Re-Installing OS and Apps

I've been re-building my computer sytem the last week with a clean re-installation of the operating system and re-installing all my applications, including Radio Userland. I had many of my data files and apps backed up, but did lose some data, including some Radio postings. ____JH Read the rest ...

Calculating Potential

Calculating Potential
Setting really far over to the side the fact that I think everyone (even the humans I don’t particularly want to hang out, drink coffee, and chat about politics with) is entitled to an affordable college education, here’s a new take on calculating students loan factors. U.S. News and World Report has a piece [...]

Setting really far over to the side the fact that I think everyone (even the humans I don’t particularly want to hang out, drink coffee, and chat about politics with) is entitled to an affordable college education, here’s a new take on calculating students loan factors. U.S. News and World Report has a piece about the different tools available for students to use for figuring out their potential future earnings and what that might mean vis-á-vis paying back their student loans.

Included in the list of future-salary calculators is the soon-to-be-launched Human Capital Score. It’s in beta right now, and can therefore currently be accessed for free by anyone who’s interested. (Once it’s officially launched, I’m assuming it’ll cost you in some way, shape, or form). Unlike traditional FICO scores, the Human Capital Score figures out a given student’s future ability to pay back the money they borrowed for college using the student’s SAT scores, their high school GPA, their undergraduate major and their undergrad GPA.

It’s interesting in so far as HCS is utilizing a different set of variables when calculating student loan factors. However, while I do appreciate it when the system tries new and exciting approaches to measuring people’s potential, I still tend to take issue with the obsessive need to measure people in the first place, especially when it comes to deciding who deserves how much education based on test scores and possible future earnings. Again with the standardized test scores meaning more than they should and the in-it-for-the-potential-to-do-good careers getting shafted.

Sampling of Salary Calculators:

SalaryExpert.com
Salary Wizard
Glassdoor.com
PayScale.com
National Association of Colleges and Employers (usually free at college career centers)

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(image source)

Door Open or Closed?

Door Open or Closed?
There is no grey area in classifying me as a door-closed worker bee. I am hard-wired to focus with extreme intensity on tasks and goals and To Do lists. I can’t not be in motion. I’m one of those jackasses who looks forward with unquellable elation to a long-planned and well-deserved vacation, [...]

There is no grey area in classifying me as a door-closed worker bee. I am hard-wired to focus with extreme intensity on tasks and goals and To Do lists. I can’t not be in motion. I’m one of those jackasses who looks forward with unquellable elation to a long-planned and well-deserved vacation, and by Day #3 I’m done with sitting around and reading and have begun cataloguing and alphabetizing anything that’s not nailed down. I know. I disgust even myself. And while no one has ever accused me of being a slacker, almost everyone who knows and loves me has told me (for my own good and for the sanity of those around me) that maybe it would be better if I took it down a notch, for Pete’s sake.

Too bad for me that, due to my preference for having the office door closed and for all distractions to be annihilated with my laser-beam eyes the moment they open their yaps to ask me a question or tell me something inane that has nothing whatsoever to do with my current task, I will probably not choose the problem or endeavor that will be important enough to catapult me to fame. Or so theorizes Richard Hamming in his talk, “You and Your Research.” I’m not a research scientist, but I think Hamming’s theory is applicable to all humans, regardless of their field.

This talk centered on Hamming’s observations and research on the question “Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run?'’ From his more than forty years of experience, thirty of which were at Bell Laboratories, he has made a number of direct observations, asked very pointed questions of scientists about what, how, and why they did things, studied the lives of great scientists and great contributions, and has done introspection and studied theories of creativity. The talk is about what he has learned in terms of the properties of the individual scientists, their abilities, traits, working habits, attitudes, and philosophy.

Here’s what he had to say about those who work with the door open vs. those who prefer to work distraction-free:

I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don’t know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, “The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'’ I don’t know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame.

So, clearly I’m probably going to be missing the chance to take note of, and then solve, the big and interesting problems of our day. I know myself pretty well, and I could have told you years ago that I will always tend toward missing the important stuff as I will be too busy crossing s**t off of my list.

While I like the fact that I’m not a slacker, I am trying to re-wire myself enough so that I’ll be better able to stop the train and focus on the present day, instead of constantly looking to the horizon, which seems always to be the thing I’m trying to get to. (And for anyone who paid attention in Reality 101, please won’t you slap me and tell me again that it’s impossible to ever get to the horizon, which means I’ll never be finished, so its probably okay to just take a breather every now and then).

Posted by Alexa Harrington

(via Ben Casnocha)

(image source)

AG Announces Arrest of Former School Secretary Accused of Altering Grades to Help Daughter

Attorney General Tom Corbett announced that agents from the Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Investigation have filed criminal charges against a Huntingdon County woman accused of using her position as a high school secretary to alter grades and test scores in order to enhance her daughter's class standing.

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