[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=joec]
College is the “safe” way for economic stability, but then, only “some” majors are safe for employment.[/quote]

For sure. That’s why I say that creativity is oversold. The right marketable majors are what society and the makets want. That’s playing by the rules and having a good, safe standard of living. Who cares if it’s rote learning or a true calling. It’s playing by the rules.

Since the 80s people like NSR have said creativity this, that…. My kid is going to enjoy himself, play football and create.

Decades later, who is living in neighborhoods such as Carmel Valley, Irvine….? More often than not, they are STEM majors. The salesman who studied sociology and did well is rare. And even then, I doubt salesmanship is his true calling.

.[/quote]

ARRGGGGG. For the last time – Henry Ford was creative. The Wright Brothers were creative. Edison was creative. Science, approached properly, is a creative pursuit. The problem is that the more small minded among us do not believe it to be so. Frankly, I’ve known more creative scientists than I’ve known truly creative people who call themselves creative.

One place we have our eye on is the College for Creative Studies at UCSB (note the name): https://www.ccs.ucsb.edu

If you look, you can pursue Biology, Chemistry and Physics (while rubbing shoulders with creative people who are studying writing and art). So STEM majors are creative. In fact, computing had it’s start with technology developed for a loom – a very creative step to apply loom concepts to automated computing/

The problem is that “creativity” has become shorthand (in some people’s minds) for not being accountable for anything. What it means is producing something that hasn’t been done or produced before.

[njtosd]

[quote=flu][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=harvey]How many servings of shaved ice does one have to sell in a year in order to make, say, $100K?[/quote]

And at one point, before obamacare, he likely did without health insurance. Could have gotten sick.

Owning a business is tough. Rubio the fish taco guy and Oscar the chicken guy are not doing so well.[/quote]

Well apparently, he’s probably doing better than most doctors are. After all, he did end up getting married so I heard, lol.[/quote]

My former boss (who didn’t say much that I found inspiring) did say one thing that has stuck with me: “If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t sell my time, because there are only so many hours in a day.” (In the case of attorneys, the number of hours in a day is 36.). Seriously, though, you can make more money in a day selling widgets than you can practicing Antitrust Law. So if you’re in it for the money – make sure you’re maximizing you potential profits.

[njtosd]

[quote=flu]I’ll offer an alternative theory. I’m actually pushing myself to try to be the richest, most selfish person I can be, and trying to accumulate as many properties and resources that produce passive income as possible. That way, my kid can just inherit it and live a significantly less stressful life.

College is only for the purpose of if my kid has a personal interest in something, to have a paper that says my kid isn’t a complete idiot, and to teach basic principles of math, science, accounting, finance, and to meet people.

Afterall, the best way to make $10million, is to start out with $8million. And to be able to buy your way into things, like a diploma, or connections, etc. Just like…. Trump.[/quote]

Years ago, a woman I knew had a baby and shortly thereafter began to cry telling her husband that she didn’t want anything to happen to the baby. He said – the baby’s fine, there’s no problem. And she said “No, I mean I don’t want anything to happen to him ever.” I respect and am impressed by your plans, but don’t forget that people without the need to earn a living can go a bit off the deep end. Too much time on ones hands can lead to bad results. Sometimes what we want to give our kids and what is best for them are two different things.

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]NSR, being creative is no recipe for success if you don’t create things that people want to buy. Sure, Americans are creative with products such as the iPhone which was created by immigrants more than natives.

But if you want to be an actor, musician, sculptor, winter, the numbers are against you. good luck making a living. That’s where social benefits like kindercare, health care, free college, higher minimum wages are helpful.

I hope you have a subsidy for your kids so they can pursue the life of their dreams. Otherwise, push them to have a “backup plan/insurance policy”.[/quote]

Americans are also creative with things like biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, computer graphics (read The Pixar Touch, it’s fascinating), e-commerce, hmmmmm what else? Sorry Brian, but I think you underestimate the value of and the demand for creativity because you can’t recognize it sitting right in front of you.

