More like a journal entry . . .
This was the first week wherein I was able to spend more than a single day up at Los Alamos. It was a treat. I feel like I got some great things done, modeling the two-photon absorption and cross Kerr nonlinearity of a four-level atomic system and looking at squeezed states.
For a long time I've been searching for the perfect medium in which to do analytical mathematics. There may not be one. But after avoiding Mathematica for years because of one silly thing (I hated it that you had to push shift-enter rather than just enter to compute the value of an expression) I'm falling in love with Mathematica. I think I like the whole functional programming concept in general. But Mathematica is more than just functional programming (as far as my needs go, anyway). It's functional programming with a huge set of venerable and powerful mathematical, analytical, and numerical tools already present. I haven't found a good module to do linear operator algebra in there though so I might have to write one of my own. But there must be something out there.
Anyway, that took up most of my mind-share this week. But I did email Ryan the first version of SongPiper where the user can customize their own levels.
And I half decided that that will be where it stops. I read a nice article on short-term decision making in startups and realized that I have been guilty of it. I've been patching up a rough draft in a language that I think I want to abandon instead of having the courage to switch tracks before I invest too much more. I want to move things over to Python. But I don't know Python yet so that will take a bit of time to do.
So I have no idea how long all this should take because I haven't developed in Python much before and because this will be a busy couple of weeks.
Let me finish with a quick argument for doing what you like doing: If you do what you don't like to do you might possibly get good at it. Then everybody will want you to keep on doing it. But if you do what you do like to do you probably will get good at it. Then everybody will want you to keep on doing it. And you'll agree with them.
Have a great week.
Love
Doug
For a long time I've been searching for the perfect medium in which to do analytical mathematics. There may not be one. But after avoiding Mathematica for years because of one silly thing (I hated it that you had to push shift-enter rather than just enter to compute the value of an expression) I'm falling in love with Mathematica. I think I like the whole functional programming concept in general. But Mathematica is more than just functional programming (as far as my needs go, anyway). It's functional programming with a huge set of venerable and powerful mathematical, analytical, and numerical tools already present. I haven't found a good module to do linear operator algebra in there though so I might have to write one of my own. But there must be something out there.
Anyway, that took up most of my mind-share this week. But I did email Ryan the first version of SongPiper where the user can customize their own levels.
And I half decided that that will be where it stops. I read a nice article on short-term decision making in startups and realized that I have been guilty of it. I've been patching up a rough draft in a language that I think I want to abandon instead of having the courage to switch tracks before I invest too much more. I want to move things over to Python. But I don't know Python yet so that will take a bit of time to do.
So I have no idea how long all this should take because I haven't developed in Python much before and because this will be a busy couple of weeks.
Let me finish with a quick argument for doing what you like doing: If you do what you don't like to do you might possibly get good at it. Then everybody will want you to keep on doing it. But if you do what you do like to do you probably will get good at it. Then everybody will want you to keep on doing it. And you'll agree with them.
Have a great week.
Love
Doug
posted by Douglas H. at 3:05 PM
2 Comments:
I just realized the other day, Doug, that you're quite possibly one of the smartest people I know. It's amazing what you're capable of. And it's awesome to have Janssen home with me! :)
By the way, Mom suggested maybe we should all do Thanksgiving at your place to save you guys the trip (considering the ease of travel for the rest of us compared to your brigade). Any thoughts?
Bart, we'd love to have you guys all over for Thanksgiving. I think it's a great idea. If you guys are willing to come out we'd love to have you.
BTW: Quelle coincidence! Toi aussi! Tu es l'un des gens les plus capable de tout les gens que je connais!
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