Human Carpet - Waikiki

The Duke- father of surfing.

 None of the photos show just how densely the Waikiki Beach front was covered by human flesh - and it is not even high season.  These photos are of the lagoon which was relatively uncrowded.

Awesome Hawaiian signs

Gotta love the martini glass on this one....

Kawai

The white dot is a helicopter.

The Big Island

The weather prevented us from flying by helicopter over the volcano but we did get to swim with the manta rays.
The view from our balcony

 Pretty flower

 Catherine brought along Scottish shortbreads for us to have with cups of tea.

Me with Conan O'Brien hair - Christmas Lunch

 Mauna Loa - extinct volcano in the background

Conan O'Brien

Conan O'Brien Head peering out of window in Harvard Yard

Fire!

The fire alarms went off last night.  Not sure whether it was a drill or not.  The fire stairs still had an burnt electrical smell today.

It reminded me of my days at St Anns...

Glow in the dark firemen

Skating rink outside the Charles Hotel

Pygmy Sea Horses

The fragile beauty of our marine world

Pygmy Seahorses

Testament to the disgraceful way mankind has treated this precious planet

The Plastics Problem

The Great Pacific garbage patch, also described as the Pacific trash vortex, is a gyre of marine debris particles in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135°W to 155°W and 35°N and 42°N.^[1] The patch extends over an indeterminate area, with estimates ranging very widely depending on the degree of plastic concentration used to define the affected area.
The patch is characterized by exceptionally high relative concentrations of pelagic plastics, chemical sludge and other debris that have been trapped by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre.^[2] Despite its enormous size and density (4 particles per cubic meter), the patch is not visible from satellite photography, nor is it necessarily detectable to casual boaters or divers in the area, as it consists primarily of a small increase in suspended, often microscopic particles in the upper water column.

The Koch Brothers - the Kings of Profit over Public Safety

Ughh. These people have no moral or social conscience.

Koch Heads

Grace Hopper... not Grass Hopper.. OK?

A nice article about Grace Hopper,  an internet pioneer.


Grace Hopper

SLUSH!

The snow promptly melted overnight and became black dirty slush. WINTER IS (STILL) COMING...(small Game of Thrones reference for the uninitiated)..

SNOW!

Pop Up Reindeer

Thanks Mum for the Christmas Card! And it is beginning to snow outside too!

Dinner for 6 - Graduate Commons Program

At Alden and Harrow in Cambridge.  The food was excellent.

Out for a stroll..

The Shell sign on Memorial Drive...

Trimming the Tree

Trimming the tree in the Director's Residence at Cowperthwaite.

The Christmas puppy - beautiful, gentle dog

The Great Stagnation

A very interesting read...
Why-has-human-progress-ground-to-a-halt?

The possible reasons why -

1. Wealth accumulation unlinked to innovation
2. As success comes to be defined by the amount of money one can generate in the very short term, progress is in turn defined not by making things better, but by rendering them obsolete as rapidly as possible so that the next iteration of phones, cars or operating systems can be sold to a willing market.
3. Risk aversion

Last Lectures for the Semester

I cannot believe it.  I have been overcome with emotion today saying goodbye to Professors, teaching assistants and students that I have interacted with in my classes this semester.  12 years of school, 4 years of undergraduate and 8 years of post grad; and nary a tear have I shed.  K School is not perfect by any means, but the teaching staff are a cut above and I honor them for their commitment to imparting knowledge.  Thank you Professors Minson, Robichaud, Bowie and Parker.

Getting a hug from my personal fave, Prof. Richard Parker who taught Religion, Politics and Policy.

Dinner for 6 at Rosebud Bar, Sommerville

Awesome Dinner for 6 with Patrick, Lauren, Vedette, Tom and cartoon of Caroline Cowan who could not make it (see middle of table)

7 bad economic ideas

Went to a talk by Jeff Madrick, veteran journalist from the New York Times on the bad ideas that mainstream economists have inflicted on the world. Those economists think that:

• labor is paid what it deserves
• prices set by the market are right
• inequality is not an issue - all that matters is opportunity and growth
• inflation is the only worry
• low budget deficit is a priority
• government must be small
• education fully explains inequality

1. The invisible hand - Adam Smith has a lot to answer for.  Smith believed that buyers and sellers left to their own devices will come to an equilibrium.  This simply does not happen. The case of a too beautiful idea that does not work
2. Say's law -which states that savings are automatically invested, so that there cannot be an overall shortfall in demand. A further implication of Say’s Law is that government stimulus can never do any good, because deficit spending by the public sector will always crowd out an equal amount of private spending. This principle has hurt most with governments paying down public debt at times when public investment was most needed
3. Low inflation is all that matters - 2% inflation target is a myth - there is no empirical evidence to support it.  The truth is that low inflation helps the wealthy.  Low inflation has become the only policy of the US Federal Reserve
4. Friedman's folly - Friedman vehemently believed that government should only intervene when the market fails.  As a consequence of this type of thinking economists have completely failed to construct a proper theory of government involvement
5. Efficient markets - Financial markets are so efficient that they can properly assign prices. Since when should stock prices dictate the true value of a company
6. Globalization is always good
7. Economics is a science - it is nothing of the sort

Thanksgiving

I woke to snow on the ground outside my window.

 A day spent in Plymouth at the National Day of Mourning for indigenous peoples across the world.

The Mayflower is unbelievably tiny.

Plymouth Rock is so underwhelming I could not even be bothered photographing it.  Here instead is another rock that is a bit more awe inspiring....