I was going through mathematics tonight, and I realized that multiplying matrices tends to be similar to multiplying in numerical algebra, the famous FOIL. Using vectors, the multiplication of (x+y)(x+y) becomes x^2+2xy+y^2 in two dimensions. It’s as much a discovery as vectors themselves. Nowhere in the book of linear algebra does it show geometrically.

Meanwhile, I’ve been going through the advanced placement of calculus, and I’ve been finding nothing of what I had at Penn State. It only proves what I wrote about teaching mathematics – missing pieces of mathematics becomes critical in higher courses.

My overall view of mathematics reflects the struggles I’ve had with both subjects and the rules of life. Mainly it’s not spending the time and reviewing the subject.

I went on Zach Star on what linear algebra and its matrices mean. He used a circuit to illustrate the nullspace, which caused a flashback to the incident I had in eighth grade. It was a simpler circuit, but it appeared broken. I figured it could still work, which seems to match a nullspace.

  keep getting flashbacks of wisdom over a half century to late. It’s a special function of the human brain to return to any date in the past and determine long ago mistakes. For some reason, Newton keeps plaguing me with the understanding that many of the boys in my class were helping on the farms. It still doesn’t excuse why the coach never explained the rules of football to me so I could play with them!

I had chance last night to return to organic chemistry. As usual, I found the explanations of the means to identify compounds. This time it’s the nuclear magnetic resonance. I don’t think I had a thorough explanation.\ in Morrison and Boyd, but I could’ve muffed it.

I’ve begun a series of courses toward data science. The one on statistics goes over some material I’ve known, but the definitions of covariance and correlation are new to me as to their mathematical explanation.

 As today is the anniversary of my entry to State College, I reflect on the time I was a happy graduate student at Penn State. The peak comes in the middle years when I ran my own weekly show. I didn't get paid in college radio, but I had control over my income and my time.

Being a graduate teaching assistant combine an income with an enjoyable job and an open opportunity for advancement through learning. I ran my show how I wanted in conjunction with a partnet who complented my mangement.

KIhan Academy has a lecture on precession, and I also figured that the calendar would also move so that the solstices would not gradually be earlier. What I didn't consider were the perihelia and aphelia would moved along wth precession.

 This week I ran across Langrange multipliers. I found explanations in both MITOCW and khan. It reminds me of eigenstuff enough to understand them. I see a parallel with Lagrange multipliers. It even reminds me of engineering physics, at least the second time I took it in grad school.

I just finished a training on six sigma and started one on bookkeeping in LinkedIn. I also took one in differential equations. It starts much differently than when I took the subject at Penn State. It also starts with slope fields, sorely lacking in the previous course.

 In the times when my life did improve, a major obstacle lifted out in 1967, 1980, and 1990. I’d like a time when my life improved from better conditions.

card., which causes me to clean up the clutter.
I began an econometric class, which is really a simplified course in statistics. It goes further than the quantitative business from long ago., and my desperate meeting with Russell Smith in 1978.

I was going through fintech, which has a use for linear algebra. Covariances seem to have a place in a matrix.

I tried yet another video on eigens, and I uncovered another aspect finding them. Linear algebra came up under corporate finance. I’m still working on visualizing it, rather than understanding it abstractly

I had the though that K acts too much like me in extreme. His obsession about his name N and a lack of empathy gave me pause. I also know through the internet that he’s been struggling financially.

I finished the LinkedIn course on the foundation of SAPGUI, and the resemblance to accounting is quite obvious. There is even a connection to Microsoft Excel.

 

I’m back into visualizing eigens. According to Grant Sanderson, understanding linear algebra requires a foundation in linear transformations, linear systems, determinates, and change of basis. My situation when I took the course only confirms it. Certainly the concept of lowering a dimension was missing, not to mention the null space. Perhaps applications of eigens would give an even better picture.

I stumbled upon linear algebra with Grant Sanderson, something I could have used when I took the course. Just the concept of vectors I lacked until I took the fundamentals of physics, after I’d audited chemical engineering courses. 

I had a beginning session in linear algebra for a definition I never had. The idea that a matrix is actually a linear transform of a vector. Where did that originate? I intend to continue the pursuit.

 Eleven Ways to Manage the AP Team

In other words, help the team follow the goals of the organization and their own aspirations. Help the members move and progress. It’s no different than any success, but it’s rare, which is why so many are severely underemployed and fall into the Alopexian Paradox. The passion dims and the workers either stop any hope or find another outlet for their talents.
I’ve yet to find such an organization. All too often, the organizations for which I’ve worked either were short sighted or didn’t even bother to manage. So far, I’ve been in a “family” business that they throw away their workers in a merger or a business in a declining industry more interested in shedding workers than developing them.

Wed 26 May   17:54
My encounter with the various courses took a change today after Wells Fargo blocked my payment for Coursera Plus annual. I figure I spent enough to feast on all the courses I have already paid and downloaded.
I checked my notebook from the mid-1980’s, and I found storied I had written and forgotten during my time as a hostage of Reaganomics. So it’s time to revise my agenda for the summer.

 The latest on OChem with the Great Courses brought me back to the overall picture. Back in December 1976 I was still memorizing everything rather than stepping back as I actually did during the lower grades at t slower pace.

