It's an inspiring article, but I wish it highlighted some realities with code schools. There is something to be said about the cost, time commitment, and passion needed to succeed.
People who go from 20k to 100k are the exception, not the rule.
"Others have found that making music and dancing together produces more altruistic and cohesive groups, with one study finding that chill-inducing music is particularly good at promoting altruism in the lab’s subjects. Maybe it is the rush of endorphins from a skin orgasm that helps promote the communal goodwill."
Gah, cynic in me is coming out.
Call me DJ Overlord. Wave your hands in the air like you just don't care. Okay sweet. Now everyone lets...
I found that switching to a night shift was productive. It helped me eliminate social distractions during the day.
I would work in the wee hours when everyone's asleep, sleep all day, but then get up for a few hours before 5pm to get errands done. With the limited daylight and business hours it made me focus and prioritize chores and other busy-work. Social life didn't take too bad of a hit because I got it all in the evening before working the rest of the night and early morning.
The Resistance is a great bluffing and lying game. I don't think it's enough to lose friends because each game doesn't last very long (roughly 20 min.), so it gives other people a chance to exact revenge or screw other people over in future rounds. However, the length of each game can go up dramatically with arguing and bickering, thus the possibility of ruined friendships.
I introduced this to my friends and it proved very popular at first and then . . . very controversial. If you've played with 9-10 players several times you know how insanely difficult it is for the Resistance to actually win. But one round the Resistance won, and the Spies were immediately yelling and screaming. It turned out that one of the chosen Spies (not his first game but his first as a Spy) had decided that working for a totalitarian regime was immoral and that it was unethical to "spy" even though that was his assigned role in the game. Thus he passed the mission for the Resistance every time, not out of a spirit of trolling but out of sincere moral belief - and he indicated that he would always cooperate with the "good guys" no matter what card he drew. The rest of the players were angry, Godwin's Law was invoked in record time, and we never invited him back for game night.
Egads. Sounds like one of the guys I've played tabletop RPGs with in the past. He'll have a character, clearly a minion of someone of questionable morality, and then when the time comes to complete his character's part of the bargain, his real world morality gets in the way. Very frustrating, especially since he's not consistent with it so you can't anticipate what game events will trigger a game-breaking response.
He's still in a couple of groups, but if the game dies for reasons other thna scheduling conflicts, it's probably his doing or a TPK.
Sounds like a good reason to not play with people who don't want to play the game for their team.
Seriously, if you can't tell the difference between spying in real life, and spying in a game, you're not the most 'ethical' person, you're the most confused person.
Ya, I love the Resistance. The only problem is, 3 of us that play are too good at lying that none of us ever trust them which makes the game really, really hard to win. Everyone usually ends up losing as much as they win because of it.
There are only 7 of us so its virtually impossible for the bad liars to all end up on the "honest" team.
Resistance is great. Our group made a google spreadsheet to play the game on, which adds an interesting element because there is more data to reference instead of relying on memory of past votes.
When and if graphene is in production in new products: What comes after that? We're always building something harder, better, faster, stronger (sorry I can't help myself). Can we even fathom something beyond graphene? Or do we plateau? Charging a cell phone in 15 minutes is awesome, but what about instantly? Shoot, lets just embed cell phones into our bodies, and we'll power them with our cells!
I think we just need to break that expectation of going to college right after high school. Some kids really aren't ready, and then they make ill-informed decisions (sign on to a fat loan, study something they're not sure about, etc). Since graduating in 2007, I've had the misfortune of seeing my friends struggle trying to figure everything. More times than not, a few regret jumping into college right away, or wished they strongly considered other alternatives before college.
Side story related to higher education: My friend's counselor suggested she apply to school in this manner: Apply to 3 Ivy leagues, then 3 reputable out of state schools, then 1 in state school.
What kind of advice is that to give to an 18-year old who only has an inkling of what they'd like to do after college? I swear this guy misguided many students.
>I think we just need to break that expectation of going to college right after high school.
Absolutely! But middle/upper class families aren't helping the situation. We have people who start saving for college for fetuses. When you are 18 and you know you've got some hunk of change for college and people are telling you "college," than it doesn't seem like you'd be likely to go to trade school. It seems like you'd be betraying your family's expectations of you. There's also a cultural expectation that if you don't go to college you're nothing or stupid.
See Mike Rowe (of the show Dirty Jobs) for his opinion on the matter:
"I think we just need to break that expectation of going to college right after high school."
Exactly - my wife and I were having a discussion about our son going to University and the general conclusion we came to was that if he isn't really clear on why he wants to go to University then we'll advise him to do something else first. The University course I did in the UK was, oddly, traditionally half-full of Norwegians who were all in their mid 20s - didn't seem to do them any harm!
I'm just coming to the end of my degree, but something that amazed me was just how many of my school friends changed their degrees in the first year, or dropped out of university all together. I think it must have been nearly 50% of my friends changed significantly what they were doing within the first year, many within the first semester.
My brother has also just started university and he told me he's seen exactly the same thing. Of the 9 close friends that went off to university at the same time as him, only 2 are still on their courses. A few dropped out, most changed courses but won't be able to start the new courses until the next academic year.
Very few people know what they want to do at 18, and many don't know what studying their chosen subject will really be like.
I was really surprised by this because I knew what course I wanted to do at university when I was 13, I thought it was Electronic Engineering, until I found out that Computer Science existed, at which point I immediately recognised that as what I wanted to do. I assumed everyone was like that, but I have friends who at 21-23 are still trying to work out what they want to do.
I'm 30. I have either been in full time education or full time job since I graduated. I am still trying to work out what I want to do. I'm led to believe this is normal.
Feedback points make sense, and it looks great for the high school. "We sent X many kids to university, or look at where all our gradutes are going, our school really gets them college-ready".
But any naive ex-student might be frustrated that he made some bad decisions with questionable advice. It's not fair to blame the counselor completely I guess. You'd think that the student seeks other resources to make informed decisions.
They just need to prepare them better for life. Period. Like making a personal finance class mandatory so learn not to take out bad loans for school. Or take home economics so they can learn the basics of cooking, so they could make fancier ramen when they're broke in college.
I haven't experimented with a standing desk, but it seems like you can develop a tolerance overtime, so that eventually, you'll stop thinking about the discomfort when you're trying to concentrate. I can see where the author is coming from though. I tried to read a book when I was cycling in the gym, but it didn't go so well because I ended up spliting my concentration with the book and exercise. No gains in either activity unless I sacrificed the other. However, standing is a low-intensity physical activity, more similar to walking, so I think that overtime you'd just get used to it. It becomes a healthy active habit like taking the stairs everyday.
This is super slick! I'm digging the interface. I'm assuming that you used ESPN's api in someway because I see their logo at the bottom. Which api's did you end up using if you don't mind me asking?
Hey thanks man! ESPN has a handful of open apis that I'm using, mainly the atheltes and teams resources. Check out the full list at http://developer.espn.com/docs
People who go from 20k to 100k are the exception, not the rule.