Details

Mars Climate Orbiter

The Mars Climate Orbiter Mission objective was to orbit Mars as the first interplanetary weather satellite and provide a communications relay for another craft which was due to reach Mars in December 1999. The Mars Climate Orbiter was launched on December 11, 1998, and was lost sometime following the spacecraft's entry into Mars orbit. The spacecraft's carrier signal was last seen on Thursday, September 23, 1999.

An investigation board was convened and determined that the root cause for the loss of the spacecraft was the failure to use metric units in the coding of a ground software file used in trajectory models. The software application required that measurements be in metric units but the data files were in English units. The planners assumed that the data was in metric units.

Isaac Peral

Earlier this month, a newspaper reported that a Spanish submarine, the Isaac Peral, was 70 tons heavier than expected. Still under construction, officials believed that the submarine would not be able to resurface once launched.

Officials went on to say that the overage was due to a misplaced decimal point during the design process. The cost estimate to resolve the problem is estimated at $14 million, which will be paid over three years. This is in addition to the $680 million already invested!

Don't Hint and Hope

In business, it is critical that communications be clear and understood. Assumptions can have drastic consequences. When communicating with others be concise and clear. Checking to see how your message is received also lessens the likelihood of mistakes or misperceived communication.

Douglas G Pratt, 2013

Classic Fairy Tales

When the wonderful happens, when a holiday abroad is a splendid success or an unlikely romance ends happily, we commonly exclaim it was "just like a fairy tale," overlooking that most events in fairly tales are remarkable for their unpleasantness, and that in some of the tales there is no happy ending.

The Classic Fairy Tales is a revealing book about the most popular fairy tales that most of us were introduced to as children, through bed time stories or Disney movies. What makes this book, written by Iona and Peter Opie, interesting, is that the authors reprint the tale as it first appeared in English. Additionally, the authors provide a historical context for each fairy tale, including parallel tales from cultures around the world.

The Classic Fairy Tales includes 24 classic fairy tales from Jack and the Bean Stalk to Cinderella to Beauty and the Beast. Most of these will be familiar to the majority of readers. The book was published in 1974 and is reprinted from a 1980 edition.

Often beginning as spoken tales before being transcribed, these fairy tales reflect the norms and values of the time. Thus you may find original stories where the brides were only 14 or 15 years old when offered for married. Many of the tales include "wicked" stepmothers because at the time, women frequently died young and widowers with several young children immediately needed a wife to assist with parenting. Wells also play a prominent role in many of the fairy tales because this was the "water cooler" of the day. People gathered around the wells to share stories, interact, and gossip.

The magic in the tales lies in people and creatures being shown to be what they really are.

Usually the tale is about one person, or one family, having to cope with a supernatural occurrence or supernatural protagonist during a period of stress. The hero is almost invariably a young person, usually the youngest member of a family, and if not deformed or already an orphan, is probably in the process of being disowned or abandoned.

Unlike the contemporary, rewritten versions of fairy tales, most of the original tales contained very little magic. Enchantments (spells) were often temporary. Additionally, as the authors point out in the introduction, some of the tales do not end happily.

In the most-loved fairy tales, it will be noticed, noble personages may be brought low by fairy enhancement or by human beastliness, but the lowly are seldom made noble.

This is not a children's book. It is very educational in terms of the forgotten history and evolution of the classic fairy tales. In a large sense, this book serves as a reminder that how we recall stories today was not always the case.

All of the quotations on this page are from the introduction.

Douglas G Pratt, 2013

Increase Your Vocabulary

I just completed a book entitled To Save Everything Click Here: The Folly of Internet Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov. The book is an excellent examination of how smart technology and big data are used in both revealing and hidden ways in our society today. I will be writing a book review for a later post.

As I read the book, I came across several words that were (1) unfamiliar to me, (2) words that I rarely use, or (3) words that I would like to incorporate (when appropriate) into my writing (e-mails, posts, technical writing, and narratives). I wrote the words on a 4x6 index card (my bookmark of choice) and reviewed the definitions as I encountered the words.

Below are the words that I listed and their definitions. As you read books you will most likely encounter words that are new to you. Of course, it is likely that your list - even if reading this same book - would be different than mine.

ameliorate - to make better or more tolerable

naif - a naive person

effete - having lost character, vitality, or strength; marked by weakness or decadence; soft or delicate from or as if from a pampered existence

interlocutor - one who takes part in dialogue or conversation

bifurcation (bifurcate) - to cause to divide into two branches or parts

preternatural - existing outside of nature; exceeding what is natural or regular; inexplicable by ordinary means

putative - commonly accepted or supposed

pithy - having substance and point

banal - lacking originality, freshness, or novelty

oeuvre - a substantial body of work constituting the lifework of a writer, an artist, or a composer

quixotic - foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action

hagiography - biography of saints or veneterated persons; idealizing or idolizing biography

vapid - lacking liveliness, briskness, or force

meme - an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. "Meme" seems to be gaining in popularity as I see it frequently in narratives and on Facebook!

eugenics - relating to or fitted for the production of good offspring

nascent - coming or having recently come into existence

ambit - circuit, compass; the bounds or limits of a place or district; a sphere of action, expression, or influence

puerile - juvenile, childish

madeleine - one that evokes a memory

Don't be an effete naif whose puerile, quixotic memes are vapid and banal!

Naturally, your writing must be for your audience. The sentence above is not a natural one for me, but I want to least have some word ammunition ready to use when appropriate or necessary.

I encourage you to expand your vocabulary by creating your own word bank and write down - or at least review - definitions.

All of the definitions above came from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app for the iPhone.

