Innovation Roundup (( by Hamid Ghanbari, MD ))
A newsletter about innovation, technology and empathy in medicine (4-4-21)
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’s like I drew a door and disappeared through it- Heartbreaking tales of homeless people in St Petersburg.
Homeless people in Russia have their own terms for things — people who aren’t homeless are “domestic” people, while they themselves are “street” people, or simply “bums.”
Why can’t they just update their documents, get a job, and rent a place to live? …questions like these underestimate the extent to which life on the street can transform a person. When it comes down to it, returning to a “normal life” is easier said than done.
My body is unserviceable and well past its sell-by date':
“everybody is required to die of a named entity”: cancer or heart attack, stroke or traumatic injury. Plain old age – the natural wearing down of systems, the exhaustion of finite cellular life spans, the loss of internal equilibrium – did not count as a cause of death and was never a checkbox option on official paperwork.
That was a peculiar thing: the way a young woman’s pain sometimes made her interesting, but an old woman’s pain just made her tiring. The former suffers; the latter languishes and complains. The economy of sympathy never favoured elderly people.
The Greatest Privilege We Never Talk About: Beauty- The essay tries to explore an important question: if good looks are such a privilege, then why isn’t it more of focus of social justice activists?
Attractive people are more likely to be seen as competent and be hired for a job. They are perceived as smarter and having more social grace. They are perceived to have better personality qualities like trustworthiness. They are perceived as kinder. They are more persuasive. They are more likely to benefit from acts of kindness from a stranger. They have greater self esteem.
David Whyte is an everyday poet
Relinquishing belief is actually just coming to the truth of the matter. The reality.
Because the reality of life is that we don’t have control over all events and circumstances. Whatever you want to occur will not occur exactly as you would like it to.
But just as importantly, whatever the world demands of you will not occur either. And what happens is this actual conversation, this meeting place.
One of the merciful and perhaps beautiful things about conversation is that by definition we don’t have to have the whole conversation at once, we only have to begin it and then the conversation itself seems to create its own flow and buoyancy. Of course, some people only begin it on their deathbeds. But wherever you are, the conversation feels real, and it feels real to everyone around you. There’s an authenticity to you taking the only step you can take.
Department of Technology
Deep Learning lectures from Berkley and Alfredo Canziani are excellent. I have not seen them all but the ones I have seen are fantastic.
Biotech for the Bicurious - A field guide for the great biological century
This is really good guide for anyone who wants to start in this field. I have been sending this to lots of young people.
Department of Productivity
Principle #1: Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place
Principle #2: Do your work as if writing is the only thing that matters
Principle #3: Nobody ever starts from scratch
Principle #4: Our tools and techniques are only as valuable as the workflow
Principle #5: Standardization enables creativity
Principle #6: Our work only gets better when exposed to high-quality feedback
Principle #7: Work on multiple, simultaneous projects
Principle #8: Organize your notes by context, not by topic
Principle #9: Always follow the most interesting path
Principle #10: Save contradictory ideas
Movie of the week
The story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.
Art of the week (not an NFT!)
Pieter Bruegel the Younger, "Spring," c. 1620–30;
Album of the week
Money Jungle- Duke Ellington
If most great collaborations are the triumph of harmony, Money Jungle is a monument to disharmony—and it is a masterpiece for it. Mingus, throughout the session and climaxing in the recording of the title track, seems to be set on harrying Duke—bumping him, playing over him, trying to throw him off. And Duke, to the surprise of many listeners, pushes back, playing in an aggressive, angular style believed to be alien to him. Read more hear
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Talk Soon,
Hamid
Thanks for sharing the productivity tips Dr. Ghanbari!