Which Person Has Influenced Your Life the Most?

My first real boss. (I dont count my dad nor the teen supervisor I had at the lunch counter up town!).

No, this one was after I finished getting my Bachelors Degree and as I was getting my Masters Degree. And, for a couple of reasons.He really taught me the importance of honesty.

Long story short (one example), a rumor was going around about the big bosss wife (not a good story) and he got wind of it. I got pulled into a meeting in his office with several others and was the only one who admitted to having helped spread the rumor. Not my best day when I was 22.

But, my immediate boss took things in stride, saw something in me worth cultivating (he told me later) and thanked me for being honest, impressing on me the need to always be so. It really resonated with me. Another exampleI learned more about compassion.

Masters studies were hard, especially on top of a full time job. And, that was the true advent of computers, when they took up a full room and the programming was done on punch cards. (You had to keep everything straight!

) I was floundering in my computer class, even though still young, about the same time as my sister was having marital difficulties while 8 months pregnant and 2 states away. My boss said, take 3 days and talk with your class instructor, get some help and then take a quick trip (which also included the weekend) and visit your sister. Thats all it took for me to turn my class work around and lend her some moral support.

He didnt want me to make up the time. He said a Masters Degree is too important. Youve already come so far.

Finish it!He was a wonderful man and a great example of a great boss. Plus, he showed me the ropes of that industry and made my time there so enjoyable.

I will never forget him. Its 40 years later and we eventually lost touch. Not sure if hes still living as he was about 25 years older than I when we met.

I was so glad our paths crossed at that impressionable time in my life. Ive taken those gifts and tried to emulate him in life and work. A true mentor and life coach and friend.

Thanks, Jim!

· Related Questions

How different would u201cHarry Potteru201d and u201cA Song of Ice and Fireu201d be if they were written by George R.R.

Martin and J.K. Rowling respectively?

The essential features of ASOIAF versus HP:NO Dark Lord or Single Main Villain (ASOIAF) versus 1 Main villain (HP) So Voldemort truly dies on the night of the attack of the Potters. No Horcruxes, nothing. Dumbledore still sends Harry to the Dursleys however because he has suspicions and worries about the nature of Harrys survival.

Magic in ASOIAF is inherently dark, wild and difficult to control, and amoral, doing good and evil. Rhillor demands human sacrifice but he also raises the dead and magic comes from human sacrifice. In HP, magic is divided into Good Magic and Evil Magic, and Evil Magic is associated with necromancy and ritual.

Harry grows up and becomes aware of his magic and is tempted to use magic for good, but he finds out that using magic comes at a price. Using magic for good upsets the balance and causes evil elsewhere. So he must always use magic for the greatest good and minimum collateral damage.

Hogwarts is a school to police and control the amount of magic in the world so as to maintain minimal balance, and Harry is tempted to save the world, and upsetting the balance. The whole Dark Lord and his downfall part of history turns out to be propaganda. Voldemort was like Harry, a price pupil and intelligent reformer who sought to do good for the world.

His attack on his parents wasnt what Dumbledore told the world what it was. It was a blood sacrifice ritual intended to destroy him and thin out the magic he contained, Dumbledore personally selected the innocent Potter family for this sacrifice but in the last moment, Voldemort saved Harry and let him live.In ASOIAF, anti-magic factions are servants of corrupt authority while magic factions are morally ambiguous marginal bohemian and sinister types.

In HP, anti-magic Muggles are boring, pro-magic types are either psychopathic racists like Death Eaters, stuffy patronizing conservatives like the Ministry or moderate liberals like the Order. Dumbledore and the Ministry are essentially crusty conservative authoritarians who are actually Muggle Agents tasked with controlling and destroying the magic in the world. They are conducting genocide against dragons, centaurs, house elves not immediately but gradually and slowly, by thinning down the magic over time, since magic cannot be stamped out at once.

Voldemort was like Qyburn wanting to use magic to save the world or possibly becoming a God so as to cure all of its problems. HP is drawn to ending the masquerade and creating a real revolution.So thats what a GRRM Harry Potter would be about.

