MIT's Charm School For Geeks Turns 20 217
Hugh Pickens writes writes "It's been said that social graces may be just as important as intelligence and engineering prowess to success as an astrophysicist or computer engineer. But how do you take someone who's grown up in the world of pocket protectors and get them thinking about suits, bow ties and the proper way to hold a wine glass. Now Jennifer Lawinski reports that MIT's Charm School just celebrated its 20th birthday with classes in alcohol and gym etiquette, how to dress for work and how to visit a contemporary art museum. 'We're giving our students the tools to be productive members of society, to be the whole package,' says Alana Hamlett. 'It gets them thinking about who they are and what their impact and effect is, whether they're working on a team in an engineering company, or in a small group on a project, or interviewing for a job.' At this year's Charm School students were free to drop in and participate in any of the 20-minute mini-courses being offered that day and students who participated in 10 of the mini-courses were awarded doctorates of charm. Computational biology graduate student Asa Adadey said the free meal was a draw and said he learned in one mini-course not to cut up all his meat at once before eating it. 'Who knows? Down the line I may find myself at a formal dinner.'"
Just remember (Score:1)
They pay money for this. A lot of it.
You would think this is parody (Score:5, Interesting)
What always fascinated me about MIT is the seeming lack of a "university neighborhood." It was like MIT people never left campus and had no social lives to speak of. I think it went out of business, but one of the few bars close to campus was themed like a laboratory, where you drank beer out of beakers. During the day, people would scurry out of the buildings to the food trucks, awkwardly scarf down their lunches, and then scurry back. I used to love watching them try to play Frisbie when the sun came out, which I can can only describe with a direct quote from Dodgeball: "It's like watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob out there." I had always thought the jokes about just how nerdy MIT was were exaggerations, but that has to be the highest concentration of nerd-stereotypes that I have ever seen; super-smart, interesting people, but I can certainly see how the Charm School has lasted 20 years.
Re:You would think this is parody (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the review. Everything you've written makes MIT sound like an excellent school. One where you go to do some serious learnings, instead of just fuck around.
What other universities are like this?
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They still fuck around, but with nerd panache [youtube.com]
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Thanks for the review. Everything you've written makes MIT sound like an excellent school. One where you go to do some serious learnings, instead of just fuck around.
What other universities are like this?
MIT had and has one of the best social scenes. Don't believe him.
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MIT had and has one of the best social scenes. Don't believe him.
Hey, Shhh! You aren't supposed to let the rest of the world know that. You're trying to mess up one of the best-cultivated stereotypes that we have going.
Of course, here on /. people are supposed to be part of the "nerd" crowd, so it such occasional slipups might be ok. But we should remember that there are also "normal" people who read the discussions here, not to mention all the corporate sockpuppets who hang around to post their thinly-disguised marketing stuff. So we really should keep up the ima
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What other universities are like this?
Well, Caltech, for one, but being in California, the bright lights outside make it hard to see through the glare when the students try to play Frisbee.
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Imperial College [of Science, Technology and Medicine, London]. Except it's in London, so there's plenty to do in the rest of the city, including at least 10 other universities, which create a "normal" student culture. No excuse for complaining there's nothing to do, but there's the opportunity to join Anime Society and/or never leave the immediate area if you choose.
(Having said that, cost of living is high in London, so most students - at any university in the city - have chosen the city for the culture a
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Thanks for the review. Everything you've written makes MIT sound like an excellent school. One where you go to do some serious learnings, instead of just fuck around.
What other universities are like this?
Wow, you must be a blast at parties.
I'd rather go to parties that cost a six pack of beer instead of $42K a year.
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No; as read aloud the sentence is grammatically correct. He spelled "you're" wrong. That's spelling, not grammar.
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He spelled "you're" wrong. That's spelling, not grammar.
Actually, he didn't spell "you're" at all; he correctly spelled the wrong word ("your"). That's a case of using the wrong word, not mispeling a word. So it really is primarily a grammatical problem, not a spelling problem. The writer was probably confused partly by the fact that "your better" is a phrase that is used in English in similar contexts. OTOH, spelling "off" as "of" almost certainly was a spelling error.
