out themselves), we've decided that it's about time that we started throwing ideas at the wall to see what would stick. I live in Boston, so we're working with college students in the Cambridge area who are interested in working with us for a little equity and cash, and trying to develop new and interesting products.
The first of which is slated to go live end of this month -- Deal Umpire -- and a couple of others being worked on. It has been an immensely fulfilling experience.
Building a 50 page deck that no one will ever look at beyond the first two pages, a complex excel model that you spent weekends developing that gets forgotten and locked away, or making recommendations that get ignored because the client will do as the client pleases anyway -- none of this comes close to the thrill of building something on your own, something tangible and worthwhile (now, arguably, there are definitely clients and engagements that are truly interesting, and the client genuinely cares about what you are building -- but those are rarer than you'd think),
We have investors eager to fund, but we do not want to take up their offers, because we are afraid that it will be back to building decks and models to do someone else's bidding. So, we're at it on our own.
If you are an engineer, you probably went into the profession because you like to build things, because you like to open things apart and learn, and because you like the fact that creativity and analysis can often team up in building some pretty awesome stuff. You will not find that in either of those two professions. Yes, you will have money and the perks, but if you don't kindle that spark of creating something, you will soon extinguish it for greed. And that is very, very unfortunate.
Thankfully, I've a very understanding wife who is a geek herself, and she has been very instrumental in helping me keep my act together. And just the thought of working on something fun and interesting goes a long way to rekindling creativity I'd thought long gone.
The real problem is that people want sprawling houses, and are not comfortable living in smaller places.
I mean, why bother living in a small apartment downtown when I can get a sprawling, waste of space out in the 'burbs, and drive 20 miles each way?
People raise kids in NYC and in other big cities. You can just put your kids in a private school, and they can take the train or the bus to get to where they want.
No, I think this is a great idea. Some of us ride bikes and take buses and trains. And we do not live out in suburbs, and even live in neighborhoods which are well connected with good, public transportation.
More likely, he demonstrated that being a boss usually means you can't be friends, especially in a job where "being a friend" can either cost lives or requires sending friends into the line of fire.
Eh. One thing I've learned is to never be an ass to your subordinates, no matter what. It takes a certain type of personality to be happy-go-lucky, and not get emotional or stressed out with the people you work. And it is especially important not to take your anger or frustrations out on people.
And you know what? People are a lot more productive when you are happier and easy to work with.
I have had (and still have) bosses who are absolute jerks, and I've bosses who are amazing guys. On my current engagement, my boss is a guy who has made and lost millions, and he has an attitude towards life that can only be described as hedonistic zen. And guess what? I would go out of my way to do things for him.
In contrast, for the people who are jerks, I may do something to get them out of my hair or because I feel threatened -- but that in no way means I enjoy working for them, and those relationships are never strong, even if I they are superficially friends.
When I was at Los Alamos, you could not access public email sites -- although, you could (back then) access social media sites (Orkut, MySpace etc). Plus, they had blocked off access to all USB ports as well (that was around the time when they had the whole hard-drive missing and found thing going on).
Anyway, the really counterfeiters of the US dollars are US Fed and Treasury.
Just because you disagree with their policies does not make them counterfeiters. I too disagree with some of their policies -- I just have a different set of solutions in mind.
The guy minting his own silver coins, and going out of his way to make sure everybody knows they are NOT in fact 'legal tender' is now deemed a terrorist, because the people who really counterfeit the US dollars are afraid that their worthless currency won't be staying in use too much longer.
No, he was deemed guilty of breaking the law. What part of that is not clear to you?
Dude, he could have minted his own currency and called it anything else he wanted but a dollar, and he could have used any other symbols/representations than that of the United States.
Congratulations, by the way, on completely swallowing the party's line (whatever party you like) on this guy being a terrorist, you are now protecting them in saying that.
Eh? I study governments and international relations, and I have also studied the role of economic manipulation in warfare. That is far from swallowing any party line -- they are just facts. You can look them up yourself, you know.
Random guy trying to make "dollar-like" currency --> Criminal law, especially when that such counterfeiting could undermine the legitimacy of the existing currency and defraud people.
Both are completely unrelated.
If you do not believe counterfeiting could be endangering national security, you do not understand fundamental economics very well. Now calling it terrorism may be over the top, but remember that in countries engaged in conflict, it is very common for one country to counterfeit currencies of the other (e.g. Pakistan has been caught counterfeiting Indian currency time and again). This serves two purposes. One, it undermines the other nation's economy (and the credibility of the state). Another, you can exchange the counterfeit currency for real goods, and use that to sponsor activities in the other nation (including terrorism).
