The Stonecutter’s Credo is both an allegory for persistence and a caution about false attribution: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split…
Most people spend their lives avoiding things that scare them but the key to self-protection might be to trust your fear instinct. Fear is a natural response to physical and emotional danger, based on an evolutionary survival mechanism. The physical response, known as “fight or flight,” includes sweating, increased heart rate, and high adrenaline levels…
We know software development is a male dominated profession but it’s difficult to gauge how bad the imbalance is. Nearly 92% of the 82K developers who responded to a 2021 global survey reported being male but that could be due to a response bias. Separately, an on-going yearly survey shows about 21% of computer programmers…
We all like to think of ourselves as honest but, in fact, we all cheat a little bit. Especially when we think our peer group is cheating too. At least that’s the conclusion of Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. Dan researches the moral side of decision making and how…
With the recent news of the Suez Canal being blocked by a massive container ship, I was reminded of the intriguing story of how the Panama Canal almost wasn’t built in Panama. For those who may not know, the Panama Canal is a 51-mile-long passage built in 1914 which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans….
Friendship might be the key to well-being. We all recognize having strong relationships is important for our well being. The world is filled with advice on how to improve your relationship with your family, your coworkers, and your romantic partner. But there’s precious little information on how to make and maintain friends. That’s too bad…
In the book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there’s a vignette called ‘Beware of the Leopard’ which explains why it’s critical to provide convenient access to important information. The vignette is a useful way to explain information asymmetry, in which one person has relevant information not known by or available to the other person. Here’s…
Have you ever had a co-worker or a teacher try to explain something to you and use words that you didn’t really understand? If so, the confusion might be theirs, not yours. The Feynman Learning Technique suggests that, if you can’t adequately explain something to a twelve-year old, you probably don’t really understand it that…
If you’ve listened to a talk from a tech company over the last few years, you’ve almost certainly heard someone proclaim that data is the new oil. The phrase is widely attributed to British mathematician Clive Humby way back in 2006 who explained: Data is the new oil. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot…
It’s been a little more than a week since (mostly) everyone in Silicon Valley started sheltering in place and, surprisingly (to me, at least), I haven’t made a dent in my antilibrary. Truth be told, I’ve only read about 100 pages of a single book during that time. Part of the reason is that I’ve…