https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/29/apollo-13-how-teamwork-and-tenacity-turned-disaster-into-triumph In approaching this crisis, their delegation of authority and deference to expertise is almost total. In the face of high-stakes scenarios, it is tempting to wrest control from more junior colleagues. But in 1970 the approach of mission control was quite different. They empowered their most junior team members, giving them total ownership of […]
Back in the day it probably looked absolutely amazing in it’s polished limestone facing: ” The current outer surface of the Great Pyramid at Giza is made of rough limestone blocks, colored a dark sandy brown from hundreds of years of pollution and weathering. But when it was first built, there was a smooth layer of fine […]
Not knowing is a hard thing to deal with. Fascinating unsolved crime long read in the Guardian: On 15 September 1981, 10-year-old Ursula Herrmann headed home by bike from her cousin’s house. She never arrived. So began one of Germany’s most notorious postwar criminal cases, which remains contentious to this day.
Enjoyable, if brief, interview with Margaret Hamilton, who lead the software team for the Apollo moonshots. I can’t help but notice how few men are ever asked how their lives as parents ever collides with their work. Q: Did your life as a software engineer and a mother ever collide? A: Often in the evening or […]
In the news, more adoption issues in a case that further illustrates the attitudes and social mores of catholic Ireland as detailed in The God Squad. The fudged adoption papers, un-vetted placement, obfuscation and misdirection of the supposed Sisters of Charity is sadly unsurprising yet still awful to read: His client became pregnant shortly before her […]
A German man living in California shared this message with the American people #beentheredonethat pic.twitter.com/Rtq9OqBWmn — Dr. Yasmin (@DoctorYasmin) November 6, 2016 Never vote for fascists. It never works out.
Lenin once said that “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” This has been one of those weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a sense of compressed events; news breaking like waves. The fallout from this week will last years. Politically, most of the action, or perhaps […]
Fascinating op-ed in the NYT: On a speaking tour in 1917, Ireland’s foremost suffragist, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, told audiences that “it is the only instance I know of in history when men fighting for freedom voluntarily included women.” The progressive leanings of the Rising’s leaders were evident in the language of the Proclamation of an […]