Knowledge Pays

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
—    Benjamin Franklin
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On This Day In:
2022	Are You Confused?
2021	Working On The Ordinary
	Smoothed My Jagged Edges
2020	Republican Senators Should Vote For Conviction Of #45
2019	Carry It
2018	Simple
2017	Knowledge Pays
2016	Brief Glimpses And Full Glances
2015	Pursuing Perspective
2014	Wearing Down?
2013	Labouring Under A Curse
2012	Listen To Yourself
2011	Career Tips (Part 1)
	No Captain Dunsel

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Apt Enough?

He who has no inclination to learn more will be very apt to think that he knows enough.
—    Thomas Powell
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On This Day In:
2022	By Any Other Name (Or Description)
2021	Democracy, Pandemic, Economy And Climate Change
	Heaven Is…
2020	Hoping For #46 In January 2021
2019	Interesting, But Not Fascinating
	But Try To Eat The Low-Hanging First
2018	Me, Too
2017	Apt Enough?
2016	Now Or Ever
	21, Pause, Restart
2015	I Am Shocked, Sir, Shocked…
	Lucy & FSND-2
2014	Less Difficult
2013	The Spirit Of Liberty
2012	The Essential Freedom Of Aloneness
2011	A Problem Of Scale
	Fred Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
2010	Another Book, Another Jog…

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Hoping For The Best Come January

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
—    Galileo Galilei
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On This Day In:
2021	A Tenacious Cycle
	Once Upon A Time…
2020	Kinda Like Posting To A Blog About My Day
	Just A Different Point Of View
	You Be The Judge
2019	I Think I’m Repeating Myself
	It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like X-mas!
2018	No Reason To Turn
2017	Talking Knuth
	Seeing It Through
2016	Hoping For The Best Come January
2015	Adaptive Security
2014	Wants
2013	Side Effects
2012	Just Trying To Earn A Living
2011	Productive Worry

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The Minds Of Trumpism

Few minds are spacious;  few even have an empty place in them or can offer some vacant point.  Almost all have narrow capacities and are filled by some knowledge that blocks them up.  What a torture to talk to filled heads, that allow nothing from the outside to enter them!  A good mind, in order to enjoy itself and allow itself to enjoy others, always keeps itself larger than its own thoughts.  And in order to do this, these thoughts must be given a pliant form, must be easily folded and unfolded, so that they are capable, finally, of maintaining a natural flexibility.
All those short-sighted minds see clearly within their little ideas and see nothing in those of others;  they are like those bad eyes that see from close range what is obscure and cannot perceive what is clear from afar.  Night minds, minds of darkness.
―    Joseph Joubert
From:  “The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert“
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On This Day In:
2015	Expressing Nonsense
2014	A Real Fight
2013	Unravelling
2012	I Resolve
2011	Practice, Practice, Practice
2009	Phoenix Trip (July ’09)

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Still Gaining

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
—    Bertrand Russell
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On This Day In:
2015	Filling Gaps
2014	Even In Our Sleep
2013	Passion Is Always Personal
2012	And You Are?
2011	Innate Talent

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Hard Learners

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
—    Aldous Huxley
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On This Day In:
2015	Goals
2014	Switch To Dogs…
2013	Times Change
2012	Ashes Not Dust
2011	A Handful From Saudi
	None Of This Happened
	Take Responsibility

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Growing Greatness

How to grow great [software] designers:
1.	Systematically identify top designers as early as possible.  The best are often not the most experienced.
2.	Assign a career mentor to be responsible for the development of the prospect, and keep a careful career file.
3.	Devise and maintain a career development plan for each prospect, including carefully selected apprenticeships with top designers, episodes of advanced formal education, and short courses, all interspersed with solo design and technical leadership assignments.
4.	Provide opportunities for growing designers to interact and stimulate each other.
—    Fred Brooks
From his essay:  “No Silver Bullet“
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On This Day In:
2022	3rd (40)
	Might Still Flicker Or Shine
2021	Keep Growing
	I Keep Looking
2020	I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plans
	One Earth
2019	Beautiful Rules
2018	Skepticism
2017	WWGD?
2016	Growing Greatness
2015	When It Is Darkest
2014	Knowledge And Doubt
2013	Three Thoughts
2012	Gentle Reader
2011	Leave The Light On For Me Anyway

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Or Try To, Anyway…

I cannot teach anybody anything.  I can only make them think.
―    Socrates
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On This Day In:
2020	With Some Epic Scenery Along The Way
2016	Or Try To, Anyway…
	Circles Within Circles
2012	Stingray – TV Series Review  (This is my most popular post since starting my blog – hands down!  It still draws hits almost every week.  The hits seem to come mostly from Central Europe.  I guess the show must be in syndication there.  //  2020 update:  While this is still my all-time, most popular post, it is no longer being viewed every week – or even every month.  I guess the show is no longer in syndication.)
	A Single Thread

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Adaptive Security

Security can only be achieved through constant change, through discarding old ideas that have outlived their usefulness and adapting others to current facts.
—    William O. Douglas
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On This Day In:
2021	A Tenacious Cycle
	Once Upon A Time…
2020	Kinda Like Posting To A Blog About My Day
	Just A Different Point Of View
	You Be The Judge
2019	I Think I’m Repeating Myself
	It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like X-mas!
2018	No Reason To Turn
2017	Talking Knuth
	Seeing It Through
2016	Hoping For The Best Come January
2015	Adaptive Security
2014	Wants
2013	Side Effects
2012	Just Trying To Earn A Living
2011	Productive Worry

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I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful

History shows us how to behave.  History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for…  History is — or should be — the bedrock of patriotism.  Not the chest-pounding kind of patriotism, but the real thing:  love of country.
At their core, the lessons of history are largely lessons in appreciation.  Everything we have, all our great institutions, hospitals, universities, libraries, this city, our laws, our music, art, poetry, our freedoms, everything is because somebody went before us and did the hard work, provided the creative energy, provided the money, provided the belief.  Do we disregard that?
Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude.  It’s a form of ingratitude.
I’m convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, and gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own time on earth and how valuable it is.
What history teaches it teaches mainly by example.  It inspires courage and tolerance.  It encourages a sense of humor.  It is an aid to navigation in perilous times…  Think how tough our predecessors were.  Think what they had been through.  There’s no one in this room who hasn’t an ancestor who went through some form of hell.  Churchill in his great speech in the darkest hours of the Second World War, when he crossed the Atlantic, reminded us, ‘We haven’t journeyed this far because we are made of sugar candy.'[…]
But, I think, what it really comes down to is that history is an extension of life.  It both enlarges and intensifies the experience of being alive.  It’s like poetry and art.  Or music.  And it’s ours, to enjoy.  If we deny our children that enjoyment, that adventure in the larger part of the human experience, we’re cheating them out of a full life.
There’s no secret to making history come alive.  Barbara Tuchman said it perfectly: ‘Tell stories.’  The pull, the appeal is irresistible, because history is about two of the greatest of all mysteries — time and human nature.
How lucky we are.  How lucky we are to enjoy in our work and in our lives, the possibilities, the precision and reach, the glories of the English language.  How lucky we are, how very lucky we are, to live in this great country, to be Americans — Americans all.
—    David McCullough
Speaking at the 1995 National Book Awards.
[This quote was fount at one of the blogs I follow:  “The Bully Pulpit“
The specific post can be found at:  http://jrbenjamin.com/2014/07/12/why-history/
The site is well worth a visit…    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	Unnoticed Perfection
	You Just Don’t Realize
2020	Maybe After A Couple Of Hundred Years I Think About It
	Worth The Time I’ve Waited
2019	Courage Facing Temptation
2018	I Can’t Laugh At #45
2017	Release, Harmonize, Illuminate
2016	One Trouble With Television
2015	I Am Lucky And I Am Grateful
2014	Future Envy
2013	We Do Not Want To Learn That
2012	Social Inhibition
2011	Studying Chinese Food
	Are You Bored, Too?
2010	Rant, Pant, Deep Breath – Reality

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Go Deeper

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter.  Explore the world.  Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.
―    Richard Feynman
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On This Day In:
2021	Happy Thanksgiving (2021)!
	When You Get Where You’re Going
2020	Still In School
	The First Deuce
	Escape From Planet Junkyard
2019	Will John Bolton Testify?
2018	Just Maybe
2017	Police In My Review Mirror
2016	Full And Rich
2015	Go Deeper
2014	Intentional Mapping
2013	The Sweet Path
2012	Living Free And Abolition
	Morning Wood
2011	I Resemble That Remark

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Rules Of Thumb

After Two Weeks We Remember
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we personally experience
95% of what we teach others
—    Edgar Dale
[And I thought it was just me…    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2021	Press On
	Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This
2020	AMA
	Still Shiny
2019	Things That Go Bump In The Night
	Hoping I’m Careful
2018	I Must Be Truly Wise
2017	My Sensei
2016	The Worst Sin
2015	Rules Of Thumb
2014	A Prayer
	Orange October (IX) – Giants Lose Game 2 In Bullpen Collapse
2013	Complacent Reality
2012	Two-minute Sex
	Just Staring, Why?
2011	A World Of Difference

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Verbal Fluency

Children growing up in any modern culture have an opportunity to learn to become conceptually fluent by becoming verbally fluent.  It’s that simple.  Although many people have the impression that the ability to spin ideas into meaningful webs of persuasion must be an in-born skill, probably determined by IQ, the simple fact is that conceptual fluency is largely a matter of verbal fluency.  A person who has a limited vocabulary has a limited ability to speak — and think — conceptually.  Conversely, a person who has a large and diversified vocabulary, and who’s willing to use it appropriately in various conversational situations, has a high level of conceptual skill.
—    Karl Albrecht
From his book:  “Practical Intelligence“
[Click on book title to see my review of the book.    —    kmab]
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On This Day In:
2014	Familiar
2013	Unbending
2012	Simple Sayings
2011	Wupped Again?
2010	3 and 1…
	Musical Notes…
	Doubt Tries…
	Northwest Passages – Evening Two
	The Beierly’s Web Site

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Inert Ideas

In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call “inert ideas”  —  that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.
…
Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas.  Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning.
—   Alfred North Whitehead
From his book:  “The Aims Of Education“
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On This Day In:
2014	Worth Anything?
2013	Bruises Before Bed (Or Why You Didn’t Answer)
	Revealed Riches
2012	Extra Gears
2011	Say What?
2010	Hello Frogs…

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Stretched Today?

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
—    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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On This Day In:
2022	Removing Self-negotiation
2021	Republican Congressional Leadership Continues The Big Lie
	You Just Can’t Hide
2020	Cut To The Chase
	Fun Fog
2019	True Piety
2018	I Would, Too (A music-video for all)
2017	100th Day (of the Trump Presidency)
	Both Unlucky
2016	Or Blog
2015	Stretched Today?
2014	Outta Here
2013	Getting Words Right
2012	There’s A New Dog In Town
	Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is
2011	A Conservative Is…

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