The psychology of the premed is a gold mine for someone trying to build a career. Allow me to spout a bit.
I have a BS in chemistry. I am also a physician, but I decided to go to med school during my senior year of college - i.e., when I realized I didn't like bench work. When I got to med school, I ran into all the premeds that I had spent years laughing at, with one big change: their techniques worked in med school. The raw material of medicine - anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology - is extremely amenable to memorization. Furthermore, the residencies available to you (and thus the range of lifestyles and incomes) are largely determined by how well you score on tests, culminating in one big test (the USMLE Step 1). Luckily for me, I'm a great test taker, and so I was able to score much higher than my class rank would have suggested.
The obsessive grade-grubbing, the indifference to deeper meaning - that's adaptive in the med school environment. You don't have time to worry about deep meaning when you've got another test covering four chapters coming up next week. (In my second year of med school, we had a test every Monday.) They skip the hard classes because people with 3.0 GPAs don't get into med school. Most physicians are reasonably intellectually curious, but the system we have punishes them for exploring it formally - and so we all think of premeds as dullards. They're not. They're just a species that is highly adapted to an environment that is very different from the one that faces the scientists with whom they do their undergraduate training.
If it's a biomechanical problem, that doc had damn well better have had physics.
Why on earth would you want a doctor to do that, instead of a materials engineer who's actually going to design the implant? The engineer does this every day. The doctor does not.
In most countries, they are paid to go to medical school, starting at age 18, meaning that they don't spend their twenties poor. And US tax laws make it worse - my student loan interest is not deductible, I'm not allowed to go back and contribute to my IRA for all the years that I couldn't afford to, etc. It's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem.
Way too much of the practice of being a doctor involves calculus to let that slide.
Almost none of the practice of medicine requires calculus. Trust me, I'm a doctor. There's a lot of use for calculus in medical research, and in deeper understanding of physiology - but it has no bearing whatsoever on my daily work.
To be fair, most medical research sucks because it's very hard and very expensive to do a decent study, and it's unethical to do all the really good ones. The bad statistics are just a side effect.
So we're back to protectionism? Please stop. Really.
Free trade and Wall Street shenanigans have nothing to do with one another. The fact that Wall Street folks support free trade isn't proof it's a bad idea.
Do people often hit your mirrors? Unless you're driving a very old truck, the housing is a separate assembly from the mirror, and so hitting the mirror housing will - at most - turn the housing in or out. Easily noticed, easily fixed.
And when your mirrors include your car's bodywork, they're not doing you any good. In that position, they're only good for backing up.
Dude, I guess I really should have included that disclaimer with my original post, but I didn't. Sorry. If you'd read my other comments, I have a rearview camera in my car, and I find it extremely useful.
You could always lean left or right to get the classic view. Of course, if your driving consists mostly of being tailgated by large vehicles, it may not be the best solution for you. And if you're in Virginia, God help you. NoVa has the worst drivers I've ever dealt with.
This whole subthread is about viewing to the sides. Not about the back. I've got a backup camera, and it's quite useful for the situation you describe.
The cameras are actually quite good. There's nothing behind my car that I can't see that's big enough to worry about. (The blind spot is approximately two inches off the bumper at the edge of the car; any farther to the side and they're in the side mirrors, any closer to the center or farther back, and they're in the camera.)
It struck me as rather unnecessary when I got the car, but it came with the nav package, and TBH I'm really quite a fan of it. It does add significantly to your situational awareness, as long as you don't use it as the sole sensor.
Seriously useful tip: your car has a nice, wide rearview mirror to let you see what's behind you. Adjust your side mirrors to show you your blind spots. I've done this for over a decade.
To do so, start by adjusting the driver's side mirror. Lean over so that your head is just at the window sill. Adjust the driver's-side mirror so that it gives you the classic "just the edge of the car" view that most people use for their mirrors. Lean over to the passenger side so that your head is in the midline of the car, and then adjust the passenger-side mirror to show the classic view. You're done!
