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The capacity for hope is the most significant tool in managing the ups and downs of life....

ChatGPT has no concept of ideas like the truth. It is a machine and is not capable of human-like thought....

At a time when life spans and working life are increasing, non-linear career pathways are the way of the future....

Rx-3-2023 | ➡️ Born again. Mine shafts repurposed for energy ➡️ "Abracadabra!" - protein from thin air ...

Rx-2-2023 ➡️ Banning straws might be good for the planet – but bad for people with disability or swallowing problems. What is 'eco-ableism'? ➡️ We don’t need ‘miracle’ technologies to fix the climate. We have the tools now. ➡️ How green roofs can help cities (YouTube video)...

🔑 decision, consensus, voting, community || ✅ Making decisions by consensus takes more time than voting, but is more likely to be accepted and followed....

🔑 question || ✅ Asking dumb questions can often provoke answers of greater value than smart ones....

🔑 value, esthetic, quality || ✅ Quality lies very much in the eye of the beholder....

🔑 happiness, meaning || ✅ The best taste is when you combine flavours into a sundae; don't stick to plain vanilla or chocolate only....

🔑 map, territory, fallacy, model || ✅ "Don't mistake the finger pointing to the moon for the moon itself." ...

🔑 social media, downfall, opportunity, Mastodon || ✅ The promise of the internet in its early days, was quickly hijacked by self-serving, commercial interests. The free fall that Facebook and Twitter are now in, offers hope for a renewal of the early aspirations....

🔑 choice, decision, default || ✅ We want to see the full menu even though we already know what we want. ...

➡️ 𝕌𝕤𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕕 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕗𝕠𝕠𝕝 𝕡𝕖𝕠𝕡𝕝𝕖 -- Most of us struggle with making sense of numbers and data. Charts are the most common method of making numerical data understandable. Like all tools, t...

Rules of thumb (heuristics) can be better than algorithms. Uncertainty is a constant feature of life. Algorithms provide maps for navigating the seas of chance. Complex situations often involve handling many choices and making appropriate decisions. When the number of possibilities becomes too large...

Till very recently, neuroscientists clung to the belief that the fully formed adult brain was incapable of further change. We now know that this is not true. The brain exhibits a remarkable capacity for change: a property that is labelled "neuroplasticity". Many stimuli invoke and propel this fantas...

Moving upwards in your career often involves looking for and finding new jobs. Five issues need to be weighed before committing to a new position. Change, for its own sake, might have a downside that needs careful consideration....

We live and work in the midst of uncertainty. To relieve our anxieties, we turn to experts for guidance about the likelihood of future events. Philip Tetlock, after a massive 18-year study of expert predictions, demonstrated that their advice was no better than lay persons. They were actually worse ...

There is an inverse relationship between knowledge and confidence in competence. The less you know, the more you are certain of your ability. First described in 1999 in a paper by Dunning and Kruger, it provides a good explanation for why it is so difficult to change existing beliefs and opinions....

Instead of Powerpoints and other presentation tools, Jeff Bezos of Amazon uses a unique method for extracting value from meetings. He insists on a written-out, carefully structured narrative. He then goes on to do some more unusual things with the meeting. ...

Meetings are universally disliked. They disrupt work schedules. They are roadblocks to productivity. A handful of vocal people dominate the proceedings; the rest sit bored. But, abolishing meetings is akin to "throwing the baby out with the bath water." Limiting the number of attendees is the key to...

Blind spots cloud clear cognition and understanding. The confirmation bias heads a long list. We programme our minds to filter out events that don't align with our existing beliefs....

Long and hot discussions about trivial matters with small economic impact are easier to have than those over important issues requiring big sums of money. Large chunks of discussion time are spent on the former while the latter is quickly brushed away. ...

Now, more than ever, we need good strategies for remembering information that is valuable. Here is a popular tools for countering the "forgetting curve": the Cornell note-taking system....

The Peter Principle - Why and how hierarchies become incompetent bureaucracies....

The sunk cost fallacy offers an explanation for why we persist with lost causes - throw good money after bad....

Distortion of the truth, giving it a spin or angle, has been going on through all of history. But, it has never been so easy to spread misinformation and lies, widely and quickly, as is possible in the age of the Internet....

"The locus of entertainment" has been slowly wrested from within our own choosing and dropped onto our all-pervasive screens. The "feeds" have taken over our minds....

"Good listening is complex, subtle, slippery - but it is also right here, it lives in us. ... absurdly under discussed ... a renewed approach to listening has improved how I relate to others." ...

Our moral boundaries can be examined by sound reasoning. Effective altruism tries to look closely at the results of charitable acts to make sure that money is spent in the best way possible....

Executive presence distinguishes leaders from the crowd of people with mere talent or merit. EP is:"... an amalgam of qualities that true leaders exude, a presence that telegraphs you're in charge or deserve to be."...

