potatote

Ah...I see. I am not much of a gambler either, so this is a very useful piece to know why Roulette gambling, in the long run, turns negative for the gambler. Thank you.

I do not have a lot of background on statistics. Hoping someone here could explain why in Roulette game, although the apparent chances of getting number between 0-18 (inclusive) and 19-36 (inclusive) are the same, we lose money if we keep playing more and more numbers of games.

Your suggested approach was exactly what I did when I had gone through a similar system in Myanmar as the OP described above, where lazy teachers leave managing the class to students among themselves.

Stay as neutral as possible so that it doesn't bite back at you when the name-taker is someone else. It worked for the most part because my classmates would start recommending me to be the name taker and in return, I told them to not make too much noise when talking during teacher's absence.

As an immigrant, that was one of the cultural adjustment that I had to do in the US. In my home country in SE Asia, people usually ask "Have you eaten (have you had a meal)?" as a greeting. It's easier to answer with "No, I haven't." or "Yes, I just had lunch" for example.

But when I moved to the states for college, I was perplexed as to how to answer "How're ya?" or "What's up?". :D I learned to answer that question with a standard, "I'm good. Thank you". But even nowadays, I sometimes venture to answer it honestly like, "I'm okay. [insert some really honest reason why I'm just okay]" or "I'm busy, but it's all good".

This is just a small example of adjustment that I made as I try to settle in my new home.

Last year, AT&T hired Brian Lesser, the former CEO of GroupM/WPP. They have been planning to enter the digital marketing as a player for a while now.

As an immigrant with no family to rely on in the US, I always give credit to Reddit for helping me learn so many things from buying old/used car, applying to grad school, to looking for an apartment. Just like you said, its diverse user base means it has almost all the information one needs. I hope it never changes (although with the recent re-design, I'm afraid it might have unintended repercussions...)

A great story. It's similar in a lot of ways to how people believe that Buddhas (according to Theravada Buddhism, many, many Buddhas live among us and almost all of us will become one) fulfill his path to enlightenment this way--reincarnation after another, absorbing all experiences along the way until he is ready to become the Enlightened one.

Disclaimer: I was born Buddhist, but no longer. But I still admire a few aspects of Theravada Buddhism.

I agree with you about not trusting anything we see on TV/Newspapers (even if it is from 60 Minutes; NYT; whatever-is-reputed-to-be-reliable). I grew up in Myanmar and after reading a lot of one-sided coverage about the refugee issue there (labeled as 'genocide'), I realized it's impossible for news organizations to be almost always impartial and accurate.

They have to obtain information from some source. Almost always, that source of information can mislead the reporter/news writer easily because of the latter's lack of familiarity with the issue, the region or the culture. The reporter, on the other hand, works against time. Plus, s/he is, after all, human (susceptible to persuasion/personal biases and worse, is sometimes too lazy to do a fact-check and more importantly, to hear the voices from the other side).

As most things in life, the truth is always in somewhere the middle.

I believe that it's not too bad to let negative thoughts pass through our stream of consciousness everyday. I mean, it's part of being human to have different kinds of emotion, right? The intervention is necessary ONLY IF one feels like negative thoughts are occupying too much of his/her mind space and is debilitating his/her day-to-day functions.

Other than that, we may sometimes be happy, be sad, be angry, be disgusted, be afraid and so on. Just don't linger on one for too long (know that time will help us forget) and that's a good enough approach to manage the emotional flux.

I've been working from home once a week in the past couple of months, and noticed that I spend more time working at home than I do in the office. For example, if I work from home, I'd be working from 8am to 6pm (with a few short breaks for lunch and etc.). If I go to work, I clock in at 8:30am (commute) and checks out at 5:30pm sharp.

In a way, my employer is getting an extra 30-60 mins out of me for the days I work from home (assuming that I'm as productive working from home as I am at the office, which I believe is to be the case).

