EmperorRyker
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Posts posted by EmperorRyker
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Lots of people? Only one fifth of Americans speak a second language. And a strong majority of these people speak a second language because they are first or second generation immigrants and are exposed to a language other than English at home. The amount of people that actually acquired a second language on their own in the US is very low (an advanced level anyways, which is very different than taking a few language courses).
Oh, that's sad then, I guess. Admissions committees probably have higher standards as to what they consider the norm, though.
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This would be a different story, I think, if the person was a humanities student, where additional foreign languages are required. But it doesn't seem like that's always the case in STEM.
Yeah, but who doesn't know a foreign language? Knowing just one doesn't really make you stand out.
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Nope. You don't get a medal for learning a foreign language. That's not an extreme achievement and is something people do on a regular basis. In fact, a lot of them learn more than a single foreign language.
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IMO, if you are having trouble getting good grades (3.5+) and do 30 hours of research per week you are probably doing something wrong, and should wait to apply for PhD. Unless your graduate school is different from the rest, graduate classes are meant to be less time consuming than normal classes. Even if you spent 5 hours a week on each class, assuming you are taking 3, 45 hours a week is not a lot of time to invest in school, and less than I do, and I still find time to go out to bars and have friends.
If you are studying all the time, your work will suffer. Have some fun. Being an adult is about working and having fun.
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Has anyone here stayed in Ridgewood? If so, what's your opinion of it? I'm trying to decide between there and The Chateau.
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Thanks, Hopeful.
I was thinking of driving up there in July actually. Also, I was wondering about listings on kijiji? We don't have that here in the US, so I don't know its reputation.
It's like craigslist.
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I like Cambridgeport quite a lot, but it's an area that changes block to block so it's good to visit if you are going to look for a place in that area. I think it's relatively quiet in the evenings in comparison to a lot of other neighborhoods.
Expect to pay a stupid broker's fee. I'm sorry. It's how it works in this city. It shouldn't be, but it's almost impossible to avoid. If you contact independently owned buildings, they will often tell you to contact a broker, who will then charge you a fee. Craigslist "no fee" rental listings now are filled with lying liars who say "fee negotiable." I'm not saying it's impossible, but it will severely limit your options and it's hard to find.
How much are broker fees then usually?
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Does anyone who attends UNC live in Durham or have housing advice for moving to Durham and commuting? I know that some people live in Durham close to Chapel Hill. I lived in Chapel Hill for the summer and I was not particularly found of Carrboro or Chapel Hill and wanted some info on Durham. Thanks for any help!
What was it you didn't like about Chapel Hill?
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I'm not familiar with Food Lion, so is it supposed to have reasonable prices? And is it a big store?
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What about grocery shopping in Chapel Hill? It seems there aren't a lot of big stores with reasonable prices, and that you're pretty doomed if you don't have a car and live somewhere not close to Whole Foods (for example, I don't see much in the way of grocery stores in Carrboro).
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I agree. Personally, I'm a pretty bad alcoholic. Much worse than I'm letting off. Nobody feels sorry for me. I'm habitually the bad guy. Nobody cuts me slack when I do another horrible thing. I'm also a productive drunk, meaning I've managed to do well at a full-time job and maintain and 4.0 GPA while getting shitfaced 7 days a week. I drink between classes, study at the campus bar, and take an exam half in the bag. Obviously this makes it that much more difficult for me to succeed in school, but I do succeed and to the highest level. Nobody is gonna feel sorry for me. Nobody is gonna say, "Wow, what an amazing accomplishment." I don't see how doing well in school while working full-time and being an alcoholic is any different than managing to exercise and maintain a strict diet while living in poverty and being of a certain race. One thing I've noticed about this new age of endless knowledge is there's always someone to stand there with a picket fence, yelling out the results of some study published in some journal to disprove everything we've ever thought. Anything you've ever thought to be so, there's a study saying you're dead wrong based on some pseudo study, written by Jack Mehoff from Gotcha University.
I don't mind people posting studies. In fact, I think people should do that. But here they have cited studies and then misinterpreted the results. For example, the person studying nutrition seems to have gotten some numbers that describe the current behavior of the population in general (or only of overweight people), whereas I thought the discussion was about personal, i.e. individual behavior. Then there's also that old causation/correlation thing going on.
Not everyone does it, of course. For example, I think TakeruK has taken a different stance (one that I actually really like myself), but you can't really have a discussion when free will is effectively discarded, and the two sides that seemingly battle aren't even fighting on the same grounds. Of course no one can lose or win in that situation, there's no one to fight!
