Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Strike the earth!

Good idea, don't count me in, though.

Meh, I just like to vote. Don't care.

You'll probably have a lot of "Fun*", that's for sure.

GET A JOB, YOU HIPPIES.

[Vector]

Aside from schizophrenic cryptography and math professorship, how do pure mathematicians make money? Inventing and selling new number systems?

Pure math turns out to have all kinds of applications in unexpected areas.  Apparently Google is hiring hives of mathematicians to solve sphere-packing problems--I have no idea why, but apparently it's important.  Math people get hired for algorithms, figuring out new ways to do computations, providing information for extremely math-challenged companies...

Basically, most pure mathematicians choose their research, and some are commissioned for particular problems.

[GlyphGryph]

PTTG, she should probably stick to something simple in the US before we think about anything more complicated. It's not any of us have experience with any of this! I actually think it is fairly feasibly, though we should probably plan on something closer to small apartment complex with common rooms where we all like each other.
The most common approach seems to be that one person buys and owns the land, and then other people come and live there and contribute - obviously, anything permanent they build stays if they leave.

I don't know why I'm even entertaining this.  If I moved into a commune, my Dad would never let me live it down.

Why is that? And how would he even know? Tell him it's a University Style share-based living arrangement.
Only difference between a commune and a dorm is that we actually have something approaching ownership over the first one.

I don't know how real my interest is.  I don't know that I'd be actually able to get there, physically... but it definitely seems like someplace I'd like to spend a summer, maybe half a year when I'm on sabbatical or some other sort of break.

This is one of the things we'd have to keep in mind to - turnover is to be expected, people coming for a season or so.

But we might want to consider being close to a University anyways. Not to tempt Vector with a job (well, not just for that reason. ), but just because with high turnover, we would do well to provide a place for college students to rent during the winter when we are more likely to be low on members. That would be a nice infusion of cash, at the very least, and might actually get us a few dedicated members for a couple years.

[MaximumZero]

IRL, I wouldn't be able to join. Too much baggage, too much family.

[PTTG??]

Well, I've decided I can't live here anymore. I can't stand the overwhelming ignorance and corruption. I'm getting out as soon as I can.

Glyphgryph, you may be right, but you know what they say. You have to run before you walk, dive before you swim, and fly before you crawl. We'll pick it up as we go along. The pilgrims did it, and we now know not to store the corpses in the drinking water.

[Aqizzar]

So where are you going to move to PTTG???  What will you do when you get there?

I don't know why I'm even entertaining this.  If I moved into a commune, my Dad would never let me live it down.

Why is that? And how would he even know? Tell him it's a University Style share-based living arrangement.
Only difference between a commune and a dorm is that we actually have something approaching ownership over the first one.

It has nothing to do with him having a problem with communes, its that he has a problem with deadbeats.  And he would know.  When he was about my age, he lived in a "commune" himself, the way most people do it - by accidental circumstance.  He just woke up one day, and realized he was living in a one-bedroom apartment with his wife and seven other people, because they were skint-broke to a person and could only crash at whoever's place somebody could afford.

Having done basically the same thing for myself for a while, midway through college, I'm not exactly eager to repeat the experience of living on microwave dinners and scotch, rationing showers, sleeping on a countertop by day and playing MMOs with a stack of pizza-boxes for a chair by night.  Dad didn't let me live it down then, and he really wouldn't now, and I'd completely deserve it.

[GlyphGryph]

living on microwave dinners

There will be no one doing this in any commune I'm living in. We'd have mealtimes, damn it. And I'd make nice, home cooked international meals every night. There might still be scotch, but still. It would be wonderful. </idealism> And it might even be true, with the exception of the renters who would probably keep to themselves more.

Seriously though, this isn't sounding like a community of deadbeats. It sounded like a community of like minded people, all of whom would be paying their way somehow. It looks like most of those interested are employed, and simply people who understand the benefits of shared resources and the value of a community-based living arrangement.

Let me give you an idea of my own motivations for this:
They say one of the best ways to get ahead in life is to surround yourself with intelligent, productive people. It's a multiplier of your own potential - it's the same reasoning behind elite schools like MIT. Honestly, I've got a lack of that - I've met a lot of amazing people, but I've never had an opportunity to be involved in what I'd really call a community of intellectuals, of "geeks", if you will. I mean, I'm no genius, or even a scientist, but I feel like living with and maybe even working with some of the people who have posted in this topic, yourself included, is far more likely to be a positive experience than a negative one. And all the best things in my life have come from taking wild and crazy risks, moving halfway across the world on a whim, on the belief that even if things didn't end up better wherever I was going, I would at least discover something new.

And I've got to admit that right now, I've really latched onto this idea. It's got me a bit starry eyed just thinking of the possibilities. I said earlier that I had just planned on it "happening to me at some point". That was a bit facetious, I'll be honest - I have a tendency to go out of my way to put myself in the situation where things like that will happen to me, and I would find a way for it to happen sooner or later if it didn't happen on its own. This merely gave those plans (two, three years out, maybe) a jump start in my mind.

[Nivim]

Hm.

[Vertigon]

I just want some people to argue with. No one around me is at my intelligence level except for a couple people, and they are either quiet and not argument-prone, or irrational and very argument-prone.

Which is presumably why I migrate to the internet to find solace.

Idea get: I should start a thread solely for arguing. One topic per however many pages we feel like/until the argument has been decided in favor of one side or declared a draw. Then, new topic.

[Renault]

I just want some people to argue with. No one around me is at my intelligence level except for a couple people, and they are either quiet and not argument-prone, or irrational and very argument-prone.

Which is presumably why I migrate to the internet to find solace.

Idea get: I should start a thread solely for arguing. One topic per however many pages we feel like/until the argument has been decided in favor of one side or declared a draw. Then, new topic.

Because arguments on the internet are impossible to find, what with people always so accepting of opposing viewpoints and whatnot.

[Vertigon]

Well, I like orderly arguments, not people thinking their point is more valid because they have Caps Lock on.

[Heron TSG]

Hey, Renault is back! I've been missing your input on numerous topics.

On topic: It seems that GlyphGryph and PTTG?? have the best chance at this starting. PTTG?? wants to move somewhere new, GlyphGryph wants a commune. It could work, bros.

[mainiac]

Well, I like orderly arguments, not people thinking their point is more valid because they have Caps Lock on.

WAIT, UR TELLIN'G ME THIS DOESTN' MAKE ME RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!?1111???!1111ELEVENTYONE!?!?!?2!?!

[Vertigon]

NO YOU'RE OBVIUSLY RITE EVEN THOUGH I HAVE CRUISE CONTROL ON TOO

OH WAIT NOW I'M RITER

[Aklyon]

Well, I like orderly arguments, not people thinking their point is more valid because they have Caps Lock on.

CAPS LOCK!

[Sock Puppet]

Well, I like orderly arguments, not people thinking their point is more valid because they have Caps Lock on.

CAPS LOCK!

VERTIGON IS TEH MOST DURRBITIBLY RITE AND YOU ARE RONG