(seriously, I really don't understand the point. Why text instead of send an email, which doesn't have a character limit???)
I used to be in your camp until I found myself on a plan with unlimited texting.
With email, you get lumped in with all of the other random email people get and it's harder to get noticed.
Texting is great for just sending a quick one-liner to people who are close enough to you to know your cell #. It's quicker than making a phone call, and the receiving party can read it at a convenient time rather than interrupting that person. I find myself doing a fair amount of texting, but nothing like a teenage kid.
In the end, I don't think I'd pay extra for a texting plan, so maybe the value I place on it is fairly small. But the fact is, I'm not paying for it, and I do find it pretty useful.
Are there any links you could please provide to any books or web sources about how to "build... cognitive and social skills via directed play therapy"?
I'd agree that raising kids has many aspects. Nutrition is only one of them.
I'm sure there are, but I wouldn't know where they are. My wife and I just go in every week to learn what we're supposed to be doing at that very moment.:)
I can ask my son's therapist for some recommendations, if you'd like. What age group are we targeting? I can email you at webmaster@k____-f_______.com (censored due to spam harvesters... probably an overkill since you publish it on your webpage, but you never know), if you'd like to discuss.
I really liked the video in your Huff Po link, because the kid in it is just like my son. Look how bored he looks, staring off into space. He doesn't look at his father or the camera, yet he's paying complete attention. And the warm, engaging, charismatic smile at the end. Might as well have been my kid.
Even after we took our son off of dairy, my wife and I decided to proceed with behavioral therapy for him. The dietary change brought about good results, but we are greedy and want great results.:)
We found a terrific practice that doesn't treat the kid, they train the parents (the kid doesn't go to half the appointments). The doctor and therapist taught us to systematically build his cognitive and social skills via directed play therapy. We knew we were doing the right thing for 2 reasons: First, he loved it. Every time the next building block came his way, he was so happy. He'd tell us days later how much fun he had at his appointment (at age 2).
Secondly, by the end of the session, he was completely wiped. It drained everything he had. That told us that, despite how much fun he was having, he was not wired correctly to function as typically-developing kids function. But then when we reinforced it at home, it became easier and easier for him. We were rewiring him.
So I 100% believe that the dairy allergy was the main culprit in my son's "autism", but I have to believe that that's not the end of the story. I truly believe that there is/was something else awry with him, but I have no idea what that might be.
In the end, I guess it doesn't matter. He's a happy little guy now, and that's all that any parent can ask for.
I feel sorry for your wife--that's a hell of a thing for a 4-year-old to go through. It seems like modern medicine is starting to pay a lot more attention now to food intolerances. Given the garbage that now passes for food, I'd say that can only be a good thing.
But watch for the autistic part to show up again, especially if you are on the autistic spectrum yourself (especially if you are high-functioning and don't realize that you are on the spectrum).
It'll be interesting to see. My wife and I definitely wonder if the dairy allergy was his only issue, or if it's dairy+something else that's so mild we wouldn't have brought him in for it.
Because of his delays, we went ahead and did behavioral therapy for him just in case. It was a low risk decision since he started when he was only 15 months old or so (i.e. low risk of a label causing him to believe he was "different" and then behaving that way). He probably would have done fine without it (and his therapist said as much after a year or so of treatment), but he still needed some catch-up. We're very glad we did it.
At this point, we can still see some behaviors in him that hearken back to his "Autistic" self, but they are so subtle that you would never know if you weren't a pediatric behavioral specialist. Even then, a specialist probably wouldn't flag him in his current state. After all, you study ANY kid under a microscope and you'll find something atypical. We're not robots, after all.
It is interesting that you bring up whether I'm on the spectrum, myself. I don't believe that I am, and probably will never find out, as it's difficult to diagnose mild ASD in adults. That being said, all of his triggers (situations/sensations/etc. that he was unable to cope with) are things that make me uncomfortable, as well.
It's eerie just how similar we are in that regard, but I asked my parents if these things were debilitating to me at his age, and they were not. So, clearly we were different in our natural ability to manage the stress of the discomfort. Definitely made for some funny exchanges:
Wife: I'm going to _________. Me: I don't recommend you __________. He's not going to like it. Wife: Don't be ridiculous. He's not going to care if I ___________. Son: [Insert 5-Alarm Tantrum here].