I really like your take on Buddhism and I share a similar sentiment toward it. I don't think a lot of educated Buddhists in Myanmar take Nagas, sky gods, seriously at all. Uneducated (meaning they are not well-read) Buddhists probably don't even know most of these myths let alone The Four Nobel Truths, The Eight Fold Path, and the difference between Vipassana & Tha-ma-hta meditation techniques, etc. I, as an atheist, found those myths and fairy tales amusing/entertaining/awe-inspiring when I was young.

When I became old enough (like 8-9th grade), I realized they are mostly folklores. But I still believed that there is some essence/truth in Buddha's teaching like Four Nobel Truths, and so on. I tried Vipassana meditation (nowadays, it's become quite popular in the western side as mindfulness meditation--an alleged antidote to alleviate stress in life). Unfortunately, I never found myself to be able to consistently practice meditation to keep my mind in calm most of the time. I'm too lazy to put in serious effort at meditation and stick to it.

BUT I found that being aware of the fact that mindfulness is great when we are in tough situations is good enough for me. For example, when I'm having a stressful day/moment, I just try to look at myself from a third person p.o.v and realize quickly that 'this too shall pass' and no negative event in life is big enough to overcome/forget. I just need to do the best that I can for the items that are in my control to minimize the impact and move on. Plus, Buddha's teaching of lessening attachment to worldly possessions (nowadays, it's popular as 'minimalism' in the west) is quite useful. So I try to live life minimally (not to an extreme because Buddha's philosophy is to walk the middle path). That helps me qualm a lot of desires and the consequence of chasing after those desires.

Meditation or becoming a monk to seek Four Noble Truth is too 'costly' for me and I do not plan to give up my worldly possession and family to go seek for the 'Truth'/Nirvana (whatever that means; maybe there's not a set of truth for everyone and Truth could very well be different for different people). I feel okay (that is, I don't feel guilty) about reaching to this conclusion as well. If everyone were to become a monk/nun and seek for Truth via meditation, the society will grind to a halt (because somebody's gotta grow the food), right? All in all, I am happy with the way I have been managing my life's stresses in a kind of Stoic way that I mentioned above.

P.S. Please read the comment below by 'cko' about Kalama Sutta. If you already know about this, that's awesome! If not, I hope you'll find it somewhat interesting/useful. :)

This! The Kalama Sutta was broadcast on national TV every night (around 8-9pm) when the military junta was in power. It is their way of saying, "Don't believe in what you heard about our evil doings from outsiders--such as the western propaganda". So almost everyone in the country is aware of that. Ironically speaking, that Sutta really became my go-to philosophy for life. Never believing everything taught by anyone/any being UNTIL it fits my experience/goals. That Sutta, if it was really said by Buddha, is one of the most powerful and most empowering statement he made of all his teachings (in my humble opinion).

I grew up in Myanmar until 23 and know what you're talking about. Those 'sayalays' follow a less stricter rules/precepts than a fully-ordained monk. That's why they are expected to pay respect to the male monks. Of course, there is no denying that it's a male-dominant religion, but it is no worse than Catholicism. Buddha, according to the Buddhist legends, appointed his step-mom to be in charge of female monks and they have established their own structure, which follows closely to the one established by male monk's structure (but with slightly less strict rules).

As an atheist, I am not going to defend Buddhism (be it Mahayana, Theravada or Tibetan) because they all have major flaws, and aren't very practical--in my opinion--for the modern society. As with most religions, there are good and bad parts in Buddhism and a lot of original teachings by Buddha have been 'tainted' by cultural reasoning (not to mention that even Buddha himself likely got a lot of influence in his philosophy from Hinduism and other mainstream religions in his time). Overall though, I have to say that Buddhism at its core is fairly benign (no eliminate-those-who-don't-believe-in-our-god's-teachings that can be found in old testament or Koran).

> E.g. The poor are usually uneducated. Meaning they can't help with homework.

> Even in poor black American communities, house work is often more important than school work.

You pretty much nailed what I wanted to described earlier. My mother works from home and although she has a bachelor's degree, since the education system (esp. in her times) was poor, she is not even at the level of a high school grad in terms of knowledge regarding math, humanities and science. This is not to mention that she (nor my more educated, late father, who was a doctor) wouldn't be able to help her/his children with their homework due to lack of knowledge/education or time.

