Month: March 2014

There is some stuff we do not know and that is OK

On Monday, March 31, 2014

Day 951 of 1000

I remember with joy the days when Kelly and Christian were little and I could give them a satisfying answer to all their questions. Those days are now long gone. They both have deeper knowledge in their respective fields than I could ever hope to attain in my limited remaining time on this earth. I make heavy use of both math and statistics in my work, but that use is confined to algorithms that apply to my little corner of image analysis, manufacturing, and feature based classification. Their knowledge is not only deeper, but broader and it makes use of the most modern math and statistical tools (Maple, SAS, R, etc.).

So I frequently have to say, “I am really sorry, but I just do not know the answer.”

It frustrated all of us for awhile when the kids first had to hear that answer. The kids had to look someplace for an answer and I had to admit I did not know, nor did I have the time or sometimes even the intelligence and resources to figure it out. There is just too much stuff to know and some stuff is just unknowable, at least for now. I got to thinking about it all when I read this article about creation. Of course I believe in creation by God; I am a Christian. Some people actually get offended because one does not take the correct position as either an old earth or young earth creationist claiming an understanding of scripture and/or science that must be accepted to be right with God. That smells somewhat like gnosticism to me.

The reality is that I lean toward one and not the other, but I know that I do not really know. I am pretty well convinced that the whole neo-darwinist creation story (evolution by gradual natural selection, universal common descent, etc.) did not happen, but it has nothing to do with whether that is compatible with my Christian beliefs. Even in that, I am comfortable with the fact that I do not know nor do I have much chance of finding it out in this lifetime. The thing is, neither does anyone else.

Betty Blonde #95 – 11/26/2008

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Kelly is no longer a teenager

By Dad

On Thursday, March 27, 2014

In Family

Day 947 of 1000

Kelly as a toddler It is hard to believe Kelly is no longer a teenager. Lorena and I always remember the beautiful South Florida Sunday morning drive to the hospital in 1994 and the joy of her birth after a long, hard day of labor. She has been a source of great joy ever since. It is hard to believe she will no longer be living with us in just a few short months as she starts a new era in her education, career, and life.

Lorena called and told me Kelly made cookies to take to her friends at NCSU today. And, of course, she dressed in pink.

Happy Birthday Kelly. We love you.

Betty Blonde #94 – 11/25/2008

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A rough week for Kelly

By Dad

On Monday, March 24, 2014

In Education

Day 944 of 1000

Kelly was up until 2:00 AM this morning studying for her Intermediate Macroeconomics mid-term. She went to school early took the test from 9 to 10 AM and then immediately dived into a homework assignment due at noon. She instant messaged me with this about 11:00 (NC time):

i had too much caffeine and too little sleep and then a fried chick fil a sandwich and now i feel awful

She is not finished after her noon assignment, but has two more homeworks due today and tomorrow followed by another hard mid-term tomorrow. I told her to take a 15 minute hard walk after she turns her homework in. Hard degrees are not for the faint of heart and she is at the very end. It is going to get even uglier over the next 3-4 weeks.

Betty Blonde #93 – 11/24/2008

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House scouting in Phoenix

By Dad

On Sunday, March 23, 2014

In House and home

Day 943 of 1000

I was disabused of a lot of misconceptions about life in Phoenix this weekend. An old friend from Oregon took me around to see houses. We talked about ways to stay cool on the hot days, grow stuff (citrus!), buy a house where water is not a problem, and a bunch of other stuff. Our ideas about what we want in a house have changed pretty dramatically. It seems like it is pretty hard to live anywhere near Phoenix on anything over an acre of land without a great view of some mountains. Here are a couple of pictures of stuff we really liked–palm trees, swimming pools, orange trees, and fabulous mountain views.

