Designing a Business Card in LaTeX (olivierpieters.be)

I tried a grad math department and didn't like it: (1) In a course in real analysis, early on the prof discussed some set theory. The summer before I'd had an NSF thing in axiomatic set theory, Suppes, von Neumann, an appendix in Kelley, etc. His first test had a problem, and at the last minute I saw a solution and wrote it down. He called me on the carpet -- nasty guy. I apologized for using little omega for its usual meaning without defining it, and then he saw that my solution was better than his and I was off the carpet. Bummer. He was too quick to cut me off at the knees. (2) Course was in Kelley, General Topology. As a ugrad senior, I'd lectured a prof once a week and covered all of it except the last chapter on compactness when I cut out to finish my honors paper [The typing was so hard that from rolling the carriage a half step my left arm hurt for a year!] But the course in grad school, same book, was beneath me. I turned in a stack of solved exercises and was a nice guy -- I didn't submit any I'd done in ugrad. Waste of time. (3) There was an abstract algebra course from Herstein's book -- by then nearly all beneath me. E.g., my ugrad honors paper had been on group representation theory which is heavy linear algebra and abstract algebra stuff. I solved some exercise in ring theory and got sent to a full prof. The only thing new in the course for me was Galois theory, so I studied that some weekend and took an oral exam for the course. Waste of time.

I wanted the math for math-physics but didn't see how to get that there. Certainly not Galois theory. There were some good ways but not with the courses they put me in. The specs for the q-exams were a disaster -- the faculty committee had a political train wreck. Bummer.

I got recruited by the NBS&T in DC. Getting to DC then was the land of milk and honey for applied math. I got married, and she went for her Ph.D.

We had a great time, good French cheese, some quite good French wine, lots of plays, concerts, trips to Shenandoah, etc.

I got into descriptive statistics, multi-variate statistics, statistical hypothesis testing, numerical linear algebra, curve fitting, the fast Fourier transform, second order stationary stochastic processes, extrapolation, and power spectral estimation, optimization, the Navier-Stokes equations, did a lot of catch up reading in the basics, a lot more in linear algebra, multi-variate calculus, e.g., exterior algebra, and more. Kept busy. Had a great time. Also got into computing in a fairly big way. Got some nice items, e.g., two new cars, etc.

My favorite book on my bookshelf, including for applied math, is J. Neveu, Mathematical Foundations of the Calculus of Probability.

Worked in industry and saw some problems in combinatorial optimization, deterministic optimal control, and stochastic optimal control, identified a problem in stochastic optimal control and found an intuitive solution, applied to grad school in applied math. Got into Cornell, Brown, Princeton, and more.

Independently in my first summer did the research for my dissertation in stochastic optimal control. Had lots of delays having to do with my wife and, then, our budgeting. In a rush, wrote some corresponding software in two months, much of it over Xmas at wife's family farm, and wrote and typed in the final dissertation in six weeks, stood for orals, and got my Ph.D.

During Ph.D., did work in military systems analysis, some optimization, statistics, and Monte Carlo -- wrote the corresponding software.

The day my wife got her Ph.D. she was in a clinical depression from the stress. To help her get better, I took a job I didn't want as a B-school prof in applied math (also played a leadership role in campus computing and did some consulting) but was near her home family farm that I hoped would help her. It didn't. I took a job in AI at IBM's Watson lab and did some optimization, mathematical statistics, and AI. My wife never recovered ...

      % XREF001.TEX --
      %
      % Created at 02:29:35 on Thursday, April 13th, 2006.
      % ======================================================================
      %
      % Modified at 01:03:52 on Thursday, April 13th, 2006.
      %
      %    Macros for sequential numbering and cross-references
      %
      %    Macros \SNUAdvanceChapter, \SNU#1, \SNT#1, \SNF#1,
      %         \GetSN, \SNC#1, \SNCGetChapter#1, \SNCGetPage#1,
      %         \SNUGetChapter#1, \SNUGetUnit#1, \SNUGetPage#1,
      %         \SNTGetTable#1, \SNTGetPage#1, \SNFGetFigure#1,
      %         \SNFGetPage#1, \SNChapterPrefix
      %
      %    Counters \SNChapter, \SNUnit, \SNTable, \SNFigure,
      %
      %    Here SN abbreviates 'sequential numbering'.
      %
      %    Here we have a start on a fairly general collection of
      %    macros for sequential numbering and cross-referencing.
      %
      %    For example, maybe in some chapter, that at present is
      %    chapter 3, we want to sequentially number definitions,
      %    theorems, remarks, and examples -- call them all 'units'
      %    -- as in:
      %
      %         3.1 Definition:
      %
      %         3.2 Theorem:
      %
      %         3.3 Definition:
      %
      %         3.4 Remark:
      %
      %         3.5 Example:
      %
      %    Then with this package we would select some tags, say,
      %    starting with SNTag, and type
      %
      %         \SNU{\SNTagA} Definition:
      %
      %         \SNU{\SNTagB} Theorem:
      %
      %         \SNU{\SNTagC} Definition:
      %
      %         \SNU{\SNTagD} Remark:
      %
      %         \SNU{\SNTagE} Example:
      %
      %    So, macro \SNU abbreviates 'sequential numbering with
      %    units'.  So, with macro \SNU we get a case of automatic
      %    sequential numbering.
      %
      %    Suppose 3.1 Definition: appeared on page 43.  Then
      %    elsewhere we could write
      %
      %         See \SNUGetChapter\SNTagA.\SNUGetUnit\SNTagA Theorem
      %         on page \SNUGetPage\SNTagA.
      %
      %    and get
      %
      %         See 3.1 Theorem on page 43.
      %
      %    So, we get automatic cross-referencing.
      %
      %    Of course, to do cross-referencing in such a general way,
      %    need to run TeX at least twice, once to find, for each
      %    sequentially numbered 'unit', its page and write this
      %    data to a file, and once to read this file and insert the
      %    sequential numbering and page numbers where desired in
      %    cross-references.
      %
      %    The file is \jobname.XRF.
      %
      %    To use this sequential numbering with units,
      %
      %         o    At each chapter, after the \eject, if there is
      %              one, and just before the \hOne, have
      %
      %                   \SNUAdvanceChapter
      %
      %              to increment by one the counter \SNChapter and
      %              set the counter \SNUnit to 0.
      %
      %         o    Otherwise use macros
      %
      %                   \SNU\SNTagA
      %                   \SNUGetChapter\SNTagA
      %                   \SNUGetUnit\SNTagA
      %                   \SNUGetPage\SNTagA
      %
      %              as illustrated.
      %
      %         o    Then run TeX at least twice, basically until
      %              the file \jobname.XRF quits changing.
      %
      %    So, we get sequential numbering and cross-referencing with
      %    'units'.  The macros and counters particular to 'units'
      %    all begin with \SNU.
      %
      %    We let
      %
      %         \newcount\SNUnit
      %
      %    keep track of the number of the unit.  So, when we use
      %
      %         \def\SNUAdvanceChapter{\advance\SNChapter by1
      %         \SNUnit=0}
      %
      %    to increment
      %
      %         \newcount\SNChapter
      %
      %    we also set \SNUnit=0 for the new chapter.
      %
      %    With the \SNU macros as illu...