Far from it -- however, your comments have not discussed anything of substance on economics, other than how much fiat currency sucks and how a currency backed by precious metals would be great.
Anyone could be an armchair economist, spewing forth opinions, but it is difficult to put together something tangible with the historic and economic burden of centuries behind you. There is a reason we switched to fiat currency, and there is no going back. It simply is not feasible, nor realistic. While I disagree with some of the Fed's policies, I am neither so blind nor ignorant that I think that we could magically switch back to using gold and silver instead.
I mean, if it's any help, my comments -- where my opinions are diagonally opposite to yours, have also been down-modded. Make what you will out of that.
No, it is an attempt to defraud the users of a legitimate currency with one that so closely resembles the original currency that it could be mistaken for one -- it is the equivalent of currency counterfeiting, which can indeed have severe consequences.
Now, you are more than welcome to have bank notes -- you can issue your own promisory note, call it whatever the hell you want, and you can exchange it as legal tender (as long as you can back it up, of course). That's entirely your prerogative. But do not pretend that you can somehow magically use the symbols and terms of the state and get away with it just because.
I am sure if he had minted silver coins and called them "Long John's Silver" chunka (or whatever), he would have been fine. The value of the inherent metal is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
You may disagree with fiat currency, but that is the currency of this country. And you cannot magically go around creating something that closely resembles it and call it a dollar, because let's face it, it is not (philosophical arguments aside on which currency is "better"). The guy was a kook and got what he deserved.
Slashdot Mirror
...and you are completely ignoring chemistry. In fact, WÃhler had produced urea and kickstarted the branch of "organic chemistry" in 1828.
Furthermore, their understanding of physics and chemistry was closely tied in those days, and they were familiar with such concepts as valency and the like. So, there was a good amount of science back then, I'd say.
Poor example. I wish someone had taught you the basics of statistics in school -- your selection group is awful. 70 year old people, really? Have you looked at the scope of cognitive development in a 70 year old?
Assuming you take a normal age group, your assumption is blatantly false. You've clearly not worked with refugees, or people from societies that have not seen or used modern devices. My wife (who, incidentally, goes to Harvard) volunteers with healthy policy organizations. She works with people people from the middle of nowhere in Africa, who have been granted asylum and arrive in the US. These are folks who have never seen or heard of things such as cellphones and cars, who go on to get driver's licenses, use computers, and cellphones on a regular basis.Some of them are quite easily in their 40s, even, and learn these things.
*including, not include...
Indeed -- I have always assumed that a liberal arts education in the truest sense of the word includes engineering and the sciences, social sciences, arts, humanities, languages, and philosophy (include the philosophy of law, commerce, morality etc).
So, why is that all dropouts try and stress how and why they dropped out, as if to justify to themselves and to the world that dropping out has helped them somehow solve their raison d'Ãtre? It's almost as if they all have chips on their shoulders...
The idea behind a liberal arts education is to become a well-rounded person, with a (hopefully) better understanding and appreciation of the world around you.
This is something that is sorely missing in the vast majority of the population today, thanks to the transactional view of education. The idea of applicability to real life is something that was perpetuated by the likes of corporations, who needed skilled people but did not want to train. In fact, until fairly recently, companies offered training programs outside of your acceptance, and it was a given that you would learn those skills when you joined a company. These days, that is passe.
Colleges have become trade schools, and are expected to teach trades that are applicable to a job, with little else. Except for a handful of top notch schools, the vast majority lack depth in what they teach. This lack of appreciation and understanding stretches to both the sciences and engineering as well as the arts and humanities. No one wants to learn computer science, they want to learn programming. No one wants to learn the philosophy of morality, they want to get a law degree. No one wants to learn how to paint or understand the fundamentals of the visual arts; they would much rather learn "animation" and "game design" join a design studio.
The unfortunate side effect is that this is a shift in perception, one from when people wanted to be well rounded and enlightened, to one where people merely want to learn a skill and make money.
And if you think that historical philosophy is not enlightening, or even applicable to the real world, you are missing out on some of the greatest thinkers that this world has ever produced.
It's a stupid reason to like a character because he had girls after him -- especially if getting girls wasn't a problem in school anyway (or for that matter, at any point in life).
You like fiction because it inspires you, and Dilton inspired me. Girls and relationships were... too much like real life.
I know this sounds weird, but one of the first "geeky" comics character I was blown away by was Dilton Doiley, part of Archie's crew, in the Strange Science editions.
It was short, it was funny, and he was a geek who got the girl. All these other guys are great, but they had supernatural powers or wealth, or other things going for them. Dilton just... conducted home experiments! Of course, he had his own lab, but still, as a regular kid, you could aspire to be him.