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi] It’s actually considered rude to grab something and eat alone.[/quote]

I think if you could convince Americans of that point – never eat alone (if you can avoid it) I think many would lose weight. Also good for avoiding depression.

[njtosd]

[quote=scaredyclassic]cliches like “it’s impossible to outrun the fork” and ‘abs are made int he kitchen” might be true. moving about it great for a lot of reasons, including gum health, but ultimately, it is so easy to eat the extra calories in literally seconds you may’ve used hours to burn…

also, the whole machine seems to slow down a bit.[/quote]

My Dad was a skinny kid and relatively slender most of his life. I was surprised recently to see a picture of him at around age 50 where he looked a little fat. I just didn’t remember it. But that’s a stressful age – elderly parents, college age/teen age kids, increasing responsibility at work. Eating due to anxiety, and the physiological effects of stress become an issue, I think, and the flavor of the food doesn’t really matter. So I disagree with Brian on that point. He lost the weight by the time he was 60 and was very healthy into his 80s. I think overeating, smoking and drinking to excess are often done to fix feelings, not to satisfy cravings. You have to either deal with the feelings or wait for them to pass.

I am only thinking about basic eating habits in relationship to maintaining a healthy weight. My dad was never interested in having a six pack.

[njtosd]

Very interesting experiment supports idea that our brains rewrite our recollections to convince ourselves that we had control over an outcome: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/what-neuroscience-says-about-free-will/

[njtosd]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Turmeric actually whitens teeth. No coffee or wine seems like less staining.

I’ve been reading a lot of dental health books and literature. I never really thought of my teeth as living things. More like dead bone. The mouth is a pretty complex little system. The dullness of teeth is not turmeric…it’s a lack of nutrition.

I’m very excited for my next dental visit on July 1. I am hoping and planning for tremendous improvement in gum pocket readings. It is interesting to have such a measure able indicator to work on…[/quote]

Amazing. Shows the value of being able to measure something.

[njtosd]

My real estate law is rusty, but my recollection is that a life estate is a tenancy that is created with a deed from the owner. Life tenants do not get title. If the woman gets title it would not be a life estate. Life estates are very weak rights – it sounds a bit fishy to me. I’m sure there are others here who will chime in who know more than me – this is not legal advice.

[njtosd]

[quote=livinincali][quote=zk]
Winning elections does not mean that you know what you’re doing. Unless your only goal is winning elections. Which is exactly the problem with republicans. They’re not interested in running the country, they’re interested in winning elections. And why are they winning elections, even if they can’t govern? Two main reasons, in my opinion: Gerrymandering of districts, and the right-wing noise machine’s brilliant manipulation of the emotions of millions Americans. Americans who are, thanks to that manipulation, far angrier and more fearful than they need to be, but whose concocted fear and anger play right into republicans’ hands.[/quote]

I don’t think Democrats or Republicans do a significantly better job of governing. Most of the progress made on LGBT rights has been through the Judicial system. CA did vote to ban gay marriage when Obama was initially elected in 2008. Prop 8 got Yes votes from nearly 80% of the black vote which also voted almost exclusively for Obama. Different issues matter for different people. It’s interesting that a minority group would vote for Obama in an belief that he would progress on their agenda but vote against another group of minorities in the LGBT community..

The last major piece of federal legislation that came from an all controlled executive and congress was Obamacare by the democrats. I don’t think even the supporters of Obamacare think that it is a really good piece of successful legislation as it stands now. Everybody wants to make changes to it. Even Obama himself is postponing that negative/bad parts of the law, so certainly it isn’t perfect as it stands now. Maybe it’s a step towards the progressive single payer dream, but wouldn’t have been a lot more successful governing if you actually went down that path from the get go.[/quote]

I have a pretty good source that says the ACA legislation, which they were in a hurry to introduce, was hundreds of pages long, written by a group of people, hastily assembled and not proofread. How can you ethically promote laws created this way when they will impact the lives of millions (especially the ones to whom you promised hope and change)? As the old saying goes, “the two things you never want to see being made are laws and sausages.”

