That's what we do. It's crazy, but you have to do something to weed out the absolute slackers from people who put in a minimum amount of effort in life.

To be fair, I benefited a lot from my ejumacation. E.g. I recognised Footsie's little error back there in a moment.

And for employers, a degree is evidence that a person can jump through specified hoops and produce documents of the length, style and topic required, more or less on time, and can stick at a project for three or four years. That says something.

Yes. Sigh. May I forward your post to my daughter?

A - perceptive
II - think I'd rather pick up the trash
3 - should, with a sh rather not a w

Forward this.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I keep agonizing over this, which is stupid. There's nothing I can do about it.

I can only buckle down to my own grad courses and take care of what's on my plate. But it makes me ill that she's throwing away the chance to get a degree and have a skill (her degree would let her work in different aspects of the equine industry), be able to support herself and never be dependent, and start out with no debt. I would have given anything to have had that kind of support when I was in university.

No, you can tell her since she's all into re-negotiating (i.e. dropping out) that you'er going to renegotiate as well and give her a bill for the 100 large. You can even make an excel spread sheet showing her that it will take 9 million years working at WalMart to pay you back. Then you can indenture her.

The first three are cautionary photos of what happens to girls who don't finish school. The last one is how spoiled she is acting.

The pics are perfect. Perfect. I have somehow raised a Ukrainian princess. Somewhere along the way, as I was trying to keep things together despite all of our family problems, I failed to notice that she was gaining a sense of entitlement rather than a work ethic.

She flies in this weekend for a discussion with her father and me. It will not be a happy time.

This is patently untrue. You can advise. This is where you go when your kids are too old to order.

How would you talk to her if she were a friend from one of your classes? You would explain to her in detail all the negative repercussions of her decision - all the while validating that it is her decision to make. But at least you can make it clear what she is getting into.

But you are right to the extent that you can't at this point in her life make her make the decision as you would.

Amen...

It takes great patience, but maintain your connection,
and support whatever positive aspects of her decisions you can.

Over the years you planted many seeds, it just takes a while for them to sprout and flourish.

Yes, thank you. I hope to have the chance to advise. What I mean about there being nothing I can do is that she presented us with a fait accompli, so the decision to drop out is not up for discussion. She didn't register for the spring semester last October and let the final deadlines go by before telling us in late January. (She lied to us all through winter break, telling us about the courses she was taking in the spring, how she would be on the judging team, etc.) She can always apply to return to her studies in future; however, with what she has said so far I think the chances are remote. The longer she's out of school the harder it will be to return.

I do want to keep connected, although in spite of saying how much she loves me, she has mostly dropped communication. She isn't interested in hearing anything she doesn't want to hear.

I will let her know that I am always here for her and if she ever needs a safe place, she can come here no questions asked. I see many red flags with the current bf and I believe he will quickly become abusive. I can only hope that she'll be open to listening to some advice and thoughts.

deprogramming?

I'm grasping at straws here.

Me too. And losing lots of sleep.

She called last night, very excited, to say she landed a job selling whole-house air filters evenings and weekends. She says there's a base salary that will cover her rent and utilities, plus bonuses. Training is today through Friday so - she isn't flying home this weekend. She thinks perhaps in May. So much for the Excel chart.

She sounded excited enough that I think the job is real. Do companies pay salaries of $26,000 plus bonuses at entry-level for selling air filters at pre-booked appointments on evenings and weekends? Is this plausible?

parts of it sound plausible. In bold


/buzzkill

Whatever you do, don't buy a whole house air filter. Who needs that? You probably already have a filter as part of your HVAC system. In fact, it's probably dirty and in need of changing. I know ours is.

Yeahhh ... I know.

Hmmm...

Attachment 42908
Attachment 42909

AmmoLand says these are both United Nations maps.

The data may well be from the UN, but how they choose to group the data is up to them.

Especially, not the murder rates in the second graph. The first category is 0 to 5 per 100,000. This puts the entire OECD in one category, lime green. So (numbers from memory here) Australia's 1.2 per 100,000 and the US's 4.8 per 100,000 are made to look the same, when one is four times as much as the other.

So ... half truth. Homicide rates are a result of *many* factors - economic factors, social cohesion, effectiveness of police, cultural practices, medical facilities AND availability of means to kill. Focus on the OECD only, rejig the colour scale to give better resolution at the OECD end of the data, and you'd find the US not quite so rosy after all.

Just in case we have a false vision of ourselves.

Holy shit.

I'd like to see a timeline of that, showing which war, when.

Also, there is *opportunity* for statistical shennanigans. The Korean war only ever saw a truce / ceasefire, not a peace treaty, so technically, that war is still ongoing. It'd be BS to count it, though.

Indian wars and banana wars fill in a lot of "blank" years. The Quasi War was with the French Republic. The Sabine Expedition was against Mexico.

For timeline look at-
http://www.loonwatch.com/2011/12/we-...en-since-1776/

It's some bullshit definition of "war", including 6 years of Vietnam before any troops were actually sent there.

War on drugs, war on drunk driving, war on poverty, war on crabgrass. :rolleyes:

We had military advisers there from 1950 on, but that is a stretch.

Ah, I suspected as much. Enter debate on what counts as "war". I remember three blokes from Texas declared the state independent, and then a few weeks later announced a permanent ceasefire in the "international struggle for the nation of Texas". :right: Does that count?

