How To Research and Become Famous and Be Good At Everything

Children are always coming up to me saying, "Mister! Mister! Tell us how to research!" And I always tell them, "you're not tough enough, kid. Come back when you got the goods!" Finally, today however, as I approach retirement in twenty to thirty years and contemplate my legacy, I've decided to share my secrets. Research secrets!

First things first, choose a fact you wish to learn more about. Just one. A single fact. Two is too many. A detailed summary of facts is not correct -- you're not writing a review article -- and a layman's explanation of a complex series of facts is wrong -- you're not writing pop-science. Pick just one, single, fact. Before you starting choosing, though, let me make it clear that this fact cannot be your favorite fact, it cannot be a revolutionary or particularly earth shattering fact, and, really, it probably shouldn't even be a fact known to anyone outside your specialized circle of peers and some post grads in Belgium. The good facts have all been taken or require a multimillion dollar grant. Do you have a multimillion dollar grant? The fact can be from a subject you care about -- we're not unreasonable -- but that will be your only concession. Cherish it. This fact you will spend the next one to two years of your life learning.

Now that you've chosen the fact you wish to learn you will next have to write up multiple, detailed, technical iterations of why you wish to learn this fact; how you want to go about learning the fact; how you will keep your learning of the fact secret from others; what financing you will receive in learning this fact; and how learning this fact may affect the children, elderly, incompetent, and pregnant around you. You should also include a list of people who have also said things about your fact. Make sure that list is standardized in some random but highly regimented manner. After you've written a sufficient number of drafts of why you want to learn the fact you will then be asked to wait a number of months prior to being given clearance to finally in fact learn the fact.

The next step is preparing a spreadsheet to record data about your fact. This is necessary because the process of learning a fact requires a long drawn out process of reviewing multiple different medical and technical records to identify a dozen different variables which you will then record at least a few hundred times. Make sure the spreadsheet makes sense before you start, though, because if your spreadsheet doesn't make sense now it certainly won't make any sense when you come back to it after a few weeks or months of doing other real life things. And make sure your definitions are concrete, precise, and consistent with the definitions used by other people who have said things about your fact because if not no one will believe it. They'll say your fact was not well designed. Don't worry too much; though, whatever you do now will in the end matter little because at some point you or someone you know will inevitably find a better way to learn your fact half way through thus requiring you to go through the records and spreadsheets and data again. Likely one cell at a time.

Now that you have the spreadsheet as you want it you may begin the actual process of looking at the computer screen thousands of times a day over the course of an endless number of months you will never get back in order to extract the information you need to make your fact. It is likely at some point you will accidently place one datum in the wrong datum column without realizing it and have to spend hours trying to figure out what went wrong, and it is similarly likely that at some point you will realize one of the records you are using to collect data doesn't even have the information recorded correctly. Don't lose heart, though, you'll be far too invested at this point to seriously consider giving up.

Once you have gathered enough data about your fact to actually fashion the fact, it is time to give the data to a statistician. Or, since statisticians are fabulous nonexistent mythological creatures, rather you will stare at a statistics textbook until you find a way to crudely apply one formula or another to your numbers. After, of course, also figuring out how to force that formula through whatever statistics package you do or do not have on your computer. Statistics done you are, finally, presto change'o, through the magic of math, done with researching! You have learned your fact. Congratulations, scientist!

You're not done done yet, however, oh no. You now have to share the fact with others. There are thankfully a number of ways to do so, and you will be asked to do every one. It is typically easiest to first share the fact in the form of a Power Point presentation where you will create many captivating and mercilessly boring slides talking about your fact in a level of detail that even you do not care to know. This will give you the chance to talk about other related facts as well, but do so only briefly. Remember to never lose sight of your fact for it is the most important fact. At least for the sixty minutes or so of your presentation. If you lose focus and meander off topic people will get very upset as this may interfere with their napping.

Presentation done you will then have to create a poster for your fact. This will be similar to your Power Point presentation, but different in that you'll be forced to smash down most of what you'd like to say about your fact into the three small columns of text. Most of the poster should be figures which will keep people's attention when learning about your fact better than any actual concisely written information about the fact itself. The poster will need to be a certain size, using certain fonts, with certain esoteric color and design requirements depending on who you ask and most people won't want to be asked. The font will always have to be bigger and the tables larger which will always mean you will have to say less about your fact, but for posters what matters most is how long people stare at it. Be sure to buy an expensive poster carrying case because it'll probably be something you want to place over your fireplace mantle for years to come. It also lets others know that, damn, that man's a researcher! Or rather just a weirdo walking around with a very elaborate tube carrying purse.

