by R. Passov There was a big earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in 1971. Overpasses fell in the north end. People died. My junior high school was closed for two weeks. I was in the 7th grade and had just begun to hang around a boy named Mark. During recess or lunch, we’d walk…

 by R. Passov We are on the train from Lisbon to Cascais. They, riding with their backs in the direction of the train, sit across from me. I am next to a middle-aged woman, smiling, well-coiffed, dressed in white. I fail to speculate on why she heads toward the wealthiest enclave in Portugal where, it has…

by R. Passov October 2019: Unnamed City, Central Africa – Day One It’s nighttime. We tour the Unnamed City. Sebastian and I ride in the back of a black Toyota Land Cruiser. In front, Captain and Jannie, who for half his thirty years has been the only one who can drive Sebastian. “I was in western…

by R. Passov When I was twelve, I ran away to Disneyland; not by myself. I went with an older kid, one or two grades above me. Ed, the older kid, was ‘bad to the bone’ – so much so, he deserves his own story. If it was still 1971, I’d say any twelve-year-old should…

by R. Passov After Steve Jobs hit his VP of development on the forehead, called him a stupid fuck, then stormed out of a meeting that had been set up to see George’s invention, everything changed. The invention, George said, was on the motherboard. Dell and HP were buying 40 million so that no matter…

by R. Passov Eldon Hall spent the first seven years of his life climbing hills alongside Oregon’s Snake River, trailed by a faithful Shepard dog. He and his father “…went fishing in the mountains…” and “… slept outdoors while his mother, safely residing at home, worried about the poisonous snakes that might bite [them.]” In…

by R. Passov When I was in the fourth grade I was held in a class through recess, most likely because letting me on the black top usually resulted in a fight. I was particularly thin-skinned and couldn’t cope with being in perhaps the only place in late-1960’s Los Angeles where children had a sense…

by R. Passov By the time my father left to do some time, everything of any value had been pawned. What remained were a few stale cigars which led to a serious vomiting fit, and an old Craftsman tool box. If anything entered our small flat, and if it wasn’t a cat or a dog,…

by R. Passov I learned from reading Terry Donahue’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times he became head coach of UCLA’s football team in the same year I became a Bruin freshman. And we spent our formative years as neighbors but since we were 14 years apart, we never met. Back then 14 years was…

by R. Passov Over the course of the Apollo missions, two criteria governed the role of the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC): 1) A program built into the AGC had to be absolutely necessary to the mission and; 2) it had to be without doubt that the computer bested humans in performing the task. One person…

by R. Passov A little more than five years ago, in a nice home in Sugarland Texas not far from where he once worked, Jack Garman gave me several hours of his day. I had reached out from New York, saying that I was a random retiree interested in learning about his career. Something in…

by R. Passov I had hand-written a simple essay: My father is in prison, my mother works, welfare helps and I got a 1310 on my SATs. The letter of acceptance from UCLA was short  – we’re happy to let you know…. The hill leading to the main quad of the UCLA campus is terraced…

by R. Passov This will be one of the most important compounds of our generation. —Jeff Kindler, former CEO, Pfizer, commenting on Torcetrapib Failure of a drug in development, especially in a late stage clinical trial, is shocking. Torcetrapib, for example, failed at the very end of its phase III trial. So many resources had been…

by R. Passov “In … economics we are faced with … a need for accurate forecasts, yet our ability to predict the future has been found wanting” —Systems Economics: D. Orrell and P. McSharry, International Journal of Forecasting, Vol 25 (2009) *          *          *          * The Stanford Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Economics (2018) stabs…

by R. Passov In early 1970, after three years of fighting induction into the army, Muhammad Ali neared the end of his resources. In that same year, before he left for prison, my father gave me boxing lessons. I wasn’t going to be the type of fighter Ali was. According to my father, instead of…

by R. Passov During my third year as an undergrad — I took six+ years in all — I ran into an old friend (cocaine) and failed all of my classes. Failed by not taking my finals which proved a blessing. After recovering from the shock of having done something I had sworn many times I’d…

by R. Passov Modeling in finance is done through the lens of mathematics. To put something into a model where you are not guided by observable constants, such as the speed of light, requires assumptions. With so many models off the shelf a common understanding of assumptions is slipping by. If you go far enough…

by R. Passov Recently, I watched a YouTube of a talk given by Jennifer Doudna. This past May, in front of some her UC Berkeley colleagues, Doudna shared, “a story … about some research … that led in an unexpected direction … ” producing “ … some science that has profound implications going forward…but also…

by R. Passov The economics of health insurance is of particular importance today. Health insurance has become a major issue of public policy. Some form of national health insurance is very likely to be enacted within the next few years. —Martin Feldstein 1 Fifty years ago, when healthcare expenditures were a mere 6% of US GDP,…

by R. Passov The British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) provides a short history of boxing. It’s an ancient sport. The Romans fought each other wearing cestus, sometimes to the death. Before them so the Greeks. In the fourth century AD, tired of the violence, the Romans outlaw the sport. According to the BBBofC, fourteen…