kafkaesque

If this weren't the case, some Americans wouldn't have a problem with 'divulging' their medical history.

Health care is based on science, you're right, but there are factors that influence what is researched and where funds go. Plus, putting it in practice or implementing it according to the right policy; this is another issue.[1]

Also, I think you're undermining the magnitude of lobbying.

But Google is a huge company, with a lot of power and capital. So, like I said in response to someone else, I am very interested in the details of Calico.

[1] http://billmoyers.com/2013/05/18/blinding-us-from-science/

This makes me wonder just how much Google works with the US government. I'm not saying the result of whatever Calico wants or will do (because it's all pretty vague right now) is a negative.

But Calico seems to come at a time when Obama is pushing for universal health care, which will be a huge industry. Last I heard, it was estimated at $1.1 trillion.

It just feels like the US has a tendency to take something good (universal health care), and make it into something bad ("We will use this to profile/monitor every US citizen").

Thanks for the feedback, by the way.

Madonna is one of the biggest proponents of this diet who is famous: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/madonna-s-secret-fo...

The article mentions probiotics, and so does the LA Times article, but there are also 'natural'/whole foods Madonna consumes, which are recommended by her nutritionist, who she works closely with.

Allow me to take John Stuart Mill out of context momentarily, because he was speaking with regard to Irish-English relationship (territory disputes between the two countries). But it summarises Mill's thought on why radical and extreme thought is useful: it helps bring small to moderate change because it incites dialogue. Unfortunately, this seems to be where we are at now.

"...I well knew that to propose something which would be called extreme was the true way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experiment. [...] To induce them to approve of any change it is necessary that they should look upon it as a middle course: they think every proposal extreme and violent unless they hear of some other proposal going still farther, upon which their antipathy to extreme views may discharge itself".[1]

[0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-m...

[1] Autiobiography. John Stuart Mill. Penguin Classics. p. 216.

I read your other comment about your having a troubled childhood. I can relate.

When I was 14 I started reading everything Camus ever published. I became very withdrawn. My family became very concerned. I wrote important phrases by Camus and stuck them on my wall. Pretty soon my entire wall had Camus phrases. My dad's psychologist (and my family) recommended I should 'explore' other types of literature. It was a very tough time. Except for me, I viewed my depression as crippling.

Yes, I was a very logical child, as yourself, but, as Camus suggests, viewing life as absurd leads to a very morose nihilism. I skipped school and was about to fail secondary school. I didn't care. I didn't excel at school, I excelled at philosophy, but that didn't really matter in secondary.

Every single book I read by Camus influenced me and was a stab to the heart. He sometimes wrote on the troubling matter of adults not willing to understand adolescents, and I felt very much misunderstood. Plus, I was also torn between two cultures; one rooted in tradition and another which was very progressive.

The Myth of Sisyphus has references which might help to know or understand before jumping into it. The Stranger is definitely more accessible and, for obvious reasons, it is his most widely read book. But the protagonist in that book is a bit of a character study. I think at one point I related to him, but stopped saying so, because a lot of people interpret Meursault as a sociopath. I don't think I was a sociopath, but was deeply confused about the world in which I lived and distanced/detached myself from everything to understand my world better. It's hard to explain, especially here.

The First Man was the first book that ever made me cry. I never really knew my mother, and this book is about a boy named Jacques, and his relationship with his mother. It is also about a boy's reservations about living in poverty, and living with a poor family (and everything that entails), which I got to experience very early in my life. But it is also a metaphor for cultures colliding: Spanish (which also happens to be my grandparents' culture) and a more 'modern' one, French (in my case, English-speaking North American). Of course, it has Algerian references, as well.

I highly recommend Camus. For those who've never read him, I would recommend these, in this order:

A Happy Death

The Stranger

The First Man

Exile and the Kingdom

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

I would place The First Man first, but it is a very different book from everything else Camus has written (except his diaries, I guess). My favourite Camus book is definitely The First Man.

I'm a big NHL fan, so I'll check out fancloud.com.

Do you think a service like Twitter would ever have the option for a user to differentiate between news-worthy tweets/posts from "minor tweets" about a person's everyday life? Or would there not be a clear enough distinction?

> I didn't mean all themes had to be in one work.

Oh, in that case...I can recommend so much. It'd take way too long.

