First Blog

The  late, great mathematician George Polya has advises all (math) problem solvers to begin with a guess. What the? Really? This question was recently posted on quora.com.  Here is the response I gave. For any and every problem you face, if you haven’t experience with the problem, you first think about and then guess how to solve it. Based on this guess, you try to solve it. If it fails, you use this information and guess again. Life doesn’t usually give you a road map. Well, not quite. The chef has a recipe. The judge has procedures. The accountant has principles. Hence, the consultant.  However, the hunter, the parent, the student, the president, the citizen, and most others do not. They guess, at first. You must start somewhere. Hence, the guess, hopefully the educated or experiential guess. You begin life with no methods; your journey through life adds experience which helps. Polya’s guessing mandate is little more than common sense.

 In the cemetery of blunders and mistakes grows the garden of all our knowledge. LEARNING IN LIFE.  Do you want to learn?  Do you want to achieve?  Do you want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are the most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second, we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.   Attending the school of hard knocks  is an expression of

You want to learn?  You want to achieve?  You want to know?  Go to school, say the educators. Sometimes schools feed information and learning; sometimes schools teach how to learn. The how is what you need, and these are most important ways to learn.         First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.  Attending the school of hard knocks is an expression of this.         Third, we learn from mistakes*.  Make no mistake about it; this is a key way we learn.  How many times have you and I learned this or that of

Ways we learn. You want to learn?  You want to achieve?  You want to know?  Go to school, say the educators.  But there are other important ways to learn.        First, we learn from reading books or being taught in the classroom. We learn by solving given problems. Practice and repetition, this is the role and scope of all school teaching. Occasionally, inspiration occurs.           Second we learn from examples and experience. Seeing many examples, some working and some not, and knowing why helps. These build our knowledge and intuition of reality.  Knowledge is a pathway to solving problems, while intuition provides a pathway to innovation.  More simply, we learn by doing.  Attending the school of hard knocks is an expression of this.         Third, we learn from mistakes*.  Make no mistake about it; this is a key way we learn.  How many times have you and I learned this or that of what *not* to do, or what doesn’t work.  However, this is the latest in actual academic re

Looking only at one candidate, we can learn several lessons about all candidates.  Anyone following the current national reality show, which is Republican Presidential politics, is probably amazed at Jeb Bush’s precipitous fall in the polls.   On the ground, I imagine Jeb Bush is also amazed.   Indeed, it is amazing from a qualifications viewpoint.   Bush does have some impressive credentials complete with executive experience.      In the Bush camp, it is not a stretch to conclude that Donald Trump is viewed there as similar to the elder Bush’s nemesis, Ross Perot.   It cost the election for Bush in 1992.   So it was decided to attack Trump.   An attack was launched with his “Chaos candidate” remarks made at the last debate.   It has intensified.     Is it working?   Doesn’t seem to be.   Bush is now developing a last stand policy in Florida, seemingly ignoring Iowa and New Hampshire.   This strategy reminiscent of Rudy Giuliani’s similar Florida policy in the previous

I used to like Presidential candidate Carly Fiorina for her practical viewpoints on how to proceed to restore our nation to its former greatness. She seems experienced.   She seems knowledgeable.   She does make some great sound bites.    Yet she scolds, and even preaches to us, explaining mostly how she is the perfect choice to solve the big problems of our day, and also how she could confront delimit and then defeat Hillary Clinton.   She deprecates everyone, not just the democrats.      She talks to us as if we are ignorant and the government is doing nothing and can do nothing.   On security, she talks about applying big data algorithms as though she understands them, but she betrays her ignorance of the size of the data sets (zettabytes) she wishes to examine.   Her broad strokes on security are designed only for the masses and newscasts.  Let’s face it.   The Presidential job has become almost too large for anyone.    We, the country, may be seeking what we cannot ha

As soon as possible you should experience what the artist has put into his/her painting - not talk about it.  To get away from the verbal to another seat of consciousness.