The idea of last words is funny to me, because the whole notion of “last words” suggests they matter. Which they don’t, of course, but this hope we carry that there will be some wisdom or some insight at the last moment, other than “Oh, fuck it, fuck this fucking shit” is so sadly human, I just love it. — Shalom Auslander Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. — Walter Anderson
Cat and Dog
Underrepresented Minorities in the UC
The University of California is prohibited by law from considering race in the admissions process, but they are allowed to identify certain ethnic groups as “underrepresented minorities.” Here are some freshman enrollment numbers at UC Berkeley for Fall 2011. The first four groups on the list are considered underrepresented; the others aren’t. Ethnicity 2011 Fall African American/Black 130 Mexican American/Chicano 325 Other Hispanic/Latino 150 Native American/Alaskan Native 33 Pacific Islander 11 Chinese 936 Filipino 108 Japanese 68 Korean 250 Other Asian 45 South Asian 324 Vietnamese 142 Read more →
“Keep it Simple,” Nobel Prize Winner Advises
I soon was taught that [Linus] Pauling’s accomplishment was a product of common sense, not the result of complicated mathematical reasoning. Equations occasionally crept into his argument, but in most cases words would have sufficed. The key to Linus’ success was his reliance on the simple laws of structural chemistry. The \(\alpha\)-helix had not been found by only staring at X-ray pictures; the essential trick, instead, was to ask which atoms like to sit next to each other. In place of pencil and paper, the main working tools were a set of molecular models superficially resembling the toys of preschool children. We could thus see no reason why we should not solve DNA in the same way. All we had to do was to construct a set of molecular models and begin to play — with luck, the structure would be a helix. Any other type of configuration would be… Read more →
Chinese Parents vs Western Parents
Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, “You’re lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you.” By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they’re not disappointed about how their kids turned out. — Amy Chua, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother Read more →
Don’t Check Asian
Asian kids are putting a different race on their college applications to boost their chances of getting into the top schools. Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white. — Some Asians’ college strategy: Don’t check ‘Asian’ – Yahoo! News That’s a rather modest strategy. Identifying yourself as white does give you a little bit of a boost but to really improve the odds, I’d advise everyone to go ahead and check the Black or Hispanic box. Or Eskimo. Eskimos are kind of Asian-looking. Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it’s 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have… Read more →
Indonesian Kids Appreciate the Value of Education
The conventional wisdom in America is that you have to be rich to get a good primary education. The real problem is that American kids will not cross a collapsed suspension bridge to get to their school on the other side of the river, like Indonesian kids will . . . Read more →
My Favorite Poem
Five little monkeys jumping on the bed. One fell off and bumped his head. Mama called the Doctor and the Doctor said, “No more monkeys jumping on the bed!” Read more →
Theories Have Four Stages of Acceptance
Theories have four stages of acceptance: i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; iv) I always said so. — J. B. S. Haldane Read more →
Johnny Otis, 1921-2012
Overheard in the Men’s Room
Overheard
Aside
I’m abandoning the notion of moral certainty and replacing it with statistical significance . . .
UCLA 66, USC 47
After this debacle of a basketball game, my son, a college freshman, says to me, “I should have gone to USC. I could probably walk on to basketball and make the team.” “Are you kidding? You could probably walk on and start,” I said. Read more →
The Unmistakable Mark of the Moron
We had a vendor rep stop by the office this morning . . . The first thing he told me was, “I got a workout in this morning before I came over. Great way to start the day!” Really? How does that information solve any of the problems we’re having with your software? How does it alter my planned activities for the day? You are not a serious person. The unmistakable mark of the moron is he (or she) tells you about his workout schedule, especially if he has just worked out or is just about to work out. Read more →
Aside
Keep the damn mouthguard IN your mouth, will ya?
Cat and Dog
You Can Make It If You Try
“It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much [economic] mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.” — Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs – NYTimes.com I’ll argue with it . . . the fact that people are not doing something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a hard thing to do. Maybe people aren’t trying to do it. Maybe people don’t want to do it. From Daniel Kahneman‘s Thinking, Fast and Slow: A large-scale study of the impact of higher education . . . revealed striking evidence of the lifelong effects of the goals that young people set for themselves. The relevant data were drawn from questionnaires collected in 1995-1997 from approximately 12,000 people who had started their higher education in elite schools in… Read more →
May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free from suffering.