What
is the value of a college degree if it leaves you with few job prospects in a
tough economy and buried in debt?
College
(Un)bound asks the burning question on every prospective
student, parent, and new grad's mind. Student-loan debt in the United States
crossed the $1 trillion mark in 2011. To say that the cost of a four-year
college education is inflated on many campuses would be an understatement—and
that education bubble is about to burst.
Jeffrey
J. Selingo, editor at large for The Chronicle for Higher Education and senior fellow at Education Sector, argues that
America's higher education system is broken and that the great credential race
has transformed universities into big business. In the wake of the 2008
recession, colleges can no longer sell a degree at any price as the ticket to
success in life. Brand-name universities like Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and
Stanford will always find students and families willing to pay the sticker
price because of their institution's global prestige, influential alumni
networks, and considerable endowments. But the campuses that the vast majority
of Americans attend, where some students go into tens of thousands of dollars
in debt for degrees with little payoff, will need to adapt fast to the changing
job market and new technological breakthroughs.
As an
industry insider who has covered higher education for more than 15 years,
Selingo offers a critical examination of the current state of affairs and the
pressing issues faced by students and parents. He also seeks out institutions
like Arizona State University and the University of Central Florida that are
leading the way into the future. Selingo predicts that the class of 2020 will
have a college experience that is radically different from the one their
parents had, and the college of the future will be personalized, leaner, and
better able to arm students with the hard skills they need to enter the workforce
of tomorrow. College (Un)bound will be a great resource for prospective students, but
more important, it will change the way you think about higher education.
Note
More people and institutions chasing
more people and more dollars, demanding results that are less than assured.
Something’s gotta give. Doesn’t it?
James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now
brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: a revelatory chronicle and
meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining
quality—the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world.
The
story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every
thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born. From the invention of
scripts and alphabets to the long-misunderstood talking drums of Africa, Gleick
tells the story of information technologies that changed the very nature of human
consciousness. He provides portraits of the key figures contributing to the
inexorable development of our modern understanding of information: Charles
Babbage, the idiosyncratic inventor of the first great mechanical computer; Ada
Byron, the brilliant and doomed daughter of the poet, who became the first true
programmer; pivotal figures like Samuel Morse and Alan Turing; and Claude
Shannon, the creator of information theory itself. And
then the information age arrives. Citizens of this world become experts
willy-nilly: aficionados of bits and bytes. And we sometimes feel we are
drowning, swept by a deluge of signs and signals, news and images, blogs and
tweets. The Information is the story of how we got here and
where we are heading.
Heathcliff
comes to the brooding mansion of Wuthering Heighths as an orphan child. Cathy
is the daughter of the wealthy family that takes him in. They are drawn together
from the moment they meet, their love consuming, destructive, and full of
desire. They cannot be together, and yet they cannot stay apart. The
consequences will haunt generations.
Heathcliff
comes to the brooding mansion of Wuthering Heighths as an orphan child. Cathy
is the daughter of the wealthy family that takes him in. They are drawn together
from the moment they meet, their love consuming, destructive, and full of
desire. They cannot be together, and yet they cannot stay apart. The
consequences will haunt generations.
This
is the chilling story of two people who experience love and all its intense
complications. It is a story readers will never forget.
Yet
these hard-wired shortcuts, mental wonders though they may be, can also be
perilous. They can distort our thinking in ways that are often
invisible to us, leading us to make poor decisions, to be easy targets for
manipulators…and they can even cost us our lives.
The
truth is, despite all the buzz about the power of gut-instinct decision-making
in recent years, sometimes it’s better to stop and say, “On second thought . .
.”
The
trick, of course, lies in knowing when to trust that instant response, and when
to question it. In On Second Thought, acclaimed science writer Wray Herbert
provides the first guide to achieving that balance. Drawing on real-world
examples and cutting-edge research, he takes us on a fascinating, wide-ranging
journey through our innate cognitive traps and tools, exposing the hidden
dangers lurking in familiarity and consistency; the obstacles that keep us from
accurately evaluating risk and value; the delusions that make it hard for us to
accurately predict the future; the perils of the human yearning for order and
simplicity; the ways our fears can color our very perceptions . . . and much
more.
Along
the way, Herbert reveals the often-bizarre cross-connections these shortcuts
have secretly ingrained in our brains, answering such questions as why jury
decisions may be shaped by our ancient need for cleanliness; what the state of
your desk has to do with your political preferences; why loneliness can
literally make us shiver; how drawing two dots on a piece of paper can
desensitize us to violence… and how the very typeface on this page is affecting
your decision about whether or not to buy this book.
Ultimately, On
Second Thought is both a captivating exploration of the
workings of the mind and an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to learn
how to make smarter, better judgments every day.
