§1. Consulting rates and the professor-on-vacation joke [00:02]
On a discounted rate — they don't have to do a discounted rate. I've worked on projects, like the Seawolf submarine, working for the chief engineer of the Navy, where no one asked me about my consulting rate; they just said, tell us what the rate is, and you tell them the rate. It's a lot easier, when you work for the government, to give them a daily rate. If you do hourly rates as a consultant on your commercial stuff, it's easier to give the government daily rates, and that way you can just define how many hours are in a day.
After all, how can you tell if a professor is working? There is no good answer to that question. How can you tell if professors work? You can't. You can't say, well, he's not in his office. How can you tell? The real question is, how can you tell if a professor is on vacation?
I got this when I was a sophomore. There was a guy, Jonesy, who was a technician here who was never around. And they put up on the blackboard, "How can you tell if Jonesy's on vacation?" And the only intelligent answer written on the blackboard was, "All entries must be in before he gets back." I've used that for years. How can you tell if a professor's on vacation? Well, if his office is empty, that doesn't mean he's on vacation. And if he's never around — how can you tell, in a job like this? Anyway, that's my cynical view of that.
I did want to talk a little bit about — so we're basically done with that, in the last couple of minutes.