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relaytheurgency

271 karma · joined January 12, 2013

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relaytheurgency··on U.S. Bans Trans Fat
I was unaware that banning things rendered them impossible.
relaytheurgency··on Kung Fury – a comedy funded through Kickstarter [video]
Seems like it borrows a lot from Axe Cop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGfSBr2FrY

relaytheurgency··on Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day
While I don't disagree with you on the perceived unfairness of a lack of overtime, it could be argued that my base salary is higher than it would be if I were only available 8 hours a day before OT kicked in. Not saying I agree with the statement, but it's an argument to have for sure. I certainly make much more at this job than I did at any job where I got overtime, mainly because the kind of jobs where you aren't exempt are usually low skill/low pay.
relaytheurgency··on Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day
Are you not from the US? Being "on call" is pretty common in certain professions. Doctors, for instance. A lot of vital IT workers are on call all the time. If a server goes down in prod, who are they going to call?
relaytheurgency··on Worker fired for disabling GPS app that tracked her 24 hours a day
I, for instance, am on call and required to have my work phone on my person 24 hours a day unless I'm on vacation with a pre-arranged backup.
relaytheurgency··on Inside the Deep Web Drug Lab
Illicit drugs are the minority of overdoses[1], so I don't see how your logic follows. If anything, they might increase.

1. http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/overdose/facts....

relaytheurgency··on Inside the Deep Web Drug Lab
I'm pretty sure that you can still deny someone a job for being a drug user, even if the drugs are legal. In fact, several of those things aren't solved merely by legalization and regulation. Overdoses happen on legal, regulated drugs all the time. A lot of drug related complications are due to mixing substances, which is not solved by legalization or regulation. Clean needles and paraphernalia are not necessarily "solved' by regulation or legalization, clean needles are available right now in any drug store.
relaytheurgency··on The history of barbed wire
Glidden’s design took off, and by 1876, his company was producing nearly 3 million pounds of barbed wire annually.

Sentences like this always bother me. Of what use is this information? Barbed wire isn't used as a counterweight. How much fence is 3 million pounds?

relaytheurgency··on CLF, a command line tool to search and view snippets in the terminal
Could use some refinement of results. For instance, I run "clf tar compress" and the results are all over the place.

    # Copy a MySQL Database to a new Server via SSH with one     command
    mysqldump --add-drop-table --extended-insert --force --log-error=error.log -uUSER -pPASS OLD_DB_NAME | ssh -C user@newhost "mysql -uUSER -pPASS NEW_DB_NAME"

That's the top result. That has nothing to do with tar or compression.
relaytheurgency··on Too Much Calculus – Gilbert Strang (2001) [pdf]
"I learned more than enough welding when apprenticing as a metalsmith but now as a chef use none of it."
relaytheurgency··on Many McGill Education Students Cannot Calculate an Average
I tried to make this comment a reply to a separate comment but it errored out. I had a funny thing happen to me in college that ruined my one chance at a 4.0 semester. I had just begun my physics major but had some electives to take as well.

I was taking the introductory microeconomics course. At the end of the semester I had received a B and I was relatively certain that I had achieved better, so I went to the professor's office and asked to see how my grade had been calculated. As he started showing me the scores, I realized that none of them had been mine! In the end he had mixed my scores with another student who had the same last name (a very common name, in the professor's defense). I was very happy at that point because I was really thinking I would receive an A! Sadly, the professor shook his head and said that I would still only get a B.

I was a bit shocked so I asked what the final calculation had given and he said a 0.8994. There were not 10,000 points possible and final grades had to be a two-digit representation of the semester's work, so I was unsure why this kept me from an A. I explained to him that the last digit was not significant since there was no "point" to represent the digit, basically trying to explain significant figures to him. I then stated that since the grade had to be either an 89% or a 90%, surely it was more appropriate to receive a 90%.

He shook his head again and said to me what was probably one of the most infuriating and condescending things I'd ever heard from a moron with PhD. He said that economics as a field was likely much more difficult than my primary coursework and that I should not take it too hard that his course was my lowest grade that semester. Now I do not really buy into the perceived/nearly mythical reputation of difficulty that physics has gained, but I do know that we at least put our dependent variable on the appropriate axis. I am not an exceptionally gifted student, so I never did have another chance to receive a 4.0 semester in my math and physics coursework. I have always held a grudge against that professor.

EDIT: I realize I forgot to mention the part that was really infuriating, as I see that it is really not that frustrating as told. The thing that angered me the most, and the reason I went on about significant figures, is that the professor himself was not against rounding! He said that had I received an 0.8995 I would get the A! His entire grading framework was hinged on a poor understanding of math.

relaytheurgency··on China
I have never gotten that impression, and given that 1/3rd of the Chinese population are still in small farming communities, several of which do not have access to things the average American considers basic and fundamental to life, I don't see how anyone would have that impression.
relaytheurgency··on China
Maybe you're projecting your own lifestyle onto the entirety of society. Honest question: Have you been to China?
relaytheurgency··on How many fundamental constants does it take to describe our Universe?
Yes, it's sad. It's as if dimensions/units don't matter. There was a story about this quack on NPR that thought he could prove Einstein wrong. Turned out the guy couldn't differentiate (or wouldn't?) between momentum and energy. All his units were mixed up. He didn't even see the flaw in that.
relaytheurgency··on F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility
Well, it doesn't really matter how old the pipes are as long as they continue working and provide water that meets the EPA/state standards for health. The US public water system is, for all intents and purposes, a miracle that most people do not even think about. They just rely on it.

