Required reading at the academy...

All you Trekkie IR's will remember all of those works of literature that were "Required reading at the academy." Usually a way for Kirk or Picard or whoever to say that "This character you've never heard of is a Big Deal and/or Very Smart." Well, after my very brief study of economics (aka 3 pop-econ books and starting to read an intro text book) I've decided that Economics should be required reading at the academy. Any academy.

You have no idea how weird it is for me to write this post. I never thought I'd be even interested in economics, much less saying it's important knowledge more people need to have. But the more I've read the more I've come to see that so much of what you hear talked about in the news, debated in the media, and especially argued about in the government is directly tied to economics! On an obvious level that's because we're in a capitalist society that is built around the production, acquisition, and distribution of wealth but on a more basic level it's because the production, maximization, and apportionment of resources is one of the main tasks of a society and hence a government. This is true in any society. Remember a while back I was ranting about people ranting about taxes? I said that we should all care deeply about taxes because they are a means of the government (aka the people) implementing its will? Well fiscal and monetary policy is exactly like that, only more so! And I just had no idea how it really worked. And I still don't, not really, but I'm learning enough to know that if you want to have some understanding about almost any issue going on in society you need to have at least a smattering of economics.

So I may, from time to time, blog a bit about econ (or I may not - there's lots of other stuff I find very important or fascinating I don't blog about, believe it or not) but when I do I'll try to explain why it matters. And I'll try to make it make sense, at least as much as I can understand it myself. Consider yourselves warned, dear IR's. Econ may be coming.

Did anyone notice?

I just have to ask, did anyone notice that someone who appears to be Felicia Day responded to my post about not being in love with Felicia Day, below? That's just trippy! When people go and respond to posts it really strains the whole IR concept and causes great cognitive dissonance, let me tell ya. But in any case, if that really was FD responding to the post, it confirms what I had said about her seeming to be nice. And makes me want to watch more episodes of The Guild.

Something positive about my job

Shifter here. I was in a weird mood this morning. Probably had something to do with trying to run 22 miles while sick and ending up only getting 17 in and feeling like !@#$. But anyway, at some point it just hit me that there is one thing I really like about my job. Long time IR's will know that one of the things I love most about my job is complaining about it, and that is because there are so very many things to complain about! But here is one thing I can definitely say I like about my job.

I get paid to think.

That's pretty incredible when you think about it. It's most obvious when I'm doing research but it's present elsewhere as well. When I'm given time to do research, it's essentially because someone somewhere decided "we like what you think about, we think it's important, and we're willing to pay you to keep thinking about it and to try to conduct studies to check out what you've been thinking about." That, well, that's awesome. There's just no other way to put it. It's amazing. It's also humbling. A lot of time researchers, including me, tend to think of research as our right - we should get to do research because we're researchers, by god, and why are they getting in the way? But it comes down to a value decision on the part of many institutions. This is most obvious in grant situations, when a funding agency literally gives you money, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, to conduct studies to test out what you've been thinking about. But it's also true of your home institution, which pays you a salary to, yes, think about things. Which means that your home institution has decided that you thinking about things is of benefit to it and to its goals, whatever they may be. Which is really cool.

This is also true, perhaps to a lesser extent, in my administrative role. A large part of middle management (I think I'm middle management, or maybe lower middle management is a better description) is just making things run. Keep the trains running on time. Get the staff performing to expectations. And so forth. But even in an admin job as low level as mine there are opportunities and sometimes even demands that you think of new ways to do things. And sometimes, though rarely, they even let you try out some of the things you think of. Granted, it's very frustrating when you spend a lot of time and effort thinking of a solution, a good damn solution, and don't get to do it because of any of a zillion factors (idiocy of others often being one of them). But it's still cool to be paid to try to think of new approaches or ideas.

I have other parts of my job, direct care parts, that are what drew me into my profession in the first place and that are valuable to me in an entirely different way. But oddly enough when you come down to it what gets me excited about work is when I get to think and analyze and take things apart and put them back together in a fun way. I had no idea those would be part of my career when I decided to go into this field, but I'm glad they are. Very glad. And it is a treat to get paid money to do stuff like that.

Sadly, this does not undo any of the stuff I absolutely loathe about my job, but it does remind me why I put up with all of it. Which means that you, dear IR's, will get to keep hearing about it for years to come.

Is there a statistician in the house?

How likely is this?

 

So on Monday I fly from NY to Chicago for a conference.  I get on the plane, and eventually a guy climbs over me and into the window seat, and starts up a lively conversation about my incredibly dull reading material (the BABOK--because I'm a party animal).  Turns out he's on his way to the same conference.

 

So far, that doesn't even qualify as a coincidence.  There is a limited number of flights from NY to Chicago, and the conference started late Monday, which encouraged people to fly out during the day on Monday, and this was the cheapest flight.  NY is a large metropolitan area with probably dozens of companies sending people to the conference.  I'd be surprised if we were the only two people on the plane headed to the same place.

 

We struck up a little acquaintanceship which lasted until we got to the hotel and the conference, at which point we got routed into different tracks because our professional interests in the conference topics were different.  We turned up in the same session only once, and didn't really see each other at all while the thing was going on.

 

The conference ends, and I go back to O'Hare and check in for my flight.  I get some lunch.  I sit down to wait.  Just as the flight is about to come in, the dude shows up and says, "I figured you'd be on this flight."  Again, we were flying the same carrier, so this doesn't really qualify as a coincidence.  Then he says, "I'm in seat 14A.  If you're in 14B, I'm going to be seriously weirded out."  And indeed, I was in seat 14B.  OK, now it's odd, right?

 

Or maybe not.  How likely is that?  The plane wasn't huge--only 25 rows of 6 seats, so on the small side of the commercial, non puddle-jumper plane size.  But seriously?  The same two completely unrelated passengers sitting together twice in a row?  I'm interested in how likely that is, and whether it might have to do with some airline convention that I'm not aware of.  (Like, does it matter if our last names start with the same letter or if we reserve our flights at the same time or check in at the same time or....I don't really know what else.)

Peter Gabriel

While browsing around on the internet tonight, trying to get over the shock of a comment that seems to at least have the possibility of coming from Felicia Day (*gasp*), I came across some Peter Gabriel videos on Youtube. I honestly can't remember how I got from there to here - Felicia Day is to Peter Gabriel as aquamarine is to penitentiary, if you see what I mean. Peter Gabriel, though, is just freaking awesome. I've been listening to his music since I was listening to, well, music. I started with So, which was a relatively trendy/pop album but had some really cool songs on it (Mercy Street, anyone?) and then when I got his next album (Us) it was so awesome I picked up pretty much everything of his I could find. He writes good music, and he writes great lyrics, and he sings them really well, and well he's just awesome. My wife once said that if she had to pick a song for my funeral she would take Solsbury Hill (great choice, by the way). So the point is I haven't blogged about him anywhere near enough, and if you're in a Peter mood here's a link for Sky Blue, off his last album. Not my favorite song on there (More Than This and Signal to Noise both are amazing) but a good song and a nice version.