This simple diagram describes toxic relationships. It changed my life.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand what that means,” I said. “Will you explain it to me?”
Read more "This simple diagram describes toxic relationships. It changed my life."An Anniversary Announcement
Lies, damned lies, and gun statistics
Anyone talking of “gun deaths” is likely ignorant of how meaningless this measure might be. Managing policy to a measure that muddles the structure of its underlying problems will lead only to disappointment.
Read more "Lies, damned lies, and gun statistics"Your gun control ideas won’t work. This one will.
I’m calling on you — each of you, regardless of your persuasion — to change the way you engage on this issue. What you’ve done in the past hasn’t worked. At all. You need to change your approach in order to get different results, and I don’t mean that you keep saying the same simple and misguided things, only more loudly and obnoxiously than before.
Read more "Your gun control ideas won’t work. This one will."The Engineer’s Dilemma: Options for Graduates
One of my favorite books is Robert Pirsig’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values. In it Pirsig states that many times when we are faced with what appears to be a dilemma, a choice between two mutually-exclusive paths in which neither is optimal, the best course of action is […]
Read more "The Engineer’s Dilemma: Options for Graduates"The Engineer’s Dilemma: Introduction
I’m an engineer. For as long as I can remember I have loved to build new things and take old things apart. As a kid I had an electronics kit and a chemistry set and preferred reading the encyclopedia to playing football after school. I taught myself how to program our Apple II+ while I […]
Read more "The Engineer’s Dilemma: Introduction"The Engineer’s Dilemma: Employers and Planned Obsolescence
For the majority of STEM graduates who end up working outside their chosen fields of study, the seeds of the Engineer’s Dilemma are sown in their university experience. But they are nurtured and come to full fruition as graduates begin their post-university employment. Employers exist to create profit, and with good reason. Profitable companies have […]
Read more "The Engineer’s Dilemma: Employers and Planned Obsolescence"The Engineer’s Dilemma: The Role of Universities
The majority of US college graduates who hold STEM degrees no longer work in their fields of study. These millions of career changes create significant costs for STEM graduates and their employers, and they hurt society as experienced workers move on to new careers and are replaced by less-experienced ones. To understand this problem we […]
Read more "The Engineer’s Dilemma: The Role of Universities"Try homeschooling this week, risk-free.
My wife and I homeschool our three children. We started when they were very young, so we never really faced the dilemma experienced by many parents in the public-school system who feel like they should homeschool but wonder whether they can make it work for their family. But we have worked with many families over […]
Read more "Try homeschooling this week, risk-free."It’s time to cry for Argentina (again)
My experience with Argentina goes back nearly two decades to when I spent two years as a Mormon missionary in the Patagonia. I learned that the Argentine people are wonderful, the food is exquisite, the scenery is breathtaking, and the economy is never more than 5 years away from being a complete disaster. While Argentina […]
Read more "It’s time to cry for Argentina (again)"
Zach Mortensen 