Grade Inflation...

Just one more thing on my long, long list of things that are wrong with American education: grade inflation.

What is grade inflation?  Just look at the red line (percentage of students receiving an “A” grade) on the graph at right.  That's grade inflation.  Today nearly half of all grades given in colleges are an “A”.

This doesn't help the student at all.  People evaluating students on the basis of their grades will know, like I do, about grade inflation.  The same kind of grade inflation is occurring with GPA scores, too.  Grade inflation makes grades (whether letter grades or GPAs) useless as a way to assess a graduate's achievement.  This is precisely the same effect that affirmative action have.

So who is helped by grade inflation?  Short answer: the institutions of higher education.

Here are three articles (one, two, three) discussing both the facts and the impacts of grade inflation. 

Every time something makes me think about American higher education, I'm overcome with a feeling of impending doom.  Damn.  I need a drink...

What Is This?

At right is a photo of downtown Tokyo, Japan, at night.  But there's something odd about the river running across the photo – what's that glowing blue stuff?

I'm going to make you go read the article to find out.  But I'll tell you this: it's really, really cool...

What Does This Mean?

I've been watching the T-bond rate for months now, as it decends to impossibly low interest rates.  From highs of over 15% APR in the early '80s, it has dropped to just over 1.5% APR as of Friday.

This is an absolutely incredibly low interest rate.  These interest rates are set by auction; by definition this means that there are plenty of borrowers (the buyers of the bonds) willing to lend the U.S. billions of dollars at these absurdly low rates.  If 1.5% doesn't really mean that much to me, here's another way to look at it: would you lend the U.S. government $1,000 for ten years, in exchange for $15 a year?  That's exactly what thousands of willing lenders, lending an aggregate of many tens of billions of dollars, are doing.

What on earth is wrong with these people?  Why would they do such a thing?  It especially seems to fly in the face of reason when you see the size (and rate of increase) of the U.S. debt, nicely shown on the graph at right.  In this sort of situation, one might reasonably expect to see inflation – which would make you very reluctant indeed to lend money at such low rates.

I've read dozens of articles claiming to explain this phenomenon.  They all boil down to some combination of two things:

– U.S. Treasury Bonds are the least bad place to park your money right now (in other words, the most likely place to give you your money back).  Because of that, it's a seller's market – lenders trip over each other competing for the chance to buy T-bonds.  The problem I have with this explanation is that 1.5% APR is hardly any better than stuffing money in my mattress.  I don't find this argument particularly persuasive.

– the smart lenders are persuaded there is almost no risk of inflation in the U.S., because of the success of the Fed in managing it.  This is so implausible that I simply cannot believe even the stupid money would believe it, much less the smart money.

So I am left completely puzzled by this phenomenon.  Any of my readers have any ideas?

Stop the Earth, I Want to Get Off...

I stole the title from Doug S., who sent this to me and ruined my whole day...

Quote of the Day...

Dave Carter is a regular poster on Ricochet.  He's also a long-haul truck driver, which gives him quite an unusual perch from which to observe the world.  I always enjoy his posts, so when I see his byline I drop everything to read it.

This time his post is a long story about the great care he got recently in Maryland for a kidney stone.  These are apparently extremely painful.  I've known several people with a tendency to have kidney stones, and the pain of them is the main thing any of them talk about.  Here Dave describes getting the pain medication, but the close of this paragraph had me rolling on the floor laughing.

... In moments it seemed the world slowed down as the pain began to subside, taking with it my capacity to speak coherently, focus on anything, or process any information in a rational way.  I was in a numbed stupor.  I felt like a Congressman. 

Dave, you're my kind of man!  Read the whole thing; you won't be sorry...

Social Security Reform Bill...

The Onion is a national treasure...

How to Live to be 450...

Via my mom:

As I was lying in bed pondering the problems of the world, I rapidly realized that I don't really give a rat's hiney. It's the tortoise life for me!

1 If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.

2. A whale swims all day, only eats fish, drinks water, and is fat.

3. A rabbit runs and hops and only lives 15 years.

4. A tortoise doesn't run and does nothing, yet it lives for 450 years.

And you tell me to exercise?? I don't think so.

I'm retired. Go around me.

In Case of Fire...

Senior humor, via my mom:

I failed the mandatory Health and Safety course at the Senior Center today.

One of the questions was: "In the event of a fire, what steps would you take?"

Big ones" was apparently the wrong answer.

Gender Differences in Brains, Explained...

Have you ever wondered how a woman's brain works? Well, it's finally explained here in one, easy-to-understand illustration:

Everyone of those little balls are a thought about something that needs to be done, a decision to make, or a problem that needs to be solved.

A man has only 2 balls. They consume all his thoughts, and he sleeps like a baby.

Sound Familiar?

Continental Drift...

