So of the 7.4% of users who pushed more than 10 times in the last year, how many are bootcamp students? (after you remove the big,open source projects like all the big companies have up there) I just think these students should know this.
forgot to mention that whatever you agree to in the lease re:first and last months' rent will bind you. And you have to agree if you want a place to live.
Yeah, they can charge literally whatever they want- and it keeps rising. You are right about first and last month rent. But there is no point in trying to have that law work for you, because the LL will just take you to court and you will have to pay legal fees, especially if you are then working at all especially in another city-- you will absolutely not have time to fight this in court (even though you might win it eventually) unless you are unemployed. If you are unemployed after handing over your savings, you are homeless and have much more desperate concerns.
and consider too, that when offered a 2 year lease, a tenant is apt to take it under these circumstances, so they know they have a place to live that won't be taken from them. (as the landlord can decide to not offer a lease again, especially to a tenant who reports a lack of services to an authority- yes there are harassment laws against retaliation, but good luck with getting them upheld-- so a tenant is forced to pay whatever for whatever and never open their mouth if they have no water, no heat, or if there is dangerous construction going on- unless said tenant is cool with being kicked out and not getting that deposit back) And remember too, that the LL can raise the rent to whatever at lease renewal even if the tenant is offered a renewal. The problem with this is: what if the tenant gets a job in another state and it actually pays well with benefits? Now, how does the tenant pay two rents at once? They won't be allowed to sublet - very few landlords even respond to such requests- and if they break the lease, they owe the remainder of it to the LL and won't get their security back. This is the kind of thing Airbnb's presence is challenging. But, I don't see these issues discussed at all.
I have no problem with anyone down-voting my comment. I would really welcome some substantive critique. I'm offering my perspective of what is going on in NYC in order that it might help someone who is going through something similar, or that it might cause someone to offer a possible plan to make things better. So please, down-vote, but could you then actually offer a critique? I would like to learn why this is grating whomever it is grating.
I know. It is a wholly unreported outrage. I'm still trying to figure out if there is any worth to writing an article about it, at least to just 'raise awareness' for whatever that's worth these days, in the face of many uncomfortable truths being shouted down because they are so uncomfortable. But this goes way beyond uncomfortable. It changes the employment landscape in NYC. I've been trying to figure out what is going on that this is even possible. I live in a building like this. I happened to talk the landlord down to three months plus first and last months' rent due to the fact that I understood the law and could point to several violations of it by his company, right out of the gate at the lease signing. One might ask why I signed such a lease, and one would be wise to do so. The reason is that this is all there is in NYC anymore (I spent several months looking for a clean, upkept, affordable, market-rate apartment) and I'm an experienced renter of NYC apartments now. My building (and many many others I know of) is filled with young people with no or next-to-no employment. These new NYers can afford to take half-time work for years on end until they land an actual full-time job. This makes the future economic landscape hard to strategize for NYers who have already used up their savings trying to stay afloat in this time of underpaid underemployment. So much is hidden from view and it is difficult to get an accurate read on really any aspect of the employment-housing conundrum. I can only speculate about just how they are paying their rent, let alone their security deposits at this place. None of these young people are originally from NYC. After conversing with most of them, at least here in my building, and after meeting many of their parents as they drop them off and help them move in, I have learned that they came here because they felt there was no opportunity for work for them in their place of origin or education. A broader study needs to be undertaken as to what the real deal is. Security deposits need to be capped. My security deposit nearly wiped out my savings. So far, my landlord has not returned a single security deposit of those who have moved out without legal action on the tenants' part over the past four years. This is the usual thing. I know this because I've been in housing court and seen the equivalent of a river bottom sample of a square foot of the city's slimy underbelly. The exhaustion on the face of these judges at the sight of these landlords would be humorous if it were not tragic and deeply affecting to the lives of regular New Yorkers who are not among the city's richest. I've sat for hours (because one must to wait one's turn) and heard the judge yell at these landlords' representing attorneys for wasting her time again with this stuff. This is where we are at here. It is absolutely outrageous, and I really wish a study could be done and published and some legal protections could be made and some enforcement mechanisms could actually be available to tenants. I can tell you that these judges desperately wish the same. It would be great if there were some way for the housing market to reflect the actual job market's temporary or partial commitments. If the tenant housing could respond to this growing lack of stability and certainty with a complementary flexibility/financial lack-of-long-term-commitment, this would be a positive. A few of these temporary apartment complexes have sprung up for tech people, but the rents start at around 2500 a month for a shared space and studio room with a locked door. This is why Airbnb is helpful for some. But Airbnb is making moves to become more like a regular landlord. This is why we need better legislation and better enforcement.