Here are a few, off the top of my head:

The First Man by Albert Camus (novel)

The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde (short story)

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (play)

If you want something challenging, try Cervantes' Don Quixote.

No idea about prose, but in terms of fiction, Death of a Salesman is the obvious one, I guess. Also, Rise of Silas Lapham, maybe?

I'll be honest with you, I don't like to read books about man and life and business all in a single work. I took a few American literature courses, but none dealt with all those themes.

For something completely different, have you ever read Slaughterhouse-Five?

But I should clarify I went to school in Canada.

All of my style guides were from small publishers and many were written by my instructors/professors.

We/I did use some international ones from time to time (some profs had preferences). These were:

(1) MLA Style Manual or MLA Handbook

(2) AP Stylebook

(3) New York Times Manual of Style and Usage

(4) Chicago Manual of Style

Now that I'm in the United States, I use (4) at work. They have an online version of their entire book (first 30 days free): http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

But to get back to The Elements of Style, it would almost be easier to look at what S&W recommend and see how writers write today, as you're most likely to find the answer right there in front of you.

Elements of Style was written in 1918. There have been all sorts of stylistic suggestions since then, depending on your field. The reason why we used more than one style guide at school was because neither can be said to be definitive, exhaustive or the 'best'. Some provided better explanations as to why certain styles were preferred.

But to be honest, I'm thankful most of my English professors did not care for The Elements of Style, never recommended it, and instead recommended other style guides which were better suited to me and our times. :)

I loved Charlotte's Web, though. I first read it when I was 8, I believe, and it had quite an impact on me.

Thematically, quite different, but Dylan Thomas had the same, I like to call it deceptive 'straightforwardness' and 'simplicity'. Plus, his sincerity was refreshing. He stripped away all the pretentiousness that many symbolists/surrealists can be interpreted as having. When I read him I don't sense that same frivolous nature some academics have, including some stuff by EB White.

As a literature major, I think you're misrepresenting the 20th century; more specifically, the '50s.

The '50s gave birth to the Beat poets, Kerouac's On the Road, Allen Ginsberg (who wrote poetry that would be considered pretty vulgar even by today's standards, including highly detailed sex orgies), Burroughs' Naked Lunch, etc.

Basically, the '50s (and other points in the 20th century), had a lot of literature which was less elegant and less vulnerable--just as experimental as today's works of arts, just as cynical and dishonest.

EB White was a purist. That doesn't mean he was any better or worse. But he does have a particular style he is partial to.

There is more candid, vulnerable, and elegant literature being written today, just as there was in the late 20th century (late 90s). If you tell me the themes you're interested in, I might be able to recommend some stuff.

The only reason I quote the book's author is because on the Amazon review site, he exchanges some additional thoughts on olive oil with some Amazon users.

Here is the list, which is linked from Mueller's site: http://www.truthinoliveoil.com/great-oil

[0] http://www.amazon.com/review/R8G1CO1XY4DJ7/ref=cm_cr_rev_det...

Is it possible to add glare/reflection to the actual screen? It would make it look more 'integrated' into the photo's surroundings.

Sure, you got me to read it, but it felt too forced/contrived and salesman-like.

Anyway, I'm a beginner in programming/coding/scripting. I take courses online. After work. On the weekends.

I'm sure there is certainly a group of people for which what Vinicius says is true, so in terms of that, it's good to have someone write this out. However, it is more important to see/analyse if what he says applies to you.

What he says does not apply to me. I am 30 years old, have just started learning to program, and my birthday is a week away.

I am genuinely interested in it. My mind always worked in ways which help when programming. While I spent most of my life in the (liberal) arts, I think there is a strong correlation between my excelling in my previous endeavours with my capability to grasp programming concepts. I can't say my approach is the only way to do extremely well in it, because, as they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat. But I guess this middle-ground type of writing is not very good copy.

All that aside, congratulations to Vinicius for learning to code.

[0] https://www.vfce.arizona.edu/

When I was a teenager, I agreed with the French model as presented in this article. But as I continued on to university (in Canada), my 'inner discourse' turned into "How practical and valuable do employers see my education?" This turned out to be what I preoccupied myself with the most right before graduating university (around three years ago) and even now that I am in the US.

