Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Slide Presentations are harmful

The large majority of business hours in my life is taken up in meetings, and almost all of the meetings are "Death by PowerPoint." A tiny minority of the slide decks are "stand alone" illustrated storybooks that need no presenter and could enable better communication for status updates.

Today I chanced upon this blog entry that illustrates a more-efficient and effective way to communicate status as well as the tangible and measurable benefits that result:

I have seen some grass roots efforts to institute this practice for a few meetings in the past but the idea has never caught on because of decades-long institutional corporate culture and a control-oriented tops-down demand for death-by-PowerPoint spoon feeding of status.

Change is always hard but this practice seems worth the pain.


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mfw@wyle.org | 1.425.249.3936

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Who we are and how we got here by David Reich


Very good book with fantastic new science.  5/5 stars.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Long way to a small angry planet by Becky Chambers


The storyline and characters are very good and the space opera tech / politics are interesting. But the gratuitous bestiality and teen angst gossip / romance stuff is puke awful and nearly destroys the book.  3/5 stars.

Bridge across the stars by Portau et al


Some of the stories were good; some were terrible.  Most were just ok.  3/5 stars

Sunday, June 16, 2019

AI Ethics

Die Frankfurter allgemeiner Zeitung (FAZ) hat einen interessanten Blick auf unsere gedankenlos Methoden des maschinellen Lernens auf wichtige Bereiche der Strafverfolgung, der Rechtsprechung und der Sozialpolitik anwenden. Mit Sensoren und großen Datenmengen können maschinelle Lernmethoden besser vorhersagen und Menschen effektiver manipulieren. Verordnung wird nicht helfen.

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Fall by Neal Stephenson

I bought a signed first edition the night before it was released.  The book is fantastic.  I did not sleep, could not put it down. 5/5 stars.  It is slightly annoying that the author is merging his fiction universes from other books to bring back the progeny and personalities of characters from his other books.  I put up with the Robert A Heinlein (RAH) books when RAH started merging his characters, and I still love the Baroque Cycle, REAMDE, & Cryptonomicon family lines.  I generally do not like fantasy as a genre but the fantasy elements in this book are awesome. 5/5 stars, of course.

Friday, June 14, 2019

The Light Brigade bby Kameron Hurley


Well-crafted, intentionally disjointed, gritty military mystery story, 4/5 stars.

Seeds of war by Ashok K Banker


I sometimes enjoy Indian epics, with their occult spiritualism and odd take on fate, ethics, and motivation.  This one was a little slow but great fun, 3/5 stars.

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Five Hour work day

https://www.20min.ch/finance/news/story/Bei-dieser-Firma-arbeiten-alle-nur-5-Stunden-pro-Tag-28549444


  • 0800 - 1300, no breaks
  • 40 percent productivity improvement
  • no meeting longer than 15 minutes
  • email is forbidden; everything is in chat
  • extremely stressful, long learning curve

Friday, June 7, 2019

The Legend of Corinair by Ryk Brown


The series is getting better.  This one is fun.  4/5 stars.