I read it as he worked 15 hours/wk during the school year. Not during the summer. Why would working during the summer affect his grades? That was the whole point of his comment was that he had wished he had studied more and bagged fewer groceries.
Most financial aid right now is work/study, as far as I'm aware. Admittedly, I'm way out of school, and I didn't take any financial aid (my tuition was only $5k/yr way back when, and I made between $15-20/hr waiting tables.), but anyway, that's my understanding.
My current yearly income is 35 times larger than that crappy store job, and I wonder how much more-advanced in my career I would be if my GPA was closer to 4.0, because I had more time to study and get better grades.
I haven't been asked for my college GPA since my first job out of college. And even then, in one of my interviews, I actually called attention to the fact that I failed one of my calculus courses. They didn't care. I already had experience.
For nerds*, the target audience of this website, experience trumps grades in all situations but one: if you intend to go to graduate school. Then, your grades matter.
*I say for nerds specifically, because if you're going to major in Arts & Crafts, you had better get a 4.0. My wife majored in some liberal arts something or other, but she had a 4.0 and got a job in banking just on the basis of her being smart.
Ok, so if I just pull some random numbers out of my ass... We have 100 people. 50 have insurance and 50 don't. If they sell the hearing aid for $3000, they sell 50 of them. If they sell it for $500 they sell 100. Which makes them more money?
Cute, but most insurance doesn't cover hearing aids.
AND it's a very small minority. It's estimated the number of people without either private or government insurance is only 10 million. That means the other ~310 million persons have their hearing aids (or other health products) paid by the insurance company/government, and the manufacturers can demand high rates.
Actually, most insurance policies, including Medicare, do not cover hearing aids.
I think it's a number of things. 1. FDA approval means more testing is required. 2. Updating the software on a cellphone is easier than a hearing aid. Again, more testing required. 3. Those expensive hearing aids are custom fit to your ear, which adds to the cost. 4. There are insane profit margins built into those hearing aids. If you can get into it, it's a very lucrative business.
When you get to the fine tuning stage its just too damn difficult to tell which is better. Patients can't objectively determine and make a subjective determination. There is nothing subjective about focusing light. It isn't a preference. If there is an objective way to measure your focus it should just be a question of the resolution of that measurement.
There is obviously nothing subjective about focusing light, but what we prefer for our vision is definitely subjective. Some people intentionally undercorrect one eye to help with their near vision, for example.
As you say, the manual test that the optometrist gives has a subjective factor to it. But in the end, the whole process is imperfect. Do I always have my glasses positioned perfectly on my face to get the 100% proper correction? Of course not. Glasses get dropped, bent, sat on, etc.
Perhaps the manual vision test could be replaced with an automated process. But I feel like when I go to the eye doctor, the manual vision test only takes like 5 minutes. The rest of the time is spent testing for other stuff. So I don't think we can discard optometrists like we did with elevator operators. Not yet, anyway.
If you go in the military you aren't given a vision test manually, you look into a machine and it flips lens over your eyes while you focus on a spot and the machine can tell whether you are properly focused or not and determines your prescription automatically.
I don't know if you've taken one of these automatic tests before or not, but I have, and it's really need tech! The results are pretty decent, but not as good as a manual test.
My eye doctor uses the machine to get a general idea of where your prescription is, and then fine-tunes it manually. One time I asked him to show me the prescription that the machine gave me vs. the manually-determined one because I was curious to see how close it is. And yeah, the machine did pretty well, but it wasn't as sharp as the result from the manual test. Although now that I think about it, I have an astigmatism, and I didn't ask if the machine can detect that. Anyway, that definitely would have messed up the results if it couldn't.
They already have hearing aids comparable to what was available 5-10yrs ago freely available for $50-300 sold as hunting enhancements.
This is actually great information. Any chance you could give a link to some of these that are reputable (I say reputable, because I know how to google, but I don't know which companies are good)? My mother's hearing is pretty bad, but Medicare doesn't cover the $5000 hearing aids, so this might be good information for her.
