So when the credit card reform got pushed through, there was a cap on fees to 25% of the maximum balance. And to cope, the credit cards decided to raise rates to 80% APR of balance. It seems like alot but keep in mind the max balance on these is only $300. Still, the numbers baffle. The Foxnews story has more.
I guess what I find so unsettling is that these companies exist by preying upon the poor. I think the problem is two fold. One, they probably have alot of people who dont pay their bills. Two, due to this, they need to raise their fees to exculpatory highs to maintain their profit margin. I doubt they are making money any more so than the big guys.
But still, a $75 fee per year and 25% APR is just unconscionable to me. I guess some people just love preying on 'morons and suckers'.
Friday, December 18, 2009
passed CCNA
Long time no post. So I got my CCNA certification yesterday. I essentially quit science 6 months ago when my fellowship ended and the guy I was working with wouldn't fund me to wrap up the work, nor really even try to help me get it published. Yet then insisted on either me working off the clock on it, or quiting so I can continue working on the manuscript, again without any help, so he could get a publication out. So, I decided that science wasn't going to happen for me. After 3 years of trying to get a real job I either 1) don't have enough people skills to get a sales job or 2) don't have the scientific strength or interest to get a research job. When that happens your options are very few; continue doing postdoc to postdoc, jumping around labs, hoping for the big break so you can go teach somewhere, or quitting altogether.
Its a hard choice but I found that I didn't really care about science to the extent I needed to, with 60 hour a week commitments for very little pay for indefinate periods; forever putting my life on hold.
Anyway so I did jump ship and took a semester of classes to finish up my certification training, and I took the exam yesterday. I was very very worried about it being too hard (the practice exams were killer), but I sailed through with a 900 out of 1000.
So now what. Well some internships are in the works but who knows if they will pan out. Now I can go on the job market and start to get job experience. My plan is to get employed, start working, then work on the next certification, CCNP, then finally maybe CCIE. I am probably one of very few in the field who has the intelligence and academic strength it would take to succeed with the CCIE. However, I'm not sure its even relevent.
One thing i have learned is that academia is a BUSINESS. This is why they dont kick you out even after straight Fs. They are taking your money, they don't really give a shit if you pass or not. Actually, for fields like biology, they rather hope you didn't do well because that's competition for them. Certifications may be required for employment, but have no illusion, all these degrees and pieces of paper, they may open some doors but its far more important to network and have job experience than any worthless degree.
Its a hard choice but I found that I didn't really care about science to the extent I needed to, with 60 hour a week commitments for very little pay for indefinate periods; forever putting my life on hold.
Anyway so I did jump ship and took a semester of classes to finish up my certification training, and I took the exam yesterday. I was very very worried about it being too hard (the practice exams were killer), but I sailed through with a 900 out of 1000.
So now what. Well some internships are in the works but who knows if they will pan out. Now I can go on the job market and start to get job experience. My plan is to get employed, start working, then work on the next certification, CCNP, then finally maybe CCIE. I am probably one of very few in the field who has the intelligence and academic strength it would take to succeed with the CCIE. However, I'm not sure its even relevent.
One thing i have learned is that academia is a BUSINESS. This is why they dont kick you out even after straight Fs. They are taking your money, they don't really give a shit if you pass or not. Actually, for fields like biology, they rather hope you didn't do well because that's competition for them. Certifications may be required for employment, but have no illusion, all these degrees and pieces of paper, they may open some doors but its far more important to network and have job experience than any worthless degree.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Self Respect
One last thing about the PhD call girl. From the comments on the UK times:
Ha, like any sane (non-genius) person can get a bio degree while still having self respect? Getting the degree was in essence selling my soul. Doing exactly what they want, when they want it, no matter if it was right wrong, morally questionable, whatever. Just do what they want, get their signature. That's all that really matters. I laugh at these fools non-scientists who think they have a clue. Which is probably why I can't seem to stand people without PhDs. Nobody knows the suffering you have gone through except your fellow scientists. After 3 years, I'm not really back to normal, and I kinda doubt I will be.
Brains and beauty perhaps, but certainly no self respect, and not enough brains to find funding for her PhD through means that didn't involve turning her body into a receptacle for the insertion of a succession of male appendages.
Ha, like any sane (non-genius) person can get a bio degree while still having self respect? Getting the degree was in essence selling my soul. Doing exactly what they want, when they want it, no matter if it was right wrong, morally questionable, whatever. Just do what they want, get their signature. That's all that really matters. I laugh at these fools non-scientists who think they have a clue. Which is probably why I can't seem to stand people without PhDs. Nobody knows the suffering you have gone through except your fellow scientists. After 3 years, I'm not really back to normal, and I kinda doubt I will be.
The PhD sex worker
Stumbled onto this site via this article in the UK times. Long story short, a girl who is now a 'real scientist' used to be a sex worker. During grad school. Because she was broke and tired of working her ass off so she could eat the next day. Oh, did i mention she was/is a biomedical scientist?