Douglas G Pratt, 2013

To Keep or Not To Keep

After the Library of Congress was destroyed by the British in 1814, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library to the U.S. government for $23,950.  The collection, consisting of 6,487 books, included books in many content areas.  Today, the Library of Congress has over 32 million books and other types of media.

My Personal Library
While I do not have quite as many books as Jefferson, I have accumulated more books than I can display.  I love to read books, and still prefer printed books over ebooks.  In a previous post, I discussed how to download order reports from Amazon.

Like Jefferson, my book collection spans numerous topics including mental health (my academic background), story, presentations, mythology, writing, cooking, bookbinding, music, and religious texts.

Time to Downsize
In an effort to "declutter" our house, my wife and I decided to review the contents and stored items in each room to determine what could be eliminated.  So far, items can be separated into three groups:  things to keep, thing to discard (trash), and items to donate to Goodwill, my donation charity of choice.

I decided to review all of the books as well.  Because I like books, it is difficult for me to let any go.  I took a few minutes and mapped out a process to help me evaluate each book.

Book Retention Process
The process is centered around four questions.  If the answer to any question is "yes," the book is kept.  Alternatively, if the answer to all questions is "no," the book is donated to Goodwill.

1. Will the book be used as a reference?  Books that I will need to refer back to or pull information from should be kept.  This includes my mental health books and other business/communications books.
2. Is there a personal connection to the book?  I have several books that are the result of personal projects including genealogies, books written by students, and some autographed books.
3. Will the book be reread?  If I am likely to read the book again, or loan it to a friend or co-worker, I will keep the book.
4. Is the book a classic?  For my process, "classic" takes a broader definition than just a book such as War and Peace or a collection of literature.  I'm using "classic" in the context of a book that provides  definitive perspective on a topic.  For example, Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, presents a unique perspective on marketing and presentations, even though it is a contemporary book.

PDCA
The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is a classic part of the quality improvement cycle.  Having developed the book retention flowchart (Plan), yesterday, I took my flowchart to work and reviewed my collection of books at work (Do).   After sorting through the books, I identified approximately 20% of books that do not meet any of the criteria I determined.  Now that I have Checked the results of the Do following the Plan, I am ready to proceed to the Act phase and implement the book retention process on my personal library. 

Create Your Own Flowchart
If you have a decision to make, I encourage you to write down some criteria for use in evaluating the various aspects and potential results of your available choices.  It will help you clarify your thought processes and provide a guideline to use, especially if the decision is a group decision. 

Scanning options

For many years, I kept paper with me at most times in order to doodle, make lists, or take notes. One day I decided that rather than utilize scraps of paper or sticky notes for these activities, I would purchase a small journal so that I would have a collection of stored recording. In addition to sketches, lists, and so on, I also use the book for mind map brainstorming.

Mind Mapping

Although cluster brainstorming has been around for a long time, the term "mind map" was coined by Tony Buzan. In a previous post you will find information about mind mapping apps. Tony Buzan recommends that mind maps consist of a series of one-word clusters and also incorporate graphic elements for in order to enhance visual learning channels.

Decisive

In my last post, I shared a mind map summary of the book Decisive: How to make better choices in life and work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.

Level-based Highlighting

Frequently, I use text-based mind mapping to capture key phrases or titles. For each subsequent level of detail, I highlight the words using different colors. For example, for the Decisive mind map, the title is blue, the section level is pink, followed by green chapter titles, and orange key points.

Scanning

After drawing this mind map, I decided that I wanted to use it as part of my book summary. Using my flatbed scanner, I scanned it as both a magazine and document. I was disappointed in the results because the orange highlighting was not captured accurately. I scanned the mind map again using the GeniusScan app on my iphone.

The third attempt, using GeniusScan, resulted in the best color quality. One of the features of GeniusScan is that it will correct the perspective. After some post-scan editing to correct the white balance (Filterstorm) and add my watermark (iWatermark), I uploaded the image to Flickr.

Below is a collage of the different scanning attempts, including take a picture directly with my camera.

Decisive

A couple of year's ago I purchased Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This is an excellent book that I wrote about previously.

After reading Made to Stick, I subscribed to the authors' newsletter. It was in this newsletter that I was offered a download of the first chapter for Decisive: How to make better choices in life and work. Embedded in the text of the PDF was an offer to request a copy of the entire book. As with the first chapter, I was expecting a PDF, and was quite surprised to receive a paperback copy of the book in the mail. The book should be available for purchase in March, 2013.

Widen your options

• Avoid a narrow frame
• Multitrack
• Find someone who's solved your problem

Reality-test your assumptions

• Consider the opposite
• Zoom in, zoom out
• Ooch (the Heaths' word for conducting a test or trial)

Attain distance before deciding

• Overcome short-term emotion
• Honor your core priorities

Prepare to be wrong

• Bookend the future
• Set a tripwire

As with Made to Stick, this is an great book that I encourage you to purchase from Amazon.com or whatever bookseller you use. If reading it doesn't help your decision making, at least you will be aware of your thought processes when making choices.

What Story Does to Your Brain

I subscribe to the weekly newsletter for Robert McKee, a Hollywood veteran who conducts a 4-day seminar on writing for movies, television, and theater.

In this week's "Byline" newsletter, he featured a blog post by Leo Widrich entitled "What Listening to a story does to our brains."

In 1748, the British politician and aristocrat John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich used a lot of his free time for playing cards. One of the problems he had was that he greatly enjoyed eating a snack, whilst still keeping one hand free for the cards.

So he came up with the idea to eat beef between slices of toast, which would allow him to finally eat and play cards at the same time. Eating his newly invented “sandwich”, the name for 2 slices of bread with meat in between, became one of the most popular meal inventions in the western world.

You can read the rest of the post at http://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains

Douglas G Pratt, 2013