One day during college, my engineering friends, Brad, Carter and I, joked about how difficult it is to be average. The conversation sounded like this. “That guy is incredibly average.” “Yeah, what are the odds of being the exact average person? “Astronomically low really. What an amazing feat.” “Truly an extraordinary accomplishment! His parents should be so proud.” “I wish I could be that...
When Sofie and I first married (1994), I was a graduate student at Pennsylvania State University working on my Master’s degree in acoustical engineering. The first year of our marriage was my sixth year in university studies and the last push through student life, or so we thought at the time. Consequently, we were fully immersed in the character-building phase of the student lifestyle poor...
Like the rest of you, I’ve been thinking about auctions and auction theory because nothing pairs better with a beautiful weekend morning than considering the efficiency of asset pricing mechanisms and writing about it. I’m sure you’ll agree. (I asked ChatGPT to draw a picture to represent the opening sentence. This might be entirely too accurate… minus the suit and tie… and I’m not blue. But...
I have mentored high school students, college students and young adults for several decades, in several capacities. In doing so, I have observed recurring motifs related to the internal struggles faced by modern youth. Young people contend with a smorgasbord of issues. While each young person is unique, careful observation across several decades has revealed meta themes sustained across time...
Although launched less than two years ago, ChatGPT has made artificial intelligence accessible to the masses, transitioning AI from nerds-only tech to a mainstream audience. The extremely fast adoption of ChatGPT has ushered in a proliferation of additional large language models with real utility to businesses and individuals alike. According to ChatGPT itself, its top 10 use-cases are currently:...
The Fed announced a 50-basis point rate cut in September 2024. What does this mean? How is it done? Why was it done? What are the future implications? How should we think about this with regards to investing? These are the questions I aim to answer, perhaps controversially, in this article. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I’m talking about, and you should most definitely NOT make a financial or...
“Hey guys. Listen up. A plane has flown into the Trade Tower.” That’s all our trainer knew that morning. That’s all anyone knew at that moment. I had been working for Bear Stearns (London office) for about five months but we were in New York City for training during the infamous 9/11 attacks. “You might want to call your family and tell them you are OK. There’s a pay phone in the hallway. Class...
When our children were little, we replicated the time-honored tradition of putting the kids to bed each evening. Once the baby fell asleep, we would often close the door to attenuate household noises, especially the clamor of older siblings bustling about, lest we wake the baby. This brings us to a cardinal rule young parents learn quickly: Rule #1: Do NOT wake the baby. …especially late in the...
(An Introduction to Your Future Math Classes) An exceptional teacher is distinguished by a constellation of critical attributes. Among these include a mastery of the material, an innate desire to teach, a modicum of patience, a splash of pizzaz for entertainment, a creative approach to communicate concepts to various learning styles, an element of storytelling, and more. I had a professor in the...
When you work in groups, you can’t help but notice certain social dynamics within the group and between groups. Some groups are more serious. Some are more fun. Some groups are hyper efficient. Some take longer to get things done. Groups can do things that individuals can’t do alone. Consequently, at some point, most of us want to be part of a group, to share a collective aim with a collection of...
In 2012, I hired a Ukrainian web development firm. At the time, they had a dozen employees and offered an array of technical services my company needed. My initial project manager, Alexandra, was one of their company founders. She was ambitious, highly competent, and just as important, likable. As their company grew from 12 people to ~200 employees, Alexandra moved from project management for...
When I was little, I had an assortment of plastic toy animals – farm animals, a few dinosaurs, a giraffe, an elephant, and some others odd characters… the usual gang of creatures a young child might enjoy. And I did. This motley crew became the bedrock of an imaginary world that could occupy my mind and engross me in solitary play for extended periods. I don’t recall the various adventures my...
Numerous threats encompass a nation and a national psyche – some real, some existential, some external, some internal. In this post, I discuss a real internal threat, one of our own creation, completely under our control, but not under control – our national debt. Our nation’s enormous debt and persistent deficit spending significantly constrain our future economic options and form the...
“Should I go for 3-of-a-kind or the full-house?” I thought aloud. I was home from college for Christmas break. Between semesters. Final exams behind me. Eight family members gathered around the kitchen table to play Yahtzee (the dice game) at my grandparents’ house. I sat on the end of the table, closest to the door. To me, Yahtzee was an exercise in statistical probabilities mixed with pure...
Citizens often complain about taxes and government waste. If we suspected less of the latter, there might be less of the former. Yeah, maybe not. Anyway, in thinking about this, it occurred to me that while I have read summaries and commentaries on the U.S. Federal Budget, I had never read the Budget itself – the actual source document. To develop a more informed view, I read the Federal Budget...
This blog post has a purpose – to prompt young people to reflect on the qualities they aspire to find in a prospective life partner before they become entangled in love and feel they have found their future spouse. More than a decade ago, I meandered into an airport bookstore in Stockholm and, on a whim, purchased a book for my transatlantic flight. The book was titled Too Soon Old, Too Late...
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all the buzz lately, and rightly so. I suspect it’s a bigger deal than you think. AI isn’t just some fringe, hypothetical Star Trek tech for geeks and nerds to drool over. Not any longer. Prediction – AI technology will creep into every facet of modern culture and will completely transform vast industries such that we will not recognize them in 10 years, perhaps 5...
I bought a 50 lbs. bag of rice at Sam’s six months ago for $20. I know, that’s a lot of rice. But it was cheap! This week, I was shopping at Sam’s again and saw the same rice product, priced at $26 per bag. That’s 30% inflation over 6 months! How does this square with the reported 12-month Consumer Price Index inflation rate of 6.0% (9.5% for food)? See chart below. I discussed this, in part, in...
I needed to test a new microphone. So, just to have something to say for the audio test, I began discussing potential & kinetic energy as a analogy to life… a thought I have been contemplating for more than a decade. I expected the idea would eventually be a written blog post, but I thought the initial rambling in the video was decent, so I just kept talking… for nearly 10 minutes. A...
The U.S. Treasury (plus the Fed) holds a lot of gold. I was curious about this, so I looked into it… so you don’t have to. How Much is a Lot? The U.S. Treasury currently holds 261 million Fine Troy Ounces of Gold (261,498,926 to be exact). The book value for this gold is recorded as $11 billion. If you’re not familiar with accounting, book value is NOT market value. Dividing $11 billion by the...