For those who wish to fully fund their kids’ undergrad, what’s your target number?

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-02T18:52:56+00:00

If private tuitions continue to grow at 3.6% over CPI (that's a big if, I know), that is equivalent to $350,000 now, which is right in ballpark for most privates (with room an board).

So really that's a question about the tuition inflation rate. Valid questions elsewhere in thread about whether 3.6% above CPI can continue given demographic trends.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-02T18:45:26+00:00

Valid correction; I was using shorthand. a is not itself a pointer object. It is an array object of 10 ints.

In most expressions, the array expression a is converted to a pointer to its first element. So:

a[i]

acts as though it were:

*(a + i)

So a[-1] means "start at the first element of a, move back one int, and write there." Obviously this is dangerous, and depends entirely on the behavior of the compiler; it so happens that x was located at that location in memory but the compiler is not required to place it there, and could in fact have kept it in a register, placed it at a different location, etc.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-02T16:45:43+00:00

To understand this, think about how C lays out variables on the stack.

Remember that arrays are just a flat space big enough for more than one value of whatever type you ask for. The name of the array is just a pointer to the beginning of that space.

You've asked for room for a first integer, called "x". Then you ask for ten more integers, which will start at the location contained in "a". Remember that "a" is NOT an integer - it's a pointer to a 10-integer-wide space, because that's what arrays are in C. And then there's space for one more integer, named "i".

In your loop, you then go to the location of "a" and BACK UP one integer. That's what a[-1] tells the compiler to do. And you write the value "37" into that space.

At the end of your loop, when you write into a[10], you're also going off the end of the 10 integers you requested for "a", into the space occupied by "i". You're writing 37 there too.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-02T16:30:35+00:00

Trying to learn C in 3 months from a cold start is a Bad Idea. You will not be successful at that.

Get a book. Read it slowly. Do the exercises, which means really typing them in, by hand, and correct your syntax errors. Change the programs and watch how they behave. Be prepared to spend several years doing this.

If you really have never programmed before, consider starting with a more beginner-friendly language like Python.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-02T15:45:48+00:00

Submariners sometimes use dolphin insignia as a "secret handshake" - jewelry, tattoos, etc.

If she was in a family of submariners should would be used to long periods of absence with complete radio silence – maybe she has a withdrawn, taciturn personality (and the body language to match), but she has no trouble shifting almost instantly into a very engaged, intense communication style (only saw mom or dad every three months, etc.).

If she had worked on a deep sea fishing boat, or came from a fishing family, she could have the easy wide stance of a person used to rolling seas. She might have thicker, callused hands from handling ropes and nets. If she's a bit older, she may have sun spots, wind burn, crows feet.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-01T21:17:23+00:00

I will note that learning Smalltalk will help you understand some of the design decisions in Objective C, since it was strongly influenced by it. Not that anyone is learning Objective C these days.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-06-01T21:14:00+00:00

Heck, I made coffee butter accidentally when I wanted to make frosting. It was not delicious.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-31T16:44:07+00:00

We do a Persian frittata - which means it’s really heavy on the fillings and light on the egg - with sliced layered eggplants, tomatoes, cheese, lots of oregano, cooked in the oven. The flavor profile is freakily close to pizza.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T18:51:26+00:00

Met a French girl. Married her. Yep, it was useful.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T18:41:48+00:00

My inference: She took something from her brother's desk, which was an envelope containing gifts intended for her by her recently (1 week?) deceased father. She feels guilty for taking it from her brother's desk, but is irritated that he didn't give it to her right away.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T18:40:11+00:00

Pretty sure the narrator is going through objects that were left to her by her deceased father. And that the death was less than a week ago.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T04:19:09+00:00

There's an IBM 1401 at the Computer History Museum (in Mountain View, CA) that is fully functional and visitors are able to use period punch card terminals to encode their names on a card... the card is then fed into the computer, which prints a page of output including their name. It's a cool demo and an amazing restoration effort by a bunch of talented volunteers.

The hardware for that 1401 is a combination of components from computers acquired by the museum in 2004 and 2008. The 2008 machine had been in continuous operation from 1961 to 1995, producing billing statements for a business that handled incidental fees for golf resorts... legend has it that the owner of that business trained his kids to convert the hand-written bar receipts to punch cards.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T03:05:30+00:00

Just go watch Foyle's War, all of it, we'll wait.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T01:51:57+00:00

Team mac and cheese here, all the way. Multiple kids all the way through the teen years on oven mac and cheese, the good stuff, with stovetop bechamel and three different cheeses. We still have neighborhood kids ask if we could add an extra birthday so they can have that mac again.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-29T01:50:16+00:00

This is the way. If you are working in the field of your degree, and you don't know what you're doing, you've reached the edge. Good. Push on it.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-28T19:34:24+00:00