The problem is much deeper than Airbnb. As a 27 year NYer, I appreciate the shake-up caused by Airbnb. Landlords of market rate apartments can charge whatever they want for a security deposit, so we now get landlords asking 6 months to a year of up-front security on a 2000-plus rental AND then asking for 1st and last months' rent on top of all that. This effectively turns renters into owners without the benefits of being owners. (i.e. they can't legally rent out their apartment on Airbnb at all without the landlords' consent- and the landlord will NEVER consent to even a 30 day+ sublet. Even if they do rent out their place legally on AIrbnb, an Airbnb guest can squat after 29 days,a nd the actual resident would have to take them to court to get them evicted- this is a very long process, meanwhile...) Yes, there are so-called tenant protecting laws, but it is very very difficult to get these laws enforced (basic repairs needed, mold mitigated, Certificate of Occupancy registered, leaks fixed, water provided, fire code observed, electrical emergencies addressed, and on and on) So these landlords get away with stealing from tenants, making their lives a living hell, making the tenants pay for common area heating bills when the LL chooses to use very expensive electric units without insulating the building.
Airbnb is drawing attention to these legal issues, because now, the city has to pretend it cares about legality and enforcement since the power structure has shifted under Airbnb. This seems healthy to me. Our Housing Court in NYC is a joke. On the one had, it allows tenants to represent themselves, which is actually easy to do since it operates more like a community high school principal's office. On the other hand, housing court is a slow, slow process- it is ineffective at providing timely relief to abused tenants, and entirely ineffective at helping with certain types of landlord perpetrated swindling/lying/harassment that's rampant in NYC. The reason it is ineffective for this, is that these issues aren't handled by housing court.(for example if a landlord is rerouting the heating system so that tenants pay for the heating of common areas--a landlord responsibility--that is costing each tenant on average an extra $200 a month-- these tenants can't address this issue in housing court, because housing court doesn't handle this problem. They can't represent themselves. In order for the court to order an inspection by the electric company, these tenants must hire an attorney on retainer in order to force that inspection- otherwise, the landlord will not allow the electric company to inspect.) I'm happy that Airbnb is calling the city's bluff. Hopefully, it will challenge the city to beef up its legal system in all ways. Currently, the landlords are the ones favored by the city, while the tenants are the ones "favored" on unenforceable paper.
Actually, they have stopped offering tenants money to move out unless they get a crop of tenants who know their rights and have some kind of leverage to enforce them (these are usually more affluent tenants who hung onto stabilized lease who band together). Instead, they silently declare war on existing tenants by demolishing their homes while they live in them. Then, tenants who understand this to be classic slum lord harassment begin the assembly of an endless paper trail to get them to pay them to leave. By the time tenants get landlords to pay, the money offered is a piddling sum which covers only property damage and health care costs of tenants they have made sick or injured with dangerous, dust-filled construction air, and falling bricks from their ceilings. They break tenants down until the tenant will take a few thousand bucks just to get to leave and not be charged for the remaining months on their leases. I know this because these practices swept my and my friends' Brooklyn neighborhoods absolutely clean of long-term renters beginning about seven years ago. Another key development signaling that this problem is rampant is the fact that De Blasio has instituted a new initiative to punish landlords for harassing tenants in this and other ways because it had become such an epidemic. Unfortunately, the problem is so widespread that only the absolute worst of the worst are punished for treating tenants like this.
But treating tenants like this at every level of the NYC market is really just part of the codified MDL landlord playbook in NYC. It isn't just for slum lords anymore. Market rate rental tenants are harassed, asked to provide 6 months' security (often not returned) and the landlords make no repairs until they are taken to court. This used to be the domain of the slum lords and a few ultra-shady landlords. These days, you can't pay for a rental unit and a landlord who offers a product you signed-up to pay for. (this basically applies to landlords under the MDL, not rich people who rent out a floor of their brownstone- they are not "career landlords") As a tenant, you need to keep filing HP actions in Housing Court in order to get basic services like heat and hot water, even in so-called "luxury" buildings. In this climate of unaffordable "luxury" rentals that are run like slums by the landlords (but look "nice" to a casual observer) a tenant's only option in many cases is to find a way to double up with a friend or to leave the city and Airbnb when they can. The tenant protection laws that are constantly trumpeted are only as good as the mechanism to enforce them, and while the city pays lip service to the idea of protecting tenants from harassment, injury, or swindle, their interest is really with the landlord. Housing court doesn't offer solutions to major tenant problems beyond what is listed in "The Warranty of Habitability". If a tenant wants the parking space they paid for so they can have a car to get to work while they live out in the boonies 1.5 hour commute on congested and failing public transport, they will have to put down a $20,000 retainer to have that case tried in Supreme Court. Housing court doesn't handle such matters.
