On Being an Individual of.

“It’s always consciousness — of

I can see and hear him very distinctly now in my consciousness, even though he is gone.

My father had said it to me, on quite of few times, and it’s full impact has finally come home

Because of another person, who I was barely conscious of … most of my life.  And I never met the man.

But James and Sharon know him.    There is the two degrees of physical separation.

But the abstract connections are deeper.

It is called the Gestalt.

For my father and Nathaniel Branden had at least two things in common…

Continue reading On Being an Individual of.

Innovating Innovation

He wasn’t talented enough, he thought.

To join Disney Animation Studios as an animator.

So he became a scientist

A Computer Scientist.

He has had a hand in innovating with a team, in a whole new way.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Now he is the President of Disney Animation Studios… and Pixar Animation Studios … and Disney Toons Studios.

Computer Science, Ed Catmull, and Innovation has come a long way baby…

And you haven’t seen nothing yet.

Continue reading Innovating Innovation

Big Think

The guy makes sense.

“It is very REASONED with compassion too.”  Some might say he is Rational in his thinking.

And people are slowly, but surely realizing this.

Charlie Munger for one.  Even John Stewart has caught on. 😉  And me too, even though I thought his fantastic idea about fast and slow ideas was the only article I would read of his.

openquoteThere are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.closedquote — Hannah Arendt

tortoise-hare

“And one of the things they showed us was how to really focus on making it swift and usable. We made a two-minute surgery checklist; it had just 19 items. Some of them were just make sure you don’t forget dumb stuff: make sure you gave antibiotics, make sure you have blood ready for a high-blood-loss case. And then there were other interesting parts: make sure everybody in the room has been introduced by name and role; make sure the surgeon actually explained to the team what their goals for the operation are; make sure the anesthesiologist and nurses had a chance to explain their plans for the operation. We put that checklist in eight hospitals around the world, ranging from rural Tanzania to Toronto and Seattle, and every single hospital we put it in had a double-digit reduction in complications. The average reduction in death was 46 percent. That made me realize there was something much deeper and more important going on here about this set of problems we’re grappling with in the modern world.

You see, his main ideas are Slow Ideas.  Complex ideas: hard to take hold in the general public zeitgeist.

Continue reading Big Think