This week's pie: Maryland Road Pie, a molasses-sweetened pumpkin pie with a chocolate and marshmallow topping.
It's Saturday morning and the biegnets are rising, soon to be rolled out and filled with a carmel-butter sauce left over from dessert a couple days ago. Yes, dear reader, you are welcome to come visit, especially for events such as the League of American Bicyclists conference in March. On your way in, tho, just be sure to check that your charts have their magnetic declination correct, since the "north" pole is increasing its speed toward the Equator. The consequences of this are actually profound most importantly because of how runways around the country are marked, because unlike the DHS, the FAA doesn't want to rely exclusively on GPS.
A dip in gasoline prices brought back echoes of the car industry of 2006, while food and oil prices are starting to look more like 2008. Part of the problem is related to climate change, such as droughts in Russia and floods in Australia, but one has to wonder if there's a bit too much cash chasing returns instead of investing in production. Whatever we do politically, environmentally or economically, we now have a (specious) date for when we can realistically expect to start over on a different planet: AD 2200.
The developing world continues to pose challenges for Westphalian notions of governance, and the response of the developed world challenges international standards of acceptable behavior. The developing world in turn breaks breaking the economic models of the West. Not that Western models are perfect, as a debate about road vs. transit funding suggests.
Speaking of infrastructure and bad assumptions, the US oil sector might be in for a major overhaul, assuming Wall Street and the GOP approve. Across the Pond, the Conservative/LibDem government is warning their banking arm to be discrete about remuneration (clearly the public perception is that the banks are under government control, as they exist due to gov't largess). Meanwhile, the Belgians have started a protest your pie maker plans to join in solidarity with the people of Europe's contribution to the artificial country concept (and laziness).
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Thanks, and an apology
Two short notes before I get back to kitchen and put together a Maryland Road Pie, inspired by their use of molasses and salt as deicing tools.
First Thanks! are due to a reader who sent a subscription to The Week. I got my first issue yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Secondly Apology: In my last "This Week in Pie Making", I made a gross exaggeration of the GOP's ills, and cast them as similar to the most monstrous regime in modern history (by body count and capacity for destruction, anyway, the Nazis, Khmer Rouge, Maoists and a few others could make a case). That is not appropriate, and does a great disservice to both the memories of that regime's victims and the quality of political discussion today. For a blog whose posts frequently end with an invitation to stop by for dessert, breakfast, or even to stay the night, such commentary is even less appropriate. "Come on over, you Bolshy hypocrite!" is not a credible invitation. For a desert-bred pie maker, such inhospitality is shameful, and I apologize.
Yes, this is in part a response to the recent tragedy in Tuscon, AZ. But for a generous offer from my current employer, I would be in Tuscon right now, and Arizona is where I grew up. Personally, I tend to agree with the Economist's take on the events, Arizona has never lacked for crazy people or guns. Most heartening, however, has been renewed interest in the quality of mental health care in the US and some signs that we are actually going to Take It Down A Notch For America.
I will do my part. Even when I disagree with people and am uncomfortable with what they are saying or doing, I will endeavor to write about it such a way as to invite constructive commentary and those very same people for pie.
First Thanks! are due to a reader who sent a subscription to The Week. I got my first issue yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Secondly Apology: In my last "This Week in Pie Making", I made a gross exaggeration of the GOP's ills, and cast them as similar to the most monstrous regime in modern history (by body count and capacity for destruction, anyway, the Nazis, Khmer Rouge, Maoists and a few others could make a case). That is not appropriate, and does a great disservice to both the memories of that regime's victims and the quality of political discussion today. For a blog whose posts frequently end with an invitation to stop by for dessert, breakfast, or even to stay the night, such commentary is even less appropriate. "Come on over, you Bolshy hypocrite!" is not a credible invitation. For a desert-bred pie maker, such inhospitality is shameful, and I apologize.
Yes, this is in part a response to the recent tragedy in Tuscon, AZ. But for a generous offer from my current employer, I would be in Tuscon right now, and Arizona is where I grew up. Personally, I tend to agree with the Economist's take on the events, Arizona has never lacked for crazy people or guns. Most heartening, however, has been renewed interest in the quality of mental health care in the US and some signs that we are actually going to Take It Down A Notch For America.
