:: Slow's World ::

:: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 ::

"motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise."

- Philip E Ross, 'The Expert Mind' in Aug 2006 Scientific American.

:: Slow 11:18 am [+] ::
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Bureaucrats resist change because most changes in bureaucracies are cosmetic & transitory. To get something done, you must therefore have a threat of greater discomfort apparent for resistance.
:: Slow 10:18 am [+] ::
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You close one eye can survive but if you close one eye then close one eye again, then you sure walk into something.
:: Slow 9:30 am [+] ::
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The past is a land which we draw and redrawn to justify our present.
:: Slow 7:49 am [+] ::
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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
- John Dunne.
Meditation XVII, Devotions.
:: Slow 12:34 am [+] ::
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Speak of consequences, not prohibitions.
:: Slow 3:33 pm [+] ::
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People set direction and make decisions.
Computers follow instructions.
Are you obsolete?
:: Slow 1:21 pm [+] ::
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The [Apple] board chose between a visionary person and a Pepsi-Cola salesman. John Scully, the Pepsi-Cola salesman, was more articulate and looked the role of a corporate executive. People wore ties then. He had all of the gestures and dialogue but no substance. But the problem he created–which grew out of this and was the ultimate demonstration of hubris–is that he chose to put himself in charge of product development.
- Don Valentine in Peter Tanous' Investment Visionaries: Lessons in Creating Wealth From the World's Greatest Risk Takers. p225 (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 2003).
:: Slow 11:08 am [+] ::
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Well, obviously the problem is that if everyone reads this book and everybody starts looking for the same trends, the market is pretty efficient..., which means that you need to look for the trend that you get that some other guy doesn't.
- Esther Dyson in Peter Tanous' Investment Visionaries: Lessons in Creating Wealth From the World's Greatest Risk Takers. p225 (New York: Prentice Hall Press, 2003)
:: Slow 11:04 am [+] ::
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We see a lot of executives who have a vision. Our job is to decide whether it really is a vision or if it's a hallucination.
- Frank Caufield, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as quoted by Peter Tanous in his book, Investment Visionaries (NY: Prentice Hall Press, 2003).
:: Slow 1:28 pm [+] ::
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These lines came to me on a bus in Malaysia:
What is at the centre of the darkness in the mind's eye? Ignorance, fear, frustration, despair.
:: Slow 3:04 am [+] ::
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there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one has the power to release us and which we must fulfil even if it costs us our lives.
- Sermon by Cardinal Clemens von Galen at Münster Cathedral on 3 Aug 1941
:: Slow 5:39 am [+] ::
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Thinking about, you can have a nation with either monocultural diversity or a diversity of moncultures. There are no other possibilities.
:: Slow 10:22 pm [+] ::
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it is important that it should he remembered that in permitting the sacrifice of anything that would be of the slightest value to future visitors to the convenience, bad taste, playfulness, carelessness, or wanton destructiveness of present visitors, we probably yield in each case the interest of uncounted millions to the selfishness of a few individuals.
- Frederick Law Olmsted in Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, 1865. Discovered & published in 1952.
:: Slow 8:28 pm [+] ::
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I think I have been in business long enough to know when there is a shark in the water.

:: Slow 8:33 pm [+] ::
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One thing we want to talk about is the importance of memory ... These
events are sadly about to pass out of the memories of the living. So, we think it's good to tell the story again for a new generation.

- Tim Harper about his new book, Forgotten Armies, as quoted by Felix Cheong in a 2 Sept 2004 Straits Times article "Cambridge Historian Tim Harper Revisits S'pore's WWII Past".
:: Slow 7:19 am [+] ::
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The difference between the employee & the professional is that the employee respects power while the professional respects knowledge.
:: Slow 10:39 am [+] ::
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Indeed, the dominance of time over space may be best thought of in relation to the landscape in and around Orchard Road, where scaffolding seems the only unchanging feature in a city that sees itself living in permanent transition. The scaffolding is at once a symbol of the ugliness and the breathtaking energy of the desire for renewal or 'speed', the desire to change rapidly and without remorse.
- Krishnan, Sanjay in 'Singapore: Two Stories at the Cost of One City' in Commentary: Journal of the National University of Singapore. 10(Dec 1992):81.
:: Slow 7:46 am [+] ::
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The better a man is, the more mistakes he will make, for the more new things he will try. I would never promote into a top level job a man who was not making mistakes... otherwise he is sure to be mediocre.
- Peter Drucker.

The only people, scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.
- Thomas Henry Huxley.

To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is to swear off having ideas.
- Leo Burnett

A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
- George Bernard Shaw in The Doctor�s Dilemma (1911).

Show us a man who never makes a mistake and we will show you a man who never makes anything.
- Herman Lincoln Wayland.
:: Slow 4:01 am [+] ::
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A professional is proud of what she or he does and ashamed of any mistakes she or he makes.
:: Slow 4:25 am [+] ::
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