Perhaps without behavioral therapy he wouldn't have learned to cope as well as he has? Perhaps we're still in for a surprise? I guess that's why parenting is never boring.
How did Josh get Autism? I don't know. Did he have Autism? Don't know that either. Did he have heavy metal poisoning? If you look up the symptoms you'll see they are quite similar.
As a parent of a kid who was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I have to say that there is a huge problem right now with overdiagnosing Autism. I can't really say I blame the behavioral health people--it's just that a lot of different issues tend to present like Autism in little kids.
At around age 1, my son was a mess. He had these routines that he'd do over and over and over again, and if you interrupted him, he'd scream for 2 hours. He couldn't talk, wouldn't make eye contact, didn't interact at all with anyone. He was developmentally delayed in every area that they measure. We brought him to a behavioral specialist who said that he was too young to know for sure, but that in a few years, we should plan on him being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. She said that there was definitely evidence to support that diagnosis at the time, but that she prefers not to label kids that young.
My wife and I did a ton of research on Autism and anything else we could find. I was reading some stupid article on curing Autism by changing the kid's diet when it hit me: as an infant, my son was allergic to dairy. He was shitting blood, vomiting, etc., but he got over it at about age 6mos. Anyway, we called his pediatrician and asked if we'd be nuts to take him off of dairy, and he said that taking him off of dairy for a few months would actually be a great idea.
So we took him off of dairy, and lo and behold, he was cured. He was a different kid. Engaging, charismatic. The routines disappeared. He started to develop. Obviously, he wasn't Autistic at all. He was just still allergic to dairy, and he was in excruciating pain, which inhibited his development.
So I think there are a lot of "Autistic" kids out there who are suffering needlessly due to their actual condition remaining undiagnosed. I really wish doctors just send every developmentally-delayed kid to a behavioral specialist. An allergist should always be consulted, IMHO.
There are so many commands that can fire off a shell. If a utility wasn't designed to run setuid, it's probably pretty easy to attack if you have sudo on it.
That's a very good point. The idea was to go gently into that good night, but getting arrested would put a serious crimp in those plans.
I wonder if it would be easier to make your getaway from a rural hospital as opposed to the major hospital center where my wife is being treated. Of course, there are about a dozen different ways out of that labyrinthian campus, and it'd be easier to blend in with a crowd. Probably a little harder to blend in at Holy Jesus of the Royal Cross Surgical Center in East Armpit, Iowa.
Also, a sledgehammer does not seem to be a high barrier to entry. A small sledgehammer can be obtained for roughly $20. Not sure how fortified the dispensers are, though.
I wonder how hard it would be to steal Dilaudid IV from your local oncology center?
Not that I condone such practice, of course. My wife is currently suffering from cancer (more like suffering from chemo, if you want to get technical about it), so I've been exposed to this stuff more than your random Joe. Point being, they seem to dole out the stuff like candy there (as they should).
Don't open the door for the police, even if you believe that they have a valid search warrant. Slowly approach a window with your empty hands in the air and say, "I'm not armed. If you have a warrant, you'll have to kick the door in. I'll just stand here in the window with my hands visible."
The point being, if the cops were in your home, the first thing your decent lawyer is going to ask you for is your broken doorjamb. If the cops kicked your door in, it's clear to all parties that consent was not given, and you didn't open your door for the cops to "smell something".
Well, I've changed a lot since 25. And then there's that whole "Midlife Crisis" thing. Forever is a long time.
People's personalities just don't change much from the time they reach puberty, and especially not after they graduate college. They become older and wiser (or perhaps more cynical and jaded!), but an honest person doesn't magically turn into a sociopathic swindler, or vice versa.
Even if this is true, and I'm not convinced that it is, divorce is one of those areas where people behave uncharacteristically badly. The stakes are high, and the contempt runs deep. It is very easy for otherwise-reasonable people to allow things to spiral out of control.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that you may be able to reduce your chances of an ugly divorce, but you can never eliminate it. They say that 50% of first marriages end in divorce. But what percentage end in accusations of child molestation? And of those, what percentage end in suicide? Are you going to let the fear of an extremely unlikely event dictate the life that you build for yourself?
I don't think it's quite the same. I think the above should have been worded, "...they aren't sure whether or not they could trust their spouses not to ruin their lives in a custody battle is a little like...", and I would completely disagree with you. If you don't think you know your spouse that well, or could trust them not to knife you in the back, then that really isn't a very good relationship.
