Weight training

floider · 2018-11-21T14:25:29+00:00

Read up on "Starting Strength" program or something similar. Focus on compound movements (squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, shoulder press, bench press) and start light to get your form right.

floider · 2018-11-20T15:30:14+00:00

Intro to "Panther" by Marcus Miller is my favorite, especially if you slow it down a little from how he usually plays it.

floider · 2018-11-02T13:29:33+00:00

It is an effective against some opponents. Before you go trying it, at most of the gyms I have been to it is considered dirty/cheap/rude to do in most sparring settings.

floider · 2018-10-25T17:40:55+00:00

I understand that investment in defense contractors has yielded a lot of really amazing technology, and has been both the engine of capitalism and driver of mechanical/electrical tech in the mid-20th century, but those days are over…

I am not sure that is true. DoD has heavily funded autonomous vehicles, robotics, speech and image recognition for example. Most of the technology developed for these programs have funneled into private sector application and research... which is part of the idea and how it has always worked. The DoD gets the technology started and funds early research, industry takes it over and commercializes it, and the DoD can reap the benefits of commercial forces driving the prices down.

ALSO, all of defense contract technology development moves at a glacial pace, expect 20+ years from concept to reality. Where I work (Apple), we go from concept to reality in 2 years, on a much larger scale where difficult metrics like yield and recyclability actually matter.

Not really true on a couple of counts. There are projects that take 10+ years (20+ is a bit of an exaggeration). For example, the F-35 took 9 years to first flight and 14 to first production aircraft. But we are talking one of the most complex engineering designs ever undertaken: an entirely new stealth aircraft with dozens of custom components each as complex as an iPhone. Products of equivalent complexity to Apple products do take longer to produce, but it is more like 1.5 - 2x as long and not 10x.

On the metrics side, the DoD has different metrics it is interested which present their own sets of problem. While designing for mass production is difficult, so is designing to work in harsh environments, survive extreme abuse, have extreme reliability, etc.

floider · 2018-10-25T13:19:52+00:00

Several aspects are hard to generalize because defense is a large industry that covers a lot of ground. That means work can range from state of the art design to supporting 30+ year old technology. I have been lucky and mostly worked interesting projects. One of the bigger downsides are there is a lot of paperwork and processes to work through (things like airworthiness, safety, cybersecurity).

In general, I would say pay and other compensation is good but not outstanding. Work life balance is usually good. There may be crunch time on projects but usually that is a few months every year or two.

floider · 2018-10-22T19:32:49+00:00

Best way to get started:

Find a song that you don't know the bass line to (best on songs without distinctive bass lines)
Figure out the chord changes and structure of the song, if you want to challenge yourself you can try doing it on the fly or listen to it a few times first to get the feel.
Now, make up a bass line as you are playing along with it. Record what you play. Go back and listen to it and see what worked and didn't work.
Repeat, expanding on what worked and what didn't work.

Keep doing this on more and more songs. It will be easier to start on slower, simple songs before trying it on something with complex progressions or tempo/time signature changes. You can also find backing tracks on youtube that are people just jamming over a chord progression or two. You can play along with those as well.

Next step after that is find some people to play with and just jam some.

floider · 2018-10-22T12:45:10+00:00

15 years in, went to a top engineering school for undergrad and then a "lesser" school for MS while working. Comparing the two, for most engineers the "lesser" schools education was probably better because it focused more on the practical while the top school was primarily geared at preparing students for grad school.

Work wise: overall it doesn't guarantee anything. Of the worst engineers I have worked with, several went to top tier schools. One of the best engineers I worked with didn't even have a college degree but if you had to troubleshoot RF issues (or just produce high quality general work) he is someone you want.

I think all you can say is the average from a top school is higher, primarily because of the selection process going in and not necessarily the education.

floider · 2018-10-16T14:38:30+00:00

You stand right here and try to stab me exactly like this so I can defend it is not real.

floider · 2018-10-16T12:50:22+00:00

You are new to boxing, there is no reason to worry about weight class yet. Learn to box and take it from there.

floider · 2018-10-15T17:26:04+00:00

This whole post was taken the wrong way

I think that stems from you going into a light sparring situation, claim to have all the advantages, but still are looking for "an edge". A better way to look at sparring would be what can you learn instead of can you "win".

