strategy to be recognized

if you are charged with a task that, when complete, will profoundly alter an obvious aspect of the unit being dealt with, it may be better to finish the task quickly than to work at it in installments over a longer period of time. for the purposes of this post, consider that finishing the task quickly = case 1 and finishing the task in installments over a longer period of time = case 2. the rationale behind case 1 trumping case 2 has to do with the difference between each case in terms of how the impact of your labors is perceived by people who were familiar with the state of the unit before you began the task and will be familiar with the state of the unit after you finish the task. it is assumed that the person(s) who come(s) round to take note of your progress is/are less likely to see the unit in an intermediate state, defined as a point between when you have started and when you have finished working, if you are opting for case 1 than if you are opting for case 2. this follows from the fact that in case 1 such a person(s) will have fewer opportunities to check on your progress because you will finish sooner. I think that, in general, when a task is completed quickly enough that the unit's intermediate states don't have the chance to be seen by the person(s) who come(s) round to check on progress, the magnitude of the impact of your labors is perceived to be greater and is recognized more quickly than if intermediate states had been seen over a longer period of time. this result, in turn, encourages others to consider you a greater asset than they would consider you otherwise. take, for instance, this example. a bricklayer is charged with the following task: build a 6 meter tall brick wall across an interstate highway in minnesota. here, the obvious aspect that will be profoundly altered could be defined as the view(s) of the road from behind the steering wheel(s) of car(s) in the vicinity. the unit could be defined as the highway location where the wall will be built. if the foreman saw the unit before the bricklayer began working, and returned a week later to find that the brick wall had been completed, I think the bricklayer would be more likely to be given praise/given a raise/promoted after the wall was completed than if the foreman had returned mid-week to see the unit in an intermediate state, with the brick wall 3 meters high. there is a caveat to all this. if a task is completed too quickly, the person(s) stopping by to check on progress could interpret the speed at which the task was completed to mean that the quality of the work is poor and/or the labor was not demanding and therefore praise/raise/promotion for the employee is unwarranted. this counterbalance leads to the following equilibrium: the best scenario for the employee is to choose case 1, but not work too quickly, and to take measures to ensure that supervisors witness intermediate states as seldom as possible.

news and paper

bcd: barrels, courts, disasters. I find the term 'barrel' as in 'barrel of oil' to be unique in that it strikes me as an unrefined and crude (sorry, fuck puns) word and yet it is used heavily in news publications and broadcasts to describe an aspect of the economy. it's a word I would more closely associate with being spoken by large working men with dirty hands "ok, we've got 100 barrels of crude and the semi is waitin'. let's load 'em up, fellas." and yet a columnist for the new york times or guardian etc., who is clean and comfortable in an office environment, will use 'barrel' in an article to be read by an affluent readership which simultaneously delights in a breakfast of belgian waffles. courtroom sketches in the newspaper. here is something that has persevered through time. it's fascinating that the strict ban on photography and video recording in courts does not attenuate, and may even contribute to, the desire to know what is going on behind closed doors. in this technology saturated age I find the use of courtroom illustrations in publications sort of romantic, a piece of history that is as alive as ever. possibly the most common example of the use of art for something other than art's sake. how unfortunate for a natural disaster to strike at a time when the affected government had been poised to unleash onto their citizens their next propaganda story. I'm sure it annoys other governments as well, who, if the disaster is large enough, must halt their own propaganda to dutifully allow the press to report on the tragedy.

airports, airplanes, and made in japan

there is a category of comedy that is funny in part because it isn't supposed to be. many examples of this type exist subtly amid the multitude of material outputs of a developed or undeveloped country and, when found, might make you smile. on the reverse side of a red ink rolling ball pen twin pack is a rectangular box enclosing the following message: "Helpful Hint - When using most liquid ink pens on an airplane, be sure to remove the cap with the point upward to avoid problems that could occur due to cabin pressure." the pen manufacturer is Pilot.

uaf status entry

I made it through the year alive, though not unscathed. I dropped ee 354 engineering signal analysis because I was afraid I was going to fail. it's a cool class, I just wasn't giving it the time it deserved. I'm going to learn it on my own over the summer. I'll have to take it again during my last semester next spring. schedule for the fall: course (credits) ee 311 applied engineering electromagnetics (3) ee 331 high frequency lab (1) ee 343 digital systems analysis and design (4) ee 406 electrical power engineering (4) including the above, I have 8 courses to take before graduating, and dropping/failing any of them would delay my graduation by a year because they're only offered either in the spring or fall. if that were to happen, I'd drop out of the program altogether and leave the u.s. I don't have the patience to wait 2 years to graduate. besides, if I failed a class once, there's no guarantee I'd pass it on the 2nd attempt. my new home would be a coin toss between japan or a scandinavian country. I can't imagine what I'd end up doing. the only languages I know are english and french. I was surprised to be the recipient of a scholarship for next fall/spring. it seems odd to even be eligible, considering I'm something of a career student, having just finished my 6th year on campus. 1 year til graduation.

pretentious? probably

who would spend money on this? I have no idea. I just like the photo of the girl.

entertainment

"...and finally, we'd like to remind you to turn off your cell phones if you haven't already." right. but coughing and sneezing are potentially equally distracting to the performers on stage and to the rest of the audience, yet you wouldn't expect to hear the person introducing the concert to ask that you refrain from such acts. it's a funny tension. the conflicts between the manners of a refined society and the truths of our bodies. someone sneezing just as a silent modern theatrical production nears its climax is more excusable than their cell phone ringing. but why? and how much more excusable is it? are 5 successive sneezes equivalent to 1 cell phone ring in terms of the negative opinions the rest of the audience has towards the person who has sneezed or received a call? I suppose it depends on the ringtone. there's this notion that it wouldn't be appropriate to ask people not to cough or sneeze during a performance because coughs and sneezes cannot be helped. I'm amazed at how often people grunt, cough, or sneeze during a performance. in an auditorium with 200+ seated, not one minute goes by without some noise. I can imagine people trying to hold it in until the performance gets loud, as it would during certain portions of classical music, so that their noise is negligible by comparison. or people hearing others cough and deciding that now is the best time to put an end to that itch they've had in their throat, better to have a furry of coughs from different auditorium locations for a short time than to have coughs spread out over the length of the performance. I want to go to japan. there are many things about japanese culture that I like and feel similar to, one of which is that I think the audiences are quieter there.