Innovation Roundup (( by Hamid Ghanbari, MD ))
A newsletter about innovation, technology and empathy in medicine (3-1-21)
Hi Everyone,
Here is the best of what I have been reading and writing this week. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.
Department of Reading
It is, of course, much easier to complain about how things are bad rather than do anything about it, which is why people prefer to complain. 1/100th the satisfaction, but 1/1000000000000th the effort
Reality is not something we stumble into. It is deliberately created. Professor Bruner’s work showed that we are more likely to remember something when it is told as a narrative. When the story is good, the facts don’t matter. We tend to find comfort in the world of narratives, which is what enables them to snag our attention in the age of half-truths. Real or not, they have a way of becoming our reality.
Surviving an Execution in Medieval England and Modern Ohio
Presumably, the only thing worse than being executed is surviving a botched execution and knowing that you might have go through the whole thing all over again. via @thebrowser
There is no prospect, in any time which we can conceive, that the whole invisible environment will be so clear to all men that they will spontaneously arrive at sound public opinions on the whole business of government. And even if there were a prospect, it is extremely doubtful whether many of us would wish to be bothered or would take the time to form an opinion on “any and every form of social action” that affects us. The only prospect which is not visionary is that each of us in his own sphere will act more and more on a realistic picture of the invisible world, and that we shall develop more and more men who are expert in keeping these pictures realistic.
Department of Classics
Martha Nussbaum on Fragility of Goodness
“Tragedy happens when you are trying a good life”
I have been devouring everything from her recently. Maybe one of the most important thinkers that I know very little about. I have only read the chapter on Antigone in Fragility of Goodness and it is very good. This is a very human interview. The part about her parents really got me.
My quest to read 150 classics in five years is going pretty well. I am currently reading The Peloponnesian War after a brief stint with Metamorphosis which I could not finish. I am enjoying it very much and I think it has many parallels to our current times. The march to war, death of a great civilization and the power of demagogues are particularly interesting.
Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In short, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was lacking was equally commended, [6] until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations sought not the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition to overthrow them; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime.”
Department of Innovation
Building resilient medical technology supply chains with a software bill of materials
An exploited vulnerability in a single software component of healthcare technology can affect patient care. The risk of including third-party software components in healthcare technologies can be managed, in part, by leveraging a software bill of materials ). Analogous to an ingredients list on food packaging, a software bill of materials is a list of all included software components.
Album of week
Her Trio, Her Quartet- Toshiko Akiyoshi
On five of the eight selections, she leads a quartet with alto saxophonist Boots Mussilli, former Dave Brubeck sideman Wyatt Reuther on bass, and drummer Ed Thigpen. Akiyoshi is still heavily influenced by Bud Powell at this point in her career, though she is no mere mimic of the great bop pianist. Read more
Movie of the week
Martin is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations who hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student. His dissatisfactions of working-class toil and bourgeois success lead to political awakening. This is an adaptation of Jack London’s novel by the same name.
Department of Productivity
Attention can ground an economy because it is a fundamental human desire and is intrinsically, unavoidably scarce. It can be a rich and complex economy because attention comes in many forms: love, recognition, heeding, obedience, thoughtfulness, caring, praising, watching over, attending to one's desires, aiding, advising, critical appraisal, assistance in developing new skills, et cetera. An army sergeant ordering troops doesn't want the kind of attention Madonna seeks. And neither desires the sort I do as I write this. There are also many ways to capture attention: via your thoughts, inventions, self-revelations, expressions, performances, artistic creations, achievements, pleas, and arresting appearances.
7 Mentally Tough People on the Tactics They Use to Build Resilience
There are lots of actionable items on this list from some of favorite perfomers:
Create an alter ego, Follow the 40% rule (When your mind is telling you that you’re done, that you’re exhausted, that you cannot possibly go any further, you’re only actually 40% done), Face the accountability mirror, Embrace the “pain cave” and many more
Art of the week
Vladimir Davidenko, “Enjoyment”, 2014
Thank you again for reading my newsletter.
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Talk Soon,
Hamid