Also, atak, while you're looking for a job, have you thought about privately tutoring for any standardized tests? Surely there are quite a few people in Chi-town who would pay top-dollar for such a service, and a few ads on CL and a few well-placed fliers on local campuses should provide you quite a few leads.

Would you prefer to go to:
Iran or North Korea
South Africa or any African country of your choice that gets less than 200,000 Western tourists per year
Amazon or Galapagos
Edinburgh or Glasgow

Where in the US would be worth persuading my wife to make a particular effort to go to (likes include cultural stuff, beaches, and natural stuff that doesn't require immense hiking/physical exercise, and it can't be cold).

Oh, and agree with Elliot that you should find out the exact requirements for your paper imminently. I would suggest committing to a specific date prior to leaving when you will have done this. Also happy to help in any way possible, although it's most likely just going to be nagging and harassment, as I have no specific expertise to offer.

I do think about that some; in fact, one concern I have is that it would be lucrative enough that I'd be tempted to stick with it. There are marketing issues, too,a and I haven't even seen one of these tests in two years, so a substantial time investment would be required. It strikes me (though I could be wrong) that it is best not to go too far down this path.

On the other hand, I did enjoy it and it pays OK (I assume I could get about $150/hour), so there is some temptation.

This is always a quick and easy paper, if you're allowed to do so. Just pick a case the Supreme Court has on it's calendar this term and analyze it. If you pick a more obscure case, you may even be able to get it published somewhere. (A big case, like the Chicago gun case, will have a bunch of people writing articles about it.)

http://www.chicagoguncase.com/

BTW, that's a legitimate well question, how do you feel about the Chicago gun case (incorporation of the 2nd amendment to the states)?

This is good advice.

This too.

Imo do this asap. Taking the first step is huge. It's much harder to get started than to keep going.

Having not studied it yet at all nor looked it up, let me give it a shot: Second is applied to the states via the 14th if the right in question is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. Best argument against is that it's an isolated right, somewhat separated from the issues that were most on the founders' minds (speech and expression, religion, and those related to state powers viz a viz criminal law being the biggest), and not clearly a central tenet of the reasons for the Bill of Rights. Not everything in the Bill of Rights is considered to pass that test, and the Second seems a good candidate for that reason. It could be argued that the second was an reflection more of the recent memory of colonists wanting to defend themselves against British soldiers than a of how they thought a state should operate in equilibrium. Of course I have no historical evidence for this, but maybe it's available.

Against that is the wording of the amendment itself — that dam "well regulated milita" clause. Alsternatively (and even a bit contradictorily, some (hai, Dustin) would argue that gun ownership provides a check on the growth of state power, which is pretty fundamental. Funny — we have one argument for it being implicit in liberty, the other in that liberty being ordered.

My guess would be the Court decides exactly as it did in the DC case (by which I mean each justice going the same was as he or she did there), because in practice it's more a matter of the justices' personal mindsets than of what the most reasonable interpretation actually is.

It helps considerably that my advisor is one of the nicest people I've ever met.

Iran, I think — I suspect there's more to see there, culturally and (always important to me, even in this case) natural stuff. I'd also argue that Iran is likely to be more important as a global force over then next few decades, but that's not entirely clear.

Tough to decline South Africa because much of the wildlife is better preserved there than in most of the resyt of Africa, and because it starts with such resources. In South Africa I'd see Victoria Falls, great white sharks and penguins, and the usual megafauna... Against that, as I said mountain gorillas are in my top two trips, so if Rwanda or Burundi qualifies ten it would win for that reason. (or maybe bonobos in the west — can I have them all?)

I've spent time in the Amazon but I was so young I missed out on a lot — Galapagos is high profile, but I have to go with the diversity of the Amazon. (I'd prefer Orinoco or Pantanal, though, just because I haven't been.)

Edinburgh or Glasgow... golly, that may not be a fair choice right now... But I'll be able to report on one of them, plus a fair amount of the rest of Scotland, in a few weeks, so maybe get back to me on this one.


There's so classic it might be boring: drive up or down the California coast, maybe as far as LA to SF. Everybody should see Big Sur, and there are what passes for historical and cultural sites on each end, and beaches at the southern end.

