From Orson Wells in The Third Man:"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Ok, so it was technically the Germans who produced the cuckoo clock. And the Swiss DO hold most of the money in the world. And now that we're on the subject, they DID lure three friends of mine away from the US with promises of good-paying science jobs, true love, and public transit that runs on schedule.
Nonetheless, Orson's underlying message rings true. Tough situations bring out the best in us, and play an important role in our lives.
After working around the clock in November and December to write a brilliant research manifesto, my partner Anthony learned last week that a research group at Stanford had recently published a similar paper. This is news that researchers typically dread, falling on the spectrum of catastrophes somewhere below the loss of a family member and above having a double root canal without anesthetic.
After a sleepless night and a few handfuls of uprooted hair, Anthony set about writing a new, better paper that showed how his research was useful in a wider range of situations than the Stanford paper. To publish his paper quickly and powerfully, he targeted the paper for submission to a prestigious computational photography conference. There is a high bar for acceptance into this conference, and so his little grey cells worked overtime to write a paper that would communicate the utility, simplicity, and beauty of his work.
As the editor of Anthony's papers, I can honestly say that this second paper surpassed the first paper in almost every way: a veritable Sistine Chapel. Without the help of the Stanford team, Anthony would still be making cuckoo clocks.
Image courtesy of www.allclocks.com
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