US Postal Service fun

While reading an article about marketing and big data, I came across a link to an article that explains how the ZIP code system works. These two images are from that article:

I remember when the wonderful—to many and curmudgeonly to others—Andy Rooney, of CBS’ 60 Minutes, expounded on the topic in 1989. I couldn’t find the video but found a link to a newspaper opinion piece by Rooney that was archived.

Getting a Ph.D.

I applied to pursue a doctorate in international studies in 2008 but was turned down due to professor availability. I wanted to continue the ideas that I put forth in my master’s thesis. In the graphic below—created to demonstrate causality of ideas before I even started writing—I addressed the first 2 “developments”. The focus of my doctoral thesis would be on the future avenues of research described in “development” #3.

While I have not permanently ruled out the possibility, a Ph.D is on hold for now. (The department at the time ruled out on rationale for getting a PhD: replacing those professors facing imminent retirement. He explained that old political science professors don’t retire, they just die.). This site, “Should I get a Ph.D.“, may give me further pause.

More A.I.

As part of my continued research into understanding the business opportunities represented by artificial intelligence and to continue to my product brief—that is rapidly become a book—I came across a very interesting article that about neural networks. What is really cool is that a playground where you can actually the neural networks in action, and make changes, is also provided.