And how would I know for certain if my wife would ever attempt to ruin my life in a custody battle? For that matter, how could I know that my wife would not attempt this 10 or 20 years down the line? People change.
35 is late? Gee, I'm 37 and I don't exactly feel like I'm ready for a nursing home. Something is wrong here.
Relax. Nobody's trying to send you to a nursing home. On the other hand, most women don't exactly have a lot of reproductive years ahead of them at age 35.
Indeed, by 35, my wife could no longer have children. Glad we didn't wait.
Now, before some limp-wristed fool replies saying, "there's never a good cause to do such a thing", suppose you're sitting at home minding your own business when some thug or three breaks down the door, intent on killing you (it's called "home invasion", and happens a lot more often than the news media reports).
I live in "shoot first and ask questions later" country, so this isn't a likely scenario.
As I think about it, I don't think there's anybody that I'd trust with a secret that could send me to a lengthy prison sentence. I wouldn't intentionally burden my wife with such knowledge, either. I guess I'm just not the trusting type, that way.
On the other hand, my wife is a fabulous wife and teriffic mother. I have no reason to believe that marrying her was a mistake, despite having no idea whether or not she'd actually help me bury a body, as it were.
Regarding trumped-up allegations during custody battles, it can definitely happen. A friend of my wife's is facing this currently. It seems a little paranoiac to plan your life around the possibility that this rare occurrence might happen to you. You face far greater danger by simply getting into your car and driving to work.
Sometimes you just need to roll the dice and hope you aren't the statistic-breaker. A guy from my high school class was hiking last year and a tree limb fell on him, killing him instantly. Telling people not to marry because they aren't sure whether or not they could trust their spouses to aid and abet a murder is a little like telling people not to go hiking due to what happened to that guy from my high school.
You can't live your life without risk. Not any life I'd like to lead, anyway.
The subject of authorization here seems ambiguous to me. Without question, the statute prohibits using a computer service (like gmail) without authorization. However, whose authorization is required?
In some cases, it's it cut and dried. By way of example, I operate a webserver on hardware that I own. If you were to log in to that server via SSH and start mucking about, you'd be in clear violation of Michigan statute (assuming the violation occurred in a way that Michigan could establish jurisdiction).
In this instance, however, Google owns the hardware where wife's email is stored. Does wife retain any type of ownership over her gmail account? I haven't read Gmail's TOS, but I seriously doubt it grants users any ownership over anything. So why is wife's authorization even required? From where does she derive her standing to authorize or forbid access to Google's hardware, Google's network, and Google's email service?
This is important, I think. For instance, assume that I am an employee at some company. If some nefarious hacker were to obtain my password, log into my account, and start doing nefarious things to my employer's servers, am *I* somehow the aggrieved party? I should think my employer's lack of authorization would be the relevant test here, not my lack of authorization. My only role in this violation is that of the clueless attack vector.
You're being ridiculous. It's true that the court's default assumption in divorce cases involving children is that the woman should have custody of the children, but it's by no means impossible to get that assumption overturned.
My wife doesn't know any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. However, I do have an escrow file which she can open in the event of my death which contains them all.
How up-to-date is your escrow file? Presumably you change your important passwords every once in a blue moon.
She will need access to banking sites etc. when that happens, so privacy until then, and full disclosure after.
No, she doesn't. That's why god invented Joint With Rights Of Survivorship. All she has to do is send the financial institution your death certificate, and she's good to go.
Perhaps I'm a bad husband, but my wife doesn't have any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. If she brought it up I would say the exact same thing as you said. If she takes offense, that is her problem.
My wife and I don't share passwords, either.
I do, however, administer our email server with our family domain name. I told her that I technically can, but won't, read any email on our server, and that if she wants to have super-private email, she should get a gmail account for that.
Most states are no-fault divorce states. Adultery by one divorcing party does not affect the distribution of assets.
Adultery can (and typically will), however, affect child custody arrangements. Custody arrangements will affect post-divorce finances, so don't think your adultery will have zero financial repercussions for you.:)
Suppose the utilities are in your name and the utility company is stuck in the 20th century and doesn't have computerized or automatic bill payment. Suppose you are out of town or, heaven forbid, incapacitated for several weeks and the bill arrives. I would hope she'd open the bill and pay it.