Yeah, I know; picky, picky. ;-) But I also hang out in a few linguistics forums, where
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Your assessment is only correct if he *intended* to use the wrong word (your). While not impossible, it's far more likely that he intended (and understood) the "you're" ( as in "while you're in college " ) but .... spelled it wrong. It's not a grammar error unless he intended to use the wrong word, and (as you propose) spelled that wrong word correctly.
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Or, more likely than either of our analyses, the writer doesn't understand the difference between to/too/two homophones, considers them the same "word", and just typed the one with the fewest keystrokes. This is common for people who aren't strongly literate, and mostly use the spoken language. After all, what sense does it make to add an apostrophe or a final 'e' to "your"? They're/Their/There just silent letters that don't add any meaning, right?
It's common in the linguistic forums to take examples l
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Just about any research university provides you with the opportunity to do some serious learning. MIT merely does not *also* provide the opportunity to "fuck around".
Oh, I dunno; recently I was one of the musicians at one of MIT's regular evening dance sessions. They have a number of these, with different types of dancing, on different evenings. Some of them, like this one, are free to students (and you get PhysEd credit if you sign the attendance sheets at some minim number of them). I've noticed at these dances, the crowd is typically smaller after the break that's about 2/3 of the way through the evening, and I've also noticed people wandering off during the brea
Re:You would think this is parody (Score:5, Funny)
What always fascinated me about MIT is the seeming lack of a "university neighborhood." It was like MIT people never left campus and had no social lives to speak of. I think it went out of business, but one of the few bars close to campus was themed like a laboratory, where you drank beer out of beakers. During the day, people would scurry out of the buildings to the food trucks, awkwardly scarf down their lunches, and then scurry back. I used to love watching them try to play Frisbie when the sun came out, which I can can only describe with a direct quote from Dodgeball: "It's like watching a bunch of retards trying to hump a doorknob out there." I had always thought the jokes about just how nerdy MIT was were exaggerations, but that has to be the highest concentration of nerd-stereotypes that I have ever seen; super-smart, interesting people, but I can certainly see how the Charm School has lasted 20 years.
I spent 4.25 years there, and you're full of shit.
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I was only there for 2 weeks for a special session held on the MIT campus in January. However, almost every time I went to the Mead Hall or the Cambridge Brewing Company, they were busy and had a long wait for a table. The exception was late one Sunday evening.
Several of the people I talked to were MIT students (or at least claimed to be - I didn't ask to see IDs), so there are some of them who are getting out. But I suppose a student who doesn't go out much wouldn't see the people who did, and would onl
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It was like MIT people never left campus and had no social lives to speak of.
Outside of Boston, it is not widely known that MIT has a large and active fraternity system.
From Wikipedia: "MIT has a very active Greek and co-op housing system which includes 36 fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups. In 2009, 92% of all undergraduates lived on MIT-affiliated housing, 50 percent of the men in fraternities and 34% of the women in sororities."
So half of all MIT men live in a frat and many frats are off the campus.
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For those that don't know Boston, the frats at MIT are famous for their stunts, including inventing a unit of measure "the Smoot" for the Harvard bridge (which, oddly, links MIT to Boston) by flipping a pledge end-to-end over the entire length of the bridge. But that is exactly what makes MIT so weird; everyone lives in "off campus" housing, much of which is a stone's throw from campus. It's as if they only interact with each other. Maybe I'm biased because I was up the river a bit, but I feel like I ran in
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She asked, "I'll bet you are and engineering major, am I right?"
Not so much a matter of your structured essays as your lack of ability to write in English, I suspect. Perhaps she had a crush on you.
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Perhaps she had a crush on you.
. . . now that . . . would have been fiction . . .
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Actually, that's why I chose Princeton over MIT when I was accepted at both. I had other strong academic interests besides EECS, and didn't want to sit in literature courses with the same folks who were in my engineering classes.
I never applied to Princeton or any other liberal arts university, but from my experience with their graduates over the years I will tell you that my undergraduate writing and literature classes - consisting primarily of science and engineering students - were far more focused and interesting than my imagination tells me they would have been at Harvard, for example.
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Well, then, you chose what was right for you, and you found it interesting. What I don't like about this Charm School concept, is that it implies that geeks must learn "the tools to be productive members of society." My point is that you can rub shoulders with other folks by your choice of school or courses . . . if you are interested. But you shouldn't feel obligated to take a course on this. It's purely a personal choice and shouldn't be forced on anyone.
