
Ask HN: Staying Sharp - jperras
Here's the (relatively brief) story:<p>I went to university at a top 20 school in physics and mathematics, and paid my own way by working part-time doing web development. After being in a few research internship positions (CDF-FNAL and some biophysics work), I realized that, while I thoroughly enjoyed higher level physics, I had developed a passion for web application development. Consequently, when I was presented with a very enticing offer in July 2008, I decided to start working full time and do my last four classes (I only had non-science related electives remaining) over the next year or so.<p>As it turns out, the decision I made was a fortuitous one, due to the economic meltdown that occurred only a few months after I went from part-time work/full-time school to full-time work/part-time school. Moreover, I do enjoy my job, and the ego boost of knowing that every day my hard work is put to use by tens of thousands of people (which is, in all honesty, one of the reasons I became so passionate about web applications in the first place).<p>But I've started realizing that my mind isn't as sharp as it used to be. As someone who was consistently challenged and put to the test in academia, I'm finding that I don't actually have any day-to-day challenges to push me and keep my scientific mind exercised. With my day job, regular open source contributions, girlfriend and social life, I don't have too much free time either.<p>My question is then: How do my fellow HN'ers keep their minds sharp? Should I read more publications &#38; papers? Should I try and do more scientifically oriented open source work? Or is this just something I'm going to have to accept and deal with?<p>An insatiable appetite for learning sure is a hard thing to satisfy. Any advice would be highly appreciated.
======
jhancock
At the age of 40 now, I have a strong desire to re-learn math. Up until the
age of 22 or so, I excelled. Now most of the knowledge is gone. Two days ago I
was writing some code that required me to solve an equation. I picked up a pen
and paper and thought I should be able to quickly figure it out. But my mind
couldn't find the tools it needed to formulate what was a pretty simple
problem. It took me a few minutes to struggle through what would have been
easy when I was 18.

During the last 20 years, I gained lots of skills and kept up with software
development. But the core stuff like math slipped away. I feel I can relearn
major chunks of it and intend to. I think if your mind is constantly learning,
you will always have the ability to re-learn the old things again.

------
wyw
You say you have a day job, make regular open source contributions, have a
girlfriend, a social life and not much free time. Sounds like you've got
things figured out pretty well as it is.

I would mostly stick with the current plan if I were you. Maybe you could pick
up some scientific textbooks to read during your commute or during a lunch
break. But it sounds like more than that could negatively affect your
work/life balance if your description is accurate.

~~~
jperras
You're probably quite right. I guess that, as someone who has spent most of
their teenage and adult life absorbing knowledge at a very rapid rate, it's
both new and slightly disconcerting to know that I simply have less time to
_learn_.

~~~
wyw
Indeed. Given that we are not immortal and have finite time, we have to make
sacrifices somewhere. I have a friend who has opted to sacrifice his health,
social life and romantic life for his intellectual and career ambitions. It's
always an option but I don't like what I see.

------
octavia
Great question to discuss. I have a slightly different take, hope this is
helpful.

Sharpness is not something in a vacuum; sharpness is about your mind and
intelligence as it relates to people in the outside world. Thinking you are
sharp doesn't amount to much. Being sharp in situations is what counts, and
will give you the thing you might be missing. So think of sharpness in terms
of people. The only way to sharpen is to expose yourself to new things and
test yourself against other people. Warren Buffet doesn't stay sharp because
he plays chess, its who he plays chess with that's much more important.

1\. work and socialize with smart and talented people, particularly ones that
are considered top people in your field, find a fantastic team and work with
them, look for people whose careers rely on their sharp minds, people that are
a bit older than you, and slightly different.

2\. become a better listener, try meditating to help with this. being able to
clear your mind of extraneous thoughts will make you more open to developing
the thinking you are looking for, it will bring you focus skills

3\. think about developing skills which can result in your making more
valuable contributions to situations. be curious about new things, hobbies,
intellectual pursuits, also read incessantly, as over time you will accumulate
much knowledge. tell stories well and be funny. you'll find yourself invited
to join companies and social groups that provide what you seek, as people will
always be curious about what you have to say.

------
caffeine
Some points about this:

(0) There is no maintenance diet. Getting _sharper_ is necessary to be sharp.
If you're not getting smarter, you're getting dumber.

(1) Reading is NOT the solution. Much as regular masturbation does not much
improve your sexual technique, regular book/article/blog-reading does not much
hone your mental edge.

