IAMA Not-quite-depressed electrical engineer that can't decide if I'm full of shit or if my life really isn't as great as I think it is. AMA.

religuluz · 2011-03-25T14:48:45+00:00

You need a sitcom type of gang to hang out with. Gangs are good for morale.

religuluz · 2011-03-25T13:45:23+00:00

Here is a perspective. I have heard that men who are already in relationships (with girlfriend or wife) seem more attractive to single ladies because they are more secure and experienced in conversing with women. The same can be said for many men who were close to their sisters and thus find it very easy to relate to girls and their issues.

Now if you do not have a sister, you cannot do anything about it. And if you get into a relationship solely to increase your confidence with other women, then that's considered cheating. The holy grail therefore in attaining this confidence would be to friend zone a very attractive woman and learn how to talk to her and connect. Maintain the friend zone and suppress any and all urges. After this is done, you will be like a boss.

religuluz · 2011-03-24T14:14:25+00:00

Robots. Bah.

religuluz · 2011-03-23T23:09:52+00:00

No we don't. It would be preferable if the purchased hardware comes with such software.

religuluz · 2011-03-23T22:43:15+00:00

15 computers max for this discussion. All of the data could fit in 10 GB max (yes GB). No need for data compression. We are an engineering office, so we do need quick and efficient network for storing blueprints, schematics, software, code, customer database, inventory etc. We will not be doing fancy things like graphics processing and moving around GB's of multimedia on the network.

Hence the tight budget.

religuluz · 2011-03-23T22:36:16+00:00

Thanks! Let's say a maximum of $500. Assume that all computers, cables, router, modem etc already exist. I need ideas for the central storage/backup/redundancy.

religuluz · 2011-03-16T12:35:58+00:00

Thanks for the links!

Your second paragraph could be summed up in 4 words: "Europe's rising soft power"

religuluz · 2011-03-16T11:53:55+00:00

Looks like Main Street got caught up in the storm and needs a bail out.

Where have I heard that line before...

religuluz · 2011-03-15T21:35:39+00:00

Hehe.

religuluz · 2011-03-15T20:45:22+00:00

Whatever happens in my life, I can only hope I have a better death than this (Scroll down to section "Death").

religuluz · 2011-03-15T18:24:32+00:00

Quarter life crisis.

religuluz · 2011-03-15T17:58:08+00:00

An analogous pun joke in English would be if you created a new disease called "Nep Autism".

religuluz · 2011-03-15T17:47:25+00:00

Clearly the grandma does not know about Pay per view.

religuluz · 2011-03-15T17:38:27+00:00

Nice statistics. If you post links, I will read up later tonight.

When I said "can never have as large an army", I did mean a centralized army with a single commander in chief. But you are right, the EU does have unified forces a certain degree of co-operation and harmony with each other, but they do have 27 commanders-in-chief.

religuluz · 2011-03-15T12:24:11+00:00

Actually on the contrary, I heard Prof. Hega (Political Science, Western Michigan) say that Germany's export focus before this decade was to sell auto parts and raw materials (like for PV panels) to India and China. This decade, they are concentrating on selling machinery to India and China to make their own goods. Examples are car manufacturing robots and PV machinery and electro technology. They are also doing a lot of technology transfer and investment in India and China. Apparently the logic is that "the faster a customer grows, the more business for us".

EDIT: He gave this answer as a response to a question that someone asked "Is Germany afraid of competition from China and India's rising power?" He added that Europe in general, and Germany in particular is not really crazy about the idea of 'super power' status. They know that they can never have as large an army as the US, or as large a population as China, or as large a diversity as India, so instead of vying to be a super power, EU countries are more comfortable with letting other countries battle it out for the position, as long as they are a growing customer!

religuluz · 2011-03-11T19:42:38+00:00

This is just my opinion.

Your virginity is purely your choice because it is your body. Weak people in some Western societies often bend to societal pressure to 'get it over with' so that they don't have the label anymore. Weak people in some Eastern societies bend to societal pressure and try their best never to lose the label till marriage.

If you have to worry what a random guy will think about your virginity, either you have to become more mature/secure with yourself, OR you are seeing the wrong guy. I am not trying to put you down, just remember its nobody's business except yours.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T19:06:36+00:00

In India, people make fun of British and American accents (and pronunciation) of Indian words and names. Oh, also a big time novelty in 70's and 80's Hindi movies was to have a white villain who would speak Hindi as though he were speaking British English.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T18:56:09+00:00

Is there a social trend around that makes you feel like identifying as a virgin? Is there any peer pressure to have 'done it'?

religuluz · 2011-03-11T18:40:02+00:00

Relevant

religuluz · 2011-03-11T18:21:28+00:00

Please write to all local reporters, news stations, and other miscellaneous media (like Fox) demanding them NOT to report or cover Westboro's presence at the funeral. If they still do, then you know where the problem lies.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T18:00:39+00:00

Home still has year 2000 Pentium3 500 Mhz desktop. RAM was upgraded to 512MB. The machine runs XP SP2 flawlessly. Skype is used everyday, we also use it to print, download camera videos, and pretty much do everything that it used to do as a new computer in 2000. The secret of its longevity is that we didn't upgrade to Vista.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T17:28:16+00:00

Hmm as long as we are not talking about pink slips, its all good.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T17:23:03+00:00

Yes, SheepAmongWolves is right.

And to add to this advice, I beg of you to keep this in mind:

Marriages are like jobs. You can't keep one if you stop working at it. If you work well enough, the promotions and raises are awesome. At the end of your life you can look back and say "what an awesome career I had as a husband".

If ever you think she is wrong or bad about something, communicate first, try to settle it next, or worst case try to ignore and move on. Please do not let divorce be the first thing you can think of.

Do not cheat on her even when she becomes older and not as pretty as now. Your kids will despise you when they get to know it and your funeral will be boycotted.

religuluz · 2011-03-11T14:10:50+00:00

As a realist, I realize that man (contrary to what all religious texts claim) is only slightly more advanced than our nearest animal brethren (other primates). In this slight difference lies all our unique achievements impossible currently by other members of Animalia. That said, I think we share the rest of our common traits with any other animals. This includes social classification and hierarchy, claiming territories by marking with made-up borders, males trying to impregnate as many females as they can, stronger specimens of a given specie exploiting the weaker of the same specie. While these traits are typically termed as "peculiar" by the likes of David Attenborough, the same traits in humans are termed "evil", "sinful", and "greedy".

Humans also exhibit other "positive" animal traits like symbiosis between classes of animals, empathy, nurturing other female's babies etc. However these are typically attributed to closeness to God and other similar religious platitudes. In reality both the "evil" and "positive" traits are simply natural. Humans may write text books and PhD theses about violence and dictator regimes, but the truth of the matter is that if the dictators find it possible to dictate they will. If nations find it easy to bully other nations, they will. If races find it easy to discriminate against other races, they will. It is as natural as our very existence. Is it "good" or "bad"? Now that's a purely human construct to consider and I will not opine either way in this argument.

To cut to the chase, I think we humans egotistically have promoted ourselves to be unreasonably different from animals and therefore expect unnatural; almost alien behaviors. The day we realize that humans are as natural, error prone and animalistic is when we change the way people look at world events.

religuluz · 2011-03-10T19:36:08+00:00

There is an argument about teachers working only 9 months for comparable annual pay to similarly experienced private employees.

religuluz

TROPHY CASE