Archive for May, 2023

Don’t follow your passion

Posted: May 23, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Most students and college administrators wouldn’t like my message in a graduation speech.

Don’t follow your passion. Instead, prepare and perspire.

Had I followed my passion, I would have been the lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band. I almost certainly would have failed, although I am a member of the South Dakota and Iowa rock halls of fame.

Instead, I planned for three options: an immediate career in journalism, graduate school in journalism, or a doctoral program in English literature.

I planned my future for at least five years out. Fortunately, I chose correctly. Graduate school in journalism led me to contacts at prominent news organizations and provided a credential I needed 25 years later when I joined academia.

In a Forbes article, Julia Korn explains why following your passion is probably the worst advice someone can give a graduating high school or college student.

According to researchers at Stanford University, the “follow your passion” recommendation can be detrimental to an individual’s success due to narrowmindedness and dedication to a single passion. See http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/uploads/4/9/4/4/49448111/okeefedweckwalton_2018.pdf

Here’s why “follow your passion” is terrible career advice:

–It assumes we will only have one passion in life. People are dynamic and have more than one specific life interest. It can be limiting to select merely one passion, as it leaves no space for other passions yet to be uncovered. 

–It assumes passions don’t change with time. Humans continually evolve in every stage of our lives. What we once loved may now be a fond (or not so fond) memory.

–It assumes we already know what our passion is. Many people cannot confidently state a specific passion and how it can tie to a career. Most people need time, education, and exposure to different jobs and companies before they can concentrate on a passion.

–Just because you are passionate about something doesn’t mean you are good at it. American talent shows are a great example of this concept. If you aren’t good at your chosen passion, you’re unlikely to rise quickly in the professional rankings. In the long run, you may ultimately be hindering yourself.

–It’s a privileged message not afforded to all. Perhaps money is not a necessity for you. However, for most of the working force, money drives what profession you choose until you can establish yourself enough to make alternative decisions.

Korn suggested: “Commit to learning and re-learning what energizes and drains you. By dedicating yourself to what sparks your interests and what doesn’t, you can more easily align with a successful career path that highlights your true talents.” 

I would add another perspective from Thomas Edison: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

October 16th 2004 vs May 21st 2023

Posted: May 22, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

On October 16 2004 the Boston Red Sox , down 2 games to nothing against the New York Yankees suffered one of the most, if not the most lopsided defeat in their playoff history as the Yankees demolished them by a score of 19-8.

Boston briefly left 4-3 after two coming back from a 3-0 deficit and when the Yanks took the lead in the top of the 3rd tied it back up in the bottom of the inning so the two teams were even at 6-6 after 3. At this point the Yanks scored 5 in the 4th, 2 in the 5th, and four in the seventh to take a 17-6 lead. The token two runs Boston managed in the 7th were counted by two more Yankee runs in the 9th.

Not only did the Yanks score 19 runs on 22 hits but all of those runs were earned. Every sports expert declared the Red Sox Season Over.

Then came David Ortiz and Curt Schilling and history was made.

On May 21st 2024 he Boston Celtics the prohibitive favorite in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, with the second best record in the league played the Miami Heat in game three of their best of seven series for the right to go to the NBA finals. Miami had shocked everyone by winning the first two games in Boston and delivered a beating for the ages winning 128 to 102.

The Celtics were down by 8 after the 1st quarter. They were down by 15 at the half after 3 and down by 30 after three in a game that was considered a must win. The only players with a Positive +/- rating were Payton Prichard, Luke Kornet and Sam Houser who all played 12 minutes in the 4th quarter and were a +4 against the Heat’s subs cutting the final lead to 26 from 30.

Tonight every sports expert is declaring the Celtics dead and on Tuesday we will find out if they are as dead as everyone has declared them to be or if there is any pride left in the team.

But what would really be interesting would be to discover that there is an Ortiz or a Schilling on that team just waiting to emerge.

Miami doesn’t seem like the type of team to let this happen but there is a reason why you actually play the games.

After all who picked the Patriots when they were down 28-3 to Atlanta with 8:31 left in the 3rd?

Review, Black Knight on Netflix

Posted: May 21, 2023 by John Ruberry in culture, entertainment, media
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By John Ruberry

A little over a week ago Black Knight, a six-episode dystopian series set in Korea, began streaming on Netflix. 

It’s 2071, decades earlier a comet struck Earth. The Korean peninsula is now a dunes-covered desert, only one percent of the population survived the disaster. Earth’s atmosphere is poisonous. Most of landmass of Earth is underwater,

The government is a corporatist dictatorship. The corporation is the Cheonmyeong Group, led by Chairman Ryu (Nam Kyung-eub), but run by his evil son, Ryu Seok (Song Seung-heon). The Republic of Korea–presumably North Korea and the Kim family didn’t survive the blast–is led by a president (Jin Kyung), but Ryu Seok is really in charge. He’s a Rahm Emanuel-style “Never let a crisis go to waste” type. 