(2) You got sharp => you know how to get sharp. Do the same thing. In other
words: figure out the next piece of physics that really interests you. Get the
classic research monograph. Attack all the thorniest problems with vigor and
delight. Repeat.

(3) Time is an issue - you don't have much of it, and what you spend it on at
the moment is worthwhile. I think if you devote some small period of time each
week (after dinner on Sunday evening, say) to practicing (2), you will come to
look forward to that time each week, and will feel your clarity return. In the
end, the key is regularity.

------
tmikew
Why do you think you are not sharp? I bet your problem is that all of your
problems in your current business domain are solved and you are bored, not
dull. What _is_ a little dull is reading through lists of academic
achievements and future academic proposals or thoughts. It comes across a
little like trolling for compliments.

I am 44 I have house, wife, 3 kids. When I was 23 I was freaking clueless,
though I didn't think so at the time. (There is a good chance I still am
clueless) School was easy, Navy was easy, studying and taking tests and
getting good scores was easy. I was bored and figured there wasn't much else
to be done. I was completely wrong about that.

So coming from an _old_ guy. I would suggest dumping your easy job and finding
one that is challenging for you. There are plenty of hard problems to solve.
All of the sharpest people I know never let go of a hard problem until they
figure it out, and they refuse to slog through the easy stuff like some kind
of drone. There are surprisingly few people in this category. All of the
sharpest people I know read continuously about a wide variety of things, and
they build or write about things based on their reading. All of the sharpest
people I know put down the keyboard and have some other really interesting
thing they do.

~~~
jacquesm
More from another old guy (44 as well).

As to staying sharp: I used to think I used to learn really easily.

But then I did some digging and found that in general it took me always at
least 3 tries to master some new subject.

The first a brush up, look at and small understanding.

The second when having to do something in or with it and a slightly deeper
understanding.

The third when the coin finally drops and I felt that I had mastered the
subject.

Between the three phases there can be arbitrarily long breaks.

When I was young and had few responsibilities it would not take long to get
through these three phases because I simply had little else to do.

Now that I'm older and have a fair bit of other stuff on my plate I find that
the 'breaks' in between last longer. But the actual learning does not, in fact
if anything it goes faster.

So all this may simply be due to an illusion, where 'wall time' vs 'process
time' are further apart than they used to be and you're measuring by 'wall
time'.

You're probably every bit as sharp if not sharper than you used to be, but you
perceive it to be otherwise.

------
petercooper
I'm only 27 so take this with a pinch of salt but I'm finding that true
"insight" tends to take the form of making connections between seemingly
unconnected things. To make these connections requires that you have, of
course, an inquisitive, sharp mind, but also _a broad knowledge-base_ to pull
from.

So don't limit yourself to one discipline. If you're into comp sci, don't just
read comp sci papers. Try some humanities or even art from time to time. The
most unique ideas seem, to me, to come from taking knowledge from one field
and adapting it into another. I've learned so much by taking a casual interest
in fields unrelated to what I do and certainly feel "sharp" when I see
connections between things I'd be otherwise ignorant of if I were a
"specialist."

------
decavolt
It most definitely isn't just something you have to accept and deal with.
Staying sharp takes effort, but it's worth it. And you don't need to upset
your work/life balance or carve out massive portions of your week to do this.
You do, however, need to make some time for yourself and your brain even if
it's just an hour in the morning while you have your coffee.

The most important thing I could tell you is to read your ass off. Get a good
list of RSS feeds for blogs and magazines in your field and read through them
all regularly. Routinely look for newly published books in your field of
interest and read them. Get involved in discussion boards for the same so that
you can have conversations, and even debates, on the issues you want to stay
on top of so that you're not in a mental vacuum - and so that you are
challenged by others in your field. Keep talking about it, thinking about it,
writing about it (I forget who said "you don't know what you know until you
write" but it's true)...

~~~
a-priori
I just accidentally downmodded you, so I upmodded another comment in return.
Sorry about that.

------
ryanwaggoner
I sympathize, believe me. Life is too damn short and there's hardly enough
time in the day to juggle work and time with people I care about, let alone
learning new things that have no immediate application to my life.

I think my long-term strategy for dealing with this is to amass enough wealth
to have more freedom of time to be able to do some of these things. Perhaps
I'm naive. Time will tell.

