AliceTheOwl Posted April 4, 2007 Report Share Posted April 4, 2007 Re: The Last Word Oh, and have you still been following xkcd? This one made me giggle madly. I can relate to this one. And this one made me think of you. And, of course, this one made me think of this board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word . . . Subsidized college . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Once in German class I handed in a lame little essay that I wrote in Sütterlin script (see here about 1 third of the way down the page) as a way of making up for the fact it was about a factor of five shorter than it said in the original assignment. Got an A anyway. Let me get this straight: you can write fluently in languages most of us have never heard of, as well as fluency in languages we have heard of and you are an astronomy lecturer and work in a medical facility? *scratches head* why are you not teaching or working with your language skills? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word I'm actually starting to think that a lot of the debt problem with my generation has a lot more to do with college than we think. It goes beyond student loans. I'm sure a lot of people can escape this trap, and in the end, those who don't only have themselves to blame. But it's easier to understand, from that standpoint. I think that is a good analysis. A long time ago I read in a book about the effects on the western world after WW2 and the rise of the mod cons. Back then the notion of credit really didn't exist as it does today. Back then you saved up and then bought the product, the opposite to today. I've been thinking about it over the years how the culture of credit changed so dramatically, and I think you have merit with your post. My preference for society is the save up before you buy; but as any economist will tell you, savings is an economic leakage and our culture of credit -- "spend-what-you-don't-have" -- leads to increased economic activity and an increased GDP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word I think you're spot on. D Not quite a "ditto" but close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word QUOTE=AliceTheOwl;1311726]Of course, that doesn't make it any easier to BE one of the Indebted Generation. That would be me, but then I have my own problems. I have an associate diploma in IT (1996) and an advanced diploma in accounting (2001). The years represent when I finished them. I still am unable to find a job/career or any proper work experience with my IT diploma and it has been over a decade since I finished it. so in the mean time, keeping myself busy I started the accounting diploma whist looking for an IT career. In 2003 I decided to "upgrade" my qualifications to a double degree bachelor in IT/Accounting. I'm paying for my double degree upfront so I will not have an existing loan to pay off. The rub is that my existing jobs over the last 5 years, never one being over a year at the same place, have been admin/accounts, where accounts is being defined as "glorified data entry", not professional level accounting. So I am in the position of having two "hobbies", one pays for my uni studies and the other hoping to lead to a firm career, (which I have never had), but I can't find the nexus where my uni studies matches a job that makes use of those skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word must post, can't resist Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word noble goal, just around corner...maybe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word a vampiric death knight lich is an rpg idea unfortunately rarely used. It just screams "use me" for a mega-villain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word are we there yet? Edit: no Edit 2: boy that was weird behaviour of the boards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word A new trend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word with todays Intel CPUs having more than a couple of meg as primary cache or secondary cache (or in some cases tertary cache) I wonder how Windows would cope if the 640kb limit of DOS was still around... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Having recetly seen the movie Groundhog Day again, I wonder what I would do if I repeated the same day over at least 100 times, more likely 500 or 1000 times. What new skills would I learn -- would I learn an instrument or two or three, would I read many a book or watch TV or DVDs, would I try to lay every good looking shelia in the town? Anyway, it is a good romantic comedy, with the approval of the Jesuits and Buddists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Babe, I got you babe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word . . . One tranq gun, comin' right up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Cancer, in a right angle isosceles triangle, if we say that one of the non-hypotenuse sides is "1" what then is the hypotenuse? At a guess I'd say something wacky like 1.414 (the square root of two). Or the same problem stated differently: in any square, if you joined opposite angles in a diagonal you end up with a right-angled triangle that is also an isosceles triangle. if the hypotenuse is "y" and one of the other sides is "x" and if "x" is equal to "1" then what is "y"? edit: found my answer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word . . . One tranq gun' date=' comin' right up.[/quote'] oh, no you don't mister. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word edit: found my answer next question: what practical use is knowing the square root of two? Why did the ancients need to know this irrational number? What use was it? Did the square root of two have any role to play to say, in building/architecture, or geometry (in the literal sense of the term, measurement of the earth)? 1.414 makes no practical sense what-so-ever! edit: looking at the picture from my link, it reminds me of a pyramid at thus knowing 1.414 would be useful, at least on the surface. In a 3 dimensional space you'd only need half that (referring to square root of 2 = .557) which brings me back to the realms of unrealisticness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Einstein's standing is the product of the physics community, his followers and the media. Each group benefits enormously by elevating Einstein to icon status. The physics community receives billions in research grants, Einstein's supporters are handsomely rewarded, and media corporations like Time Magazine get to sell millions of magazines by placing Einstein on the cover as "Person of the Century". When the scandal breaks, the physics community, Einstein's supporters and the media will attempt to downplay the negative news and put a positive spin on it. However, their efforts will be shown up when Einstein's paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", is seen for what it is: the consummate act of plagiarism in the 20th century. More Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L. Marcus Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word *phup* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word *phip* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word O M G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Let me get this straight: you can write fluently in languages most of us have never heard of, as well as fluency in languages we have heard of and you are an astronomy lecturer and work in a medical facility? *scratches head* why are you not teaching or working with your language skills? Sutterlin is just a script (handwriting style); the language was German. It has come in handy in game playing, BTW; back when I still remembered it all, I could write "magic scrolls" and "secret documents" in it, give them to the players, and since it's plaintext if you know the style, my reading it was no issue at all. Approximately no one uses that script any more. When I lived in Germany (six years from 1962 to 1971) a fair number of adults still used it, but it hasn't been taught regularly in years. Now, it's still in a lot of old textbooks, which is where I learned it. Probably I should poke Roter baron and ask him to comment on this.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted April 5, 2007 Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Actually, Einstein's miracle year, 1905, saw him publish five papers on rather different parts of physics, each of which showed new fundamental insights arguably worthy of a Nobel. One of those (the photoelectric effect) was what he got the Nobel for, not the special relativity paper (electrodynamics of moving bodies). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza Posted April 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2007 Re: The Last Word Sutterlin is just a script (handwriting style); the language was German. It has come in handy in game playing' date=' BTW; back when I still remembered it all, I could write "magic scrolls" and "secret documents" in it, give them to the players, and since it's plaintext if you know the style, my reading it was no issue at all.[/quote'] you remind me of my GM. He wrote scrolls (or cyphers) etc in what we would now call dead languages* and he gave us XP (as players) for correctly working out the message, which coincidentally was crutial to the adventure. *one I remember was of pictographs/animals. Probably I should poke Roter baron and ask him to comment on this.... that would be good. but you didn't answer my question: why are you not in "languages" as a profession? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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