Cutting up all your meat? (Score:4, Funny)
If you were to cut the meat into little pieces prior to eating, the meat would be cold by the time you were eating the final pieces, which is clearly an unacceptable outcome. On top of this the piece of meat makes logical sense to nerds as some sort of stack or queue. Cutting up the meat is akin to converting the stack into an array before operating on the data. Since you are intending to not sort but eat the pieces, an operation which can be run on either a stack or an array, this clearly makes no sense.
Also I have never heard of this so called "American Style" of eating, whereby the fork is tossed from hand to hand. We do not do that here in Ohio, so I don't know just how "American" it can be. Sounds more like something they would do in Texas.
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I cut my meat all at once, so that I can let go of my knife. The meat doesn't get cold because it doesn't take me so long to eat that meat becomes unpleasant -- how long does it take people to eat? Or are people just super sensitive to that one degree difference?
When I'm trying to be formal I do what they call European style (or if I'm just so hungry I don't want to finish cutting the meat before having my first few bites), but I'd rather do my cutting at once and have done with it.
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That's great if you don't eat any better cut than skirt steak.
The last thing I want my rare ribeye to do is sit on a hot skillet where it will overcook and dry out as I eat.
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On top of this the piece of meat makes logical sense to nerds as some sort of stack or queue. Cutting up the meat is akin to converting the stack into an array before operating on the data. Since you are intending to not sort but eat the pieces, an operation which can be run on either a stack or an array, this clearly makes no sense.
No, you got it wrong. Basically, what you're doing while eating a piece of meat is 1) to cut in into an ordered sequence of little pieces and 2) eat each little piece in the ordered sequence of little pieces (expressed as dine = (map eat . cut) meat. Now, there are languages evaluating expressions in the applicative order and languages evaluating expressions in the normal order. A programmer in a normal-order language, such as Haskell, lazily executes each step when necessary, therefore cutting each nibble
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That sounds as if all your pieces of meat are equivalent. That only happens when you eat McRibs, something that I've heard Ohioans do. McD's sells some of those around the Carolinas, too—to visiting Ohioans. Sorry, I just had to rib you a bit.
I agree about the meat getting cold, but if you wish to eat the best bites first and possibly leave the rest, there's some logic to not nibbling the steak from one edge but cutting large pieces away first. What's more, around here we can't afford a separate knife
Re:can't afford a separate knife (Score:2)
around here we can't afford a separate knife for every diner, so you have to cut everything you'll need and then pass the knife along.
Wow. In America, it's not unusual for people to have more than one knife per person! Maybe Americans really are spoiled. I can't imagine everyone having to pass around the knife every dinner.
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Well I'm just going to have to disagree.
Cutting up all your meat at once (and subsequently scarfing it all down at once, sans pauses) allows for greater batch processing efficiency. Switching back and forth between cutting and eating is analogous to excessive context switching.
This practice also allows one to drop the knife when the cutting phase is complete, and then switch the fork over to the primary hand for optimal input rate.
I am a skilled practitioner of this technique, and I can assure you that its
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That said though, cutting a piece at a time is definitely more time efficient. (So perhaps i should switch to your method to slow myself down?) When cutting all at once
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That's why I love being a geek. Society says "conform!" and we say "go fuck yourself, I march to the beat of my own drum."
Society doesn't say "conform". People just like others to be polite.
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There is conform and conform. For example, the point of the meat is ridiculous. There are different norms in the world, like hands above the table or below. In Europe you have your hands above the table, but in the US you have your hands blow. Cutting up your meat all in one go is also seen as weird in Europe. But these things are only conventions and when it comes down to it, who cares?
What people will care about are things like talking while eating or eating with your mouth open. These things are universa
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There are different norms in the world, like hands above the table or below. In Europe you have your hands above the table, but in the US you have your hands blow.
How can you have your hands below the table when you're eating? I don't understand.
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There are different norms in the world, like hands above the table or below. In Europe you have your hands above the table, but in the US you have your hands blow.
How can you have your hands below the table when you're eating? I don't understand.
Pie eating contest. Although I hear hands are most often tied behind the back.
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There are different norms in the world, like hands above the table or below. In Europe you have your hands above the table, but in the US you have your hands blow.
How can you have your hands below the table when you're eating? I don't understand.
Perhaps it is pie-eating contest etiquette.
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In Europe you have your hands above the table, but in the US you have your hands blow.
