Good News!

 ... for parents with kids who are approaching college age. The annual tuition and fees for Oxford University in England are about $14,000 ... whereas the tuition and fees for Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA are over $55,000 ...  4 times as much! Even factoring in extra transportation costs, this is a no-brainer for parents of children who can tie their shoes.

Doomsday

Oxford University has spent considerable brainpower in assembling the probabilities of the world coming to an end … and has investigated twelve possible ways as outlined in a CNBC Story. These twelve catastrophic events ... with their Oxford-assigned probabilities [and my quick explanation in brackets for those of you who don’t do hyperlinks] are:

-        Unknown consequences – probability: 0.1% [“unc-uncs”]

-        Asteroid impact – probability: 0.00013%

-        Artificial intelligence – probability: 0-10%

-        Super volcano – probability: 0.00003%

-        Ecological collapse – probability: N/A [ala, Easter Island]

-        Bad global governance – probability: N/A [e.g., Obama rules]

-        Global system collapse – probability: N/A [12^th Imam arrives]

-        Extreme climate change – probability: 0.01% [Al Gore is right]

-        Nuclear war – probability: 0.005%

-        Global pandemic – probability: 0.0001% [Ebola, etc.]

-        Synthetic biology – probability: 0.01% [frankenfoods, etc.]

-        Nanotechnology – probability: 0.01%

Now, for whatever reason, mankind is going through a period of considerable hand-wringing over such possible events (perhaps because we now have it so good) … but, as can be seen by the deductions and inductions of these Oxford dons, we should pay the most attention to the dweebs in Silicon Valley for our possible ultimate undoing. (I actually think that social media technology is well on its way.)