increasing our human capital

I recently had an idea that I'm really interested in hearing some opinions on; so for the first time it's prompting me to write to some of my favorite bloggers and get their input (hopefully). I'll add any responses to the post.

First letter out to Freakonomics guys:

programming as foreign language
1 message

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Adam Winski	Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 1:05 PM
To: levittdubner@freakonomics.com
Steven and Stephen, I enjoyed your book a great deal and have been a regular reader of your blog for over a year now. It's definitely one of my favorites. I love the both of your perspectives on the world and really appreciate the quality of your guest contributors and question takers. The reason I'm writing to y'all is recently, as I was reading What the Doormouse Said by John Markoff, I was struck as to how similar learning a computer language appeared to be to learning a foreign language. I do not know what kinds of computer classes are being taught in the elementary, middle and high schools in the US so the following may be moot but; what if schools were to offer as an option the opportunity for students to elect programming classes as an alternative to foreign language? I do think that learning languages is important and learning about other cultures is crucial. However, in a world of limited (and seemingly ever moreso) resources, I think it could make a great deal of sense to teach a pragmatic skill over one that is less so. This is especially true when, in my experience, a nontrivial percentage of people do not take learning a foreign language in school very seriously. I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on this. Thanks so much again for all of the great work and effort that y'all put into your blog. Best, Adam Winski Update 1/28: Sent to Tyler Cowen (Marginal Revolution) Update 1/29: Response from Tyler! On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 7:12 PM, Tyler Cowen wrote: I am all for this and note there have been a few good articles lately about "R"... Tyler Not sure what he means by "R"? but I asked him to please send the articles to which he's referring...hoping to be able to deduce from there. update 2/24/09 - just came across this: http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2009/02/teach-kids-programming-mr-president.html and sent it over to Freakonomics guys as well as a letter to Cuban. update 2/25/09 - one more thing I forgot to mention in the initial post is that I think that this should first be instituted in the lowest performing schools. I can see the argument that those would be the kids who would get the least out of it but I believe the opposite. Teaching underprivileged kids such a useable skill could go a long way towards the employment opportunities those children have, even without the benefit of a degree.

Best of 2008

I've seen a few of these (Kottke.org and Michael Arrington) in different forms and they're great. I wanted to create my list of some of my favorite articles and other various media or just sites in general in 2008:

Sheep Market & Amazon Mechanical Turk - Sheep market is both audacious, hilarious & fascinating (the things people will do for 2 pennies!?) and also, by introducing me to Mechanical Turk proved to be a great resource for help. Number one of the year!

Michael Lewis in Portfolio on "The End" - Hands down best article of the year by one of my all time favorites. He also just wrote a great NYTimes op-ed with David Einhorn (Part I Part II)

Dick Fuld and the downfall of Lehman

New Yorker profile of Ben Bernanke

Washington Post three-part article on AIG

The Man Who Invented New York by Tom Wolfe - classic portrait of New York Magazine founder Clay Felker. A couple of highlights:

"I remember Clay saying, “Look … we’re coming out once a week, right? And The New Yorker comes out once a week. And we start out the week the same way they do, with blank paper and ink. Is there any reason why we can’t be as good as The New Yorker? … Or better. They’re so damned dull.”'

"They became known as the “art birds.” As late as 1989 Japanese art collectors liked to have these pretty little American girls by their sides in the front rows for the “important” auctions at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. They loved the pretty things’ lithe young legs with their epidermi of sheerest ravage-me nylon shimmering up to the most tumescent swells of their thighs as they crossed and then re-crossed and then re-re-crossed and then re-re-re-crossed them shimmer shimmer shimmer shimmer beneath the downlighters."

Another fascinating piece by Tom Wolfe (granted from 1965) on the rise of stock car racing (precursor of Nascar), the drivers & fans, particularly the first superstar, Junior Johnson. One of the "7 Greatest Esquire stories ever published."

Basically this whole New York Times series "The Reckoning" is phenomenal but my particular favorites were the articles on Merrill and Citi

I could not put down the epic seven-part post election Newsweek series "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign" Probably will win a Pulitzer. Not that I have any idea as to what the criteria are for a Pulitzer but amazing comprehensive coverage from the primaries through election day.

Best law passed all year. In Texas of course.

Daily Show was really on point covering the election with some HILARIOUS stuff

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Best F#&king News Team Ever - Small Town Values

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Sarah Palin Gender Card

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

sergio vieira de mello

I stumbled upon Samantha Power's TED talk today, which mostly focused on the life, deeds, and unfortunately, death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a fascinating Brazilian with 34 years in the UN.

He was, in the words of Power "part James Bond and part Bobby Kennedy." Who, as she quoted Gore Vidal, actually not Gore Vidal but that's the name that comes to mind, said "you could never tell if he was a realist masquerading as an idealist or an idealist masquerading as a realist,"

This is a guy who for the majority of his adult life thrust himself into warzones where he was not welcome and found himself at the negotiating table with some of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, doing his best to stop global genocide. The very brief amount I know about his story is absolutely fascinating and I can't wait to get my hands on Samantha Power's book Chasing the Flame all about Vieira de Mello's life. He is definitely a new hero of mine whose courage and works speak for themselves. Definitely something to strive for in 2009 and beyond.

Side note on Samantha Power (which definitely sounds like the name of a superhero) - very reassuring that she is such a staunch critic of genocide and has the ear of Barack. I think it is an absolute moral imperative of the force that the US has built up to stop wanton genocide in all forms.

Power talks a great deal about how the bottom up movement of college students and young adults have made a huge difference in terms of divestiture and political agenda although makes the caveat that there is still much to be done (ie. media coverage of endangered species in Sudan with no mention of people being murdered). Let's hope that 2009 will see an improvement in this regard.