edited to: make a distinction between landlords who own large buildings and the wealthy folks who make extra money by renting out an unused floor of their brownstone. I'm speaking about the former here.
Not sure... The Beach Boys seemed squeaky clean at the beginning of their recording career. By the time Smile and Pet Sounds came out, I think people knew about their drug taking (great albums!!!) but many who know their early work have never heard "Our Prayer" for example. I think they got their fame on the G-rated stuff and were able to push genre boundaries later. I think it's the same with The Beatles, although I'm not positive- hard to imagine a time when people were not familiar with Sgt Pepper and The White Album...
I thought we were talking places where people can work/live. Detroit came to mind: affordable housing, a few jobs- not many. But then I remembered: oh yeah! They have a giant trash incinerator blowing poison air on the whole Metro Area. It is at its worst where the housing is at its most affordable. Then I thought Indiana, Ohio- also having cities with some of the worst air quality in the country. Detroit's is worse than LA. Evansville is up there. Let's not even start with the water issues in the midwest, starting with Detroit.
Agree with you completely. He was also grabbing from Paris fashion with respect to the imported "cakewalk"- so there were serious echoes in his music of ragtime from that point on. (I wonder if he heard Tom Wiggins at any point too) And of course he wrote for saxophone (French invention, but later jazz instrument). If the author was looking for influences only in classical music, I can see how he seemed to come out of nowhere, but he incorporates a lot of French song tradition too. Where does Scriabin sit in here- I forgot. There is Debussy-Scriabin shared aroma, if you know what I mean. It's interesting to think about this. I always think about who he influenced, especially Django, but also Stravinsky. It's interesting to think about who he was digging. I'm glad to be reminded of his violin and cello sonatas today. I'm off to put them on. Thanks for posting.
Gosh. I didn't expect anyone here to be this unable to imagine/relate that many of our circumstances are not in our control. I know how hard it is to hear that innocent, strong, intelligent, accomplished people could be suffering, even after great accomplishment. It reminds us that we are all vulnerable to being crushed under the same weight ourselves. It's painful to watch if we have a shred of empathy in us, and I believe many do. One thing our culture is terrible at is teaching empathy, and that's because it doesn't offer any- not a shred. It's got this tough-guy cowboy tone that echoes, empty and false when you ask yourself how truly tough one has to be to kill and steal...to enslave... destroy natural resources. It would have been "tougher"to work together to embrace- to empathize -to aim to preserve irreplaceable resources of value, but we do create false narratives to cover for our most horrible mistakes and shames. Our society here in the US evolved from slavery making development possible and affordable - I assume you realize that. This same narrative forms a constantly evolving and deepening culture of abuse that permeates everything we do- how we educate, how we employ, how we treat our family and friends, neighbors and visitors.. and even fellow "hackers" who contribute to a conversation here. It is important we remember this. I'm responding to you so that someone reading your comment who is already feeling without hope knows that there isn't agreement on your perspective. Sometimes, hope in a place like this one is very important. When a people are abused and in turn become abusers themselves, as that is the natural tendency without conscious opposing effort, they eventually think that vulnerability means weakness and militarism means strength-a kind of tank-like war procession of knowing invincibility. This is the kind of thinking that totalitarianism happily thrives in-- and it surely is the opposite of freedom. (since you wanted to get into how freedom works) This kind of thing actually makes you vulnerable to control. Your attitudes are looking for or resonating from an unkind master- they accept abuse as the cost of doing business and that makes sense here in this culture,sadly. Don't you think it would be better to aim to be strong enough to listen, to seek understanding, to collaborate,to empathize,and to care about rather than this false "strong" enough to crush and dominate? That truly is a weapon that is easily turned against its own shooter in a second. When people are talked to in this way over and over, our most vulnerable-- are killed off in spirit by this , or they are killed off literally by the societal force of poverty or sadly, more literally by someone who was too vulnerable and could not bear another second of this kind of lack of empathy and smug cruelty in the face of their crying out to their community to be heard. Your people are in desperate need of help, even in the form of empathy on a forum for those who should be able to empathize with their plight. If that is you, man, I feel you and we will change things, and if it isn't,please give some thought to kindness perhaps especially because it clearly was not offered to you often enough.
