Slogans are for people who need to be told what to think.
Today I have done something utterly stupid. Moreover, embarrassing. I've accepted an invite to an external meeting which required a presentation - aka me having a presentation. Only to show up without one.
Honestly, I've noticed a little too late that very important paragraph "hidden" within the invitiation email, and thought about bailing. My mind already went through a whole list of possible excuses. Nevertheless, I decided not to, and in short - I went on and faced the "firing" squad.
I wish I have a story about brilliant spin off, but I have nothing except bitter aftertaste of awkwardness and the solace that I am perhaps a slightly sleep deprived to truly care.
However, I felt remarkable importance to share this experience. Why? If a learned anything as a scientist, after hours and hours of trial and error experiments - a mistake is just opportunity to learn. After a failed experiment, I usually list a numerous reasons how, why and when things went south. And I go back and front between experiments and drawing board until I get successful experiment. The more I think about my scientific process, the harder it becomes to recall when was the last time I felt sorry for myself because the experiment - aka I - failed.
So, following "the firing squad" experience, I decided to the same with my utter failure. How, why and when did things go south? And no, I did not look for excuses just a hard core context, details, with honest intention to learn from it. And just as with my scientific process, I put it all on the drawing board.
Guess what? I think it actually worked. I can see, with more clarity, when I made an error, how and why it happened, and what to do to avoid it in future. Normally, I would beat myself to death, but today, I think I prefer my "scientific" way of dealing with mistakes and failure.
Or perhaps, it is only lent and I am more open for a bit of humility.
Either way, I hope you have a better day than I did. That said I leave you with the words of wonderful Mickey Rooney...
This was a very late recording contrasting two news articles about Omicron - so called "Covid super-strain".
I know I haven't been around lately...work...life...However, the 12-years-old clip popped into my feed and I wanted to share it. The reason? This clip provides the great basic understanding into what are the issues with so-called "evidence" related to anthropogenic (human-induced) climate change and the lack of logic when it comes to the interpretation of such evidence. The sad reality is that even after 12 years from this clip, we are still forced to endure nonsensical conclusions that hurricanes hitting Florida are caused by big bad climate change.
The mainstream media is doubling down on the alarmism, and it is not hard to guess why. However, to be fair, consider my little observation an educated guess, an opinion, rather than the fact. Time will show whether I am right.
(1) 'Climate change affects everyone': Europe battles wildfires in intense heat by Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/spain-portugal-battle-wildfires-heatwaves-scorch-southern-europe-2022-07-17/)
If you spent time in Southern Europe, Mediterranean, during summer season - July and August in particular - you probably know that heat-induced wildfires are nothing new. In fact, they are quite common and remarkably devastating for the affected communities, and I have witnessed several in person. Most of the time, the wildfires occur due to heat igniting grasses, especially in the areas where there are broken glass or broken bottles. The glass serves as an amplifier for the sun rays, especially, in the vicinity of dry grasses, or even dry pine needles, and as ...
