Off to College

It is Labor-Day weekend and a lot of college students are headed off to school if they are not already there. My oldest son packed up this morning. My wife and I helped him load his car and it was funny to see the things he is bringing. His school is less than an hour away and so he didn't need all of the normal things most kids bring. For instance, all of his ski stuff is still at the house because he won't need it until almost next semester.

It didn't take too long to load his clothes in the car. It was everything else that took a while. The bulk of the things he is bringing are electronic items. While most kids are happy with a laptop, my son has two: one for work and his personal computer. I know that when I headed off to school, I brought a lot of books. My son had two. He put them next to a three-foot stack of video games and his DVD movie collection, which made for a hilarious picture. He also is bringing a second computer monitor and laser printer. Then there is the PlayStation 3 to play all of his games on.

Fortunately we didn't have to help him load his 40-inch television as that is already down at school. His older sister and her husband have been borrowing it during the summer. They will be sad to give it up but knew he would want it back.

I do confess that I am worried about my son at school this year. He only has three semesters left but his packing list looks more like he is an entertainment major instead of a computer science one. Hopefully he doesn't let all of his electronics distract him from his studies.

Engineering Notebooks

I was instructed to keep notebooks by my engineering professors when I was getting my degree in Electrical Engineering. I was told that all good engineers kept notebooks and so I dutifully obliged. When I went to work for Oracle Corporation right out of college, I continued to keep notebooks and have kept every single one. My professors told me that my employers would want to retain my notebooks when I left but not a single company has ever asked for them.

Naturally I started a new notebook when I joined my current company and have filled two volumes. My coworkers see my notebooks and have been known to make copies of various pages. I have even had several people mention that I should write a book. I tell them I have and that it was a lot of work for very little pay. Lately I have been thinking about writing another book though. The only problem is that people don't really read technical books any more. It is much easier find information on the Internet. Then my boss suggested I write a technical blog, string the entries together, and create an electronic book of sorts. I suppose I could do that with this blog, but it is far too diverse for a single book. Besides I try to keep my entries short and simple so that everyone can understand them.

The book I want to write is very technical and so this evening I will be starting a second blog. Don't worry, I will still contribute to this one so that I get my 71 entries per year. My second blog will be a deep dive into PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL has some of the best documentation for any computer software, whether commercial or open source. However it lacks a cohesive set of examples and certain solutions to real-world problems. My hope is that my new blog will work hand-in-hand with the existing documentation and add clarity to some rather difficult concepts. Hopefully it solves a hole that I feel exists currently.

Why Are College Text Books So Boring?

I was busy minding my own business today when one of my coworkers engaged me in a very important conversation. He mentioned that there are some changes happening in the group that will require me to study up on my probability and statistics knowledge. There are one or two things that I remember about the subject from my days in college, most importantly that the O-ring failure on the Space Shuttle Challenger was a major topic of discussion. We also learned that lotteries are a tax for people that are bad at math.

Knowing that I will head into work on Monday with a need to know something more than basic definitions, I pulled out my old stats textbook and started going through it. What a bore. There must be some subliminal memories it stirred up because I immediately wanted to take a nap. Oh how I fondly remember sleeping in various rooms throughout the university's library. My particular favorite room was one with several fireplaces and overstuffed leather chairs, but I digress.

My coworker is also in the process of refreshing his probability and statistics knowledge. He recommended a different book and I have to say that it looks infinitely more interesting. I cannot yet recommend it because I have yet to see the entire book, however it does look promising. My coworker is enjoying it so much, he even has gone through and done the math examples in the first half of the book.

This has me asking the question: Why are college text books so boring? Maybe it is just the classes I had to take, but there are very few text books that I ever enjoyed reading. There is one that does come to mind though and it fits nicely with the theme of my Blog: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. It was suggested reading for one of my Electrical Engineering classes and took me two days to read. Sometimes professors do get it right but I believe that is more rare than common.