The other character I remember from childhood, of course, was Tom Swift. Amazingly inspirational -- although, not a lot of comics of him out there (I've seen a few, but not many).
I believe you are mistaking charging the market price with reputable -- just because they are a reputable company does not mean that they should discount all profits from a free market enterprise.
For a while, Resnick & Halliday was the mecca for Physics, and Morrison & Boyd for Organic Chem. Can't really speak to other areas.
What on earth are you talking about? Fascism is pretty much the ultimate representation of corporatist ideals.
If you think otherwise, you need a lesson in history and political ideologies.
Welcome to fascism. Benito would be proud.
Those that do not learn from history...
Hasn't this always been the case?
At the end of the day, the fact remains that if they do not do it, someone else will. Yes, that sounds like a bad and facetious argument, but unfortunately, it is a true one.
Now, one could argue that there is no need for the bigger companies to do this (e.g. McAfee), but the smaller ones will take whatever they can to survive (an unfortunate reality of capitalism). And if the bigger ones don't, then they could stifle the smaller ones (i.e. we are not doing this, you shouldn't, so where do you draw the line?).
At the end of the day, it is up to each individual country to determine, and the people to seek such rights from the government. Liberty should be earned -- and unless a civilization is mature enough to realize this, and fight for it, they will be stuck in a rut.
And unfortunately, once-enlightened societies such as the US are quickly giving up their liberty because newer generations have a fundamental lack of understanding of liberty, and what it takes to keep it.
Well, here is the thing -- technology is inevitable. Imagine when wetware becomes common, and your brain is always "connected".
While misuse -- such as playing a game -- shouldn't be condoned, it is no different than reading a book, doodling on a notepad, or staring off into space. If folks are uninterested, there is nothing you can do to get them interested.
No, not really. I have been on both sides, and as I pursue school part-time and work full-time, I have come to realize how important it is to follow your heart.
Trust me, few things are as frustrating as feeling your brain rot when you're not challenged.
When the work gets to be a chore, it's your passion that's going to snap you out of the rut you'd be stuck in.
It is not. However, Vivek Wadhwa does have a point. As someone who went from a tech/engineering background into management consulting, I have reached a point where I wish I had remained in technology, and in building something tangible.
Yes, the salary is better and the incentives are great -- I get to travel, I get to work on a variety of problems (marketing, revenue management, even technology recommendations), and in my late 20s, I work with C-level executives. It's great exposure.
However, as I near my 30s, I have to ask -- have I done anything tangible? Have I built something that made a true difference to the world? I wish I had joined a tech company and worked on my programming capabilities, so that I can build something, even if in my spare time. I wish I had used my undergrad engineering degree in working on VLSI design or something. And with the 60-80 hour work weeks and travel Monday through Thursday, I wish I had enough time for personal interests or activities -- in a past life, I used to do a lot of rock and ice climbing; it's been 2 years since I did any. Open source contributions? Zilch. Even playing with Lego seems like a chore, because I've 3 million other things to do. And you know you've a problem when you start getting worried about play being a chore, since it takes time away from other "important stuff" -- i.e. building pointless decks and excel models.
The other problem with most of what you do in finance and management consulting is that your skills are limited in the outside world, and you are so busy with your work that you've little time to learn other things.
So, I've decided to go the entrepreneurial route. I may try and fail, but at least I would have tried. With a couple of my friends (both of whom, incidentally, are from i-banking and quite burnt out themselves), we've decided that it's about time that we started throwing ideas at the wall to see what would stick. I live in Boston, so we're working with college students in the Cambridge area who are interested in working with us for a little equity and cash, and trying to develop new and interesting products.
The first of which is slated to go live end of this month -- Deal Umpire -- and a couple of others being worked on. It has been an immensely fulfilling experience.
Building a 50 page deck that no one will ever look at beyond the first two pages, a complex excel model that you spent weekends developing that gets forgotten and locked away, or making recommendations that get ignored because the client will do as the client pleases anyway -- none of this comes close to the thrill of building something on your own, something tangible and worthwhile (now, arguably, there are definitely clients and engagements that are truly interesting, and the client genuinely cares about what you are building -- but those are rarer than you'd think),
We have investors eager to fund, but we do not want to take up their offers, because we are afraid that it will be back to building decks and models to do someone else's bidding. So, we're at it on our own.
If you are an engineer, you probably went into the profession because you like to build things, because you like to open things apart and learn, and because you like the fact that creativity and analysis can often team up in building some pretty awesome stuff. You will not find that in either of those two professions. Yes, you will have money and the perks, but if you don't kindle that spark of creating something, you will soon extinguish it for greed. And that is very, very unfortunate.
