Category: economics
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Balancing Choice and Freedom for Happiness and Satisfaction
I’ve read some articles and watched some videos this week which have helped me think more deeply about choice, freedom, happiness and satisfaction. These thoughts have implications in diverse spaces, from my smart phone and the notifications I choose to put into my mind’s information radar screen on a daily basis like stumbling blocks or highway detour…
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A Transformed Political Culture in Oklahoma #transformOK #OklaEd
In Oklahoma, our elected officials need our support to pass legislation which will change our tax code and provide adequate funding not only for our public schools but also for a variety of important social services. Our legislative session is almost over, and legislators have not taken steps to address the budget shortfall for next year…
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Oklahoma Education Budget Cuts Affecting Classen School of Advanced Studies
We are facing drastic budget cuts for public education in the state of Oklahoma this year. These cuts are not caused exclusively by declining global prices for oil and gas. Tax cuts and tax credits sustained and increased by our legislators have and continue to play a major role in this crisis. When the price of…
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Tips for Parents Paying for College
These are my tweeted highlights and takeaways from a two hour presentation this evening at Quail Creek Elementary in Oklahoma City Public Schools by Brock Jolly (@collegefundingc). The title of his presentation for parents was, “Little Known Secrets of Paying for College.” Brock’s website is “The College Funding Coach.” He presents workshops like these nationwide for parents. He shared some…
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Glimpsing the Future with Alec Ross
The World Affairs Council podcast (@world_affairs) is one of my current favorites. As a fan of political science, history, international relations, global geo-politics as well as science and technology trends, it’s a home run for me. The guests they have on their programs are top notch. Like TEDtalks, it’s amazing we can access such high…
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Lessons Learned on our Family’s College Journey (April 2016)
I’ve been needing to write a post for many months sharing some of our family’s lessons learned and where we are on our collective “college journey” with three kids heading to university respectively in the classes of 2020 (Alex), 2022 (Sarah) and 2026 (Rachel). Part of me has been waiting until we “arrive” at a milestone…
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Don’t Use an AT&T Phone Overseas Without an International Calling Plan
I’ve been in Brazil for a few days this week leading a 2 day STEM Institute for K-12 teachers at Graded School in Sao Paulo. From my past experiences traveling overseas to China, I know it can be a VERY costly mistake to simply use your cell phone in another country if you don’t arrange…
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Podcasting Costs with Amazon S3
Back in May of 2013, I migrated to a new web host which would not host the hundreds of audio podcasts I’d published since 2005. I needed to find a separate hosting company for my podcasts, and I opted to go with Amazon S3. My friend, James Deaton (@jed), had educated me about the benefits…
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Inspired by Bernie Sanders and Democratic Socialism
Like many U.S. voters today, I’ve been largely unimpressed and uninspired by most of the news I’ve read and heard about our 2016 Presidential candidates. One exception to this was the short-lived candidacy of Larry Lessig. This evening, however, I took an hour to watch the November 19, 2015, address by Bernie Sanders at Georgetown…
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Inspired by Ashley Vance’s Biography of Elon Musk
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) is not only an inspiring and fascinating person, he’s also one of the most important entrepreneurs of our times who is combining technology with hard work and engineering smarts to solve some extremely challenging problems we face as a human race. Today I finished listening to the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance (@valleyhack)…