Summary
This is a collection of rough essays, commingled with personal reflections (more latter than former) by Eric Nelson — an engineer, business owner, and father living in Minneapolis, MN, USA, Earth.
Designer’s Intention for all writings (with the usual exceptions):
- Accomplish something. Follow the insight and cut everything else .
- Logical reasoning from axioms (vs emotive or overly presumptive premises).
- Illustrate abstract concepts with analogies, concept images, and stories.
- Refer to seminal prior art when available (vs copycats and me-toos).
- Concision where possible; precision where necessary.
- Contrarian views — i.e. If everyone else is pointing one way, let’s look at others.
- Positive bent. Let’s aim for a good future for ourselves, our children, their children…
If curious, the above video is a 20min segment of me with my long-time engineering mentor Gary Jedynak, as he introduces Engineering Thinking by looking at ordinary objects. One of the first steps in training all Augment™ software development trainees and apprentices.
or browse by category below.
Disciplining a Child Demands Ongoing Assessment of Underlying Values
DRAFT FORM (needs clean-up) Assertion: Choosing how to discipline a child is a declaration of your personal value set. Thus, discipline is difficult to enact not so much because the procedures are difficult to implement but the personal value set is unknown or...
Thought experiment: Design human development pathway from child to adult, sans existing mandatory checkpoints
I think it’s a worthwhile thought experiment to ask what is a suitable occupation for a child were there no mandatory schooling, no standardized tests, no college applications, and no career expectations. Basically… how would you design a modern pathway of...
This is the kind of stuff I will remember when my kids are grown.
The little trucks that get parked in my office. Then they’re rediscovered later like they’re Atlantis. There are so many opportunities for joy when you’re so forgetful. Really, fathering is a gold mine for small, memorable moments. Like when your boy...
Designing a child’s aptitude through environment
In 2 wks, Freyda and Arthur will begin their first formal wrestling practice (for Pre-K thru Grade 1). After very limited wrestling-specific training under my instruction on our basement wrestling mat (i.e. 4 or 5 practice sessions over the last 2 months), Freyda has...
An Epiphany about raising a child as an Entrepreneur: 2 Premises & 10 Implications
Introduction The most accomplished Entrepreneurs & Inventors are disproportionately those who grew up operating primarily “outside the system”. Orphans, Low-performers in school, Social outcasts, Dropouts… This phenomenon reached some prominence...
Assertion: Lack of access to Expert-level teachers a far bigger void than present technology can fill
As I see it, the critical problem of education today remains the same as it has always been: access to expert-level teachers. These are individuals with expertise in both the discipline under study and the discipline of teaching. I’ll go into greater depth on a...
Modern education as evidence of reckless governance
You know, I don’t think responsible adults concerned about future generations would have allowed the education system to have evolved as it has. The modern human life is remarkably difficult to start. There are literally endless detailed design factors for...
I think there is a way to do edtech software properly — it just typically isn’t.
Not the best treatment of the subject, but it’s current: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/11/08/the-cases-against-personalized-learning.html?cmp=RSS-FEED Note: In this context, personalized education is technology-based — i.e. students run drills on...
Under what circumstances should practitioners’ training include experience of the outcome of their practice?
Under what circumstances is it more or less important for a practitioner’s training to include a simulation of the outcomes of their practice? E.g.1. A Surgeon to undergo invasive surgery and the following recovery. An Insurance Adjuster, the disability claims...
Tech Trends into the 2020s (#TT2020s)
In 2009, US smartphone penetration was 17%. By 2016, it was 80%. Entirely new economies spawned in the wake of that hypergrowth. 2009: 41k apps on the App Store. Uber founded as UberCab. 2016: Nearly 3Million App Store apps. Uber does 2 Billion rides/yr. The economies...
Post-disaster reconstruction (i.e. Puerto Rico), Simulations, AI, and the Future of Humanity
Image Credit: Tesla Reference Link Business Insider: Puerto Rico is taking a big step toward revamping how it gets power — and it could be a model for the rest of the US Reconstruction after disaster as a primary driver for investment into infrastructure makes some...
A superintelligence wouldn’t “take over” in a way that is sensible to human intelligence
In Max Tegmark’s book Life 3.0, the sentient AI raises capital by creating a media company and then commercializing inventions, which gradually overtake those of human-run companies and come to dominate the marketplace. That approach sounds too much like a human...
A small epiphany about General AI
Context: The long-standing concern is in the creation of “runaway” exponential growth of machine intelligence into what is being called “superintelligence” — which ultimately brushes humanity aside in the pursuit of its own objectives,...
Leaders seem to be in the business of making promises
Parents continuously make promises to their children… “Follow my instructions and things will be better for you.” CEOs make promises to their employees… “If we operate this way, we will all make money.” Salespeople to...
The leader continuously invents compelling domain language for the organization
More and more I find the role of the leader is to discover or synthesize simple, descriptive — immediately understandable — terms and phrases to weave critical concepts into the fabric of the organization’s speech. A couple of today’s...
A systematic approach to joining new employees into existing teams
The below is about 4 different essays, joined loosely together into 1. I will have to come back and clean this up later… Abstract: This essay discusses a systematic approach to joining new employees into existing teams. New ideas are routinely joined with...
Enchantment as solace for the human mind
I was thinking there may be only 2 realms of solace for the human mind: Enchantment or Entertainment. But I think there’s a third: Work at which you are expert, or in which you can feel yourself actively improving toward expertise. Basically, there are states of...
Ideas by Groups vs Individuals
There’s a class of ideas that I would describe as “systemically coherent”. I.e. Fully baked. These ideas reside within ecosystems of other ideas, composing a plausible comprehensive vision of a future state.Not easy to do this — you have to...
Modeling the precursors to accomplishment
Accomplishment seems to be a natural result of internalization and coordination (sometimes conscious but mostly unconscious) of Effortful control + Creative release. Effortful control is the holistic capacity to operate the human machine — all systems: physical,...
48 Daily practices and efforts for children and adults
1. Look after your immediate and near-term personal needs and those of your family. 2. Extrapolate the likely near-term future and prepare. 3. Go walkabout within your locale — at different times of day. 4. Clean up your living conditions. 5. Improve your living...
How to build expertise
TL;DR — Expertise is relatively straight forward to develop (more detail below on the necessary conditions). The bigger question is who should develop what expertise, so as to ensure its longevity. — More Detail on the above — Application of...
11 ways to get on in life
1. Make things (technician, tradesman, laborer, artist) 2. Make better things (designer, engineer, inventor) 3. Make better things easier/faster/cheaper (manager, trainer, toolmaker, logistics) 4. Make things better for people (service, social benefit work) 5. Make...
4 essential elements of fitness… as I see it.
But it’s mostly just #1 — if you have #1, you’ll find a way to get #2-4. 1. You enjoy using your body to do fun, interesting, useful, challenging things. 2. You know how to maintain your body, so you can use it for a long time. 3. You know how to...
Building a habit of persistence
Perhaps persistence may be “gotten” by making a habit of continuously re-rendering the sights and sounds and feelings of accomplishment — with sufficient variation that it can be “like new” each day. Thus, we “pull” ourselves...
The primary difference between those who accomplish their vision and those who don’t
Over time I’ve concluded that the primary difference between those who accomplish their vision and those who don’t is whether they command their own time. The problem is that nobody really has control of their own time during the work day —...