The geology texts used in my primary schools ('50s and '60s) either never mentioned plate tectonics or continental drift, or devoted a single derisive paragraph to it.  My first real exposure to plate tectonics was in the popular press, in the early '60s – during the period when the plate tectonics theories were being fleshed out and convincing evidence to support them was just being found.  It was still, back then, a revolutionary theory – becoming mainstream, but not quite there yet.  A little earlier than my own experience, the notion of continental drift was considered pseudoscience.  Nowadays, of course, it is as close to “settled science” as anything else is.

The emergence and acceptance of plate tectonics was the first time I personally witnessed science (in any field) evolving.  I was fascinated by the way the heroes of plate tectonics metaphorically fought their way through platoons of doubters to win out in the end.  Years later, after much more reading on the topic, I realized just how heroic some of those folks actually were – having your career dashed on the altar of truth can't be very much fun...

Fractal Gears...

I had to examine this animated image closely to figure out how the artist did it – quite clever!  Note that the image is a gigantic (3.9mb) animated GIF; you have to give it a bit of time to download...

Flickers on the Wall...

I got up this morning at my usual 3 am, and wandered, bleary-eyed, into the bathroom for my morning shower (I'm only truly awake after this).  Just as I was reaching for the light switch, I noticed a distinct flicker in the shadows on the wall near the switch.  My slightly paranoid chaparral-trained mind immediately translated “flicker” into “fire” – but the color (a lovely blueish-white) was all wrong for that.  There are no artificial lights of any kind in our bathroom other than the main incandescent lights, so I had no ready explanation for the flickering.  As I watched, the flickering repeated.  Where was it coming from?

With a little investigation, I figured it out.  Looking out our small, high bathroom window, I could see a clear, moonless sky with a high horizon defined by the surrounding hills and our pine trees.  Then I noticed that one particularly bright star (I couldn't see enough of the sky to tell which star it was) was placed right at the edge of the pine silhouette – and the pines were moving about because of a light wind.  The star provided a nice point source of light, which made the pine tree shadows on my bathroom wall reasonably well-defined even though the pines were over 100 feet from my window.  And my eyes were sufficiently dark-adapted to let me see those shadows produced by the light of a single star.  Amazing imaging instruments we have in our head!

Home...

After a marathon day of travel from Newark, New Jersey (involving getting up at midnight to taxi to the airport, 6 hours in Newark airport, oversleeping pilots, broken airplanes, and missed standbys), I finally made it home to San Diego.  From that point on, things were just wonderful: a smiling Debbie picking me up from the airport, four ecstatic dogs bowling me over when I walked in the door, and innumerable cats saying “Yeah, I remember you.  I'll let you live.  For now...”  Then early this morning, the dog walk – under a spectacularly clear, moonless desert sky, the Milky Way a splash from north to south, directly overhead, in cool, crisp, dry desert air with all the wonderful aromas of the desert wafting about.  Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

And now, dang it, I'm on my way into work at the office.  What I'd really like to do right now is take about a month off :-)

Memorial Day Roundup...

Some links for you on this day that we honor our veterans:

My blog-girl Rachel Lucas on her visit to Normandy.  Her experience echoes my own nearly exactly – the folks from Normandy treat Americans so differently than other French people that they seem like another country...

A nice collection of Memorial Day videos...

My all-time favorite quote for Memorial Day, from General George S. Patton:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

And finally, Tim McGraw's classic song for Memorial Day:

Palate Cleanser of the Day...

Sit down in a nice, comfortable chair with a box of Kleenex at hand.  If your smile wrinkles are underused, grease 'em up with a little ointment.  Then just watch...

Religion and Population Growth...

Here's an excellent TED talk about the influence of religions on population growth.  It's an excellent counterpoint to the theories of Mark Steyn et al, and also a great example of the intellectual dangers of trying to establish causation by correlation.  By that last comment, I don't mean that I think either this talk or Mark Steyn's theories are either right or wrong – I'm just observing that starting with essentially the same data, both parties have arrived at very different conclusions.  This is true even though both of them are inferring causes by observing correlations in basically the same data set.  This stuff is complicated and hard.  But even if one ignores their stated conclusions, their observations are very interesting indeed...

Hide the Decline...

Steve McIntyre, despite his earlier claims that he'd be slowing down his blogging, is back in force.  This post of his is a classic takedown of the hypocritical defenders of the “consensus science”.  You'd think they'd have figured out by now that it's a bad idea to keep digging their intellectual hole when Steve is on their track...

Quote of the Day...

Rachel Lucas cracks me up:

...and she already knew I was an overachiever in social awkwardness.

Haunting Memorial Day Images...

And an excellent essay to go along with them (in the New York Times, of all places).  Also, see this piece by Tom Manion: Why They Serve.

I think of our fallen soldiers often; it's an occupational hazard of anyone with a keen interest in history.  This weekend I will remember them in order to honor them; I hope you'll join me...