by Bill Sweet
Time to get busy reading.
The College Majors That Won't Leave You Drowning in Debt
I am grateful for two decisions that I made as a 17-year old: 1) to not be a wimp and pursue a computer engineering degree, and 2) somehow convincing the United States Army to pay for it. I often wonder where I'd be if I hadn't done either of those things. Maybe in the same place, who knows. I know that not everyone has those choices as a young person.
Sarah Grant at Bloomberg has an interesting article this morning on how a lender - someone deciding whether or not to let you borrow money - looks at your chosen profession.
Those in psychology and education typically have trouble getting student loans paid down, while those in engineering, pharmacy, and medicine have it a little easier.
Microsoft is (finally) winning with Windows 10 and the cloud
Microsoft is challenging Amazon in the cloud storage business. Remarkable turnaround from where they were five years ago dicking around with Windows phones and Xbox.
"Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told investors that the company has nearly doubled its cloud customers over the past 12 months. The company saw huge gains in its Azure business (an able competitor to Amazon’s Web Services). Azure revenue grew 140%."
Multitasking is Killing Your Brain
Agree completely on these two fantastic points:
1) Multitasking is just switching between tasks - and every time you switch, you pay a toll
2) Monotask >>>>>> Multitask
"MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller notes that our brains are 'not wired to multitask well… when people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.'"
Nearly all of our medical research is wrong
Wait - what?
"When it came to light that the biotechnology firm Amgen tried to reproduce 53 “landmark” cancer studies and managed to confirm only six, scientists were “shocked.” It was terrible news, but if we’re honest with ourselves, not entirely unexpected."
This seems criminal or at least unethical:
"It seems that the authors of the “landmark” cancer studies knew that they would be found out, and unsurprisingly, setting the record straight wasn’t high on their list of priorities."
- Bill