Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Hamsters?

Not to make light of the ecological issues involved, but I was drawn to this article on the Great Hamster of Alsace by the phrase "wild hamsters," which is highly amusing to anyone whose only experience is with their wheel-running relatives.

Clearly the reporter had the same American childhood associations, given the opening line of the article: "France was punished on Thursday for not taking proper care of its hamsters."

Har har har.

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> TV on the Radio - Second Song
> Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
> US3 - Tukka Yoot's Riddim
> Free Energy - Free Energy
> Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks
> Beck - E-Pro
> Caribou - After Hours

Bonus PSA at the beginning of that US3 video.

Giving the labor market too much credit

A recent article in the Washington Post covered a new report from Georgetown University that looks at average annual earnings by college major. This was made possible by the fact that the Census has just started asking people with bachelor's degrees about their major. The data showed that those who majored in sciences earned substantially more, on average, than humanities majors.

The individual major with the highest median earnings was petroleum engineering, at $120,000, followed by pharmaceutical sciences at $105,000, and math and computer sciences at $98,000. The lowest earnings median was for those majoring in counseling or psychology, at $29,000, and early childhood education, at $36,000.
...

"I don’t want to slight Shakespeare,” said Anthony Carnevale, one of the report’s authors. “But this study slights Shakespeare.”

That Shakespeare jibe irked me a bit, but I was much more dismayed when I got to the kicker quote at the end of the article:

“The engineering major makes more money because he or she is more productive. In the end, the market is very discriminating,” Carnevale said.

Ugh. Productive in the strict economic sense, perhaps, but let's not confuse market value with actual value. I've no doubt the market reflects value in some useful ways -- for instance, the need for people with computer science training is very strong, which is probably a big part of the high median earnings of those in that major. But do we really think that earnings are a good reflection of the value of the work people do? It's convenient to think so if you have an above-average salary, but the link is tenuous.

Petroleum engineers make more than three times the salary of those in early childhood education. But I would submit that their earnings are so high because their work is related to the extraction of a commodity with a well-defined market value. The market for early childhood education, by contrast, is nonexistent. Child futures are not traded on the stock exchange, and the "market" determining how much early childhood educators are paid is a mishmash of government programs and affluent parents paying for Montessori preschool. The impact of their work is huge, and long-term, but it is not reflected in their pay in any meaningful way.

Or, to take an example from within a single field, lots of research has shown that primary care doctors are the most important players in ensuring that patients gets high-quality and economically efficient health care. But there's a shortage of primary care docs, in no small part because they get paid less than most specialists. (E.g. this site says that general practitioners report an average income of $118,000, while plastic surgeons report an average income of $203,000.)

My point is, there are lots of things that can make your work valuable, both in an economic and social sense, but only a small portion of them are reflected in the labor market. When it comes to picking a college major, future earning potential is something to consider, but don't mistake it for a proxy for the usefulness of your chosen field. The market is not equipped to determine that. But with a well-rounded education (maybe including some Shakespeare), you are!

Becky and Andrew

I spent a great long weekend in Minneapolis. Went to a Twins game on Friday, and was cold! (Not so much now that I'm back in DC.) Also got to bike around the city, and try a few local pastries with Doug.

But the purpose of the visit was to see Becky and Andrew get married, which was lovely. I posted some pictures on Flickr.

It's a sign

I was briefly in New York the weekend before last, and saw this cleverly edited sign in a subway station.



(I was reminded of this by the construction sign I passed on the way home today, which had been altered to read "EEL PLATES AHEAD.")

Mission critical carpet

Being a new homeowner, I found myself in Home Depot a couple weeks ago. Walking through the floor coverings department, a carpet sample panel caught my eye. Not because of the carpet itself, but the name of the style:

Mission Critical Visionary? What? That's a strange name for carpet, even stranger because the display made it clear that this line of carpet is for homes, not offices.

I flipped through the rest of the panels of samples, showing the different styles, and every single name was straight from corporate-speak. There was "Corner Office," "Value Added Self Starter" (all the necessary hyphens were missing), "Chairman," and -- I kid you not -- "Ground Breaking Due Diligence."

How on earth did someone decide these would be good names for home carpet styles? This is difficult for me to fathom. (I did not note the manufacturer, and Googling some of these names and "carpet" didn't turn up anything....)

