Monday, October 14, 2013

MANN ARBOR - choosing a new mayor


It's fall break, and this means I have time to write stuff.

The mayor of Ann Arbor, John Hieftje, has announced that he won't be seeking reelection. Well, you know, nobody can be mayor forever, and while I've agreed with him on some issues (cough countywide transit), I've disagreed with him on others (cough...RTA obviously...).

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Normal curves and networking nerves

It's been a while, friends, and that's because I've embarked on a mission to become a real planner, getting a piece of paper that declares to the world that I KNOW ABOUT CITY STUFF. It'll be good to have in the end, and I am unbearably happy about all these other cool kids in my cohort I get to hang out with, but the day-to-day deal can be a drag. I have to learn about statistics, for instance.


I know it's important, for, um, something, but my kind of planning is convincing folks they want to pay tax money for a bus system, and normal people don't respond as well as you would think to normal curves.
From this picture, calculate the likelihood that the libertarian neighbors will raise their pitchforks against a randomly selected bus.

All that jazz. I learn these relevant, useful things, but for each one I learn something I'll probably never use again in my career, except when I'm fancy enough to go to cocktail parties. No, what costs several thousand dollars' tuition is that signalling device, that all-important bat signal sent out to future employers - and of course, the people I meet in the process.