"Social Science is the science of rigorously proving what we already knew." - Somebody?

Several standout ideas today:

(1) Defending ideas is a great test of knowledge and understanding. If you don't understand something, and a professor says otherwise, chances are you'll quail and go along with it. In my entrepreneurship class, we were going over the income statement (prepared for a business plan), and the demo income sheet had the mortgage and mortgage interest expense listed. The accountant in the class questioned this and the prof went "what do you mean?", at which point the accountant looked around the room for support, saw me nodding, and said, "only revenues and expenses are on the income statement, the payback of a mortgage is a credit to cash, a debit to interest expense, and a debit to loans payable, which should be on the balance sheet." The prof said, "well, how do you show profit then?". It went downhill from there with the prof eventually being persuaded.

(2) Similarly, sticking to your guns is part conviction, and part acting. There's always some measure of doubt, the trick is to not let it show. Nicholas Cage has some quote in some interview (another unlinked quote!) about growing up and facing down bullies by acting like his favorite comic book action heros would.

(3) Like Arnold, we could all learn something from the Nazis. If you say something enough times, it eventually becomes true. This idea will crop up in the weirdest places, the trick is just to be aware of human programmability.

(4) Staying abreast of current and upcoming practices in my line of work makes my job a lot easier, although I paradoxically work more.