Mentorship is a great way of "paying it forward". Traditionally, we look at paying back as the way of acknowledging help and support given to us in times of need. There is a more effective alternative: paying it forward. In a professional context, and in a word: mentorship....

The claim, "I'm busy," is flaunted as a badge of honour. But, are you getting things done? Is your health and personal relationships suffering from your busy-ness?...

Empathic accuracy is a skill with which individuals can effectively judge the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others. Effective listening is the key to this skill. Voice-only communication enhances empathic accuracy relative to communication across senses. In other words, shutting off sight coul...

LONG FORM ARTICLE (White Paper): In keeping with all other areas of human activity, the years have seen a shift in medical technology from analogue to digital. Everywhere we turn, we keep seeing, reading or hearing about the rapidly expanding role of big data analysis and artificial intelligence. Co...

In simple terms, a catastrophic health expenditure is a healthcare-related bill that exceeds your capacity to pay. It often involves the encashment of savings and assets, including, at times, homes and businesses. It can impoverish and devastate families for many years....

Looking back at 40 plus years of personal (and I mean personal) computing....

There are many major elements of terminal illness that are important. In my practice, this situation is possibly the hardest encounter I have had with patients and their families....

Reasoning is important in any walk of life, not just medical practice. Simply put, you encounter a situation, get some input or information from it, make a reasoned-out assessment, do some research on the subject, and then carry out a response. The practise of Medicine involves the same approach but...

Electronic health records (EHR) are now a standard in quality healthcare delivery. They offer numerous benefits and advantages over the conventional paper record. Yet, doctors are intensely dissatisfied with having to use them....

If you have the ability to feel other’s pain, and, without letting it get you down, do everything to help them, then that’s all you need for a medical career. Keep with it and you will be a terrific doctor....

Any doctor who is secure in their own reasoning and judgment should not feel threatened or insulted by the request for a second opinion. Offering a patient the option of a second opinion is one of the major tenets of ethical medical practice. A patient always retains the right to seek confirmation o...

Despite all the publicity and money spent, there is no good evidence that these check ups have a major impact. There are very few tests that have a reasonable impact on preventing or detecting common disorders....

Even experienced surgeons can rarely explain the risks of surgical procedures completely. Risk is only a proportion, a probability at best, not a guarantee. Adverse outcomes, as far as the patient in concerned, either happen or don’t: 0 or 100%....

Meetings are universally unpopular. Most of us see them as a waste of time and a drag on productivity. Jeff Bezos has a unique way of conducting meetings with focus and effectiveness....

A well thought-out, worded, structured and written document is, in the opinion of Bezos, the best way to communicate ideas across a group of people. Most of us balk at the prospect of writing because we have never received formal instruction on the process. This article outlines a 4-section framewor...

No job application is complete without a covering letter. The document should be carefully crafted and not dashed off thoughtlessly. It can make a vital difference in the way employers perceive your application. Here’s a three-step method for writing unique covering letters....

A well-nurtured journal can be a remarkable asset for your personal and professional life. You will be in the company of a long list of famous people who owed their success to this device. It need not be a daily chore; just an archive of thoughts, emotions and ideas coming from within you. It can be...

Will power and self-control have finite limits. Like a battery, they can be depleted. Draining this trait to exhaustion is likely to create resistance during future attempts. The trick lies in using the battery for short bursts and building up will power like a snowball as your gather momentum....

Distraction is labelled as the 21st century syndrome. Lack of focus and attention lies on the surface of a deep-seated problem: anxiety arising from fear of failure....

We make thousands of decisions every day. Most of them hardly reach our consciousness. When they do, decision making often poses a dilemma. You want something, but you have to give up something else: a tradeoff. Some other benefit or opportunity is at stake -- the opportunity cost of your decision....

Every one of us feels tired now and then; this is normal. It's a safety mechanism built in to ensure that we don't wear our bodies out. Feeling chronically tired, day in and day out, is not normal....

Effective delegation is one of the most powerful tools for improving productivity. Letting go of activities that don't need our specific skills, realising others can do that, is the single most important act that can liberate us from drudgery. Today's world hinges on collaboration....

The human mind-body defies explanation in many ways. Quite often, medications that have no active component (“sugar pills”) can produce marked relief of a patient’s complaints: the placebo effect. Once considered a quirk, the placebo effect is now an established fact that is being actively exp...

"Out of sight, out of mind": this well-worn aphorism has never been more valid than in the age of COVID. Memories fade over time. We begin to wonder if our colleagues think about us at all. Visibility is key to success at work. Staying on top-of-the-mind-recall is going to involve a new set of rules...

The key, though is in being able to recognise anger and work with it, if not immediately, at least while reflecting on the episode. Ask yourself questions. Probe till it hurts. Go into dark spaces....