As students prepare for the next stage in their life, maybe they should be thinking a little more.

May 5, 2004

Dear future college student,

So, you’ve made it. Kind of. Actually, there’s still a long way to go. In reality, you haven’t done anything yet. But, you’ve shown that you’re capable of doing at least some things in the life you’ve been given, and that means that you probably will. The purpose of this letter is to turn that “probably” into a “definitely” and turn that “some things” into a “great deal.” If there is one thing that I want to convey here, it is that you are at a point where you can do anything you want—you might as well do something phenomenal. You can be a successful trader, you can be a surgeon, you can be an entrepreneur, you can be a financial wizard, you can be a concert pianist, you can be a genius mathematician—you can be all of them combined if you really want it. Here’s a start:. continued...

-E Robert Morse

Not Quite Everything

When I picked up this book, I thought the "everything" in "nearly everything" was everything. In the introduction, the author makes it seem that way too. He fails to mention (anywhere in the book) that his perception of "everything" is just the natural sciences. It is a fun, engaging, acceptably thorough survey of the way mankind first discovered and now views the natural sciences, and for that, it is worth notice. But to say that it is a take on everything is not only wrong, but arrogant and blind.continue...