Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Axon terminals of neurons release neurotransmitters. We know of dozens of different types, but are not certain that we know about all of them yet. The same synapse can release multiple different neurotransmitters too, with one or more released depending on the axonic signals. And what to these chemicals do? It depends! There are receptors on the post-synaptic cell that respond to neurotransmitters, but there can be multiple different receptors that respond differently to the same neurotransmitter. Again, we aren't sure we know about all of them. The post-synaptic neuron is probably also listening to neurons of other types that signal using different neurotransmitters that it uses to determine if it should transmit an action potential or not. Oh, and invertebrates (like nematodes) send graded potentials (not action potentials like us vertebrates usually do) where the signal strength can vary.
In short - we are a long way from being able to simulate a nervous system. Our knowledge of neuronal biochemistry is not there yet.
Any niche? I mean, possibly large-scale data processing, yet I've seen people go more niche than that. In other words if your resume has 5+ years in one particular industry then that might be whom to target.
My niche is basically - I'm building distributed systems with minimal external dependencies that are fast and work reliably on the minimal amount of hardware/complexity. I do focus mainly on data processing and gathering.
The result is, that my client does not need that many servers or that big of a devops team to manage the service and it's reliable and scalable.
For example, I have build events gathering distributed system in Elixir (without external systems) that handled 930m events (33k reqs on peak hours) per day on 2 dedicated servers and that was only because minimal HA was required. It resulted in processing and aggregating of few billions of rows per day, in almost real time (few seconds behind realtime). It's still up to this day, few years later with only outages being updates of OS and Elixir/erlang updates to the app.
I love learning and understanding things - do you know of any niche that would fit mine and where I could go deeper with my knowledge and experience?
> diskless laptop with a USB live distro with no RW filesystem
Which distro? One known problem is that browsers still transmit their location. If the network and the laptop are hundreds of yards distant, that's an instant red flag. Once that problem is corrected, there may be unknown problems to deal with.
TAILS. And unless you are using GPS, which would be a silly thing to do on a device you were using to achieve maximum anonymity, your laptop has no idea precisely where you are.
Have an upvote. The "Note: It is allowed to cost money." reminds me that the $5 charge on MeFi filters out alot of noise. However, this doesn't necessarily promote an increase in quality. Much of the discussion can be, like Reddit, cute or snarky one-liner comments.
You're right about the pay for teachers. However if you look at the way it's worked out for adjunct professors at the college level, the part-time pay is even less, plus they miss out on benefits. If there's any high school teachers' union involved, I'd bet they'd be against allowing part-time teachers.
Once I chanced upon an ad for high school comp sci teacher. They were willing to waive the Master's degree requirement as well as the teaching credential requirement. As you note, the pay was ridiculously low, about 30-35% less than industry salary for a fresh-out-of-school graduate. Would have been nice though, for someone eager to teach but wanting to skip the 2-4 years of extra training.
> they're getting paid the same or more than existing software devs.
Ha. Look at some writeups of the SoCal Edison outsourcing, for example. U.S. citizens making $95K were replaced with H1-B workers earning $60-65K, and that's generously estimating the lower salaries. Tata and Infosys might pay their workers closer to $40-50K.
They're currently under investigation for violating the immigration labor laws surrounding the H1B [1].
It's a different problem than the cap or the problem in the article. You're always going to have agencies trying to abuse a system regardless of whether there is a cap or not, and they will be investigated and penalized accordingly.
How can you say it's a non-issue when it's the exact thing that we've brought up as concerns? Especially when there's plenty of evidence that, not only does this happen, but it would happen more if the cap was removed?
Because the fact that the USDL is currently acting on Tata's and Infosys's attempts to break the H1B laws shows that the system is enforcing the rules.
Meaning if there was a cap (or no cap), there would still be enforcement making it a non-issue.
Until we actually see punishment happen, and happen to the level where this behavior would be discouraged in the future, you cannot say that it is a non-issue.
These proceedings take longer than several months, so you're certainly welcome to hold that burden of proof as your own personal opinion in the meantime.
> There seems to be a major issue with cost-of-living adjustments
Yep yep. Otis College of Art and Design "overperforming" for $42k salary is ridiculous. The title Junior Graphic Designer pays around $40k* in Los Angeles, where Otis is located. Therefore, the average for graduates is as-expected. *Source: Glassdoor.
> I tried the Metro, but it didn't go where I wanted to go somehow.
Metro rail is not complete coverage, however the extension out to Santa Monica (West LA) is opening early 2016. As you say, the buses get mired in traffic all too often.
