Author: neil

I spent much of today, between coughs, struggling to write a thank you note to the people who have become part of a community I created out of hope that things could be better.

I struggled because I wanted to express how I really felt, why I really did this effort. I had no idea who I was really writing for.

And then it stuck me – it is not for the masses. It is a letter to anyone – any ONE – who comes across it and reads it. The words flowed then, and it was much easier.

I hit another roadblock soon after. Mere text, as heaped with meaningful  emotions as it may be, is not enough (or so I thought). I’ve spent hours this evening learning about photo saving formats, uploading them to Google Photos, reorganising them into a collage, and then finally getting them on to this internal social platform.

I am now struggling to hit “share”. And at 10pm, I’m so ready to give up, along with my body who’s screaming for rest, and my lungs who are struggling to get more oxygen in.  I get to see a doctor tomorrow night (finally!).

I haven’t done any voice training (duh!) today. But calligraphy, I can and will before I shut down for the day.

 

I’m not out of the woods yet, but have regained enough strength to get out of bed a couple of times today.

Digital consumption though didn’t stop. I’ve been watching some talks on Long Now. Neal Stephenson  reading from his book Termination Shock  followed by a wonderful Q&A. Long Term Thinking by author & journalist Bina Venkatraman.

Glenn Campbell’s amazing rendition of Gentle on my mind that I never get tired of . His daughter Ashley wrote a song for him as Alzheimer’s slowly took over his life. “Remembering” is incredibly beautiful.

Walk Off The Earth is a band that gets me in the feels. They’ve done a fantastic bluegrass version of GNR’s Don’t Cry (& their neighbour Cindy knows!) and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” (which got the attention of the original songwriter!)

We’ve got a sewing machine that stays packed away until my mother-in-law makes a trip here whenever. I have been wondering what it would be to learn to use that machine so watched a youtube video. Maybe it will come out from hibernation this Christmas break.

The Tommy Emmanuel interview with Rick Beato. They cover so much great ground and Tommy’s ideas and philosophy apply not just to music but to life generally.

Guitar warm-up exercises that go beyond merely the boring scales by Marco Cirillo

Learning how to use Microsoft Sway  by Kevin Stratvert.

And I’m not sure why I watched this at all 🙂 A family’s 4X4 trip on the famous Oodnadatta trail

Women fall sick, and they make sure the world still goes on. Men fall sick and the world is about to end.  Man-flu, is how they describe it.

Man-flu or otherwise, I’ve laid low now for the second day in a row. The laptop’s close enough so I can at least get out of my head, if not my bed. I’ve been watching endless youtube videos, and the best I can do I suppose is to at least list them out here. (There’s got to be a better way than having to look at your history in YT, surely??)

A 92 year old man singing Christmas carols.

A nurse specialist, Ana Frapell, reading aloud a letter to her kids, followed by a palliative care doctor reading a letter to a former deceased patient about Do Not Attempt CPR

A different explanation, confirming the concept, of how electricity flows video I watched last week

Prof Rob Hyndman of Monash University explaining how RMarkdown changed his life.

An ex-McKinsey consultant sharing how to write storylines and action titles in his slides,  how to conduct workshops 

Geoff Castellucci (a bass singer)’s version of Mele Kalikimaka 

An energising rendition of Crazy by “Walking Off the Earth”

Toni Lindgreen (the amazing guitarist who backs Reina del Cid) teaching Bob Dylan’s Buckets of Rain in open E tuning. (and her testing of how much stress can be put on the guitar with this tuning!)

Top recently released features in MS Teams (didn’t know about the Q&A feature which will come in really handy!)

Magnets are fascinating!

Stevie Wonder’s improv and songwriting chops when the electric piano stops working!

Lex Fridman (this guy is an incredible role model!) responding, humbly, to Joe Rogan’s criticism of his interviewing style.

How to Learn to Code When You have No Time and No Money is an honest and inspiring talk by a military wife & mom.

Re-watched Nancy Duarte’s analysis of common structures of great speeches from TEDx 2010. Her quote to finish: “The future isn’t a place you can go. It is a place that you get to create“.

I’ve been reading:

Brett Scott’s “Altered States of Monetary Consciousness” was a recommendation

McKinsey on “Getting Real about hybrid work“

Seth Godin’s post from a couple of days ago (Precision and Accuracy) got me thinking, again, on the topic of measurement errors in organisations.

Seth’s quick way of differentiating between precision and accuracy (also a statistical term?) is thus:

Precision is granularity of measurement.  Accuracy is about describing how we’re doing what we intended to do.

You can drive in the wrong direction at precisely 54.3kmph

The last few months, I’ve observed an obsession with precision. Armies of analysts (reduced significantly through retrenchments) continue to pore over minute differences in metrics. Assuming or sometimes being explicitly told that precision is crucial, and every number counts (pun intended). The ship might need to turn shortly but everyone keeping the engines going can’t hear the captain’s orders over the din.

What would it be like, if the captain/s actually went down to the folks in the engine room and asked them what was happening down there? Do they still have the tools to keep the engine going? Do they know and realise why they’ve being asked to “do more with less”? That they may have to change heading pretty soon and may need to learn completely new skills?

Leverage, my friend A keeps saying. And despite the leverage of so many great and wonderful minds, few captains of industry seem to know what to do.

***

I may be down with a temperature and rambling on, but write I will 🙂

 

Blogging makes it easy for anyone with an internet connection and a few half-baked thoughts to type them out and share for the world to see.  Or to record a video or some else new-fangled social media app that ‘takes the friction out of ________’.

But just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Some days, when I don’t want to write here, the excuse that floats into mind is just STFU. No one needs or wants to hear or read what I have to say, so why do I bother.  It’s a valid reason. No one reads anything here anyway. It’s a lot of effort. It’s not paying anything. It takes time away from other things I *could* be doing.

The only reason I keep doing this is so the words can flow out of me better when I DO have something to say. Constructing an idea is hard when all I have are simply marks on a piece of paper. Letters of the alphabet. The hope that what I say/write is in fact what I mean. And a constant battle to learn how to do it.