It will look very strange when you first start driving this way, but you'll notice that as passing cars disappear from your rearview mirror, they appear in your side mirror, and as they disappear from your side mirror, they appear in your peripheral vision. Congrats! You no longer have a blind spot in your mirrors.
A better way to phrase it would be that real property is nearly unique in that you are required to pay taxes on it even if you don't use it at all. If I don't put my car out on public roads (e.g., a farm truck), I don't have to pay any licensing fees just to own it.
Ultimately, do you really own something if you have to pay to keep it? He obviously thinks not. You do.
"The right thing to do" would be to ignore any law that considers console modding - which, at worst, promotes copyright violation - a felony. Felonies are supposed to be real crimes - rape, murder, arson, armed robbery. Felons lose their right to vote. They often are denied entry to other countries, even on a tourist visa. A college dropout who works as a hotel car jockey isn't someone we need to be afraid of having on the streets.
Everyone always seems to assume that authors die of old age, long after they've stopped being productive. This is not always the case. As long as we are going to allow for intellectual property to exist, it's important to recognize that death isn't always a good cut-off.
And your right to your house is no more "genuine" than your right to the text of a book - without courts to enforce it, you're limited to shooting people who disagree with you. The gun doesn't care what you're defending, and once it's purely a matter of law, who's to say what is genuine or not? It's just that the real property is much more easily defined.
It's a thought experiment. I suppose I should have made that more clear. I'm just trying to get the "ENDS WITH DEATH" crowd to think about the fact that not every author dies even twenty years past their prime.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy who did it is a tenant. That's why it's unfair not to pay the owner.
The psychology of the premed is a gold mine for someone trying to build a career. Allow me to spout a bit.
I have a BS in chemistry. I am also a physician, but I decided to go to med school during my senior year of college - i.e., when I realized I didn't like bench work. When I got to med school, I ran into all the premeds that I had spent years laughing at, with one big change: their techniques worked in med school. The raw material of medicine - anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, pathology - is extremely amenable to memorization. Furthermore, the residencies available to you (and thus the range of lifestyles and incomes) are largely determined by how well you score on tests, culminating in one big test (the USMLE Step 1). Luckily for me, I'm a great test taker, and so I was able to score much higher than my class rank would have suggested.
The obsessive grade-grubbing, the indifference to deeper meaning - that's adaptive in the med school environment. You don't have time to worry about deep meaning when you've got another test covering four chapters coming up next week. (In my second year of med school, we had a test every Monday.) They skip the hard classes because people with 3.0 GPAs don't get into med school. Most physicians are reasonably intellectually curious, but the system we have punishes them for exploring it formally - and so we all think of premeds as dullards. They're not. They're just a species that is highly adapted to an environment that is very different from the one that faces the scientists with whom they do their undergraduate training.
getting surgeons to simply count the number of utensils on the bench
Already done. Retained instruments can only happen when someone counts wrong.
If it's a biomechanical problem, that doc had damn well better have had physics.
Why on earth would you want a doctor to do that, instead of a materials engineer who's actually going to design the implant? The engineer does this every day. The doctor does not.
In most countries, they are paid to go to medical school, starting at age 18, meaning that they don't spend their twenties poor. And US tax laws make it worse - my student loan interest is not deductible, I'm not allowed to go back and contribute to my IRA for all the years that I couldn't afford to, etc. It's a good problem to have, but it's still a problem.
Way too much of the practice of being a doctor involves calculus to let that slide.
Almost none of the practice of medicine requires calculus. Trust me, I'm a doctor. There's a lot of use for calculus in medical research, and in deeper understanding of physiology - but it has no bearing whatsoever on my daily work.
To be fair, most medical research sucks because it's very hard and very expensive to do a decent study, and it's unethical to do all the really good ones. The bad statistics are just a side effect.
So we're back to protectionism? Please stop. Really.