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I don't know what some of you are trying to say. People who are here described as "fat-shamers" or with some other descriptor that doesn't reflect their posts, have acknowledged everything about the relationship between obesity and factors that influence people's choices. No one is saying one person can't have it harder than the other. No one is saying that people's emotional, social and financial well-being doesn't influence their behavior and perhaps have them find solace in food. That's what everyone here has acknowledged, yet there seem to be insults thrown at people who have done that, but just hold fat people to different standards of personal behavior. It's really getting ridiculous. I also wonder about the honesty of some of you and wonder whether you think the same about those who lie, cheat, steal, whatever.
Italians are "known" to disregard traffic rules. Hence, if you're an Italian, it isn't really your fault if you do that. It's that you're, well... Italian. Can't go against that current, right? But now I'm shaming the Italians. Mi scusi.
To reiterate, because some don't seem to get it. Yes, some have to eat less or fight outside factors influencing their psychological state to stay at a "normal" weight. But since everyone can eat and/or exercise, some people believe that they are ultimately in control. Because technically speaking they are. They just have to have that much more determination. But isn't that the case in all aspects of life?
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Since bodies aren't closed systems, there is no a priori argument that all energy that goes in must go out. Friction, bro.
1. That's exactly what we've been saying, how many times do we need to repeat it? It's obvious with fat people that in the past not all energy that came in went out. It's because they ate more (i.e. took in more usable energy in the form of food, the only known form that can increase body weight) than they could expend (i.e. what their energy out part was, something partially controlled by activity) that they got that way, whatever psychological factor might have played a role in that. I'm not even saying about the latter at this point.
2. What's your point in regards to friction? Friction results in energy going out of a system. But taken as a whole when that system is included in the environment, the energy still does not appear out of nothing or disappear into nothingness.
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Oh, do you model biochemical reactions in the human body? My Harvard interviewer did that. He also did some evolution modeling. However, he was a physicist, so I suppose he was taught that bodies are not closed systems.
Oh, I see. Your point is that fat people somehow accrue mass out of thin air. Got ya'
But it seems to me that was the whole point of the argument. That since bodies aren't closed systems, people are fat because they ingest and make out of thin air (or ether, probably not air) more mass than they excrete or waste in other forms of "energy out". -
It seems to me that the distinguishing characteristic of a good scholar is professional integrity. Professional integrity would not allow the good scholar to make unsubstantiated claims, ignore or misuse evidence, engage in excessive sophistry, avoid answering the question at hand. Y'all are fucking graduate students. Why are you making up arbitrary percentages and throwing around concepts you haven't seen since 9th grade physics? Metabolism research is not your subfield. I suspect it is not even your discipline. Why are you opening your traps (without a single cue from the OP), when what you say can neither prove nor illuminate the subject at hand or the subject that you so eagerly try to foist upon this topic? You have done 0 research on the topic of obesity, body weight, and metabolism. You have read 0 peer-reviewed articles. You vehemently refuse, above all, to listen to anybody who does not agree with your viewpoint. Your knowledge of this topic is equivalent to that which is expected of a first-semester freshman. I am sure that you, like the freshman, have many bright ideas and exhibit potential. But right now, you have nothing of substance to say.
So shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.
Personally, I've read at least a hundred, but I don't know about the others. I also threw around concepts that I did see since 9th grade physics? I learned that they apply in this case.
So how does that one go again? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone?
In any case, we should stop this debate, because no matter what our opinion on the topic of fat people being fat by choice or not, this is not what the OP was looking for.
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This forum has a terrifying lack of empathy, and understanding of BASIC concepts regarding food politics, body politics, disabilities and general human decency.
Seriously I'm beginning to think they should require a basic sociology class, something that covers poverty, disability, race -- certainly maybe some of you can try looking up "food deserts".
Or....basic economics: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128621057
It doesn't even matter if the OP is serious or not, and what the cause of their weight is. Personally I'd rather be around someone who "chose" to be fat than a bunch of people who choose to be assholes.
I find it funny and ironic you start insulting people who have not done thrown a single insult, and then call them assholes.
