What you've done today - The Edge of Night

[Gfted1]

Some mornings, when Im working from home but my wife is going into work, Ill do a little jig for her in the garage as shes backing down the driveway. Todays routine was the floss...and it did not go well. Hysterical giggling could be heard as she motored away.  

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Some mornings, when Im working from home but my wife is going into work, Ill do a little jig for her in the garage as shes backing down the driveway. Todays routine was the floss...and it did not go well. Hysterical giggling could be heard as she motored away.  

Serves you right for teasing people who are office bound 

[Gfted1]

9 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Serves you right for teasing people who are office bound 

That, and my complete lack of skill while executing the move.

[Guard Dog]

I went to the dump this morning. There’s no trash pick up where I live so I have to bring my trash to them. Anyway someone left a very beaten up but solid wood kitchen dining table and two chairs. So after I dumped my trash I put them in the back of the truck. They’re in my barn now getting ready to have whatever varnish is on them stripped off, sand down and see if we can fix them up and refinish them.
 

anyway It occurred to me I have officially hit rock bottom. You know you’re there when you’re actually bringing stuff back from the dump rather than to it LOL

[Malcador]

1 hour ago, Guard Dog said:

I went to the dump this morning. There’s no trash pick up where I live so I have to bring my trash to them. Anyway someone left a very beaten up but solid wood kitchen dining table and two chairs. So after I dumped my trash I put them in the back of the truck. They’re in my barn now getting ready to have whatever varnish is on them stripped off, sand down and see if we can fix them up and refinish them.
 

anyway It occurred to me I have officially hit rock bottom. You know you’re there when you’re actually bringing stuff back from the dump rather than to it LOL

Shouldn't be. Reuse is the second priority and before Recycle !

 

[Hawke64]

I continue my attempts at digital drawing with relative success.

Corel Painter Essential 4, the only software that recognizes my tablet (and does not assume it to be just an additional mouse) and has reasonable size of its specific file format.
The character is Kainé from NieR: Gestalt.

Spoiler

 

[ComradeYellow]

Stanford University looking mighty fine.

$54k tuition fee?

Pfft you can win that on a lottery ticket.

[LadyCrimson]

19 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:

Stanford University looking mighty fine.

$54k tuition fee?

Pfft you can win that on a lottery ticket.

Is that all it is, now?  I would've expected to be even higher, after all these years, actually.  Must've gone downhill and is now a peasant U.   

[ComradeYellow]

8 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Is that all it is, now?  I would've expected to be even higher, after all these years, actually.  Must've gone downhill and is now a peasant U.   

Well that's not including room and board so I guess about $75,000 total which about the going rate for all major U's and equal to Princeton and Harvard.

I mean the Free University of Berlin in Germany is ranked at 118th in the world and that's not bad for Free College I guess xD

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

Well that's not including room and board so I guess about $75,000 total which about the going rate for all major U's and equal to Princeton and Harvard.

I mean the Free University of Berlin in Germany is ranked at 118th in the world and that's not bad for Free College I guess xD

is that from the times list? not a fan. 

apples and oranges anyways. stanford is private and there are many public alternatives. best public universities in the US show up on the times list by the dozens before one ever reaches 118. however, tuitions does range from ~$7k-$18k for the US public schools, with the exception o' the military academies.  military academies, particular looking at long-term earning potential, is arguable the ultimate bargain.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

am not adding 'cause the specific rankings is worthwhile, but is easy to see relevant tuition data and rankings. you go to any o' the schools making top 24 and chances are they is 'bove 118 on the times list.

so, is a whole lotta quality public options in the US and is ways to cheapen further. UC (university of california) schools, by law, is s'posed to be free, but it hasn't been that way since early 1900s, and some kinda genuine in-state tuition has been assumed necessary since prop 13 (1978). however, two years of community college is a smarty alternative for the frugal minded future college grad. many community colleges is dirt-cheap in CA... relative speaking. Cal is #7 on the times world ranking list? two years at $14k sounds like a freaking bargain when you put it that way, no?