Or southern Florida — Everglades for a little bit of wildlife (little walking required), then drive down the Keys to Key West, which I'm told is interesting if you like quaint; also plenty of beach along the way, and much warmer and nicer than the California version. From there, take a boat over to the Dry Tortugas, where there's a fort that's historically significant. (You probably won't acre much, but it's also the only place in the country where you have any shot at Black Noddy, a species of tropical tern.) Do not do this too late in the season, as the boat ride over is miserable when it's hot. (My trip was in May; not recommended.)

Once, I might have recommended the Texas coast, centering on Galveston, but that little hurricane problem took care of that.

If you could skip the beach issue and didn't mind slightly cool, though, I say Vermont and New Hampshire in the fall. Just trust me.

South Africa is one of my favorite places in the entire world and I, too, have traveled extensively. If you are into wildlife, this is one of the absolute best places to be. However...

No you won't. You have some nice binoculars, and it is pretty big, but it's also pretty damn far away... (It's on the Zambia/Zimbabwe border.)

God, I'm out of it tonight. I guess I was remembering a friend's trip, mostly to South Africa but with a side trip up to see the falls.

Waterfalls: There are three waterfalls that are said to be magnificent in both height and volume: Victoria, Iguassu, and Niagara. Yes, Niagara is arguably one of the three coolest waterfalls in the world, though it's oddly unappreciated because it's easy to get to. I took K t see it a couple summers ago, worried that he might not enjoy it (he's really not into much other than ships, planes, trains, cars, and cranes), but he thought it was great, which made me smile a lot. (We took the little trip under Bridal Veil Falls, bringing back memories of doing pretty much the same thing when I was about six.)

Fwiw I still prefer Iguassu to Niagara. Of course, I have to see Angel some day.

aorn your speed is off.

In games, be sure to rank them first, so you don't get caught up in one that's particularly hard to begin with. And if you have to guess, the answer's B on the first question of a game, B or C on the others (but you should be able to eliminate one).

In arguments, you need to do the first 10 for sure, but after that start skipping teh types tat give you problems and/or take forever to do Your target is to complete about 20 questions. Maybe more done the road, but you're rushing too much. When guessing, the answer is D.

On RC, rank the passages. If you can't tell immediately that the passage is either really easy or really hard, do the ink test: lots of ink on the two pages is bad. Just unfocus your eyes and see how dark it is. Long questions destroy you in reading comp if you're not very fast.

Also, in RC remember that the question is a hell of a lot more important than the passage. Read the passage fast, no more than two minutes and maybe less. Then, when doing the questions, always go back to the passage: your recollection of what yous aw is very often wrong, often for a subtle reason that you have little shot of remembering. If you have to guess, the answer is D. Oh, and skip the comparative passages section.

This will get me through 450...
I don't think so. But they'll do so some time.

Probably a conspiracy by the compass manufacturers.


That game actually helped teach me the value of not seeming totally villagery early. Given that I essentially can't be lynched the first few days, the village is helped by my being in a kind of no man's land, because it puts the wolves in a tougher spot -- they don't know whether they really have to kill me, or just probably do. Works great when I'm seer; the balance is a little different when I'm not so I play slightly more villagery then.

Also, in a different post you asked about my being so critical of night kills in wolf chat. I really don't think it's OK to do, and I'm embarrassed that I have done it. (In the thread it's different, of course — when I'm a wolf, every word I say in the thread is by design.) So yeah, in OTI's game, as an example, I hated the kill of sixfour but should have shut up about it once it was done. Sorry — you were working hard, and I should have respected that.

That said, there are times I'm rough on people in wolf chat and I think it is appropriate. Specifically, if I see behavior that clearly needs to change, I need to get it across, and tbh there are a lot of hard heads around here — few of us are not pretty well endowed in the ego department. So I don't softpedal when it comes to telling people they're being wolfy. The format makes it hard to use normal teaching techniques, so I find that sometimes haranguing is all there is.


