Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Zefram, I know what you mean. I find myself coming up with all these ridiculous rationalizations in my head just to suspend my disbelief enough to watch the damn show. It's even ruined fantasy - I just can't believe in magic without ascribing it to some kind of unknown energy fields or quantum effects However, the real world, on balance, seems more vivid and real when I can envision all the little processes going on around me - data streaming, gears turning, electrons swimming around in the wires, radio waves permeating the air. Or maybe it's just that I'm insane, I dunno.
Sean: I hear Texas has a shortage of teachers and will pay pretty well if you want to go down there. Don't know how it will be when you get to college, but the I heard it the grants for education majors were really good.
Registered: Jul 2005
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I'm an engineer, too. When watching movies, my wife often has to say "Do I need to get out the 'Hollywood' speech again?"
Since I had several scholarships as well as in-state tuition, I paid off my few loans several years ago. Unfortunately, my wife couldn't figure out what she wanted to do until she was already in her 30s (she's 34 now), and was in school with no scholarships as well as out-of-state tuition for most of the time until then. So we're going to be paying off *her* loans for a long time to come.
BTW, she's a high school Economics teacher now, so her income is less than half of mine.
Registered: Jul 2002
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That's normal for anyone who sees an aspect of their particular field inaccurately portrayed. For example; I imagine the average doctor or nurse can't sit through most medical dramas with a straight face any more than anyone who uses a computer resist rolling their eyes as an actor randomly bashes away on a keyboard to make it do anything from enhancing video (often to an impossible degree) or produce a 3D wire frame of the secret formula to invisibility.
posted
I had actually planned on teaching around here, hopefully at my own high school, but if Texas is paying good money...at least there's weather down there.
I only have two more years of high school, and then only 4 years of college, I think, and a few years after getting my bachleor's degree and recieving certification, I need to go back to get my masters degree in order to remain a teacher, or something like that. But, after a teacher is tenured for a few years in my area, their pay can rise from $2500 to $5000 a year for a while, and then after a certain number of years teaching they are eligable for pay in the $70000's and higher. I know of a teacher in his 60's who gets 91,000 per year. That's if I don't go on for a doctorate, so...
But, starting salary for a teacher around here is usually $31,000, so in six years, I may consider Texas.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
Reverend: How right you are. You know what *really* pisses me off? Movies like that one with Patrick Stewart where the kid hacks into a website by using a joystick to guide a character through a castle filled with skeletons. What the FUCK? Also it pisses me off when people are working at a computer and the contents of the screen are projected onto their face.
Sean: The heat. Will kill you. Stay indoors And I hope you really didn't mean five thousand dollars a *year* for teachers? I mean, around here they make $25k and I thought that was bad
Registered: Jul 2005
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No, they start at around 30k, and can raise 2.5 to 5k every year or every other year after they are tenured. And at least texas has a predictable climate. This week, the daily high's for this area have gone from 42 deg F to a predicted 72deg F. I had to exchange my parka for shorts within two days!
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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I stopped watching CSI when every other episode showed the agents zooming into surveillance camera footage to find the killer. You cannot turn a 100 pixel image into a 1 million pixel image without a loss in quality!
quote:Originally posted by Sean: I could never be an engineer. Sure the field as a whole interests me, and finding out why things do what they do would be cool, but I'm terrible with numbers and see no point to math ( I can do it just fine, but I see no point in a lot of the things math encompases).
One of the biggest surprises to me when I studied engineering was how applicable so much of the math that I had learned was. Unfortunately, many math teachers don't explain the usefulness of what they're teaching, leading students to assume it's yet another pointless exercise. For example, I remember laughing at the idea of imaginary numbers when I was first taught about them. It turns out that imaginary numbers actually have a practical use in fields like electromagnetism, signal processing, and vibration. Even the simple spring/damper system of a car's shock absorbers is described using imaginary numbers.
-------------------- "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
Registered: Apr 2005
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Daniel Butler
I'm a Singapore where is my boat
Member # 1689
posted
It was 43*F/6*C two days ago and 80*F/27*C today. I know what you mean. But I think it has to do with GLOBAL WARMIIIIING *cue music* because climates everywhere seem to be a little "off." The weather wasn't like this around here when I was a kid, at least not that I can remember. And when I was living in Texas, one week it was 80*F/27*C on Thursday and *snowed* on Saturday. It hardly snows at all *ever* in Texas, at least from what I heard from the natives, and least of all 2 days after it's 27*...anyway, natural climate shift and all that.
Zefram: Bout silly things in math. Is x divided by zero infinity or what? I keep getting conflicting answers. It's infinity, it's undefined, it's both, it's uhhh lemme get back to you on that. Math is supposed to be right or wrong, not based on opinions ;P
Registered: Jul 2005
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x/0 is undefined. I think the reason they don't say it is infinity is because infinity is not actually a number.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Zefram: One of the biggest surprises to me when I studied engineering was how applicable so much of the math that I had learned was. Unfortunately, many math teachers don't explain the usefulness of what they're teaching, leading students to assume it's yet another pointless exercise. For example, I remember laughing at the idea of imaginary numbers when I was first taught about them. It turns out that imaginary numbers actually have a practical use in fields like electromagnetism, signal processing, and vibration. Even the simple spring/damper system of a car's shock absorbers is described using imaginary numbers.
That was one of my wife's peeves when she was growing up. She said her math teachers kept saying "Engineers use this all the time!", but couldn't give any examples. When she taught 7th & 8th grade math last year, she kept using me and my work as an example!
Registered: Jul 2002
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Numerical math isn't that bad when you have a calculator, but chemical math kills me. I don't care what HCL and Na(OH) equall. Actually, I know that it is water and salt, but I hate having to figure out how to write it. I am glad that the school year is almost over, because if I can pass chem, I don't have to take any more science courses. I might take a science elective, but no more regents sciences. Those are fraking hard.
-------------------- "Kosh, I'd like to introduce you to our Resident schmuck and his side kick Kick Me."-Ritten
"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". -George Carlin
Registered: Jul 2007
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![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
However, the real world, on balance, seems more vivid and real when I can envision all the little processes going on around me - data streaming, gears turning, electrons swimming around in the wires, radio waves permeating the air. Or maybe it's just that I'm insane, I dunno.![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
And I hope you really didn't mean five thousand dollars a *year* for teachers? I mean, around here they make $25k and I thought that was bad ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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