[njtosd]

[quote=La Jolla Renter]I pretty much put myself in the I hate lawyers camp.

The good ones I know and a few others I call good friends even hate lawyers. They claim the legal system is broken and completely dysfunctional.

The best advice I ever got from a lawyer/friend was don’t ever ever ever rent to or sell a house to a lawyer. Unfortunately, after hearing this rule many times for 10+ years, I violated it once, and it was a very costly mistake.[/quote]

I guess it’s a matter of perspective. I agree there is much dysfunction. American citizens have more access to the legal system than citizens of any other country, largely as the result of the availability of what are called contingency fees. Most people don’t realize that the contingency system, which in the United States allows for people to secure legal representation in exchange for signing over a portion of the ultimate award of damages, is not available in many other countries. European attorneys are hundreds if not thousands of dollars an hour so only the very wealthy have access to attorneys. I believe that fact perpetuates the stratification of society in those countries.

The availability of the contingency system here gives rise to a lot of abuse but it also levels the playing field. Corporations are less likely to break the law because they know there’s some lawyer out there who would be willing to represent a client even if that client doesn’t have a lot of money . The legal profession is like any others-there are those who are good and ethical and there are those who are bad and dishonest. The stakes are higher though when dealing with attorneys than, for example, plumbers.

I was once told that IP attorneys (such as myself) had a very low rate of ethical violations and malpractice claims-however this was at a time when all IP lawyers were generally registered patent attorneys (mostly engineers and chemists who had gone to law school). These days anyone who’s ever filed a trademark application claims to be an IP attorney and therefore that generalization may have changed.

In terms of selling houses to lawyers-I guess it depends on where you want to sell houses. I would estimate 1/10th of the houses in our general vicinity got sold to lawyers, and all seems well. If you would prefer to cut out that portion of potential buyers that’s certainly up to you . Our worst experience trying to purchase a house was from a real estate agent 🙂 . We discovered after entering into the contract that she, in fact, did not actually have title to the house. It had been transferred (as I recall) to an irrevocable trust for her adult children. Had she not been a real estate agent, I might have assumed it was accidental, however in this case I’m sure it was not. She wanted free assistance in getting her ex-husband out who was squatting in the house and figured she would work out the details later.

For most people the purchase of their home is the single largest legal and financial commitment they will take on other than their children. I would never recommend that a non-attorney enter into such a significant contract without representation of his or her own whether the other party to the contract was a lawyer or not. In the case of a nonlawyer contracting with a lawyer, it’s clear that the lawyer has the home-court advantage and you are correct that you enter in to such dealings (unrepresented) at your own peril. Had you hired attorney of your own, as is done in most other states, perhaps it would have gone more smoothly. When it comes to such significant transactions as houses, I am surprised that Californians rely exclusively on brokers/agents who I feel can have a conflict of interest and generally don’t have much experience with the issues that arise in litigation over real estate contracts. More importantly, attorneys get paid whether you buy a house or not so they have less incentive to downplay the negative aspects of the property.

When we first moved here my husband’s company reimbursed up to $1000 in attorneys fees in connection with the purchase of our home. We wanted to talk to one just to see whether there was anything we would not have been aware of ( having moved from outside of California). We did this even though both of us are attorneys. He was able to provide us with a lot of interesting information about developers who were in financial difficulty, issues associated with canyon view lots, problematic areas of the California Association of realtors purchase agreement and a lot of other info. In retrospect we would’ve done it even if we had to pay for it ourselves. It was less than $1000 which represented a fraction of a percent of the purchase price. Well worth it in my opinion.

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]njtosd, thanks for the interesting article on stomach cancer.

The causes seem to be modern. Smoking and alcohol. I wonder if men suffer more can than women because Asian women drink and smoke a lot less. With men, it’s is a culture thing. Drinking and smoking is a sign of manhood.

