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"When we drive to the store, when we shop for groceries, at work, at home. We've memorized our lives so well we no longer think about what we do, we just naturally do it on auto-pilot and our minds start to "idle" a lot more that usual."

I like this because it reinforces my belief that time moves subjectively slower in the immediate period following significant environmental changes. The first few days of a vacation, for example, pass very slowly in my mind but the longer you remain on vacation the faster the days go by. Same goes for the first few days of college classes, or the days following a relocation to a new area.

I disagree with the original article because the rate of the passage of time seems to correspond more with the amount of new stimuli we experience, which (in most cases) just so happens to become less with age.


I'm glad to hear that. I'm entering my senior year of Economics and I didn't discover that I enjoyed programming until I took an introductory C++ course last semester. The other day I found myself worrying that I had already missed out on my chance, since I can't currently afford any additional semesters.

I'd like to return to study computer science some day, and in the meantime I'm just doing the best I can to learn on my own.


I also studied economics in college, but now program professionally, largely due to my experience at at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. If you are still looking for work after college, and I assume you are, I recommend you check out their Research Assistant program.

http://federalreserve.gov/careers/ra.htm

For me it was a great way to parlay my economics training into a programming career, even though that wasn't what I was interested in at the time. It's also a great career stepping stone if you're interested in graduate education (not necessarily econ), government work, policy work, law, or myriad other fields. If you want more info, let me know and we can talk offline.


Thank you. I imagine such a position would be very competitive.

I'd definitely be interested in hearing more about your application process, how prepared you felt you were based on coursework, and of course what the job was actually like.


Sure, send me an email at douglasrohde at gmail, I can certainly answer those questions.


Holy Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. I ordered 8 GB of RAM for my HP laptop last night and spent well over two hours reading about this exact subject to see if I needed to install Windows 64-bit when it arrives. I think I even stumbled upon this same page.

That being said, I still don't fully understand; Once I install the new RAM, will I only receive the benefits if I perform a new 64-bit install of Windows 7, or will upgrading just amplify the benefits? (I currently have 3 GB in 1 GB + 2 GB as the default factory configuration.)

Sorry if this question is dense of me, but my field is economics and the more technical aspects of HN are often lost on me


> Once I install the new RAM, will I only receive the benefits if I perform a new 64-bit install of Windows 7

That is correct, the alternative is to use a ($1000+) Server edition, some of which do give access to >4GB in 32b.

If you put 8GB RAM in a laptop running a 32b non-server Windows, you'll simply see 4GB.

You may see very small improvements nonetheless due to dual-channel activating (when pairing identical sticks of RAM, the CPU is able to "talk" to both at the same time rather than one at a time, doubling bandwidth), but I rather doubt it. The gains are usually insignificant. And you won't get any gains from actually increasing the amount of RAM in the machine.


Thanks!


You need to install 64-bit Windows to use anything beyond ~3.5GB of RAM.


This is not true. Did you read the answers? 32-bit OSs with PAE support can use all the RAM. Most processes will only be able to use 4GB, but that's per process, not for the whole system.

So AD1066 doesn't need a 64-bit Windows, just any 32-bit Windows newer than XP.


> So AD1066 doesn't need a 64-bit Windows, just any 32-bit Windows newer than XP.

No. Non-server 32b Windows will never give access to more than 4GB RAM to the user unless you patch the kernel. XP 32b, Vista 32b and 7 32b — including Ultimate for the latter 2 — all restrict "available physical memory" to 4GB in all situations. So do many server editions as well, for Windows Server 2008 x86 for instance, only the Enterprise and Datacenter editions will give access to more than 4GB RAM (up to 64).

A 2008 Enterprise license is ~$1500. I doubt ad1066 has any desire to pay such a price.


Yea, although there appear ways around it though hackery, for all intents and purposes, you need a 64bit OS to take advantage of the extra memory.


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