Cheap

The typical American family spends two thirds of their income on housing and transportation which really doesn't seem like a good way to lead an interesting life. Most of the cost of housing and transportation both seem to be going for status symbols.

Still, it is remarkable how hard it is to get myself to keep those expenses down. I would estimate that I am at about a third of my income going to these expenses and I have been either living with many people in a house or in a studio apartment.

It seems like my cheap car is starting to pay off though. Perhaps I can keep those expenses low. Since there is nothing better than reading an article I agree with I will pass on: The Joys of a $5000 used car

I really hope I don't crash this car anytime soon. I really would like to try and buy all automobiles with cash. Interest payments just seem like a really bad idea to me.

Already in the green.

I just saw something that surprised me in an article in The Atlantic:

"Anyone who sold their stocks when the crisis climaxed in the fall of 2008 would already be back in the green if they had held on."

I watched so many people sell off right after the crash. On occasion I tried to argue with them. What part of buy low, sell high don't these people understand?

Of course, I was arguing that early 2008 was a good time to be buying stocks. So I probably have been following more of a buy high, buy low, pretend you are going to sell in a few decades and everything will go up strategy. This seems justified to me though, at my age it would have been a good strategy for most of the past hundred years. Still as many people have pointed out to me, there is the chance this next century will be much different than the last. There is no fundamental reason stocks should always go up.

2 days, 2 divers.

Two abalone divers died in separate incidents in the past two days. It really is remarkable how high the death rate for the sport seems to be. I am unsure whether these were good divers facing shallow water blackout or novice divers who probably shouldn't have been outside of a swimming pool but either way it is pretty scary.

No more money

The first week I was at Cornell, one of the professors told the entire PhD class that, unless they were an international student, they would be lowering their expected lifetime income by getting this degree. He was mostly laughed off by the students.

If this chart in nature is correct, he was on to something though. Six to ten years after getting their highest degree, people with and without PhDs make about the same income. I suspect it varies a lot by field though. Certain degrees like Economics probably do quite well; Humanities and biological sciences don't. In the case of Engineering, the Masters degree is just too well respected a degree. The advantage to a PhD is minor, while you may make more money you don't usually make up for the years of not being in the workforce..

Another 100 year housing price graph

A blog on The Atlantic has a nice graph of housing prices. I am inclined to agree with their dotted red line for housing prices.

diagnosed as a nerd

It is remarkable to me how hard psychologists have been trying to make being a little dorky into a disease. First we had to constantly hear about Asperger's now apparently we can add schizotypal personality disorder to that list.

Why we are fat

There are a ton of hypotheses as to why Americans suddenly started gaining so much weight in about 1980. Some are obviously silly, our genes haven't changed much since 1980 for example so most of the gain is environmental.

The New York Times had two good articles though on two of the more plausible ideas: We eat too much sugar, we sit too much.

If I was smart, I would put my computer at a desk I can't sit at.