World's Luckiest Person

From the Bathroom Reader series...

Median versus Average Income in the US

The purpose of this post is to show the large gap in income in America. I was going to go further but seeing as how you can't even find the average income in the US on Google, Wikipedia, etc. I thought this was a story in and of itself.

If you type in U.S. GDP (gross domestic product) into Google you get 13.84 trillion. That's the total amount of money that our economy produces every year.

If you ask Google the U.S. population you get about 304 million (as of July 2008).

If you then take GDP and divide it by population something interesting happens; $45,553 comes out. That seems a bit high, no?

I'm not really trying to get into the current market events so much, as it has little to do with what I'm currently trying to show. The problem with dividing GDP by population is that the entire population doesn't work. Currently in the US about 154 million people comprise the workforce, and only 140 million of those have jobs, the rest are unemployed (currently about 9%, all of this can be found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, page 11). In March of 2008 there were 145 million working people in the US. If you take that same 13.84 trillion in GDP and divide it by a working population that numbers 145 million you get about $95,000 per worker... what? Only about 6.2% of workers make that much or more money, and the median wage of an individual over 25 years old is $32,000 for everyone or $39,000 for the full time worker.

Am I doing something wrong? Medians tend to be representative of "typical" in a sample size and not necessarily closely related to average, but for this to be the case there needs to be a large disparity in income. Of course we all know that this is the case, but still... that's a lot more than I expected. If $39,000 is typical and $95,000 is average that essentially means there are a lot of people making about $40K a year and a few people making a million a year. I'm a bit worried I'm assuming something I shouldn't be. This calculation worries me because I don't believe in the general notion of a meritocracy. That is, that wages follow hard work. It does to some extent, but not like many people believe. To attain that kind of money we're talking about you must rely on the labors of others. Others who are paid the 'median' of 2.5 times less than the average.

Reading for Monday

Apparently Dubai is a slave state run by dictators. It's a long read but if it's all true then it's worth it. Here's a blogger from Dubai who says otherwise. (HT: Freakonomics)

New experiments suggest that amino acids form and replicate with greater frequency than previously believed. Basically it's saying that the formation of life may not be so uncommon after all. The same ten amino acids that keep coming up in the experiments are also commonly found in meteorites that crash into earth... hm.

I've been reading a lot of GOOD Magazine recently which is really... good. The article below is features that crazy smart crazy dude I wrote about before, Raymond Kurzweil. He says just enough stuff that makes sense... but he also seems insane. The article deals with the future of transportation.

This is a short fascinating piece about unintended consequences due to restrictions. (HT: Freakonomics again)

On Forbes Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociologist featured in Freakonomics and who wrote Gang Leader for a Day, is profiled. He talks about poverty, the sex trade, and other marginalized segments of society. Great quote near the end: "[He] dismisses the 'culture of poverty' theory, which suggests that poor blacks in America don't work because they don't value employment. 'People in America want to work,' he says. They do so ever so industriously, even when they're breaking the law."

Animal Videos

The most amazingly humane dairy ever. I doubt many dairies look like this. I'd pay an extra buck for a gallon of milk to know that the cows got to live better than me.



Too much time... (HT: Vija)

Reading Material

A new study shows that people with schizophrenia aren't fooled by the concave face - lite from the bottom optical illusion that the rest of us are. The video is interesting as hell. I couldn't not watch it. Total side note: at the end of the article it's mention that drunk and high people are often not fooled by the illusion much like people suffering from schizophrenia. Perhaps this explains why when watching a movie in one of these states I often can't buy into whatever the actors and scenery are trying to convince me of. Interesting.

Google talks with newspapers. Not exactly a riveting read, but a bit funny.

Food myths. One of those guys, Brian Wansink, I've been planning to write about forever and just haven't. His research is truly fascinating.

Just found this data website called data360.org... yikes. It's a collaborative open-source place to upload your data for others to see. Getting excited by such things... man. Their about us page is a good read too. Here's an excerpt:

"I continue to believe that responsible citizens must strive for objectivity when thinking about issues. To not strive for objectivity is to leave the realm of facts and enter the realm of dogma, doctrine proclaimed as true without proof. I believe that a current reality does exist and that from that situation, we are both confronted by real problems and that we are making real progress. Knowing specifically where there are problems and where there is progress is one crucial objective"

Word.

Poster Artists

My friend Justin started screen printing a while ago and has become quite popular and at the same time exposed me to this world where you can buy great original art for $25 or $30. Not too bad. Anyways, here are some of my favorite artists.

This is probably my favorite working artist at the moment. His name is Daniel Danger and he works out of San Francisco. Here's an interview with him and another impressive artist with a similar style, and he's an exhibit that both of them are in right now.

Here's a guy named Justin Myer that makes intaglio prints from photographs. Quite amazing.

These next three are probably the most prolific Chicago area printers, or at least the ones I tend to see the most. This is Jay Ryan. He's definitely the most famous gig poster screen printer out there.

This is Jay's wife Diane Sudyka. She also has some wonderful etchings and gig posters.

This is Dan Grzeca (pronounced Jetsah).

Here are some others too:

Jason Munn, The Small Stakes, minimalist but clean and well put together.

Nate Duval, just really original and all of his designs are quite different.

Bennet Holzworth, uses a letterpress to make very unique posters. I have the Modest Mouse one and it's amazing in person.

