More Curriculum Writing

I have this rather humble resume, where a lot of browsers first find me, not updated in some years. But I keep it as a souvenir, plus it's not that inaccurate, in that 4D Solutions got into curriculum writing as a line of work, and has pretty much stayed there ever since.

What's missing from that c.v. is all my gallivanting about on the speaker circuit, attending summit meetings or whatever, padding out with credentials.

That's OK though, as The Web is a big place and there's lots more about me, for those seeking collaborative relationships. Head hunters or whatever know how to use the tools of the trade.

My latest foray, into physics, was to get some reassurance "thermodynamics" wouldn't keep my peers in that department sounding dismal in any stupid way, such that children somehow thought we were all going to hell in a hand basket (why in a hand basket?) because of something called "entropy," which is inevitably increasing.

In point of fact, planet Earth as a micro-state has a free ticket to the future on a fun energy gradient, already bought and paid for in that sense. We just have to learn our jobs better, keep it ship shape. Nature hasn't skimped on giving us the wherewithal, which includes an ability to puzzle things through. "God helps those who help themselves" as the theists say, or "oblivion is by choice" in more agnostic language (gnostic whatever).

Yes, the ride is finite (that's in the nature of rides), but there's no "entropy clock" running so fast that we all should be wasting precious life times stockpiling for that great crash or crunch or whatever it's called (Y2K?), although it's true that disasters will happen locally, and the budding relief industry is still woefully underfunded (through no fault of our sun's).

We expect more eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, not as punishments but as challenges, job security for heroes if you want to sound cynical about it. The architecture is also quite antique and insecure.

With the computer scientists, I continue debating which analogies work best, for teaching about Python. I'm finding that to be a productive discussion.

It's not like I'm some yak-of-all-trades guy who can just crash any party and start hob-knobbing with fluency. That's too Buckaroo Bonzai.

We were joking about that yesterday in fact, when I told this boat captain to stop pressure testing and just put the new gasket on and see if that worked, it would narrow the hypotheses either way.

I was just piggy backing on something Jim Buxton was saying (and I was thinking). We all laughed about that, because I'm not known for my talk about maritime internal combustion engines.

Like anyone else, I've specialized. I'm a very niche market kind of guy, one could say finicky if wanting a more negative spin (thinking of cat food commercials). Like just about everyone else in curriculum writing, I've got this pet set of concepts, this skeletal outline, and that gains me entre to specific venues.

Mostly, my business commitments keep me in Portland, as curriculum writing means animation, Youtoons, and this city has the savvy I need to get ahead in that work.

I like to compete, am a capitalist in that way.