I think I've mentioned some of these already, but:

• Gödel, Escher, Bach (Hoffstadter)
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (Calvino)
• For starting birding on one's own, Sibley's Birding Basics, plus the Sibley field guide to whichever region (East or West) you live in (the North America Guide is a bit unwieldy)
• For bridge, Watson's The Play of the Hand at Bridge. Ancient but unsurpassed. There are many other bridge books; I and also Siegmund have posted a lot about it in the bridge thread, and I can dig it up if anyone cares.
• Chen's Mathematics of Poker.
• If you like textbooks, the best I know is Albert's and Johnson's The Cell. Cellular biology, but great for macrobiology along the line.
• If you need to take organic chemistry, Karty's The Nuts and Bolts of Organic Chemistry. A supplement to whatever text you're assigned, not a replacement.
• Feynman's lectures. There are many versions of them out there.
• For anyone with kids under ten or twelve: the entire Hank the Cowdog series. Hilarious. Plus your child will like them.
• If you've read Herbert's Dune, whether you liked it or not, get Doon, a National Lampoon Parody of it.
• A Confederacy of Dunces. A light read, but still.

One brother. Younger. Pediatrician. Perfect wife, perfect child, darned near perfect life. And he deserves it: he's nice to a fault. I describe him, without any resentment, as the kid every mother deserves one of. (My mother got one.)

I'm not sure I'd ever want to be him, though. He's boring. I said earlier that I would give up being bipolar — but maybe not if it made my life and myself truly dull.

My mother, who is no slouch in the intelligence department herself, probably told me early on, but I don't remember exactly. I do remember being something like twelve or thirteen when I worked out that my father simply couldn't keep up with the rest of us. People who knew him from work would often offer that my father was "so smart", and I'd wonder whether we were thinking of the same person — half an hour at our kitchen table would have made things clear.There would be one conversation among the three of us, and Dad thinking he understood when he usually didn't.


I still don't really think of my parents as being mortal. I've lost almost no one — really just my two grandfathers, one who was a really cool person whom I miss and one who was one of the meanest people I've met. But in each case I wasn't really involved when they died — when my distaff grandfather (the cool one) passed on, I was enmeshed in law school plus depression, so I didn't notice a lot. (I did go to the funeral, where I was somewhat offended that the local minister gave a eulogy that focused on what a religious man my grandfather had been, which wasn't true; my uncle, the son of a minister and a hell of a speaker, fixed it, though, with a fabulous speech combining all the elements of Grandad's life.)


How my behavior changes when I'm depressed: I guess I thought it was clear, but maybe it isn't. I withdraw. I get quiet. I stop answering the phone, reading e-mails, opening mail (or some subset of these things.) I don't go out. I don't go to the grocery store (it scares and upsets me). I sleep a fair amount, or fitfully but through the day. I go for more walks, sometimes walking much of the night. I neglect to do basic things like brushing my teeth. After a while I stop eating much.

Thing is, often I can do all those things on my own, but seem perfectly normal at work (the only time I'd go out, when depressed).


Relatedly, when I'm manic: This, people don't get to see much, because as I've said I channel it. If I'm working much more than 80 hours per week, it's directed mania. I sleep less, down to about two hours on a a continuing basis. But other than that, signs are subtle. I do get a lot more sexual (another characteristic bipolar thing, I think). One weird one that bugs me a lot, and has appeared only in the last few years: I stammer when I'm really agitated and trying hard to control it. I caught myself several times today stammering while engaged in a somewhat emotional discussion with my father about a certain trip I'm planning on taking. (We worked it out, once I explained my thinking about it.) Also, I do get panic attacks, but I can usually hide them if I need to.


Meh. I think they mean something, though they're overly precise. They probably mean much more in ranges where there are lots of data than at the ends of the scale. (Also, Internet tests are pretty bad — maybe not all of them, but every one I've seen.)

As I said, I think they measure something. If intelligence is the ability to solve problems, understand concepts, and synthesize data into new patterns, they can measure that and to a reasonable extent do. And I think those things are worth knowing, because those abilities are worth having. But IQ testing has fallen out of favor and will remain unpalatable to many people, probably forever.

