Useless Conversation

[Hammond]

Salamok,

To be fair I have heard similar things about bars in some college towns in the US.  Back to Australia, Of course all my buddies that were in various branches of the military LOVED Australia because them women were all over them due to the fact that American men were considered a nice catch compared to Australian men (probably due to the assholeish nature of the local men).   I have heard though that Melbourne is far more tolerant and more modern compared to most of Australia.  Again that is 2nd and 3rd hand so take that for what you will.

[Salamok]

Salamok,

To be fair I have heard similar things about bars in some college towns in the US.  Back to Australia, Of course all my buddies that were in various branches of the military LOVED Australia because them women were all over them due to the fact that American men were considered a nice catch compared to Australian men (probably due to the assholeish nature of the local men).   I have heard though that Melbourne is far more tolerant and more modern compared to most of Australia.  Again that is 2nd and 3rd hand so take that for what you will.

Yes, Melbourne/Victoria is very proud if it's status as the non-penal colony state and honestly WTF do I know, I have never even been to Australia and my views are based very much on my wife's perceptions. 

I have lived a month or 3 throughout various US states (and Puerto Rico) and have this kind of bizarre ability to be as equally at home in a fine dining establishment as I am in some waterfront dive drinking pitchers at 6 am, so I would like to think I have a fairly broad and non judgemental world view.  That all said if my daughter was 19 and said "Hey daddy me and 3 or 4 girlfriends are gonna go visit Australia", I would probably flip the F out..

[Merusk]

WTF happened to Molly Ringwald..

Go to IMDB, front page has birthdays and... that looks nothing like her.  Hooray( ) for plastic people.

[Khaldun]

Anything specific, Nebu?  I suppose I can always have you do a consult for me, right?  

What they want me to apply for is "Senior Lecturer" level.  I don't know exactly what that is, but it sounds better than Assistant Professor.

And the wife is a pediatric dentist.  We're going to try and get her on the faculty at least part time as well.  

Lecturer almost always means you are not on a tenure track, assistant professor could be tenure track (varies from position to position in my experience).

Even if she doesn't teach, it is entirely possible that she could get a work visa for being in a healthcare profession.

NZ follows British protocols, so lecturer/senior lecturer corresponds more to assistant/associate in the US. (Lecturer in the US means both non-tenure-track AND more junior in pay/benefits to assistant/associate. Generally it's code for "adjunct with slightly better pay".) Senior lecturer in a British-style system is generally paid pretty well and may in fact be long-term contract.

Nebu's advice is otherwise sound. Find out if there's a research expectation. If there is and you have no previous experience of research work, it's probably not worth applying, as they'll be looking for past experience of such. In general, even professional schools/divisions tend to prefer hiring faculty who have previous academic experience of some kind--many US law and business schools, for example, don't so much hire practicing lawyers or entrepreneurs as they do people with JDs and MBAs who went straight into teaching law school and business school. So you want to find out if a position of this kind is being conceived as one that hires folks with professional experience before you spend too much time chasing said position.

[ghost]

Yeah, I have a pretty good idea of what an academic career here in the States would be like, and the requirements to get into it.  I have a fair background in research.  I was mostly wondering if it was nuts to try to do it in a different country. 

[Khaldun]

Not necessarily. But it'll probably be hard to find a good gig. For one, public university systems outside the US tend to give some kind of strong preference to national citizens in any area that they can fill that way.

[ghost]

Well, we'll see if they fly me down to interview me.  If so, free trip to New Zealand.   

[Yegolev]

Is maps.google.com broken for anyone else?  Time to hit the slums of MapQuest.

[Merusk]

Google's working here, but I'd hit yahoo maps before the shit that is MapQuest.  Yahoo hasn't ever lead me any more astray than Google.

[ghost]

Yeah, Yahoo is much better than Mapquest and even comparable to Google in a lot of ways.

[Yegolev]

I didn't know Yahoo was still in business.

[Chimpy]

I actually had decent luck with bing maps when I have used it.

[Sky]

I didn't know Yahoo was still in business.

Sure. If it's not compatibility problems with hotmail, it's yahoo.

And their toolbar is a cancer.

I've also been using bing maps as a backup to google.