And I thought, what the fuck is wrong with our profession? Ten years ago, in the early 90s, there was a small revolution in graduate student stipends in the US. First, it's a little known fact that you do actually get a stipend to work in research while doing your dissertation. This isn't really the case in the humanities, typically you have 4 years in which you are funded by being a TA. After that, you are on your own. So i imagine many English lit people never really make it. And that's probably okay, because a English Lit PhD is a dime a dozen and pretty hard to sell.
So anyway, back to grad school stipends. Well back in 97 when i started, we were getting 14500 or 15500 (depending if you were pre or post candidacy) to scrap by in. Thats not alot of dough. But a few years before that, it was 12000. Why? Well i think it goes back to the NIH funding levels and the doubling of the NIH budget during the 90s (which lead to the crash in the 2000s). We're funded by research grants from the NIH primarily, so when the research grant goes up, so does our salary. Now postdocs at the same time had the same exact problem, their salery was only 20,000 or a bit more.
Finally in the early 2000s AFAIK the postdocs revolted and said, enough is enough, pay us real salaries. So the NIH said, if you are going to use our grants, you need to pay postdocs X amount (which is depending on your years as a postdoc and is about 40k now). However, guess what, that wasn't enforced. Better (better funded) institutions did start paying postdocs that, but many didn't, including the NIH itself. So now 2009 we have a situation where grad students make about 20k and postdocs about double that, in good areas. I know the rockafeller grad students (in manhatten, so very expensive) get 30k? as a grad student? Alot more than the most of us, and cheap housing.
Anyway where was I going. So this a double edged sword. On one hand, you aren't being paid alot. On another hand, you are surviving and getting enough to eat now normally. Back 10, 20 years ago that wasn't the case. You took out loans to survive, or turned to other jobs. Now in britian they don't have the good biomedical research situation. The postdocs and grad students are still getting paid shit. SO ITS NO WONDER SHE TURNS TO PROSTITUTION. If that's not the canary in the gold mine, what is?
Looks, this is what needs to happen. Very stringent entrance requirements on foreign applicants. Stop letting 100 foreign students in to american grad schools. You are killing our science, because by and large people who came here just for school probably dont really give a shit about American science as a whole. I'm painting with a large brush, but this is my observations. You could argue I dont give a shit either, fair enough. Also, a bit better wages and some prospect of actual employment. Nearly all my colleagues dont do academic research. There is a reason. Its horrible. The people are horrible, the pay is horrible, the lifestyle is horrible, you are surrounding by aliens (people who are not green card holders or u.s. citizens). Its incredibly demoralizing to go to work and not be able to hold conversations with your colleagues because their culture is so alien to yours. American born Indians for example, no problem to me, because they have our culture.
Anyway we all know the problem, there are far too many foreign scientists in America, and by and large they dont give a crap about our nation. They choke the industry to the point where we can't compete effectively, because you have your typical American complete with the best 1% of say China. Now you can easily say, no problem, you aren't good enough to compete. And that is true to a large degree. And you can say, well i'd rather have the best 1% working on the problem instead of the 20th percentile person, regardless of nationality. Science knows no boundaries. However, at a national level, when practically none of your actual scientists are U.S. citizens, it's a problem from a national competitivness level. Soon these people will leave and produce useful and innovative products in their own countries, raising their standard of living in relation to the U.S. And I think that's the main problem, we are not helping our standard of living in relation to the rest of the world. I want America to be great, the greatest nation on earth, but our politicians and school deans and those in academia are the problem, not the solution.
And I thought, what the fuck is wrong with our profession? Ten years ago, in the early 90s, there was a small revolution in graduate student stipends in the US. First, it's a little known fact that you do actually get a stipend to work in research while doing your dissertation. This isn't really the case in the humanities, typically you have 4 years in which you are funded by being a TA. After that, you are on your own. So i imagine many English lit people never really make it. And that's probably okay, because a English Lit PhD is a dime a dozen and pretty hard to sell.
So anyway, back to grad school stipends. Well back in 97 when i started, we were getting 14500 or 15500 (depending if you were pre or post candidacy) to scrap by in. Thats not alot of dough. But a few years before that, it was 12000. Why? Well i think it goes back to the NIH funding levels and the doubling of the NIH budget during the 90s (which lead to the crash in the 2000s). We're funded by research grants from the NIH primarily, so when the research grant goes up, so does our salary. Now postdocs at the same time had the same exact problem, their salery was only 20,000 or a bit more.
Finally in the early 2000s AFAIK the postdocs revolted and said, enough is enough, pay us real salaries. So the NIH said, if you are going to use our grants, you need to pay postdocs X amount (which is depending on your years as a postdoc and is about 40k now). However, guess what, that wasn't enforced. Better (better funded) institutions did start paying postdocs that, but many didn't, including the NIH itself. So now 2009 we have a situation where grad students make about 20k and postdocs about double that, in good areas. I know the rockafeller grad students (in manhatten, so very expensive) get 30k? as a grad student? Alot more than the most of us, and cheap housing.