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EmperorRyker, I understand what you are getting at in the earlier part of your post (obviously if a person does not eat, they would gain less weight than if they did eat, no matter what other circumstances are at play). But let's move beyond that because I think this sentence:
is actually incorrect. Psychological factors don't simply "make it harder" for someone to do (or not do) something. I feel that statements like this imply that people suffering from mental health issues are "weak" because they are not able to overcome the "extra difficulty" that the psychological factors add. I think this is both incorrect and insensitive. It also implies that if you are facing psychological issues and you cannot overcome it, then it is your fault. That is not true. I think saying something like that would be equivalent to saying that it is my fault that my arm bones were not strong enough to not break when I fell off my bike!
Yeah, ultimately it's all fuzzy anyway. You can't tell whether a person is just not trying hard enough or actually can't do it. But then what does "actually can't do it" mean, right? In a way you're right, but on the other hand, due to there not being a clear dividing line in matters like these, we can explain away any (and I mean any) behavior with saying it was the psychological factors that caused it (because ultimately, that's true). I just drew an arbitrary line, and you can choose to draw it elsewhere. That's fine with me.
I'm not sure what you're saying here, though: "obviously if a person does not eat, they would gain less weight than if they did eat, no matter what other circumstances are at play". They wouldn't gain less weight. They would lose weight.
What's your opinion on stuff like crime, though? Only focusing on the choice and not the consequences, can a murderer prevented himself from not killing a person? Or perhaps a slightly different question, was it his fault he didn't?
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Well, there you go. Someone has FINALLY stepped up and CURED the obesity problem in the US. You can just STOP EATING!
Seriously though, the misinformation from people on this thread is appalling. Yes, there is a large percentage of the population who would lose quite a bit of weight if they walked more or ate less. Unfortunately, there are also those who have absolutely no control due to thyroid issues, stress, genetics, etc. Obesity is a hot topic so there is A LOT of research out there. It turns out that weight loss and gain isn't just a matter of eat or don't eat. So if you wanna yell at the 350 lb guy who's driving down the road with no hands on the wheel because they're both stuffed into a KFC bucket of chicken (true story), feel free. I have! But making a blanket statement like that shows your ignorance.
It actually is. The motivation behind why someone overindulges and the reasons why certain people have a more thrifty metabolism can of course differ, so there is a component that will affect just how much you can eat to stay at a healthy weight. But it does boil down to thermodynamics in the end. And a lot of those issues impacting the metabolism can a) be treated or mitigated, or
only "decrease" the metabolism by, say, 20 - 30%, which I think is still alright as far as being able to eat reasonably normally. In any case, it's clear that Mordekaiser was exaggerating and that people can still eat and lose weight. Brains and other organs still require a certain minimum amount of energy to keep working. So saying people have no control is an excuse. I understand psychological factors might make it hard to do so, but ultimately they can control their weight.- asdfx3, fuzzylogician, RunnerGrad and 1 other
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A ton of grad students live at the Chateau. It's considered one of the more inexpensive and comfortable complexes in CH/Carrboro. Living alone in CH will cost more--in the range of 800+ with utilities, but in Carrboro you can find something for closer to 600-700.
I don't want to spam, but I'd like to again express the question of how much utilities in general add up to in CH/Carrboro for a 1BR apartment in, say, The Chateau or some other apartment complex.
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I had a friend in undergrad who had a 1 bedroom in The Chateau (I believe that's what it was called? It's right off of 15-501 on Poplar in Carrboro) and her rent was around $600/month. Carrboro/Chapel Hill is very bike/scooter/etc friendly. Hawthorne at the View is under $800 I believe and is closer to Durham. Stratford Hills on MLK is also under $800, and there are a few other apartment complexes on that road to look into.
How much would you have to add for utilities on top of that?
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Hey guys, I was wondering about the following. I just got admitted to UC Boulder, but haven't accepted the offer yet. The latter came with a TAship of just a tad below ~$16.9k, which would amount to about $1.4k montly. Is that enough for a living in Boulder without going into further debt? I looked up university housing and it seems there are some studio options even in the range of $800 - 900. I wonder about the food prices and all the other stuff, though. For example, here in Alberta, I spend $400 - 500 on food each month, most likely since a lot of it goes to meat and veggies. In any case, any and all feedback in regards to this would be greatly appreciated.
study schedule, what is yours?
in GRE/GMAT/etc
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Which GRE? If the general one, you don't really need to study for it, unless you're not a native speaker. I wasn't, so I spent a week doing those word and context exercises a couple of hours each day, and ran through the instruction sheet for the quantitative part, so that I know what definitions they're using.