Soilless Basil/Lettuce Garden

Here's a project I finally completed yesterday. On the left you can see my 2' square hydroponic basil and lettuce garden. It's pretty simple. Water is pumped from the 15 gallon reservoir (that black Rubbermaid container) into that white ebb and flow tray for about 15 minutes every hour. Lighting is provided by my north facing window (weakest light of any direction, boo) and a 2' strip of high output T5 florescents for 18 hours a day. I also set up some white construction board to help with light reflectivity.

Here you can see the plants in their growing medium which is called hydroton. It's basically just lightweight baked clay; expanded terracotta sort of. The green stuff is rockwool (fiberglass insulation without the flame retardant) that I used to start the seedlings. I'm growing: Italian large leaf basil, summer long basil, purple ruffles basil, spicy saber basil, little caesar lettuce, butter crunch lettuce, and burgundy ice lettuce.

This is the plant's food. It's supposedly the same stuff NASA uses in all their hydroponic research.

This is one of my purple basil plants. This is the plant I'm most excited for.

Picturequote

Throughout history there seems to be certain individuals who don't act or think like a person of their time. They tend to be anti-racism (Nietzsche), vegetarian (Einstein), anti-war (Gandhi, Churchill), or some combination of many admirable yet almost entirely unheard of ideas for their time. It is of course foolish to think that we have now reached some moral platitude and that this idea no longer applies to us presently. I wonder what such a person looks like today?

Here's one of my recent favorites:

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." - Carl Sagan, PARADE Magazine 1996.

This is the sunset of my balcony bounced off of a glass door.

Links for Monday

The internet - visualized.

Blog rankings for April 2009. I guess I missed the list... ha, but it's a great way to find new blogs that everyone else has found and enjoys.

Facebook spends $1 million a month on electricity and other interesting musings from TechCrunch.

Solar airplane flys around Europe. I want one.

What in the... I'm Right?

I recently wrote about sustainable asset value. That is, buying things that tend not to depreciate rapidly in value. Gripping, I know. At the end of it I said this:

"Over half of the expenditures in the US are on shelter and transportation ($17,000 and $9,000 making $26,000 of the $50,000 total). More than half of our money goes towards moving you around and housing you."

I always wonder about the accuracy of the numbers I come up with, but then HUD just released this statistic two days after I posted about it. According to them nearly 60% of the average American's income goes to housing and transportation... Hm, so who reads this blog - seriously?

Reading Material

Someone finally replicated the Milgram experiments, sort of anyways. It hasn't been replicated because no review board would allow a similarly deceptive experiment to take place. The thoughts by a research assistant to Stanley Milgram are excellent.

The difference between a million and a billion shown graphically and in funnier comic form.

MIT Tech Review reads my blog (joke) and talks about electronic medical records and piracy (previously here and here, none of the links provided are especially great reads).

Q&A's with the author of the books Tyranny of Dead Ideas (good read, I may comment on it later) and Bottom Billion both from Freakonomics. The Bottom Billion guy, Oxford economist Paul Collier, kind of annoyed me. He had some great answers - he even mentioned Kiva as one of the best ways that Americans can get involved in Africa. The one that stuck out was this:

"I don’t know this stuff and don’t want to. But I am just about prepared to believe that the average Chinese person is smarter than the average Englishman." - Paul Collier after being asked about the controversial research of Richard Lynn.

Don't want to? Research regarding the average IQ of Asians by Richard Lynn showed their IQ's to be slightly higher than that of Caucasians. This was later refuted by James Flynn, the world's (likely) leading expert on IQ, who stated counter to Lynn that in fact Asians historically have had slightly lower IQ's than that of whites (Asian Americans: Achievement Beyond IQ, 1991, taken from Outliers p. 231). The delicious irony being that Asians out earn whites significantly here in the US. I'm not trying to be prejudice or inflammatory or whatever. I just believe in scientific rigor. I believe these questions and their answers are important. How can you not want to know?

No Balls Are Safe or I Miss Paintball

I'm sorry that the video is sideways, that's my fault. It was edited a long time ago by Chris Dilts.

In this video Jamin, one of the 2 or 3 "adults/mentors" on our team, is drunk as usually happens when it gets dark out. He barges into the hotel room beachside on the Pacific Coast and picks up Tommy by his balls. The signifigance of this is that anyone who gets shot during the day runs the risk of having "unsafe balls". It was kind of like motivation.

I made this as an 18 year old freshman in college using my brand new 5 megapixel digital camera that I carried with me on all my subsequent paintball trips. I abused that camera; it's no longer with us sadly, but it doesn't owe me anything either. This was the very first event of the reformed NPPL that took place in Huntington Beach, CA. I ended up playing in the NPPL for 5 years, 2 professionally, and a year after I quit they went bankrupt. The time in between was interesting though. I played with the same core of people for about 6 years. Lots of stories for another time.

A new 7-man league has emerged and it looks promising. It's called the USPL (US Paintball League). Their first event starts tomorrow at the same venue in Huntington Beach. It's a pretty amazing place to have a tournament. Anyways, one of my teammates just bought a professional franchise, Indianapolis Mutiny, in the new league. Best of luck to Mutiny and the USPL and a word of advice; focus on playing paintball and staying profitable. Promotion these days comes from being legit, not making lame videos, passing out flyers, and paying Fox for airtime.