Long Absence

I've been so busy with everything - the whole getting up early to go to work, and then coming home hours later, preparing something to eat, and then doing minor bits of schoolwork, before crashing to repeat....I am more behind than I have EVER been in my blog reading!!

Anyhoo, let's see, how are things going with me?

I have gotten so fat. But I can't figure out how fat because I don't have a scale. And I don't want to buy one, because we have one - but it's with Mr. Phizz. Who absolutely does not need a scale. Heh.

Work is still interesting. It's quite interesting to get into the business side of what I've been researching. Companies can be pretty interesting environments in general. But the thing that I really wonder is how much "standards" affect researchers in academia.

For example, say, Microsoft - let's say someone in academia discovers some hot new way to do something, like say write parallel programs. But it requires not only a lot of rewriting, but the cooperation with a lot of customers. This is a pain in the ass for everyone, and the source of a lot of inertia in terms of industrial innovation.

In academia, you don't have this issue. You think of a hot new way to do something, and you do it. Then you publish it. Then you dance the happy dance.

This is something to get used to - the ability to adopt NewFangledAwesomeness is nearly just as, if not more important than, the awesomeness itself. In fact, if it hard to adopt, then it better be really freaking intensely awesome.

Anyhoo, this is just another one of the non-trivial adjustments I'm making now that I'm a corporate schmuck :).