The Future of Football
Mention a sudden motion of the head and for a neuroscientist, the word concussion comes to mind. The result is a scrambling of the electrical circuitry in the brain, producing some combination of headache, memory loss, confusion, blurred vision or unconsciousness. In the world of professional fighting, where the objective is to knock […]
College Students as an Investment
People have been talking about a college diploma as a valuable investment for far too long now; it’s time to put up or shut up. Higher education as it is practiced today is arguably the most highly subsidized business there is; not including tax breaks or funds earmarked for research, the number is […]
The Daniel Diet
When airlines are forced to increase the passenger weight allowance on their planes, you suspect America might be developing an obesity problem. When pastors find it difficult to baptize people because of their collective girth, it pretty much seals the deal. When one of those pastors happens to be Rick Warren, himself a […]
America is Fat
America is fat. We are ready and able to hibernate. We have gorged on sugars and carbs, storing up enough energy in our girth to survive a very long winter. If it comes down to survival of the fattest, we are the odds on favorites. There is more at stake here than just […]
EV Anxiety
In April of 2012, Nissan sold 370 Leaf electric cars. Toyota sold nearly 37,000 Camry’s. My cousin and a good friend of mine, both of them motorheads, each have a Leaf. They are terrific cars; the only maintenance is to rotate the tires every six months. If we are going anywhere more than […]
Air Travel a’ la Carte
Pilots frequently give some version of the same speech during a flight – “We realize that you have lots of choices for air travel, and we thank you for choosing us.” It should come as no surprise that there is a strong correlation between airline profitability and customer service ranking; people do pay […]
Drunk Spray
True entrepreneurs are always on the lookout for ubiquitous problems that can be solved for a profit. Case in point: Lots of folks like to get drunk now and then, but doing so can be an awkward process. Alcohol is cumbersome to cart around, fills you up with a lot of calories, and in some […]
The Spiraling Cost of College
Here in California where I currently reside, the cost of a college education is a hot topic. The University of California system, arguably one of the best in the country, is caught in the vise of the Golden State’s financial woes. On one side, there is the perception that the only way the […]
Rush to Judgment
Dr. Benjamin Rush was a highly respected physician and medical administrator in the early 1800’s. He was enormously influential, and widely known as a man who got things done. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and is one of the founders of American psychiatry. Dr. Rush did not […]
Turing the Country
When you call an 800 number for technical support these days, there are basically two probable scenarios. In the first, you get a guy with a heavy Indian accent who introduces himself as George, is annoyingly polite, and leads you through a canned flowchart of question-answer decision points that even a machine could manage. The […]
