Hello World
A “Hello World” program is a rite of passage. My first “Hello World” was written in QBasic as an eight-year old. My dad helped me write a little program that could receive a user’s name and return a customized greeting. I was so proud of it that I brought in the family PC, complete with beige tower and CRT monitor, to my elementary school classroom for show and tell.
In the intervening years, creative output became more uniform. More academic. Projects were specified by curriculum, not curiosity, satisfying obligations that had to be checked off a list.
Working on my M.Sc. thesis returned me to the world of creative curiosity in community. Working under M.F. Daqaq (then at Clemson), we by happenstance discovered that the transient response of a vibrating block structure to aerodynamic excitation was dramatically affected by adding a small piece of tape, forming a tail fin. The phenomena was under-studied, as the literature nearly universally assumed steady operating conditions when evaluating such vibrations. We spent over a year performing wind tunnel measurements and analytical modeling to characterize the effect. Dr. Daqaq fostered my curiosity, allowing me to not just ask questions but to learn practical experimental skills by seeing through questions born out in study. I remain proud of the minor publications that flowed from that project. I am grateful for that team’s gracious extension of time and resources to accommodate my rudimentary investigation.
I did not pursue a career as a mechanical engineer because the Venn diagram of timing, personal situation, and intellectual interests did not contain any job opportunities in the overlapping center. IP law—specifically patents—offered an interesting alternative. Working with inventors, daily absorbing the latest state-of-the-art developments, and maintaining a pulse on specific research sectors are all activities which satisfy a constant curiosity. There is a strong community. Dority is almost entirely composed of some of the highest-intelligence, lowest-ego, and hardest-working folks I’ve had the pleasure to meet. And there is a need for constant creativity. Threading the needle between legal requirements, business goals, and technical practicalities requires an open mind and adaptive problem-solving.
But of late I have recognized that the builder in me—the child writing programs in the family room, the student working in the machine shop, the graduate assistant shaping fixtures in the wind tunnel—has missed the joy of creation. At bottom, my professional creativity largely serves to document and protect the fruits of someone else’s creativity. And while there is validation in providing that support, it is no substitute for pursuing one’s own creative outlet.
So I created this page as a first project marking an investment in my own creativity. And I write this “Hello World” publicly to engage in community.
More to come.