Phoenix house scouting 1

Phoenix house scouting 2

Phoenix house scouting 3

Betty Blonde #92 – 11/21/2008

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Trying to figure out what school to go attend

By Dad

On Friday, March 21, 2014

In Education

Day 941 of 1000

The National Academy of Sciences has a research ranking report for Universities. You can download the report here. It seems to be pretty rigorous in the way it looks at different schools and provides a ton of information. It is profoundly better than the almost worthless US News rankings. Christian is still trying to decide where to go, so we have extracted some information from the report relevant to his decision. I pasted the stuff we put together below. The big take-aways are that Duke is WAY overrated as and Electrical Engineering school and we had no idea that Arizona State was so high (above schools like Carnegie Mellon, Brown, Ohio State, Case Western Reserve, Johns Hopkins, Washington and Texas A&M, on par with schools like Penn State, UCSD, UTexas and Michigan). It was a very interesting exercise

Here are our notes:

I downloaded the official report from which PhD.org rankings are derived. There are two ways they rank in a VERY rigorous way. Everyone believes this is the best. Here are descriptions of the rankings and the rankings themselves. ASU is VERY high in both rankings: I put the rankings of some very big name schools along with those for ASU. ASU is high in the most important rankings, but also high in the peer evaluation rankings (you have to scroll down to see that). One thing I noticed that the peer evaluations say Duke is right up at the top while the REAL measures say they stink. ASU kills them. ASU is also WAY above Texas A&M, NCSU, and Washington in the same range as UT, UCSD, and Penn State on all the measures. Those are amazing rankings and pretty surprising in how high ASU is ranked.

R Ranking (based on the actual quality of the professors at the school — this is the most important one because it is based on actually work performed rather than people’s ideas about what is good)

========
R Rankings (for regression-based rankings) depend on the weights calculated from faculty ratings of a sample of programs in their field. These ratings were related, through a multiple regression and principal components analysis, to the 20 characteristics that the committee had determined to be factors of program quality. The resulting weights were then applied to data corresponding to those characteristics for each of the programs in the field.

5th percentile
==========
University of Texas is ranked 13
UCSD is ranked 14
Arizona State is ranked 15
Penn State is ranked 16
Texas A&M is ranked 22
Washington is ranked 31
CSU is ranked 47
Duke is ranked 4800

95th percentile
===========
University of Texas is ranked 12
UCSD is ranked 14
Penn State is ranked 15
Arizona State is ranked 16
Texas A&M is ranked 20
Washington is ranked 28
NCSU is ranked 42
Duke is ranked 43

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA BARBARA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
PURDUE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA-TWIN CITIES
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
YALE UNIVERSITY
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
RICE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
BROWN UNIVERSITY
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
DUKE UNIVERSITY
NEW JERSEY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA CRUZ
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT

S Ranking (based on how professors ranked schools other than their own so it is OK, but not as good, because it is about what people think of a school, not actual measures)
========
S Rankings (for survey-based rankings) are based on how faculty weighted—or assigned importance to—20 characteristics that the study committee determined to be factors contributing to program quality. The weights of characteristics vary by field based on faculty survey responses in each of those fields. Programs in a field rank higher if they demonstrate strength in the characteristics carrying greater weights.

5th percentile
===========
Duke is ranked 17
Arizona State is ranked 20
Penn State is ranked 21
UCSD is ranked 22
University of Texas is ranked 45
Washington is ranked 50
Texas A&M is ranked 57
NCSU is ranked 82

95th percentile
===========
Duke is ranked 17
Penn State is ranked 20
Arizona State is ranked 21
UCSD is ranked 24
Washington is ranked 37
University of Texas is ranked 45
Texas A&M is ranked 51
NCSU is ranked 78

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA BARBARA
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA COLUMBIA
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA
YALE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
PURDUE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
DUKE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS MAIN CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-RIVERSIDE
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY
OREGON HEALTH AND SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA-TWIN CITIES
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
BROWN UNIVERSITY
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA CRUZ
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
BOSTON UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
RICE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Betty Blonde #91 – 11/20/2008

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A cool drawing of Christian as a Freshman

By Dad

On Thursday, March 20, 2014

In Art

Day 940 of 1000

I am not exactly sure when Kelly made this drawing, but it had to be either his Freshman year in college or the summer after that. It speaks for itself.
Christian, age 15

Betty Blonde #90 – 11/19/2008

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An old mentor comes to work for me

By Dad

On Wednesday, March 19, 2014

In Work

About 30 years ago, I started work for a company named Intelledex. Intelledex was a venture capital startup that was a spinoff from HP. I did not know it at the time, but my entire career would be colored by friends I made at Intelledex. Today, one of those old colleagues, Frank E. flew down to Prescott from Portland to do some consulting work with my current employer, another startup with the entire startup culture. What was great that both of us have significantly greater skills than we had when we first worked together.

