I just read Debt, a very good book. The author is an anarchist and you can tell he's coming from the radical left, but he doesn't really have an agenda in the book, at least not one that you can't ignore. Rather, he's giving you a lot of information and tools to reconsider your relation to debt and society. Most importantly, he demolishes the just-so story arising in a lot of economics books that money arose to replace inconvenient barter trade. Political interpretations of modernity, of course, should be taken cum grano salis.
So I've gotten into a bunch of PhD programs in statistics and I'm waiting to hear back from one more (I'm #1 on their waiting list at the moment). I'm considering offers and have to make a decision, essentially, by April 15th. Coincidentally, this happens to be Pascha (Easter) this year. Of course, I'll have my decision before then, especially as it's a Sunday. In retrospect, the high yield I got (essentially: flawless victory) meant I should've aimed higher than having my "reach" schools ranked at about 10th, but I was constrained by the fact that I could really only do January 15th application deadlines. And that some of the "higher" schools don't quite do what I want to do (viz: Chicago is very heavy on theory, but I'm more interested in applied). Looking back, Michigan had a 1/15 deadline. Crap. Should've applied there, they're trying to expand and improve their ranking and are doing so by doing exactly what I am interested in. Well, whatevs.
I went on a trip to visit a couple schools. While on the trip, I stopped off at a monastery north of Pittsburgh. So here is a review: A+ would go again. Best feature: they typically say "You/Your" instead of that "Thou" nonsense.
I have been playing very little chess and lifting very few weights.
So that is what I have been up to.
