graniter

Yeah well I got locked out of my hotmail account 5 years ago and I never got back in. There was a bug in an iOS release that caused the Mail app to make repeated, unnecessary requests to authenticate hotmail/outlook so Microsoft determined that there was suspicious activity and locked me out. They have an account recovery process for situations like this and I tried, and tried, and tried, and failed to regain access. I just tried again last week. I tried contacting them directly, too of course. No luck.

So I know what happens when you don't know someone on the inside: you are out of luck. You lose important emails, photos, notifications, bills. You have to change a lot of your other accounts. No fun at all.

Wait...you want to know the worst? That's the email I used for coinbase that I think still has a few Bitcoin in it. I can't log into coinbase because I don't have the same phone with the same phone number for Authy, and the recovery email is the hotmail email I am locked out of. Of course I have open support tickets with coinbase bu you can imagine that I'm not exactly real high in their priority queue. So being locked out of my email has cost me a lot of money in the long run.

I get a number of people asking me how to become a programmer as a second career. For most of them, I wouldn't recommend going to college for it, but instead learn it on the side. Project-based learning I think is the best because it matches more "real world" programming and it's fun to see the results of your work. This seems like a good resource that fits right into that approach. I'll be passing this on to others. Good job!

I wonder, how many of us here actually understand Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies? I know several of us probably use them, but even amongst the tech-savy, there seem to be very few who actually understand it, and even fewer of those who participate in the programming of it. I understand the descriptions of blockchains and it's advantages, but I've never looked at any code. And I realize that anyone could in theory look at the code and participate, but it's out of the reach of most programmers I think, let alone regular people. So while on the one hand it seems to be a great "power to the people" currency option, it's really still in the hands of a few.

I can identify with the emotions in the article. I spent the better part of the day wrangling with an old version of MultiBit to get some bitcoin out of an old wallet. And I'm currently in process of trying to recover access to an old Coinbase account that I'm pretty sure has a few bitcoin in it.

Part of the problem with all the security around cryptocurrencies is that it can be really hard to keep access and not lose them. So many passwords, two-factor authorizations, Authy tied to phone numbers, etc. I am not using nearly as much security on my bitcoin stuff now. I think the risk of getting hacked is lower than the risk of me losing access.

I think it's pretty well accepted that the story doesn't hold up. The real question is what were they really doing. Reminds me of some teenagers that get pulled over by a cop and then tell some elaborate story about why they were speeding, who they were fleeing from, etc. Just forget their story entirely and look for evidence of what really happened.

Ok I am not trying to be dense. I really am curious. Maybe it correlates strongly, but there's nothing dishonest or illegal about it that I can tell. PayPal has all your personal info. They have your bank account info on both sides. People transfer money between. So maybe it's a pattern that money launderers use, but so do regular people. What am I missing?

Ok. But what would be the problem? If you legitimately have two bank accounts in two countries in two different denominations, what's the problem with having two different PayPal accounts connected to the different bank accounts? I don't know what would be illegal about that.

I don't understand what TransferWise offers beyond what PayPal does. Why not just send yourself money using 2 PayPal accounts? Are they cheaper or faster?

Before audio recording was invented, each town had it's own musicians and musicians generally didn't make much money. Same thing for other performing arts. And if you wanted to hear some music, you had to go to the musical hall. To see a performance, you had to go to the theatre. A lot of people didn't go because of the inconvenience in timing, distance, or cost. And the best performers likely weren't know beyond their town. Their reach was limited.

Once LP records and movies came out then these performance were more accessible to more people. And some performers became superstars. Not everyone would be superstars but a huge industry was born that really didn't exist before.

It seems to me we may be on the cusp of something similar with education. I don't think we've figured out how to do it yet, but at some point there will be easy access to quality education, just like now there's easy access to quality entertainment. I think the revolution will be in the replication and distribution at low cost, not in a change of educational methodology or in-classroom technology.

Why not have multiple assessors? Let people/parents/whoever pick who they want. Some schools use ACT and others SAT. Having a single assessor seems suboptimal. Alternatives tend to keep things more in check.

Yes I used those terms intentionally because I think the current problem with education is being able to scale good teaching. There are good teachers, but we don't have a good way to scale them. The industrial revolution provided a way to replicate and scale good manufacturing. So maybe we can learn from that. I don't mean that education should be done like manufacturing, just that the lessons of how to scale may apply.