Thankfully, I've a very understanding wife who is a geek herself, and she has been very instrumental in helping me keep my act together. And just the thought of working on something fun and interesting goes a long way to rekindling creativity I'd thought long gone.
Ahh, but the irony is that I live in Boston (OP here, btw). So much for that, eh?
The real problem is that people want sprawling houses, and are not comfortable living in smaller places.
I mean, why bother living in a small apartment downtown when I can get a sprawling, waste of space out in the 'burbs, and drive 20 miles each way?
People raise kids in NYC and in other big cities. You can just put your kids in a private school, and they can take the train or the bus to get to where they want.
No, I think this is a great idea. Some of us ride bikes and take buses and trains. And we do not live out in suburbs, and even live in neighborhoods which are well connected with good, public transportation.
Eh. One thing I've learned is to never be an ass to your subordinates, no matter what. It takes a certain type of personality to be happy-go-lucky, and not get emotional or stressed out with the people you work. And it is especially important not to take your anger or frustrations out on people.
And you know what? People are a lot more productive when you are happier and easy to work with.
I have had (and still have) bosses who are absolute jerks, and I've bosses who are amazing guys. On my current engagement, my boss is a guy who has made and lost millions, and he has an attitude towards life that can only be described as hedonistic zen. And guess what? I would go out of my way to do things for him.
In contrast, for the people who are jerks, I may do something to get them out of my hair or because I feel threatened -- but that in no way means I enjoy working for them, and those relationships are never strong, even if I they are superficially friends.
This is true in the US, as well.
When I was at Los Alamos, you could not access public email sites -- although, you could (back then) access social media sites (Orkut, MySpace etc). Plus, they had blocked off access to all USB ports as well (that was around the time when they had the whole hard-drive missing and found thing going on).
Just because you disagree with their policies does not make them counterfeiters. I too disagree with some of their policies -- I just have a different set of solutions in mind.
No, he was deemed guilty of breaking the law. What part of that is not clear to you?
Dude, he could have minted his own currency and called it anything else he wanted but a dollar, and he could have used any other symbols/representations than that of the United States.
Eh? I study governments and international relations, and I have also studied the role of economic manipulation in warfare. That is far from swallowing any party line -- they are just facts. You can look them up yourself, you know.
How mature.
Policies of the Fed --> Economic policy.
Random guy trying to make "dollar-like" currency --> Criminal law, especially when that such counterfeiting could undermine the legitimacy of the existing currency and defraud people.
Both are completely unrelated.
If you do not believe counterfeiting could be endangering national security, you do not understand fundamental economics very well. Now calling it terrorism may be over the top, but remember that in countries engaged in conflict, it is very common for one country to counterfeit currencies of the other (e.g. Pakistan has been caught counterfeiting Indian currency time and again). This serves two purposes. One, it undermines the other nation's economy (and the credibility of the state). Another, you can exchange the counterfeit currency for real goods, and use that to sponsor activities in the other nation (including terrorism).
Far from it -- however, your comments have not discussed anything of substance on economics, other than how much fiat currency sucks and how a currency backed by precious metals would be great.
Anyone could be an armchair economist, spewing forth opinions, but it is difficult to put together something tangible with the historic and economic burden of centuries behind you. There is a reason we switched to fiat currency, and there is no going back. It simply is not feasible, nor realistic. While I disagree with some of the Fed's policies, I am neither so blind nor ignorant that I think that we could magically switch back to using gold and silver instead.
I mean, if it's any help, my comments -- where my opinions are diagonally opposite to yours, have also been down-modded. Make what you will out of that.
No, it is an attempt to defraud the users of a legitimate currency with one that so closely resembles the original currency that it could be mistaken for one -- it is the equivalent of currency counterfeiting, which can indeed have severe consequences.
Now, you are more than welcome to have bank notes -- you can issue your own promisory note, call it whatever the hell you want, and you can exchange it as legal tender (as long as you can back it up, of course). That's entirely your prerogative. But do not pretend that you can somehow magically use the symbols and terms of the state and get away with it just because.
I am sure if he had minted silver coins and called them "Long John's Silver" chunka (or whatever), he would have been fine. The value of the inherent metal is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
You may disagree with fiat currency, but that is the currency of this country. And you cannot magically go around creating something that closely resembles it and call it a dollar, because let's face it, it is not (philosophical arguments aside on which currency is "better"). The guy was a kook and got what he deserved.
He used terms and images that are associated with the US dollar, and that is the problem.
If he had released the silver dollars and called them Johnny Cash, he'd not have had any problems.