[Chimpy]

And their any toolbar is a cancer.

FIFY

[ghost]

I've never understood why anyone would install any toolbars from Yahoo or anyone else.

[MuffinMan]

Anymore they are redundant with the features of modern browsers but I used Google's toolbar for the longest time just for Google Bookmarks.

[Selby]

I've never understood why anyone would install any toolbars from Yahoo or anyone else.

Probably why most will stealthily install them against your will.

I've used Yahoo as my homepage since 1997 just out of habit and lack of anything better.  I rarely use it for anything serious though and the changes they've made over the years keep annoying me as the content gets less and less in favor of ads and services.

[ghost]

I don't have a homepage.  I have a set of about 6-9 pages that I automatically open when I open a browser, including here, ESPN, Wall Street Journal, Facebook, CNN, Gmail and a couple of other sports sites.  Do you actually use your "homepage" for anything? 

[Selby]

Do you actually use your "homepage" for anything? 

Just to check my Yahoo email once in a blue moon.  Opening blank windows is quicker.  Like I said, mostly just out of habit for something I've done for 15 years.

[ghost]

Ah.  I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing out on something interesting.   

[Selby]

Where do you think I found out Whitney Houston died first? ;-)

[ghost]

Where do you think I found out Whitney Houston died first? ;-)

Well, there is that.  I don't believe these things until I read them on TMZ.   

[Fraeg]

Shit day at the office.  Co-worker retired in December, his wife retired in January.  They have <1 year old grandchildren and were looking forward to golden years of fly fishing, RVing, and spoiling the grandkids.  He woke up this morning and was unable to wake his wife...  So fucking sad.  I mean I guess you could argue that she lived a nice long life, but it seems like such a fucking cock tease to retire within a month of your husband only to pass away.

office was a wreck, while *only* a co-workers wife, when she did show up at the office she... don't really have the words, but someone who with a few words could change an absolute shitty day into a good one.

RIP

[Engels]

That sucks. Sorry to hear it.

[Nebu]

Shit day at the office.  Co-worker retired in December, his wife retired in January.  They have <1 year old grandchildren and were looking forward to golden years of fly fishing, RVing, and spoiling the grandkids.  He woke up this morning and was unable to wake his wife...  So fucking sad.  I mean I guess you could argue that she lived a nice long life, but it seems like such a fucking cock tease to retire within a month of your husband only to pass away.

I have to say that your story caused me to stop and reflect a bit.  I can't imagine how hard this must be for the poor guy.  You finally have the rest of your life free to spend any way you want only to have this happen.

It's a good reminder to live each day... I need to get out more!

[Hammond]

Ug I am sorry to hear it to.

Personal related story one of my co-workers was out getting his knee replaced (he was in his mid 50's) and he was at his house recovering a couple weeks ago.  He started complaining about a headache and sat down.  When his wife came back in he was non responsive.  They airlifted him to Seattle and pronounced him brain dead.  Apparently he had a aneurysm due to the blood thinner they were giving him.  The family had to make the decision to unplug him. ...   The guy had worked here since he was 17 so everybody knew him....   

[Sky]

The last librarian to retire from here died two months after retirement. Such an awful thing. And his wife was a reclusive artist dependent on him for everything.

[Ironwood]

What a day.  What a fucking day.

If you're migrating your whole e-mail system, do the chap that's doing it a favour and let him know your main application is a mail enabled data harvester for attachments.  There's every chance it just won't fucking work with what you'd been planning.

[Ingmar]

 

[Chimpy]

But they can save so much on costs by switching email!

[Yegolev]

Having gotten my wish and been put in charge of a datacenter migration project, I agree:

There aren't enough dumb pictures on the internet for me to express it.

[Yegolev]

Made one, insufficient.

[Salamok]

There is no such thing as a cost saving change in the IT world.  The only way to save money seems to be to just become more efficient at maintaining the status quo.

[Rasix]

Chopping the head off Rational and hiding its rotting corpse somewhere might save us a few dollars.

[Soln]

Well, we'll see if they fly me down to interview me.  If so, free trip to New Zealand.   

keep us in the loop. I've been thinking of NZ and need data.  Good luck!