Category: Society
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Wisdom at 55
I’m going to be 55 years old on November 5, 2024. For my birthday, I would like to see Kamala Harris elected as the next president of the United States of America. Is that too much to ask? I don’t feel like I’m particularly wise at this age. Still, I have learned a few things…
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Many Traits
Today, I learned more about the DiSC system of preferred behaviors. My “type” is “iD” (for those in the know), which is unusual for the people in the research and development organization where I work. The most interesting thing about my assessment is that my “dot” is very close to the center. This means that…
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Free Play (v2)
For years, I’ve talked to people about the value of playing make-believe as a kid. Growing up, I invited friends from the neighborhood to my tree house. It became a yacht navigating the world’s oceans, a spaceship taking us to distant stars, the headquarters of a vast network of spies, and a temporary home in…
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What Matters Most?
Everyone is going to have a different answer to this question. Love, contribution, learning, connection, action, reflection… There are so many possible answers. Many things matter. Sometimes, I can pick out a single movie or song as my favorite. But I would never want to only be able to watch that one movie or listen…
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Galaxy Zoo Now
Like many people, I’ve learned more about Artificial Intelligence (AI), from ChatGPT to Llama. Large Language Models (LLM’s) have become much better at a certain kind of pattern matching. It made me think about a project I participated in several years ago. Galaxy Zoo began as a way for thousands of volunteers to help astronomers…
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Strong-Links and Weak-Links
After being introduced to the Experimental History blog, I found the article Science is a strong-link problem. I find this framework both interesting and useful. Here, I want to come up with more examples of “weak-link” and “strong-link” problems. I’m well aware that not all problems fit nicely into one category or the other. First,…
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Your Place
Based on a recommendation from Adam Grant, I ran across this article, There’s a Place for Everyone. I mostly agree with the message. I especially agree that finding people who might embrace your specific weirdness can be tough, for the reasons mentioned. Here’s my objection. There is not just ONE PLACE for everyone. There are…
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Revenge of the Tipping Point
As promised, here are some thoughts regarding Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Revenge of the Tipping Point. Instead of updating his first book, The Tipping Point, Gladwell explores different questions with this sequel, twenty-five years later. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the book, as narrated by the author. (That’s why I provided the Audible link above.)…
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Software Consultants
Writing software is not easy. Getting a large group of software developers to write quality software together is particularly challenging. For this reason, many people have come up with ways to help groups of software engineers improve how they write software together. Software Consultants can also be process innovators. They advise teams to try new…
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Strong Hurricanes
As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida on the heels of Hurricane Helene, I’ve decided to look at the history of strong hurricanes in the United States since 1900. Here’s what I’ve found. Note: The following is based mostly on these sources: Reuters, USA Today, and NBC. While this is not an exhaustive list, it shows that…