I believe the purpose of Ricochet is for discussions. Professor Epstein writes editorials, but never participates in the subsequent discussions.If he is not interested in having a discussion, perhaps this isn't the right venue.

Another vote for year round DST.

Thank you, Dave.  You have written what I'd like to say but lack the skills to articulate so well.

I dream of the possibility of living in the desert.

1. It looks pre-photoshopped.

2. Are the skeet he's aiming at laying on the ground?

Well, it's now February, and the promised responses by Epstein have not yet appeared.

If you don't like that decision (I am abivalent about it),

If you care at all about freedom, how can you possibly be ambivalent?

What makes me happy?Sitting under some shade on a brilliant hot desert day, looking at canyons and mountains. With a jug of ice water.Too bad I live in New England...

Obviously, the TED structure invites pretentiousness and the parody was earned.  But I've watched several that were well worth my time, and to write them all off as worthless is just as dumb as uncritically fawning over them.

As far as I can see, this is being handled about as clumsily as it is possible.

I wrote for help with my podcast application a week ago; no answer.

But there is a regrettably large supply of the latter.

I'm going to guess here that he was thinking of Air Jordan and similarly ridiculously expensive shoes.

This has the problem that all faux objective measures have: the targets can move.  If you create incentives for lots of mutual cites, you'll get them.  Whole journals or sub-genres will grow that will provide the cites that faculty need to pad out their vita.  In fact they will be forced to seek out these cites because they are competing against others doing the same thing.

I alternate between an F150 and a leased Honda Insight.  35 mile commute, so the Insight (40+ mpg) beats the truck (15 mpg) by a lot.  But the Insight is boring and ugly, and unhappy with all the hills along the route.  I want to send it back at the end of the lease, but it's my hedge against $7 gasoline.

Fair enough; I think drill-type material is effective, and I'm impressed with Khan's work in a pretty low tech online format.

But if you have the resources and dedicated teachers, I'm not married to the technology.

I was born in 1946, so I got to witness these changes close up and personally.

I agree you can trace the roots of some of the changes to the nihilism of the 1950s.  (Noir was more cynical than nihilistic, I would say.)

As pure shock to social confidence, November 11, 1963 was huge. But it was a single event.

1968 was a series of body blows that made what was left of post-war confidence crumble fast: two assassinations, urban riots, street protests against a by-then hugely unpopular war ... too much to take in one year. By the end of 1968, you couldn't possibly be confident about what we were or had accomplished.