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Archive for the ‘Musing’ Category

Structured Procrastination: Do Less & Deceive Yourself

Posted in Fun, Musing, tagged , on 1 November 2015|

Structured Procrastination: the fine art of doing less, but in a structured way,
or “I’m sorry it took me so long to get it done, I had less important things to do.”

This essay is pretty old and I read many years ago, but I just realized I never shared it. TL;DR, if you can’t beat them join them. 🙂

If you are a procrastinator, don’t try to beat your tendency into submission, instead leverage it to work on other projects. It follows the same logic that recommends to automate as many tasks as possible if you are lazy (something most CS people can relate to). After all, your brain is capable of only so many hours of creative work per day, the rest is drudge work.
Source: Structured Procrastination: Do Less & Deceive Yourself

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Quote of the day

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , , , on 9 April 2015| Leave a Comment »

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

François-René de Chateaubriand

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Quote of the day

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , , on 14 September 2014| Leave a Comment »

Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.

Richard Feynman

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Quote of the day

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , , , , on 18 August 2014| Leave a Comment »

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Lao Tzu

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The Secret of Effective Motivation – NYTimes.com

Posted in Musing, tagged , on 20 July 2014| Leave a Comment »

Efforts should be made to structure activities so that instrumental consequences do not become motives.

Accountability is important, but structured crudely, it can create the very behavior that it is designed to prevent.

Time to reconsider the goal-oriented mindset that is so widespread in our culture?

The Secret of Effective Motivation – NYTimes.com

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Quote of the day

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , on 1 July 2014| Leave a Comment »

Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.

Pablo Picasso

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Taga: obstacles to innovation

Posted in Musing, Research, tagged , , on 30 May 2014| Leave a Comment »

In Japan there is a word to describe the various limits in innovative thinking. Taga, which literally describes the metal hoops which keep a tight hold on the wooden boards which make a barrel, is used to describe the current state of Japanese innovation. Taga is what causes organizations to decide unconsciously and automatically what is possible and what is not based on current circumstances, not future predictions, hopes or opportunities. It stops completely the ability of a company to adopt a positive attitude towards any change or new idea. Taga is usually fostered in a tacit agreement to, or unspoken understanding of, customary rules or organizational paradigms within a company. When new people join a company (usually it’s the hope that new people bring new ideas) they tend to quickly become unconsciously accustomed to thinking along the lines of the existing organization paradigm. This means that it can be extremely difficult for a company to be aware of taga limiting creativity and implementation of new ideas within your own company.

References:
http://its-innovative.com/blog/what-happened-to-japanese-innovation

Click to access understanding_Taga.pdf

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Quote of the day

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , on 30 April 2014| Leave a Comment »

The best way to verify that you are alive
is by checking if you like variations.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Quote of the day – Silence

Posted in Musing, tagged , on 18 February 2014| Leave a Comment »

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed.

Harold Pinter

Substitute “information” for “word” and you get censorship in one case and information overload in the other. Two sides of the same coin?

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The bestseller psychology

Posted in Musing, tagged , , , on 22 December 2013| Leave a Comment »

Because that’s how you get on the bestseller list. You promise the moon and stars, you say everything you heard before was wrong, and you blame everything on one thing. You get a scapegoat; it’s classic. Atkins made a fortune with that formula. We’ve got Rob Lustig saying it’s all fructose; we’ve got T. Colin Campbell saying it’s all animal food; we now have Perlmutter saying it’s all grain. There’s either a scapegoat or a silver bullet in almost every bestselling diet book.

The recurring formula is apparent: Tell readers it’s not their fault. Blame an agency; typically the pharmaceutical industry or U.S. government, but also possibly the medical establishment. Alluding to the conspiracy vaguely will suffice. Offer a simple solution. Cite science and mainstream research when applicable; demonize it when it is not.

Is complexity too scary to be the subject matter of a bestseller?

via This Is Your Brain on Gluten – James Hamblin – The Atlantic.

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