Top Reasons to Get a Job

I attended my first class in 'Employment First', Colorado's Employment and Training program - one of the many federal requirements for receiving SNAP (food stamp) benefits.

In celebration, I have brainstormed several good real reasons to get a job.

Scumbag Steve

Jobs are for:

• Lazy people who can't assign work to themselves.

"I'm just going to watch TV and grow my belly"

• Unimaginative people who run other people's scams 'cause they can't figure out their own.

"Thank goodness I don't have to come up with these fakakta schemes.
My pyramid is all upside down."

• Greedy people who can't live without money.

"But how will I spend money if I don't have any? And what will I put in my purse?"

• Careless people who had kids.

"Once yer 18 ure out, y'here? You, and u, and yu too! All of you!"

• Boring people who repeat the same tasks every day.

"Well, it passes the time. Slowly."

• Conceited people who compete for titles and promotions.

"I'm a Level 11 'scientician'! - Uhh?"

• Fussy people who want to sleep indoors. 

"I need this! And this! And this!"

• Ugly people who can't marry someone rich.

"Some girls have all the luck."

• Losers who didn't buy enough lottery tickets to win. 

"But I've got it all planned out how I'm going to spend my winnings!"

• Nobodies who need an I.D. badge to define who they are.

"See? I do exist! No, wait, no don't lay me off! My job is my only identity!!"

• Real people with normal lives.

"Pff they don't exist."

Riding the Rails with Jack London

The Road by Jack London. 1907.

Jack London takes us on a thrilling account of traveling continental United States by stowing away on train, and we see that it is no free ride!

Keepin' it real

"Every once in a while, in newspapers, magazines, and biographical
dictionaries, I run upon sketches of my life, wherein, delicately
phrased, I learn that it was in order to study sociology that I became
a tramp.

This is very nice and thoughtful of the biographers, but it
is inaccurate. I became a tramp--well, because of the life that was in
me, of the wanderlust in my blood that would not let me rest.
Sociology was merely incidental"

'I wasn't playing at being a hobo,' says Jack London, 'I was one.'


The Train

In between some sections of the train, there is a narrow platform built into the end of the car. A hobo can jump onto some of these platforms as the train leaves a station and not be ousted while the train is in transit.

A"blind".

A few of these platforms are not accessible to crew inside the train while the train is moving, because the adjoining door leads to a room loaded with luggage or freight and so is always locked, or there is no door. Such platforms are called "blinds". 

"I may as well explain here what a blind baggage is. Some mail-cars are
built without doors in the ends; hence, such a car is "blind." The
mail-cars that possess end doors, have those doors always locked.
Suppose, after the train has started, that a tramp gets on to the
platform of one of these blind cars. There is no door, or the door is
locked. No conductor or brakeman can get to him to collect fare or
throw him off. It is clear that the tramp is safe until the next time
the train stops. Then he must get off, run ahead in the darkness, and
when the train pulls by, jump on to the blind again. But there are
ways and ways, as you shall see.

When the train pulled out, those twenty tramps swarmed upon the three
blinds. Some climbed on before the train had run a car-length. They
were awkward dubs, and I saw their speedy finish. Of course, the
train-crew was "on," and at the first stop the trouble began. I jumped
off and ran forward along the track. I noticed that I was accompanied
by a number of the tramps. They evidently knew their business. When
one is beating an overland, he must always keep well ahead of the
train at the stops. I ran ahead, and as I ran, one by one those that
accompanied me dropped out. This dropping out was the measure of their
skill and nerve in boarding a train.

For this is the way it works. When the train starts, the shack rides
out the blind. There is no way for him to get back into the train
proper except by jumping off the blind and catching a platform where
the car-ends are not "blind." When the train is going as fast as the
shack cares to risk, he therefore jumps off the blind, lets several
cars go by, and gets on to the train. So it is up to the tramp to run
so far ahead that before the blind is opposite him the shack will have
already vacated it."

Winning the Blind

Train crewmen, "shacks", search the platforms for hobos while the train is at a station and kick them off. The trick is for the hobo to wait until the crewmen have boarded the train before attempting to stow away on the platform. Crewmen similarly 'ride her out' - wait on the platform as long as possible to stave away hobos. But once the train starts moving, the crewmen must board the train so they cannot guard the platform.

