Good old fashoined cattle herding:
:^)
24 September 2011
23 September 2011
Biofuels for national security?
This may or may not be the way to go for the long term, and *certainly* it's not the way to go if food like corn is used as the source of the fuel, but for something of a medium-term, stop gap, let's-not-get-caught-with-our-pants-down move, it might be necessary. --CLOates 23 September 2011 (Fall hath fell!)
from Facebook's Repower America:
from Facebook's Repower America:
www.post-gazette.com
Coverage of national news from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
'via Blog this'
18 April 2011
Looking for a Career? Take the Path Less-Traveled
For those of you about to graduate from academic programs at various levels, here are some thoughts about career selection, and how those selections worked out for me. Enjoy! --Prof. Oates 18 April 2011
0) Take the path less traveled. The alligators know the well-worn paths, and they're much more likely to make your life miserable and, maybe, eat you alive if you take the traditional career paths. Progress in traditional career fields is much harder and often much less interesting than in new fields. Look for a field that's just opening up. In my youth, that was computer software (not so much lately). Now, it's stuff like molecular biology, nano technology, and renewable energy where opportunities are springing up like mushrooms on a rain-soaked lawn.
1) "How to Become a Medication-Math Instructor without Really Trying (To)"
2) "Fourth Quarter," a sketch of how I played the game, and how I hope to finish it out
3) Some untitled thoughts about M.D. degrees for one of my twenty-something friends, quoted below
"... Let me try to take a crack at some advice myself. The good news is that students who've accumulated some experience and maturity, many of mine at OCCC for example, very often far out-perform their 18 or 19 year-old counterparts academically. They've figured out what they want to do and what it takes to get there. They're willing to do pretty much whatever it takes to accomplish their goals, including working full-time, going to school full-time (12 credit hours/semester to keep their financial aid going), and in some cases tend to a brood of two or three kids, all at the same time. I don't know when these people sleep, but I can testify to the fact that SOME of them do all this and do well in school, particularly if they can find some instructors who are willing to help them juggle all these conflicting responsibilities. ...
"The bad news is that sustaining the level of activity that's required to get a doctoral-level degree of whatever flavor is really tough. In the three-to-six years that's required beyond a bachelor's degree, there's a tendency for the whole business to begin to wear on the student big-time. I experienced this first hand as I did the first 12 hours of my masters full-time when I couldn't find a job in 1970/71, then pieced together the rest of a masters in computing science working full time and taking six hours each semester. When I got a chance to go on "sabbatical in reverse" from my silly-villian Air Force job and return to O.U. to teach and work on my Ph.D. full-time for a year, I jumped at the chance. After a year's worth of teaching computing science courses (assembler language programming) in '76/77 and taking some pretty good comp. sci. and electrical engineering courses, it occurred to me that I was going to work that hard and harder for two or three more years in order to get a teaching job that paid about 2/3 of what I was making working for the Air Force. In the mean time, I'd draw teaching fellowship pay that didn't quite make my house payment. It didn't take too long to see that continuing wasn't worth the investment, and I returned to my Air Force job for a year or so before moving out into the private job market.
"Obviously, your situation is considerably different from mine, but the principle is the same. Lots of things can keep you from reaching a goal that includes a doctoral-level degree. I'd say you pretty clearly have the smarts to do it, but it's a really long road. If I were in your shoes, I'd be careful to get into a program that has what I'll call graceful exit points. For example, pharmacists these days get only one degree, a doctorate in pharmacy. If, for some reason, they do not complete their six year program, they have no bachelor's or master's degree, no nuthin', nada. That path is definitely not equipped with graceful exit points. On the other hand, following a program that has the usual bachelor's, master's, and doctor's degrees has those milestones as safety-exits, and may still have considerable commercial value, even if not completed to the doctoral level.
"As you pointed out, the medical profession tends to be full of B.S.-level grunts and M.D.-level demigods without much in between. There's not much to do about that, but it might be a good thing to look at some of the emerging bioinformatics programs, bio-statistics programs, and the like where the level of specialization even at the master's level permits some independence and, possibly, jobs that don't have the master-slave relationship that medical staff vs. physician relationships entail. The genetics side of your interests might fall into a category with non-subservient master's level jobs, but I'm not conversant enough with the details of that field to be sure of that.