The clarity comes from understanding the vibrations of the organic molecules. Then the molecules absorb the light at certain frequencies. I suppose the lack of coverage of molecular orbitals with the physics of the vibrations would have clarified the concept.
Later I used ultraviolet light in a similar test for proteins and nucleates. It suggests that the former are more stable than regular organic molecules. There’s a hint for evolution.
While I do remember the so-called fingerprint region, I didn’t connect it with distinct organic molecules. Obviously the functional groups have the higher frequencies than the stabler fingerprint complexity.

Fri 5 Feb 21  11:08
My foray into the intensive and extensive reading of foreign languages has caused me to find use to apply the techniques in other subjects. How I used to apply it to history was both in the sense of grade school.
Today I intensely finished the Latin course in Duo Lingo, partly disappointed that it’s finished. But happy to finish the section. We never progressed beyond the present tense of verbs, nor even the passive voice or the subjunctive. The techniques that Luke Ranieri shows in Polymathy does go over the imagination of the content, which I used to do with the history textbooks, even at Penn State.

The Fourth Module of the Power MBA

 

Inevitably I compare it to the Penn State MBA. After nearly two score, I noticed many similarities with each other. At this point, I noticed some topics not yet covered., but I reserve comments until the course is finished. Of the differences, this is a slight slant toward international business and a larger emphasis on entrepreneurship.

 

When I joined the MBA program, the administration at Penn State emphasized employment with an average salary’s beginning at thirty thousand, equivalent to nearly eighty thousand now. Courses for concentration lacked entrepreneurship as well. I had intended French, but time forced me to concentrate in operations and finance, to which I added courses some four years later at Penn State.

 

I went into the job market without an offer, but determined to compete with the Japanese in operations. Thanks to the Power MBA and the courses on LinkedIn, I am updating that as well. I still see my future in operations and finance, so I’ll be adding more courses on both later.

 

The most notable course in marketing easily passes the one I had at Penn State. Not only does it cover corporate marketing, but also individual marketing. Penn State did provide a course in speech communication, but it assumed that the degree was sufficient toward individual marketing. Given some of the hostile interviews I’ve experienced, it was wholly inadequate. When I joined Toastmasters, I had the opportunity to demonstrate what I’ve learned since the MBA course in speech communication.

 

The Power MBA has moved into branding, which the Penn State MBA never explored. This group has a wider view of the MBA, at least in the survey. The is no time for concentrations, so maybe it’s why the Power MBA tries to explore a wider field.   

 

I have heard through Zoom meetings about having a personal brand, but the Power MBA explores not only what a brand really is, but also how to plan a brand. So, the question now is how to use the brand for personal benefit after planning a brand. When I worked at Bodek and Rhodes (now part of Alpha Broder), management was building the brand of Next Level, of which I was part by entering mill orders for customer. The management at Bodek and Rhodes didn’t consider giving me a larger part in building the Next Level brand, even though everyone knew I was severely underemployed there.

My conclusion:

The Power MBA, like the one at Penn State, implicitly hints that individuals must build their own brands to overcome the old “It’s not what you know; it’s who knows you”. By building a personal brand, networking become more effective. It is a lesson sorely lacking, which assumes it comes with experience. However, should that experience run into severe underemployment, and the Alopexian Paradox takes over, it may be decades before the wisdom of the way to a successful career appears.

 

The Fourth Module of the Power MBA

The progress on this course is so different from my experience at Penn State that I’m not sure whether it’s because of the updates or the means of the internet. This module concentrates on business and marketing strategies. It many have been a strategic management course at Penn State.

 

Outside of the Boston Consulting Group, Penn State didn’t touch on matrices, although one did show up in a personnel management class I took on employees. The Ansoff matrix emphasizes growth alternatives, and organic and inorganic alternates. I saw the buzzword “synergy” remains, and some of my classmates probably practice it from the executive suite.

 

Finding purpose in life as well as business manifests in Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. Once again, building a brand as part of that purpose returns. Hidden as implicit advice for entrepreneurs opens blitzscaling and when to promote growth.

 

Pricing brought me back to the program at Penn State. How to strategize pricing in light of other concepts in this module was quite different. Both programs tend to avoid quantification of concepts like price elasticity, which challenges me to explore it after this course.

 

The concept of value came to me many years later when I joined H&R Block, so the value curve added to my knowledge. As I noted in the previous article, Penn State assumed the value of the degree and how the concept of value works in business.

 

The final piece of the module is Hangry and how they saw an opportunity to exploit, instead of reading about Ted Turner in an article how he built an empire. The next module deals with actual leadership.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motivation

 It has dawned upon me that the notion of practice was missing from my methods for mathematics, which became a full-blown disaster a year later. One must go beyond memorizing and practice them to be pragmatic! I trace this problem back to biology with Sister John Ann, when the division began to separate. It was also hidden during the newpaper route in Mountaintop and showed up subtlely  at Zollinger Harned. The jobs were drudgery, paid poorly, and were well below my intellectual abilities.

Could it be that the shortcut of memorization instead of practicing led to my lack of finishing what I start? I must explore the possibility. It also may have to do with the habit of passively reading over and over the same passages for comprehension.