It's a kids' movie. But the point was humility before the art. Always in training. Shoot, Mr. m practiced teaching better by tending tiny metaphorical bonsai trees and catching flies with chopsticks, so he was not above being a student in training himself. I'm not saying it is everyone's philosophy or should be- it just cracked me up- the car washing reference- not to say that I disagree that these tests are more a sign of an employer I would not work for. Hey- someone removed the car wash analogy I was responding to! I thought it was funny. I think swe should push back against this kind of treatment when it's worth it to them. It is insulting.
Well, washing cars turned out to be the point for The Karate Kid... and humility before technique. I agree that few employers will be like Mr.Miyagi though ;
It is difficult to believe that the person who knows how to sling slang like "chops" (technical command and facility in a given domain)is the same person who is only just hearing of HackerRank through an employer's request. Also saying condescending things like "cute little" in your response takes away from your earnestness cred and makes you seem angry. No one wants to start off angry with a new hire. That said, you have a right to be angry when an employer chooses to "batch process" you like just another piece of data. While your proposal is great and it shows you go above and beyond, and employer who uses HackerRank isn't looking for above and beyond. Use it to weed out employers who won't meet you halfway as a partner- the way you want to be met. If you are looking to work with a Willy Wonka, consider the thought and care that went into his job interview.
Yes! yes! It's been over twenty years since I read this and it still calls to me. Thank you for reminding me how beautiful and true that passage is. His rhythm in this part is like a swing. Dream-like. Another lovely spot in the book was when he called to a loved dog on a beach "Floss!". It was a great way to end a section by letting it slip into memory like shouted words on a beach fade after a loved dog, especially its name.
Thank you for saying this. Our support structures are an embarassment. The hoops they make the homeless jump through for basic Medicaid are a crime as well. So of course no savings! But we both know there are people who would have that mom rent a studio apartment instead. Obviously none of those people are moms themselves.
And it sure is difficult for folks to save when they are working their butts off to pay crazy rent/mortgage and sky high medical/dental so they can stay healthy to work...plus college and grad school loans that got them the low paying job in the first place (although they went to school to have an actual profession which would have covered these expenses but doesn't come close anymore) all in a city where there are some jobs but no affordable housing. If you can't afford your monthly bills, you can't save and you go deeper into the hole. This is the case for many with graduate degrees in the US.
Not really in actual, regular, uninterrupted practice. There are so many problems with the US healthcare system at every level of it when you have excellent health insurance, especially in terms of regular maintenence medication for something as garden variety as asthma, that when you get down to the level of real emergency help absolutely medically required, it is usually a severely delayed and often interrupted swampy mess. I've been at both ends of this spectrum of care. Both are unreliable, but obviously, it is far worse-- a nightmare of indifference really, at the bottom. And many meds (like inhalers even) require ridiculously expensive, regular tests. The homeless and impoverished are often given less effective medication or ineffective medication to treat serious ongoing conditions.
There areno jobs in these areas in middle America. And sometimes the water and air is poison where there is affordable housing anyway in these places. We need social programs that actually help and that actually are accessible. Some of the Medicaid forms I've seen were more difficult to complete than a dissertation and turn everyone away until they literally have nothing, i.e. when it's so too late for help to actually help in any lasting way that could be built upon.
Thanks for sharing this. I'll never forget reading Speak Memory. (!) The opening sentences or somewhere near the opening ones concerned Nabokov's meditation on death and birth and how alike they are. He talked about how strange it is that before we are born, we aren't missed because we aren't yet there. He goes into the feeling of thinking about this in a dreamlike manner and there are several dreamy passages throughout the book. I agree it was his best one. Thinking about him reading a corny dream book and being taken in by it a bit humanizes him. Great article.
No, you just need great documentation of your accomplishments and an excellent lawyer who knows how to handle the process. $$ It helps if you have done original work, and if a well known/internationally famous person in your field (or several) vouches for you in the form of a recommendation letter.