Most of the drugs that have been subject to shortages have been generics. Cheap generics. Even after all of the hue and cry about the shortages (this is apparently a US only issue) it isn't very clear exactly WHY the drugs are in short supply.
I am not in the industry, but my wife is sick as a motherfucker, so we've been on the receiving end of some of this.
What's happened when she's suffered from a drug shortage of generics is: 1. Price is driven so far down that only 1 or 2 manufacturers can produce it profitably. 2. A manufacturer has a contamination or some other issue and is shut down by the FDA until they can resolve the problem, which can take a long time. 3. With 50-100% of manufacturing capacity offline, shortages ensue.
Exploits to crypto algorithms are found all the time. Exploitable bugs in implementations are found all the time. Facial recognition improves all the time. Storage costs decrease over time.
I thought the idea for the FBI to take a PB or two of data as a sample was a great idea. Sure, nothing will probably ever come of it, but you never know. Statues of limitations for child rape are long, where they exist at all. If you ID a rapist or victim, you could get a prosecution.
For cases of child sexual abuse, I think you'll find that the statues of limitations are quite long, where they exist at all. Storing a PB or two of data stream for 10-15 years wouldn't be too expensive, and if an exploit is found for whatever crypto Tor uses (or a bug in the implementation) or some magical quantum machine gets invented, you just never know what goodies you might find.
Even if you don't get enough info to catch anyone (how long does your ISP keep IP lease logs?), you might be able to ID a victim, as facial recognition improves. Once you have a victim, you might have someone who can ID and testify against the rapist.
So yeah, I think storing a bit of data would be a clever thing for the FBI to do. Even if they don't turn anything up, it's not like it would cost more than a few thousand bucks.
Hmm. I think it's pretty much enshrined in the universal parent code of conduct that we must embarrass our kids as completely and as often as possible. Some sort of payback for all of those tantrums you threw on the ground at Safeway.:)
On that note, think I could pull off one of those big, massive Flavor Flav clock necklaces from the 80s?
- partner dancing (I went Modern Jive and WCS, but whatever works for you)
Assuming you're a guy, I highly recommend this! I took Salsa lessons for a while back when it was popular. Female to male ratio is pure awesome.
- round the world cruise
I love to travel, but I despise cruises. It's impossible to really get to know a place that way.
- hiking across south america
Sounds like fun!
- buying a biplane and flying to south africa (from England)
Do you know how to fly? A buddy of mine just got his license. He seems to like it.
- becoming a gigolo
Let me know how that turns out!
- go gay for a bit
You know, it's funny. When I was younger, that idea would have been 100% abhorrent to me, but now it's only more like 90%. Perhaps as I get older things will change.
- get a new job
Ave! Duci novo, similis duci seneci!
- suicide (ideally after blowing my entire net worth and whatever loans I can raise on some or all of the above)
And miss the Dirty Old Man stage?
- motorbikes (like fast cars, but faster, cheaper, and often negate the need for the above option)
I once met some insane Scottish people who had biked across Europe and had made it all the way to Egypt (where I met them). I couldn't understand 80% of what they were saying, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
- shooting shit (I use a bow)
Use a flamethrower!
- start a business
A wise, old businessman once confided in me that $1 made for yourself is better than $2 made for somebody else. He would have disputed my characterizing him as either old or wise, but his advice fit well with the advice that I received from a middle-aged attorney (and I'm paraphrasing here because my father would never use such a vulgar expletive): you can make a fuck of a lot more money having people work for you than you can make working for somebody else. Since I got essentially the same message from both an employee and an employer, that was all I needed to hear. That month, my dear old dad and I both quit our jobs and started our own businesses. I started 2: a software consultancy and a real estate investment firm, and he started 1: a small business incubator.
I'm happy to report these have all worked out extremely well for us. Highly recommend!
Great bucket list! I think I need to start mine, now. 1. Asian sex tour. 2. ??
