What have you learned lately?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:37 am

Crissa wrote:Of course, 50K is pauper's pay in California.

-Crissa

Which amuses my fellow geology majors. There's entry-level positions offered to us which sound very attractive until we find out we'd be making 40-50k in California.

A few of us sat down and tried to determine expenses for living there, and determined that the biggest saving would be trying to persuade our hypothetical employer to let us live in the basement.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 12:51 pm

Maxus wrote:
Crissa wrote:Of course, 50K is pauper's pay in California.

-Crissa
Which amuses my fellow geology majors. There's entry-level positions offered to us which sound very attractive until we find out we'd be making 40-50k in California.

A few of us sat down and tried to determine expenses for living there, and determined that the biggest saving would be trying to persuade our hypothetical employer to let us live in the basement.

Where in California is also important. I've lived here for about a decade on less than $20,000 a year.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:31 pm

Crissa wrote:Of course, 50K is pauper's pay in California.

-Crissa

After a quick search of jobs out that way, I'd be making closer to $100,000-$120,000 assuming I get the equivalent qualifications to my Virginia ones. (I would have to get licensed with California, however my Virginia license would in fact qualify my to at least take the exam for an equivalent license there.)

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:03 pm

Neeeek wrote:Where in California is also important. I've lived here for about a decade on less than $20,000 a year.

And you're poor, Neeek, not that it says anything bad about you, but your housing stability is something I certainly wouldn't bet upon.

-Crissa

Tshern · Post by **Tshern** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 3:45 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
Tshern wrote:
Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:That's more than what I pay for college. However, my college is shit, even by American standards.
I believe what I am facing is the retarded standard fee for Scottish universities. It's not even that much, but if I stayed in Finland (heck, my hometown's university ranks better than Aberdeen's) I wouldn't have to pay anything at all and the government would still be throwing money at me.
My sister was accepted by St. Andrews, and was about to go there when they told her that they had no housing for her. No dorm room, no apartment, not even temporary lodging in a hotel. There went one semester into the hole.

Moral: Scottish universities suck, at least logistically.

Oh crap, that sucks. However, I have five friends and quite a few people I merely know in Scottish universities and they have had hardly anything to whine about.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:19 pm

Tshern wrote: Oh crap, that sucks. However, I have five friends and quite a few people I merely know in Scottish universities and they have had hardly anything to whine about.

I have an odd question here. (And any non-native english speakers can answer too.)

Do you understand Scots? They probably won't teach any classes there in that language, but you might hear some while you're there.

I ask this because Scots and English are considered to be mutually intelligible, but I was wondering if someone who learned english rather than grew up with it would consider it to be. (Or maybe you also know Scots, you seem to have a habit of pulling random languages that you can speak reasonably well out of hammerspace in the short time I've known you.)

Sorry, the subject fascinates me, but I'm not really that smart.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:21 pm

Crissa wrote:
Neeeek wrote:Where in California is also important. I've lived here for about a decade on less than $20,000 a year.
And you're poor, Neeek, not that it says anything bad about you, but your housing stability is something I certainly wouldn't bet upon.

-Crissa

Reminds me of a discussion I had with my mom a while back. We pretty much decided that it'd be better to be poor in a cool place than rich in the area where we live now. 50 grand a year can get you a lot around my neck of the woods, but trust me, you don't want it.

Tshern · Post by **Tshern** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:14 pm

Well, I've visited Scotland and I got around just fine. My friends there are doing pretty fine too, but no, none of us have actually studied Scots.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 11:31 pm

Orks are Autobots.

Or Autobots are orks.

I'm not sure which is right.

Link for proof: http://www.the-waaagh.com/forums/?showtopic=38448&st=20

bourdain89 · Post by **bourdain89** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:35 am

its possible for alligators to survive in new york city sewers

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Mar 07, 2009 4:02 am

bourdain89 wrote:its possible for alligators to survive in new york city sewers

No. No it isn't. Not in the least. Sewers are horrible places for aerobic eukaryotes. It's especially bad for ectothermic tropical reptiles. Your conclusion is bad and you should feel bad.

(Side note: Firefox Spellchecker recognizes neither eukaryote nor ectothermic.)

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:46 am

Well, they can't produce, but they don't die, either.

It's actually quiet warm down there.

-Crissa

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 10:38 am

Crocodiles can in fact survive anything. Those bastards survived something like five major extinctions - cataclysmic events on Earth that wiped out a significant number of critters. And they just kept moving along, not caring, and eating whatever tourists were around back then.

The Australian military has decided to tie crocodiles to the APCs when they fight in Afghanistan, as they will survive any assault, deflecting IEDs and armour-piercing rounds.

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:32 pm

Crissa wrote:Well, they can't produce, but they don't die, either.

It's actually quiet warm down there.

-Crissa

No it isn't. Also, there's no oxygen.

