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Winner of NASA Glove Contest Named
eZtaR writes "The winner of NASA's $200k spacesuit glove contest has been found. He's an unemployed aerospace engineer, named Peter Homer, and claims to have bought most of the materials in local shops and on eBay."
... share my concerns about anyone named Homer being involved in the space program?
In all seriousness, I'm sure he'll end up with a good job out of this, which should be worth more to him and his family in the long run then the $200k prize.
more widely advertised as well as celebrated when a winner is selected.
We need to recognize that individual accomplishment is still something to crow about. When schools turn to removing achievment rewards for fear of offending those who don't achieve to removing grades for the same reason we teach kids the wrong lesson. The winner of this competition was not only trying to help NASA but provide his child a valuable lesson. This is the type of stuff that needs to taught to kids in school today. Show them that one person can do what many cannot do, then explain to them the need for both individual and groups for accomplishing goals.
Many great advancements are the work of a single person, someone who thinks "outside the box". We have to remember that the village is made up of individuals and they are as important as the village.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
He has been supporting his family by working in other fields. His son is 14 years old. Do the 'rithemtic and read the 'riting on the wall: he's middle-aged, talented, so he earns more than a new-grad junior engineer. Thus he now is unemployed, despite being demonstrably skilled: he developed the winning solution to a problem he'd never worked on before. Why is he not still an aerospace engineer? The bean counting MBA parasite that "downsized" him is the one who should be collecting unemployment!
I am happy for the guy that won, and am happy that the guy had a never say die attitude. BUT, and here is the big but you have to ask yourself what the heck happened here.
I think this guy might quite literally be a rocket scientist who ended up selling computers, then a community services manager, and then became unemployed. If America wants to be the forefront of technology, America needs to ask why does a guy have to buy something at EBay to build the next generation of technology?
Maybe America needs a few more role model "Homers".... instead of some Paris Hilton's who happens to be going to jail for 45 days or ended up shaving their head out of whim!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
You make your own luck. This is the exact reason why social support systems fail. Without a real challenge you seldom have the motivation to innovate or take risks. This guy had to fall to the bottom rung to finally wake up. I see far to many kids graduating from college thinking the hard work is done. At that point ,at most, they have bought a ticket to a tougher game.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power