When the crewmen deems the train has gained enough speed to ward any hobos from boarding - yet safe enough for his own leaping abilities, he will jump off the platform and jump back on the train at a car further down the line. At this point, the hobo must run very fast to keep up with the moving train and jump onto the platform that the crewman has just vacated.

It's a contest of wits, guts, and athleticism between the shack and the hobo who will win the blind.
 

Depression: an unexpected error has occurred

All that I ask for is an explanation

"I just want to know Why!?!"

We need to live in a world that makes sense.

It may not be accurate nor precise, but it needs to be self-consistent and reliably hold up to the extent of our personal scrutiny when compared against the external realities we face.

Why do we need the world to make sense? Because we need to know what to do in order to get what we need. We are not invertebrate organisms that recoil upon touch and dance when dropped in a brothy culture. Our brains do not simply shut off - to permit us to biologically persist on the faith of knee-jerk reactions.

The brain must conduct at all times, and therefore it must know something that represents what exists outside it. We must have an conceptualized internal framework of The World exterior to our body in order to conduct our behavior.


Why fix what ain't broken?

"If it's good enough for me, then it's good enough for you."

Some are satisfied to think little and be happy, not question the tenets of reality for lack of motivation (can't see no point in asking pointless questions) or for fear (God forbids I question his ways. May I not be cast out from the paradise of Eden.) or for lack of comprehension (come again? oh, check out that hot girl sitting by the window. huh? what were you saying?).

But a happy conceptual interpretation of life is not one-size-fits all. Sometimes we are forced to change the way we understand the world by circumstances outside our control. The death of someone close to us. Relocating to a new environment. The world in our head no longer traces the outlines of the world outside our eyelids, lines of stark conflict jar the eye.

For every reason we give to let our life be just the way it is, life provides a counterargument. The former world that we thought was fair and malleable to our actions now seems obtuse - an intolerable guest in Our Domain of Life, and we must reconsider; 'What is our role in the world around us?'

Then there are times we wish to grow our conscious realm for reasons of our own. Perhaps we are naturally curious and wish to understand more of the world than we already know. Perhaps the basic construct for life that suffices most other minds is insufficient to the task that occupies our own. Perhaps the existing world in our head is uninteresting and repetitive, so we seek to invent a more satisfying experience.


An onset of hopelessness

"I might go on, naught else remained to do." - Childe Roland

Depression is one behavioral manifestation of an internal world that has stopped making sense. Perhaps we have aged; we changed and so did the world around us. Perhaps we have seen too much, or seen too little of reality and the effect is to invalidate our conceptual model. Life as it was does not agree to facts with life as it is. We are shackled to an unrectifiable flaw in our world.

There is nothing we can do to overcome this barrier, which prevents us from the pattern of acquiring our needs through premeditated action. We stop taking action. No action can fix the flaw in our reality. Reality has broken down. Motivation is meaningless.

There is no point to action, because the dependable principle of cause and effect has flown the coop. We are pedaling with no chain on the bicycle. Why bother? I will just fall down, no matter how fast or strong I pedal.

The legitimacy of the scam has been discredited. What's the use in throwing money in, when I no longer believe I will get 200% return investment when the week is done?


Reason to Madness

"Computers always do what you tell them to, but what they do is not always what you want.

And what is wrong with that???? It is absolutely RATIONAL that one loses hope when reality fails. It would be LUNACY to continue worshiping false idols if the big G came public, created another universe from the rib of this one to please us, and then announced his campaign for presidency.

The dysfunction is not in the execution of the brain, but the unsolvable problem you are presenting it. Every computer program should anticipate invalid inputs a bonehead user can provide. But if the software did not foresee a possible potato in the tailpipe, it crashes.

Is the hardware faulty? (OKAY YOUR SOFTWARE CRASHED, THROW OUT YOUR COMPUTER ITS BROKEN AND BUY A NEW ONE - that's basically the advice of the prescription psychiatrist) - No but, you told it to do something that don't make no damn sense!

Your brain throws one catch-all exception just like the computer program! Fuck this, I'm outa here bye. Don't do nothing for the next six months, just stay in bed, why bother?


Life itself is the cure

"Life giveth and life taketh"

The real cure for depression is two-fold. Experience and understanding.

Valid inputs - career/life opportunities, promising personal relationships, etc - and (both as a consequence of the former, as well as a distinct effort of its own) a debugging, perhaps a rewriting of the software's instructions and of underlying assumptions about the world.

Depression is not a failing, but a task credited to you by your brain to make of life, something more.