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What unpopular thoughts do you have about Harry Potter?

Ron did nothing wrong by dating Lavender."She can't complain," he told Harry.

"She snogged Krum. So she's found out someone wants to snog me too. Well, it's a free country.

I haven't done anything wrong."I have seen many people claim that Ron used Lavender to make Hermione jealous. That is simply not true to the books.

The first kiss between Ron and Lavender happens after a series of events:Hermione tells Ron that she's not going to ask him to Slughorns Christmas party, and that she still writes letters to Viktor Krum. Ginny tells Ron that Hermione kissed Viktor. Ron then believes that she is in love with him, and that the letter she wrote in the Common Room was love letters all the time.

Ginny virgin shames Ron (when she is very angry) and advices him to get some snogging done. He listened to her advice. After the Quidditch match, Hermione more or less says that she doesnt think Ron would have been a good keeper without Felix Felicis.

This is, for Ron, the final proof that she doesnt love him back.Ron wanted to get over his crush on Hermione. He didnt realise that she loved him back, that she would get so mad if he kissed someone else.

Because she had kissed someone else, too, hadnt she?Considering how many people still denies the fact that Hermione was in love with Ron and not Harry, thirteen years after the last book was published who can blame him?As for the relationship itself, it is very physical - but theres nothing wrong with physical relationships, is it?

Lavender seems to be totally cool with that, too! After all, the book says that -Harry had to put up with the frequent presence of Lavender Brown, who seemed to regard any moment that she was not kissing Ron as a moment wasted.Lavender thought Ron was hot and wanted to spend all her time kissing him.

Ron was flattered and wanted to spend lots of time kissing her as well. Its a win-win!-The one who actually used someone to make their crush jealous is Hermione, not Ron.

She even said it herself, straight out, that she took Cormac to the party because that would annoy Ron. She was the one who talked loudly about what a good Quidditch player he was when she knew that Ron was within hearing distance.But that is another answer

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What were the most terrifying displays of human intelligence?

Meet John von Neumann (Hungary, 1903 USA, 1957), a US-Hungarian polymath genius: mathematician, nuclear physicist, computer scientist (his computer logic design is behind any device which you might be using to read this), often praised as the foremost mathematician of his time, a math genius at their finest. He left groundbreaking contributions to a number of fields, including math, physics, economics, computer sciences, stats. He was one of the key contributors to the Manhattan Project - design and construction of the US atomic and hydrogen bombs.

Among other, he has formulated the now famous & fashionable Game Theory (Prisoners Dilemma) which is one of the foundations of the modern economic theory. However, JvN was most interested in applying his Game Theory in politics and war, in particular to modelling scientifically optimal Cold War moves by the USA and the USSR, viewing them as two players in a zero-sum game. As result, he recommended to President Eisenhauer (who decorated JvN in 1956 with a Medal of Freedom) that the USA launch a preventive nuclear strike as a means of survival in the inevitable nuclear exchange.

JvN argued famously: With the Russians it is not a question of whether but of when. If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o'clock, I say why not one o'clock?

" And this was rigorously logical (i.e. mathematically proven) course of action, nothing personal.

P.S. In the course of preparing first ever nuclear deployment against Japan, JvN did crucial calculations on the implosion design of the atomic bomb to allow for a more efficient and deadly application.

His mathematical models were used to plan out the path of the bomber carriers, compute the expected size of the bomb blasts, estimate death tolls, and the distance above the ground at which the bombs should be detonated for maximisation of the shock wave impact. JvN and four other scientists plus a number of US military were included in the target selection committee in charge of choosing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Personally, JvN advocated the choice of Japans cultural capital Kyoto which had been spared the bombings of militarily important cities and thus represented a stronger impact choice.

Kyoto as a target of the nuclear bombing by JvNs brilliant mind had been spared only by the decisive vote of the Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson - a Harvard lawyer by the way. Sources: Wiki, Prisoner Dilemma by W.

Poundstone; Game Theory by Chen, Sui-I Lu, Vekhter of Stanford.edu