Thursday, January 10, 2013

Oddly Relevant Jan-10-2013


Long Idea: NVDA
Short Idea: SINA

The great innovation debate: impactful scientific innovations, where are they? If the rate of innovation slows, so will our economic growth. But don’t write it off yet, IT progression, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, and human prosthetics all could impact us in significant ways. Fortunately, more money and talent is pouring into the field than ever had. [Note: yes! What about also progressions and social structures and legal systems?]…Source: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569393-fears-innovation-slowing-are-exaggerated-governments-need-help-it-along-great

Lower enrollment at US public universities hits revenues: 15% drop in tuition. Lack of growth in family income and depressed household net worth continue to drive price sensitivity and demand for student financial aid, resulting in weaker pricing power for colleges," Moody's found. [Note: polarization, I don’t know, is this a good sign?]… Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/10/usa-states-universities-idUSL1E9CA60O20130110

In the rich world, men are closing the longevity gap with women: In England and Wales, the biggest peacetime difference between the life expectancies at birth of the two sexes was 6.3 years. That was in 1967. It is now 4.1 years, and falling. In the early 1980s women who made it to 65, the traditional age of retirement for British men, could expect to live 4 years longer than their male counterparts. The gap now is less than 3 years. Though there is still some way to go before things return to the nine-month gap that prevailed in the 1840s, when records began. Other industrialized countries, except Japan and Russia, show something similar. [Note: Well, healthier trends among men did start to pick up]…Source: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21569362-rich-world-men-are-closing-longevity-gap-women-catching-up

Viktor Frankl: There is more to life than being happy: This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

Note: Pursuing a mere target or some form of happiness is like hopping from bond-fire to bond-fire in a cold winter day--brief moments of bliss followed by endured periods of cold. I would rather pursue my life in reaching for a goal that is bigger than myself, more abstract than commonly established, but no less, if not more, exciting. It is like in a warm room. The simple act of thinking of, or chasing this goal through deliberate practice and painstaking actions delivers salient but extremely powerful satisfaction. Through such never-ending upward passage, the sufferings are bearable and even oddly savorable, like the bitter undertone of chocolate. Apologies on the emotional outburst.



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