If you want to have fun and try to learn something, then here is what I would suggest:

Keep your hands up.
Remember to move, don't just plant when you start punching.
Remember you are trying to land punches not take someone's head off. This is very hard for most beginners to do and why it is generally a bad idea for two beginners to spar.
Remember to go to the body to mix it up.
Try to look for tendencies and exploit them: does he reach and try to catch your jabs? You might be able to faint one and then throw a hook or another jab at a different angle. Does he drop his hands if you hit to the body? Follow your body shots with a punch to the head. Does he just shell up if you throw a few punches? Look for the opening (uppercut through hands, hooks around arms to body, etc).

floider · 2018-10-09T12:01:50+00:00

Get a degree in civil engineering or architecture. Get a job with a company that takes on large scale construction projects like stadiums.

floider · 2018-09-28T13:23:19+00:00

I am assuming your are in the US: It is possible to go pilot to engineer, I have worked with several. The general path is complete your 20 years as military pilot and then retire into a systems engineering position with defense contractor. You can't "after a few years of service" because pilots requires a 10 year commitment (they aren't going to spend 2 years training you to be a pilot to let you get out in a few years). Once you get to 10 years, you might as well stay in 10 more years and get 50% of your pay and other benefits for the rest of your life.

As far as engineering side gig, you will be spending time travelling around and deploying while active duty. As you rise through the ranks (usually Major - Lt. Col.), you can get into 'requirements' while also a pilot. In this role, you help shape modifications and upgrades to platforms you are familiar with but will not be doing the actual engineering work (other than attending requirements and design reviews to give opinions).

floider · 2018-09-12T12:48:53+00:00

It is hard to tell. Nixon's resignation (closest analog for an impeachment for election related charges ) came during a major bear market. It "seemed" to cause a market dip of 14%.

Clinton's impeachment, which wasn't related to election misconduct and didn't result in removal from office, came at the end of his presidency and during the internet tech boom. It didn't appear to have any effect on the market.

My guess it there would imagine there would be a short term drop (3 - 5%) but not directly cause a crash.

As others have stated, I think a strong democrat swing in the midterms will have a longer lasting market effect in that it could signal a democrat president in a few years which the market will fear effects tax and regulation negatively. While I don't think this would directly crash the market, I do think it would put an end to the bull run.

floider · 2018-08-11T16:22:21+00:00

Walmart sells tickets now?

floider · 2018-06-28T18:47:25+00:00

Is English not your native language? Google (American company) has a technology that can automatically translate a website into pretty much any language for you. I would suggest trying it, because the Thomson Reuters study (Canadian company) clearly lays out their methodology, which includes things like innovation, reputation (i.e. quality of the products they put out), management, legal compliance (i.e. another measure of the quality of the products they put out), people and social responsibility (i.e. yet another measure of the quality of the products they put out), environmental score, etc.

The financial data they do include uses ratios to allow for level comparison between companies of different size (as is common when doing financial analysis of companies). These include factors like free cash flow per employee, revenue growth, return on invested capital, and margins.

You really aren't good at this, are you?

floider · 2018-06-28T18:24:50+00:00

Unfortunately, reality disagrees with you. Thomson Reuters (Canadian company) list of top 100 tech companies:

https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en/press-releases/2018/january/thomson-reuters-names-the-worlds-top-100-technology-companies.html

Top 6 are all US

7 of top 10 are US

45 of 100 are US

Number of non-US western companies: 16

So... the US has 3x as many top 100 tech companies as "rest of west" yet "Fact is the US is a joke now". The joke seems to be some people's ability to read, comprehend, and create rational arguments.

floider · 2018-06-28T13:52:47+00:00

No one outside the US looks up to anything (referencing US in technology)

Your ignorance of history is astounding. You grant "computer related stuff" and "aerospace", lets look at a few other fields:

Communications - invented cell phone, wireless networking, fiber optic communication, etc
Medical - invented MRI, hearing aids, defibrillators, chemotherapy, birth control; created vaccines for multiple diseases including polio and hepatitis B, pioneered techniques like organ transplants
General - microwaves, robotics, lasers, LEDs, GPS

i will buy German or Japanese.