One thing I remember though is that after finishing homework, my mom would expect us to help out with house chores like sweeping the floor, collecting clothes from clotheslines, buying small grocery items, etc.

I grew up in a poor SE Asian country, and felt the same as you (that my experience with parents' involvement in education is quite limited). I think most of what we read about in the US are biased toward China or developed Asian countries for better or worse.

Hmm...a bit different experience by me growing up and graduated from high school in a poor Southeast Asian country.

There, a lot of parents (esp. from lower and mid-middle class) invest a good chunk of money/resources on their kids' education. BUT, unlike this article claims, they aren't that heavily involved in kids' homework. The parents in my country seem to believe that once they pay money to send kids to after-school classes, the progress in students' learning is up to the teachers in those after-school programs.

Most of them don't have time or mental energy left to tend to their kids' homework because they are too busy working (both parents working is typical in poor countries too) and/or running errands (thanks to inefficient bureaucratic system and insufficient infrastructure such as frequent power outages, life's chores take enormously more time than they would in developed world...)

As a male in his early thirties, who have been to several OKCupid dates, I can tell you that you are in a minority because you seem not to care much about your partner's earning power. Among the women I've met in those dates, at least 1 out of 3 will start conversation to find out how much I make in the first two or three dates; almost all of them will ask that question by the fifth date. I already wrote in my profile that I'm a programmer, so they could guess I make a decent amount of money. Still, they seem to be interested in finding out more about my income.

I, on the other hand, start to become very self-conscious about my income level and wonder whether it is too low sometimes. I also have a close friend whose girlfriend broke up with him after dating for >5 years because he was just a mere accountant (making just about 70k at the time) and she, after grad school, got a six-figure job as a risk analyst at a big bank. She said to him that she wanted a more ambitious man who can support her and make sure they can afford a nice house with a yard and a nice car. That's the reality most men have to deal with.

Yep. I was born in SE Asia and came to the US for high ed (and have since been living here). Most of the people who I met on the internet and in the US, who are interested in the political situation of my home country, posses a view from a bubble that is very different than the perspective from people there. Overall, people just want to have food, shelter and a good living. They could care less about who is ruling them. It's like some people from Europe think Americans are idiots because of our current leader's doings. Not a lot of people in the US, who reads NYT, Economists and such, do not understand that their glimpse into other countries is very much biased and limited.

Same in my country (somewhere in SE Asia) too. I went to med school there for 2 years. It takes a total of 5 years there and doctors who are trained there eventually leave the country to practice in UK, US, etc. I have a few friends who graduated in my country and are making big bucks; all of them came to the US as IMGs (international medical graduates) and did well in USMLE exams to get into residency programs and hospitals eventually. That's why I don't think the 4 additional years of undergrad education (implicitly) required in the US is necessary. It only adds more debt to the would-be doctors.

I agree with your point. I never understood why making >150K starting at the age of 32 with a debt of about ~300K is an insurmountable burden. I have a close friend who fits the above profile. She actually makes about ~200K/year (after tax and everything, she nets about 100K); her work hours are nothing unusual--~9-10hours. With this rate, she can comfortably pay off her debt in ~10 years top.

> Once you account for hours worked, time spent in the workforce, and debt accumulated to achieve their income, a doctor will only have a 10-20% boost in lifetime earnings compared to a UPS driver.

Do you have any reference to back that up? Not doubting it. Just curious.

Thank you for sharing the links. Is there a pure JavaScript library that helps with reading and writing data from/to Google private spreadsheet? From the links above, I think node-google-speadsheet repo comes closest to what I'd like to achieve, but it uses node, which I'm not very familiar with.

> For example, students and professors I met in college that grew up in the USSR thought engineering was stereotypically women’s work. But ability to do those jobs?

Can anyone with similar experience comment on this? I am just surprised (if what one of the interviewees said is true) because I'd assume the math/engineering/science are highly regarded in the USSR and both genders would pursue that.