Just because the temperature remains above freezing doesn't mean that it's warm enough for crocs to live down there.

And anyone who wishes to argue this further better pull up some credentials and hope they're better than mine.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:11 pm

Romania has had real problems with gangs of orphaned children living in the steam tunnels and becoming tribes of scavengers and thieves. To the lay person, the difference between a steam tunnel, a sanitary sewer, and a storm drain is pretty opaque. There's genuinely a lot of confusion on that point.

I personally don't know what the layout of the New York undercity is. But between maintenance tubes, retired subways, and storm drainage, I am given to understand that there's kind of a lot of undercity there in various states of disuse. It wouldn't surprise me very much if alligators could survive in some part of it - and it would surprise me even less if people who didn't know one tunnel from another referred to such a catacomb incorrectly as a "sewer."

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:21 pm

Yeah, I'm not commenting on any of New York's other infrastructure. I just know that sewers are anoxic, and people who go down in them die regularly from the conditions down there.

As far as steam tunnels, abandoned subways, maintenance tunnels, and god knows what else is down there, I don't know. That's not my realm of expertise.

bourdain89 · Post by **bourdain89** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 5:43 pm

im basing most of my information on the ideas of a few experts on alligators who entered the new york sewer system to determine if they could live there and they said that it is possible. i am not an expert on reptiles or alligators just saying what they said.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:45 am

bourdain89 wrote:im basing most of my information on the ideas of a few experts on alligators who entered the new york sewer system to determine if they could live there and they said that it is possible. i am not an expert on reptiles or alligators just saying what they said.

Yeah, I'm going to say that those experts either were mistaking some of the myriad understructure of NYC for sewers, or they weren't experts. Possibly both.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:55 am

Yeah, I'd refer to the storm drain tunnels.

I didn't say they could die, just that they could live.

-Crissa

bourdain89 · Post by **bourdain89** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 2:50 am

they were actually experts but now i remember that they did actually check out storm drains as opposed to the actual sewer system

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 10:16 pm

Maj wrote:
Neeek wrote:Every parent I've ever spoken to has said their life goes to hell as soon as the kid can get about on their own. So, basically, delaying the walking time is a defense mechanism for the parents' sanity. And there is no practical reason that being able to walk or crawl earlier is going to benefit the child. Where the hell are they going to go?
Well, I'll let you know what happens when Giovanni can get around. So far, I've wanted him to be mobile because it means things like potty training can start. Unlike a lot of parents, there is no way on God's green earth that I'm going to change diapers until he's three. I also, unlike a lot of people, want my kid to get into stuff. Yeah, it's gonna be a pain, but curiosity is how children turn into smart adults. Killing curiosity by limiting mobility is why parents should have had a philodendron rather than a child.

Giovanni's been walking for five months now (he crawled for six months), and it's great for me because I don't have to carry him everywhere. He can walk a good two miles on his own (though very slowly, so being in a hurry still necessitates a stroller), and that's awesome because not only does my arm not fall off, but he gets hellaciously tired and sleeps forever.

I love the walking.

But I have discovered what makes a parent's life bound for hell, and it is not walking. It's carrying the step-stool around.

So now, my intrepid son can carry the stool over to the kitchen counter, steal a fork, run off with said stool and open my sewing drawer, exchange the fork for a pair of my sewing scissors, use the stool to climb up on top of my small freezer, and shove the scissors into my purse.

Or use the stool to climb onto my desk and turn my stereo on so he can listen to his music and talk on the phone.

Or use his stool to climb the short bookcase in his room so he can turn on the light.

Or use the stool to climb into the bathtub and play in the bucket of handwash I set soaking.

Or use the stool to climb onto the bathroom counter so he can brush his teeth.

Or use the stool to reach the cable modem in the hallway closet and unplug it (while I'm trying to post).

No... Walking was not hellish. The extra ten inches is.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:17 am

I just found out how completely out of touch the American people are and always have been with the deficit.

Those numbers are not good.

The Republican Voter numbers honest didn't surprise me. The fact that more than half of them thought it had gone up when it had gone down is just something I have come to expect from self-identifying Republicans. The fact that only 39% of Democrats were able to correctly identify that it had in fact been reduced substantially, and only 7.3% were able to identify how much it had been reduced between 1992 and 1996 is depressing.

-Username17

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 9:24 am

Palimony was created in part because of charges brought against Lee Marvin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Triola

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:30 pm

I learned last night that some people are willing to ruin both Halloween parties and good friendships by starting fights about health care reform.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:40 pm

Ganbare Gincun wrote:I learned last night that some people are willing to ruin both Halloween parties and good friendships by starting fights about health care reform.

I could see that. I mean, lack of Health Insurance seriously kills 123 Americans a day. I could seriously see how that would cause people to panic and act irrationally. You know, how it's kind of like having 9/11 happen every month. Every year. Forever.

-Username17