verylongaccount

While I agree with you that stupid should hurt, I think one of the reasons the situation is so bad is that a lot of the stupid decisions haven't been hurting the people who make the make them and the people who cause them to be made. This isn't just a problem in CA, just look at the Boeing debacle. Tons of bad decisions, the people who made the decisions made 10s - 100s millions of dollars and laughing all the way to the bank. Same think with California's politicians and elite class ... public workers, on the hand, are probably screwed ...

Medical costs are insane, even with insurance. My wife had a serious illness and our out of pocket expenses were around $300K over the course of 3-4 years. That doesn't count the lost wages from leaving her job. We could absorb it only because of the ridiculous compensation I've been lucky enough to get during the last few years.

I don't think that Mike Meru has anything to complain about. Professional schools have been this way for a long time --- you borrow a lot of money to go and then make a good salary which let's you pay it back. It looks to me like it worked out for him. There are prople who borrow money to attend a program on the basis of misleading information from the school. But it doesn't look like that happened here.

That he lets his debt balloon instead of paying it down with his $225K/year salary is on him. It seems like he's betting on some loan forgiveness program coming along to bail him out. Meanwhile, he lives in a $1,000,000 house and drives a Mercedes.

This is what I thought, too. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Maybe the nanny is including some damaging information in the lawsuit, but not the most damaging information. She puts in plenty of details to send the message that she has a lot of specific details regarding the real dirt.

What particularly strikes me about this story is the highly selective concern. What about all the lobbying done by Israel and Saudi Arabia?

Technically, the Ivy League refers to an athletic conference. All of its 8 member institutions on the East Coast. Stanford is in the PAC-12 conference if I recall correctly.

Sadly, your advisor's attitude is common. The mathematics literature seems to be particularly effected. There is incredible opposition to inserting a statement which isn't perfectly rigorous, even in the introduction where reader should expect a simplified overview of the paper. The result is one of the most opaque literatures in all of science --- it is almost impossible for a nonexpert to have any idea whatsoever what a paper is about.

Aren't self driving cars good for Uber? My understanding is that Uber's plan in the event that self driving cars become practical is to have a fleet of them which can be summoned by users on demand.

I am a big fan of Hoffman and Kunze. I also think many would benefit from reading a book on ordinary differential equations after they read a linear algebra textbook. Much of the elementary theory of linear ODEs consists of combining relatively simple observations with linear algebra. Coddington and Levinson is the one I used for a course in college, but it is quite detailed. I am sure there are less ponderous options available, but I don't know any off the top of my head.

I couldn't agree more. I think a large part of the problem is the application of trends which make sense in large houses (and houses tend to be pretty big in much of the US) to smaller spaces. I grew up in a big house in flyover country and it had a "open concept" with a huge combined living room/kitchen/dining room. But that house also had a study and a "family room" on the first floor, and 5 bedrooms on the second, so everyone had plenty of private space. My current much smaller house in California is basically a shrunken version of the open concept. But it lacks the family room and study, and only has 3 bedrooms. Despite having ~ 1400 square feet, it feels cramped with only 2 adults and 1 child living in it.

Hear, hear. I would add one thing: make sure that you don't advance claims without evidence (this goes for all scientific enterprises, not just writing reviews). Just because your review is anonymous, do not think it excuses not upholding the basic standard of science: all claims must be stated as clearly as possible and supported by evidence.

I understand perfectly. This is precisely what was (and is still to an extent) said of Jews.

It seems that many posters here believe that it is okay to discriminate against white men because they enjoy "white privilege," whatever that is. There are those who believe that it is okay to discriminate on the basis of skin color and those who do not. The former are called racists, attempts to redefine the term notwithstanding.

What I find most interesting is that the comments about white men are roughly equivalent to commonly heard antisemitic statements. It is often said that Jews are over represented in various occupations not because of any virtue on their part, but rather because of devious trickery. I don't see much distinction between such sentiments and those being expressed here.

It seems that a large number of posters believe that discriminating against white men is okay because they enjoy "white privilege", whatever that is. Either you believe it is okay to discriminate against someone on the basis of their skin color or you don't. Attempts to redefine the word notwithstanding, those who subscribe to the former philosophy are known as racists.

It is hard to distinguish the anti-white vitriol I see on this page from the antisemitism of yesteryear. It was often said that Jews were over-represented in various occupations not because their industriousness, intelligence or other virtues, but because of devious trickery (they plot together to deprive others of opportunities). I fail to see how the arguments regarding white men are any different.