Got_Bent

Got_Bent , vor 24 Tagen

Most of the math I do at work is related to compound interest. Of all the math I believe the general public should understand, the concept of how paying interest to others is a total screw would get my top vote.

I have a co-worker who took out a car loan last week at, wait for it, FIFTY THREE PERCENT INTEREST! No concept of what that was costing her. She could only see, "I can afford the monthly payment."

(1 + r)^n and its friend 1/(1 + r)^n have been the two most important concepts in work and personal life that I've ever learned and applied.

Got_Bent , vor 24 Tagen

I would agree, but it's not my life, not my money. You can't really go around telling people they fucked up every time you see it.

Got_Bent , vor 24 Tagen

Usury was indeed the term that immediately came to mind.

Got_Bent , vor 24 Tagen

I know several of those. One I don't see listed is stuff made here. If you're a fan of backyard scientist, you're gonna love stuff made here.

Smarter everyday is really a special one. The way that guy involves his kids and his own boyish excitement when he finally gets an experiment right is downright heartwarming. Then there was the whole episode checking in on physics girl. He had no particular incentive to do that. He just really seems to care.

Got_Bent , vor 29 Tagen

I just took a charter flight that didn't involve going through TSA or the airport terminal.

Whatever happened on the flight itself was irrelevant as the sheer pleasure of getting on a plane without the standard anal probe far outweighed all other aspects of the journey.

Got_Bent , vor einem Monat

I personally pronounce it fahrenheit

Got_Bent , vor einem Monat

When I used to teach European students, they would invariably go out and buy the cheapest crap they could find like cases of pabst genuine draft and then complain how bad the American beer is.

I think the British equivalent would be if I bought a bottle of frosty jack and used it to declare all British cider to be shitty.

You gotta spend some money to get good American beer. Pretty much all the nationally brewed stuff is shit. There's a lot of local stuff that's actually good.

I'm not sure how European beer culture works, but one of the reasons to drink shitty American beer water is that you can drink it all day without dying.

One more useless fact: I long thought that adjuncts in shitty American beer like corn and rice were strictly cost cutting measures. There's definitely some truth to that. But the origins apparently go back to nineteenth century brewers being unable to achieve a clear lager with the barley that was available in America. When they used the barley exclusively, they kept getting a cloudy product.

Got_Bent , vor einem Monat

You've definitely got no shortage of choices out there.

I was up in the other Portland last week (Maine) and they've also got a ton of good options.

That city name must inspire people or something.

Got_Bent , vor einem Monat

In my fifties and still have that dream, but it's worse.

I went to boarding school, so my dreams involve fifty something year old me having to go back to live in the dorm with a bunch of kids.

Got_Bent , vor 2 Monaten

I, for one, would rather have milk from a bear.

Got_Bent , vor 2 Monaten

I had a student some thirty years ago whose name was Oh Yu Suk.

It was difficult for me to maintain when I first saw it.

Got_Bent , vor 2 Monaten

I lived in Korea for a while where they also do the ten thousand thing. I got used to it for numbers up to about ten million, but then would get quickly lost.

Since everybody was making a couple million won a month, knowing numbers that big was necessary.

Got_Bent , vor 2 Monaten

Well I did just read an article yesterday where some European billionaire was complaining that Europeans don't have the "ambition" that Americans do, so they waste their lives by working fewer hours and spending time in social situations.

Clearly, the Italian builders guild only allows for a two hour work week, so no jobs ever get completed.