"Newly engaged couples don't lack for information. Racks of glossy magazines, checklist-filled books and a huge array of Web sites are at the ready, waiting to guide them through every step of the wedding planning process. No detail is too trivial for obsession -- what kind of stamps to use for invitations, how place cards should be arranged at the reception, which bridesmaids should get fancier bouquets than the rest. For our weddings, we are hyper-prepared. But for marriage? Often, not so much." (HT)
They found that the highest unemployment rates amongst new graduates were those who have computer sciences degrees. ... and, of course, other places are showing this as one of the most employable degrees. Got to love the level of consensus.
"For years, educators have thought the strongest predictor of attaining high levels of education was having parents who were highly educated. But, strikingly, this massive study showed that the difference between being raised in a bookless home compared to being raised in a home with a 500-book library has as great an effect on the level of education a child will attain as having parents who are barely literate (3 years of education) compared to having parents who have a university education (15 or 16 years of education)."
Where do you think the real estate market is going to turn in the next few years? This site argues that Canada is in for a crash in that particular side of the market.
"The Miami City Commission is considering a proposal that would prohibit "unauthorized" people and groups from sharing food with homeless people in the downtown area." ... got to love how the government works to help the homeless. I suspect that you'd probably be better off handing out food than money. Actually, for about a year I tried a policy of offering to buy folks a meal at a nearby restaurant when approached by beggers. Never did get any takers on that.
"Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling. ... Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward." The article gets into what can be done about it.
The article notes a professor at Ohio University who calls this the "country-clubization of the American university." I feel somewhat included to agree. The article notes that while spending increased pretty rapidly on both instruction and other things at university, the rate of increase in spending on student services and the like was about 50% higher than on instructional-related expenses.
"If we maintain this balance, we will get criticism. In another sermon, Lloyd-Jones makes a rare observation about his own reputation. He was considered by the mainstream British listener to be highly doctrinal and orthodox, but many in more conservative churches felt he put too much emphasis on human experience. He responded: 'It seems to me that we have a right to be fairly happy about ourselves as long as we have criticism from both sides... For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to begin to examine the very foundations.'"
The construction of a Boeing 777-300ER in 3 minutes.
I've flown on British Airways 2 of the past 3 years, and kinda like the airline. However, I guess that my sister can now claim to have been the most recent to get on one of their planes.