I will do my part. Even when I disagree with people and am uncomfortable with what they are saying or doing, I will endeavor to write about it such a way as to invite constructive commentary and those very same people for pie.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
This week in Pie Making (Jan 2-7, 2011)
The big news of the week is that the leader of the red states (not the Red states) assumed control of the US House of Representatives. He quickly promised to do things for the People, excised undesirable parts of the founding document his comrades found objectionable and ensured that enemies of the People would remain in isolated camps. Fortunately Mr. Boehner is not from Georgia, otherwise a satirist might go too far. Besides, he's more of a Trotskyist anyway (economic planning with debt-based international support, via la revolution!). This will make his job a lot more interesting.
In more mundane matters, it looks like the Consumer Finance Protection Agency has picked up a very powerful member: Mrs. Petraeus. Taken with the selection of Daley as chief of staff, it looks like we're in for the politics of making nice with powerful people over the next couple of years.
Continued pressure on oil supplies is leading to a quiet revolution in transportation and your pie maker's preferred mode of transport is getting additional support. Even gadgets are getting into the efficiency act.
The biggest international news is probably that a major oil exporter is about to split along racial and religious lines, with nary a mention on the Oil Drum. This split is worth keeping in mind as the issue of the Huck Finn edits floats around. It highlights how maintaining a cosmopolitan national identity is absolutely critical to the success of modern economies.
On the security front, things are very interesting. First of all, China's unveiled a new "stealth" jet. Despite this SecDef Gates will continue doing his thing, highlighting the general reduction in the national fear level in the US. We even have what appears to be terrorism in response to disquieting highway signs that barely made it to the front page.
In more mundane matters, it looks like the Consumer Finance Protection Agency has picked up a very powerful member: Mrs. Petraeus. Taken with the selection of Daley as chief of staff, it looks like we're in for the politics of making nice with powerful people over the next couple of years.
Continued pressure on oil supplies is leading to a quiet revolution in transportation and your pie maker's preferred mode of transport is getting additional support. Even gadgets are getting into the efficiency act.
The biggest international news is probably that a major oil exporter is about to split along racial and religious lines, with nary a mention on the Oil Drum. This split is worth keeping in mind as the issue of the Huck Finn edits floats around. It highlights how maintaining a cosmopolitan national identity is absolutely critical to the success of modern economies.
On the security front, things are very interesting. First of all, China's unveiled a new "stealth" jet. Despite this SecDef Gates will continue doing his thing, highlighting the general reduction in the national fear level in the US. We even have what appears to be terrorism in response to disquieting highway signs that barely made it to the front page.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Educating Pie Makers: College (part 2: The Stakeholders)
In the previous post, we found that "ignorance" could buy a yacht and two trips around the world, while education gets one a piece of sheep paper. Currently, this cost is spread over four major sets of stakeholders: governments, charities, employers and students. Each has their own set of interests and expectations from a students' education, but it's important to understand the Opportunity Cost of college to all of them.
The Government: When a government contributes to undergraduate college education, it's looking for some combination of three things: (1) keep young people out of the workforce for a few years, (2) provide a better educated workforce to compete for higher value-added industries and (3) improve the quality of its public discourse. Historically, (1) has paid off quite well, and unemployment rates have been kept under control in societies with people living and working for longer periods. (2) is a bit more tenuous, given that highly skilled people can move to greener pastures, but often they send money if they do migrate, so probably better to pay for students than sailors. Unless, of course, the government runs a maritime nation with a shipbuilding industry suffering from lack of demand . . . (3) has been a manifest failure.
Charities and Foundations: These groups generally want to make experiences that they enjoyed or felt were formative available to others. Since many are directly tied to prominent alumni of various institutions with a strong interest in seeing their alma mater succeed, it's safe to say their role will remain to reduce the costs of, and possibly increase the benefits of, education for students at favored institutions. This situation will likely persist until your pie maker can endow Bake Around the World fellowships.
Employers: The cost/benefit analysis for employers heavily favors having a set of institutions that can handle professional training, mostly at the Master's level in the US. Meanwhile, many express dissatisfaction with the quality of Bachelor's graduates. If this continues, they may decide to use non-academic means of determine recruit quality, which would pretty dramatically change the calculation for
Students: The advice your pie maker gives to all students begins with this: do not pursue any degree until you have an idea what you want to do with it. If after starting you find you don't need it, stop, unless you both want to and can afford to continue. Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates are doing alright, and it's better to be broke and unemployed than heavily indebted and unemployed.