Well, it turns out North American employers don't see humanities or liberal arts degrees as creating critical thinkers. Or at least they don't believe people with either of these degrees are capable of enough critical thinking to come up with solutions to business problems. This means they are less valuable. They are lower on the critical-thinking ladder, so to speak. The only notable exception is philosophy majors, but even those are approached by employers sceptically at first. Anyway, because of this, it seems like your character, personality, and interests are key in deciding if you're a right fit. But this kind of opens up a complicated discourse on social dynamics, interview double-speak, and so on and so forth. Basically, more prejudices are at play, I believe.

This French model is good for personal growth, for creating a virtuous citizen, and a knowledgeable, cultured person, which was the point of educational institutions in part of the Middle Ages and, ultimately, in the Renaissance. France has a history of this stuff. Many writers in the 1900s spoke of how learning the French language meant learning about culture, philosophy, art, etc. Stuff that would sound "sophisticated" nowadays. So if you wanted to be cultured, you learnt French. What was the opposite? English. Learning English was many times looked down upon by liberal arts and humanities folks, because most people learnt it to conduct business. Learning English did not include learning about art, culture, and literature. Of course, there are very few exceptions, but this holds even in modern times. Most people learn English for business. To quickly trace its origins and demonstrate how old this concept has been in place (and how it is now phased out, which should tell us something about adopting it in its entirety), the concept of being "cultured" was associated with a specific type of curriculum that created "well-rounded" citizens. Being "worldly" came from the idea of "homo universalis" (man of the world, universal man) that was used in the 15th century. It came from the most notable example, Renaissance Italy. Renaissance, as in "rebirth". And it was called as such because in this time, it was a return to even older emphasis on classical notions of what was important for a society, which originated many, many centuries before 15th century Renaissance Italy. I don't think the answer lies in this type of curriculum.

My point: All this sounds fine and dandy, but how does this translate into getting employed, which seems to be the focus of our civilization these days? This is a rhetorical question (for me): it doesn't translate. The critical thinking part of this type of curriculum has already been put in place in other more technical degrees (such as Engineering and CS) that offer a better employment rate with higher pay. It is what our society has deemed more important and values more and rewards. We are ultimately to 'blame' for things being like this. I spent many years hoping for this French model to work and for people to change their prejudices and have people with humanities or liberal arts degrees live a decent life with a decent job, working in what they love, and being able to afford to start a family.

These days, I am lucky that I work my 9-to-5 crappy writing job (which is not sustainable, by the way, and for which I had to move to a different country to find) and cannot even think about renting my own apartment, starting a family, or indulging in a few things here and there. I go to work by day, and work on learning technical skills (programming, a few CS concepts here and there) at night and sometimes on weekends, when I'm trying to make myself available to my immediate family, so as to avoid getting them upset by my estrangement.

Yes, if I move out to the middle of nowhere I can probably find something with slightly better pay. But as someone with a liberal arts degree, I can't say cows and hay inspire me to continue living.

While I agree with your general idea that there are some untranslatable words, most of the words you cite do have equivalents in Spanish, unless you are referring to false friends. In that case, it'd be great if you could elaborate. But generally speaking, the translations are regionalisms. Also, I'd like to add that language is very much embedded in culture and vice versa. They work off each other and influence each other.

I think words are concepts. Some of the discourse of translatability in the Spanish-speaking world, especially when the source language is English, usually deals with the illogical sense of English words. Bullying is a good example, actually. Bullying comes from the Dutch word "brother" and its definition has drifted far away from "fine fellow". In Spanish, the word "bullying" in the 21st century English-speaking sense would be related to mean "acosador", which comes from the Latin cursus/currere which can probably best be defined as "to proceed" in English. So "bullying", as you suggest, might not have a one-word translation, but it could be translated as "acosador escolar". However, because Spanish-speakers understand the importance of world integration, "bullying" is also used, though you get purists and word-rebels in some regions who, incidentally, are also anti-American, anti-consumerism and sceptical of the English-speaking world in general.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the UK. You see certain people use an indigenous equivalent instead of adopting a standard "London English" word. It certainly happens in South America. So yes, culture and language are very much tied together.