On a more immediate and practical note, my new Kindle should arrive any day
now. Reading has always been my favorite way of learning new things, and I
devour books at a good clip. This makes it difficult, because hauling around
several thick books at a time is a pain. Hoping the Kindle makes it easier to
fit reading into my life.

Side note: make sure you finish your degree. I know guys with loads of
potential who came within a few classes of graduating from top engineering
programs and then got distracted by life for several years. Seems like a
terrible waste to come so close and not finish.

~~~
oz
_I think my long-term strategy for dealing with this is to amass enough wealth
to have more freedom of time to be able to do some of these things. Perhaps
I'm naive. Time will tell._

That's my strategy as well.

------
rw
What do you think about reading academic papers and posting distilled versions
to a blog?

How about doing a reading course with a professor-friend of yours?

~~~
jperras
I never considered either of those, actually.

I think reading & interpreting results from academic papers and posting
'distilled' versions to a blog would actually be pretty good, especially since
I'd (hopefully) get some constructive criticism out of it as well.

~~~
kalid
I can second this. When I learn about new topics I like to blog about them
(betterexplained.com) to help cement what I've learned, and have a way to
relearn (in my own words) a topic once I've inevitably forgotten. I think
you'll find this rewarding for yourself and others.

------
mattm
Are you physically active? The mind and body are connected. Try to pick up
something active that is completely different from intellectual pursuits. Try
something active that interests you like dancing, martial arts, cycling, etc.

------
strlen
I had the same situation. I worked for in a hybrid software
engineering/operations role for a large Internet firm, while studying part-
time. It was a great and challenging position, not just due to its content
(how do you deal with running tens of thousands of nodes in clusters
distributed throughout the world?) but the people and the environment (it was
one of the few places where you could find people in an operations team
hacking OCaml).

Ultimately, I was found by a start-up and left, seeing greater responsibility
and compensation. Six month in, I started looking around. The lack of mental
stimulation scared and de-motivated me. I switched jobs to a non-web-centric
software engineering role. It felt "scary" ("job hopping" as the country
headed into the recession?), but it was the right choice.

The risk is thus: if you're bright, it's very easy to become good at most
anything. Some fields (systems administration, web development) can be fun
(given the right environment, e.g. the operations team I've described) and are
_always_ in high demand. None the less, if you become good at something you
_don't_ ultimately find challenging and worth-while it can be a risk further
down on.

Have you consider going into scientific software development? Both your web
development background (the web _is_ the user interface these days) and your
scientific education will be of help. You might take a paycut, you may not
have the flexible hours, but the job might provide both the content and the
environment (i.e. the people) that will keep you sharp.

~~~
jperras
Scientific software development is something I've considered, and it's
becoming more and more appealing as a possible alternative to me. However, I'm
not very familiar with the current players in that industry. Do you know of
any companies that specialize in this?

~~~
strlen
Where are you geographically? Why not work for a bio-tech or a physics related
firm? They need good coders.

If you're in San Francisco Bay Area (or want to be in Bay Area, perhaps you
could finish your degree at Stanford/UCSC/SJSU/SFSU/SCU?) and know (or would
like to learn) Perl, C (and some Java), there's a really interested job
opening I found on a local Perl mailing list. It's related to bioinformatics,
which is different from your background but nonetheless would be something
that "keep you sharp".

Another option that's even more closely related to what you're doing now is
perhaps picking up machine learning/NLP/information retrieval. It's very heavy
on (mostly continous) mathematics/numerical analysis. I have a feeling
somewhere that you're probably pretty good with dealing with sparse matrices,
graphs and the like. There's _tons_ of Internet/e-commerce companies doing
more and more with that.

------
spaghetti
I keep my mind sharp by doing a variety of things. For example daily
participation in programming contests/on-line judges (topcoder.com, spoj.pj
etc) is a great mental exercise. Importantly I do this only when I feel like
it... so daily for 2 months then take 5-6 months off is common. Also physical
activity is a great compliment to rigorous mental activity. Lastly I take time
off to just relax. These breaks range from 10 minute breaks throughout the day
to month long breaks where I don't work at all (because long term mental
clarity and growth is far more important than short term monetary gain... in
most cases... some startups that are about to go IPO would be a counter
example). Sounds like you're doing a lot of things (open-source, girlfriend
etc)... try doing nothing or just walking... this could greatly improve one's
mental clarity.

------
olliesaunders
Solve Euler problems
<[http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems>](http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems>);
in Clojure <[http://clojure.org/>](http://clojure.org/>). Tough stuff, but fun
too. :-)

~~~
RK
My favorite part of Project Euler is reading all of the solutions people have
come up with using different languages (after you get the right answer
yourself).

