palimpsests

Advocate here; rocks are quite dynamic on geologic timescales. Also, I don't think it really makes sense to call them dumb, as that is a quality one would apply to something with a central nervous system and capacity to self-identify in conjunction with capacity for intelligence.

We know that rocks don't have a CNS; if they can self-identify the mechanism for this and their experience is obviously quite alien to our own so it doesn't make much sense to project human qualities onto them without more information.

It is true that the qualities of rocks are quite different than those of large felines.

EmberJS handles all the aspects that purely browser-based application code can - protecting from XSS attacks, setting up your Content Security Policy, and client side input validation.

Imposter Syndrome is a general term, it wasn't invented for Google.

I can't tell if this comment is sarcastic or not. $9 croissants? I never thought I would defend McDonald's - comparing that place to an outhouse along with your croissant comment just comes across as being incredibly privileged, and not in a very nice way.

absolutely. it's horrifying... the cheery PR around all of this is what I'm finding to be the most disturbing

It sounds like you're conflating caring about the quality of ones work with having a poor work-life balance.

Also, I think that pursuing happiness in and of itself is quite boring and demonstrates a lack of agency that we have as human beings... We need more than just the feeling of constant pleasure in order to have a fulfilling life. One very basic example: if you were happy all the time, how would you actually know? Being aware of the contrast between various emotional and psychological states provides a lot more fulfillment versus always residing in a single mode of existence.

Sure, because they are looking at meditation as a treatment modality, while that's not all that it can be used for.

If you're doing something for fun, relaxation, and/or enjoyment - do you require randomized clinical trials establishing that said activity has provided these types of experiences for other people? Or can you trust your own appetite for fun, relaxation, and enjoyment?

Meditation !== Medication

> a little more schooling

... after getting a bachelor's degree (3-5 years) a general practitioner takes at the bare minimum 7 years of schooling and internship. Surgeon far more than that. One can work as a professional software engineer without ever attending any university.

Those cassette adapters for a 1/8" audio jack have awful sound quality, break frequently, and are usually around $20, not $5. You would be better off upgrading the stereo, unless you just want to play tapes or listen to the radio.

Well, no... Power is the rate of energy consumption or production. The units of power are Watts = Joules / second, the unit of energy is Joules.

Live performance skills are most absolutely unnecessary to excel in development; this comment thread is discussing how certain people can improve their interviewing performance through the practice of being spontaneous and present. A very helpful trait that some people have naturally, and that others do not.

I think it's great when the practice of some discipline or craft has beneficial effects in other areas of our our lives.

While in grad school at UCB, I once found myself in physics building elevator with Dr. Townes and 2 young undergrads. The students were taking an intro level physics course, non-physics majors, and didn't know who he was. They started talking about the class, and lasers in particular, and how cool they were. Dr. Townes didn't say anything, but I still enjoyed being present for that.

...which is named after the Hindu deity

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama_(spacecraft)

I find it fairly surprising how certain the author seems to feel that getting a doctorate would somehow equate to higher income and job stability -- English Ph.Ds aren't exactly a credential in high demand. In fact, reality indicates the opposite is true.

wait, did you just cite yourself?

Ditto, I've noticed this as an extremely common style of communication on this site, and I often have difficulty reading through the comment threads for this exact reason.

There is :-)

https://hypothes.is/

One of the best way to learn music theory (much of which is harmony) is to play jazz, or jazz-inspired styles of music – you'll get the most exposure to the most diverse array of concepts in the least amount of time (not saying it will be a short amount of time – just compared to, say, being a classical musician). The emphasis on improvisation requires players to have comprehensive understanding of the underlying harmonic concepts – you can play jazz completely by ear, but this is not the norm by any means.

As a couple of commenters have said, your HTML analogy just doesn't seem to fit here, music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. The best way to learn it is through playing music, a lot, and then using concepts from music theory to go back and gain more insight into why certain things sound the way they do, why certain progressions work well, why an F natural sounds ethereal and sublime on top of a B∆9 chord while an E natural sounds awful, and so on.

Again, I believe the optimal way to learn music concepts is to play (not study) music.

If jazz doesn't interest you, I would ask you what your musical goals are, and what genres do interest you, and just encourage you to play, and then play some more. Ideally, play with musicians who are better than you - you'll learn more, faster, just like anything else. It takes thousands of hours to get good at this stuff.

I know countless guitarists, myself included, for which sight reading is not hard at all, because we've practiced this for hundreds of hours or more. All the things you described as making this difficult simply become second nature with practice.

I tend to pay attention to labels and follow the ones I like through various sources (label website, Soundcloud). Labels curate content of similar themes / genres. Some examples: Ninja Tune, Warp, Brainfeeder, Matador.

Griffith's QM is an excellent intro textbook that also reviews/teaches the necessary parts of linear algebra: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-David-G...

(despite being a math major in undergrad, I didn't really appreciate linear algebra until I saw it used in QM when in grad school... linear algebra is a very dry subject by itself, but incredibly useful when applied to various other fields).

| I only wish she had not done this in secret.

Not done what? She published an account of her medical decisions in the NYT... hardly secret.