Tests I've taken have ranged from 165 to 177 (not counting one I took when I was on lithium). Scores aside, I believe my intelligence increased in my early thirties (which if true would be strange); I know that I felt like I was much better at understanding complicated things quickly at 35 than I had been even back in law school, and certainly than when I was in my teens or twenties. I have no explanation for this.

Someone asked in a different post about the smartest people I've met. One that stands out was a partner at a law firm I worked at; another was a high school classmate who went on, I think, to become a physics professor. I suspect, too, that a couple of the bridge champions I've known have been at the very top of the human range.


Tired of typing now, but in the next few days I will give you a Bob Hamman story, and Alan Sontag story, and a Jill Meyers story. Remind me.


For most of us, defense is definitely hardest. Too many unknowns; to hard to visualize the opposing hands. For me, anyway, and a lot of people say the same. I can see the hands really well during the auction, but always seem to lose it on defense. My counting is imperfect, too.

If you're good at defense you should be able to work out competitive auctions. One thing you may be doing is thinking more about what you can make than what your opponents can — look at it from their perspective. Also, think about the calls everyone else didn't make — that's the key to going from intermediate to low advanced in competitive bidding.


Playing time is the only way to get really good at bridge. If you can't connect with POGgers on BBO, and you can't stand playing with randoms, then you're kind of stuck. Still, stay engaged. One thing that may help is a subscription to Bridge World. $90/year, but worth it for any serious player — and if you're not yet serious, it will either inspire you to be or bore you to tears, and you'll know whether bridge is something you should have high on your list of priorities.

That's breathtaking

Can anyone or anything reach you when you are depressed or are you just gone until it passes?

Through 500, though bailing on some tough ones...
I've told you publicly, but will say it here too: You played a great game, one of the best village games I've seen. I coasted most of the game, in part because I could see that you were vilalge and were leading the team to victory; I didn't even want to risk messing it up.


Thank you.

As should be clear by now, the well was very much for me too, but I wouldn't have done it just for that, so it's good to know that others are getting something out of it.


Answered question about smartest people (not sure what distinction you're drawing, exactly — but if you mean casually met versus known better, I've met people who are reputed to be brilliant but I put little stock in popular opinions of people's intelligence, as so many people confuse ability with achievement. I've met very successful people, in politics, business, and other areas, but I think the skill set required to succeed in politics and business, anyway, is tilted toward enough other things that intelligence is really just a cofactor in success.

(An aside: I talked with Jimmy Carter for a while, after his presidency, and he struck me primarily as being just plain nice. Also, his wife is the one woman I've ever met who seemed to radiate poise and charm and goodness — and I have no idea exactly how or why. I didn't get to meet Reagan at the presidential scholar awards — he spoke and left — but I seriously doubt I'd have been impressed.)

Oh, I did forget a couple people on my smartest people list: a world-renowned scientist, and his brilliant daughter. (I didn't pursue the daughter in part because, at 20, she was to young for me...) One of my LSAT students was incredible, too, and a couple others have been just a hair's breadth below that. My LSATers were in general far smarter than my MCATers — again, selection bias toward different skills, in this case convergent thinking and hard work for the MCAT types.

Advice on improving my villa game is a tough one?

You actually are pretty good at being an obv villager which is the foundation of a good villager game.

Thingy you are a decent villager, I will think on it and give you my adive too.

also; SLOW PoGball signup thread is up.

I'd love you guys to check it but I dont want anyone to feel obliged to play, spots are quite limited and I prefer people who think will enjoy it, or to not run it at all.

Also: atak you cant play unless you get in touch with your supervisor for the paper and pick a subject for it, sorry.

exactly

Actually, it is, but for a weird reason: I can usually read you, but somehow you have trouble conveying it to most others. At first it was your werewolf background, which was very unlike the norm around here, but I'm not sure what it is now, and I intend to go back and look some more before this well is done with. I didn't mean baling on it forever, just not finishing it now.

That goes for everyone else who has asked for werewolf advice, too, but hasn't gotten an answer yet.

Bastard.

my one question ITT was pretty lame, but I'll add that i've read all of your responses and have both learned a lot and enjoyed it so far

hope it continues