------
Virax
I have a full time job as a web developer, do not make open source
contributions, do not have a girlfriend or a social life, and do have a
healthy amount of free time. I spend much of my free time reading technical
articles and textbooks in CS and finance (although I could be reading up on
representation theory if I wanted to). I also program in my spare time.

Sadly, you've left out many of the details that would help others understand
you: when did you graduate? What was your GPA? Did you take quantum or real
analysis or a compilers course? If you wanted to, how would you prepare to
finish your degree or begin grad school?

There is nothing particularly mysterious about hard work and devoting time to
study.

~~~
jperras
I actually have 3 credits (equivalent to one class) in a non-science related
field left to my degree, which I will be finishing in the next semester.

Most of the classes I took were honours level, and my GPA was quite average.
My grades suffered a bit from me needing to work quite a bit to pay tuition,
but that's not something that particularly bothers me. I learned much from
working in the 'real world', and the few GPA points I traded for that
experience has put me quite far ahead of many of my peers.

I took two classes in statistical mechanics (one graduate level), three
classes in quantum physics (one graduate level), two classes in classical
mechanics, one class in general relativity (graduate level) taught by a
relatively well known cosmologist, and various other honours level classes in
calculus, algebra, real analysis, partial differential equations, fluid
dynamics, as well as your boilerplate base classes physics and mathematics.

I've been thinking about going to grad school in a few years, perhaps in a
more CS-related domain - I find Information Theory to be interesting, even if
I don't quite understand everything that I'm reading.

I realize that I could drop everything and focus all of my efforts on study,
but at this point in my life I'm not ready to do that. I am more interested in
how others manage to strike a balance between life and an insatiable quest for
knowledge, which is something I believe many on HN have to deal with.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I've been thinking about going to grad school in a few years, perhaps in a
more CS-related domain..._

Don't do it. Unless you want to become an academic, with all the attendant
downsides and risks -- which you apparently do not.

It sounds like you've got the usual problem: You were used to school, you were
_good_ at school, you had thoroughly internalized the vague and quixotic goal
of the student ("the insatiable quest for knowledge") -- and now you're up
against the reality that school only lasts for a few years and the rest of
your life lasts for decades.

The most likely outcome of going _back_ to school is that you will spend a
couple of happy years in the environment that you were raised in and that you
are now missing. Then you will graduate and be exactly where you are now,
except older, and poorer. I've seen this happen several times.

So I advise that you stick with your current plan. It sounds fine. Try reading
more publications, try some scientifically-oriented open-source work. Do what
you like. If you want to study information theory... keep reading! Buy more CS
textbooks and teach yourself. Watch lectures on the web. Pepper your fellow HN
readers with questions about Haskell or Lisp macros or whatever. Buy a
subscription to _Nature_. Or work your own way through Knuth or the _Princeton
Companion to Mathematics_ or _The Molecular Biology of the Cell_. [1]

If you've got a good job and friends and romance and an open-source project,
try to consider the possibility that you might be happy and successful.

\---

[1] These are all on my list of things to do. At my current rate, I will never
finish. And that's fine. Nobody is keeping score.

~~~
benatkin
To add to this, also think about why you didn't thrive in the academic
environment and get a PhD in 8 years, like some do. If you go back, what will
be different?

I think for me, it was the boredom. There was the busywork handed out by the
teachers, and the slacker culture that permeated the small state university I
went to. If I hadn't been so bored, perhaps I could have stayed on the path.

