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. . . . Papers on Various Topics. . . |
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The papers below are on a variety of topics that are of interest to me. I hope you find some of them thoughtful as well. I think they are novel and unique ideas. If you find them interesting, agree, disagree -- send me a note. They are copyrighted, but I would encourage you to copy them -- just keep the copyright intact on the document. |
Book List
There have been a few books that I really enjoyed.
Some were fun, some extremely insightful. I'd like to share them with you, and
ask that you consider telling me about some you have found.
Irrational Politics
In the Fall of every other year, my brain goes bonkers over all of the political signs and campaign ads. This is craziness. But, there is an underlying cause for all of this. Tell me what you think.
Ethics
I have a lot of interest in Ethics. I have a background in Moral Theology and Law, and have been teaching Business Ethics for a couple of decades. If anything along those lines would interest you, check this out. I have some pieces on
Human Moral Reasoning,
Ethical Principles, and some references to recent articles that I thought were interesting.
If you have similar or different ideas about these things, I would love to hear them.
Stories
We all love stories. Here's a collection of some of my favorites. These are things I've done or seen. Let me know if you enjoy them too - and tell me a couple in return.
2010.02 Reflections on Nicaragua
I've been to Nicaragua 7 times now in 6 years. The visits have provoked many, many ideas and thoughts. There are a few in this paper - let me know what you think of them. Thanks.
2010.07 Culture and Communications
All of this travel and dealing with issues in developing countries has pushed me to look at this problem just a bit. Why is the wealth of the planet so unevenly distributed? Is it a function of these selfish capitalists in developed countries, or what? I've come to some very simplistic solutions about it. This piece talks about the problems of communicating across cultures, based on some different world views. The next one - I'm still working on it - provides a very simplistic view of the causes of economic disparities!
I think the people researching this have come upon some tremendous insgihts - what do you think?
EQOWL
EQOWL -- Environmental Quality of Work Life. It's my sense that we need a movement similar to the environmental one for the state of our working lives. We are all working more and enjoying it less -- and this is not how it was supposed to be.
Face to Face Democracy
I think that our direct election of legislative types is so ineffective and
broken, that we need to fundamentally change what we call democracy. Here's a
suggestion on how to fix it. We could move to a face to face democracy, where
people elected someone from their neighborhood to an electoral body.
Adoption and Diversity
Adoption is a great thing. Three of our children are adopted, as were my wife,
and her 2 siblings. But it is so important to recognize how different and
unique each of us is, based on the genetics we come with. It took me a very
long time to realize that. This might help others recognize a bit sooner that
they themselves are part of the problem and the solution.
Rules of Thumb
This is a simple, pragmatic approach to the foibles of
human kind, that has greatly reduced my stress levels. See if it does the same
for you!
Rules For Managers
I had the good fortune to manage groups of people for many years. They taught
me quite a few things about the human condition. This is a somewhat too long
summary of those rules. If you have better ones, or suggested improvements
(like shorter ones), I'm open!
Rules for Politicians
Well, wny not. Running for office is extremely demanding. Follow these simple rules and it will make life much simpler. Trust me, it works - unfortunately.
Universal Pre-school
I am persuaded that the US would be a lot healthier in the long run if we invested in pre-school for all of our children. There are good studies that support this. My personal experience of different world views also tells me that it would have a tremendously positive effect on our future as a nation.
An East African World View
I had the good fortune to spend a month in
And A Little Child Shall Lead Them
We recently spent some time in
Sixteen Steps to Software Metrics
At one point in my life, I had the privilege of leading a large software development group that successfully installed a quality and productivity metrics program. We did really good work, and had fun at it. I also managed to stuff some ideas about how to manage such a group in this document.
Design Principles
I have worked in software for some time. Over the years, I developed a set of
guidelines for designing systems that makes them robust and easy to manage. If
you have additions or suggestions, please let me know.
Cosmology
This is a little strange, and I am almost reluctant to
put it here, but I’ve shared it with a few people that have not laughed
out loud, so here it is. When I was studying theology, I had a prof who had a totally
unique view of the way everything worked.
It was based on the idea that one of the underpinnings of all cosmology
was not correct. He theorized that if we simply accepted the premise that things could operate on other things at a distance, with nothing needing to travel between them, all cosmology and physics got much simpler.
This paper describes how that might work, and it also points to a much more detailed work that was recently published, that uses this approach to fundamentally alter our view of what matter is.
Last updated on
Dec. 17, 2009
Last updated March 3, 2010
Copyright Carl Scheider 20010