Dobson Syndrome

I am seeking a post-retirement job, so I have been finding ways of rating possible job prospects. I came up with several criteria, two of which are desire and skills. The first describes what I want to do; those jobs dealing with things I am most interested in. The second deals with the knowledge and skills I bring to the job. Which jobs can I do the best. I tried to devise an overall index including these two scales and found them to be so correlated that I am reduced to considering them as a single scale. In other words, I am most interested in what I am best at doing, and vice versa. That seemed logical to me, and it is verified by several job-seeking and self help books I have.

Then I got the word. It is not true. There are people and jobs such that what the person is best at doing is not what the person really wants to do. The example I got this morning is an 87-year-old astronomer named John Dobson. Earlier in his life, he invented the Dobsonian telescope to help bring astronomy to everyone with a simple design. As of late, however, he has been more interested in theories of the universe and in the boundary between science and religion. This means when he gives talks to amateur astronomer groups, he wants to talk about these metaphysical theories, but the astronomers want him to talk about telescope, especially his own design. It is not a happy situation.

And it shows that it is not necessarily true that what you want to do is what you are best at doing. Dobson wants to talk about metaphysics, but he is best at making telescopes. I call this Dobson Syndrome and feel it can hinder you in finding what you really want to do for a living. How can it happen? One guess is that a person changes as he gets older, so what interested him in his younger days does not interest him any more, but he remains skilled in the area. Another is that what you really want to do is not desired by others, so you go into something else that you are skilled at and people appreciate but you don't like to do it.

At this moment the only thing I can say for how to deal with Dobson Syndrome is either to get interested in what you do the best, or get others interested in what you really want to do. This could be hard, and it means that my two scales of desire and skills/knowledge need to be considered separately.

A parable

Once upon a time, a woman by the name of Irene Renee Ann Quinton lived miserably with her husband, who was abusive. He would threaten and belittle her and has attacked her on numerous occasions, even in front of her children. But she persisted in living with him despite the abuse. One day, however, a bunch of people, including police, came into the house, arrested her husband and took him away. Then these people proceeded to tell her just how she should live in her house and how she may manage her life. She replied, "I don't need you to tell me how to live my life. Thank you for getting rid of him, but get lost!"

The Plural of Mouse

Here is another Google game. Search for "plural of mouse is *" -mice. If the plural of mouse is not mice, then what is it? The most frequent answer I got from Google's search of Web sites was meeces. A lot of us are still hung up on the old Trixie, Dixie and Jinxie cartoons, as in "I hates those meeces to pieces!". The first answer I got was irregular. Well, yes, mouse does have an irregular plural. I also got mouses. Several sites insist that the plural of a computer mouse is mouses. This is because a computer mouse is not a tiny mammal, the one that cats go for. It may not be, but it certainly got its name from its resemblance to this creature: the eyes on the front, the general shape, and the corded tail. So in my opinion the plural of a computer mouse is mice. Another plural I found was rats. Not one site said that it was meece. A coworker of mine from 15 years ago, who subsequently died in an automobile accident, said in a newsletter that he distributed that the plural of a computer mouse was "mousi". My favorite plural, though, among the plurals that turned up in the search, was mousies. There's a whole bunch of mousies in this housie!

Followup

Some followup on previous blogs. It looks like people are reacting to Madonna's decoy file which snaps "What the f are you doing?" when you click on it to download it. People are hacking her site, among other things. The full story, at least for a while, is on CNN. I don't approve of such actions as hacking her website either. The best way to reply to Madonna's decoys is not to buy her album.

It looks like SARS is being contained. Vietnam, of all countries, has stopped it. Other countries show a decline, and while the number of cases grew 107 per day over the weekend to 5,020, the rate of growth appears to be slowing.

SARS epidemic

Among other things these past few years, we have been confronted with a disease called sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The action that some people have taken in the world reminds me of the Sliders episode in which the slidonauts wind up in a world overtaken by a disease, and everyone on the streets wears face masks and signs in the restaurant guarantee sterileness and cleanliness. This was a forbidding landscape, and it is lucky that the slidonauts got out OK.

Epidemics have occurred before (such as the AIDS epidemic), but people haven't reacted like this. It is as though people are willing to sacrifice their freedom to protect from a disease. Is this warranted? What are the facts?

So far, SARS has 4,836 cases with 293 deaths, so it kills about 4% of the people it strikes. The symptoms resemble influenza, and in many respects this disease is like influenza. The two start out the same: fever, aches in the joints, and so forth. Recovery usually comes with both diseases, but both are contagious. I graphed the number of cases on Excel and fit an exponential curve to it. I found that on 2004 March 15 if the current growth rate of about 1.1% per day continues, there will be 1,200,000,000 cases, or about the same as the population of China and a significant percentage of the world. I think something is going to intervene by then, because of all the measures taken to control it. Even though it is like influenza, it is caused by a coronavirus, just like the common cold is.

So is this overblown? I say yes. AIDS and Ebola are far more serious threats - they kill everybody (almost) that they infect. This one kills only a small percentage. In future years, they will look back on this epidemic and how we reacted to it, but I feel it will not be as bad as the influenza epidemic of 1918, which killed millions, including my great aunt.

SUUSI and Mars

It's that time of the year again, when I register to go to the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute (or SUUSI). So what am I going to do this year?

I enrolled in a workshop to empower my voice, and I also signed up for contra and swing dancing. I am also going on some nature trips, including one to a swimming place in a river.

I am giving three workshops, on Astronomy, Stories of the Sky, and Weaving Paper Polyhedra (see my SUUSI site for details). This will be the first time I have given Astronomy as a workshop to SUUSI, although I have given it to other organizations. So this should be interesting.

Especially since besides SUUSI, the event of the year is Mars. It will be coming closer than it has for the past 15 years; not only is there an opposition this August, but this occurs when Mars is closest to the Sun (perihelion), and hence to Earth. Mars is going to shine big, red, and blazingly bright in the southern sky on all clear nights at SUUSI. This is a planet which we may have our hopes on, that we may be able to walk on it someday, and find out if, perhaps, there ever was life on Mars. And it will be there in the sky, tantalizing us with hope as we go to SUUSI to the enjoyment that provides. This will be the Martian SUUSI.