What are you doing with your hands below the table? Can't that wait until you're in the privacy of your own room?
Yeah, you don't get a blow job with your hands. Wait, what are we talking about.
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>"You should behave as if you where invited to the Queen for Tee."
The Queen invites people to play gulf?
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Do you like to jack off at the dinner table too? I mean, it has no bearing on your ability to deliver product to spec on time right? It feels good and doesn't hurt anyone, so why isn't everyone doing it?
Conformity is in many situations, a winning strategy. Even if you know that there's nothing inherently wrong with your behavior, there is also a different form of intelligence that people use to evaluate the perceptions of others and adapt their behavior accordingly. If this was a business dinner, and I can
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HAHAHAHA! Funny that. Knigge [wikipedia.org] (a German Nobleman), who wrote "Über den Umgang mit Menschen (On Human Relations)" which is THE base work for any behavior school, has described the "tossing" of the fork from hand to hand as the proper form. You cut your food, one bite at a time, fork in the left, knife in the right, then you set down your knife, fork switches hand to the right side and you eat that bit. Keeping your knife in the right and and the fork in the left is ok too, but that supposedly gives the i
Judgmental people (Score:2)
...has described the "tossing" of the fork from hand to hand as the proper form.
This is my problem with a lot of so called "rules" of etiquette, it's entirely arbitrary and typically just one person's overly judgmental opinion. While I have no desire to offend anyone (most of the time) the notion that holding your knife and fork together or switching hands could possibly have a right or wrong answer is absurd. The point is simply not to gross anyone out with your eating habits and possibly give the impression one is attempting to be social.
Keeping your knife in the right and and the fork in the left is ok too, but that supposedly gives the impression that you are in a hurry...
See, I would think that the actual rate at
Oh for christ sake (Score:4, Funny)
Cutting the meat all at once allows the fork to be inserted once and several slices of meat cut in succession.
In the typical use case, the efficiency gain is illusory because the fork must still be inserted into each slice afterwards in order to transfer it to the mouth (where the fork will be efficiently removed). Nevertheless, the Stationary Fork algorithm is of importance when the meat slices must are to subsequently be processed in a distributed fashion by multiple forks and/or mouths.
Oh for christ sake implement some parallel processing - come to the UK and learn how to use a knife and fork!
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Cutting the meat all at once allows the fork to be inserted once and several slices of meat cut in succession.
In the typical use case, the efficiency gain is illusory because the fork must still be inserted into each slice afterwards in order to transfer it to the mouth (where the fork will be efficiently removed). Nevertheless, the Stationary Fork algorithm is of importance when the meat slices must are to subsequently be processed in a distributed fashion by multiple forks and/or mouths.
Can you provide a proof of this algorithm and it's Big O notation, for all possible meat cuts of N grams?
Finger food etiquette (Score:2)
From the last link, about dining etiquette:
10. Licking Your Fingers/Using Fingers to Push Food Onto Your Fork.
Always use a napkin to remove food from your fingers, and a knife to push food onto your fork. If the situation were reversed, would you want to shake hands with, or take a dinner roll from, someone after their fingers have been in their mouth or on their plate?
I agree on the point but not their rationalization. Considering the number of men who don't wash their hands after using the urinal, shaking hands with someone who might have had food on their fingers before they wiped clean is the least of my concerns.
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Okay, how about this: Because you failed to wash your hands after going to the potty, licking your fingers is just lick sucking a dick.
I'll have to get my GF to do that for me then
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I agree on the point but not their rationalization. Considering the number of men who don't wash their hands after using the urinal, shaking hands with someone who might have had food on their fingers before they wiped clean is the least of my concerns.
So because shaking hands with someone whose fingers are covered in gravy isn't as bad as shaking hands with someone who has just wiped their arse with their fingers, it's OK to leave your hands covered with gravy after a meal?
Nice.
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I agree on the point but not their rationalization. Considering the number of men who don't wash their hands after using the urinal, shaking hands with someone who might have had food on their fingers before they wiped clean is the least of my concerns.
So because shaking hands with someone whose fingers are covered in gravy isn't as bad as shaking hands with someone who has just wiped their arse with their fingers, it's OK to leave your hands covered with gravy after a meal?
Nice.
Do you deliberately misinterpret things people say, or do you just enjoy building straw men to knock down?