I had this done. It's not expensive, compared with the cost of most gadgets these days. I bought a whole house surge protector at Home Depot for about $60, and hired an electrician to install it and ground it properly. That was probably...$70? I don't remember. It was a while ago. Money well spent.
By the way, those "surge protectors" that you plug into your outlet and then plug your gear into? Yeah, those can smooth out minor power spikes, but they won't do shit against lightning. If your line gets a direct lightning strike, your "surge protector" and anything plugged into it are going to be toast. A whole house surge protector routes the excess current to ground where it belongs.
Ahh yes, the outlet of the mid-life "what the fuck happened to me? I should have been a rockstar." crisis. Some guys buy fast cars, some guys get in to extreme sports, some guys get in to Asian sex tourism. I suppose, by those standards, that this was one of the more mild mid-life freakouts.
Hmm. I'm starting to get into midlife crisis territory myself, so thanks for the handy list of suggestions.
Of the above, the Asian sex tourism bit sounds the most appealing. Any more options to choose from, or should I just stick with that?
His official title was "Vice President, SAP Integration & Certification Center (ICC) at SAP Labs, LLC". I'd guess in the $300k/yr range, including benefits.
So $30k would have been more than a rounding error for him, but probably did not afford him a meaningful boost in his lifestyle.
His official title was "Vice President, SAP Integration & Certification Center (ICC) at SAP Labs, LLC". So your characterization of him as an assistant manager at a Wendy's store is probably apt from a corporate structure standpoint, but he probably brought in more than $20/hr!
He was basically a VP at a division of an SAP subsidiary. Upper middle management.
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I read it as he worked 15 hours/wk during the school year. Not during the summer. Why would working during the summer affect his grades? That was the whole point of his comment was that he had wished he had studied more and bagged fewer groceries.
Most financial aid right now is work/study, as far as I'm aware. Admittedly, I'm way out of school, and I didn't take any financial aid (my tuition was only $5k/yr way back when, and I made between $15-20/hr waiting tables.), but anyway, that's my understanding.
Huh? He worked $7/hr * 15 hrs/wk * 52 wks/yr = $5460/yr. Now he makes 35x that, or $191,000. Divide that by 2000 for hourly rate, and you get $95/hr.
That's still pretty high, but not unheard of, depending on his field.
My current yearly income is 35 times larger than that crappy store job, and I wonder how much more-advanced in my career I would be if my GPA was closer to 4.0, because I had more time to study and get better grades.
I haven't been asked for my college GPA since my first job out of college. And even then, in one of my interviews, I actually called attention to the fact that I failed one of my calculus courses. They didn't care. I already had experience.
For nerds*, the target audience of this website, experience trumps grades in all situations but one: if you intend to go to graduate school. Then, your grades matter.
*I say for nerds specifically, because if you're going to major in Arts & Crafts, you had better get a 4.0. My wife majored in some liberal arts something or other, but she had a 4.0 and got a job in banking just on the basis of her being smart.
Ok, so if I just pull some random numbers out of my ass... We have 100 people. 50 have insurance and 50 don't. If they sell the hearing aid for $3000, they sell 50 of them. If they sell it for $500 they sell 100. Which makes them more money?
Cute, but most insurance doesn't cover hearing aids.
Sorry for wrecking your analysis.
Medicare does not cover hearing aids.
AND it's a very small minority. It's estimated the number of people without either private or government insurance is only 10 million. That means the other ~310 million persons have their hearing aids (or other health products) paid by the insurance company/government, and the manufacturers can demand high rates.
Actually, most insurance policies, including Medicare, do not cover hearing aids.
I think it's a number of things.
1. FDA approval means more testing is required.
2. Updating the software on a cellphone is easier than a hearing aid. Again, more testing required.
3. Those expensive hearing aids are custom fit to your ear, which adds to the cost.
4. There are insane profit margins built into those hearing aids. If you can get into it, it's a very lucrative business.
When you get to the fine tuning stage its just too damn difficult to tell which is better. Patients can't objectively determine and make a subjective determination. There is nothing subjective about focusing light. It isn't a preference. If there is an objective way to measure your focus it should just be a question of the resolution of that measurement.