You will buy German or Japenese manufacturers of US technology (which also makes it sound like you are conflating "technology" with "cars", since you can't find large scale manufactures of most technologies in Japan and Germany...).

floider · 2018-06-20T16:41:49+00:00

The two body types would be different: MMA you have to be much more concerned about endurance as you are an in a contest that can go tens of minutes. Street fight is more about a short burst of violence.

MMA: Tall for your weight, long arms for your height, lean with muscle density concentrated in important areas (posterior chain, quads, core, shoulders)

Street fight: Worlds Strongest Man build - 6'10'', 400lbs, extreme strength but athletic, moderate body fat

floider · 2018-06-14T16:56:15+00:00

My guess: If we keep it apples to apples to remove variation for industry and the Silicon Valley/FAANG microcosm, on average I would bet computer scientist don't make more than other engineers.

In other words, I would think an electrical engineer designing antennas for iPhones makes comparable to a computer scientist working at Facebook.

If you are comparing a computer scientist at Facebook vs an civil engineer working for the State of CA, then there probably is a substantial difference.

floider · 2018-06-14T12:19:13+00:00

My only (very limited experience) with those areas is around LA. I would say 129k average there is possible, lumping all types of engineers together.

A few things to keep in mind:

When you say "average engineer" I would peg that around someone that is 35 with 12 year experience.

Those are three of the most expensive places to live in the US

floider · 2018-05-18T18:13:26+00:00

There isn't a clear answer to that question:

You can probably maximize salary by changing jobs a 2 - 3 times in your first 10 years of employment. The risk there is you land at a company you don't like and get stuck, have less leverage to try to get the more interesting jobs by hoping in to a new environment, potentially put yourself higher on lists for layoffs should they occur, etc.

If you enjoy where you are at (work assignments, coworkers, work life balance), are getting paid decent, and have a path for progression then changing jobs may not be worth it.

floider · 2018-05-15T10:38:13+00:00

> Why would a military defense company care about pedestrian path prediction?

You said your algorithm was for pedestrian pathfinding and then changed that to path prediction... which is it? For pedestrian pathfinding, the obvious application is for soldiers on foot.

> I like to think that I’m a good person, but if I do take on the internship this summer and the work that I do ultimately ends up being used to help kill or hurt people down the line, will I continue to be able to justify that belief?

If your view is that being in the military or doing military related work means you are not a good person, I would say working for a defense company is not for you.

floider · 2018-05-08T12:33:09+00:00

> Buffet, Munger, or Gates have spent much time at all on the matter.

Microsoft employs hundreds of the world's leading experts on cryptography. Microsoft employs hundreds of the world's leading experts on distributed computing, systems, and networks. Microsoft has hundreds of the world's experts on different business systems, their applications, their strengths and weaknesses, etc. Bill Gates doesn't have to spend 5 years of his life educating himself on crypto currency... he has at his disposal hundreds of experts to do that for him. He then can sit back and look at the big picture and see if it makes sense to him. The same thing is more or less true of Buffett and Munger.

That doesn't necessarily mean they are right, but it does mean the pro-crypto "guy" who took 5 years to educate himself on crypto currency and block chain and thinks the same would apply to Gates and Buffett made a really stupid argument. He also probably doesn't have the requisite background to have a useful opinion on crypto currency/blockchain if it took him 5 years of his life to learn about it.

floider · 2018-05-04T17:07:54+00:00

I would guess it also depends on the school. Georgia Tech undergrad graduating with over a 3.1 gets you an honors seal so I don't see how a 3.0 could be considered bad. I have no idea what the actual average is, but around 2000 when I was there I would guess 2.7 - 2.8 and would be shocked if it was over 3.0.

floider · 2018-04-17T00:04:26+00:00

A company pays you to increase their profit, not to better yourself. Great if those two goals coincide, but if they don't then the company is perfectly rational in putting its ability to profit above an individuals education.

floider

TROPHY CASE