------
jey
If you're coding for your job, why go home and code more on open source stuff?
If you miss the discovery and excitement of learning science, you should
consider putting the OSS time toward reading papers and working on problems.

~~~
jperras
I've been considering that as well. It might be the only way I can fit in the
time I would like to devote to more academic pursuits.

------
amitt
Depending on how you're trying to exercise your mind, there are different
options available:

1) I tend to use google reader to keep tabs on several authors I find
interesting. I then make it a habit to find time to read a couple articles a
day. So in aggregate, I've actually read quite a bit and kept my mind from
falling into a routine pattern.

2) Someone else suggesting sitting in on classes. I'll also say that depending
on your location, there are like-minded folks that have meetups and tech
talks. These tend to be great opportunities for exchanging ideas and
networking.

3) Depending on what your open source contributions are, you may be able to
shift the focus to something that you arent as familiar with. There are OS
projects out there that are heavy in math and physics that would provide
challenges (3d game engines and libraries come to mind). I tend to do side
projects with a specific goal in mind when i want to pick up a new technology.

------
Mz
Maybe you are just busy and tired? I'm "duller" when I'm busy and tired. I
suggest you get some sleep, try to fit in some exercise, work on your diet
(assuming it has room for improvement -- most diets do). Having more energy
and being physically fit can help with mental clarity.

------
all_elements
I am in a similar situation.

I listen to books on my iPod when I commute. I catch some online reading
sometimes at work. I meditate and get some exercise 3 times a week. And I hang
out with sharp people.

But I guess there is no all encompassing formula. Some people here seem to
have other avenues.

------
dmfdmf
This is an interesting post but the topic has drifted off the main question
and into questions revolving around what you should do with your life. I won't
presume to tell you what to do with your life because I don't know you... but
I do have some tips related to keeping sharp.

1) Find your "sweet spot" of how many hours of sleep you need and make sure
you get it. My sweet spot is right around 7hrs. If I go long or short of this
for long periods I lose my edge. Apparently the number of hours required will
fall as you age and if you have kids, well unfortunately you will be pulling
short hours for a while.

2) Start each day with a regular routine. I use the Franklin Planner but the
idea is sit down with cup of coffee without interruptions and decide what you
want to get done today -- its called dayplanning in the Franklin system.
Should only take about 20 minutes. Anything that needs to be done tomorrow or
later that week forget about it, let it go and fully concentrate on the tasks
for TODAY. (Yes, you need some kind of system to track things not necessarily
the Franklin system but I like it and I recommend it.)

3) As an adjunct to dayplanning I do the daily crossword in the paper to get
my mind going in the morning. You'd be surprised not just how that gets the
morning cob webs out but also its a form of measurement of how sharp my mind
is. Often I can tell from that if I'm coming down with a cold or
subconsciously distracted by something that I need to deal with -- either can
undermine sharpness.

4) I love coffee but too much is bad (esp in the afternoon) so watch the
consumption of drugs... caffeine, alcohol, even OTC drugs like tylenol, advil,
etc. Alcohol dulls my edge for 2 days if I drink more than a glass of wine or
a beer with a meal.

5) Write a daily journal or diary. Its good to get all the ideas and emotions
floating around in your head down on paper in black and white. You might be
surprised at things you discover about yourself and others that you were just
peripherally aware of until you write. Look for and correct any contradictions
in your ideas and values since implicit contradictions interfere with
integration and smooth operation of your mind.

6) Get regular exercise but don't over do it. Consider going low-carb. The
brain operates equally well on ketones or glucose but many (including my self)
find that low carb diet gives me more focus. Read Gary Taubes book "Good
Calories, Bad Calories" for the real deal on the science behind low carb and
the lack of science behind the modern diet offered by current
medicine/nutritionist.

7) Make a distinction between a job and a career. A job pays the bills but
does not challenge you intellectually. I currently have a job in IT that I
like but its not something that fully engages my mind. Ideally you want a
career but not everyone can get that. A career should be an open-ended field
(i.e. lifelong challenges) that is commensurate with your abilities. If you
have a job like me then you need to have other outside activities that
challenges your mind. If you don't do this your mind will atrophy.

8) Read books and articles outside you main areas of interest and pickup other
hobbies that force you out of your comfort zone such as learning a musical
instrument or dance, etc. I meet new people in my job and I always like to ask
them what do they do for a living, most people are happy to talk about
themselves and I am always amazed at the things I learn from others.

9) Sadly, I must warn you that once you hit your late 30's or early 40's you
mind just won't be as sharp. So all you youngsters out there do your hard
thinking when you are young.

10) Make time for family, girlfriend, wife, etc but set clear boundaries so
they don't interrupt or interfere with your thinking time. This is hard to do
;-)

Edit: Added #10

------
known
Brain starts declining at 27
<http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/17/148217>

~~~
a-priori
It's not as simple as that, and I wish people would stop citing things like
this. Yes, brain atrophy is a normal part of aging, and left unchecked this
can impair mental function even at as young an age as 27. However, mental
stimulation can slow and reverse the effects of this atrophy.

