Category: Storytelling
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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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Idea Mining
One of the reasons I started this blog is to find out what topics I tend to want to talk about. What do I find most interesting in practice? Here is the current breakdown of how many posts I’ve written in each category. Note: Some posts appear in more than one category. I could always…
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Complete Albums
It’s been a while since I’ve listened to an entire music album. Especially with minimal distractions. I’ve missed the experience! This morning, I bought The Captain and the Kid on iTunes. Then, I listened to each song in order. I focused on the meaning of the lyrics. I got a sense of the whole collection.…
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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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Better Relationships
Yesterday, I wondered if I had anything useful to say about improving how people work together. While this topic is worthy of consideration, it’s a secondary concern. The primary question on my mind is more about how any two people relate to each other. Sure, it matters how effectively we can work together. But we…