Lastly, you will be asked to write a paper about your fact. It will seem to you at this point that it would simply consist of cutting and pasting all the component parts you've created to date, but you will quickly find that idea ridiculous due to the ten rough draft minimum and crippling word count limits which will effectively preclude any use of adjectives, adverbs, or relevant citations. This is assuming you plan to submit to a journal with anything resembling a coherent instructions for authors. Once everyone has agreed that the current draft of your paper is the best possible draft that everyone can concede to and no further changes that contradict other changes have been suggested you will submit it to the editors who will reply some time later with a list of reasons why the paper is terrible. Thankfully you will be given the chance to clarify and modify your manuscript once more, but only after another five draft minimum. This process may repeat itself indefinitely, but eventually, if lucky, you will find yourself with a journal article about your fact. The feeling at seeing your name as the first author will be indescribably underwhelming.

And that, children, is research. A year or two of life for a fact, a glossy poster, and a journal article that your friends and family probably won't have access to. Thankfully the ladies go crazy for dot plots.





Sexy dynamite.



As a final aside I do have sincere respect for researchers who toil endlessly and often anonymously to advance our understanding of the world. I will just likely never be one of them. Nor would I likely have thought it worth my time to have done so. To the endless march of Progress!




I also coincidentally have sincere respect for champion corgi Risk masters.

Who's the cutest little conqueror in the world?! You are! You are!

Surrounded by Turkeys

I am, literally, surrounded by turkeys. Not literally, literally. But literally in the sense that I sometimes see them at work. Which raises the question, why are they following me?

When I first moved to New Hampshire I expected to see deer, squirrels, rabbits, the usual. Maybe a moose and a beaver to round out a proper New England diorama, and that was it. Instead I found myself constantly slowing or stopping my car to avoid hitting turkeys. They were inexplicably everywhere and, judging by their fearlessness, were clearly the apex predators of whatever it is turkeys feed on. Regardless, when I left New Hampshire I assumed I'd be leaving the turkeys behind.

Instead there're here too. Every day at work I drive by them. Every day I get out of my car they're watching. Sometimes I swear I see them taking notes. I didn't know turkeys were normal fauna of northern California air force bases, but then again I never knew they just chilled wherever the hell they well please either. The only conclusion: al-Qaeda turkey sleeper cell. I am expecting one to greet me coming home from work some day. He will probably be armed.

Only Golden Eagles can save us! Or kill us all.

Blargh

Remember that time I broke up with my girlfriend? Yeah. That was the worst.

In case you want to relive and reflect, here're some photos of Claudia and I in New York and half the entire United States.

Thug Life New Hampshire

You may not be able to tell just by looking, but the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire (or la Vallée Supérieure as it's known in the local French pidgin) is pretty rough territory. Teeming with gangs, hoods, hoodlums, toughs, thugs, and the thick hum of bluegrass harmony. It's a place where drugs like dope, whack, smack, and spank are sold by the handful; where drive-bys are a regular events at local sugar houses and pimps parade unchallenged down colonial boulevards and covered bridges; a place where homicide is the most common cause of death for youths next only to moose attack and bear attack; and where life is cheap because the good die young. If you want to survive on the streets of Hanover you better get street smart, fast. And get a gun too. To keep those moose of your back.

Got Goat?

Haiti may not have much of a future, but it's got good food. (It's got some good people, too, but after my last post I cannot officially go on the record saying that.) I’m not sure I’d ever eaten goat before, but I’d happily do so again.

The majority of our diet there consisted of various staples consisting primarily of fried meats (usually goat or chicken) and fried plantains supplemented by a few eggs, a few breakfast spaghettis, and a few sandwiches of what I can only guess was brain cheese. All washed down with either a 1 L bottle of coca-cola or a pint of Prestige, Haiti’s surprisingly satisfying national beer. There was also conche which tasted like... well, conche, so they can't all be winners, but our best meal, our big banquet meal our final day, was Chinese food. The best damn Chinese food in Haiti and, arguably, in all of New Hampshire and Vermont. And for dessert? Dous makos. Sugar, condensed milk, and... silly putty?

Eat it, share it, or press it up against a newspaper comic to save for later.

 

Hope for Haiti?

Haiti, if I may be so bold, is a lost cause. Some people just haven’t realized it yet.