Pickled salty stuff is bad. I always believed salt is bad. We get to much salt. You posted an article before that salt could be harmless. Even if salt is not bad, it’s not natural to the cavemen hunter gatherers. No salt for me.[/quote]

Probably a combination of factors. Asbestos is generally thought to be an initiator (causes cell proliferation) while alcohol and components of cigarette smoke are thought to be promoters (cause mutations). Together as cells proliferate they are exposed to mutagens that damage DNA and have the potential to cause cancer.

I’m not sure if it’s the Western diet that is causing today’s ills. People (especially the self righteous) want to believe that, but people also want to believe that vaccines cause autism. My grandparents died of heart disease at 65 (1960) eating a relatively healthy diet. The problem with both of these beliefs is that they distract people from alternative and potentially helpful lines of inquiry. Or maybe Western diets are causing problems, but not exactly for the reasons we think: http://www.medicaldaily.com/imbalances-our-gut-flora-contribute-obesity-epidemic-how-do-we-fix-341106

My belief is that if I want to believe something is true, it probably isn’t.

[njtosd]

[quote=all][quote=njtosd]People hate lawyers for a number of reasons. One of those reasons is that lawyers don’t tend to show up when life is going well. No one wakes up, goes for a hike and then says “this is a great day, I think I’ll call my lawyer.” Instead, lawyers are called when marriages go south, children are arrested, business deals sour or the IRS is looming. None of these are life’s high points. If the outcome is good, people resent having to pay for what they feel they fairly deserved. If you lose, they paid you for nothing. My area of law is a bit different, so it’s more fun.[/quote]

My first-hand experience is different.

There was a rule in the legal immigration process that kind of made little sense. AILA fought (successfully) to add the right to appeal, not to change, or repel the rule.

My former company was involved in a lawsuit with a bigger company. I know we were ‘right’. The process lasted 2+ years, all of the company profits and some more went into that and we dropped it without spending enough to see our day in court.

I thought the lawyers are there to help people navigate the legal system in pursuit of truth and/or justice. I understand now that lawyers care first, second and third about billable hours. It just feels slightly unfair that lawyers get to set the rules of the game they are playing.[/quote]

As I said, people hate lawyers for a number of reasons. I don’t know your circumstance, so I can’t comment. In your case, though, the issue (to me) would not have been truth or justice – although I like those things. The issue was business reality – what were your options and what was the likely cost of each? Settlement sounds like it would have been a better idea, but I don’t know which side you were on or whether that was an option. Sometimes there isn’t a winning option (such as when a company is built on infringing someone else’s IP). Also, competitors know that they can litigate each other to death – big companies do it to small ones all the time.

On a related note, I just noticed that Amazon is (apparently) opening BOOK STORES in malls. After driving Borders out of business and Barnes and Noble to the brink, they are moving in. I’m sure someone will blame the lawyers for that – but business people, in my experience, have the lawyers beat by a mile.

[njtosd]

See my post above. My brilliant great aunt was obese, drank martinis and lived into her 90s while maintaining a razor sharp intellect. That doesn’t mean being obese and drinking martinis is good for you. It means she was lucky. People have a bias to find examples of outcomes that match what they’d like to believe.

For years the Japanese polished rice with talc, which naturally contains asbestos. It was suggested that this habit was carcinogenic. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/5098957/
Japan (and other Asian countries)still has an enormously high rate of stomach cancer – 4x that of the U.K. Still not clear why: http://www.economicsofcancer.com/blog/stomach-cancer-is-a-major-problem-in-japan

Maybe it’s the bitter melon…..

[njtosd]

[quote=FlyerInHi]

Lots of fresh herbs help flight cancer. Americans don’t eat enough herbs (mint, basil, cilantro, Rosemary, etc.,,)[/quote]

Estragole (found in basil, bay, fennel, tarragon and anise) is suspected to be carcinogenic and genotoxic, as is indicated by a report of the European Union, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products.

Food for thought regarding our sources of carcinogens (I am a big fan of Bruce Ames): http://mathforum.org/~josh/alfalfa.html

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