First Blog

The Greatest Gift With the gift giving season upon us, we offer gift ideas.  These are varied, general, specific, and relevant. Some are easy, some hard, some unusual.  Stuff... Money.  Aha!  This is what many folks you know want most of all. Give anyone a million and their eyes will alight with joy. They may tear-up.  In lieu of the million, give someone something expensive.  They may not want it, need it, or even know what to do with it, but it releases your "gift" obligation of the season. A Special Treat. If you don't have that million, there is something a special friend, a spouse, or sibling might like.  It is so special that they would feel the expense is frivolous or extravagant and will not buy it for them self.  But receiving it would resonate in their heart, and be remembered forever.  Not exactly a gift certificate to Amazon.com.  Of course, you need to know what it is and take the effort to find it. Gift Certificate.  This is like money.  It is what

The Range of a Project It has been said there are three qualities for the completion of a project. Good, Fast, and Cheap.  You can have but two of the three.  Some projects begin with no clear goal, little money, and no deadline.  Other projects enjoy a clear goal, unlimited money, and a very short deadline. The first is a project of the disinterested investigator - the academic for example.  The other is a national or industrial project desperately needed.  Others live in the middle, and often conclude with middling results.  The development of the atomic bomb during World War II found itself at both extremes of the range.  The Apollo space project during the 60's and 70's is another example. Others include the hunt for a polio vaccine in the 50's. The development of the Internet in the 90's is similar.  None of these registered low on the cheap-o-meter, and though frightfully expensive all were met in their time with near universal acclaim. Some still are. It se

Genius is one of those ephemeral items in the human inventory of gifts together with skills and talents, abilities and intelligence, proficiency and cleverness.  Hard to define, genius is both specific and contextual.  It is not generally abstract.  Genius can reveal itself everywhere, in science, business, politics, war, and literature though often along separate channels.   Some of our greatest philosophers were challenged by the concept and addressed it with notably interesting interpretations. Immanuel Kant in Part I of his Critique of Judgment tells us "Genius is a talent for producing something for which no determinate rule can be given, not a predisposition consisting of a skill for something that can be learned by following some rule or other." In his Twilight of the Idols , Nietzsche writes, "Great men, like great epochs, are explosive material in whom tremendous energy has been accumulated; their prerequisite has always been, historically and