Despite it currently being quite fashionable I must dissent and say Haiti will likely never, ever get better. I don’t say this simply to be contrarian – I like agreeing with people. I don’t say it because I dislike the Haitian people – I have no strong feelings for them either way. And I certainly don’t say it because I eschew foreign aid – indeed it’s because I so strongly believe in the benefit of foreign aid that I raise the issue. Were international charity and giving a bottomless trough of endless resources, sure, I would say, give to Haiti. They are not, however, and every dollar, euro, or yen spent somewhere is another pound, krone, or ruble not spent somewhere else. In this sense Haiti is more than just a lost cause; it is a black hole of limited resources. 

To begin, Haiti’s neighbor: the Dominican Republic. It is poor, underdeveloped, undereducated, underappreciated, and lives with much the same historical legacy of colonialism and corruption that Haiti does. In fact those with more than an American sense of geography will even note they share the same island in the same spot in the middle of the Caribbean. Yet despite their similar weaknesses over the past few decades they’ve both gone in dramatically different directions and now consequentially enjoy dramatically different presents. No one talks about saving the Dominican Republic. 

Back to Haiti. Since our actions in the present should be guided at least in part by prospects for the future let us focus on Haiti’s current chances for sustainability. A nation’s economy is not the only indicator or even the best indicator of wellbeing, of course, but an economy – any economy – is an essential part of its foundation for wellbeing. Without some semblance of substantive commerce health, education, development, and consequently happiness are all retarded. In light of this the developing world’s major economic advantage over the developed world, and what will largely allow the developing world to save itself, is its possession of a large, cheap, manual labor force with limited regulation. From this perspective Haiti has got it good. Situated close to the US, the most consumeryist consumer nation on the planet, they arguably have most the third world competitive advantages. Looking closer, however, the advantages are only skin deep for were you to want to do business in Haiti you’d run into some obstacles. To do business in Haiti you’d have to import your raw materials to a port and road system in disrepair using gasoline often in short supply to enable a largely illiterate workforce speaking a language spoken nowhere else using an unreliable electrical supply, an unclean water supply, and an undeveloped healthcare infrastructure to make a product that will be grossly overpriced and once again need shipment via broken roads and inefficient ports to countries that can likely buy the same goods elsewhere cheaper all while negotiating what is considered one of the most corrupt and least law abiding states in the world. And the Dominican Republic’s just right across the border. The end result? It ain’t cheap to do business in Haiti. The cost for us of a “decent” hotel room? $100. The cost of a 4 hour drive between towns? $150 not counting gas. The cost of a meal of goat and plantains and coke? $15. Why then would anyone want to do business with Haiti? How then can Haiti ever be free?

Back to the Dominican Republic. Developing nations have other strengths, however: agriculture, tourism, a tenacious population to name a few. With regards to the DR: yes, yes, yes. With regards to Haiti...? Unfortunately deforestation, soil erosion, and general mismanagement have led to a greater harvest of seasonal mudslides than any appreciable agricultural export. Unfortunately expressionless stares and a foreign tongue in a post-apocalyptic wasteland no matter how tropical don’t do much for tourists when manufactured smiles and a familiar language are right next door. And unfortunately the prevalent brain drain combined with one of the highest birth rates in the Western hemisphere guarantee only an ever increasing population with fewer and fewer capable leaders. Western aid makes up almost two-thirds of the national budget and a large percentage of the economy. This is not sustainable, and when the spigots run dry what will happen? When the population increases but the number of jobs and total arable land remains stagnant what will take place? When another populist election funded entirely by donation comes to pass, who will lead?

I think the most striking aspect of Haiti which makes me give up hope is the thoroughness of its poverty. I have been to a number of poor countries: Mexico, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, India and in all of these places there has been the poor, but there has also been, however small, an upper class and, more importantly, a middle class. There has also been a spectrum of poverty such that there was always the sense that there was at least something better that could potentially be obtained. In Haiti, however, outside the private gated communities of the affluent elite there is only a homogeneous lack. The only class seems to be the lower class. There is undoubtedly some difference between the very poor and the super poor, but it is a difference that if anything only heightens the sense of despair.

Immediately after leaving Haiti I flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where I stayed at the Marriot Harbor Beach Resort and Spa to attend a medical conference. It was as big a contrast of wealth and poverty as you can get made all the more striking by the fact that a number of the workers and staff there were Haitian. I attended meetings in overly air conditioned banquet halls, lounged along overly manicured poolsides, and ate and drank more calories than I could ever need to burn. Only a few hundred miles away I had been sweating, working, and living in a whole other world. Perhaps in light of all this excess and wealth any money sent to Haiti, even if used inefficiently or wasted, is worth it. Perhaps when we’re spending thousands on luxury it’s missing the point to argue about the few dollars misspent alleviating poverty. I don’t know, but until Haiti shows promise or my robot heart shows softening I’ll be sending my box tops elsewhere. Polio anyone?

