In the news...
Mathematicians have long been known to turn coffee into theorems, but as my friend Nick points out, now mathematicians can turn theorems into coffee!
A great article on The Impostor Syndrome (which every graduate student experiences at least once in their career). I especially liked this line for its elucidation: In short, the researchers concluded, many self-styled impostors are phony phonies: they adopt self-deprecation as a social strategy, consciously or not, and are secretly more confident than they let on.
The US in 2005 authorized its troops to cross into Iran and Syria to follow former members of Saddam's government. This war could have been much bigger than first stated (it still remains to be seen whether in the future it will be).
I wonder what's happening in Dubai with regard to the enforcement of Muslim laws. It seemed to have become a fairly secular city/emirate in the UAE, especially with regard to enforcement of the laws upon foreigners. But then late last year there was the big story of a teenaged French boy who was raped by three Emirati men. The men were not charged with anything and instead the French boy was the one charged with crimes. The boy only managed to flee the country when his family went public and the international outrage led to the charges being dropped against him and the men being getting 15 years in jail. While it's an outrageous story, it's not at all atypical for strictly governed Islamic states to criminalize the rape victims instead of the rapists, for both hetero- and homosexual rapes (cf. women [gang]raped in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, northern Nigeria, etc.) Now apparently the Emirati government is having a VERY strict crackdown on "drug" trafficking into the country. How strict? We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for 'possession’ of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow. They have been throwing people in jail for 4-year terms after finding trace (literally invisible to the human eye) amounts of banned substances on the tread of their shoes, in their urine, or in their blood. Utterly ludicrous!
In terms of airlines, United is now going to charge $25 for having a second bag checked in. With all that the major airlines have been doing lately (e.g. charging extra for aisle seats, lowering baggage weight limits, eliminating food on 4hr+ flights, etc) it's become MAJORLY annoying. I completely agree with the line: Investors have urged airlines to pass on the higher costs of fuel to passengers through ticket-price increases or similar surcharges. Yes, increased prices across the board is an understandable reflection of the increased price of fuel, and I'm psychologically content with a higher up-front price indicating that it's more expensive to fly now. But when an airline has all these incidental charges (many of which you won't realize until you're at the airport), then psychologically it gives the customer the feeling that the airline is trying to cheat them. Not a good business move IMO.
Relatedly, Northwest and Delta are apparently going to merge. While this makes sense business-wise since their markets complement each other well, I'm fairly disappointed as a consumer. I don't like Delta (it's my second least favorite US-based airline), while NWA is one of the 5 major US-based airlines I have almost no problem with. The article also mentions United as wooing Continental, which is an even worse merger in my opinion: my current favorite airline (Continental) by far with my third least favorite airline. In both cases it seems that the United/Delta management would take the helm, which is ridiculous since they're the companies that have been suffering from mismanagement.
A great article on The Impostor Syndrome (which every graduate student experiences at least once in their career). I especially liked this line for its elucidation: In short, the researchers concluded, many self-styled impostors are phony phonies: they adopt self-deprecation as a social strategy, consciously or not, and are secretly more confident than they let on.
The US in 2005 authorized its troops to cross into Iran and Syria to follow former members of Saddam's government. This war could have been much bigger than first stated (it still remains to be seen whether in the future it will be).
I wonder what's happening in Dubai with regard to the enforcement of Muslim laws. It seemed to have become a fairly secular city/emirate in the UAE, especially with regard to enforcement of the laws upon foreigners. But then late last year there was the big story of a teenaged French boy who was raped by three Emirati men. The men were not charged with anything and instead the French boy was the one charged with crimes. The boy only managed to flee the country when his family went public and the international outrage led to the charges being dropped against him and the men being getting 15 years in jail. While it's an outrageous story, it's not at all atypical for strictly governed Islamic states to criminalize the rape victims instead of the rapists, for both hetero- and homosexual rapes (cf. women [gang]raped in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, northern Nigeria, etc.) Now apparently the Emirati government is having a VERY strict crackdown on "drug" trafficking into the country. How strict? We even have reports of the imprisonment of a Swiss man for 'possession’ of three poppy seeds on his clothing after he ate a bread roll at Heathrow. They have been throwing people in jail for 4-year terms after finding trace (literally invisible to the human eye) amounts of banned substances on the tread of their shoes, in their urine, or in their blood. Utterly ludicrous!
In terms of airlines, United is now going to charge $25 for having a second bag checked in. With all that the major airlines have been doing lately (e.g. charging extra for aisle seats, lowering baggage weight limits, eliminating food on 4hr+ flights, etc) it's become MAJORLY annoying. I completely agree with the line: Investors have urged airlines to pass on the higher costs of fuel to passengers through ticket-price increases or similar surcharges. Yes, increased prices across the board is an understandable reflection of the increased price of fuel, and I'm psychologically content with a higher up-front price indicating that it's more expensive to fly now. But when an airline has all these incidental charges (many of which you won't realize until you're at the airport), then psychologically it gives the customer the feeling that the airline is trying to cheat them. Not a good business move IMO.
Relatedly, Northwest and Delta are apparently going to merge. While this makes sense business-wise since their markets complement each other well, I'm fairly disappointed as a consumer. I don't like Delta (it's my second least favorite US-based airline), while NWA is one of the 5 major US-based airlines I have almost no problem with. The article also mentions United as wooing Continental, which is an even worse merger in my opinion: my current favorite airline (Continental) by far with my third least favorite airline. In both cases it seems that the United/Delta management would take the helm, which is ridiculous since they're the companies that have been suffering from mismanagement.