Category Archives: Growing up

The Easy Way Out

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Another week, another set of challenges to keep us engaged. Well, that’s one way to look at it anyway. Some of them are holdovers from last week or last month. Some of them might have come anew on the wings of the new week. Some of them might be lurking ominously in the shadows, waiting for the moment we think we’ve got things under control to show themselves.

When each of us is in the throes of a difficult problem, I suppose it’s natural to want a quick, easy solution. Or do we? Continue reading

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Ripped Off

I got a note from a former colleague of mine the other day.  They were kind of ticked off because they felt as if someone had ripped off an idea of theirs and the thief got the proverbial pat on the head from the powers that be.  I guess I’m not painting myself in a very flattering light here because I know they wanted a lot more sympathy from me than I gave them. I mean, I wasn’t a total d&*k about it – I did let them know I knew how they felt – but having had my fair share of ideas ripped off over the years I learned a few things which I’d like to share with you as I did with them. Continue reading

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Why Learn?

Plots of quadratic equations with discriminant...

Let’s start the year off with a question I’m sure you’ve heard if you have kids. It goes something like this: Why learn? “Why do I have to learn all this stuff in (math, history, chemistry – pick one) when I’ll never use it anyway?”  The easy way out is to remind them that you had to labor through it and it’s the unfortunate lot of children that their play gets interrupted to acquire certain life skills. However, in an age when damn near everything anyone has ever learned is pretty much accessible via a search of some sort, and access to search is immediately available everywhere, why learn indeed? Well, here’s why, and it’s a business lesson as well. Continue reading

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