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| Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there.
Reading one article, it seems as though Mom's should earn about $134K a year just for being a mom - of course there may be some methodological issues (see here) - but the point is that since going through labor to bring you into the world, a mother has worked hard to get you to where you are now, so show some r.e.s.p.e.c.t. I'll be going to dinner with my mom tonight, and it will be her night.
Meanwhile, she's been helping my sister make heads or tails out of Modern Algebra, which my sister isn't handling so well. Given that my mother has a master's in math and my father is an astrophysicist, I often wonder why it is that my sister and I have chosen less mathematically intensively fields? I blame Windward - for while that excellent school helped me immensely - the artsy fartsy folks that wandered the halls (we called them teachers  ) certainly didn't drill us in mathematics all the time. Oh, and the guy who came to school dressed in a gorilla suit and played harmonics in the bathroom was actually revered, not ridiculed. This might give a taste of where my grab bag personality was formed... emphasis on the *might* of course.
Anyway, I've had a pretty good weekend. Yesterday I helped out a gaggle of young kids in a self-defense seminar we had at the dojang. It was invigorating to think that perhaps by my actions, a potential tragedy was avoided. I wish that we lived in a world where such tragedies never happened - a world where Megan's law was unnecessary - but we don't. The fact that there are people out there who actually do stuff like this is dispicable... having just heard the story behind Megan's law yesterday.
After that, I bought a new leather jacket! It looks similar to that one worn by T. Cruise in MI3, and I was getting a number of compliments on it. Of course, the price tag wasn't great - a few hundred pretty pennies (oh and have you heard that it costs the US 1.4 cents to create 1 penny?!) but this is something I've actually needed to complete my weekly uniform cycle. Without such a jacket, I had little to wear on casual Fridays on top of my jeans, loafers, and polo shirts that I always wear... keeping the clothes cycle consistent takes out trouble from my day.
Lastly, I went surfing today in Manhattan beach with Ken. Caught a few waves on Ken's long board, with his valuable instructions, and consumed a lot of sea water. Of course, Ken's instructions - I found out later - involved him telling me to ride the biggest waves he could see, but what do I know? We also saw dolphins riding the waves, pelican's fishing, and other waterfowl returning north for the summer. Surfing, it seems, is really free. Plus, with all that sea life, who needs Sea World? Afterwards, I was driving home and completely missed my turnoff due to my sense of euphoria. The only trouble is that I can barely lift my arms at the moment, and when I went to eat lunch after a shower and brief rest, I tilted down and got a shot of sea water down my throat. I couldn't help but think that if there is sea water in my sinuses, what else is in there? 
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| So, I went to RAND on Friday to check out their graduate school in policy analysis. Dale Stahl, a Stanford Grad who works at RAND graciously offerred to show me around - got to hit up those HYPS mixers more often - and I certainly learned a ton.
The most unfortunate thing I learned was what will happen to my livelihood when I go to grad school. More precisely, I'd be working my tail off for the paltry sum of $17K after taxes. That's not a lot of cream for my coffee. That is, of course, assuming I can afford coffee! Of course it would be an investment in my future, and I also realize that having any income during grad school beats the heck out of professional schools (can you say $100K debt after b-school?) but I don't think policy PhDs make doctor's salaries. Depends on the PhD, of course, but we're not going into investment banking.
However, I did learn that the work going on there can be quite exciting (objective analysis and effective solutions) but perhaps I'm just buying into the company line too much. It will be a place I apply - and I will be going back to explore the place some more - but it *could* work for me. | | |
| A recent op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times by Peter Hong suggested that Harvard should be made free to all students. With $23 billion in endowment, giving each student of ~ 6000 students his $40K tuition for free would cost about $250 million, or a little more than 1% of the endowment.
I like the idea (even if it is giving a break to wealthy families as well), because as the article stated, it would send a message to many institutions with almost as much money as God (the Harvard endowment is the largest non-profit endowment in the world second only to the Catholic Church). I like it even more, however, because kids at Harvard would then know that they only reason they got in was because they were the best, and not because other kids were better but couldn't afford to apply.
Of course, the real problem is that getting into Harvard takes a lot of hard work and opportunity (I seem to recall having these) and given the public school system we have, opportunity is certainly lacking and it takes hard work just to get up to catch the 5AM bus in the morning, let alone studying.
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| I've finished this tome of a book, and I must say that I've taken away quite a lot from it. I believe I will have to ease into this one - since I am working currently on some pretty substantial projects here that require attention. Still, some take away points:
1. While the environment could be much better, we have to consider trends in data, particularly the human condition which has drastically improved. For instance, people today all around the world are healthier, wealthier, and better fed than ever before. True, the developing world still needs a lot of help, but lifespans have improved globally even in poor countries. To paraphrase a fun quote, we are facing a population explosion not because we are breeding like rabbits, but because we are no longer dying like flies.
2. It is important to consider the facts about the things we fear in the environment, as many of our environmental fears are only of marginal concern. For instance, if we were to ban pesticide use entirely, the price of fruits and vegetables would sore due to limited supply. While this would prevent a few deaths due to pesticides, it would cause far more deaths due to cancer as increased fruit and vegetable consumption is an excellent way to prevent cancer.
3. There is still a lot of uncertainty regarding pending problems such as global warming where current models predict from a 1.5 to 5.5 degree global temperature rise. This huge margin of error translates to hundreds of billions of dollars of range in potential damages. Therefore, while agreements like the Kyoto protocol may have many potential benefits, we should not grind our economy to a halt trying to avert a disaster when it has also been shown that improving the human condition is far better for the environment than limiting carbon output is predicted to be.
Anyway, these are some of the many points raised in this work. It is clear that we need to take a serious look at our environmental problems based on rational research. While I don't really agree with a lot said in this book, I also am now aware that we have a lot of people screaming at us about problems that are cooked up. Before we get too scared, we need to think critically about the best way to approach our problems given limited funds. | | |
| Finished For Whom the Bell Tolls...
This was a fantastic book. Spain calls after reading it. Also, I think it captures the lunacy of the Spanish civil war. What was the Republic? Who were the facists? For the most part, it was farmer killing farmer. And when a horse lands on your leg, what difference does it make whether you're fascist or republican? You just want to take some of the guys who did it to you with you.
Anyway, on to my next book. I've got 4 lined up, but I'm think of cracking the cover on this book called the Skeptical Environmentalist. Dad says its a pretty right leaning environmental book. It could prove interesting. I'm excited (if I can just squeeze it into everything else that's going on with me)!
Ah... I need to prioritize what I'm doing with myself. I'll never get ahead if I don't. | | |
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