Socioeconomic Depression

This afternoon I looked at a book of research publications into biological causes of depression. There's some indications of what goes on in the brain is different physically, but I didn't chance to see any conclusive evidence that the cause is a physiological impairment disorder and not a natural conditioning to socioeconomic stress.

In other words, I think it's criminal to discredit the legitimacy of a depressed person's feelings to his/her environment, saying its an abnormal response - that your brain is wrong because it was born physically impaired. When there are relevant socioeconomic factors that give rise to an understandable (and we ought to do something about fixing that social environment!) feeling of hopelessness.

Ok this is a shambly mash-up of notes, but its a touchy and extolling subject; I don't have the stomach to clean this up, so wear a hat.

"Show me where it hurts"
*points to coconut*

As Long As I Get Paid...

... I don't care what silly nonsense you have me do.

Money is the only truth

I love how when studying history, because one has no personal stake in believing in the lies of the time period, we can cut through the bullshit and talk about things for what they are.

Here's an example of 'at the end of the day, it all boils down to money.'

The system of merit-based education in 1700s China leading to cushy government jobs was flawed on several accounts. The prescribed texts were not authentic to the original work of Confucius. Its effectiveness in selecting the best government officials was unproven. But most importantly, it failed to deliver the money.

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence.

103

[1] "Yan proved, with carefully marshaled evidence, that several sections of this major work [Confucian texts] (on which generations of state examination questions had been based) were a later forgery and thus did not deserve the reverence that scholars ascribed to it.

[2] By the 1740s the examinations as a whole were coming under attack as sterile exercises that failed to select the finest scholars for office, and Yan's work heightened this sense of state Confucianism's weakness.

[3] Social tensions further undermined confidence in this system, for by the mid-eighteenth century the state had not increased quotas of examination candidates proportionately to the rise in China's population. The consequent pressures on students and the difficulties of finding employment even if one passed the exams brought frustration and disillusionment to many members of the educated elite."

Remarks:

1) LOL. At some point the rulers subversively changed/added to the Confucian doctrines to suit their political agenda.

2) The whole studying Confucianism to become great leaders was a long standing sham. It was a disguised way of keeping the progeny of wealthy elites (who could afford the education to pass the exams) perpetually in office, under pretext of upholding moral teachings.

Government officials, despite their exacting Confucian education, grafted wherever they had the opportunity!!

A commonly known Chinese idiom:

有孔就钻

Has hole just enter!

(Deliberately squeeze into every opening.)
Meaning: act as an opportunist, make a grab at every chance one gets!

Same to this very day in China. Need a permit? Not without a bribe. Want your child to attend the best school? Pay me to get in. Want your child to actually get passing grades while in school? Send the teachers gifts. Need to see a doctor? Hope you have cartons of cigarettes - not to smoke, yourself, silly! - to hand out to the staff!

And then on top of that you better have the right connections, or all the bribes you can afford won't do you any good!

3) It's all fun and games until we get to the bottom line. Let's suppose you spend your whole life competing for this examination, actually succeed in passing it, and then find out it does you no good in getting a paid position.

 'You can lie to me, you can force me to jump through hoops, but at the end of the day if I'm not getting paid then you and I have got a problem!!'

That's what it boils down to.

Giving Credit Where Ego is Due

Ever get annoyed that people take credit for work you've done, because they are so think so highly of themselves that they feel they deserve all the credit?

"All me."

Here's a story from Chinese history about stealing an author's work that puts others to shame!

The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence. p 92.
"
The gujin tushu jicheng ("Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Current Times") was an enormous encyclopedia, the fruit of decades of scholarship by the scholar Chen Menglei.

Chen, helped by scores of other scholars, by Emperor Kangxi's third son- who became his patron - and finally by the patronage of Kangxi himself, sought to assemble all the finest past writings on natural phenomena, geography, history, literature, and government. The result, surely one of the largest books in the history of the world, filled 80,000 pages and contained over 100,000,000 Chinese characters. The copper type for printing this vast work was already set when Kangxi died.

Yongzheng, determined to ensure that credit for this great undertaking should not go to this particular brother, whom he hated, used the fact that Chen had once served with one of the Three Feudatories to declare him a traitor and have him banished to Manchuria. Yongzheng then erased all signs of Chen's editorship and all mention of his elder brother's involvement with the project. After a lapse of four years, which allegedly was used to "correct" the encyclopedia, it was issued as the work of Kangxi himself; one of Yongzheng's most trusted inner grand secretaries was listed as editor-in-chief of the "revision."
"

Kicked Out 

LOL over twenty years of your life's work devoted to creating the biggest encyclopedia the world has ever known and right before it is finished, you get all the credit stolen and you get banished from the country? What a royal screw job!

