An interesting view on global warming and other issues

I friend just brought this link: http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speeches/complexity/complexity.html

to my attention and I found it quite interesting. Crichton makes a decent point about how humans tend to take decisive action with insufficient information and make things much worse than they seem. To top it off people then have a strong resistance to admitting they are wrong. Yellowstone is a great example of this, one that is still ongoing.

Some of his arguments regarding global warming are only partly true IMO. Yes, it's true that in the last 150 years we have steadily moved towards fuel sources that use less carbon. However, it is also true that our overall use of those fuels has expanded so much that we are continually putting more carbon in the air. We need to take a serious look as to the effects this is having on our environment and quickly decide whether action needs to be taken or not.

In all likelihood this issue will have a minimal impact on the life of anyone reading this. Our children and grandchildren, however, are a different story. I don't want to be known as the generation that spoiled the nest for everyone else.

Most of the grades are in...

and they're not quite as good as I'd hoped but pretty good overall. I will probably average out to a 3.5 or 3.6. I hope to improve on that next semester.

My only real disappointment was a B in finance. I feel like if I'd put more time into it I'd have done better. On each test there was one usually only one question I couldn't answer and unfortunately it was a big one. But it is in the past. This semester will be much more mathematical in nature so I hope I'm up to the challenge.

After the small celebration following the finance final I came home and went to bed. I forced myself up at 8pm to go out and meet some friends, otherwise I'd have woken up at midnight wide-awake and totally thrown myself off. I ended up playing poker which was fun but probably not the best idea in hindsight. I lost $40 in a game that I've been winning about half the time I play it. My mind was definitely not at its sharpest.

I tried to work in admissions the next morning but felt awful and ended up going home and sleeping the rest of the day. I think my body was just craving rest after a few weeks of deprivation. I felt much better by Friday.

My brothers also bought us a Foreman grill which I'm going to fire up tomorrow to cook some Korean terikayi beef. I also plan on heading down to the Korean market to restock my supplies of udon noodles and possibly kim-chee. I'm running a little low.

This week the school is closed so I will not be working in admissions. On the to-do list:

• Revise my resume (I talked to a friend of a friend regarding it and he had many good suggestions)
• Clean and organize my study area and prepare for next semester
• get to the gym every day

The gym really fell by the wayside towards the end of last semester, unsurprisingly. This semester should be much better as I have very few early morning classes.

The semester is over....

And I'm somewhat exhausted but wanted to get this down while I still had the juice!

Studied for yesterday morning's finance test from 8:30am until midnight. Still think I ended up with a B.

I have received two grades so far. I got an "A" in my Negotiations class and an A- in Organizational Behavior. Very happy with both of those. I will probably get an A- or B+ in Organizations and Management and an A in Global Economic Environment. I could do the math and tell what kind of GPA that would be, but I'm too tired at the moment :)

Went out to lunch after the finance final today and ran into Jorge and John (both 2nd years at MIT) at Blue Ribbon BBQ. Ended up having a beer with them after lunch. Should have hit up John as an options tutor and might have to do so next semester if they come into play.

I also wanted to thank Kali and Marie for the cookies and candies. All is gone except the lollipops. I'll be savoring those this week!

I also got a call today to schedule a phone interview for a summer internship in January. So even though I didn't do quite as well on the Finance final as I'd hoped it's been a good day.

I'll squeeze a few updates in before next semester

Jeff

Digital Photography is the way to go...

When you can take these four pictures:

And turn them into this:

That's pretty damned cool.

Let's play a game.

It's called "Find the American student at school on the weekend."

I had a semester project and paper due on Tuesday so my group decided to meet at school to compare notes, edit the paper and divvy up the presentation responsibilities.

Now mind you 60% of the students at the school are non-American anyways so this number might be skewed. But I was the only American there for most of the afternoon. Almost all of the French and Turkish students were there. I'd bet this differential would be even stronger on a Friday or Saturday night but alas I'll never find out, because I won't be at school on those nights to find out.

That said the project finished up well. It was about a merger between two very different organizations and the problems that the different structures and culture caused in the merged organization. The teacher seemed to like the presentation and I handled most of the paper myself since I speak and write the best English of my group (composed of an American, Venezuelan who hates Chavez, and Turk.) Also the combined project components are almost 40% of my grade in this class and I felt more comfortable carrying it in my own hands even if it meant a couple of late nights

I have three things left before the semester ends. Two papers (one about 25 pages and the other 10) and a finance final. Both papers are group projects and so not quite so bad as they might seem.

First paper is about McDonald's and the problems their facing now that their mass market has started to differentiate itself. Second is on whether the IMF should be bailing out countries.

While most of the last few months has been about school, I've also done a few things outside of it. I've been playing fairly regularly in a weekly poker game. So far so good, I've only not finished in the money once and I've won outright twice, chopped the pot once and finished third. This is in a total of about six games, so as Bart Simpson would say "that ain't not bad."

Also I've been doing a Thursday night trivia competition. This week and next is a two week tournament for some decent prizes ($200 cash to the winning team) so I'm pretty jonesed up for that. My mind seems to do well retaining useless trivia for whatever reason.

I have to go read up on Fark and the paper to make sure I'm covered on current events.

More later.

Jeff