On the other hand, there are some strong personal benefits to being an alumnus of your chosen alma mater. There's no formula to assess the actual value of this, and assuming the student can afford the education, it comes down to a simple question of whether it is worth the Opportunity Cost to the student. Gut reactions are important for more than just pies.
To directly answer comment from the previous post, it's possible to come up with a formula that, assuming several uncertain things are known, can approximate the net benefit in terms of income:
if( (I_B - l_c)*p_F*p_E*d_B > I_HS)
Go to school
else
Go to work
Here, I_B represents the income potential with a Bachelor's degree, I_HS represents high school income after four years in the workforce. I_B must be reduced by the cost of servicing student loans, l_c. This quantity should be modified by three factors: 0 < p_F < 1, the probability* of student finishing despite risks such as lack of interest, mental or physical illness and uncertainty about finances; 0 < p_E < 1, probability of employment with one's chosen degree; and 0 < d_B < 4ish, how badly one wants to study in a particular field. There are far too many factors that play into each of those to give a more detailed answer, but anyone struggling with this decision is welcome to stop by the Fuzzy Wups to discuss. We have pie and just discovered the joys of grinding spices in with coffee.
*Quants: Yes, this is a flagrant abuse of probability theory and I fear someone will take this humble discussion aid and turn it into an AIG-risk-metric-esque tool to fool people into bad decisions. On the other hand, there's already plenty of such tools out there, and at least mine comes with this disclaimer.
The Government: When a government contributes to undergraduate college education, it's looking for some combination of three things: (1) keep young people out of the workforce for a few years, (2) provide a better educated workforce to compete for higher value-added industries and (3) improve the quality of its public discourse. Historically, (1) has paid off quite well, and unemployment rates have been kept under control in societies with people living and working for longer periods. (2) is a bit more tenuous, given that highly skilled people can move to greener pastures, but often they send money if they do migrate, so probably better to pay for students than sailors. Unless, of course, the government runs a maritime nation with a shipbuilding industry suffering from lack of demand . . . (3) has been a manifest failure.
Charities and Foundations: These groups generally want to make experiences that they enjoyed or felt were formative available to others. Since many are directly tied to prominent alumni of various institutions with a strong interest in seeing their alma mater succeed, it's safe to say their role will remain to reduce the costs of, and possibly increase the benefits of, education for students at favored institutions. This situation will likely persist until your pie maker can endow Bake Around the World fellowships.
Employers: The cost/benefit analysis for employers heavily favors having a set of institutions that can handle professional training, mostly at the Master's level in the US. Meanwhile, many express dissatisfaction with the quality of Bachelor's graduates. If this continues, they may decide to use non-academic means of determine recruit quality, which would pretty dramatically change the calculation for
Students: The advice your pie maker gives to all students begins with this: do not pursue any degree until you have an idea what you want to do with it. If after starting you find you don't need it, stop, unless you both want to and can afford to continue. Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates are doing alright, and it's better to be broke and unemployed than heavily indebted and unemployed.
On the other hand, there are some strong personal benefits to being an alumnus of your chosen alma mater. There's no formula to assess the actual value of this, and assuming the student can afford the education, it comes down to a simple question of whether it is worth the Opportunity Cost to the student. Gut reactions are important for more than just pies.
To directly answer comment from the previous post, it's possible to come up with a formula that, assuming several uncertain things are known, can approximate the net benefit in terms of income:
if( (I_B - l_c)*p_F*p_E*d_B > I_HS)
Go to school
else
Go to work
Here, I_B represents the income potential with a Bachelor's degree, I_HS represents high school income after four years in the workforce. I_B must be reduced by the cost of servicing student loans, l_c. This quantity should be modified by three factors: 0 < p_F < 1, the probability* of student finishing despite risks such as lack of interest, mental or physical illness and uncertainty about finances; 0 < p_E < 1, probability of employment with one's chosen degree; and 0 < d_B < 4ish, how badly one wants to study in a particular field. There are far too many factors that play into each of those to give a more detailed answer, but anyone struggling with this decision is welcome to stop by the Fuzzy Wups to discuss. We have pie and just discovered the joys of grinding spices in with coffee.
*Quants: Yes, this is a flagrant abuse of probability theory and I fear someone will take this humble discussion aid and turn it into an AIG-risk-metric-esque tool to fool people into bad decisions. On the other hand, there's already plenty of such tools out there, and at least mine comes with this disclaimer.
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