 

Crippling need aside, here’re photos!

* In case it were not automatically readily clear, these are my opinions and my opinions alone. I don’t know how my travelling companions feel about Haiti. I never asked them. I suppose they’d have nice things to say.

Man Vs Mosquito

If I had only one wish, and it were not to wish more wishes, it would be for every mosquito, everywhere, to gather together, holding hands, and to die a terrible, miserable, suddenly horrible death. Explosion. Implosion. Mosquito herpes. Whatever is most unpleasant for them, I’d wish that, and I’d be a happy man.

I recently travelled to Haiti. It was an “experience” in the same sense that military training and medical residency are “experiences.” You can probably rationalize a way to self-betterment, and convince yourself that the whole thing was somehow “good,” but nevertheless you describe the whole experience in quotation marks and would prefer to never do it again.

But let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about mosquitos. In Haiti, there are mosquitos, and they tried to kill me.

My initial mosquito-experience in Haiti began relatively uneventful enough. There was a mosquito here, a mosquito there, but if you avoided making eye contact with them they generally let you be. I left Port au Prince thinking that, of all Haiti’s unsolvable problems, mosquitos were not one of them. Then I arrived into Les Cayes.

Les Cayes is a coastal town along the southern Peninsula of Haiti, and overall is in most ways nicer than Port au Prince. Unfortunately one of those ways is not mosquito populations. They were a bother in La Cayenne where we stayed our first few nights, and they were a menace at the Institut Brenda Strafford where I stayed my last few nights. It was in the latter part of my stay where the mosquitos and I waged war, and it was here that the mosquitos beat me.

The first day at the Canadian ENT hospital (Institut Brenda Stafford) was I thought uneventful enough, but I awoke the following morning with a number of bites over my shoulders and arms. Figuring this was as much my own fault as the fault of the bumbling misguided mosquitos I resolved to redouble my DEET repellant efforts, fortify my canopy netting at night, and maybe kill a few to make an example. The following morning, however, there were still more bites. More bites on my legs. More on my arms. More on parts of my body I didn’t even know the mosquitos had access to. It looked a bit like I had the pox, except without so much the high fevers and crippling fatigue. It was nevertheless then that I knew if I were to survive I’d have to go on the offensive. The mosquitos were clearly coming for me, it was time now I came for them.

Over the next two days I aggressively pursued a campaign of mosquito genocide. Took regular breaks from work to round them up. Paid local militias to do unspeakable things. Only God knows how many mosquitos I killed in those ugly days. Dozens? Hundreds? Millions? We can only hope. The violence reached a climax when the treacherous buggers hired a local roach to lie in wait in my duffel bag in order to assasinate me. He made it part way up my arm and almost to my jugular before I shook him off and promptly smashed him into roach paste. And then smashed him a few more times for good measure. Lacking originality and the capacity for complex thought the mosquitos tried it again the following day, but both the second roach and his conspirators were taken care of once more. And by that I mean their poor mosquito children could no longer recognize their poor mosquito daddies.

Despite these efforts the bites continued appearing. No longer on my back and shoulders so much, I’d successfully protected those with t-shirts, but continuously on my arms and legs, and most specifically on my left knee where I wore my knee brace. It seems a hot swollen knee is mosquito nirvana. They loved biting it so much they purposely flew up my pant leg, past plenty of prime calf biting territory, and up to the one spot in my brace where they could see skin. I’m still not entirely sure how they did it, or even why they did it – do mosquitos hate me? -- but it got progressively disfiguring and generally unpleasant to look at. Thankfully, ten days later, before the mosquitos had chewed my leg off, I gathered my remaining troops, pack my bags, erected a provisional puppet mosquito government, and flew home.

In the end one could probably say my battle with the mosquitos was a metaphor for Haiti’s battles with poverty and legacy of colonialism and corruption. One could probably also just say it was a pointless, needless waste of time, energy, and, in no small amount, blood and plasma which, in a sense, is a also metaphor for Haiti. Regardless, the end. Goodbye Haiti, enjoy your mosquitos. Goodbye mosquitos, may you forever burn in mosquito hell.

 

You know it's a problem when the bites become confluent.