Category: personal AnGoL

“Every American has a right to affordable, high-quality health care,” Mr. Baucus said. “Americans cannot wait any longer.” Far from being a distraction from efforts to revive the economy, he said, “health reform is an essential part of restoring America’s economy and maintaining our competitiveness.”
Senator Takes Initiative on Health Care – NYTimes.com.

I have to confess that I have this character failing that I am slowly trying to change, Its a combination of not wanting to waste time (from ikiru–“I don’t have that kind of time”) and somewhat being bored with establishing context for effective communication. I think its a patience thing!

And Summers, like Paulson, is really bad when he has to talk to people he doesn’t respect.
Against Summers – Finance Blog – Felix Salmon – Market Movers – Portfolio.com.

Damn, I want to fall in love, need to get out of this cursed over rationality!

When he first said this, it sounded kind of crazy to me. What does it mean to say that people are addictive?
Then I thought more about it, and I think he is right. Falling in love is the ultimate addiction. There is no question that in the early stages of attraction, spending a little bit of time with someone makes you desperately want more. Infatuation can be all-encompassing, and people will do anything to make a relationship blossom. They will risk everything and often end up looking utterly foolish. Once in a relationship, however, the utility one derives from time with the beloved diminishes. The heady excitement of courtship gives way to something much more mundane. Even if a relationship isn’t that good, for at least one of the parties there is a painful withdrawal period.
Gary Becker Thinks the Most Addictive Thing Is – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.

and simply put, engineering boards for up students are not the same for non up students,
Its a way for people to show aptitude when studying in places where aptitude for a student isn’t a given
(think other state u’s or non-1st tier educational institutions).
As tipz has already stated at least in the Philippines UP students get the benefit of the doubt even with horrendous transacripts of records.
I think the example of this is if you go to other countries where UP students does not have a reputation for excellence and thus do not get the benefit of the doubt. They usually take certification exams of different sorts to prove at least a minimal level of competence.
I imagine an MIT/Stanford grad is not asked SCJP results when applying for CS jobs, but people from UP are, just expound on this.
And if you love programming you’d probably feel the same about the programming certifications as you feel for the Electronics Board Exams.
I’d say this is how the world works and you have to live with it.
I know its frustrating, and it is in some ways a waste of time.
I somewhat had a change of heart whilst writing this.
The younger batches should thank you because of your honesty.
You can create your own path.
But that would entail sacrifice, work in another country where the license is worth nothing, do your masters or create your own company.
I am rambling sorry , lack of sleep.
In conclusion, sorry if nobody told you the how worthless the board exams is, and what other paths you might have taken.
Thank you for starting the conversation.
This too shall pass.

In the Philippines we have a chorus of companies extolling the assertion that because one call center agent position in the states pays for 5 here the downturn only means more jobs. I don’t think so. The real economy is down, and when that happens some companies do dumb things, those dumb things that companies do, they mean lost jobs for countries like the Philippines.

Wal Mart has always had a pay-check related shopping spike – with a substantial number of customers living (as I did when a student) from pay stubb to pay stubb.
But for the first time they are having pay-check driven spikes in the sales of baby formula suggesting the economic pressure is more widespread.
It is about the real economy now.
Bronte Capital: It’s about the real economy now.

I’m beginning to think that this if ready for human ingestion must be regulated.
I believe primarily for people with depression or people who can’t cope with the memory. Basically suicide risks.
We learn by experience and personally pain for me leads to compassion and if we erase every painful memory then maybe we cease to really exist.

The memory losses, report the authors, are “not caused by disrupting the retrieval access to the stored information but are, rather, due to the active erasure of the stored memories.” The erasure, moreover, “is highly restricted to the memory being retrieved while leaving other memories intact. Therefore, our study reveals a molecular genetic paradigm through which a given memory, such as new or old fear memory, can be rapidly and specifically erased in a controlled and inducible manner in the brain.”
Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Remembering to forget.

I once ate around 3 kilos of chocolate within an hour period, hmm maybe that caused my migraine attack. But what a way to go!!

Death by Chocolate
Where would we be without the internet and wikipedia?
Theobromine poisoning: Chemists with the USDA are investigating the use of theobromine as a toxicant to control coyotes that prey on livestock. Humans are also susceptible to chocolate poisoning if enough is ingested. The lethal dose is placed at around 10 kg (22lbs).
Grasping Reality with Both Hands: The Semi-Daily Journal Economist Brad DeLong.