Note
From talking drums to machine
readable code and DNA; The instructions that every thing seems to contain
appear to be as important as what they actually are, if not more so.
Stephen Crane
Henry Fleming leaves home and joins the army. He wants to be
a hero! But what will he do when the battle starts? Henry and the other new
soldiers are tested. They measure their courage against the enemy, their
comrades, and themselves.
Note
Lauded by many for its realistic
description of civil war battles and soldiers’ behaviour and introspection; I
didn’t buy it. I remember liking it when I was 12; this time, not so much.
Emily
Bronte's dark romance, with an introduction from best-selling author Alice
Hoffman
Note
I’ve always lumped Jane Austen and
the Brontes together. No more; Brontes are wild and crazy. Never boring, but
they do wander frequently into the incredible.
In
this substantial graphic novel biography,
First Second presents the larger-than-life exploits of Nobel-winning quantum
physicist, adventurer, musician, world-class raconteur, and one of the greatest
minds of the twentieth century: Richard Feynman. Written by nonfiction comics
mainstay Jim Ottaviani and brilliantly illustrated by First Second author
Leland Myrick, Feynman tells
the story of the great man’s life from his childhood in Long Island to his work
on the Manhattan Project and the Challenger disaster. Ottaviani tackles the bad
with the good, leaving the reader delighted by Feynman’s exuberant life and
staggered at the loss humanity suffered with his death.
Anyone
who ever wanted to know more about Richard P. Feynman, quantum electrodynamics,
the fine art of the bongo drums, the outrageously obscure nation of Tuva, or
the development and popularization of the field of physics in the United States
need look no further than this rich and joyful work.
Note
My second graphic novel. Left me
wanting more. Fascinating guy.
The recent
revolution in Egypt has shaken the Arab world to its roots. The most populous
Arab country and the historical center of Arab intellectual life, Egypt is a
linchpin of the US's Middle East strategy, receiving more aid than any nation
except Israel. This is not the first time that the world and has turned its
gaze to Egypt, however. A half century ago, Egypt under Nasser became the
putative leader of the Arab world and a beacon for all developing nations. Yet
in the decades prior to the 2011 revolution, it was ruled over by a sclerotic
regime plagued by nepotism and corruption. During that time, its economy
declined into near shambles, a severely overpopulated Cairo fell into
disrepair, and it produced scores of violent Islamic extremists such as Ayman
al-Zawahiri and Mohammed Atta. In The Struggle for Egypt, Steven Cook--a Senior
Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations--explains how this parlous state of
affairs came to be, why the revolution occurred, and where Egypt might be
headed next. A sweeping account of Egypt in the modern era, it incisively
chronicles all of the nation's central historical episodes: the decline of
British rule, the rise of Nasser and his quest to become a pan-Arab leader,
Egypt's decision to make peace with Israel and ally with the United States, the
assassination of Sadat, the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood,
and--finally--the demonstrations that convulsed Tahrir Square and overthrew an
entrenched regime. Throughout Egypt's history, there has been an intense debate
to define what Egypt is, what it stands for, and its relation to the world.
Egyptians now have an opportunity to finally answer these questions. Doing so
in a way that appeals to the vast majority of Egyptians, Cook notes, will be
difficult but ultimately necessary if Egypt is to become an economically
dynamic and politically vibrant society.
Note
Mismanaged for decades, seemingly
hopeless, despite its potential. I am not optimistic.
Brimming with gluttony, booze and lust, Roger
Micheldene is loose in America. Supposedly visiting Budweiser University to
make deals for his publishing firm in England, Roger instead sets out to offend
all he meets and to seduce every woman he encounters. But his American hosts
seem made of sterner stuff. Who will be Roger's undoing? Irving Macher, the
young author of an annoyingly brilliant first novel? Father Colgate, the priest
who suggests that Roger's soul is in torment? Or will it be his married ex-lover
Helene? One thing is certain - Roger is heading for a terrible fall.
Outrageously funny and irreverent, One Fat Englishman (1963) is a devastating
satire on Anglo-American relations.
Note
Mean to everybody. Funny at times,
although the satire often seems forced and the protagonist is a bit
implausible, particularly his powers of seduction.
Our lives are composed of millions of choices,
ranging from trivial to life-changing and momentous. Luckily, our brains have
evolved a number of mental shortcuts, biases, and tricks that allow us to
quickly negotiate this endless array of decisions. We don’t want to
rationally deliberate every choice we make, and thanks to these cognitive rules
of thumb, we don’t need to.
Note
More heuristics. Stop
me, I’ve had enough.
Last week, after dinner with a colleague, we jumped on the #2 streetcar to get back to our neighbourhood. He had told me how to buy a busplus card and I had purchased a ten ride card at a newsstand at the bottom of the hill. The WC has a pretty extensive transportation network, and mastering it will give eminent domain, so to speak.
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