I was an EMT in the Los Angeles area for four years, and then in the Seattle area for four years. I developed the mindset that even if the patient died, we (the firefighters/EMTs/paramedics) had at least given them a chance to live that they would not have had without us. That helped soften the blow of the deaths.
That strategy was less effective for calls where the patient was declared dead on scene, and so no treatment was possible. I still remember each of those calls. Fortunately, I was never traumatized by them, in a PTSD sense. Rather, I learned the lesson of realizing how easily I, or one of my loved ones, can simply disappear one day; so I learned to make sure they all know that I love them, and to not take their presence in my life for granted.
The reversed-biased method is actually the basis of single-photon detectors used in quantum optics experiments, especially experiments with entangled photons. Here's a paper that uses exactly this--reversed-biased red LEDs-- to introduce physics undergrads to the essential concepts:
I read the paper; much of the electronics details got past me on the first read, but I think that the part most relevant to your question is their statement that it needs to be determined if the LED is a deterministic or a probabilistic single-photon light source.
"All right; but apart from the sanitation, education, medicine, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
Different poster here. My wife and I retired to Portugal (near Lisbon) about two years ago. I guess we're two of the "affluent gentrifiers". :-) In contrast, we met a 20-something U.S. couple in our language class, who moved here and are working. We all came here on the D7 visa program, not the Golden Visa.
I'd be happy to give you some insights, but I'm not sure what you mean by "conducive to moving"; what sort of issues or difficulties are you having?
Well, I’m starting to finals h a medical treatment tomorrow and I’m worried that that may disqualify me… some countries do, others do not. But yah, I think Portugal would be cool, I spent a bit of time in Galicia this summer and in 2018 and loved it, slightly south of there would be nice.
Another good WYSIWYG front end is LyX: www.lyx.org . I've written a few hundred physics lecture notes with it, as well as a number of Beamer presentations. I find it much easier to use than TeXmacs (mainly because of keyboard shortcuts), and the output is excellent. And yes, it produces true TeX/LaTeX.
LyX is good but the quality of the typesetter is not. Early on, when looking for a replacement for my TeX workflow I was taken back by the rendering. It improved lately, but still TeXmacs is a superior tecnology which renders onscreen exactly as on paper, and it is fully scriptable in scheme, including the user interface. I use it to lecture online, via Zoom, for example and I would not be able to do the same with LyX. See e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL50D2PpswE Also thinking about mathematics in TeXmacs is really pleasant. I wrote here my reflection on mathematical writing in TeXmacs: https://texmacs.github.io/notes/docs/art-of-math-writing.htm...
Before starting to use TeXmacs I tried LyX. It is true that the typesetting is not optimal, as often pointed out by TeXmacs users, but for me that was not a dealbreaker. I found LyX to be extremely un-customizable. TeXmacs has Scheme that allows you to do potentially anything! That made me very happy coming from Emacs land.
An important thing for me was having context-aware keyboard shortcuts (that are barely possible in LyX).
Another cool thing that seems to be possible that I plan on exploring next is integrating math typing in TeXmacs with sympy and or Maxima. This would allow symbolic manipulation using the above packages directly in TeXmacs.
Finding Lyx when I was at university saved me an immense amount of frustration while producing beautiful output. My girlfriend used Word 95 and I spent many more hours helping her format and fix her projects than I ever spent dealing with issues in Lyx. Once I had it setup how I needed it it just works.
TeXmacs is not a front-end for LaTeX, but a completely original system, superior to TeX and LaTeX under every point of view: typographic quality, ease of use, control over your document.
If you have some diy desire and skill, you can get a lot of bang-for-your buck from the speaker kits from Parts Express (https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-components/speaker-sub...). The sound quality of their kits is surprisingly high! In addition, there can be a lot of satisfaction when you're listening to them, knowing that you built them yourself.
I actually bought a couple pairs of these Dayton bookshelf speakers with AMTs for surrounds with my Totem mains and center a few years ago. They sound fucking GOOD for $60. Far better than all this satellite and soundbar crap. If I was on an absolute budget, I'd get these as my mains, and the acoustech subs that I use for my computer($240) at the time. SOLID.
Same. The only thing I miss about owning my own home is that I can't set up a home theater. The last house I owned had a bare-to-the-studs basement when we bought it. I built a home theater to die for there: ran every wire you could think of, built the walls and ceiling where and how I wanted for optimum sound, acoustically treated everything, researched all the audio and video equipment, installed a projector, built my own screen, even built all of my speakers myself, in my shop. The whole process took a year, and I had an enormous amount of fun doing it. And it worked: Watching movies was great, but sitting there with the lights dimmed low, listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony, or (different mood) Dire Straits "Love Over Gold"...There's no experience that compares.
Sounds like bliss. Not just the end result, the process as well. I think that’s what people who haven’t gone down the audio highway don’t understand. The constant tweaking and adjusting is sometimes a very cathartic experience. You really do get to enjoy the fruits of your labour like very few other endeavours.
Well, for my wife and me, like the featured couple, we moved here to Cascais, where we have leased a 3 bedroom apartment. (We moved from Seattle, not L.A., but most of the dynamics are the same.) The concerns that you raise have not happened to us.We have plenty and frequent meetups with our friends back in the U.S. via Facetime/Zoom/Signal. No, it's not the same as being together in person, but it is "good enough"; we all enjoy ourselves. And, our niece and her husband live in the U.K.; they popped over last weekend, where we got together for dinner in Lisbon, and had a great time, in our native language...
A large percentage of the Portuguese people speak and understand some English, and nearly all people under 30 speak English fluently. And no one, ever, has been anything but delighted when we (try to) speak in Portuguese. They are very patient, really want to help us learn their language, and are fine with translation apps.
I suppose you could see all of the tourist attractions in Lisbon in a (long) weekend, but living here lets you see so much more; it is a culturally rich and interesting country. As for cultural attachments, I guess I'm not sure what that means; but if it means "people and places being the way I am used to", then I respond that for us, it is fascinating and fun to see how other people and places are; seeing what other ways of doing and thinking are possible. It is an adjustment, definitely, and it may not be for you.
It is true that rent prices in Cascais are higher than we had hoped they would be, but they are still significantly lower than what they are in Seattle. Our apartment here is at least half as expensive as it would be in Seattle. And groceries, utilities (including 1Gbs internet), restaurants, consumer goods (e.g. clothes) are dramatically less expensive, as well.
And finally: Yes, it is SO MUCH safer here than in Seattle. The constant tension of looking over your shoulder is gone; you have no idea how heavy a mental weight that is until one day it is lifted.
If you have the math background (advanced calculus and vector algebra), then there is no better writer than David J. Griffiths. He is the only textbook author I have every encountered who remembers that a textbook is, first and foremost, a book; and that a book is meant to be an enjoyable read!
(I'm linking to Wikipedia rather than to the publisher's website, so that you can read about the books. All of them are available on the used market, and in electronic format.)
If you don't have a strong math background, then his "Revolutions in 20th Century Physics" is a slim, but packed book, also excellent. It covers (conceptually) both special relativity and quantum mechanics, along with a healthy dose of particle physics. The target audience for this book are non-science majors. https://books.google.com/books?id=Tv8cz-kN2z0C&redir_esc=y
That strategy was less effective for calls where the patient was declared dead on scene, and so no treatment was possible. I still remember each of those calls. Fortunately, I was never traumatized by them, in a PTSD sense. Rather, I learned the lesson of realizing how easily I, or one of my loved ones, can simply disappear one day; so I learned to make sure they all know that I love them, and to not take their presence in my life for granted.