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Category: Reviews and Recommendations

A Real Discussion About Artificial Intelligence

A Real Discussion About Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is a broad term that could do with some definitions. With the arrival of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has exploded in the popular consciousness, promising to revolutionize everything, and fraudulent actors have taken advantage of the term’s nebulousness to mislead the masses for their ends. This article summarizes and adds to a recent book by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor titled AI Snake Oil (Princeton University Press, 2024) offering tools to separate the AI wheat from…

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A Fertility Primer: Dos and Don’ts if you Want 2+ Children

A Fertility Primer: Dos and Don’ts if you Want 2+ Children

Dr Natalie Crawford is a double board-certified fertility doctor. She is also the co-founder of Fora Fertility clinic and Pinnacle Conference, a leadership conference for women in medicine. She appeared recently on The Diary of a CEO to talk about all things fertility. Here are some of her insights: People should be thinking about fertility much earlier than they currently do if having children is desired. With social media, people are becoming more aware of fertility issues, and today, people…

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On Human Decency

On Human Decency

What is the nature of people? Are we good or evil? People throughout all of history have reflected deeply on these questions and recorded them in myriad philosophical and religious texts. More recently, since the age of enlightenment and the inauguration of the modern era, public intellectuals and scientists have weighed in, drawing from new-fashioned analytical tools to support their findings. The reams of data concerning human nature are so incredibly vast and span so many incommensurate disciplines, from religious…

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Plugging Exercise

Plugging Exercise

I had a chance to work through the free Hacking Exercise for Health online course taught by two entertaining physiologists on Coursera recently. It was recommended by the people behind the Learning How to Learn MOOC. As someone who enjoys moderate exercise, this course supplemented my understanding of its health benefits. It also gave me additional know-how to get the best bang for my exercise buck. While the information gleaned from the course will not be new to professional athletes…

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On Being Elastic

On Being Elastic

The habits of thinking we need to thrive in today’s world differ markedly from those of the past. Leonard Mlodinow, a theoretical physicist, who, in his recent book, Elastic, suggests just what those new habits of thinking are. This article, then, intends to share some habits of thinking, and some habits more generally that will help us thrive in today’s world. Some may not be novel or surprising to those who read around this area. I did, however, find his…

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Building Great Teams through Radical Candour

Building Great Teams through Radical Candour

If you’ve had a fair share of bosses, you’d probably come to see that they can make or break your working experience. Some bosses are caring and empathetic, some are exacting yet fair, and others might be dismissive, incompetent, or downright mean. Without knowing what it’s like to be in that position ourselves, however, it can be difficult to understand why they act the way that they do; i.e., what kind of pressures they are facing, what other considerations are…

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Exploring the BS Job Problem with David Graeber

Exploring the BS Job Problem with David Graeber

What does one typically hear from fresh American graduates, or, for that matter, any graduate about the workforce they’re entering? The optimism of yesteryear has given way to concerns about paying back student loan debts and finding a series of jobs – notwithstanding personal fit – that pay well enough for said graduate to get by and hopefully also provide for a current and future family. Finding a fulfilling and well-remunerated job, one infused with meaning and purpose aligned with…

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How the Best Ideas Win: The Story of Ray Dalio and Bridgewater Associates

How the Best Ideas Win: The Story of Ray Dalio and Bridgewater Associates

The Idea Meritocracy Imagine that you are the CEO of the largest hedge fund in the world, a hedge fund that has produced more net gains than any other firm in history. Now imagine that, after an important meeting, you receive this email from a subordinate, CC’ed to other senior people: … you deserve a “D-” for your performance today in the ABC meeting […] This was especially disappointing for two reasons: 1) You have been great in previous meetings…

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Dissolving Educational Fictions

Dissolving Educational Fictions

Education Nation(s): The State of Play The best of intentions, untempered with robust evidence and adaptive planning, can and have led to maladaptive decisions and policies. Spheres of education in the ‘West’, i.e., the Anglo-American domain, aren’t exempted. For the past few decades, State Boards of Education in America have tried to weather the unwelcome intrusion of pseudo-scientific principles into their science classrooms by misguided fundamentalists, sometimes without much success. Quite aside from that, the recent No Child Left Behind…

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More on Learning How to Learn

More on Learning How to Learn

  The science of learning updates itself regularly. Accordingly, having already written about “learning how to learn”, here’s a post that features rolling updates on anything broadly related to learning that has caught my attention since then. The updates appear in ascending order below. However, before we get into that, it’s worth revisiting the value of improving our ability to learn. In this regard, we may take the advice of Tony Yeoh, the Chief Information Officer of Intercontinental Hotels Group…

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