Wanderers 2010.03.02

I just finished my meeting with Patrick, who is looking hard at various psychometric issues around education initiatives.

That sense of young people running away from technological careers is haunting a lot of people. Recruiting is a concern. What would the commercials look like (in theaters?), what would be their aesthetics?

The National Guard has been facing this question. Disaster relief, after an earthquake, eruption, tsunami, flood or storm, have been realistic enough themes. The prospect of getting stop-lossed in Iraq isn't mentioned.

My mind drifted back to Journal Square in Jersey City, and the two big ideas I'd sought to champion, as a penniless individual:

(a) put IMAX in the Stanley Theater so area universities could assign for-credit viewings, in addition to serving the general public

(b) put a high resolution illuminated billboard on the back of Loew's, with a Fuller Projection as one of the display options.

Some of the IMAX films I imagined the universities would assign had a distinctly geometrical flavor. I was just starting my study of Synergetics at the time, plus had taught high school mathematics for two years.

Having an IMAX sized screen doesn't mean only using that format.

Back to Patrick's problem, he's definitely interested in 60-degree coordination motifs. You could think of bees, or hexagons, as symbolic here. The flavor is biological, organic chemical. Posting these remarks from the Linus Pauling House seems highly apropos.

An effective recruiting commercial helps one project oneself into some positive future, doing something vital (critical) as well as technical. Minus a credible curriculum, the PR comes across as hollow.

Having the futuristic backdrops be real, not just movie sets, adds credibility, but then is this a positive future we're showing?

Getting stuck in some tent in the desert, unwelcomed by locals and forgotten by an inattentive public back home, is hardly anyone's idea of rewarding community service. The movie Jarhead looks at this existential predicament.