Free trade and Wall Street shenanigans have nothing to do with one another. The fact that Wall Street folks support free trade isn't proof it's a bad idea.
Do people often hit your mirrors? Unless you're driving a very old truck, the housing is a separate assembly from the mirror, and so hitting the mirror housing will - at most - turn the housing in or out. Easily noticed, easily fixed.
And when your mirrors include your car's bodywork, they're not doing you any good. In that position, they're only good for backing up.
Dude, I guess I really should have included that disclaimer with my original post, but I didn't. Sorry. If you'd read my other comments, I have a rearview camera in my car, and I find it extremely useful.
Almost no Symbian phones are available in the US at the carriers' stores. That's why the press ignores them.
I never thought I'd say this, but what you want is an N900.
While it's hard to make big money off religion, it definitely can be done. Check out Joel Osteen's church in Houston.
He's describing how the average person reacts. By the rules of formal logic, he's wrong. By the rules of human behavior, he's right.
You could always lean left or right to get the classic view. Of course, if your driving consists mostly of being tailgated by large vehicles, it may not be the best solution for you. And if you're in Virginia, God help you. NoVa has the worst drivers I've ever dealt with.
This whole subthread is about viewing to the sides. Not about the back. I've got a backup camera, and it's quite useful for the situation you describe.
Really, it doesn't. Not if they're properly adjusted. Rearview -> sideview -> peripheral vision. With overlap.
The cameras are actually quite good. There's nothing behind my car that I can't see that's big enough to worry about. (The blind spot is approximately two inches off the bumper at the edge of the car; any farther to the side and they're in the side mirrors, any closer to the center or farther back, and they're in the camera.)
It struck me as rather unnecessary when I got the car, but it came with the nav package, and TBH I'm really quite a fan of it. It does add significantly to your situational awareness, as long as you don't use it as the sole sensor.
Christ, I wish I hadn't already commented here. Please, someone, mod this up.
Seriously useful tip: your car has a nice, wide rearview mirror to let you see what's behind you. Adjust your side mirrors to show you your blind spots. I've done this for over a decade.
To do so, start by adjusting the driver's side mirror. Lean over so that your head is just at the window sill. Adjust the driver's-side mirror so that it gives you the classic "just the edge of the car" view that most people use for their mirrors. Lean over to the passenger side so that your head is in the midline of the car, and then adjust the passenger-side mirror to show the classic view. You're done!
It will look very strange when you first start driving this way, but you'll notice that as passing cars disappear from your rearview mirror, they appear in your side mirror, and as they disappear from your side mirror, they appear in your peripheral vision. Congrats! You no longer have a blind spot in your mirrors.
A better way to phrase it would be that real property is nearly unique in that you are required to pay taxes on it even if you don't use it at all. If I don't put my car out on public roads (e.g., a farm truck), I don't have to pay any licensing fees just to own it.
Ultimately, do you really own something if you have to pay to keep it? He obviously thinks not. You do.
"The right thing to do" would be to ignore any law that considers console modding - which, at worst, promotes copyright violation - a felony. Felonies are supposed to be real crimes - rape, murder, arson, armed robbery. Felons lose their right to vote. They often are denied entry to other countries, even on a tourist visa. A college dropout who works as a hotel car jockey isn't someone we need to be afraid of having on the streets.
While I disagree with you completely, I applaud your ruthless application of your principles.
Everyone always seems to assume that authors die of old age, long after they've stopped being productive. This is not always the case. As long as we are going to allow for intellectual property to exist, it's important to recognize that death isn't always a good cut-off.
And your right to your house is no more "genuine" than your right to the text of a book - without courts to enforce it, you're limited to shooting people who disagree with you. The gun doesn't care what you're defending, and once it's purely a matter of law, who's to say what is genuine or not? It's just that the real property is much more easily defined.
It's a thought experiment. I suppose I should have made that more clear. I'm just trying to get the "ENDS WITH DEATH" crowd to think about the fact that not every author dies even twenty years past their prime.