My wife and I have a similar arrangement to the GP. We don't open or toss each other's postal mail without first asking permission.
When my wife fell ill with cancer and was in the hospital, I did open utility bills that were addressed to her, but only after first asking for permission. We also have individual credit cards, but joint bank accounts.
Just because my wife and I are on the same team doesn't mean we give up 100% of our individual selves.
Of course, as you correctly point out, having kids really throws a wrench into the works. My advice there? Don't have kids before you've been married for 10 (TEN) years, and are absolutely sure your spouse is someone who will help you bury a body. Your spouse is supposed to be your best friend in the world, and a good friend is someone who will help you bury a body. If you can't say that about your spouse, then your relationship really isn't very solid.
How young do people get married where you live?
I got married when my wife and I were 25, which is fairly young for a major metropolitan area. You're telling me we should have waited until age 35 to start having kids? That's awfully late to start a family, if the woman can even bear children at all at that age. My wife would not have been able to, had we waited that long.
My situation is similar yet opposite. My wife does not work to stay home with the kid. We have good credit, but because I put the CCs in her name to keep her rating high should something happen to me, her's is higher than mine in spite of having no recorded income.
This is expected. Income is not factored into credit score.
You should both get individual credit cards so you both will build good credit ratings.
I haven't given up, I have tried 8 different approaches to each of the 50ish companies in the appropriate fields. Not a single one of them will even look at any invention from an outside source under any circumstances.
Surely you can understand that a company won't sign an NDA with you. What if they are already working on what you propose? That's a legal headache they don't need.
Probably better to get that patent filed. I know, I know. You don't have money to file a patent. Find it, or find a patent attorney you can partner with. Maybe patent attorneys do pro bono work? I have no idea.
And, no, I don't think you can put yourself through school while you're killing yourself doing an honors engineering degree. I think you could if you'd slow down your pace. Personally, if I were you I'd drop the honors (unless you need it for a scholarship or something) and do a paid coop or internship. Seriously, if you have more actual experience than the competition, no employer will care whether or not you have an honors degree.
"Across United States public schools, just 74.9 percent of students who were freshmen in the fall of 2004 graduated from high school on time in 2008, according to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics." source.
Regarding your college situation, here's what I did: freshman and sophomore years, I worked as a waiter and earned about $15/hr including tips. I worked fulltime during the summer and 10 hours per week during the school year. I made about $12k/year and didn't pay any income tax once I got through all of the lifetime learning credits or hope credits or whatever the hell they were. Junior and senior years, I did some computer programming for a local insurance company for $20/hr. That was a great deal for them, and it was more money than I thought I'd ever see, so I was pretty happy, too.
Tuition was $5k/year. I know it's a lot higher now--I just looked and it's $8,987 this year. I didn't buy books because they would be a waste of money for me: I am a slow reader and wouldn't be able to read them. In-house dues at my fraternity house were $450/mo including rent, utilities, food (yes, food), and many social activities. Round up to $500x9 months in school=$4500. I lived at home during the summer. So that was about $10k in tuition, room, and board on $12k-$18k/yr in income. I did not take out any loans.
Are you working a little too hard? I showed up with 1.5 years of AP credit and took a light course load so I could work (as in, for money). Guess how hard it was for me to get my first programming job after graduation, given that I already had 2 years' experience? That's right; it was pretty darn easy. Experience always trumps education, and I had a well-known insurance company+IBM on my resume.
Regarding your invention, yup, I guess you're right. Might as well just pack it in and go home. Game over. There's just no solution. Oh well, so sad. No one will talk to a poor college student. You're just a victim here, after all.
On a serious note, you're right about one thing, my parents gave me a gift that many parents do not give their children. They demonstrated (not told, demonstrated) that through consistent, persistent action, you can make just about anything happen.
You seem to have given up, which is fine if it works for you. Good luck in your endeavors.
Slashdot Mirror
What are these texts of which you speak? ;-)
(seriously, I really don't understand the point. Why text instead of send an email, which doesn't have a character limit???)
I used to be in your camp until I found myself on a plan with unlimited texting.
With email, you get lumped in with all of the other random email people get and it's harder to get noticed.