Wow, then I sure do know a lot of Nobel winners. (joke) They hand these out to professional musicians all the time. They are fantastic musicians, each one of these 0-oners. But we also have fantastic musicians here in the US. We are wall-to-wall with underemployed, incredibly well trained, very low paid, top-notch musicians in NYC. In fact, I don't know a single musician who is upset about the O1s being handed out. We are happy to play with a wide variety of players. It helps the art, frankly. But what we would like to see more of, many of us, is a reciprocation from other countries, so the arts can become more fluid. This would help raise the level everywhere. The problem is, the door just swings one way a lot of the time. It is very difficult for an American musician to get an orchestral job in Europe. When they do, we all cheer. The current concertmaster of Berlin Phil is an American. But he's the violin version of a Nobel winner. Our orchestras are filled with Europeans, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, etc.
Actually, software engineering isn't a completely different animal from music-ing. It's the most similar animal I can think of. Its pedagogy is behind music's pedagogy by two, maybe three hundred years. (for obvious reasons) It could learn a lot from the errors in music pedagogy. For one example I can think of off the top of my head, the OP mentioned that we practice scales. Well, yes. But it really is "how" we practice scales that matters. Practicing a scale from bottom to top and back isn't really useful. But lots of people do it like crazy. They drill this. But nowhere in music (maybe performance art, though?)is there a scale in any key all the way up in four ocatves and all the way back down. Nowhere. So practicing that is really a waste of time. It isn't a waste of time if you want to just learn how to play anything fast though, because you "know those notes". Playing fast is a different physical feeling that is counter-intuitive really. But people practice scales like this for the key's sake, and that is really not a great use of practice time. A better use, in this analogy, would be if you wanted to see if you could get around a key in any direction, with leaps and figures and all the things that may show up in a key. Then practice that. Practice figures, loops, improv leaps- in a key. That will make you a better sightreader a better player in that key way faster than scales. I I have the data for hundreds of students, myself and colleagues to prove it. This information doesn't get to the regular Saturday student, but believe me, it is known by professionals and great teachers. It isn't unconventional at all, despite the many parents who get worried about their kids not playing scales like they did or like they heard in movies or TV commercials. Mozart practiced like this. Paganini practiced like this. I have to make the argument to concerned parents at least once a year anyhow. Not sure why. I'm not saying drilling isn't important. It is. But it's what to drill that is the thing. It is also not churning out a bunch of meat compilers and calling those musicians-- or programmers. One thing programmers cold drill right off the bat would be typing for programming. I see a lot of bad typing. I'm bad at it. I realize that's a basic idea. Programming is creative in exactly the way that playing the blues is creative. Everybody does it differently- those who develop their own style are the greats, but in the end, it is still blues. Not sure why academic education of those composers has anything to do with anything. Certainly those composers were some of the most educated, intellectual people who have lived, Monk being the least traditional in his expertise, but he sure understood social history. And even he headed over to work with Hal Overton when he wanted some respect from the establishment at Juilliard and for his Town Hall concert. My point being, in current educational models for programming (not talking MIT or Stanford, because I woldn't know and I'm sure it's different there, because they really pay for it to be so) we aren't reaching for great teaching. We aren't reaching for inspiration. We aren't reaching for technical innovation. But there is a whole lot we can learn from master teachers who have come before in other fields. I think the OP has a point, but I think project-based learning is very important. NOT, however at the exclusion of drills that are creative. Not at the exclusion of coming up with techniques that other fields have not thought of yet. I mean- sheesh- we have accessible mountains of teaching/learning data in computing. No one is using that to make their education better. Why?
Some great point in OP's critique. But CS isn't music theory. Music theory is not really known well by most musicians who are excellent players. Theory is for theorists. I'm not saying that most musicians know zero theory-- they know what key they are in--but seriously, that only happens after they can play lots of concertos. Pianists tend to know more, but that's because it's staring them in the face every time they play. (speaking as a career musician: performer, composer, teacher of performance and theory) Yes, musicians drill lots of different things, but honestly, it depends what it's for. If practicing improv withchord changes, one needs to know those changes inside and out, but that is truly just one way-- if one is improvising freely, one needs to practice by doing. It really is the only way. Improv is the creative aspect-- classical is the perfect reproduction aspect. I'm thinking software development is a kind of hybrid. Also-- there isn't a pro music job on earth that anyone could learn well enough in a bootcamp for even six months with no prior experience, so the good news is-- no software engineer is regularaly competing with Horowitz yet. Sure, there are virtuosos in programming, but as a musician, you are surrounded by them and are already one yourself as an undergrad-- at least! This is good news for creativity in teaching programming. In terms of motivation of students: from what I have experienced as a programming student in several programs and as an observer-- the material studied is not inspiring. In music, we study Mozart and Thelonious Monk. Puccini and Stravinsky. Reich and Cage. In programming, we studied models and diagrams. We never looked at "great code". When I asked if there was indpiring code to see, my teacher guided me to online lessons made by the school. I asked if there was. jupiter Symphony of code somewhere, desperately looking for a way to be indpired as I am with great writers and composers. My teacher treated me like I was "being difficult". I dropped out of this program and learned on my own. This was one of the tippy top bootcamps in NYC. I was hoping it would be there for me in these ways-- it wasn't. I'm left with this: I can't imagine any musician getting hired to teach with such low level understanding of ... the world of interesting examples- even a beginning music professor can direct students to inspiring examples of greatness in the field. Teachers need to be paid well for the time it takes to develop interesting methods of teaching. Teaching is a complex hybrid science and art. Like all of these, it requires time and mastery, but most important: innovation!