Still, if you go through and remove all the dubious cases, there's still an awful lot of war there.

Yeah, that was aid to the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys. ;)

Naaaahh...We're rosy as fuck.

:p:

*************************

Naaaahh...We're rosy as fuck.

:p:

*************************
from 38 Maps You Never Knew You Needed (at BuzzFeed)

The U.S. map, redrawn (and renamed) for equal population distribution:

Attachment 43458

All these areas would have the same number of people.

Judging by what used to be called the Pacific Northwest,
that map is also the equal distribution of "medical" marijuana.

(Map # 19 is the nighttime glow of all the tokes).

Languages of the united states:

http://www.muturzikin.com/cartesusa/usa.htm

But they totally missed San Fernando Valley and the rad beaches of Kalifornia...

And let's not forget Jive...

.

Shouldn't that be the Pew! Pew! Pew! research center?

too big to post as an image ... but fascinating map of dialects in North America

http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#SmallMapCanada

Sō kŏŏd wē rīt ŧħə wā wē spēk?

Ŧħē ōnlē bĭg prŏbləm mĕnē əv yōō wĭl ikspîrēəns wĭl bē ŧħē ĭntərfîrəns
əv ŧħə stăndərd spĕlĭng, ŧħō sĭmplē lûrnĭng ôl əv ŧħə spĕlĭngz wĭl ôlsō tāk səm tīm.

It's like having a separate letter for every variation of pronunciation. I have a headache.

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-y...a-co-489635228

http://cellar.org/2013/k-bigpic.jpg

Now, with the US stock market topping 15,000, we've set enough records for this week.

National Geographic News
Robert Kunzig
May 9, 2013
Climate Milestone: Earth’s CO2 Level Passes 400 ppm
Greenhouse gas highest since the Pliocene,
when sea levels were higher and the Earth was warmer.
The fracking natural-gas industry is advertising LNG (methane) as the "cleanest burning fuel"
It burns to almost pure CO2, so:

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL CLIMATE WARMER

Explanation for X axis?

The explanation: the labor force participation rate fell to 63.3 percent, its lowest level since 1979.
The chart shows the decline.

Labor force participation is how many folks are in the game vs how many are in the stands. Unemployment is how many are sitting on the bench either because they suck or they are injured.

I'm more wondering why each data point is 1 year and 1 month ahead.

Ahh yes, you did say X axis. I can't help with that.

Automatic spacing by Excel, perhaps?

Ah, thanks HM. I think you're on to it.

Saw this over on FB. I thought it was an interesting thing to graph.
Doesn't this mostly just show that nobody has any money to spend right now? (And houses still cost a lot.)
Attachment 44193

How can a house cost 8 times disposable income, when there's no disposable income?
2 X 0 = 0
8 X 0 = 0

I think empty cardboard boxes are still free, so that would fit with your equation.

I've been following a debate for years, about whether Australian houses are over-valued. New house price to median income ratios often come up, but we need to be clear whether this is median individual income or median household income.

With the rise in two-income families, house prices were able to rise much faster than individual incomes. *Most* of this second income has gone to servicing the mortgage payments.

In other words, some say, generation X was forced to send the missus out to work to pay the enormous mortgage to cover the cost of the inflated house prices that are funding the retirement of the baby boomers, at the expense of the personal and social health of all involved.

I was just looking at individual 1940 census information for my neighborhood to learn a little about the local history, and the thing that jumped out at me was that housing values were about double the annual income at the time. My grandfather's 1940 census showed he made in a year what his house was worth. That amazed me. I would LOVE to make in a year what our house is worth. He had his own business and was wealthier than his neighbors, but still.

As I remember it since 1960...
In your g-fathers day, he dealt directly with the bank that loaned
the money and held the mortage.

The WWII vets had a major impact on the US, and in many ways.
One way was the creation of the FHA (Federal Housing Authority).
which became the way people had prospective houses inspected,
evaluated, and if it qualified, mortaged (at rates up to 3%)

The Buyer's income was evaluated, and at first only the man's salary was considered.
The rationale was that the woman might get pregnant and so any income she earned would end.

As the 60's and the women's movement came along, the change
was made to include the woman's income was included. Of course,
this made it possible for couples to get into a higher priced house, and the $ inflation started.

By the late 60's the mortage rates were going up too.
We bought our first house for $18k at the last of the 3% mortgages.
My annual income was just about 50% of that.

Our first house was about twice Mr. Clod's salary at the time, even though I was gainfully employed as well. We had been looking in a higher range at first, but someone gave us a financial book that advised to only ever buy a house based on one person's salary--not just in case of pregnancy, but also in case one or the other spouse got laid off. They had compelling mathematical examples of how quickly you could lose your house if you really went in for all you could possibly afford, and it changed our attitude a lot.

What was the name of that book?

It was The Complete Financial Guide for Young Couples, by Larry Burkett. It's technically a Christian book (being given to us by my mother-in-law, it would have to be,) but all that really means is that about every 10 pages or so there's a Bible passage to point out, "And hey! Everything I'm saying is Biblical too!" It's pretty easy to tune out. The guy is a professional financial advisor and has written several books on it. We got one of his teen books for my stepdaughter to work through this summer.

the x-axis is on a twenty five month scale. if you have many hundreds of data points, a grouping of twenty-five is reasonable. it does feel weird because we don't usually group months in bundles like that, unlike many other things.