up 'til relative recent, germans had mandatory public service, so free university made a whole lotta sense. am seeming to recall germany put a hold on mandatory service in the 2010s, but we honest didn't care, so we didn't pay attention. "conscription" is still law in germany as am recalling, but they simple ain't actual conscripting?

that said, we do approve o' the sanders and warren efforts to make higher education free, but am not always onboard with their specific plans. detail, but important details.

the thing is, we got extreme levels o' college dropout here in the US and the dropout rates is less a financial thing than one would s'pose. here in the US we functional demand for ill-prepared kids to go to universities they is almost certain doomed to fail, and then we make such kids pay for their failure for decades. am thinking we need fix this serious issue before we make everything free, 'cause make free just shifts the inevitable financial burden o' predictable failure to taxpayers.

edit: am s'posing make serious efforts to deal with college dropout rates simultaneous to making education free would also be an option and doing so would be less likely to trigger hippie liberals and their namby-pamby handholding instincts. we kid... sorta. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps it looks like most o' the top 32 or so public unis from usnews and world reports make the times list pre 118.

pps the qs world list is our current least fave as they went all political a few years past and changed their methodology-- made ratio of international students and international faculty serious measures.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Gromnir

[ComradeYellow]

6 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

is that from the times list?

No.

But yes on public schools probably being the smarter alternative in general. 

West Point would be badass but am not really attracted to the constant fitness requirements to be a military officer.

Thanks for the link though, I shall weigh my options.

[BruceVC]

9 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:

No.

But yes on public schools probably being the smarter alternative in general. 

West Point would be badass but am not really attracted to the constant fitness requirements to be a military officer.

Thanks for the link though, I shall weigh my options.

Comrade you dont need to go to university, remember socialists reject these types of things because all universities do is reinforce the status-quo of white male privlidege, Capitalism, neo-colonialism and structural inequality

Dont become a sheep like everyone else ...create your own socialist universities 

[Guard Dog]

I see why somebody wanted to get rid of that kitchen table. Whoever they were they had a cat that like to keep their claws sharp. But after about two hours with the hand sander and a little bit of detail work with grit blocks it’s all smoothed out. The wood is stained so I’m going to go with a dark varnish. Once it’s dry I’ll re-tap the holes as  replace the hardware that mates the stand to the table top then start working on the chairs.

[Guard Dog]

5 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:

No.

But yes on public schools probably being the smarter alternative in general. 

West Point would be badass but am not really attracted to the constant fitness requirements to be a military officer.

Thanks for the link though, I shall weigh my options.

Allow me to not recommend Florida Atlantic. I hate that school, all the faculty, and everyone who ever went there with one exception. The best part about moving is they no longer have my address so I don’t have to get alumni mail from them.

[Gromnir]

am also gonna observe how after your first job following graduation, chances are the ranking o' your university means little, and the importance o' school rank decreases with each passing year. go to stanford or san jose state is o' far less consequence to potential employers than is a decade o' experience. 

there is a few majors we wouldn't recommend the community college route, and if you have the grades and are able to afford four years at an ivy or near ivy then why the heck not? however, am o' the opinion school rankings is given disproportionate importance by too many... and this observation comes from an admitted education snob.

HA! Good Fun!

Edited April 24, 2021 by Gromnir

[LadyCrimson]

Me:  "What cha doing?"
Hubby:  "My plane is starting to look clean and like a plane should!"
Me: "...that's not a plane. Where's the fuselage? Vertical stabilizer? There's no wings?..."
Hubby:  *rolls eyes*  *smacks me on the top of the head*

It's an old Millers Falls hand plane he bought used last year, kinda like the one above. He's sanding the rust off/sharpening it etc.
This is why we hardly ever went anywhere even when young and I had to entertain myself with things like jigsaw puzzles and computer games.  

Edited April 24, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

My understanding has always been that those 'prestigious' schools are much more about networking and making connections than anything else. If you're really truly ambitious and want to try to make it to the top of the rat race, knowing the right people is unfortunately and undoubtedly the most important thing in life. I'm an incredibly introverted and somewhat asocial bozo, so trying to network is not entirely dissimilar to pulling teeth for me...but that's just as well anyways, seeing as I'm not in any way ambitious for much of anything besides some hobbies.