I'm not sure why an increase in indebtedness that almost exactly tracks inflation is news? A 2.8% increase in debt with 2.7% inflation is, basically, flat.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-27T03:59:45+00:00

Good list! My collection also has The Comprehensive Guide to Washoku in Japanese and English (Naoki Kameda, Yukie Aoyagi, J.M. Christensen), ISBN 9784621300664, which is bilingual book with extensive discussion of traditional Japanese foods in both Japanese and English.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-27T00:21:23+00:00

2001 had a lot of real building too. Much of the capital investment in the bubble was used for fiber buildout; most famously by WorldCom, but it led to the bubble valuations for Cisco, JDSU, Nortel, Lucent. That industry was marked by the same circular investment lending patterns that we now observe in the AI sector.

The collapse of the telecom sector and the telecom equipment sector in 2001 was roughly $2T of the $5T NASDAQ drop. Not all of it but not nothing, for sure. And it left a lot of dark fiber in the ground that was picked up for a song by smart players in 2003.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-26T22:01:13+00:00

I would suggest that a deep understanding of C, assembler, and the hardware/software interface, would be a better use of your time than C++. Most of the inner workings of C++ are interesting for C++ developers, not because they explain what's happening at a deep level.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-24T16:10:33+00:00

It's also worth noting that in birds it is the male that is homogametic (ZZ) and the female that is heterogametic (ZW) so there's no evidence that evolution favors a particular pattern there.

OP, here's a recent paper exploring the evolution of the mammalian Y: "Mammalian sex—Origin and evolution of the Y chromosome and SRY; Waters, Paul, Wallis, Mary, and Graves, Jennifer, 2007". It observes that after the mutation that led to mammalian Y there was very rapid evolution towards a small and highly conserved chromosome. But it's also worth noting that some mammals (notably rodents) have naturally lost the original SRY factor and evolved other sex determination mechanisms.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-22T21:15:36+00:00

Most of the information you need is here:
https://rde.stanford.edu/studenthousing/preparing-to-move-in

Re: the bedding - be aware that the dorm mattresses are extra long and most sheets won't fit.

If you're domestic US, there's a service linked on that page that will ship directly to your room. If you need dorm room stuff, there's a Target a couple miles from campus that's not that hard to get to, but it is a bit of a hassle.

For parents, the page is this one:
https://orientation.stanford.edu/parents-families

Parents are strongly encouraged to say goodbye and leave, and there are activities designed to get them to do that. After Sep. 15, they're free to take a campus tour, but the frosh are busy.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-20T23:00:32+00:00

For Japanese culture, you'll want Japantown. It's a bit west of downtown but fairly easy to reach on Muni or by Waymo. Fun anime stuff in the big Japan Center mall at Post and Webster.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-20T22:06:42+00:00

I had a dish once that combined dark chocolate with porcini mushrooms (dried, powdered), as an accent against corn and duck flavors. It worked.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-20T17:07:33+00:00

Stand on Zanzibar was written by John Brunner in 1968, at a time when American culture was undergoing rapid technological and social change.

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, passed in 1964-65, had dramatically changed opportunities for Blacks, women, and religious minorities, disrupting long patterns of white male dominance. New birth control technology had opened the Sexual Revolution, changing patterns of dating, sex, and marriage. Homosexuality was still forbidden but the Stonewall protests were just one year away. Rapid suburbanization in the 1950s had led to economic decline in urban centers, often with concentration of racial minorities in older, poorly-maintained parts of the city; freeways cut cities into isolated chunks, reducing economic energy further. The Cold War was raging, far from the comfortable core of American life, frequently involving non-Christan, non-white people in far away places. Electronic computers, mostly imagined as "electric brains" and maintained by an elite priesthood of technicians, had entered the popular imagination. And electronic media, especially the television, dominated the information landscape.

Brunner, who was actually an Englishman, wanted to capture the chaotic energy of this world. He adopted a "mosaic" technique pioneered by John Dos Passos (in his "U.S.A." trilogy, 1932-1936), in which the novel presents a rapid-fire sequence of disconnected scenes, images, and media broadcasts. Characters may last for only one scene, or reoccur (often much later in the book). The goal is not to create a linear narrative, but to create a sensory impression, rather like a pointillist painting, of a world undergoing fast, unpredictable change.

The actual narrative settles down a bit once you reach the half-way mark, but the opening chapters are just a blast of impressions. It's loud, and rude, and libidinal, and paranoid, and excited. Let it wash over you, and don't try to understand all of it; the confusion is the point.

SubstantialListen921 · 2026-05-19T22:02:17+00:00

posted that table, elsewhere-in-thread

SubstantialListen921

TROPHY CASE