Do you know the difference (in purpose) between managerial accounting and financial accounting? What about the difference between return on equity and rate of increase in stock price (assuming that the company is publicly traded)? Is the U.S. budget deficit more like an expense or a liability? How about the U.S. debt? In other words, learn basic accounting. (On Hacker News most participants have not.) Whole Foods and Apple are both very successful business. One has very high "variable cost" (or as the economists say, "marginal cost" or "cost at the margin") and consequently their marginal income or "profit margin" is much lower. Which one is it? If you own stock in some company, do you care more about its marginal income's being high or its return on equity's being high?

Each of these questions has an unambiguous answer that all accountants and informed businessmen will agree on.

I will be there!

I think I will be able to attend this one!

Can't wait to meet everyone tomorrow! Hopefully everyone is still planning on attending.

I will be there!

I also know a couple of people that aren't frequenters of LW that will likely attend.

I endorse the outlet-mall location and the time of Wed 5/4 7pm.

So it looks like we have enough interest to have a meetup, even before Alicorn/AdeleneDawner get their new place setup. So lets recommend some times/places and go from there.

mutterc mentioned Brier Creek. As he mentioned it is centrally located and has some good spots for meetups. Probably a good area for this first meetup. Alicorn mentioned some venues near her that could be used as well. Both of these seem like good ideas to me.

Scheduling for me: As I said in the original post, it is easier for me to attend during the week, but given 2 weeks advance notice I could meet up on the weekend as well.

Music theory: An Introduction to Tonal Theory by Peter Westergaard.

Comparing this book to others is almost unfair, because in a sense, this is the only book on its subject matter that has ever been written. Other books purporting to be on the same topic are really on another, wrong(er) topic that is properly regarded as superseded by this one.

However, it's definitely worth a few words about what the difference is. The approach of "traditional" texts such as Piston's Harmony is to come up with a historically-based taxonomy (and a rather awkward one, it must be said) of common musical tropes for the student to memorize. There is hardly so much as an attempt at non-fake explanation, and certainly no understanding of concepts like reductionism or explanatory parsimony. The best analogy I know would be trying to learn a language from a phrasebook instead of a grammar; it's a GLUT approach to musical structure.

(Why is this approach so popular? Because it doesn't require much abstract thought, and is easy to give students tests on.)

Not all books that follow this traditional line are quite as bad as Piston, but some are even worse. An example of not-quite-so-bad would be Aldwell and Schachter's Harmony and Voice Leading; an example of even-worse would be Kotska and Payne's Tonal Harmony, or pretty much anything you can find in a non-university bookstore (that isn't a reprint of some centuries-old classic like Fux).

Durham, here, right by Duke University, though I'll be moving to another part of the city early next year, with some luck.

I don't drive, but if we scare up a couple more people nearby and start a meetup group, it'd be worth taking a cab to, I bet.

(Located in North Carolina)

Hey, that makes two of us. Where about?