My Parting Gift to the English Department

(1) When Chomsky and Halliday show up, ask them to build a working model or a prototype. If they refuse or if they can't, laugh in their faces or roll your eyes.

(2) When Sylvia Plath and co show up, ask them to write without a formula, If they refuse or if they can't, laugh in their faces.

(3) When fake ESP(English for specific purposes), EAP(English for academic purposes), EPP(English for professional purposes) experts show up, ask them how many hotel staffs, business people, geologists, chemical engineers, doctors, nurses, sailors, insurance people, software engineers have found their stuffs useful. If they don't have a specific number/figure, laugh in their faces.

As this lovely book illustrates, keep this in mind: Sophisticated elaborate ruses can be easily countered with very simple moves. Be simple, be even stupid.

Simplicity : Be Stupid --- 3

Even the book title is arresting: "Piercing the Fog of War: Recognizing Change on the Battlefield: Lessons from Military History, 216 BC Through Today."

Full of case studies. Comprehensive analyses.

As usual, I retain only the key points truly relevant for me.

The book says, the battle field is full of black swans, surprises, what he calls "extraordinary," "aberrations," the unknown-unknowns, etc.

I am nervous about even the known-unknowns. I am so more worried about the unknown-unknowns. What to do amidst these abnormal, totally unexpected aberrations?

The answer echoes my last two posts: Be simple, be stupid.

Aberrational actions do not necessarily aberrational re-actions. We can simply answer them with responses from our personal repertoire, personal experience.

Isn't that delightful?

Day 2 "Express Gratitude"

Oct 3, 2014


(1) About 11 years ago, I read in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance":

"Flight from and hatred of technology is self-defeating. The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha--which is to demean oneself."

 (2) Having read Poincare's revelation/confession that when a mathematician gets lost, not knowing how to move from Point A to Point B, s/he can rely on certain thing.

(3) Open source communities for being so generous