TED

One of my favorite discoveries recently is www.ted.com.  This sight posts videos of short talks and performances by the top scientists and artists in the world.  I especially loved the talks by Bonnie Bassler, Pattie Maes, Dan Arlie, Sean Gourley, Peter Donnelly, and Nate Silver.

My Job

Many people ask me "How is your job going?" or "Do you like your job?" ever since I moved from Arizona State to Montana State.  I don't know the answer to these question so I usually just mumble something like "good".  The short answer to the question is I absolutely love my job, but it often keeps me awake at night, and I don't think this is a contradiction.  The job is very complex and diverse since it is a combination of teaching, research, meetings, community service, councilor, and cheerleader.  I absolutely love lecturing and teaching.  I love it when a student working in my lab solves a problem.  I work with a wonderful group of colleagues and I have the best department head in the world so the meetings part of my job is enjoyable.  The hard parts are getting proposals rejected and seeing students fail even though they are trying hard.  Those are the parts that keep me awake at night.  On balance, I have the best job in the world and I hope I can do it forever.  I also hope I can sleep tonight since I should be getting a proposal review back soon.

Fixing the Airlines

I had a rough travel experience last week due to a combination of bad weather and bad customer service.  It  got me thinking about how to improve the customer service delivered by the airlines.  I've interacted with a few 100 airline personnel over the past 10 years, and 98% of the time they have given me outstanding (seriously, outstanding) help.  However, many of us have also encountered the rare helpless (or worse) airline employee, and unlikely a bad employee at Starbucks, this bad employee can really ruin our week, not just our coffee.  For example, I arrived at the airport an hour before my flight and the kiosk wouldn't print my ticket.   I picked up the phone, as instructed by the kiosk, and the person on the other end was not only completely helpless (costing me at least 10 valuable minutes), but she sent me in the wrong direction.  Thus one person ruined my day, and caused half a dozen co-workers  to have to make up for her failure.  This is simply unacceptable.  The airlines NEED to find a way to identify employees that cannot or will not help customers and get rid of them.  In many cases this is impossible because there is no record of the customer interacting with the employee, but, in my case, there should be a record of the call and a record of non-help.  They can take the money they save by not paying worthless employees, and give bonuses to the top 2% or top 5% of employees --- you know, the ones that FIX your problem.

Grey's New Mojo

In 2006 I wrote the following about Grey's Anatomy in my previous blog:

"The only other show I watch regularly, Grey's Anatomy, started out as an interesting show that explored the experiences of young doctors going through their internships. I've always found the psychological, emotional, and physical impact of the medical internship to be fascinating after reading Robin Cook's excellent "Year of the Intern", which basically argued that the workload and stress experienced by medical interns may not be the best way to train someone to be a doctor. Since the first season, however, Grey's Anatomy has descended into a soap opera that explores only a few medical/internship issues and now explores having affairs….how pathetic."

Grey's Anatomy soap opera continued for 2007 and 2008, but, for unknown reasons, the show has returned to its roots and been amazing this year. Welcome back and congratulations.

The Death of the Newspaper

Bill Simmons and Chuck Klosterman had an interesting podcast this week in which they argue about the rise of the internet and the death of the newspaper.  Klosterman identifies the loss of advertising revenue to Google, Craigslist, etc. as the cause.  This was, of course, one of the major factors.  Simmons argues that it is the low quality of writing in newspapers compared to the best options available on the internet.  For example, on the internet I can read about sports as  written by the 3 or 4 best sports writers in the country.  In my local newspaper, I can read about sports as written about by the 498th best sports writer.  (And, yes, on the internet I can read about sports as written by the 1 billionth best sports writer.)  Simmons also identified a major factor in the downfall of the local paper.

I think, however, that they missed a third major factor in their debate -- the  flattening of the world.  By 'flattening' I mean that we care more about our country and world and less about our local town than  people used to...relatively speaking.  For example, my Dad loves to go to the local coffee shop (cafe) and catch up on the local news (i.e., gossip).  I love to go to the local coffee shop (Starbucks) and read magazines.  We, and by 'we' I mean generation X and younger, care less about the local news that the newspaper has a monopoly on.  There you have it, Simmons', Klosterman's, and Heys' theories on the downfall of the newspaper.