"I wish I had "mo-betta" ideas on this topic, but I hope you'll find this at least somewhat useful. In any event, I'm available to answer questions, and I've been at least part-way down one of the roads to a Ph.D., and sometimes that's helpful. I was always "feeling my way in the dark" when I was on my Ph.D. adventure, because no one in my family had degrees outside the teaching field, and no one I knew had a clue about how to navigate the top academic levels of science and engineering. I don't know how helpful sharing my experiences along these lines may be to you, but I'm willin', anyway. :^)
C. L. Oates
18 April 2011
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
15 March 2011
Time to Help
After the May 3, 1999 F5 tornado in OKC, driving to work every day required me to cross the mile-wide swath of destruction the tornado left between my home and my work location. The sight of rubble piles where houses had been, houses with missing roofs and walls, and automobiles scattered, crushed, and twisted like the Jolly Green Giant's beer cans assaulted by eyes for many, many days. It was quite depressing.
Now, I try to imagine what a whole region of a country (Japan) in this condition would be like. The devastation is simply unimaginable: first a very severe earthquake, then tsunami-driven floods, and now who-knows-what from damaged nuclear reactors. Health care, transportation, utilities, and communications are down completely or heavily impaired and will remain so for some time. It's so far from my personal experience (thank goodness) that it's really hard to comprehend.
If you haven't done something to help, pick up your cell phone and text redcross to 90999 to donate $10 to the relief effort. It only takes a minute, and if everyone would do it, a considerable donation would result. Your fellow humans need a hand.
Thanks in advance!
Chuck / Prof. Oates
Norman, OK, USA
15 March 2011
11 March 2011
09 March 2011
Isn't it *wonderful* to be oil-dependent?!
Isn't it *wonderful* to be oil-dependent?!
Isn't it *wonderful* to be oil-dependent?!
(from my Facebook wall after the Libyan political crisis had been festering and run oil prices up, Tuesday, 1 March 2011)
Tuesday at 2:35am ·
- Mats Ittonen likes this.
- Chuck OatesPresumably, political instability won't be able to turn off the sun, and certainly NOTHING will stop the Oklahoma wind! Sounds as if it's about time to make (flip?) the switch. Meanwhile we have at least another decade or two or of this nonsense, even if we start a renewable energy "Manhattan Project" today, which seems pretty unlikely, given the sophomoric folks we've sent to the U.S. Congress. :^(Meanwhile, American oil companies run TV commercials telling us we need to drill our way out of "foreign-oil dependence." Sophomoric also, not to mention quite impossible at this point.
The only bright spot is that, wonder of wonders, power companies have done the math are beginning to build wind farms like crazy. Both Woodward and Weatherford, Oklahoma look like the Jolly Green Giant has gone crazy setting out three-bladed pinwheels. See a (very) few of them at http://bit.ly/ebY63G , http://bit.ly/gPDRNY , and http://bit.ly/dFPx2i .
That's great, but it would be even better if they could build them using locally-built wind turbines--not easily found in the U.S., since wind turbine manufacturers, like Norman's Bergey WindPower,http://www.bergey.com/ , have a hard time getting financing for anything bigger than turbines of several kilowatts. It certainly isn't for lack of ready and willing local engineering talent!_________________________Sophomore: from the Greek words for "wise" and "fool."
Tuesday at 10:09am · Like
Chuck Oates Here are some shots of the Blue Canyon Wind Farm near Medicine Park (Lawton), Okla.: http://bit.ly/gtfQWK . I'm not sure where they're getting "largest wind farm in Oklahoma," though. The Woodward wind farms are *much* larger in wattage and maybe in land area.Tuesday at 10:18am · Like
Chuck Oates Photo 68 of this albumm gives a bit better idea of the extent of the Weatherford wind farm: http://mysp.ac/eDpFRo .Tuesday at 10:41am · Like
Richard W James They are build wind farms here too by Vega.Tuesday at 6:11pm · Like
Chuck OatesThe more, the merrier!Maybe we should also experiment with some facilities to break water into hydrogen and oxygen with any excess electricity produced to even out the load. The hydrogen could then run turbojet-driven generators when the wind is calm. (I don't know of anyone firing turbojets with hydrogen right now, but I don't why it couldn't be done. Those things will run on Chanel No. 5 if you have a sufficient supply.)
08 March 2011
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