boilermaker75

I just finished Catcher in the Rye. I had never read it before. I just started Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field: How Two Men Revolutionized Physics

Just the billionaires.

My favorite is Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, which I highly recommend. I think this book is so useful I have given copies to my daughter and some of my students. That's a strong recommendation. I added it to the list! Whenever I go to a movie that has been highly recommended I am usually disappointed. So I hope you won't be disappointed with Adapt because of my recommendation.

My favorite is Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure, which I highly recommend. I think this book is so useful I have given copies to my daughter and some of my students.

Happy Birthday, live long and prosper!

I first read it in 1969 or 1970. I didn't know enough to appreciate it back then. I'm looking at my paperback copy, which I purchased knew. The price on it is $1.25. Edit: It was the first "investment" book I ever read.

Wrote June 125-strike puts on BRK/B.

Mindset by Carol Dweck http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=mindset The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch http://www.amazon.com/Last-Lecture-Randy-Pausch-ebook/dp/B00139VU7E/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1402854822&sr=1-1&keywords=the+last+lecture

Quick glance, less than 60 seconds, CTCM looks interesting. Kraven, So that I do my part to be timely, if I have time this evening to do more research and I like CTCM, I will write some 10-strike puts tomorrow! So you can front run me if you like. Lance, We have similar, maybe identical, strategies! Thanks for bringing CTCM to my attention.

Electrical engineering, hence my avatar.

Indeed. Kudos! Best, Ragu Ragu, Thanks. It also gives me a chance to know my students. My typical class size is about 55-60. Previously I would get to know very few of them. Now by the end of the semester I know all of them by name. Boiler

I run into this all the time, they want to memorize a technique to solve a problem but not learn the concept so they could actually apply it to a totally different situation. So I work really hard to try to get them to learn to think, instead of trying to memorize how to do something. One thing I do is the following. I tell my students that after each test they can earn all the points they lost on one problem. All they have to do is come in to my office and teach me the concept behind that problem. Many come in and just start working the problem on the test, for which I have already supplied the solution! I again explain to them what I am after, send them away with no points and tell them to come back and try again. Many eventually catch on. So it is worth my effort. This is a great method. Kiltacular, Thanks. Half the students get what I am after right from the start. They come in and they are now experts on the concept. I think what I am seeing with them is that they will put in considerably more effort to learn material to recover lost points on an exam than they do to learn the material for the original exam. Boiler

I run into this all the time, they want to memorize a technique to solve a problem but not learn the concept so they could actually apply it to a totally different situation. So I work really hard to try to get them to learn to think, instead of trying to memorize how to do something. One thing I do is the following. I tell my students that after each test they can earn all the points they lost on one problem. All they have to do is come in to my office and teach me the concept behind that problem. Many come in and just start working the problem on the test, for which I have already supplied the solution! I again explain to them what I am after, send them away with no points and tell them to come back and try again. Many eventually catch on. So it is worth my effort.

I have been on the faculty at a major research university for 30 years. There is a difference between “learning” and earning a grade. A student could be valedictorian of their high school class with perfect SAT scores, but will not learn subjects in college like vector calculus, solid-state physics, electromagnetic fields, and quantum mechanics, subjects I have taught, without working hard. Some of these students did not learn how to study in high school; they did not have to work hard in high school. But if the average grade given is an A- with the lowest grade given a C, many will graduate with good GPAs, without having “learned” much and certainly not learning how to work hard and how to study. Why have grade averages become so high? There are a number of reasons. For some rankings, like US News and World Reports, the higher the graduate rate the higher the ranking. So a higher average GPA will result in a higher graduation rate and higher ranking. Teaching performance, something that can effect promotion and tenure, is often solely determined by students’ evaluation of instructors on the end-of-semester course/instructor surveys. There is a correlation between course GPA and the evaluations an instructor receives. Niederhoffer’s book is an entertaining read. Universities are in my circle of competence and I find his story of his undergraduate career at Harvard plausible.

Actually it is hard not to achieve A's at Harvard, http://www.gradeinflation.com/Harvard.html, or at least nothing below a C. I had a fellow graduate student who joined the faculty at a prestigious private university. He would teach an undergraduate class and give some D's and F's. His department head and the dean would call him in every semester to talk to him and tell him they did not have D and F students at their university. He would respond if they were at Purdue, where the two of us did our graduate work, they would be getting D's and F's. My friend is now on the faculty of a state research university.

I rarely reread books, but I have reread Surely Your Joking Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think. And I will reread them again, great books.

I am disappointed with all shareholders who voted for, or abstained from voting. All the executives at KO have to do for KO to continue to be successful is to not do anything too stupid.