Texting is great for just sending a quick one-liner to people who are close enough to you to know your cell #. It's quicker than making a phone call, and the receiving party can read it at a convenient time rather than interrupting that person. I find myself doing a fair amount of texting, but nothing like a teenage kid.
In the end, I don't think I'd pay extra for a texting plan, so maybe the value I place on it is fairly small. But the fact is, I'm not paying for it, and I do find it pretty useful.
Are there any links you could please provide to any books or web sources about how to "build ... cognitive and social skills via directed play therapy"?
I'd agree that raising kids has many aspects. Nutrition is only one of them.
I'm sure there are, but I wouldn't know where they are. My wife and I just go in every week to learn what we're supposed to be doing at that very moment. :)
I can ask my son's therapist for some recommendations, if you'd like. What age group are we targeting? I can email you at webmaster@k____-f_______.com (censored due to spam harvesters... probably an overkill since you publish it on your webpage, but you never know), if you'd like to discuss.
I really liked the video in your Huff Po link, because the kid in it is just like my son. Look how bored he looks, staring off into space. He doesn't look at his father or the camera, yet he's paying complete attention. And the warm, engaging, charismatic smile at the end. Might as well have been my kid.
Even after we took our son off of dairy, my wife and I decided to proceed with behavioral therapy for him. The dietary change brought about good results, but we are greedy and want great results. :)
We found a terrific practice that doesn't treat the kid, they train the parents (the kid doesn't go to half the appointments). The doctor and therapist taught us to systematically build his cognitive and social skills via directed play therapy. We knew we were doing the right thing for 2 reasons: First, he loved it. Every time the next building block came his way, he was so happy. He'd tell us days later how much fun he had at his appointment (at age 2).
Secondly, by the end of the session, he was completely wiped. It drained everything he had. That told us that, despite how much fun he was having, he was not wired correctly to function as typically-developing kids function. But then when we reinforced it at home, it became easier and easier for him. We were rewiring him.
So I 100% believe that the dairy allergy was the main culprit in my son's "autism", but I have to believe that that's not the end of the story. I truly believe that there is/was something else awry with him, but I have no idea what that might be.
In the end, I guess it doesn't matter. He's a happy little guy now, and that's all that any parent can ask for.
I feel sorry for your wife--that's a hell of a thing for a 4-year-old to go through. It seems like modern medicine is starting to pay a lot more attention now to food intolerances. Given the garbage that now passes for food, I'd say that can only be a good thing.
But watch for the autistic part to show up again, especially if you are on the autistic spectrum yourself (especially if you are high-functioning and don't realize that you are on the spectrum).
It'll be interesting to see. My wife and I definitely wonder if the dairy allergy was his only issue, or if it's dairy+something else that's so mild we wouldn't have brought him in for it.
Because of his delays, we went ahead and did behavioral therapy for him just in case. It was a low risk decision since he started when he was only 15 months old or so (i.e. low risk of a label causing him to believe he was "different" and then behaving that way). He probably would have done fine without it (and his therapist said as much after a year or so of treatment), but he still needed some catch-up. We're very glad we did it.
At this point, we can still see some behaviors in him that hearken back to his "Autistic" self, but they are so subtle that you would never know if you weren't a pediatric behavioral specialist. Even then, a specialist probably wouldn't flag him in his current state. After all, you study ANY kid under a microscope and you'll find something atypical. We're not robots, after all.
It is interesting that you bring up whether I'm on the spectrum, myself. I don't believe that I am, and probably will never find out, as it's difficult to diagnose mild ASD in adults. That being said, all of his triggers (situations/sensations/etc. that he was unable to cope with) are things that make me uncomfortable, as well.
It's eerie just how similar we are in that regard, but I asked my parents if these things were debilitating to me at his age, and they were not. So, clearly we were different in our natural ability to manage the stress of the discomfort. Definitely made for some funny exchanges:
Wife: I'm going to _________.
Me: I don't recommend you __________. He's not going to like it.
Wife: Don't be ridiculous. He's not going to care if I ___________.
Son: [Insert 5-Alarm Tantrum here].
Perhaps without behavioral therapy he wouldn't have learned to cope as well as he has? Perhaps we're still in for a surprise? I guess that's why parenting is never boring.
How did Josh get Autism? I don't know. Did he have Autism? Don't know that either. Did he have heavy metal poisoning? If you look up the symptoms you'll see they are quite similar.
