I’m pretty fundamentally a “staycation” guy, at heart, but this song makes me want to hop on a plane. My favorite part of the song is the “A thousand stairs up the Pompadou/We were gasping at the view” rhyme. That just makes me smile.
Going anywhere this summer? Talk about it here. Or, heck, just use it as an open thread.
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
Thanks to your generosity, we were able to upgrade our service plan. Hopefully this will help us address some of our performance issues.
on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyIn the abortion debate, the hardcore pro-lifers tend to make an argument that takes the form "aborti… on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyBecause it's not a utilitarian argument, and it hasn't been for a while. (Additionally, the "unknown…
on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyThat's missing the point of the comment. I'm personally against the death penalty because, among oth…
on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death Penalty"In practical terms" you have lost the pro-death penalty argument long ago. On the relatively rare o… on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyYears upon years on death row post sentencing, unknown piles of money and effort spent on appeal aft…
on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyIt's also very interesting the crazy spectrum that exists there. Anthony Battle raped one person and…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024Trump is apparently going on again about reclaiming the Panama Canal and Greenland for the United St…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/23/2024What does it mean? Probably not much. If it "made sense" to this guy to set a stranger on fire he is… on Joe Biden Agrees that Some People *DO* Deserve the Death PenaltyIn practical terms, which are the only ones that matter here, yes. on From Tablet Mag: Rapid-Onset Political EnlightenmentFar right edge? You didn't accuse them of being "wrong" but of being "far right". But, you clarified…
Even on Christmas Somebody is Always Taking the Joy Out of Life
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Youngsters Make Merry at Evanston Country Club Christmas Party
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Re: STEM majors from the symposium a while back, everybody should take a look at Freddie’s post here, citing a cool study debunking the claim that we need more STEM majors:
http://lhote.blogspot.com/2013/04/hate-to-say-i-told-you-so.html
Am interested to hear what people think about the study.Report
Cutting and pasting:
The flow of U.S. students (citizens and permanent residents) into STEM fields has been strong over the past decade, and the number of U.S. graduates with STEM majors appears to be responsive to changes in employment levels and wages.
For every two students that U.S. colleges graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job.
In computer and information science and in engineering, U.S. colleges graduate 50 percent more students than are hired into those fields each year; of the computer science graduates not entering the IT workforce, 32 percent say it is because IT jobs are unavailable, and 53 percent say they found better job opportunities outside of IT occupations. These responses suggest that the supply of graduates is substantially larger than the demand for them in industry.
Is there an apples to apples comparison to the numbers for Liberal Arts? I mean:
For every X students that U.S. colleges graduate with Liberal Arts degrees, only Y is hired into a Liberal Arts job.
What’s X? What’s Y?
From what I understand, there are more people who graduate every year with a journalism degree than there are existing jobs in the industry. (Not open jobs, mind! Existing jobs!)
If you’ve got a 50% change to get a job in your career field when people from Liberal Arts degrees have a 7% chance to get a job in their own, 50% starts to look pretty sweet.
(Of course, as someone with a degree in philosophy, it is impossible for me to get a job in anything but my field.)Report
Is Burger King a STEM job? You do have to make change.Report
I saw that. Even tagged it, I think, for a future Linky Friday or a standalone post.
I think it’s mostly right. But I think the question of whether or not they specifically go into their STEM field is secondary to whether or not they get a good job, with a good income, and so on. If a STEM degree prepares you for a career in finance, business, or whatever, I’d still consider it worthwhile.
Three caveats:
1) Of course, STEM degrees include a number of fields. Some more indicative of future earning than others. As always, they should not be treated equally.
2) Self-sorting may account for some of the earning potential of STEM grads. Essentially, the same “Rush Stamp” argument I used for college in general (signalling power, etc.). So if everyone got a STEM degree, it’d be similar to my concerns about “everyone should get a college degree.” I’d put it in a different category, though, because STEM degrees are self-limiting in the way “a college degree” is not.
3) The fact that there isn’t a shortage, if this is right, seems rather tied to the large volume of talent we import. So even then, we still aren’t making enough. We’re just importing the difference. Which is fine, but worth noting.Report
I think the post suggests that we are making enough homegrown STEM talent and we import some, so we have more than we need.
I think the idea is that STEM degrees don’t prepare you for non-STEM jobs more than liberal arts degrees. That isl STEM degrees are good, but we don’t gain much or anything economically or in terms of employment or future earnings by pushing more people into STEM degrees.Report
It actually doesn’t tell us all that much about future earnings. That’s in the data presented previously. Some STEM majors don’t do so well, but a lot do quite well.
There’s a difference between what society gains by pushing lots of people into STEM degrees and whether or not an individual should do it. It’s the same argument I apply to college in general (I’m encouraging my kid to go, but unlike you I don’t see societal gains by sending most or all kids to college).
If society doesn’t have that much to gain by having more STEM types, we should re-evaluate why we are importing so many. Honestly, I could go either way on this.
But from an individual standpoint, see above: it tells us more about whether or not they get a career in STEM, not what they’re future earnings look like. It could just be the Rush Stamp. Either way, though, I’m going to encourage engineering over US History.Report
1) wages remaining flat is a good thing, as compared to other fields
2) all those wall street people who have a physics degree? Or, hell, are in medicine being “systems analysts”? They’re still getting better pay than nurses.Report
Well, we decided not to move.
Great job with awesome company. Three-digit salary, and they offered an additional $10,000/year plus $5,000 moving expenses when we expressed concerns about rent prices in the neighborhood.
But it meant moving back to the city. Leaving my beloved mountains in Western Maine; the place where I feel rooted. I just couldn’t do it.
I’ve wept all morning at what my husband has given up for me. He loves me very much. I need to be a better spouse to be worthy.
But in celebration, I post my first link ever to a cat photo. (I admit to posting a video the other day, so maybe it’s number two?)
Cats in fashionable knitwear do make me very happy.Report
Well, at least this way, there’s an off-chance we’ll end up in your neck of the woods. That would have been a lot more unlikely had you moved to that other place.Report
Some region you might be considering?Report
Cats in fashionable knitwear raise warranted alarms with me. My husband’s good friend got sent to the hospital after having the temerity to dress his cat in a bumblebee costume for Halloween. You’d think he’d know better.
In response, I shall post a different friend of a friend:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqbg6SihiYY
(They appear to have found a park whose cops won’t chase them out on sight — or perhaps more correctly, on hearing).Report
Also, if your husband is ever looking for “work from home” work, there’s always work to be had in the video game industry. They can’t seem to find (or keep) good musicians.Report
Kimmi, he’s not ‘looking,’ work came looking for him because of the work he already does in the software industry that supplies musicians with tools to make digitized music.
He’d rather play the sax and piano and compose on the spot in front of a live audience with a small combo of other skilled players. But the market suggests that that kind of extraordinary talent is of little value. A jazz musician is someone who puts a $5,000 instrument in a $500 car to drive 50 miles for a $5 gig.
I think if I suggested he take a gig making music for video games, he’d divorce me. But thank you, it’s a suggestion my children might find interesting.Report