Personally, I think Portuguese, though a romance language, really shouldn't be grouped together with Spanish, even though I can understand most of it, though I've never taken a single Portuguese course in my entire life. My understanding it has to do with studying Latin and Italian. I think the average, educated Spanish speaker would be able to read maybe 50% and understand spoken Brazilian Portuguese even less. Some words and pronunciations have seeped into Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia, however.

My student job was working at a bookstore. Our customers are a special breed, I think, but there are some generalisations that can be made.

I sometimes heard (albeit very rarely) my coworkers ask "Fiction or nonfiction?" But that didn't necessarily increase sells from our observation and discussions we had about this approach. But some supervisors pushed this concept to "get the conversation going". Truth is, you need to be yourself when facing a customer. There are as many different customers as there are personalities in a workplace.

It's true that it depends on your customer. But most of them want to be left the heck alone. So what approach worked for me?

Asking a casual, open-ended question or making a comment about them. This allowed me to gauge whether this person wanted help or not. It worked most of the time. It's all about making the customer feel comfortable with you.

Casual questions/comments I would say:

1. Oh! I've heard a lot of good things about that book. Apparently [insert author/interesting book fact that doesn't reveal much of it]

2. Hey, how's it going?

3. Jesus, is it still pouring out there?

4. Hey, watchoo lookin for?

5. Okay, it looks like you are trying to find something (when they appear lost and are going in circles in place)

6. Hi. (simply acknowledging them -- you can tell they don't want to be talked to if they act distracted, make an effort to avoid eye contact or walk busily/quickly away from you)

In the end, every customer will find an answer to get out of any question, full stop. So don't try to fake it.

If they are already holding a book, that is the easiest target, because you can make assumptions about that person and start a genuine conversation.

Another is actually a close-ended question:

*What section are you looking for?

The trick there was the follow-up comment/question. Say they said "history". Okay. "Oh, the new Trudeau biography just came out and the biographer had a bunch of access to documents and files which no other person has ever looked at".

If they said "Not sure". A chuckle then "Is it a gift or for a special occasion?" Sometimes customers don't know what they are looking for, actually. You need to have an honest demeanour. In the end, I was always honest with the people I dealt with and had people visit me to talk to me. Probably half of us had degrees or were in the process of getting degrees so we had our own specialisations. I had a bunch of people who remembered me and we would recommend books to each other and just chat. I spoke for a couple of hours to customers about philosophy or Latin American literature and history. A few were extremely impressed with my knowledge and the same occurred with my other coworkers.

This building of rapport is the best thing, I think. Almost like selling is an afterthought. Humanising the transaction is better, I think. And something that I feel is lacking in a lot of customer service. We're all humans. All of us have our bad days.

If there was a customer looking for something I had no idea of, I'd think of someone who did know. And would tell them honestly, "Actually, I have no idea about that, but I think my other coworker might. Let me call her/him". If no one knew, which happened sometimes, we would try to help them the best we could. In a lot of these cases, we had no solution. But the customer was happy that we at least tried.

If we never stocked a particular book, we'd recommend them to another bookstore. We had a binder filled with different bookstores. Most were surprised we did this.

Despite all of this, this bookstore is one of the most hated in the city I lived in (if not the entire country). Poor management, too bureaucratic, and old habits. Plus, inconsistency between other locations (it is a chain bookstore).

The absolute worse thing about working there had to be PROMOS, as in, the giving out of flyers/coupons. Very, very, very, very few people like being handed stuff. And many customers knew we suffered (they could see it in our faces), so a minority took them out of sympathy. The biggest problem with this was that when giving the flyer there was an unspoken time frame to hand and explain the promotion. And this time frame was about 5 seconds or less, and usually there was a caveat to a promotion that required more time to explain, because it seemed like the nature of marketing was to purposefully create convoluted/complicated scenarios where the promotion would apply.

Anyway. My two cents. Sorry, it was an unabridged/unedited and not proofread response.

I'll preface what I think with this: I grew up with a computer since the early 90s. I used BBS's, and online communities since then. Internet culture always seemed to me to be very abusive, with very few exceptions. And as Dave says, there is a whole aspect of anonymity that makes people very comfortable when saying whatever they want, since they feel there will be no retribution.

For me, HN is one of the better places when compared to other forums I visit, such as music ones (not the technical side of music, by the way).