As a parent of a kid who was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I have to say that there is a huge problem right now with overdiagnosing Autism. I can't really say I blame the behavioral health people--it's just that a lot of different issues tend to present like Autism in little kids.
At around age 1, my son was a mess. He had these routines that he'd do over and over and over again, and if you interrupted him, he'd scream for 2 hours. He couldn't talk, wouldn't make eye contact, didn't interact at all with anyone. He was developmentally delayed in every area that they measure. We brought him to a behavioral specialist who said that he was too young to know for sure, but that in a few years, we should plan on him being diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder. She said that there was definitely evidence to support that diagnosis at the time, but that she prefers not to label kids that young.
My wife and I did a ton of research on Autism and anything else we could find. I was reading some stupid article on curing Autism by changing the kid's diet when it hit me: as an infant, my son was allergic to dairy. He was shitting blood, vomiting, etc., but he got over it at about age 6mos. Anyway, we called his pediatrician and asked if we'd be nuts to take him off of dairy, and he said that taking him off of dairy for a few months would actually be a great idea.
So we took him off of dairy, and lo and behold, he was cured. He was a different kid. Engaging, charismatic. The routines disappeared. He started to develop. Obviously, he wasn't Autistic at all. He was just still allergic to dairy, and he was in excruciating pain, which inhibited his development.
So I think there are a lot of "Autistic" kids out there who are suffering needlessly due to their actual condition remaining undiagnosed. I really wish doctors just send every developmentally-delayed kid to a behavioral specialist. An allergist should always be consulted, IMHO.
There are so many commands that can fire off a shell. If a utility wasn't designed to run setuid, it's probably pretty easy to attack if you have sudo on it.
"trust but verify"
To get some transparency / accountability, just set up an authlog black hole that includes all of the sudo activity from your servers.
Ahh, but couldn't a local admin disable that logging?
That's a very good point. The idea was to go gently into that good night, but getting arrested would put a serious crimp in those plans.
I wonder if it would be easier to make your getaway from a rural hospital as opposed to the major hospital center where my wife is being treated. Of course, there are about a dozen different ways out of that labyrinthian campus, and it'd be easier to blend in with a crowd. Probably a little harder to blend in at Holy Jesus of the Royal Cross Surgical Center in East Armpit, Iowa.
I believe the purpose of the theft was to commit suicide. I should hardly think that a dead person would care about being photographed.
Hmmm. Looks like I'm not the first to have thought of this.
Also, a sledgehammer does not seem to be a high barrier to entry. A small sledgehammer can be obtained for roughly $20. Not sure how fortified the dispensers are, though.
I wonder how hard it would be to steal Dilaudid IV from your local oncology center?
Not that I condone such practice, of course. My wife is currently suffering from cancer (more like suffering from chemo, if you want to get technical about it), so I've been exposed to this stuff more than your random Joe. Point being, they seem to dole out the stuff like candy there (as they should).
Don't open the door for the police, even if you believe that they have a valid search warrant. Slowly approach a window with your empty hands in the air and say, "I'm not armed. If you have a warrant, you'll have to kick the door in. I'll just stand here in the window with my hands visible."
The point being, if the cops were in your home, the first thing your decent lawyer is going to ask you for is your broken doorjamb. If the cops kicked your door in, it's clear to all parties that consent was not given, and you didn't open your door for the cops to "smell something".
People do change, but not that much.
Well, I've changed a lot since 25. And then there's that whole "Midlife Crisis" thing. Forever is a long time.
People's personalities just don't change much from the time they reach puberty, and especially not after they graduate college. They become older and wiser (or perhaps more cynical and jaded!), but an honest person doesn't magically turn into a sociopathic swindler, or vice versa.
Even if this is true, and I'm not convinced that it is, divorce is one of those areas where people behave uncharacteristically badly. The stakes are high, and the contempt runs deep. It is very easy for otherwise-reasonable people to allow things to spiral out of control.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that you may be able to reduce your chances of an ugly divorce, but you can never eliminate it. They say that 50% of first marriages end in divorce. But what percentage end in accusations of child molestation? And of those, what percentage end in suicide? Are you going to let the fear of an extremely unlikely event dictate the life that you build for yourself?
