eigenstuff

Have you ever heard of Homeboy Industries? Their motto is actually "nothing stops a bullet like a job." It was started by Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest out in LA, and basically he opened these bakeries (and some other businesses) specifically to give former gang members jobs in addition to offering free tattoo removal and a lot of other counseling/therapy services. The idea is that people fall into the cycle of gang violence when they have no hope and no prospects, so by offering them gainful employment in spite of their pasts and the additional support to address their psychological traumas, HBI helps them to break the cycle and pave the way for them to become functional, contributing members of society. They do amazing work and I would love to see this model replicated across the country.

I'm an atheist but Father Greg is one of my greatest heroes. I highly recommend his recent interview on Fresh Air.

I think the main reason for the initial focus on calculus in intro QM is more to do with making sure you have a solid grasp of the ugly, complicated, hard way of doing things before diving into the more elegant, easy way (once armed with an appreciation of all the whacky machinery under the simplified proverbial hood). I recall my intro classical mechanics had a similar approach on a few topics, and my professor explicitly said this was the reason for it. That and the elegant way is generally more abstract, and it's important to have the foundation the abstraction was built on first.

The link you posted looks interesting and fun to read, I'm looking forward to going through it after work. Thank you!

A large fraction of the gun community actually HATES the NRA for exactly the same reasons everybody else does. There's just no highly visible organizations for gun owners that, y'know, promote reasonable gun control and don't try and whip their members into wannabe race war frenzies.

Source: sitting in the gunsmith shop I work in right now

The Duke Lacrosse case wasn't uncovered by journalists, though.

Oh, man, I'm getting Hanson's "Visualizing Quaternions" for Christmas and I can't wait, so I'm definitely gonna print off that visualizing Clifford algebra article and go through it with my sketchbook this evening to hold me in the meantime. Thank you!

They more than dominate the media as the loudest pro-second amendment voice, they straight up have your elected representatives by the balls and bullied into submission.

This episode of Fresh Air from a couple months ago about the NRA is pretty horrifying. https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws...

Same here. I'm an artist, but my work is in math and physics visualizations so I come here for that kind of content as well.

As an artist, yeah. I have a pretty big tumblr following that I've built up over the years, but I also prefer instagram even though I've only had it for a little over a year and haven't built up nearly as big of a base. I think for me it's that instagram feels more for the everyman, in a way. Plenty of grandparents out there with instagrams full of their grandkids, y'know? You reach a much broader audience.

I just opened an Etsy a week ago. I was so broke I had to borrow $1 from a friend to finish paying for my listings. (I am no longer that broke, thanks Etsy.)

Pretty sure that's a fantastic way to keep out the actual artisans/starving artists/craftspeople and only allow in the kind of people who can gather up the cash to stock up on tons of Alibaba garbage.

There's also no such thing as "schizotypical" personality disorder. It's schizotypal.

Upvote for justnomil!

As a woman who is never having children because they'd get in the way of my career, thanks for the laugh.

I was put on ADHD meds as a 4 (almost 5) year old after my first violin lesson, this was back in the mid-90s. My mom said it was the weirdest thing she'd ever seen: I so badly wanted to sit still and listen because I wanted to learn to play the violin but I literally physically could not do it and became visibly frustrated with myself. And a bad change in meds in 1st grade (because I didn't like the bitter tablets) was enough for my 1st grade teacher to contact my mom about my change in behavior. It was only as an adult that I realized this must have been the few days where I got in trouble and had to sit out during recess, which was humiliating to me. I have anecdotes for days about this kind of stuff.

I am eternally grateful my parents took me to a psychiatrist when they saw some aspect of my behavior wasn't normal and that it was affecting my quality of life, even if I was far too young to know or understand that. I think it was the humane thing to do, 100%.

People talk a lot about how terrible it is that 5 year olds are put on this shit, but extreme cases like mine are out there and they are legitimate. Sometimes things show up early because they're severe enough. It'd be fucked up if 10 year olds on SSRIs was the norm, but I have no doubt that there are rare cases where it'd almost be cruel /not/ to do it. Bipolar can absolutely be diagnosed in children. If you can diagnose it that early, why wouldn't you start treating it? Isn't that what you SHOULD do as a parent?

I'm an artist who makes math and physics visualization sculptures, I LOVE taking notes on 18"x24" drawing paper with a combination of colored pencil, fountain pen, and gel pen. For long derivations rather than notes/sketches, I prefer 11"x14" drawing paper in two columns because I think it's more comfortable to work with, but it still gives me that bird's-eye view of everything I want if I go back and color code stuff. A lot of my work is done in regular size sketchbooks, though.

So... a bunch of school girls in Africa being kidnapped and raped and forced into marriages can't be considered a violation of their human rights because those responsible didn't do the same to little school boys, too?

I describe myself as a starving artist pretty frequently. What it means is that every week I find myself choosing between materials and food. Sometimes food wins, sometimes materials do (they did this week). Every penny I can spare goes towards materials and tools but I still can't afford everything I need to not only make my work but make it good enough to match my vision, slowing progress significantly which can be pretty disheartening. And so my struggle will continue until I can start selling my work, make my money back plus labor+profit, and I finally no longer have to consider replacing a $15 electric pencil sharpener a burden.

Honestly it's no different from living on ramen while pouring all your money into a business you're trying to start. It's just more romanticized.