Frank is now retired but the work is interesting enough and we enjoy working together enough, that he has been willing to invest some time in an effort to help people with eye problems in developing countries. In reality, this would be fun to do even if we were not getting paid and Frank has the skills necessary to take this to a new level. We are also bringing in another friend, Dr. Mark S. (Particle Physicist) with whom we both worked at a third company that bought the machine vision part of Intelledex when it was about to fail. It has been great catching up and talking about what we have done over the years.

The lesson learned is that is a VERY good thing to stay in touch with friends you make in the early part of your career, partly because they are your friends, but also because they will grow in their career and you will be able to help each others as your careers advance. It is very gratifying to work with people with whom you can speak in shorthand because your professional paths have progressed in parallel.

Betty Blonde #89 – 11/18/2008

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Packing away the homeschool books

By Dad

On Wednesday, March 19, 2014

In House and home

Day 939 of 1000

Lorena has started to pack things into boxes to get ready to sell the house and move. We do not yet know were we are going, but we figure it is better to start early because we have a ton of books.
Packing books to get ready to move from North Carolina

Betty Blonde #88 – 11/17/2008

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Getting ready to do the next thing

By Dad

On Tuesday, March 18, 2014

In Family

Day 938 of 1000

Lorena and I are not sure where we will be or even what we will do over the next several years. We have invested a lot of effort into getting the kids through college that we did not have a lot of time to think about what we will do when they are gone. I understand they are never really gone, but one or both of them will be a long way away from us as they have been accepted to graduate schools that are over 1400 miles apart. So now Lorena and I have to figure out what to do.

The one thing we know is that we want to move back out West to be closer to the kids. I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to live just about anywhere in the continental U.S. So now we have to figure out where we want to live. My work is in Arizona most of the time so that is certainly an option. Kelly will be in Seattle, so that is also an option. Of course, we love Oregon and would love to be there, too. So, we are trying to figure out where to go and when to go there in the midst of all the run up to graduation. We are looking at houses now in Arizona and Oregon. I am sure the right path will become apparent to us if we are just patient.

Betty Blonde #87 – 11/14/2008

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Complaints about homeschooling

By Dad

On Sunday, March 16, 2014

In Education, Homeschool

Day 936 of 1000

We took two shots at homeschooling. We homeschooled Kelly’s first grade year between a year of traditional (Christian) kindergarten and second grade. We put both Kelly and Christian into government school for three years starting with Kelly’s second grade year and Christian’s kindergarten year. When we realized that traditional schools (government and private) were almost universally bad in terms of both education and socialization, we pulled them out to homeschool them again when Christian entered the third grade and Kelly the fifth. We are still grateful for the abysmal quality of the Albany, Oregon public schools for being abysmal enough that we knew we had to do something. I have written about this at length in this blog and have piles of handwritten notes that describe our pain and frustration during these difficult transitions.

We got hammered pretty hard for that decision by family, friends (so called), school administrators, acquaintances, and even a few strangers in the street. I used to think some of them were well meaning in their criticism, but am less inclined to think the vast bulk of the criticism was benevolent in any way now that a few years have passed. We have well adjusted, humble, kind kids who both get along quite well with their college peers and excel academically. There is no way you could know whether the socialization part of that last statement is true without spending a little time with them, but the academic part is fairly well established.

Christian is on schedule to graduate Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Applied Mathematics from a nationally recognized program. Many of you know that he skipped highschool to enter college after the eighth grade. He has received two funded PhD offers to tier one research Universities. He plans to accept the one that offered a prestigious (double) Dean’s Fellowship (not RA/not TA–Fellowship) along with sponsorship by a National Research Lab affiliated with MIT. He will work for the professor who wrote the principle textbook used in his field of research.