I don't think it's quite the same. I think the above should have been worded, "...they aren't sure whether or not they could trust their spouses not to ruin their lives in a custody battle is a little like...", and I would completely disagree with you. If you don't think you know your spouse that well, or could trust them not to knife you in the back, then that really isn't a very good relationship.
And how would I know for certain if my wife would ever attempt to ruin my life in a custody battle? For that matter, how could I know that my wife would not attempt this 10 or 20 years down the line? People change.
35 is late? Gee, I'm 37 and I don't exactly feel like I'm ready for a nursing home. Something is wrong here.
Relax. Nobody's trying to send you to a nursing home. On the other hand, most women don't exactly have a lot of reproductive years ahead of them at age 35.
Indeed, by 35, my wife could no longer have children. Glad we didn't wait.
Now, before some limp-wristed fool replies saying, "there's never a good cause to do such a thing", suppose you're sitting at home minding your own business when some thug or three breaks down the door, intent on killing you (it's called "home invasion", and happens a lot more often than the news media reports).
I live in "shoot first and ask questions later" country, so this isn't a likely scenario.
As I think about it, I don't think there's anybody that I'd trust with a secret that could send me to a lengthy prison sentence. I wouldn't intentionally burden my wife with such knowledge, either. I guess I'm just not the trusting type, that way.
On the other hand, my wife is a fabulous wife and teriffic mother. I have no reason to believe that marrying her was a mistake, despite having no idea whether or not she'd actually help me bury a body, as it were.
Regarding trumped-up allegations during custody battles, it can definitely happen. A friend of my wife's is facing this currently. It seems a little paranoiac to plan your life around the possibility that this rare occurrence might happen to you. You face far greater danger by simply getting into your car and driving to work.
Sometimes you just need to roll the dice and hope you aren't the statistic-breaker. A guy from my high school class was hiking last year and a tree limb fell on him, killing him instantly. Telling people not to marry because they aren't sure whether or not they could trust their spouses to aid and abet a murder is a little like telling people not to go hiking due to what happened to that guy from my high school.
You can't live your life without risk. Not any life I'd like to lead, anyway.
I am not a lawyer or law student.
The subject of authorization here seems ambiguous to me. Without question, the statute prohibits using a computer service (like gmail) without authorization. However, whose authorization is required?
In some cases, it's it cut and dried. By way of example, I operate a webserver on hardware that I own. If you were to log in to that server via SSH and start mucking about, you'd be in clear violation of Michigan statute (assuming the violation occurred in a way that Michigan could establish jurisdiction).
In this instance, however, Google owns the hardware where wife's email is stored. Does wife retain any type of ownership over her gmail account? I haven't read Gmail's TOS, but I seriously doubt it grants users any ownership over anything. So why is wife's authorization even required? From where does she derive her standing to authorize or forbid access to Google's hardware, Google's network, and Google's email service?
This is important, I think. For instance, assume that I am an employee at some company. If some nefarious hacker were to obtain my password, log into my account, and start doing nefarious things to my employer's servers, am *I* somehow the aggrieved party? I should think my employer's lack of authorization would be the relevant test here, not my lack of authorization. My only role in this violation is that of the clueless attack vector.
You're being ridiculous. It's true that the court's default assumption in divorce cases involving children is that the woman should have custody of the children, but it's by no means impossible to get that assumption overturned.
Wait, you don't see any problem with this?
My wife doesn't know any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. However, I do have an escrow file which she can open in the event of my death which contains them all.
How up-to-date is your escrow file? Presumably you change your important passwords every once in a blue moon.
She will need access to banking sites etc. when that happens, so privacy until then, and full disclosure after.
No, she doesn't. That's why god invented Joint With Rights Of Survivorship. All she has to do is send the financial institution your death certificate, and she's good to go.
Perhaps I'm a bad husband, but my wife doesn't have any of my passwords, and I don't know any of hers. If she brought it up I would say the exact same thing as you said. If she takes offense, that is her problem.
My wife and I don't share passwords, either.
I do, however, administer our email server with our family domain name. I told her that I technically can, but won't, read any email on our server, and that if she wants to have super-private email, she should get a gmail account for that.
I think GP is mistaken.
Most states are no-fault divorce states. Adultery by one divorcing party does not affect the distribution of assets.
