Career plans?

[Baron von Lotsov]

It could be worse. A close friend of mine did a maths degree. Then at the same place he did a maths PhD. He spent three years developing a new kind of algebra which if I recall correctly related to polynomials. He spent three years thinking about this one highly obscure problem and figured out a way to do it. He went mad in the process. I mean like he was suffering a great deal of stress, but pulled it off eventually. Then after that he said to me, what he did was not actually that original and kind of gave me the impression the book on how to do it would just gather dust in some academic library. It was like a puzzle that was solved just because it existed as a puzzle, not the latest way to unify the four fundamental forces of nature and find the meaning of life or anything that flash.



So he got a job and ended up at Bolton College teaching maths. 20- 30 years he is still there but made it to the head of department or something. Think about that though. You are 19 you get away from your parents, hang out with the guys, do a  course and then you never leave. Well sure he ended up in a different institution than the one he started in, but what does one lecture hall look any different to the next? He has never done anything but maths. On the one hand it is a super fascinating thing to get interested in, but in my view, do something too much and it becomes soul-destroying.

[Sheepy]

I have spent most of my life feeding my family and stopping the wife from divorcing me. But now the kids are off my hands, the mortgage is paid up and Herself has decided to put up with me as being the best of a bad field.



So what to do next?



Years ago I got a degree in maths and am amazed at how much I have forgotten. To be honest, it was a crap degree from a worse Poly and although I had a great time there, I am currently struggling  with my 16 year old grandson's homework.



So that is it. I am going to spend my declining years brushing up on my maths.



How about you guys?

LOL well I am short of offers Borchester,but they don't want to pay their debts already accrued.

[GregB]

Yeah, you wish!

As a youngster I had piano lessons and I can read music reasonably well. My piano teacher was not very nice to me and I gave it up. I can still remember how to play parts of two of the pieces I learnt, including the first few phrases of "Moonlight Sonata".

I and my wife have sung in various singing groups, she still does.

2 years ago we bought our granddaughter a ukulele and although I don't play myself, I've gone through the book and helped her to play "London Bridge", teaching the chords as we go along. Ihave a regret that I didn't learn guitar or some stringed instrument like the violin, so this has to be my career plan.

I'm going to make an effort, become Barry Formby and start cleaning windows.  ::

I'm learning to play guitar, it's a tough gig. Check out Justin Sandercoe online, a great mostly free resource and well structured lessons. I think he has some uke stuff to.

[Baron von Lotsov]

All stuff I have done Lotov, forgotten and hope to brush up on. Right now I am stumbling through changing logarithmic bases which won't tax the brain of the average 17 year old but which is certainly troubling mine. I feel as though I have sat through a golden afternoon of Maths, fallen asleep and woken to see that it is now night time and the sky is overcast with only the dim light from the scraps of my past knowledge flicking fitfully through the clouds.



The great thing about maths is that it is about simplifying problems. A mathematician may work through the hours of daylight and far into the night, but there is no heavy lifting and everyone thinks that you are dead clever although you are actually a bit of a skiver and only looking for a soft life.

I rather think maths helped us get out of the EU. There was a huge amount of strategy involved. One branch of maths is game theory, which comes in dead useful, but also there are other subtle things. Take the ideas of self-organisation and adaptation in a system. From a long while back I had been looking at these issues having had a bit of familiarity with what they call non-linear systems where the opposition were like a lot of arts students - good with the bullshit but not noticing the rug being pulled from under their feet in ways they had not expected. In the end they got totally trashed by Cambridge Analytica. That was the work of a maths student who had written a paper which as I recall had something to do with network theory. It's all very good academic work and peer-reviewed. All they had to do was a little coding to set it in motion. So armchair work indeed. it beats being out on a cold Monday morning in January digging up the road. It was a far game of course. That's maths vs creative writing skills.

[Borchester]

I've been doing that for a while. Did you ever do differential geometry in your maths? That's what I've been trying to learn. Also another topic that I'm starting to get into is topology. It's all very weird stuff and takes a while for it to be accepted by your mind to become familiar with it. I'm also into logic to do with computation, e.g. lambda calculus and there's someone called Frege as well who came up with a lot of logic. I'm unsure how much is covered in a maths degree, but I do feel if you want to go further in today's world you do need to know a great deal of maths. In physics we just learnt the maths that they figured we would need to do physics. Now I see a whole load more.

All stuff I have done Lotov, forgotten and hope to brush up on. Right now I am stumbling through changing logarithmic bases which won't tax the brain of the average 17 year old but which is certainly troubling mine. I feel as though I have sat through a golden afternoon of Maths, fallen asleep and woken to see that it is now night time and the sky is overcast with only the dim light from the scraps of my past knowledge flicking fitfully through the clouds.



The great thing about maths is that it is about simplifying problems. A mathematician may work through the hours of daylight and far into the night, but there is no heavy lifting and everyone thinks that you are dead clever although you are actually a bit of a skiver and only looking for a soft life.

[Baron von Lotsov]

I have spent most of my life feeding my family and stopping the wife from divorcing me. But now the kids are off my hands, the mortgage is paid up and Herself has decided to put up with me as being the best of a bad field.



So what to do next?



