“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.” –John Gall here. Hat tip KJB

There is a good reason for this being delayed. As usual my co-workers were curious about Whiskey Fest and I gave them my three cardinal sins: Go with a plan. It is easy to get overwhelmed and boxed out if you don’t know what you are after. Don’t get drunk. There is nothing sadder then seeing the drunken idiots staggering around. Whatever you do don’t forget what you saw, smelled and tasted Well of course I go ahead and violate rule number 3!

Nerds: Who they are and why we need more of them David Anderegg Ph.D. I wish I had read this book in high school. Would have explained things and made them easier to deal with. I suspect I have identified the thing that made me “different” but that is a post for a later date. “Illness, then as now, carries with it the notion of lack of culpability along with the potential for cure.

The Paradox of Choice Why More is Less Barry Schwartz “Moreover, I think the adding of options brings with it a subtle shift in the responsibility that employers feel toward their employees. When the employer is providing only a few roues to retirement security, it seems important to take responsibility for the quality of those routes. But when the employer takes the trouble to provide many routes, then it seems reasonable to think that by providing options, the employer has done hsi or her part.

Statecraft Dennis Ross (Thanks to Blaine for snagging me a copy) “The lesson is this: if you don’t know what you want, your negotiating partner will develop a vision that serves his/her posture in the negotiation but not yours.” pg. 189

Einstein Walter Issacson “You have to remain critically vigilant.” Question every premise, challenge conventional wisdom, and never accept the truth of something merely because everyone else views it as obvious. Resist being credulous. “When you pick up an application,” Haller instructed, “think that everything the inventor says is wrong.” pg. 79 “America is incomparably less endangered by its own Communists than by the hysterical hunt for the few Communists that are here.

Blink Malcom Gladwell “We like market research because it provides certainty – a score, a prediction; if someone asks us why we made the decision we did, we can point to a number. But the truth is that for the most important decisions, there can be no certainty.” pg. 176 “… if we can control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place then we can control rapid cognition.” pg. 253

I guess this is news b/c you can now stay for night seder and go for a date.

Been wanting to blog this from UniWatch. I actually think this is a good idea. This way the opposing team knows who to hit and who to defend. With all the matching lines that go on in the NHL it would be much tougher to sneak your top scorer on for a double shift. On the other hand for the casual fans it may be a heads up to pay attention to the star player.

“(The plan should anticipate everything and then permit no changes)” pg. 43 “Summing up the incompetence of the area, Dr. Dodson comments, “The present state of the neighborhood indicates that the people there have lost the capacity for collective action, or else they would long since have pressured the city government and the social agencies into correcting some of the problems of community living.” pg. 121 “By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.