The one common problem I see is a user not giving another the benefit of the doubt. When I took an online course at university, the prof sent us a link regarding "Netiquette". It was actually very interesting. I can't find the exact one he sent the class, but it was something like this: http://ctlt.ubc.ca/distance-learning/learner-support/communi...

Anyway, one thing that stuck with me is asking genuine, courteous or friendly questions when you disagree with someone. There were many, many times when I would read someone's point of view which I thought were absolutely false. But I took the recommended route of asking a question to clear up some information. This is what I mean by giving the person the benefit of the doubt.

I think a lot of people worry that all of this is a competition and everyone's out to prove they are right. It is difficult to admit one is wrong, I know. But those who are sometimes right go out of their way to try and humiliate others with snarky or sarcastic comments. I used to be exactly like that when I was a kid participating in online communities in the 90s. Then I read something Oscar Wilde wrote: One should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

It's pretty simple, but it works. You think you're right? Fine. But play nice. It may seem disingenuous, but ask questions which you think will lead the person to what you think is right. I've done it and many times the person knew something I didn't. Sometimes we were talking about different things. Sometimes I was right, but hey, at least the person learnt something new, and I learnt how to be a better person. And, of course, many times I was wrong, and I think to myself, "I'm glad I wasn't an asshole to him/her right off the bat".

I think we would benefit from interacting with others online the way we would if we were talking to them in person.

The layout of the text is peculiar, but I can't say it made me not want to read it.

On HN, it doesn't really matter, because there is a high degree of respect and "real-world" treatment on here, which is refreshing, when compared to other online communities. I sometimes wish I would've used my real online identity, but then again, I'm just starting out in programming, so I don't have a lot to contribute.

Generally speaking, though, I never use my real identity, because quite a few users on popular sites (Yelp, for example) are into doxxing, humiliating/ridiculing, and generally, trolling people, even when these people do not say anything disrespectful or disingenuous. It is one side of Internet popular culture that really kind of depresses me.

Anyway, when I first moved to a new city, I tried doing the whole 'language tandem' thing, which, by the way, is not a popular phrase in the US. In fact, many people don't understand what that is. People usually call it 'language exchange'. At least in my experience.

Anyway, I used http://conversationexchange.com.

It was frustrating. But it depends what you wanted out of it. I wanted to genuinely learn a language, but had heard a lot of people use it to date.

It didn't work out for me because I was a beginner, and I needed a little more structure. The people who I met just wanted to 'chat', with no real learning material. And many didn't even know what books to recommend.

I think it would've been better if there would've been two people who genuinely wanted to learn a language and were at the same level. But even then, switching back and forth from teacher to student is challenging, especially amongst beginners.

I think it worked out great when both parties had sufficient knowledge to not use a book, and were just learning vocabulary and a small set of new rules.

Can you explain this? A lot of the discussion here seems to be based on the fact that the problem is with interpreting the importance of an adjective in relation to others written out in succession (attached to a noun). Then comes the way it flows in speech.

The general 'rule' (for a lack of a better term), as far as I can tell, is interpreting the importance/value of each adjective, and, thus, recommends a placement order. This importance is based on customary usage.

If you mean to say that we should place superlatives ahead of all adjectives, what if the modifiers include more than one superlative? E.g., the greatest, darkest horse. To give another example: the most beautiful, darkest horse. More than one permutation seem to work. Doesn't this undermine any inherent value one order may have over another?

Also, what does 'impotent' mean? Effective? Isn't this begging the question? If it does mean 'effective', then aren't you essentially saying the order recommended is the most effective because it is the most effective? So, that begs the question: why is it more effective than any other order? And what is effective in terms of adjective order? Fluidity (in terms of pronunciation)? Or physicality/nature of the attributes (black vs. white, etc.)? Or something different altogether?

The way I see it, there is very little rhyme and reason in the order of adjectives. There is no intrinsic value in brick modern house or modern brick house. The rules were created based on arbitrary custom/tradition. But now we are getting into semantics, which really complicates everything.

My apologies if I'm way off here.

There were more than one version of a few songs, and I couldn't cross-reference the audio on the researcher's site. I'll do it tonight, unless anyone gets to it before I.

I guess the people who've asked me must not know much about meditating. I admit I only have a superficial knowledge of it, as well. The people I've talked to see meditating more of a 'relaxing' experience, I guess.

I will look into it more now, though.