KipIngram

Well, some religious people (Catholics) are told not to use birth control. So that certainly contributes to having more children. And as far as IQ goes, I think it makes total sense to reason that religion has is origins in an attempt to "explain the un-explainable." People with higher intelligence are more likely to be familiar with and understand the scientific explanations for things, and thus have less need for religion as a "catch all" explanation. Anyway, the above is sheer speculation - just a guess, but it feels like a reasonable guess.

You win. I cannot imagine a worse job.

Intentional on who's part? You don't have to answer - I know what you're implying. And you may be right, but it's not something that anyone can prove.

REALLY????? That first video is really something.

That is a very interesting question. If I can rephrase it for you, you mean "what is the evolutionary advantage of enjoying art?" Right? I think lots of people could concoct something, but how accurate the concoctions would be I have no idea.

Yes. As I said you might be able to show some very very tiny relativistic effect - I haven't investigated. But for all practical purposes it's simply the motion of conductors in a magnetic field that produces the emf that causes current flow.

That's exactly why our current polarization is so bad. Neither side is willing to work with / consider the other.

? I don't know about animals, but the point of art is that it brings pleasure. My own "art appreciation" runs more to music than to other things, but music can produce amazing and pleasant feelings.

It's never enough, apparently. I don't get it at all.

Well, I think it's almost universally the case that politicians (at least at the higher levels) are financially far better off than the bulk of the people they govern. What really bothers me is seeing Congressmen and Senators who are worth significantly more when they leave office than when they were elected. In the US at least we have a class of "professional leaders" that just don't live in the same world as the people they make decisions for every day. Not a good situation.

Oh, good points. I was assuming we were stating from a spinning generator.

:-| I don't consider myself amazing. I just love learning and studied hard while getting my engineering degree. The management thing was a total surprise - I would have told you in earlier years that "I'd never want to be in management." Then I joined this little company as a senior engineer, and one engineering manager after another failed to please the owner. Finally I was next in line, and I just rolled up my sleeves and did my best. And things worked out, and I found out I enjoyed managing after all - it was really great to be able to see "larger things" come into existence compared to what I could do single-handedly. If t here was anything that characterized me I'd say it was that for me it was always about the product and its technical integrity. I paid attention to the engineering details and made sure they were right, rather than let the job become a bureaucratic "political dance." And it just happened that's what that owner wanted. As I alluded to above, I think I'd fail miserably in this company as a manager, because that more fluffy stuff is important to success here. I was just really lucky to find a few environments over the years I could thrive in.

Yeah, no kidding. I think this latest round proves without a doubt that success in business doesn't "port" to success in politics.

Oh my gosh. I don't think you "learn" to become a father - you just become one one day at a time. I never felt like I spoon-fed them very much; I just made sure they understood that homework did have to get done, and so on. Sure, we read to them when they were little, and encouraged reading by being generous when it came to buying books as they grew. But I give most of the credit for what they're becoming to them - I've just tried to set a good example on things like work ethic, keeping my word, appreciation of knowledge and learning, and (mentioned above) self-reliant thinking. I've just taught them that they're responsible for themselves and responsible for their actions. They've taken it from there. I in no way feel like an "expert father." I think some of it has been luck, some of it has been genetic - I and both of their mothers are reasonably smart (two marriages - two daughters from the first and three from the second) - and some of it has been the examples we set. But they've done the heavy lifting themselves.

Actually I found myself thinking a bit more about this as I got coffee. I feel worth the salary I am paid. I've earned that sort of salary across multiple jobs and over quite a few years, in management / executive roles that I filled very successfully. Projects were finished on time and on budget, and architectures were clean. The corporation I spoke of that acquired us in 2012 knows all about that background, but they choose to utilize me in a different way. Management styles here are very different - I don't know how well I'd perform managing in this environment. But none of that is really my fault. If they approached me wanting to lower my salary I'd leave and find something else, but as long as they're willing to pay I'm willing to stay.

Of course. If you haul out relativity and all that stuff there might be some tiny Nth order effect that changes it slightly, but to first order the electricity produced by a generator has nothing to do with air or gravity.

Well, that is the question, isn't it? I am likely an overpaid cog in the machine now. I was the software engineering manager for a small company in 2012, and earned a salary compatible with that. Late that year a major American corporation acquired the company. They installed new management, so now I'm an individual contributor again. But they lowered no one's salary. So I still have a management grade salary for a job that has much less responsibility. Much less stress too. I miss the intense, "get it done" type atmosphere that I experienced in my earlier small company leadership roles. Miss it quite a lot. But at the same time I'm not in my 30's or 40's anymore, and the level of stress that I carried around with me in those roles would probably be a lot harder for me to handle now. So I recognize the positives of the situation; I don't have too terribly many years to go before retiring, so I console myself about the "lack of fulfillment" by trying to note the advantages of my current situation. Do I feel guilty? No, not in the slightest. I've got four college educations left to pay for - I'll take it any way I can get it.