And you take think urinals are a place to take dumps? I think the sarcastic "nice" properly goes to you.
A school to teach them to act elitist? why? (Score:2)
If you are smart enough for MIT then perhaps that can be your charm. Whether or not you can wear a suit and tie is irrelevant in 2013.
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Obviously, it's off the Charm class for you!
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Whether or not you can wear a suit and tie is irrelevant in 2013.
Here's a clue, fuckwit: not everyone works in California for pseudo-hippies who think a pair of jeans without vomit stains is dresswear.
If you can go to MIT you should be trying to work for yourself. Why would you go to an engineering school if not to either join a startup or start your own? The point is if you're at MIT it makes more sense to start your career at MIT by working on a project with your friends at MIT and turn that into a business. The idea that you have to find a job to make a living instead of creating a new product is part of the problem. If you have the minds and the backing to create a new product then its better to do t
Charm school? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Everyone looks good in a suit that fits. That's the entire point of the suit. It's the culmination of hundreds of years of mens' clothing traditions. If you choose to wear something other than a suit, you're choosing to make your appearance suboptimal. Which is often okay, but why would you do it when it actually matters what you look like?
I don't understand the nerd hatred of suits and ties at all. Learn to nerd out about fabrics and patterns and all the little details that distinguish a good suit from a b
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Clothing can be cut well, match and enhance the aesthetics of one's form, and not be a suit (ie probably be more comfortable and a better medium of personal expression as well).
Suits also carry a legacy of corporate identity, a state which many of us are automatically suspicious of... especially those of us who have to deal with corporate bureaucracy on a regular basis.
Ultimately
Re:Charm school? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're going to have a hard time putting together an outfit that looks as good as your bog standard suit. Why bother when you don't even have to think about it? Suit, shoes that are black or brown and not horrible, shirt that's lighter than the suit and doesn't clash, tie that's darker than the shirt and doesn't clash. Done. Ten seconds of thought and you're all but guaranteed to be the best-looking guy in the room, and that matters. It's a wonderful tool for men, you should be grateful for it. Imagine being a woman and wanting to dress up, it would be an absolute nightmare.
Corporate identity is nonsense. Maybe it shouldn't matter what you look like, but it does. Dressing appropriately shows that you recognise those realities even if you don't necessarily approve of them. And seriously why would you not want to look like hot shit in a sharp suit??
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I don't think anyone looks good in a suit. It looks and smells of conservative conformity. Your opinions may differ, but frankly, I have other things I'd rather do than worry about dressing like a salesman.
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You are one of those evil handsome men, aren't you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66c7el1E11o [youtube.com]
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... you're choosing to make your [x] suboptimal.
When there's a clearly described and readily available more-optimal alternative, that alone could be a sufficient nerd reason to at least learn the underlying principles behind [x], for any [x].
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Suits are a costume (Score:2)
Everyone looks good in a suit that fits.
That is a matter of opinion. While that might be the consensus it is not a universally held opinion. And in my opinion they often look quite silly. An attractive person will look attractive in casual or formal clothes. An unattractive person will be made at most marginally better looking with nice clothes but it is demonstrably true that not everyone looks good in a suit no matter how well it is tailored. 20 seconds on google images will reveal lots of ugly people in nice fitting suits.
I don't understand the nerd hatred of suits and ties at all.
Partly because a
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One of the dumbest statements I have ever read on slashdot.
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I've never seen anybody who looked good in a suit. A suit makes you look lake a sales person, lawyer or manager. I.e. a professional liar.
You should seek counselling, as you obviously have serious unresolved issues with authority figures. Among the people who regularly wear suits are: teachers, doctors, bank managers, civil servants, restaurant managers, weather forecasters and newsreaders on TV, architects, accountants, advertising executives and (perhaps worryingly for you) PSYCHIATRISTS.
Re:Charm school? Really? (Score:4)
With ties, there's also a comfort issue. Many people find constriction about their neck area to be uncomfortable
You can wear your tie as loose or as tight as you want. If your tie is constricting it's because your shirt's collar measurement is too small.
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Confusing the two is just unprofessional.
Zing! You rock!