Adultery can (and typically will), however, affect child custody arrangements. Custody arrangements will affect post-divorce finances, so don't think your adultery will have zero financial repercussions for you. :)
Suppose the utilities are in your name and the utility company is stuck in the 20th century and doesn't have computerized or automatic bill payment. Suppose you are out of town or, heaven forbid, incapacitated for several weeks and the bill arrives. I would hope she'd open the bill and pay it.
My wife and I have a similar arrangement to the GP. We don't open or toss each other's postal mail without first asking permission.
When my wife fell ill with cancer and was in the hospital, I did open utility bills that were addressed to her, but only after first asking for permission. We also have individual credit cards, but joint bank accounts.
Just because my wife and I are on the same team doesn't mean we give up 100% of our individual selves.
2) Get a pre-nuptial agreement.
Of course, as you correctly point out, having kids really throws a wrench into the works. My advice there? Don't have kids before you've been married for 10 (TEN) years, and are absolutely sure your spouse is someone who will help you bury a body. Your spouse is supposed to be your best friend in the world, and a good friend is someone who will help you bury a body. If you can't say that about your spouse, then your relationship really isn't very solid.
How young do people get married where you live?
I got married when my wife and I were 25, which is fairly young for a major metropolitan area. You're telling me we should have waited until age 35 to start having kids? That's awfully late to start a family, if the woman can even bear children at all at that age. My wife would not have been able to, had we waited that long.
What does "burying a body" mean in this context?
Indeed.
My situation is similar yet opposite. My wife does not work to stay home with the kid. We have good credit, but because I put the CCs in her name to keep her rating high should something happen to me, her's is higher than mine in spite of having no recorded income.
This is expected. Income is not factored into credit score.
You should both get individual credit cards so you both will build good credit ratings.
Do NOT get joint credit cards. Ever.
I haven't given up, I have tried 8 different approaches to each of the 50ish companies in the appropriate fields. Not a single one of them will even look at any invention from an outside source under any circumstances.
Surely you can understand that a company won't sign an NDA with you. What if they are already working on what you propose? That's a legal headache they don't need.
Probably better to get that patent filed. I know, I know. You don't have money to file a patent. Find it, or find a patent attorney you can partner with. Maybe patent attorneys do pro bono work? I have no idea.
And, no, I don't think you can put yourself through school while you're killing yourself doing an honors engineering degree. I think you could if you'd slow down your pace. Personally, if I were you I'd drop the honors (unless you need it for a scholarship or something) and do a paid coop or internship. Seriously, if you have more actual experience than the competition, no employer will care whether or not you have an honors degree.
"Across United States public schools, just 74.9 percent of students who were freshmen in the fall of 2004 graduated from high school on time in 2008, according to a report from the National Center for Education Statistics." source.
Regarding your college situation, here's what I did: freshman and sophomore years, I worked as a waiter and earned about $15/hr including tips. I worked fulltime during the summer and 10 hours per week during the school year. I made about $12k/year and didn't pay any income tax once I got through all of the lifetime learning credits or hope credits or whatever the hell they were. Junior and senior years, I did some computer programming for a local insurance company for $20/hr. That was a great deal for them, and it was more money than I thought I'd ever see, so I was pretty happy, too.
Tuition was $5k/year. I know it's a lot higher now--I just looked and it's $8,987 this year. I didn't buy books because they would be a waste of money for me: I am a slow reader and wouldn't be able to read them. In-house dues at my fraternity house were $450/mo including rent, utilities, food (yes, food), and many social activities. Round up to $500x9 months in school=$4500. I lived at home during the summer. So that was about $10k in tuition, room, and board on $12k-$18k/yr in income. I did not take out any loans.
Are you working a little too hard? I showed up with 1.5 years of AP credit and took a light course load so I could work (as in, for money). Guess how hard it was for me to get my first programming job after graduation, given that I already had 2 years' experience? That's right; it was pretty darn easy. Experience always trumps education, and I had a well-known insurance company+IBM on my resume.
Regarding your invention, yup, I guess you're right. Might as well just pack it in and go home. Game over. There's just no solution. Oh well, so sad. No one will talk to a poor college student. You're just a victim here, after all.
On a serious note, you're right about one thing, my parents gave me a gift that many parents do not give their children. They demonstrated (not told, demonstrated) that through consistent, persistent action, you can make just about anything happen.
You seem to have given up, which is fine if it works for you. Good luck in your endeavors.