That tiny population is divided into four groups, castes really, and the top group is the Core, which consists of the Cheonmyeong Group and the top tier of the government, and a couple of middle classes, General and Special. But the majority of the survivors are classified as refugees, who for the most part scrape out a miserable survival in the ruins of the former city of Seoul.

The Core of course enjoy a luxurious existence. 

All but the refugees have coveted QR codes tattooed on a hand that allows them entrance into restricted areas–and to purchase desperately needed supplies, especially oxygen.

Is there a way out from the misery for the refugees? Yes, the legit path is to become a deliveryman, a truck driver for the Cheonmyeong Group, transporting those vital supplies. Think of Mad Max in The Road Warrior driving a semitrailer as the wheeled army of Humongous follows him around the Wasteland, only for a post-apocalypse Korean Amazon. The greatest of these deliverymen is 5-8 (Kim Woo-bin). In the post-apocalyptic Korea, deliveryman eschew their birthnames in exchange for the numbered district they service. By the way, there are some female deliverymen.

The other way for the refugees to escape their bleak lives is the criminal path–becoming Hunters. Once again, think of the mobile gangs of the Mad Max franchise. These Black Nights fire back–and 5-8 even electrocutes a pair of them who make the mistake of climbing onto his truck. 

Yoon Sa-wol (Kang You-seok) is a mischievous refugee teen who idolizes 5-8–he even plays a 5-8 computer game–and he and dreams of becoming a deliveryman. Sa-wol is illegally living with two sisters, one of them is Major Jung Seol (Esom). The sisters, I believe, are classified as Special, one notch down from Core.

Sa-wol is an orphan–so yes, he’s yet another “chosen one,” along the lines of Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, and Frodo Baggins.

Predictably, the paths of 5-8, Seol, and Sa-wol cross. 5-8 has learned that he has much more to offer Korea than being a deliveryman, even one who is already a folk hero.

Black Knight is an enjoyable Netflix diversion. There is of course an abundance of action but also some subtle humor. For instance, 5-8, despite breathing poisoned air, still smokes cigarettes. 

More direct humor is offered by Sa-wol’s pals, with the unusual names of Dummy (Jung Eun-seong), Dumb-Dumb (Lee Sang-jin), and Useless (Lee Joo-seung), who live with a clever mechanic and inventor, Grandpa (Kim Eui-sung).

But if you are looking for a romantic storyline, look elsewhere. There are no love stories in Black Knight.

If you are a connoisseur of compelling cinematography and sharp CGI, then you’ll love Black Knight. 

And if you drive a delivery truck for UPS, a grocer, and especially Amazon, then let your imagination run wild and dream away as you watch, and presumably love, this series. 

Black Knight is rated TV-MA by Netflix for violence and smoking. It is available for viewing in Korean with subtitles, in English, and several other languages. I watched it in Korean.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Today in Your Hearing This Passage is Fulfilled

Posted: May 21, 2023 by datechguy in Uncategorized

For this command which I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. It is not up in the sky, that you should say, ‘Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?’ No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.

“Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live and grow numerous, and the LORD, your God, will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen, but are led astray and adore and serve other gods, I tell you now that you will certainly perish; you will not have a long life on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy. I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live,

Deuteronomy 30:11-19 Moses final speech to the Children of Israel

Today is the final Sunday before Pentecost and as I look at our nation where the those in charge of enforcing the law are letting violent attackers go while persecuting those who defend the public. Who encourage the mutilation of children for profit and pleasure and who use the power of the government against their political foes and against those who would defend the unborn I’m reminded of the words of John Adams concerning these United States:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

You see if you have a moral and religious people then the rights of others and the wellbeing of others are taken into account. The preservation of the next generation is taken into account and the cost of hedonism is also taken into account. All of this takes place because those involved realize there might be a reckoning for all that is done.

But when all is utility, when there is no God and the idea is that we become our own God, then all around us, including the people are a plaything to be exploited to the fullest of our desires.

Now that isn’t to say there were not people who did not think like this 20,50,100, 200 or even 247 years ago when the Declaration of Independence was signed. All of us are human and have a fallen human nature, nor does that mean there are not places in this land where the ethic expressed by Mr. Adams is not expressed and acted upon.

What I am saying is that we are seeing the wages of the choices we have made collectively as a nation, both in terms of actions to destroy the next generation for profit and normalizing evil and in inaction for seeing evil in front of us and pretending it is not so.

All of these have costs to a society and now those costs are being paid and the only people that we can blame is ourselves.

That is what is most depressing.

Let me leave you with this closing passage which proclaimed the start of Lent which led to the Easter and the season that closes at the end of this week:

Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God.

Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom quit his room, and the bride her chamber.  Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep, And say, “Spare, O LORD, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach, with the nations ruling over them! Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'” Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people.

Joel 2:12-18

And a reminder of a Cardinal who didn’t realize he was prophesying when he said:

 “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”

Cardinal Francis George 2010

Cardinal George died 8 years ago (2015) Given the action of the FBI lately we’re well on the way to the 2nd part. God willing we’ll get to the rebuilding part eventually, it only remains to see how long we remain in the stages before it.

The answer to that question, as always, is up to us.

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