I speak as someone who's (a long damn time ago) worked as a marketing/engineering liaison and worn custom-made shirts and really nice suits. Your point reminds me of the fury I felt when I read those moronic comments about Mark Zuckerberg not respecting investors by wearing his hoodie to Wall Street meetings. Ahem. He created something huge which the investment bankers wanted a piece of. Shouldn't they have been obligated to show respect to him? Why the fuck was it supposed to be the other w
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To be fair, Mark Zuckerberg and his investors are exactly the same kind of assholes, therefore it's arrogant of him to act as if he is a productive member of society while they are not.
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Hell, I don't even like Facebook, but the idea that MZ owed respect to the investment bankers was absurd and offensive.
Oh fuck off. When Facebook starts its inevitable slide into obscurity (as soon as investment bankers start realising it's never actually going to make them much money) MZ will be there on his hands and knees in the sharpest suit he can still afford, begging for the chance to show he is a proper CEO.
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We've managed to get to the point where it's no longer mandatory for women to wear dresses and high heels everywhere.
Except at work, if you're a professional woman. Oh look, just like men have to wear suits and ties.
If you can't recognise the difference between a smart professional and a student, you are destined never to be taken seriously in the adult world.
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you are destined never to be taken seriously in the adult world.
I reject your adult world and substitute my own.
I haven't been a student in a long time, and yet I honestly cannot remember the last time I wore a suit for work. Funny thing is that when I meet my clients they're not generally weaing suits either.
They have a business to run, and I have a business to run. As long as the person you're trying to do business with is not dressed an a really inappropriate manner (e.g. filthy, smelly, naked) we can ju
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Really? I see women in summer dresses and flip flops in summer in fortune 100 firms while the men have to wear smart shirts, jackets and trousers in those same firms.
Re:Charm school? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The examples cited in TFA were a bit toward the officious end. Most of it is pretty mundane stuff, like the importance of daily hygiene, what's expected on a date, when you're expected to wear a tie, etc. Stuff that "normal" folks all picked up during K-12, but people like you and me always considered unimportant so never bothered learning in our 18 years before arriving at college.
Because most of this stuff is learned from interacting with other people as you're growing up, it's difficult to find it all consolidated into one place for quick and easy consumption. That's what charm school does - it's a crash course in everything we ignored our friends gossiping about while we were growing up. We may think these social rules are silly and pointless, but we are the exception. The vast majority of the population thinks it's important for some reason. So you can either reject it and be an outcast, or you can learn to emulate the less annoying parts of it and fit in better.
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There is no real reason for this except to improve one's ability to keep a job and a woman.
If he is surprised about cutting food, he is dumb. (Score:3, Interesting)
Computational biology graduate student Asa Adadey said the free meal was a draw and said he learned in one mini-course not to cut up all his meat at once before eating it.
Anyone with a brain capable of dealing with science, engineering and math would know that cutting all food before eating it increases the surface area while keeping the total mass and volume unchanged, thus causing the food to cool and dry faster, relative to its original, supposedly optimal for consumption, state. Anyone who is surprised by this, is probably not good at recognizing reasons behind other decisions and rules. He may be is a "trade school" kind of student that collects assorted morsels of prescriptive knowledge and expects it to provide him an easy, comfortable job. Real geeks hate those people, because they pass themselves as competent, cause enormous messes, and a real engineer has to clean up after them instead of doing actual work.
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The problem here is that optimality is not an absolute condition, and a good engineer should know that.
If you're trying to optimize how much time you spend cutting up your meat so you can spend more time doing other things, then cutting it up all at once is the optimal choice. But to talk about any option being an optimal one, you have to also factor in all the conditions and constraints.
Maybe in a European or American setting, it's optimal for avoiding the derision of your peers to cut your meat one bite
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Maybe in a European or American setting, it's optimal for avoiding the derision of your peers to cut your meat one bite at a time. But if you're in Japan, you should generally serve your guests food that is already cut up and able to be eaten with chopsticks (or soft enough to cut with chopsticks).
Yes, but presumably if you're teaching etiquette at MIT, you're teaching the etiquette that applies to the Eastern US. I don't think anyone would disagree that there are cultural differences between human beings in the US, Japan and Afghanistan.
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Maybe I don't give a good goddamn about the temperature or tenderness of my food: I just want to forget about cutting it.
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Everyone I know, and I mean EVERYONE, will be really shocked to find out I'm not a computer geek. However, I'm not a computer, at least not of the electromechanical kind with cores.