There is obviously nothing subjective about focusing light, but what we prefer for our vision is definitely subjective. Some people intentionally undercorrect one eye to help with their near vision, for example.
As you say, the manual test that the optometrist gives has a subjective factor to it. But in the end, the whole process is imperfect. Do I always have my glasses positioned perfectly on my face to get the 100% proper correction? Of course not. Glasses get dropped, bent, sat on, etc.
Perhaps the manual vision test could be replaced with an automated process. But I feel like when I go to the eye doctor, the manual vision test only takes like 5 minutes. The rest of the time is spent testing for other stuff. So I don't think we can discard optometrists like we did with elevator operators. Not yet, anyway.
If you go in the military you aren't given a vision test manually, you look into a machine and it flips lens over your eyes while you focus on a spot and the machine can tell whether you are properly focused or not and determines your prescription automatically.
I don't know if you've taken one of these automatic tests before or not, but I have, and it's really need tech! The results are pretty decent, but not as good as a manual test.
My eye doctor uses the machine to get a general idea of where your prescription is, and then fine-tunes it manually. One time I asked him to show me the prescription that the machine gave me vs. the manually-determined one because I was curious to see how close it is. And yeah, the machine did pretty well, but it wasn't as sharp as the result from the manual test. Although now that I think about it, I have an astigmatism, and I didn't ask if the machine can detect that. Anyway, that definitely would have messed up the results if it couldn't.
They already have hearing aids comparable to what was available 5-10yrs ago freely available for $50-300 sold as hunting enhancements.
This is actually great information. Any chance you could give a link to some of these that are reputable (I say reputable, because I know how to google, but I don't know which companies are good)? My mother's hearing is pretty bad, but Medicare doesn't cover the $5000 hearing aids, so this might be good information for her.
Most of the drugs that have been subject to shortages have been generics. Cheap generics. Even after all of the hue and cry about the shortages (this is apparently a US only issue) it isn't very clear exactly WHY the drugs are in short supply.
I am not in the industry, but my wife is sick as a motherfucker, so we've been on the receiving end of some of this.
What's happened when she's suffered from a drug shortage of generics is:
1. Price is driven so far down that only 1 or 2 manufacturers can produce it profitably.
2. A manufacturer has a contamination or some other issue and is shut down by the FDA until they can resolve the problem, which can take a long time.
3. With 50-100% of manufacturing capacity offline, shortages ensue.
So, there ya go.
Exploits to crypto algorithms are found all the time. Exploitable bugs in implementations are found all the time. Facial recognition improves all the time. Storage costs decrease over time.
I thought the idea for the FBI to take a PB or two of data as a sample was a great idea. Sure, nothing will probably ever come of it, but you never know. Statues of limitations for child rape are long, where they exist at all. If you ID a rapist or victim, you could get a prosecution.
For cases of child sexual abuse, I think you'll find that the statues of limitations are quite long, where they exist at all. Storing a PB or two of data stream for 10-15 years wouldn't be too expensive, and if an exploit is found for whatever crypto Tor uses (or a bug in the implementation) or some magical quantum machine gets invented, you just never know what goodies you might find.
Even if you don't get enough info to catch anyone (how long does your ISP keep IP lease logs?), you might be able to ID a victim, as facial recognition improves. Once you have a victim, you might have someone who can ID and testify against the rapist.
So yeah, I think storing a bit of data would be a clever thing for the FBI to do. Even if they don't turn anything up, it's not like it would cost more than a few thousand bucks.
If you do that, please, safe sex.
As a doctor I've seen it all go horribly wrong more than once.
I spoke with my chiropractor, and he advised that if I install universal guard rails on the bed, I should be perfectly safe.
Heh. I saved you in Evernote. For all I know, you may hear from me someday. But not today. Any adventure trips are a few years out.
Hmm. I think it's pretty much enshrined in the universal parent code of conduct that we must embarrass our kids as completely and as often as possible. Some sort of payback for all of those tantrums you threw on the ground at Safeway. :)
On that note, think I could pull off one of those big, massive Flavor Flav clock necklaces from the 80s?