There are something like five books that will be published. I think the first one is scheduled for 2015. Edit: I wish there were 5 more Kurt Vonnegut books to be published :-\

A then unknown Jerry Salinger was in love with Oona O'Neill until she started dating Charlie.

Does she qualify for premium subsidies? If not, then it might make sense for her to go off exchange and purchase HSA compatible plan directly from an insurance company. If available, she can check out Kaiser Permanente. My g/f uses them and she loves it. It's an one stop shop for her. She also like their online portal for scheduling doctor appointments and prescriptions. She does not qualify for a subsidy. The issue is we researched to find her top doctors and these top doctors will not accept Obamacare. There is a huge spread in competency of physicians. You know what they call the medical student that finishes last in his/her class? Doctor. Also top hospitals, where you would want to go with some life-threatening situations, are opting out of Obamacare, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2013/10/30/top-hospitals-opt-out-of-obamacare Or they are like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and have only one company in their respective networks LA is a crazy market because there is a huge spread in quality between top and bottom. There's a lot of garbage health care in LA, even at big hospitals. Where I am in the Sacramento region, there are only a few big health systems and the level of care is much more consistent across the area. Sure, there's some low quality but not at the scale of LA. We have top quality but probably don't match SF or LA for the very elite care in some areas. If you want your daughter to have access to the very best doctors and hospitals, you are going to have to pay for it. Blame Obamacare if you want but it was like that when I lived in LA from 99-07. I'm completely biased, because my wife is a Kaiser physician, but check out Kaiser. When she was at med school (in LA), I got to know a lot of students. Of the ones I would trust my life or my family's life with, a great number of them went to Kaiser. They want to practice medicine and don't want to deal with the business/regulatory BS. We don’t mind paying so that we get to choose her doctors. I think we will go with a Healthnet plan. One of her two doctors accepts this plan. The other only accepts United Health and you cannot get an individual policy from United Health in California. But he solved a problem that many other doctors were not able to, so I am willing to pay him directly. We have noticed that spread in quality in health care in the LA market. My daughter needed her wisdom teeth out. We waited too long and two of them were close to nerves. She went to see an oral surgeon who someone at work had used. Fortunately my wife was out in LA and went with her. The surgeon wanted to schedule the surgery for the next day. My wife got her out of there. I have a friend in Malibu who used to be CFO of a dental supply company. He called a few dentists he knew in LA to find out who were the best oral surgeons in the LA area. We used the one most recommended. My daughter was back to 100% in about a day with no after effects.

Does she qualify for premium subsidies? If not, then it might make sense for her to go off exchange and purchase HSA compatible plan directly from an insurance company. If available, she can check out Kaiser Permanente. My g/f uses them and she loves it. It's an one stop shop for her. She also like their online portal for scheduling doctor appointments and prescriptions. She does not qualify for a subsidy. The issue is we researched to find her top doctors and these top doctors will not accept Obamacare. There is a huge spread in competency of physicians. You know what they call the medical student that finishes last in his/her class? Doctor. Also top hospitals, where you would want to go with some life-threatening situations, are opting out of Obamacare, http://health.usnews.com/health-news/hospital-of-tomorrow/articles/2013/10/30/top-hospitals-opt-out-of-obamacare Or they are like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and have only one company in their respective networks

Wow, that is one nice faculty office. I can tell you my office at Purdue does not look like that!

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism My least favorite quote of the entire article, After making computer chips for 15yrs in silicon valley, and just generally getting older, I have found there is no substitute for experience. If you look closely at the world trend, I think you'll find the opposite phenomenon more accurate than what the article says. The world is harder and harder for young people to get ahead. They lack knowledge and experience and blue collar jobs are harder and harder to get and lower and lower paying. The established and experienced can get richer and more successful. The world favours the incumbent. Not necessarily for businesses that emphasize innovation. Young people are "smarter" than older people in specific ways. Think back to when you were 16 and you read something that kept your brain buzzing until you internalized the new thought process. That sensitivity and cognitive agility lessens over time. Of course you pick up other attributes, but those young attributes are especially useful for mold breaking. When I think back to my younger self I think, "how could I have been so naive?" Although I cannot think as fast, I sure feel I am a lot smarter. Zuckerberg doesn't realize he had to be smart and stumble upon the right situation.

We live in Indiana, but our daughter lives in the LA area. She turns 26 in May and her employer does not provide health insurance, so she is looking to purchase health coverage. We researched to find her two excellent doctors. They both told her they will not except any covered CA plans. We especially will keep one of them because he has been wonderful. Can any Californians lend insight in what is happening with health insurance and doctors in California and what we should do? Any recommendations for private insurance plans?

Your wife is an angel!