Finally, a book review for the road....I loved "Same Kind of Different As Me".  I learned more from an illiterate cotton picker from Louisiana than I have from any PhD.

Review: Dell Mini 12

Here's a partial list of computers I've used for at least 100 hours:

PC jr, Apple IIc+, some 386sx, some Pentium I, Compaq laptop (Pentium), HP laptop (Pentium III), Mac clone, Gateway Pentium III desktop, Mac iBook (the white one), Dell Inspiron 610 laptop, Dell Inspiron 530 laptop, Dell Desktop (dual Xeon chips), Dell Latitude notebook, ASUS eee, and probably 3 or 4 others I'm forgetting.  My point is, that I've used a ton of computers with a ton of different operating systems including DOS 4, every flavor of windows including 3.0, Mac OS, Mac OSX, Linux 2.4 and 2.6 (RedHat, Ubuntu, Fedora, and CentOS).  However, my favorite computer is the one I'm typing this blog post on ... my new Dell mini 12.  Here's what I love...the screen is just big enough at 12", the keyboard is just big enough since most of the keys are full size, the hard drive is just big enough at 60GB, and the processor seems to be fast enough...but the best two numbers are the price (less than $500) and the weight (less than 3lbs)...I LOVE those two numbers!!!

I've only used the computer for three days now (so I'll post a longer review in a couple months), but here's what I've found:

(1) While I wouldn't want to work on the computer for 8 hours straight (you'll still want a desktop or full feature laptop for that), I can easily work for 3-4 hours without being annoyed with the screen, keyboard, or speed.

(2) The new Intel Atom processor is okay -- you do not want to try running three applications at once (it has only a single core), but the speed is generally not an issue.  I watched Daytona 500 highlights on ESPN.com, and they were a little choppy, but still acceptable, and that was the processors biggest problem. 

(3) The bloated software known as MS Office seems to run just fine on the computer.  I've editted some big Word documents and powerpoint presentations without a problem.

I plan to add an SD memory card to help speed up access to big files, but the computer is generally just awsome.  I love saving my shoulder and only paying $450.  Seriously, I may just buy a new Dell mini every 18-24 months and never again by an expensive laptop that weighs a ton.

Book Review: Panic by Michael Lewis

First, this book is EDITTED by Michael Lewis, not written by him!  You think they could put that a little more clearly on the cover?  Any way, this book is a series of articles/essays about various financial collapses begining with the Wall Street collapse in 1987.  The major crashes covered are 1987, east asia (late 1990's), tech bubble in 1999-2000, and the subprime mortgage collapse in 2007-2008.  I enjoyed the book and felt like I learned a lot about topics such as currency exchanges, hedge funds, and CDO's.  I think reading about previous crashes really helps provide valuable perspective for the current economic situation.  The best essay in the book was a hillarious tongue-in-cheek article by Dave Berry. All the people waiting at gate C71 in the Salt Lake Airport think I'm insane because I was almost rolling on the floor I was laughing so hard while reading this article.  I wish the book was a little shorter, but I'd still recommend it (especially since all the proceeds are going to help rebuild New Orleans).

Reading a finance book has me thinking about the future.  Econimists nearly unanimiously agree that inflation is coming because the US government is printing money.  This means any money you have in the bank will shrink in value (be worth less), and any debt you have will shrink relative to its previous size (although most debt will still be bad).  So, how should we act if we know inflation is coming.  Clearly, we don't want too much money in the bank, and we would really like to exchange any dollars we do have for some other asset that will hold its value better.  I'd be reluctant to exchange dollars for Euro's since Europe will probably have a similar inflation problem.  One possible asset is real estate.  It is really cheap at the moment, and you can lock in debt at historically low interest rates.  What's the down-side here?  The only real downside is that real estate could continue to fall in value so it may be wise to wait another 3-6 months to ensure that we are at/near the bottom, but, other than that, what's the down-side?  With all the forclosures out there, there will be millions of people that can only rent for the next few years so finding renters shouldn't be a problem.  Alas, while this sounds like a good plan to me, I have neither the resources or desire to follow my plan.  In five years we'll know if I guessed right or was just crazy.