It's also your duty to replace the pipes leading up to your own house off of the mains in most cases, so I guess take it up with your landlord.

relaytheurgency··on F.C.C. Is Expected to Propose Regulating the Internet as a Utility
Before I got Google Fiber I was definitely happier with my water and electric than my service provider. Now I am probably actually still happier, but I don't have too many complaints about Google Fiber. I can't think of the last time I had an issue with my water! It's got 100% uptime.
relaytheurgency··on Dementia 'linked' to common over-the-counter drugs
An open wound was almost certainly a recipe for gangrene prior to antiseptics and antibiotics.
relaytheurgency··on Dementia 'linked' to common over-the-counter drugs
Taking medications that alleviate the symptoms of upper respiratory congestion also aid in preventing sinus infections down the road. Diminishing the effects of a cold has more benefit than just providing comfort, you are also helping to eliminate a breeding ground for nasty bacteria.
relaytheurgency··on Dementia 'linked' to common over-the-counter drugs
Prior to the advent of modern medicine people didn't heal themselves. They died at record rates from things that are minor inconveniences now.
relaytheurgency··on Blunt Network Administrator Job Posting
Barely enough to cover the medication required to keep your blood pressure at a healthy level. Luckily when you fall over face down in a balmy server room the people you need to save you are close by.
relaytheurgency··on Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says
I guarantee you that on average the population of somewhere like Peru is doing better now than 50 years ago.
relaytheurgency··on What Happens When You Install the Top Download.com Apps
At that level (you're using linux, know what 'root' is, how to access root and how to execute a shell file as root) you're being lazy if something like that bites you in the ass.
relaytheurgency··on Spotify Now Has 15M Paying Users, 60M Overall
Thank you very much. I am happy for once to be mistaken :)
relaytheurgency··on Spotify Now Has 15M Paying Users, 60M Overall
I'm a paying user. My fiance pays as well. It's a great service, but I wish they would come out with a "family plan" or something. Often we are both listening at the same time to a single account which negates the utility of having two separate accounts quite a bit. However, at work we both listen to our separate accounts and listening to the same account would not be feasible. Netflix allows for multiple queues for different users, I think Spotify should follow suit.
relaytheurgency··on The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom
I'm confused. Do you mean you made x/3 as much as a software engineer? Average salary for a software engineer here is somewhere around 80,000 and I have not met a single teacher making even that.

Edit: Nevermind. As a software engineer you make three times a teacher's salary. I get it now.

relaytheurgency··on The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom
It doesn't even have to be political. I had a parent supposedly "so angry that he could not meet me in person for fear of hurting me" because his daughter supposedly came home crying from school every day due to my class. He was just a pushover parent who was being utilized by a girl that did not want to be in physics class. She was even bragging to her friends about how she was going to get her dad to have her pulled from the class.
relaytheurgency··on How to Learn Efficiently
Yes, exactly. One can criticize a consequence of a thing without criticizing the thing itself. I did not actually criticize constructivism anywhere. One might criticize, for instance, certain aspects of US economic practice which are derived from capitalism without actually criticizing the economic theory of capitalism. It is possible (probable) that educational institutes, like governments, are merely misusing theory. I don't know why there needs to be any counterpoints, I did not criticize constructivism.
relaytheurgency··on How to Learn Efficiently
"More" implies that some is already being done, for the most part. I don't want to get into an Internet argument with someone about pedagogy because obviously there's no objectively correct answer. But you can believe what you want to believe and go become a teacher if you'd like. Administrators often want your students to never struggle. This is pushed upon teachers, especially new ones, even in their learning. I was lucky enough not to just have a degree in education so I left pretty quickly, but while I was teaching I was pushed to dumb down my material so that every student could achieve an A. I was told to fit my student's every preference so that they might get an A in the class. Not everyone should get an A in the class.
relaytheurgency··on How to Learn Efficiently
Because in practice it's impossible to do what is being asked. Maybe if your class size was six students, but that's the case basically nowhere. I believe that learning is best achieved when people struggle greatly. If someone is cautiously guided through every problem in life, or in education, they will possess a sense that they know how to do something because they have seen it done by others and they were guided through it a few times. However, when it comes time to actually do the thing they often do not recall it. It's what the article is about. Did you read it?

When I studied physics in college I learned at a much faster rate than I had in the past because I had to often teach myself. I have heard this from others as well. Coddling students and handing them information, letting them climb without falling, seems to yield pretty pathetic results.

relaytheurgency··on How to Learn Efficiently
Perhaps I should clarify. I am not claiming that there is a superior educational philosophy. I am only claiming that in most modern educational institutions, constructivism is the practiced philosophy of education and is taught to all teachers. These institutes often also hold a belief in the idea of learning modalities and, contrary to the foundations of constructivism, preach these ideas quite blindly without regard to their flimsy evidence or poor performance when put into practice.
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