But to follow your analogy, it generally takes much less time to cut a piece of meat than it does to chew it. Under your model, the hands-core spends a lot of time idling while it's waiting for the mouth-core to finish. That's probably okay if the only thing you're doing is eating meat. But there are probably other foods on t
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Anyone with a brain capable of dealing with science, engineering and math would know that cutting all food before eating it increases the surface area while keeping the total mass and volume unchanged, thus causing the food to cool and dry faster, relative to its original, supposedly optimal for consumption, state.
A True Geek would, however, not assume that food is served at an optimal state that demands instant consumption, on the basis that food takes a certain time to eat, which would be factored into the serving temperature.
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Perhaps he is just unconcerned with the minutia involved in fields in which he is not an expert, kind of like the loose syntax displayed in your post (extraneous comma, maybe, s/that/who/, mixed construction.) No one thinks that you're "dumb" because of this.
Maybe he's overweight, and would rather consume his food cold in order to burn more calories.
Maybe he has some degree of Autism, which hinders his ability to distinguish between the taste of cold steak and warm steak.
It is possible to ride your bike to
MIT turned half female in past 20 years (Score:2)
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Fact is, falling somewhere in between Social Retard and Master of Etiquette is just fine for most people.
Etiquette is silly anyway. I care what kind of stories you tell and how you view the world around you, not how you hold your fucking fork.
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Re:Probably Won't Help Much (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the reason most nerds are bad at social etiquette simply because they don't see the point and don't care. It's a waste of time and/or something beneath their intellectual pursuits.
You'd be incorrect. Most people want to fit in, and be normal - these things actually require a type of thinking that nerds are not particularly good at. It's a rationalisation to just sulk and say "I don't care anyway".
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I should hope so; most normal children manage to do it by the time they're ten. What I'm wondering is, why didn't they?
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If they started caring, picking up proper social etiquette is really not that hard. I should hope so; most normal children manage to do it by the time they're ten. What I'm wondering is, why didn't they?
They've been brought up being told that they're 'special' and don't need to worry about fitting in with the hoi polloi?
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I suspect the reason most nerds are bad at social etiquette simply because they don't see the point and don't care. It's a waste of time and/or something beneath their intellectual pursuits. If you are on the verge of a breakthrough in a new black hole theory, or revolutionary AI algorithm, everything else might seem unimportant by comparison.
Ah yes, the "Albert Einstein often forgot to put socks on in the morning" argument. And everyone's Albert Einstein here, of course.
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"The hard part is to hold an engaging social conversation talking about nothing, but that's a story for another day."
Actually the hard part is doing so while reinforcing or improving your social status through word choice, topic choice, tone of voice and non-verbal cues. Then after having set the stage you can proceed to collect information about the subjects of your interview, I mean the people you are talking to, filed away for later use. The goal in these situations is to socialize without offending and
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The rules of "etiquette" were made up by royals with nothing else to do than create elaborate social rules.
Normal people had no clue about them, and just ate their food, being as considerate as they would normally be.
Later, rich non-royals started to mimic the elaborate rules in an attempt to increase their social status.
Finally, after the spread of mass literacy, these arbitrary "rules" started to be taught to normal people, some of whom accepted them like sheep, and some of whom failed to conform.
Anyway,
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Anyway, the important point is they they are entirely arbitrary and made-up.
No, the important point is that they matter to some people. Most groups of people have some irrational rules that matter to them. If you break these rules, you insult members of this group. You are completely free to decide that you actively wish to insult members of that group, but doing so out of ignorance puts you at a disadvantage.
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Actually which tool for the job is a piece of cake. By definition and when those manner shenanigans actually matter, is you have a separate utensils per course. Forks left, knifes right and spoons above. But you work your way from the outside in. You don't have to remember if it is a salad fork or a normal one or if it is a fish, bread, butter or steak knife, it is the task of the person who sets the table to bother. The only thing you need to guess is not to spoon your steak and fork your soup...
The only f
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Of course, 'alphas' will frequently participate in the cretinous and meaningless rituals of their own culture in order to be 'polite'. However, 'alphas' are usually happy to have this participation be seen as 'clumsy' by the idiots to whom ritual is everything.
Let me guess, you're an alpha+, but socially 'awkward' because your mind is on higher things, and anyway the plebs don't understand you.
A familiar twist on an old slashdot favourite meme. I expect you failed at college, because true 'alpha' types don't need certificates to validate their inherent sense of self worth, amirite?