#combining things

@mellamew took some “what flower are you” or ... similar, quizzes and came up with a sunflower, a bluebell, and a lily.  I really wanted to try combining them.  So we have sunflower yellow lilies with a splash of blue, the core of a sunflower, sunflower sized stalks, and bluebell bends and flower placements. I liked the idea of them being larger than people and creating natural walkways. I called then Sunlilybells (cause im unoriginal) and Mel named them Sillybells.   I wonder what personality these flowers would have in Wonderland?

Direct Sum

This 6-minute video by Lorenzo Sadun explained direct sums to me, after I'd seen the word used many times and wasn't really getting it. The idea is that if you wanted to combine two incompatible things, you could pad each of them with zeroes.

Example:

(a₁, a₂, a₃) + (b₁, b₂, b₃)

(a₁, a₂, a₃, 0, 0, 0) + (0, 0, 0, b₁, b₂, b₃)

John Baez

@isomorphisms We use direct sums and products of small covariance matrices to generate full-size covariance structures in mixed models.

I thought up a cheap model for success in work. Let me know what you think of it, will you?

∃ three components (besides luck) to success in the workplace: skills, relationships, and hard work. I'll define by example:

(hard) Skills

"He's the only person who's been here since Project Bumbocat."

"She's the only Rails developer."

"I spent a month of late nights writing shell scripts and now I get to kick back for 50% of my work days."

Knowing about polymer flooding and Velle derricks.

Able to repair the broken photocopier/toilet/server/air conditioner.

Locksmith.

Relationships

Your contacts can invest a lot of money in something you tell them about.

You are well-liked by coworkers.

You easily develop rapport with clients.

Your contacts can get you a conversation with someone important.

Effort

Dressing to impress.

Getting up at 5am every morning.

Calling more clients per hour.

Staying later than your co-workers.

How do I want to combine these dimensions? Not as a △ (symplectic) but as three independent directed, zeroless, ordered, metricless dimensions ↑↑↑.