Well, if you want to do more than one, I recommend saving "suicide" for last.
Interesting ideas. Here are my thoughts on those:
- partner dancing (I went Modern Jive and WCS, but whatever works for you)
Assuming you're a guy, I highly recommend this! I took Salsa lessons for a while back when it was popular. Female to male ratio is pure awesome.
- round the world cruise
I love to travel, but I despise cruises. It's impossible to really get to know a place that way.
- hiking across south america
Sounds like fun!
- buying a biplane and flying to south africa (from England)
Do you know how to fly? A buddy of mine just got his license. He seems to like it.
- becoming a gigolo
Let me know how that turns out!
- go gay for a bit
You know, it's funny. When I was younger, that idea would have been 100% abhorrent to me, but now it's only more like 90%. Perhaps as I get older things will change.
- get a new job
Ave! Duci novo, similis duci seneci!
- suicide (ideally after blowing my entire net worth and whatever loans I can raise on some or all of the above)
And miss the Dirty Old Man stage?
- motorbikes (like fast cars, but faster, cheaper, and often negate the need for the above option)
I once met some insane Scottish people who had biked across Europe and had made it all the way to Egypt (where I met them). I couldn't understand 80% of what they were saying, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.
- shooting shit (I use a bow)
Use a flamethrower!
- start a business
A wise, old businessman once confided in me that $1 made for yourself is better than $2 made for somebody else. He would have disputed my characterizing him as either old or wise, but his advice fit well with the advice that I received from a middle-aged attorney (and I'm paraphrasing here because my father would never use such a vulgar expletive): you can make a fuck of a lot more money having people work for you than you can make working for somebody else. Since I got essentially the same message from both an employee and an employer, that was all I needed to hear. That month, my dear old dad and I both quit our jobs and started our own businesses. I started 2: a software consultancy and a real estate investment firm, and he started 1: a small business incubator.
I'm happy to report these have all worked out extremely well for us. Highly recommend!
Great bucket list! I think I need to start mine, now.
1. Asian sex tour.
2. ??
TV Antenna should have been grounded properly by the installer. Cable is underground. Telephone, unless your house is really old, will be grounded.
I had this done. It's not expensive, compared with the cost of most gadgets these days. I bought a whole house surge protector at Home Depot for about $60, and hired an electrician to install it and ground it properly. That was probably...$70? I don't remember. It was a while ago. Money well spent.
By the way, those "surge protectors" that you plug into your outlet and then plug your gear into? Yeah, those can smooth out minor power spikes, but they won't do shit against lightning. If your line gets a direct lightning strike, your "surge protector" and anything plugged into it are going to be toast. A whole house surge protector routes the excess current to ground where it belongs.
Man, and I thought that Thai stripper who could manipulate chopsticks with her pussy was exotic!
I said "training", not "marketing".
Ahh yes, the outlet of the mid-life "what the fuck happened to me? I should have been a rockstar." crisis. Some guys buy fast cars, some guys get in to extreme sports, some guys get in to Asian sex tourism. I suppose, by those standards, that this was one of the more mild mid-life freakouts.
Hmm. I'm starting to get into midlife crisis territory myself, so thanks for the handy list of suggestions.
Of the above, the Asian sex tourism bit sounds the most appealing. Any more options to choose from, or should I just stick with that?
His official title was "Vice President, SAP Integration & Certification Center (ICC) at SAP Labs, LLC". I'd guess in the $300k/yr range, including benefits.
So $30k would have been more than a rounding error for him, but probably did not afford him a meaningful boost in his lifestyle.
His official title was "Vice President, SAP Integration & Certification Center (ICC) at SAP Labs, LLC". So your characterization of him as an assistant manager at a Wendy's store is probably apt from a corporate structure standpoint, but he probably brought in more than $20/hr!
He was basically a VP at a division of an SAP subsidiary. Upper middle management.