Here at work they're doing away with pensions. The change will be to a more 'aggressive' cooperative 403b (we're a 501(c)3 nfp) plan, where if you invest 6% they'll match an additional 3%.I have to wonder: are retirement plans really just some creamy corporate milk that companies feed you to keep you placated? If I were to take my salary today, and assume a 3% pay raise every year for the next 35 years, and then take 9% of that and invest it every year, and then get a healthy 7% return on my investment every year...I'd end up 65 years old with...
Monday, 31 October 2011
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Engineering: A Bubble?
Posted on 08:18 by hony
One of the things about engineers that people forget (or don't) is that we have a really high employment rate, an average salary that easily puts us in the upper middle class, and typically engineers enjoy a career that can be upwardly mobile, with six figure incomes reasonable in your first decade of work.One might argue that the above job security factors are inherent in a system where getting a diploma from a four-year ABET accredited university in some engineering field is extremely difficult, and that the massive washout rate (75%) for freshman/sophomore...
The Limits of Steve Jobs
Posted on 05:29 by hony
There were some things that were sacred to Steve:"Every evening, he would have dinner around the kitchen table with his wife and kids. He didn't go out socializing or to black-tie dinners. He didn't travel much. Even though he was focused on his work, he was always home for dinner."&nbs...
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Foster Care and Austerity Politics
Posted on 13:30 by hony
In an eye-opening and poignant article, Ben Dueholm writes about the state of foster care in America:In a way that we never really anticipated, welcoming Sophia into our home led us into the wilderness of red tape and frustration navigated every day by low-income parents who struggle to raise children with the critical help of government programs. That same week, the office of the bone specialist who had treated Sophia’s broken leg at the hospital tried to get out of scheduling her for an urgent follow-up appointment. Like many medical practices,...
Friday, 21 October 2011
Back In My Day, Things Were More Cynical
Posted on 13:14 by hony
This is just the kind of epic nonsense that makes me use profanities on my blog.I will say this directly to Mat Honan: if you can bitch about the recession that occurred when you graduated while simultaneously telling someone else not to bitch about the recession that is occuring when they graduate, you are a hypocritical asshole. Oh, and while you are trumpeting all your insanely awesome Gen X innovations like Google and Twitter (because a whole generation of people gets credit for the work of three people) let me point out that you are writing...
Monday, 17 October 2011
Not-Faster-Than-Light
Posted on 10:51 by hony
Back in September, I chided people for jumping on the FTL neutrino bandwagon, though I admitted that the facts might sway even me into the "Einstein was wrong" camp.Unfortunately for hype-beasts, it appears Einstein wasn't wrong. Faster-than-light travel continues to be impossible....
Monday, 10 October 2011
Peter Thiel's UTTER NONSENSE
Posted on 09:20 by hony
First, let me admit that I am really upset right now by what I read in Peter Thiel's article on the stagnation of technology called "The End of the Future." I am going to discuss it angrily, I admit, but please forgive me if this seems like a direct attack on Peter Thiel - I don't know him and I doubt if I did I would dislike him. He was, and is, a brilliant venture capitalist (more on that later) but I just really, really dislike what he wrote: The state of true science is the key to knowing whether something is truly rotten in the United States....
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Jobs Death, in his own words
Posted on 08:56 by hony
In 2005, he said: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away....
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Squinting Into the Glaring Light of My Own Mortality
Posted on 20:19 by hony
We make big plans for ourselves. Well, some of us do.We get an idea in high school that consists of "you know what would be cool? If I were to ______" and then we slowly evolve from there. In college we major in engineering, because the desire to solve problems is like an addiction to us. Eventually we graduate with a box of parts in the trunk of our car and a broad but useless array of engineering fundamentals. Our diploma is a gatekey into some engineering firm or some startup where we tirelessly and meticulously build the world, or maintain...
Monday, 3 October 2011
AlphaBot
Posted on 05:38 by hony
The above video has been circulating amongst us engineers (and other nerd types) with awe and wonder. As is my nature (and because I am intimately familiar with many of Boston Dynamics projects) let me just drop this one grain of salt: notice the hydraulic and power lines leading up to the suspension system?The thing is about as autonomous as a fetus. That's not to say that in the future it won't have on board power generation, compressors, hydraulic fittings, and computer systems. It just means that it won't be next week.Some will remember BigDog,...
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