Thank you. I looked into "clear", one of the airport known traveler ID systems. (I'm assuming there are others) It's pretty cool/concerning. Takes ~ 8 min to load a traveler into its system. Thanks for reminding me of TPS---the info on read vs write.
I was just reading about a company trying to make self-sovereign identity including actual certs (like degrees and such) an accessible and widely applicable/acceptable technology using Ethereum blockchain. I thought it showed some real practicality and promise. I believe it begins with U- forgot the name.Perhaps UPort? Anyhow, I'd be interested in hearing from anyone here about why that might be a bad or good idea. I don't personally have the skill in that tech to know.
Yes, and also -- where do the really creative types land? Do we get rid of art? (we are doing a great job at that these days) If our public education systems serve mainly to train "workers" or increasingly "soldiers", we aren't educating toward the future. we have been educating (in public school) toward the past for a long time. That means we favor what had been practical in the (increasingly distant) past and devalue ( really have zero idea or vision concerning) what skills will be useful in the future. It turns out that it doesn't make sense to train kids and people to behave more like robots when we are building an army of much better, tireless robots. Our public education systems in the US avoid intellectualism, creativity, and the arts (shaping the arts for the future isn't an option- we just cut them from the curriculum).
Excellent condensation of the issues. Great ideals to work toward. Just moving in this direction would be helpful in any industry. If we implemented your codebase ideas in education... well, you know we'd have great education.
Good for you! I mean that. But your experience isn't everyone's experience. Mine isn't either. I said so. For one, men have much easier time losing weight. I'm not a man. I offered my singular experience to give support for those who might also be mystified after trying everything with a doctor. To those who think my surgeon is trying to get me to buy surgery by saying a diet won't work-- actually, my surgeon (also head of a weight loss clinic) recommended against surgery and against my eating less that I already do. There are a number of drugs that can help people trying to lose weight that aren't phentermine. Some people like me can't take them because of a family history of thyroid cancer or other diseases. But for those who can take these, they are helpful tools. Often, those who struggle with weight loss have struggled with it throughout their life for a host of reasons, only one of which may be eating and exercising habits. To the person who told me I could "add in exercise", what are you trying to accomplish with comments like this? Of course I exercise. People who struggle with this health issue need support and to know that there are other difficult cases sometimes and to keep at it anyway. I keep at it anyway, because being in shape and healthy matters to me and always has. I do an hour of cardio 5x a week and I weight train every other day. I was a serious athlete as a young person (high school/college) and never had trouble with weight gain/eating disorders. I definitely know how to add in exercise. In fact, I never didn't exercise in my life. When I hear simplistic comments like some of these that seem to be meant to shame someone for not exercising, or for having no willpower, or for just generally not being disciplined at losing weight, I have to ask myself where is this kind of thing coming from? I can't say for sure, but perhaps it is because they feel that way about themselves and it feels harsh to them so they throw it at other people so they don't have to deal with the discouragement. To these people I say: don't be too harsh with yourselves! You will do much better at all of these things if you support your own small successes every day. Ultimately, don't you want to succeed at being as healthy as you can? Well, you get there through encouragement and support of yourself. You get there hopefully with the help of better data, drugs, approaches, exercise, and emotional support as better and better research is done into weight loss. And this is what the OP was all about anyhow. One of the best things a person can learn from being an athlete is that if you have team support-- if you root each other on-- you raise the level of the team. People who are trying to lose weight, including yourselves, need this. Because the other raises cortisol levels, and we know what happens then.