I just moved from San Francisco to Nashville, TN last week. For me, it was a combination of the cost of living and lack of family in the area. I'll always miss San Francisco, but our rent has halved, our square footage has doubled, and I no longer pay state income taxes. I'm still doing interesting work (remotely) for the same company, so I can't complain!
Genius is a dynamic thing rendered via the lens of social value.
If scientific progress is our goal, then I would argue that forming cliques around a clique-governed definition of "most likely to elicit genius" is not only wrong, but dangerous. Heuristics can be ugly things.
Also, MENSA reminds me of church. Church is boring.
My intuition tells me that neuroplasticity is largely driven by genetics. Outliers in this space are likely caused by mutations related to neurofibromatosis. I also imagine that there is a huge memory component in some of these variants (for example, a person who can learn quickly but also forgets quickly).
Yup. Issues with docker on osx caused me to move to a debian VM 6 or 7 months ago (that I ssh into from iterm). The main reason I still use it is because it would take several hours to transition back to osx.
For me, the scenarios mentioned are too improbable to justify that amount of tinkering. If you need what that gives you (portability etc), it would not be a terrible way to go about it. You could also look into amazon workspaces or vagrant.
I'm not religious now, but grew up in an extremely religious (southern baptist) household. When I was young, my mother, family, and friends told me stories of demons and demonic possession -- and I was terrified. I sometimes prayed myself to sleep. As I grew older (into my teens), this fear was replaced with an unencouraged, autonomic disinterest in Christianity.
In short, my experiences have taught me that some people are not wired for religion. Perhaps some of those disinterested folk find it more advantageous to say "possessed by demons" than "not otherwise specified."
There have been aliens -- and they don't care about us.
To assume that a collection of beings which have obtained the ability to travel amongst the stars would focus their attention on a single species on a single planet is fundamentally selfish.
What resources does our earth contain that are not (more easily) obtainable elsewhere? If Drake's equation "holds", then what novelty do _we_ provide?
You should definitely give up on the position. Do you honestly want to work for a company who doesn't even respect candidates enough to give them an eval?
So, you went on a few dates and now you want a relationship? In life that might be reasonable, but companies (as a general rule) have no sense of loyalty. They don't owe you anything. You should have no expectations until you start the job. You can up your expectations (of stability) every 6 months thereafter.
So, I'd suggest applying for more jobs. Try not to fall in love with a position before you get it. Instead, fall in love with what you're doing in Software Engineering. There will be a number of positions that will give you work that you find interesting. If you like the work and like the people, then fall in love with the position.
Edit: Also, you should be looking for bad smells (this isn't necessarily one) when you're interviewing. A better example would be: "Send us your resume in .doc format. .doc only"
There was recent speculation that alzheimer's was transmissible (prion thing). The transmissibility would make sense if it were actually the fungi causing the build up of the proteins and other damage.