Seriously think about it. An 80,000 page book that you put together (well not all by yourself of course - but still!) and some guy slaps his name on it, goes through and removes all traces of your authorship and claims it as his own. How could you top that?

If you ever feel bad about getting the short-changed by office politics, please just think of Chen Menglei!

The Oriental Woman's Burden

I'm reminded of a personal story. One year my mom purchased a book on gardening written in Chinese, which she appraised was a valuable resource. Her Chinese pride and the fact that the book was in Chinese led her to believe that Westerners did not know the information contained in the book and that she would enlighten them with her discovery!

I tired of her pestering and unfounded pride. She would point out passages to me and remark, 'See how knowledgeable the Chinese are! You can't find this sort of information in English books!' She resolved to spend time slowly translating the book into English for a Western audience. She even fancied publishing her translation in the distant future when it might be completed!

Well, I looked at the book and the style of its cover did not strike me as particularly Chinese. I noticed an ISBN printed inside the flap and looked it up. Turns out the book was originally written in English, and she was reading a Chinese translation! She gave up on her project before long, as I made fun of her to no end. She might as well have done what Yongzheng did, just slap her name on as the author - and saved the four years of pointless work to "revise" what was already completed!

I very much wanted to see what her book would've turned out like. Imagine that! A blind re-translation of translation, back into its original language! A game of 'Telephone' played between two languages with a dictionary. It would have been even funnier to wait patiently while she proudly showed off her shoddy English translation to me, then watch her clam up in red-cheeked embarrassment as I said, 'Yes. Very nice, but let's see how it compares against my English copy, the original!!'

The reason I didn't wait to reveal her mistake was not for lack of sadism on my part. I just knew she would never get around to translating much of the book at all, so I didn't want the juicy moment to escape. Were I to bring up her folly at a later time, she would've been completely forgetful and unrepentant about her ridiculous claims as well as her Trump-level ego! Only if you catch her right in the act does she not dodge her blame!

Practical Wizardry

A Guide to Wizardry 

Experiments in Physical Chemistry. 1967. 2E. David P. Shoemaker. Carl W. Garland. (MIT professors.)

I notice this book every time I pass by it in the university library. With that title and retro cover, it looks so bad-ass and wizarding. Today, I resolved to explore its contents.

The authors present examples of chemistry theory that an undergraduate scientist can quantify by experiment. Formulas are manipulated into a form that can be replicated in a physical setup. Suitable apparatuses are illustrated and described. Then the experimental procedures are explained.

Now Look Here, Son ...

The great thing about this book is how it detailed it is with first-hand knowledge on how to conduct the experiments in practical terms. The directions are not skimpy overviews, like 'set the pressure to X and record the temperature'. They're navigation charts through deceptive and treacherous waters. 'Listen carefully to what you need to do, if you don't want to end up a sorry sod!'

"For the initial equilibration of the system, close the needle valve and adjust the main gas supply valve until the regulator gauge reads about 40 psi.

Then very slowly open the needle valve until the pressure in the system (as indicated by the manometer) is increasing at about the rate of 5 cm Hg min-1. Continue to adjust the needle valve until delta_p is about 75 cm (this should take at least 15 min).

If the gas pressure is increased rapidly at the beginning, the coil will not be able to bring the initial surge of gas to bath temperature, and the porous frit will be cooled to below its steady-state value; this will cause a very slow (2 to 3 hr) attainment of the steady-state value of delta_T. With care in making all pressure changes, a steady state should be achieved in about 40 min."

Joule-Thomson Effect. 59.

The Right Advice Makes All the Difference 

I can just imagine the poor soul who tried this experiment without such experienced guidance, thinking he is a complete failure as a scientist. It has happened to me countless times in physics labs!

He sees his data is completely off, since he didn't know he needed to wait the full THREE HOURS for his experiment to reach steady-state! Never mind he couldn't afford that luxury of time even if he knew. Until you try the experiment for yourself, you can't foresee the importance of these details!

What a difference experience makes: three hours vs 40 minutes! To scientific theory, the two experiments are carried out the same, but to the conductor of the experiments one is a baffling dismal failure and the other is an enviable success!