On note taking
December 20, 2005
An offline comment to my recent post on penmanship training for doctors suggested that listening and writing engages the mind two ways and helps us learn better than if we just listened (or, presumably, just looked). I am always jotting down notes about this and that, but I have never thought much about why I do it or whether I even benefit from it. I suspect that I never again look at most of the notes I write. So why bother?
Assuming that I have a mind worth engaging, it may be that the mental engagement of summarizing plus the act of writing it down is mostly what helps me remember or understand things. It may not make too much difference whether I am able to find and read the note later. If I write down a new name, I am more likely to recall it later than if I just listen to it or read it. I might just as well tear up the note, which is a sobering thought when I think of the accumulation of notes I have saved over the years on my computer. It would be easy to sort them by age and when last viewed, but the result might throw me into deep depression.
I know that I am a compulsive note-taker and maker of lists, and I save most of them. I guess it is my way of achieving a sense of order and control in my life.
Well, it works for me… I think.
Dave, taking note of that thought.
Mona Lisa ‘happy’
December 19, 2005
Why had I never wondered about Mona Lisa’s state of mind? Apparently a computer has.
BBC NEWS | Mona Lisa ‘happy’, computer finds
A computer has been used to decipher the enigmatic smile of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, concluding that she was mainly happy.
The things one learns on the Internet!
Dave, amazed.
More about Narnia
December 18, 2005
Reformation 21 » Keller on Narnia
If 100 million more kids get their imaginations baptized we will be well served by the movie. And, as Lewis himself pointed out, it’s not the production values but the story itself that effects the heart. You could do it with sock puppets and still get it.
–Tim and Kathy Keller
The religiously-oriented blogs have been talking a lot lately about the Narnia movie and how it effects kids. This linked blog article brings some sorely needed balance and common sense to the discussion. Narnia is not a magic religious pill to change normal kids into mature Christians, for cryin’ out loud.
Dave, who never expects much from a movie, anyway.
Galatians 5:7-12
December 18, 2005
5:7 You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth? 5:8 This persuasion does not come from the one who calls you! 5:9 A little yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise! 5:10 I am confident in the Lord that you will accept no other view. But the one who is confusing you will pay the penalty, whoever he may be. 5:11 Now, brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. 5:12 I wish those agitators would go so far as to castrate themselves!
Paul thinks that living as a Christian is like running a race, and he compliments the Galatians, saying that they had been running a good race. They had been experiencing the balance and joy that comes from being obedient to the Master. Then, false teachers convinced some of them that it would do no harm and maintain peace in the church if they deviated from what Paul taught, but he warns them that even a little yeast quickly spreads through the whole loaf.
The Galatians were being told that they must accept the Jewish rite of circumcision to be true Christians. But Paul himself was being persecuted for not requiring Gentiles to be circumsized. The absurdity of the contrary teaching upset Paul so much that he cursed “those agitators.” -sdg-
Wikipedia vs. Britannica
December 17, 2005
I confess that I don’t often think of Wikipedia when I need to know more about something, but, come to think of it, I never think of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Wikipedia survives research test
Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 million articles in 200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English.
It is based on wikis, open-source software which lets anyone fiddle with a webpage, anyone reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the entry.
Wikipedia has become a an Internet resource to be reckoned with, well able to stand alongside any of the traditional information resources.
Health Insurance
December 16, 2005
As any insurance salesman will tell you, insurance is never bought; it is sold. The reason that most of us don’t want to think about spending money on insurance is that we were never taught the basic economics of insurance (or the economics of anything else, for that matter).
What we are left with, then, is that people do not want real health insurance. I would gladly take a health insurance policy with a $10,000 deductible per individual, and I suspect that many of my wise, risk-averse TCS readers would, too. But we are in a tiny minority! Most people do not want to be responsible for the first $10,000 in medical expenses, and most people believe that an insurance policy that is expected to pay no claims 95 percent of the time is a bad deal.
Could people be persuaded that what I think of as health insurance–a policy with a very high deductible and a relatively low premium–is decent health insurance?
Even though it is not rational to worry more about paying for commonplace medical care and less about the prospect of paying for a potentially bankrupting medical disaster, that’s exactly what we do.
Here are a few basic economic principles that are involved.
1. Over your lifetime, you can expect to pay serious bucks to stay alive and healthy. What you should be most concerned about is keeping the total cost low over your lifetime and not to be so concerned about the bill for yesterday’s doctor visit or prescription.
2. Insurance was invented to help you manage the lifetime cost of medical care by sharing the risk of an unlikely budget-buster with a large group of people. The cost of insuring against every medical expense is prohibitive, so it’s much better to pay as you go for the small stuff and only insure against the budget-buster. This will give you the lowest lifetime cost of staying healthy and in repair.
3. Employer-provided health insurance isn’t “free.” You are paying for it. Government-provided health insurance (in my case) also isn’t “free,” and I thank you for paying for it.
If you are feeling lucky, forget all this depressing stuff. When I was young, I thought I was immortal, but doubts eventually crept in along with a few aches and pains, but your mileage may vary.