Years ago I got a degree in maths and am amazed at how much I have forgotten. To be honest, it was a crap degree from a worse Poly and although I had a great time there, I am currently struggling  with my 16 year old grandson's homework.



So that is it. I am going to spend my declining years brushing up on my maths.



How about you guys?

I've been doing that for a while. Did you ever do differential geometry in your maths? That's what I've been trying to learn. Also another topic that I'm starting to get into is topology. It's all very weird stuff and takes a while for it to be accepted by your mind to become familiar with it. I'm also into logic to do with computation, e.g. lambda calculus and there's someone called Frege as well who came up with a lot of logic. I'm unsure how much is covered in a maths degree, but I do feel if you want to go further in today's world you do need to know a great deal of maths. In physics we just learnt the maths that they figured we would need to do physics. Now I see a whole load more.



Anyhow I agree with you. It's a great thing to get into, and far less superficial than most entertainment on offer to people like us. There are some really powerful concepts that can help explain many seemingly peculiar things in today's world, like how systems work.

[T00ts]

I gave up work twice. The first time was planned about 18 months ahead of time. I lasted a month. I had been self employed for ever and am pretty unemployable I should think, so I simply started again in a smaller way and I think it was 5 years later that I suddenly didn't want to do it anymore and stopped. I haven't missed it. Which I find very strange. I guess I had got it out of my system.   :dncg:

[johnofgwent]

Yeah, you wish!

As a youngster I had piano lessons and I can read music reasonably well. My piano teacher was not very nice to me and I gave it up. I can still remember how to play parts of two of the pieces I learnt, including the first few phrases of "Moonlight Sonata".

I and my wife have sung in various singing groups, she still does.

2 years ago we bought our granddaughter a ukulele and although I don't play myself, I've gone through the book and helped her to play "London Bridge", teaching the chords as we go along. Ihave a regret that I didn't learn guitar or some stringed instrument like the violin, so this has to be my career plan.

I'm going to make an effort, become Barry Formby and start cleaning windows.  ::

Well that was what my boss said when I asked him ...



I'd have said Sitting in Bob's Office (Bob was HIS boss)



Yeah I wish I still had my musical ability. The rear end shunt that could easily have killed me in 77 left me with 3 weeks of my life and my skills as a keyboard warrior (of the Rick Wakeman variety) gone forever. I tried relearning but it was no use ...

[DeppityDawg]

An awful lot closer to the big six zero now than I'd like to be, kids left home with youngest daughter finishing university this year, so I suppose that horizon is fast approaching. In toting up what retirement income I'd have, it doesn't look too bad, so I could probably afford to do it in the next few years if I wanted to. But finishing work? Don't think I'm quite ready for that yet somehow. On a very personal note, and as someone who has had to spend too much time dealing with the legacies of the past, I don't relish the thought of having too much time on my hands.



Conversely, when do you stop working? Do you go on until you no longer can? What do people do then? I cant see myself building a model railway or spending my time gardening. Maybe spend a bit of time travelling around the UK (the odd racecourse here and there), and watching Wor Lass rip into my retirement fund might not be so bad. I don't know tbh. Work seems to be a curse you can't escape, while at the same time I've seen enough blokes retire and then keel over a few years later. I guess the best thing any of us can hope for in later life is that your health at least allows you to enjoy your retirement. And that is something money can never buy.

[cromwell]

Years ago some arse decided it would be good for middle managers to.appraise their boss...



So the question 'Eddie, where do you see yourself in five to ten years time's



The answer 'a rich woman's toy boy'

Yeah we had the appraisal bollocks though t'other way round and annually

And my answer was always yeah still doing this because I need the money and thinking and you'll still be one of the bosses despite the fact you're bloody useless and know nowt but your daddy plays golf with the MD.

[Barry]

The answer 'a rich woman's toy boy'

Yeah, you wish!

As a youngster I had piano lessons and I can read music reasonably well. My piano teacher was not very nice to me and I gave it up. I can still remember how to play parts of two of the pieces I learnt, including the first few phrases of "Moonlight Sonata".

I and my wife have sung in various singing groups, she still does.

2 years ago we bought our granddaughter a ukulele and although I don't play myself, I've gone through the book and helped her to play "London Bridge", teaching the chords as we go along. Ihave a regret that I didn't learn guitar or some stringed instrument like the violin, so this has to be my career plan.

I'm going to make an effort, become Barry Formby and start cleaning windows.  ::

[Streetwalker]

Ive never made plans past next week  though will be thinking about maybe getting back to work after the winter break in March if it warms up a bit . :roll:

[johnofgwent]

Years ago some arse decided it would be good for middle managers to.appraise their boss...



So the question 'Eddie, where do you see yourself in five to ten years time's



The answer 'a rich woman's toy boy'

[Borchester]

I have spent most of my life feeding my family and stopping the wife from divorcing me. But now the kids are off my hands, the mortgage is paid up and Herself has decided to put up with me as being the best of a bad field.



So what to do next?



Years ago I got a degree in maths and am amazed at how much I have forgotten. To be honest, it was a crap degree from a worse Poly and although I had a great time there, I am currently struggling  with my 16 year old grandson's homework.



So that is it. I am going to spend my declining years brushing up on my maths.



How about you guys?