We are human - some people might call you sexist, but frankly, who cares? Flirting with cute waitresses is one of life's pleasures.

Yeah, I agree with you - I think I commented earlier or in some other thread that the Presidential situation in America has become a popularity contest, and it sucks. But removing the decision from the people's hands is not the right answer. In the United States the three branches of government are supposed to serve as checks and balances on one another - placing one of them under the control of another undermines that. I don't deny at all that the current situation is a real mess. When I hear Dwayne Johnson talk about going into politics and "starting with the Presidency" I feel vaguely nauseous. I know nothing about Johnson's politics, so it's not that at all - it's the whole idea that a complete novice even has it cross his mind that he could be President.

Yes. I have five daughters (no sons), so I feel like I have a stake in how the world presents opportunities to women. So far it's going good - my oldest is a policy analyst at a public policy foundation in Austin and the other two that are in college are headed for careers in biomedical engineering and teaching. I didn't try to "shape" how they think - the big thing I pushed at every possible opportunity was for them to think for themselves. I also tried to give them good information on "how guys tick." As far as the more superficial stuff goes, I'm delighted Wonder Woman is there because I quite enjoy looking at her - that actress is a heck of a good looking gal. Generally speaking, though, I don't really see super heroes as role models - they aren't "typical," so that don't present a realistic picture of how a person can actually operate in the world.

Well, the voters were not asked to plan the exit process. Britain had existed for centuries and centuries without being in the EU, so it's clear that's a possible way of operating. I think the opinion of the voters as to whether they wanted their nation to be part of a greater whole or fully autonomous was a very, very relevant "voter level decision." Your post opens the whole "people aren't competent and thus have to be taken care of / thought for," and I object to that very strongly. The whole "paternal government" thing is a huge negative in my opinion. Worse, it's a self-fulfilling thing - when you impose a paternal government on people they start to forget how to be truly free. Give them the freedom, and after a while you'll have a population worthy of it.

Wow, that would be a pretty forward waiter. Although I had an experience sort of like that a few months ago. We have a favorite Chinese place that we'd ordered from for years. Then we moved to a new house that was sort of far from them. They are still willing to deliver to us, though, and we really appreciate it. So I always tip the drive quite generously. Super nice guy that always shows up in a shirt and tie. Anyway, this once a few months ago I was distracted and forgot to right in a tip. I hadn't even realized - probably would have later and would have felt awful. A few minutes later he called from his car and asked if I'd meant to give one. I guess he knew that we *always* did and figured it must have been a mistake. So I told him what to write in and he did so. So he fort of "followed me outside," so to speak, but there was a strong history for him to base the expectation on.

Once I took a job with a small down-hole oil tools company. I was hired to manage the electrical engineering group, but the owner hadn't told them he was hiring a manager (formerly he'd managed that team himself) so he had me interview as though I'd be joining the team as their peer. I thought that was a bit strange, but not just entirely unreasonable. When I showed up for the first day of work, though, he STILL hadn't told them - he held a meeting after lunch to announce it. So things were just weird there from the start. The real problem, though, is that in my former management jobs I'd overseen people who you could think of as "specialists" (analog circuit design here, digital there, software there, PCB layout there, etc.) I worked very well in that environment - I was good at "project planning" their work and also at making sure the overall technical architecture was sound and so forth. But at the new company each engineer handled a full project, end to end (except for the PCB layout, which was farmed out). These guys didn't need any help "seeing the big picture" or plan their project. So a) they weren't really happy about having a new boss in between them and the owner, b) that new boss was introduced in a strange way, and c) they didn't really "need me." I was there for about a year and felt pretty much useless the whole time. I did have one really positive experience when I helped a guy find a race condition in his FPGA design, but otherwise, meh. After the year or so the phone rang and it was a headhunter trying to fill a VP of engineering slot at a seismic startup, so I went and did that instead. That and other experiences in my life have led me to recognize that I truly enjoy a job when I feel that I'm truly needed and make a unique contribution. If I'm just a cog in the machine or (worse) irrelevant, it's no fun at all.

You bet - good luck!

What are you going to do with it after swabbing it? If you leave it warm stuff will grow in the nutrient agar. There are a few commercial beers that have live yeast in them (I think Sierra Nevada is one). You can do stuff like this to culture them up to where you can make a starter. So I always wanted something to grow. Usually I'd wind up with some bacteria too, but they'd be in separate colonies. You can look with a microscope to tell which colonies are yeast, and then scrape that up and put it in a small starter, very well sterilized, and work your way up. I haven't brewed in years - I really should get back to that.