Side note: People in my country (from southeast asia) don't have a notion that girls are not as good as boys in math. In fact, when I was in (elementary/middle/high) school, I--along with most students in the class--always looked up to my female peers who are always the top 3 in the classroom (from among ~80 students). In fact, it's almost always natural to assume that girls would outperform boys in the class (meaning, more girls would become the highest ranked student in the class and/or more girls would be ranked as top ten in the nationwide high school exam--a.k.a. matriculation exam). As a result, engineering classes have plenty of female population (although, of course, the number of women in such classes is always fewer than that of men).

Same in Myanmar. There, people with stroke are given small doses of Python liver/pancreas or some sort as part of traditional medicine. I'm quite surprised to see that there's some sort of medicinal application to snakes.

I believe that the big pharma and the insurance companies are certainly part of the problem, but rarely do we mention doctors as a contributing factor (albeit relatively small) to the high cost.

The American Medical Association (AMA) does its duty to restrict the supply of doctors [1]. Countries like India, which produces plenty of high quality doctors, does not require aspiring doctors to go through an additional (unnecessary) 4 years of undergrad education. That would hugely cut the cost down in training the doctors.

Secondly, doctors on average makes $200K/year [2] or more. I have four housemates, who were trained in Myanmar (went through five years of medical school there right after high school) and scored above 95th percentile or more in all three steps of their USMLEs, to get into the residency programs in the US. One of them is going into general practice (family medicine) in Virginia and her starting salary is: $210K/year. I have no doubt that she (or anyone who has been trained 5 years in a decent med school--without the 4-year undergrad prior to that) is more than capable of treating generic diseases and illnesses. But this shows that we can train doctors cheaper and that we can reduce their pay by quite a bit (no hard-working person in other profession--except maybe Banking--could easily earn $210K/year to do such a relatively uneventful--in my opinion--job).

I regret quitting med school in Myanmar in the third year. Then, I thought med school training involves too much rote learning (a lot of memorization in organic chem for example) and that I'd rather do something more 'exciting' like tech or math. I was wrong.

[1] https://mises.org/library/how-government-helped-create-comin... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/physician...

Myanmar as well. But again, I think if they can choose, they'd rather choose to live away (not too far away to pay a visit like once a month/year) from their parents. There's no hard and fast rule/expectation about that nor anybody is looked down by the society for living with his/her parents.

I tried opening an account on Robinhood. But they wouldn't approve my application because I am a citizen of Myanmar (Burma) and the country was under economic sanctions. But those sanctions were cleared a bit over a year ago and when I reached out to Robinhood support again (with the proof detailing there is no more sanctions), they ignored my contact. So I decided to stick to Vanguard and TD for index fund buying and stock trading respectively (both of which accept Myanmar citizens as account holders). I think Robinhood's support team is fairly small and they don't have the capability to support a bit more unusual cases like mine.

From my observation, I notice that a lot of younger generation Chinese adults are likely to be taller than their older fellow country people as well. I have many Chinese coworkers and even the female coworkers are at least 5 feet 5 inches or taller (for young male coworkers, they are usually at least 5 feet 8-10 inches). Nutrition certainly plays a big role in determining one's height.

I am from Myanmar and my mom still lives there. My mom, in her late 50s, uses facebook everyday and I actually set up an account for her a few years back (opened a gmail for that, but my mom never checks her gmail, so she's entirely reliant on me to retrieve her account info if she changes/loses her phone).

Facebook certainly is the king of mobile and social in Myanmar at the moment (another popular app is Viber). All my friends from high school and older people of my relatives have fb accounts. That got me thinking how in the world they set up or use facebook whereas a majority of them don't even use/have emails. Now, this article explains it all. :) It's fascinating that people in my country (at least in my social circle) care very little about securing their account because for them, facebook accounts are dispensable/replaceable.

Just a side question because you mentioned being a professor: is this work/project related to academic research (in other words, do you plan to publish about your usability findings)? Or is this a product that will become more feature-full over time? The tool looks neat and I like the preview feature that can only be seen on the smart devices. I'll certainly use this for my next presentation. Thank you! :)