Kelly is on schedule to graduate Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Statistics at arguably one of the top 5 Statistics programs in the country. Anyone who has read this blog knows she skipped two years of highschool to enter college after the tenth grade as a Senior. The only reason she stayed two years instead of just one is because she had to finish some sequences that took two years. She, too, received two funded PhD offers from national research universities and has chosen to study under a well-known, highly published professor who succeeded in the military and succeeded (wildly) as an entrepreneur before he returned to academia.

The thing that is interesting is that we have started getting complaints and unsolicited advise about the kids chosen path again. We hear some of the following:

Why are you going there? That is a horrible place to live.
Why would anyone want to get a PhD? It is a waste of time.
People who get PhD’s are all arrogant.
Why would you get a degree in Business?
Why would you get a degree in Electrical Engineering?
Why don’t you go have some fun (as if doing something like this is not fun and rewarding)?

I guess it is a good thing we have been through this once or twice before.

Update: On the plane from Raleigh to Phoenix yesterday, while explaining how his brilliant 18 year old daughter had just gotten accepted to a liberal arts program at UNC Chapel Hill, told me it was bad for Kelly and Christian to have missed out on so much important socialization. His daughter went to the Green Hope High government school in Cary. Here is a story on a teacher from Green Hope High who was indicted for child sex crimes. Here is a story on the drug culture at Green Hope.

Betty Blonde #86 – 11/13/2008

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It is wrong to put ketchup on hot dogs

By Dad

On Friday, March 14, 2014

In Cooking

Day 935 of 1000

This came from this very cogent article and I believe it is all true.

Betty Blonde #85 – 11/12/2008

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Christian’s brutal PhD recruiting trip

By Dad

On Tuesday, March 4, 2014

In Education

Day 925 of 1000

Christian’s PhD recruiting trip schedule was tough. Here is what he did:

Wednesday morning – Go to class at NCSU
Wednesday afternoon – Fly to San Diego (NC time–in bed after 1:00 AM)
Thursday morning – Up early to go do day one at UCSD (NC time–in bed after midnight)
Friday morning – Normal day, but in bed after midnight
Saturday morning – Up at 4:00 AM to fly to Phoenix
Saturday morning – Meets dad at airport, goes to interview at 10:30 AM
Saturday afternoon – Drive to Prescott. To be early
Sunday morning – Up early to go to meeting
Sunday afternoon – Drive to Flagstaff for Gospel meeting
Sunday evening – Drive to Phoenix
Monday morning – Board plane to Raleigh at 1:00 AM
Monday morning – Cannot sleep or work due to crying baby (not her fault)
Monday morning – Mom picks him up at 8:30 AM with clean clothes (change in car)
Monday morning – Go to class from airport

In N Out on Christian's recruiting trip

A lot of the trip was enjoyable, but most of it was just a grind. Christian went to all the recruiting festivities at UCSD. They held similar events at Arizona State, but Christian did not attend because of the timing. Not attending was a good thing. Christian’s sense was that those events, not unlike the freshman orientation he received at NCSU are a bunch of people posturing and acting like they are having fun as to an event where there is a possibility for a semblence of enjoyment. The exceptions to that were the meetings with the professors. That went very well both at UCSD and ASU, but the social aspects of these recruiting events must be extremely painful for the grad students and the professors.

It was great that he took the trip. He found out that professor contact is the important thing while planned University events are worse than just a waste. He stated that those social events were so painful, contrived and phony that they made him profoundly less likely to want to go to the school. The meetings with the professors made it a net positive, but it would have been way better if he could have just met the professors and gone home.

Christian applied to six schools. So far, he has been accepted by UCSD, ASU, and Stanford. He has been rejected by Berkeley and has not yet heard from Washington and UCLA. If he had to chose tomorrow, Arizona State would be the winner by a big margin for a variety of reasons that we will wait to discuss another day. He might get something better from the other two schools that have not yet contacted him, but they would have to be pretty amazing for him to change.

One of the very best parts of the whole trip was our stop at In ‘N’ Out, but that kind of goes without saying.

Betty Blonde #84 – 11/11/2008

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Home made tortillas: torture

By Dad

On Monday, March 3, 2014

In General

Day 924 of 1000

Lorena's handmade tortilla's

This is my third week away from home. Lorena made hand made wheat tortillas today. I am getting really homesick.
Betty Blonde #83 – 11/10/2008

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