Dave, getting sort of hung up on economics.
Penmanship
December 15, 2005
Bet you haven’t seen that word in print for a while. At a recent hospital meeting I was given a copy of an article entitled “Death By Handwriting - Interpreting physician’s orders can be as confusing as deciphering hieroglyphics - with the potential for serious patient injury or death.” Any nurse or pharmacist will tell you that reading a doctor’s scrawl on prescriptions or treatment orders is a major challenge.
Most Americans don’t receive any formal handwriting instruction beyond the third grade, so how we learned to write then is more or less what we are stuck with for the rest of our lives.
Unless my memory is playing its usual tricks on me, I was taught penmanship by the Palmer method in the fifth grade in Topeka, Kansas. My heavily initialed school desk had a sloping and hinged top with a recessed cup above the hinge to hold my very own ink bottle. I had a wooden pen with a removable metal nib. The first drill was to carefully dip the nib in the ink bottle, ease it into position above a piece of wide-ruled paper and lock my hand and wrist in position, so that I had to move my whole forearm to form a letters. One drip and I got a taste of the teacher’s ruler. Then I had to trace row after boring row of nice and neat circular scrolls. Once I had mastered the pretty scrolls, I was taught to form each cursive letter, one by one, - there are fifty-two permutations of lower case and capital letters - and to fill more boring rows with the letter du jour, all the loops and circles being nice, fat, and uniform.
Can you imagine getting a nine-year-old boy to do that today? For fifty minutes? With all of the ink on the paper?
Fast forward about nine years. By then my penmanship training was fading away. The lessons seemed to stay with the girls, but the boy’s penmanship deteriorated rapidly, probably by design so that one’s hand didn’t look girlish.
The article said that there are now 3-hour seminars for doctors and others, which can cost up to $3,000.
[The seminars] speak a language of their own, of “joins” and “strokes” and how to hold a a pen and position a paper. They teach doctors to “slow down to speed up” by printing or using a combination of print and cursive with semiconnected letters. Physicians are advised to put a sharp angle on a quotation mark (”) so it doesn’t look like a 2, to close their a’s and b’s and lose the superfluous loops that foster illegibility.
The theory is that if you can teach the docs suturing, why not handwriting? Somehow I can’t see my doctor friends being taught penmanship by the Palmer, or any other, method.
Strangely enough, a combination of cursive and printing is exactly what I have been doing for the last sixty years. My drafting classes taught me to print properly, and I have been printing ever since. The only thing I can write cursively now is my signature, and it is becoming unreadable. Today, I very rarely apply pen to paper for any reason, greatly preferring the keyboard. I wonder what the next stage will be. Perhaps a thought-reader.
Dave, still preferring to call it ‘typing,’ rather than ‘keyboarding.’
Olduvai George
December 14, 2005
Here’s a great find by blogger Larry. Check it out.
Self-portraiture may be a pretentious beginning (I’m the one on the left), but then I’ve chosen this garish color scheme and put myself in the header. Hopefully, it won’t blind too many of you. I should mention that I don’t condone underage drinking, but Australopithecines probably matured faster than we do today and there was no danger of him driving. As far as his lack of clothing goes, please… he wouldn’t be wearing pants and I’ve spent my almost 60 years of life trying to paint animals with as much anatomical accuracy as possible. While I include human beings under the heading animals, I promise never to go for an R or X rating just to be obnoxious and certainly will never show off my own shortcomings.
Buell is a talented illustrator, wouldn’t you say?
Dave, in awe.
Money Buys Happiness
December 13, 2005
But… aren’t we told that money doesn’t buy happiness? This op-ed piece suggests that we shouldn’t be too sure about that.
WSJ.com - Money Buys Happiness
The bottom line is that the old axiom about money and happiness, properly understood, is quite wrong. So if you are so fortunate, enjoy the blessings of your abundance this holiday season — and be sure to buy yourself a little extra joy via your favorite charity.
…But beyond earning, taxing and spending, there is an even clearer link between money and happiness: charity. The evidence is unambiguous that donating money (and time) is one of the best ways to buy happiness.
Perhaps the grace to be content with whatever you are given, be it a few extra bucks or good health, or whatever, is a great gift and the true source of our happiness.
Dave, perhaps preaching a little.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
December 12, 2005
Here’s an interesting review of the recent ‘Narnia’ movie. Makes me wish I had gone to see it, but maybe it would be even better to go back and read C.S. Lewis again.
Reformation 21 » Movie Review: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
However, we must realize that a movie has never converted anyone, and films do not change culture. Only the Spirit of God is capable of such actions. One of my fears with this movie is that the evangelical Church might rush in to force the Christian message of the film upon a populace who is simply enjoying a good story told well. The power of Lewis’s work is not preaching, but pointing people towards an imaginative picture of love and goodness that captures the mind and heart. Attraction to true beauty and goodness–of which God is the author and ultimate embodiment–naturally leads to a desire to explore the longing these create which, indeed, can only find their rest and fulfillment in Him. That is my great hope for this film.
This should provide some comfort to those who feared some theological problems with the movie.
Dave, duly comforted.