[Gfted1]

Its not what you know, its who you know. Trust me. 

[Guard Dog]

In my profession if your resume had MIT, Caltech, or Georgia Tech on it it definitely commanded attention. I’ve never understood why. The curricula is almost the same. It’s not like they teach you the real math at the prestigious schools. But I think what impresses is less so much that you graduated from those schools rather that you got it in the first place. 

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby:  *holding an angle ruler thingie*  "Hmm. Well, so far, my reworked plane seems to be making the surface flat but not quite enough square."

Me:  *zeroes in on workbench and starts finger-shuffling through curly wood squiggles*  "NEAT-o, the shavings from your test pine board are like fine curly birch bark! You could write secret notes and attach them to a pigeon!"

Hubby:  "....you're hopeless."

Me:  "Squirrel!"    

...believe it or not, we're a well matched couple.  No, really.  

...in other 'news', it rained for like 5 minutes this afternoon.  Shortest April shower ever.

Edited April 25, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[ComradeYellow]

On 4/24/2021 at 4:10 PM, Bartimaeus said:

My understanding has always been that those 'prestigious' schools are much more about networking and making connections than anything else. If you're really truly ambitious and want to try to make it to the top of the rat race, knowing the right people is unfortunately and undoubtedly the most important thing in life. I'm an incredibly introverted and somewhat asocial bozo, so trying to network is not entirely dissimilar to pulling teeth for me...but that's just as well anyways, seeing as I'm not in any way ambitious for much of anything besides some hobbies.

Obama and Ted Cruz may be on the opposite ends of the political spectrum but they are both have Harvard Law degrees and they both behave in a bizarrely similar fashion, same thing with Dario Hunter in the Green Party, him and Obama are like twins.

I'm starting to think it's where your groomed that counts, not where you stand on issues.

[LadyCrimson]

Even if I had the brain, social skills and the funds, I wouldn't have cared about going to Stanford or anything similar.  When I was growing up I swear half the young boys in my public grade school (and some of the young girls) were being groomed for Standford by their upper middle class parents.  Their preppy clothes and Izod shirts, tears if they didn't get top grades, a lot of pressure (and they were maybe 10-13).  We lived close to it.  I rode my bike by/though it a lot visiting friends. I spent a summer computer camp there. It was a major mental influence and pressure in the local city grade schools I went to. (but then public Highschool was different with a much more varied income class mix).

It's a nice campus.  But ... yeah.  That kind of performance pressure, re: anything.  No thanks.

Edited April 26, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[ShadySands]

Speaking of school, my wife was just freaking out because she had a group assignment due and all of her teammates turned in too much content. Their assignment had a maximum of 35 pages and they were at 46 so she's spent the last couple of hours furiously trying to edit it down. I gave it a quick read and it's full of so much fluff and filler it makes me wonder if these folks have only ever had assignments with word and page minimums. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I gave it a quick read and it's full of so much fluff and filler it makes me wonder if these folks have only ever had assignments with word and page minimums

Probably. After so many of those I found myself slapping in filler out of habit. It's a hard habit to break when you've been conditioned since at least high school to pad your projects.

[Malcador]

On 4/25/2021 at 7:47 AM, Guard Dog said:

In my profession if your resume had MIT, Caltech, or Georgia Tech on it it definitely commanded attention. I’ve never understood why. The curricula is almost the same. It’s not like they teach you the real math at the prestigious schools. But I think what impresses is less so much that you graduated from those schools rather that you got it in the first place. 

I've realized some Universities are easier than others. University of Toronto for example is run by sadists that enjoy wrecking people, versus Western or something in similar courses. I am sure some U of Waterloo grad will chime in - they're like vegans :P

Today I learned I was holding up an issue internally and everyone was very mad at me until they realized no one actually told me they were waiting on me for anything.  Was great as before that the meeting head asked me "Why are you here? Don't think this involves you..." . But now I have to own this issue, anyway.