Anyway where was I going. So this a double edged sword. On one hand, you aren't being paid alot. On another hand, you are surviving and getting enough to eat now normally. Back 10, 20 years ago that wasn't the case. You took out loans to survive, or turned to other jobs. Now in britian they don't have the good biomedical research situation. The postdocs and grad students are still getting paid shit. SO ITS NO WONDER SHE TURNS TO PROSTITUTION. If that's not the canary in the gold mine, what is?
Looks, this is what needs to happen. Very stringent entrance requirements on foreign applicants. Stop letting 100 foreign students in to american grad schools. You are killing our science, because by and large people who came here just for school probably dont really give a shit about American science as a whole. I'm painting with a large brush, but this is my observations. You could argue I dont give a shit either, fair enough. Also, a bit better wages and some prospect of actual employment. Nearly all my colleagues dont do academic research. There is a reason. Its horrible. The people are horrible, the pay is horrible, the lifestyle is horrible, you are surrounding by aliens (people who are not green card holders or u.s. citizens). Its incredibly demoralizing to go to work and not be able to hold conversations with your colleagues because their culture is so alien to yours. American born Indians for example, no problem to me, because they have our culture.
Anyway we all know the problem, there are far too many foreign scientists in America, and by and large they dont give a crap about our nation. They choke the industry to the point where we can't compete effectively, because you have your typical American complete with the best 1% of say China. Now you can easily say, no problem, you aren't good enough to compete. And that is true to a large degree. And you can say, well i'd rather have the best 1% working on the problem instead of the 20th percentile person, regardless of nationality. Science knows no boundaries. However, at a national level, when practically none of your actual scientists are U.S. citizens, it's a problem from a national competitivness level. Soon these people will leave and produce useful and innovative products in their own countries, raising their standard of living in relation to the U.S. And I think that's the main problem, we are not helping our standard of living in relation to the rest of the world. I want America to be great, the greatest nation on earth, but our politicians and school deans and those in academia are the problem, not the solution.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Don't become a scientist!
This is a very interesting screed against science written by a tenured professor in physics at WashU. It was written in 1999, and he is essentially saying that there is so little hope of a permenant job in science, you are far better off become a plumber or something similiar.
In this light, it makes alot of sense that I jumped ship and am working on my network engineering certification.
In this light, it makes alot of sense that I jumped ship and am working on my network engineering certification.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Best Telemarketing scam ever
This is from WOWEconomics, but I had to share.
Apparently this is done by a comedian Tom Mabe, and he has a tape recorder at his phone ready to go whenever a telemarketer calls. Well, one fateful night....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI
Apparently this is done by a comedian Tom Mabe, and he has a tape recorder at his phone ready to go whenever a telemarketer calls. Well, one fateful night....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5z4Vs26-TI
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Exercise and Diet
Some new thinking that exercise isn't a total cure for bad diet. Perhaps that's misleading, but the title of the story is "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin". Which is sorta true. The idea that you go out to the gym and exercise for 3 hours a week and lose weight, well maybe you'd lose weight, but it wouldn't be due to the exercise per se, its due to the fact that you are supposed to eat less in combinatino with exercise. Its like this. If you consumed 10,000 Cal in a week, and wanted to lose weight, you could cut your intake to 8000 Cal, and not exercise. Or you could burn 1000 Cal and exercise.
The point (and a major point of the article), is that people tend to overcompensate. I know I do. I exercise, and wolf down a burger, or a shake. Unless you are a sports physiologist, you have no idea how many calories you just burned. And you shouldn't feel like you need to replace those calories.
This is one reason why biking is an extremely effect weight lose strategy, but it boosts your metabolsim so much that its quite easy to double your food intake and not really notice. Exercising on a bike burns 250 to 1000 Cal in an hour. When i did my 40-60 mi trips, i would burn at least 2000 Cal, probably close to 3000 Cal. That's a full days worth of food assuming basal metablism. So, the idea was I could eat perfectly normally during the week, go on a long bike ride, eat normally that day (that's the hard part), and burn a pound of fat.
Anyway i'm getting back into shape slowly. I noticed my weight hasn't changed much but I lost a good deal of muscle since i left Houston.
The point (and a major point of the article), is that people tend to overcompensate. I know I do. I exercise, and wolf down a burger, or a shake. Unless you are a sports physiologist, you have no idea how many calories you just burned. And you shouldn't feel like you need to replace those calories.
This is one reason why biking is an extremely effect weight lose strategy, but it boosts your metabolsim so much that its quite easy to double your food intake and not really notice. Exercising on a bike burns 250 to 1000 Cal in an hour. When i did my 40-60 mi trips, i would burn at least 2000 Cal, probably close to 3000 Cal. That's a full days worth of food assuming basal metablism. So, the idea was I could eat perfectly normally during the week, go on a long bike ride, eat normally that day (that's the hard part), and burn a pound of fat.
Anyway i'm getting back into shape slowly. I noticed my weight hasn't changed much but I lost a good deal of muscle since i left Houston.
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