Book Review: Creativity in Science This book proposes viewing scientific creativity as a combinatorial process. Each scientific domain contains a population of ideas. Finding new permutations of these to create original ideas is what we think of as creativity. The more permutations a scientist can create, the more likely they are to produce creative work. This idea has some interesting…
Conversations about ideas should help you understand what you think. They need more tension than a regular conversation but not so much that you're afraid to share nascent thoughts. The best conversations make your ideas better and feel magical. The worst conversations make all thoughts blurry and leave you pessimistic. The people you regularly have these conversations with will have a long…
Recently I’ve been getting great sleep (without any major changes in general lifestyle or stress levels). I made a bunch of changes at once. One, all or some combination of them are having an effect. Here’s the list: Comfortable mattress : This is obvious. What’s not obvious is how much effort people have already put into testing every available mattress and writing up their findings in detail.…
I wrote previously how learning that I had a family history of early heart disease prompted me to take a more proactive approach to managing my health. After getting tested for a number of markers associated with heart disease, and scoring in the high range for some of them, I began forming an action plan. Of course I knew the basic plan would be to "eat well and exercise", as per the advice most…
This summer my uncle went to see a doctor after complaining about experiencing shortness of breath. He's an officer in the Indian army and has a regular medical checkup every six months so he wasn't expecting to hear anything too shocking. This time, after some prodding from a cardiologist family friend, the doctors did a more extensive checkup. They told him that four of his coronary arteries…
I recently watched this wonderful video of a lecture by John Cleese on creativity. Full transcript here . I'd really recommend watching it in its entirety. Here's a part I particularly enjoyed: So, here's how to stamp out creativity in the rest of the organization and get a bit of respect going. One: Allow subordinates no humour, it threatens your self-importance and especially your omniscience.…