Agreed. I think about the analogy of interchangeable parts and if that might apply to education. Maybe teachers should just teach and assessors should assess. Interchangeable parts made it so equipment could be more efficiently be manufactured. But that didn't preclude there being a lot of different types of equipment. In fact, there's probably more types of equipment because of interchangeable parts. So for education, having an assessor focus on assessments, independent and separate from instruction, might make it so that there could be easier to assess and more types of assessment, so the teacher doesn't have to always do it. And that might help compare results across teachers.

College Board owns SAT, AP, and (essentially) Common Core so there's been a trend to tighter coupling. I like the idea of an AP Test that anyone can and be assessed separate from the teacher. Same for SAT. I think we need more of that model, not less.

It seems to me that education needs its own "industrial revolution." Education with 30 kids and a teacher in a classroom for 9 months doesn't seem to scale well. There aren't enough good teachers, and it's inefficient to have so many kids together learning the same thing, and the same time, at the same pace. It's too inefficient, and any improvements are going to be cost prohibitive.

I think we need to separate instruction, student work, and assessment. Students should be able to receive instruction in multiple ways (1on1, group, watch videos), do their work with something like TAs, and be assessed at their own pace.

Japan is starting to see to super-star teachers that parent pay for. Why do we always need a teacher to provide direct instruction in the classroom? Why can't we reward the best instructors, like Kahn, by having kids be instructed that way? The reason is because instruction, work, and assessment are not separated now.

I wish there were more experimentation in education, but since everything is a big ball of wax paid for with property taxes, there's a lot of reluctance for anyone to experiment with their kid, and since it's all or nothing, there just are minor experiments in the classroom

We need tech to find a way to scale the classroom and deliver it cheaply to students, and I think we need a separation of concerns in order for that to happen.

The big advantage is avoiding the catch 22 the above poster experienced. With AirBnB you can get a place without having a French bank account, which requires a French address. And you can book a place in the future before you arrive in France which is important for some visas that require you have housing established before you go.

I'm interested in hearing more because my Year 1 in France was very stressful and I am curious to know if it was for other people. And perhaps some poor soul reading this will know how to avoid some pain.

For the proof of residence, an option nowadays is to book a place long term on airbnb, say 6 months or more, and then put the utilities in your name. Even just one utility may be enough, like water or electricity, maybe even internet too. Then you can use the utility bill as proof of address without needing to sign a formal rental agreement. Note that most governmental places will not accept an AirBnB receipt as proof of address, but a bank might. Keep bills of everything. Always have copies of everything on hand (passports, work contract, birth certificates, visas, bills) and keep electronic copies that you can print off any time.

US citizens should note that US Federal law requires you to file a statement of your overseas accounts every year, and your foreign bank must report your assets to the US government. There are steep fines if the foreign bank does not comply. This puts a burden and risk on many banks so they sometimes refuse to let Americans open bank accounts with them. And even when they do open an account for you, expect to provide a lot of official documentation (passports, social security number). Just another benefit of being from the land of the free.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

It's four years renewable for the residence permit, but really the important thing is to have a work contract. You get the residence permit because of the work contract. So if you still have a work contract after four years, you would just apply for another residence permit. You can have a work contract that has no expiration (no fixed duration).

You could get a long term visitor visa. Lasts one year and is renewable. You need to prove that you have income, medical insurance, and promise not to work for a French company in France. http://sanfrancisco.consulfrance.org/spip.php?article2703

This is how it should be done. Sounds like both the government and your company are doing it right and it's paying off because your are doing well recruiting talent. This is what France should do. But I do feel like there is some odd satisfaction in France both among the French and expats of having paid their dues, made it through the process and are sort of proud of it. Almost like they don;t want to make it too easy.

Two of my kids are in lycee (high school) and some of the things they teach there are surprising. I can't speak for what you experienced, but I can say that what they teach in the lycee is not too far off of what you you wrote. Yet the government wants to recruit tech talent. Hmmm. However, most French people I know are not anti-capitalist. It might be more of an issue with the younger generation.

I think competition among countries actually helps. Case in point: this visa program. They are trying to make it more streamlined and more attractive with a longer expiration. It is improvement in the right direction.

Exactly. You can't enter the market and provide better service for "government administration." You could offer a service to help a person, but the person still has to go through it all.

I am all for learning French and doing it "their way." The challenge I've run into with it "just taking some time" is for some things you don't have time. Things need to be done at or by a certain time. Like setting up utilities, getting a bank account, housing, signing up for healthcare, enrolling kids in school, etc. Those can't take time, they need to be done as soon as possible. So you have to get them done before you are good at the language and before you understand the processes. Things have worked out for us but Year 1 was a constant scramble. Reducing the burden of all that I think it what would really help recruit talent.

"up to a certain amount" and if you are using this visa you've got a good chance of exceeding that amount. I do.