As an extreme example, check out this article:
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7141/full/nature0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7141/full/nature05772.html)
(ignore the title, the 'chromatin remodelling' is not the important part here)

------
ken
Do you play music?

~~~
jperras
I played the trumpet, classical and jazz, for 8 years.

Sadly, I haven't had the time to play much as of late.

------
sayem
Play bridge or poker regularly. Chess is also good.

That's how Buffett is still kicking ass, despite being in his 70s.

~~~
petercooper
Or Scrabble :) I've recently got rather addicted on Scrabble and it's amazing
how much you soak up if you actually look up the words that get played against
you (and if you play against a computer, it'll play some crazy stuff against
you). iPhone Scrabble is now my main addiction..

------
lsb
Sit in on some classes at a nearby university? Watch Feynman's lectures again?

~~~
justlearning
"Sit in on some classes at a nearby university?"

I assume you mean without paying for the course? how does one go about doing
this?

I sometimes have the strong urge to sit in a class - to feel like a student. I
never knew you could just go and sit in a class? I also read similar HN
suggestion on a post some time back. I want to try this out fwiw.

~~~
jperras
In university, you're not paying for your seat in the class, but rather for
the opportunity to write the exams and get a grade (save for lab-oriented
classes, where equipment and materials are limited).

It's quite easy to simply walk in and audit a class, and I remember quite a
few people doing just that when the classes I was attending were being taught
by fairly well known professors.

------
volodia
Try solving some Putnam problems in your spare time, for fun :)

------
cool-RR
Why don't you quit your job and focus on physics?

------
californiaguy
Set lofty goals. Attain them. Repeat.

Right now you're living a mediocre life. You live in an apartment, you program
web sites and haven't finished college. What's so special about that? Why do
you need to be incredibly sharp for that? You don't. Do something you need to
be sharp to do and you will become sharp.

My best advice for you is to not worry about this shit until you're 25 and
have a normal young adulthood in the meantime. When you're 25 you'll know
exactly what you have to do to become sharp. Right now you're probably still
overwhelmed by actually having a life of your own and a girl that wants you
around.

~~~
apu
Wow this is some bad advice. And with an arrogant/demeaning attitude to match.

~~~
motoko
The advice was "do something worth being sharp." The attitude communicated was
relevant. It was good advice.

It was: "don't be such a pussy." It works. If it didn't, then athletic and
military leaders wouldn't use it.

~~~
californiaguy
If I were to talk to him directly I would tell him to either drop out of
school and be hardcore at his work, or drop out of work and be hardcore with
school. At this point in his life he hasn't actually finished or built a damn
thing, academically or professionally, and he's wondering why he's going soft.

Like he was some kind of superstar and now he's past the prime of his life?
LOL.

I mean I realize I'm being kind of an asshole here, but geeez.

~~~
jperras
You're being slightly presumptious about me not having 'actually finished or
built a damn thing, academically or professionally', regardless of whether or
not that claim is true.

I never once stated that I was disappointed with my accomplishments (whatever
they may be), only that I wished to retain (or increase) the level of mental
acuity that I have manged to gain so far. For you to derive anything from a
conclusion that you have arrived at based on your own personal inference is
misguided, at best.

Moreover, the ad hominem attack about me thinking I 'was some kind of
superstar and now [..] past [his] prime' is uncalled for, and not necessary to
prove your point.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the advice, heavy-handed and flawed though it may
seem.

~~~
jacquesm
Not to be rude or anything, but _you_ asked for advice.

if you wanted better advice you should have provided more background,
'californiaguy' may not have been politically correct but that does not
detract from the fact that he spent some time answering you.

If you have finished or built things academically or professionally you could
point to them, which would give a more solid base for this whole discussion.

You are _asking_ for inference, some of that inference is going to be on the
spot, some of it will be wildly off the mark, if you supply more information
you can guide the bandwidth of the results you will receive.

The last line of his post pretty clearly indicates that he realizes that he
may be off in his estimate because he feels like coming across as an asshole.
(I won't debate that point...).

Advice - any advice - is worth what you paid for it.

------
pageman
I think we can help academia by using web apps to create ease off some of the
computational requirements needed for papers like factor analysis, MDS,
multiple regression etc. - also for surveys etc. My educated guess is that
some of the confirmatory factor analysis for something seminal like
Hofsteder's work could easily be done in various countries if the people
working on the papers have someone with a web app development backgroun.

