Category: Thoughts
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The Importance Of Context
Robert entered John’s house. John pulled out a gun and without warning, shot him. What do you think of John? Let’s color this with some more context: Robert had been out drinking and gotten into an argument with John. He became so angry that he told John he was going to kill him that very…
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Compartmentalized Know-How
This morning as I was pulling out after working out, a car was waiting for my spot. There were other open spots only a few feet from where I parked but he was waiting for the spot a little closer to the entrance. All this waiting to have a shorter walk, afterwards to go exercise!?…
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What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI)
Do you think that crime in the US worse than it was last year? Most Americans believe that crime is worse than it was last year, when the reality is that crime has been in steady decrease since 1994. [Gallup Poll]. Why do we think that crime is worse? Because we remember the crime on…
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How We See The World
What do you see when you look at this picture? Photo Credit: エン バルドマン via Compfight Those from the West are typically drawn to focus on the Shark then search for other objects of significance. Those from the East still see the shark, but also pay attention to the overall context (like the school of…
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The Story Of Other People
Have you ever stopped to think how many people all over the world take a shower every morning? Or how many never take showers at all? Our world is filled with so many different people, each one has important thoughts, important things to do, important people to see. Our natural course is to assume that…
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The Quest for Something Concrete
Recently, I watched a rerun of The West Wing that showed the president right after his daughter had been kidnapped and safely returned. Shaken by the uncertainty of life, the President faces a number of ambiguous challenges, balancing complex relationships between a number of nations. In the midst of this, a series of tornadoes strikes…
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Why a Diet Sounds Better Tomorrow
Why is it easy to get psyched-up for starting a diet tomorrow but not right now? Why does an exercise regiment seem so easy to imagine, but hard to follow? We can picture ourselves running miles, exercising every other day, and feeling great, but when it’s time to go to the gym, a myriad of…
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Good Design Requires Many Unseen Iterations
Anyone who has ever written software knows that if you were to lose your code after working for 3 weeks, you could rewrite it again in a fraction of the time. The reality is that finding the right solution is not a straight line, it’s iterative. Like this picture: Another great example of the process…
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The Symmetry of a Day
Lately, I’ve been working on improving the things I pay attention to and focus on during the day. Of course, one aspect of this is a to-do list for each day. I spend most of my time in front of a computer, so an online to-do tool makes sense. I’ve been searching for one that…
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Construction & Destruction
Several weeks ago, my friend and I were both talking about the nature of starting businesses. He mentioned a thought he sent me some thoughts: Companies are both constructive and destructive forces. When a business creates a new way of looking at the world, it destroys the old to bring in the new. One…