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  • Thoughts about math

    Math is a beautiful part of our daily life, it is something that allows us to understand and communicate about the world with precision. While I have little raw calculating power in my head, I love what math allows us to do. I also love what math does to me.

    I had a college algebra teacher who once explained why we learn. It is not because we actually need to do calculations daily (we have calculators for that) but because math changes the way we think and the changed thinking allows us to grasp things bigger than us all.

    The idea of variable, for example, is key to algebra and calculus but it is also key to living well. How early do you need to leave to make it to work on time? Variable answer that. My commute looks like this: a + b + c = u Where a is the time it takes me to get from my house to the freeway, b is the time I spend on the freeway and c is the time it takes to get from the freeway to the parking lot. Any one of those legs can be adjusted and tweaked to allow me to predict my commute time.

    So remember, understanding math (not just being able to calculate numbers in your head) can literally revolutionize your life.

  • Elizabeth Nyamayaro: An invitation to men who want a better world for women

    Nyamayaro reminds us men, that we need to support women, often against other men, in order to build a better world for us all.

    Elizabeth Nyamayaro: An invitation to men who want a better world for women

  • Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong

    Pallotta proposes building charities they way we build business: with brilliant talent and strong marketing. In order to accomplish this, we have to be okay with charities paying higher wages and spending money on advertising. Pallotta believes this will allow the charity to use what little money they start with to grow rapidly and thus expand the amount of good they can accomplish. Key to the proposal is us, the donators, being okay with less of our money going to our causes now so they can do more later.

    Dan Pallotta: The way we think about charity is dead wrong

  • Mark Kendall: Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that’s safer and way cheaper

    Apparently, the way we do vaccines today was great for the times, 160 years ago, but we can do much better now. Kendall demonstrates some new vaccination technologies that are slowly making their way into the market that will allow for much cheaper and safer vaccines.

    Mark Kendall: Demo: A needle-free vaccine patch that’s safer and way cheaper

  • Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices

    Chang walks through why decisions are hard and how to navigate them. “What makes a choice hard is the way the alternatives relate,” she says and this causes us the most anxiety. She proposes that we call alternative “on a par.” This allows us to realize that the choices are of similar value but that each value is of a different kind. Like comparing apples and oranges.

    Ruth Chang: How to make hard choices