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> TV on the Radio - Will Do
> Gorillaz - Kids with Guns (Hot Chip Remix)
> Wilco - Handshake Drugs
> Yuck - Get Away
> Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
> The Knife - Heartbeats
> Bellflur - Grey Sparkle Finnish Pig[mp3]

Really loving that new TV on the Radio track, which is imbued with extra poignancy because their bassist died of cancer a couple weeks ago.

Bellflur is a local band that opened for Low when I saw them last week. Was really impressed with their performance and bought an album after the show. So far, I think it loses something in the recorded version...there are lots of instruments, and the mix sounds too busy to me, while the live version didn't. But I still like it a lot, including the free mp3 linked above.

Going to see Yuck and Tame Impala on Friday. (And Les Savy Fav on Saturday.)

Back of the napkin: Ella's

Jesse was in town this past week (escaping the royal wedding), and fortunately he had a chance to meet up while he was here. We went to Ella's, and it reminded me of my plan, hatched on a previous trip to the same pizzeria, to leave behind cryptic napkin scribbles at restaurant tables. So we made one:

Jesse tried to come up with a timeline-oriented action plan to implement the policy framework, but was unsuccessful.

Verizon and me

I've been slow with the blog posting for the last month or so. This is partly because I've been busy with moving-related stuff, but also because I was without internet for the first few weeks in my new place. While I think complaining is generally a poor use of a blog, this was very frustrating, so please permit me to rant for a moment:

I called Verizon (which is the local phone company in DC) to switch my DSL service from my prior address to my new place. Once I identified my new address, the call went something like this:

Verizon: Sir, I'm afraid service is not available at that address.

Teague: Really? Can you double-check the address? I know it's available there, other people in the building have Verizon DSL.

V: There may be wiring in the building, but there is no more service available.

T: No more available?

V: That's right, I'm sorry. No more capacity. But I can email one of our engineers and see if they can do something. They can't always, but sometimes they can free something up.

T: Uh, okay. Sure.

V: It might take them a couple hours to get back to me.

I then checked the other regional DSL provider; they don't serve my neighborhood. And I confirmed that because my building is wired for satellite TV, Comcast is not an option. So it was Verizon or nothing. After not hearing back from them all day, I called again:

Different Verizon rep: I don't see any record of your previous call in the system. But yes, service is not available at your address.

T: But the rep I talked to earlier said she was going to check with the engineers. Can you check on that?

V: Sir, there aren't any engineers we can talk to.

T: Well, she said she was going to check with the engineers. I'd definitely like to see if there's a workaround, because I really want to have internet at home.

V: Sir, I hate to say somebody was lying to you, but there aren't any engineers. We don't have any way to talk to any engineers, they're a separate unit. Maybe that person was just telling you that to finish up the call.

T: Uh, okay. I don't have access to RCN or Comcast, so Verizon is my only option. You're telling me there's no way I can get internet?

V: Sir, it's like a parking lot -- all the spaces are full. There's nothing I can do. You could check back in a few months to see if a space has opened up. But to be honest, Verizon is putting most of its resources into expanding its FiOS network, so you'd be more likely to get FiOS than have a regular DSL spot open up.

T: When might we get FiOS?

V: Oh, well, I can't really provide any predictions about that. If you want internet access now, you could sign up for a home phone line with dial-up or Verizon's 3G mobile internet.

T: Neither of those sound very good to me.

V: Well, is there anything else I can help you with today?

T: I'd like to get internet.

V: Well, I'm sorry sir, there's not anything I can do. Have a good day, and thanks for choosing Verizon.

Anyway, I've now worked out a WiFi sharing arrangement with a neighbor. But it seems ridiculous that Verizon would be unable to offer DSL service in a well-established neighborhood in the heart of Washington.

Settling in

Here's the view from my new apartment -- this window is in my bedroom, next to my desk. You're looking south toward the center of Mount Pleasant, which is just beyond the larger apartment buildings.

I've been here for almost a month now, and really like the new place so far. Still have a list of things to do before I'll feel completely settled in, but it does feel like home.

Meanwhile, I went to visit Matt and Risa in Greensboro a couple weekends ago, which was lovely. While spring was still tentative in DC at that point, it had definitely sprung there. But we've caught up, and today felt quite summery in DC -- I took a weekend bike trip to Harpers Ferry, WV with some friends from work, and I got quite sweaty on the ride back to DC today, with temps in the 80s. (The local snakes were enthused with the warm weather...seems like we stopped every few miles to look at one sunning itself on the C&O towpath.)