Pamela!
Brilliant!!!!!!
Yes, xkcd is definitely brilliant. And Doug, well, he does have a way.
FWIW, until I actually followed up and checked it out I *assumed* that
the cartoonist was a *wicked-smart* young woman... there is something
about the style of friendly but unreserved lampooning that seemed like
only an outsider who understood things inside out could muster. I don't
know why I thought *that* made the author female... somehow I just
did. If my older daughter could draw, I'd suspect her of it... wait!
xkcd *can't draw*! I'm calling her *right now!*
The the relatively few women on this list: I must honor all of you for
putting up with our wide range of male-typical boorish habits. Some of
us even know who we are. I only know of Tory, Pamela, Dede, and Peggy
(as often enough posters to be memorable). I sure hope I haven't missed
someone obvious in this list, which would surely be another boorish male
habit.
As for physicists... I once imagined I was one... for a few years
anyway, after picking up a BS in Math and Physics and then dragging
myself through a half-dozen grad courses as well, what else does one
need? If Computer Science and Engineering hadn't been blossoming and
captured me in it's vortex, I suppose I would have at least hacked away
as a third-rate physicist for part of my career. Several of my best
friends are Physicists. Some of them are women.
I admit that there appears to be a bit of occupational hazard
associated with being a physicist in thinking that if you don't know
everything, you can figure it out, and if you can't figure it out and
nobody is looking you can wing it! This was what drew me there in the
first place. That or reading too much Science Fiction.
It also is what flung me off like mashed potatoes from spinning mixer
blades! My first interview with Physicists involved a hazing that was
beyond my range (and I have a wide range)... After accepting a
different offer (in Computer Science) I heard that the Physicists who
had hazed me and left me feeling... not incompetent, but... well...
hazed... they had decided I was a stellar candidate (because I answered
all their questions the best I could and never once let on that I'd
rather be tossing them out their third story window? Or making up
esoterically difficult questions from some obscure field to ask them?) I
*wanted* that job so bad (control system for the Proton Storage Ring),
but couldn't imagine working with those jerks... Their instinct may
have been right... they may have saved me from a life in the wrong
profession!
I fully appreciate (and occasionally attempt to live) both extremes...
"figure every ffing thing out from first principles, even if it takes
the rest of your life to do the most minute and trivial thing" VS "hack
it together on a whim and see what it does!". I prefer the romantic
image of the Natural Philosophers of the Age of Reason and Enlightenment
over that of the modern day Physicist. Though Feynman did a pretty good
job of making the modern physicist role an entertaining one as well,
hitting on Peter's wife not withstanding.
In 1992 I bought a house that a Physicist started building in the late
1960's... it was impeccably designed (to his very strange tastes) and
exquisitely built (with only the best materials and tools) virtually all
by the hands of the Physicist in question. The house was essentially
50% complete when I bought it. The exterior was perfectly completed
excepting that there were no front steps. The interior was entirely
unfinished, bare studs and floor deck and not a single interior wall.
Talk about a blank canvas! The 1960's hydronic heating system was big
enough to heat an entire city block and he had a 7 zone hand made
manifold bolted to it with an oversized pump dedicated to each zone.
He had enough slant-fin radiator to line the entire exterior of the main
floor (2600 sq feet) and the exposed exterior of the above-ground
basement (1800 sq ft). He had boxed 1960's vintage fixtures with an
inch of dust on them (Avocado Green, Harvest Gold, Powder Blue, etc.)
including a Bidet.
There was NO end to his obsession with detail and care and thought and
effort. I even inherited the 100lb jackhammer he used to carve the
basement out of the Tuff himself! There was little if anything on that
house I think he did not do with his own bare hands, with great thought
and care, and more than a little insight. He *was* prone to overkill
however, I could barely *lift* that jackhammer and I am not a small man.
I'm a whack job myself when it comes to projects but this totally blew
me away. And he was so excited after 25 years to have someone else take
on his project who might do it justice. It took me 6 months of
dedicated effort (well, early mornings, evenings, weekends and liberal
LANL vacation days) and some pro help (drywall, electric, plumbing) to
make it liveable, 18 months to satisfy the bank to switch from
construction to FHA mortgage and 7 years to call it "done". It still
had an unfinished banco in front of the fireplace when I fled the
property with recurring nightmares of asymptotes.
I can't be sure that this level of obsession and handling of detail is
directly correlated with the profession but anecdotally it seems to be
so. Physicists are amazing. But fortunately there are other species
of human as well! And especially those very clever few such as xkcd
"hisself".
I sometimes suspect the author of being a one-man FRIAM list:
http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
- Steve
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
