What is Hereditary?

An answer read in an advice column a long time ago has stuck in my mind. To the question "Is obesity hereditary," the columnist had said "the only thing you inherit from your parents in this regard is bad eating habits."

In my mind that is hereditary.

Heredity does not merely mean biological inheritance - things being in your genes. It also means having picked up behaviors from your parents (or care-providers). Behaviors you didn't know you were picking up. You also believe that these are "normal" and don't realize until much later that there are people who behave in different ways, and they are normal too. It is this heredity that can be very useful or very insidious.

Lucky for us, the "learned heredity" can be changed, as opposed to "birth heredity" that cannot be. Change is not easy, but with determined effort, it can be accomplished.

The Limo driver who is an MBA and MS in CS

For my recent trip out of San Francisco, I had a limo drop me at the airport.

The driver asked me what I did, I said "software for cloud computing." I asked if he knew what cloud computing was, and he surprised me by saying yes. It turns out that he has an MBA and is just finishing his MS in Computer Science. In spite of trying for a long time, he hasn't got a job. Of course, being a foreigner complicates his situation.

The University he got his MBA from is Silicon Valley University - I had never heard of them. His MS is from yet another University in the Silicon Valley that I had never heard of. I guess these are small private colleges. I wonder why people attend these when they can go to state universities in California. Yes, as Foreign students they will pay more, but I wonder if it will be more than what private colleges charge. And, their degrees will be from colleges that are more recognized.