Analytics

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Miscellany: 5/10/16

Quote of the Day
I always advise young people to dream small dreams,
because small dreams can be achieved, and 
once you achieve a small dream and a small success, 
it gives you confidence to go on to the next big step.
John H. Johnson

I don't often discuss my QOTD. I don't even know if readers pay attention to the feature. I'm fairly big on quotations and have been for years. In my practical computing blog, I describe a utility that I use to insert a random quote from a text file in my Thunderbird emails. A few years back, a recruiter was so impressed with my quotations she asked for my source file. (She never found me a gig, but she liked the quotes in our exchanges.)

There are numerous examples for the current quote. One thing was in youth baseball; I was a reasonably aggressive hitter in practice but tightened up during games. My coach was riding me one day about not taking enough cuts at the plate, and to my surprise I made contact: it was a sickly looking soft line drive to left field, but a base hit in anyone's park. It was just what my confidence needed. My next time up I hit a sharp ground ball up the middle; the shortstop made a hell of a play spearing it, but I beat his throw to first. My last at bat in youth baseball (my high school didn't field a baseball team) I kept fouling off on a two-strike count with 2 out; I finally took a pitch outside, and a teammate got caught trying to steal, ending the game and our season. (I should note I'm fairly unusual; I'm a lefty, but I can throw with either arm and usually throw a football with my right. I can switch hit but normally bat right. My coaches flirted with the idea of making me a pitcher; I have a natural sidearm motion and can throw it hard, but he wanted me to throw over the top; I'm not sure why, but he quickly ditched the idea before I even threw batting practice. Too bad; for some reason, batters, including my little brother, seemed to have problems hitting off my sidearm. My most unusual game--playing all 3 outfield positions and first base.)

A more compelling example was doing original research. In a certain sense, I was intimidated with the idea. It would have been far easier for me to have worked on some offshoot from a senior professor's established research program. None of my UH professors seemed interested in using me as a research assistant. Moreover, I was interested in human factors research, which at that point was a narrow niche in my discipline. My chair was more of a life coach and editor; he didn't micromanage the process. I learned by doing. I read literally thousands of other research papers; I ordered copies of dissertations. But by the end, I KNEW how to do original research. I offered to put his name on my early related papers, but he refused to take credit for my work. I no longer had a problem coming up with a research agenda; I was literally working on up to a dozen articles at the same time. I could easily come up with more but there's only so much time in a day. God knows what I could have done in a place where researchers were open to joint projects, which I never had during my brief career in academia.

Tweet of the Day

Stossel On the Right To Privacy



Marriage Economics

As a lifelong bachelor (not by conviction: it's more about being a geek and not meeting people), I've wondered how my life would have been different. I remember my first girlfriend, who I met in college; I was 18 (sophomore/junior) and she was 21-22. She was involved with the Catholic Pentecostal network  and told me one day that she had been invited to some Dallas area commune. She was looking for some unspecified commitment from me to stay. Internally I was freaking out; I could barely pay my own way through college and didn't even have a car. I loved the girl but I wasn't ready to take on responsibilities of a wife and children.

I do think I've taken risks professionally I wouldn't have taken if I had a family and bills depending on me; I probably would have taken the BGSU offer over UWM for quality of life reasons; I would have avoided academic politics until I got tenure (not that I was looking for trouble, but I would have been more reluctant to speak my mind). I probably would have majored in something more practical, like engineering, rather than pure math and philosophy. Has marital status affected my opportunities? Not sure (recruiters would never admit that); I don't think I would have taken road warrior work with Oracle or moved as much if I had had a family.



Political Cartoon
Courtesy of Ken Catalino via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Rod Stewart, "Lost in You"

Posted by at
Labels: , , , ,