It's Been a Little While

So it's been a little while since I've posted, and for that, I apologize.

Saw a great quote on www.thinkexist.com

"Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity."

So while I'm still wallowing away on an appropriate measure of value of victory in Afghanistan, it's at least nice to think about that quote.

Anyone else have any particularly inspirational quotes?

Also, I realized today that there is a huge difference between coming up with an idea and applying someone else's ideas to something new. I feel like it's the difference between good minds and great ones.

I feel like I'm on the brink of something really neat, but just need to notch it up to the next level. We'll see.

Tags for the post:
Quotes, Inspiration, Creativity

A little more normal! That's not good...

Free at Last, Free At Last

Hey all. Officially starting summer vacation off with a blog post.

Dorks, assemble!

(And I say dorks in the best way possible, with more than a touch of self-deprecation).

Watched A Beautiful Mind yesterday while putting off my last final. It's funny every time I think about that movie, I remember the first hour and the last 20 minutes, but the rest I sorta gloss over...

Speaking of which, how cool would it be if you lived somewhere you could just write all over the windows. And don't tell me at home, because people still have wives/girlfriends/roommates/mothers who have to put up with our idiosyncratic BS.

One last thing --had a surprising number of Germans reading the blog yesterday! Took 6 years of German in HS and College, thought that was ausgezeichnet!

Tags:

Movie, Dork, Freedom, Idiosyncratic BS

Because who doesn't use Idiosyncratic BS as a tag at least once a day?

Forward Momentum and Questions for You (The Potential Reader)

Made a couple of significant steps forward in my research on NATO's performance during military operations today. Before, there was a closed loop of calculations which effectively ran me down the rabbit hole. Now, through a simplified, smoother "relative" model, I can approach the problem as a series of relationships.

Also, convinced the family to go in half/half for a white board. Good deal. Right now I'm flipping through so many pieces of paper, and so many e-mails, my head is spinning.

Few quick questions for ya'll:

1. What's your favorite place to work?

2. Know any good basic (beginners calculus, intermediate statistics) math books?

3. How do you organize your research?

Thanks.

Tags for the post: Progress, Questions, Math, Models

Normal. For once.

Documentary Review, Quick Update

Hey all, thought I'd chime in with a quick update on how everything is going this mornin'

Had a woman ask me if I was born before 9/11. Then asked me if I remembered it. I was in 5th grade! How do I not look like I'm in college?

Don't answer that.

Also, watched 5 of 6 Parts of a documentary on Chaos Theory. Really interesting if you like Bio, Chem, Nature, that kinda thing. I was in it for the math, and wasn't having a great time. Check it out if you're bored: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HACkykFlIus

Bayesian conditionality is awesome, but I feel like there's a better way to introduce conditionality into my math-thought-process. Any ideas from you quants out there?

This time the tags are Quant, Chaos Theory, Documentary, 9/11.

I have to admit, I sound like a conspiracy theorist when you boil it down to just those tags.

Here We Go!

Ok. This is how I plan to procrastinate during finals...also how I plan to spend some of my time this summer. This blog. It'll be an adventure (I tell myself). Here we go!

I'm big on economics, international relations, politics, and I'm a wannabe quant. Right now, I'm working on a quantitative analysis of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. It's almost done, but I'm really getting bogged down.

Having problems with moving from a static to a dynamic model...Oy.

I've got some goals this summer though:

1. Get a whiteboard (a must at this point).

2. Learn Math.

3. Realize I can't "learn math" and settle for understanding lots more than I do right now.

4. Not fail out of college because I'm doing nerdy things like discovering the underlying patterns of human behavior.

5. Not list things about college on a summer to-do list.

But seriously, a side note on patterns: finding what you think might be a pattern that unlocks an aspect of individual (or state) behavior is like sorting chaos to find the face of God. You know a little bit more than everyone else about how the world works.

^^^That was a little dramatic, and for the 2 people who will read this, I apologize.

Finally, my tags for this post will be Summer, Afghanistan, Models, About Me.

Ridiculous.