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This is a postcard from a fellow human who is uniquely identify as RK4FD. I talked to him via Morse Code on 7,030 Kilohertz. at 00:18 Coordinated Universal Time on 19 February 2022. I told him I am in New Jersey and he told me he was transmitting 1,000 watts. That’s all I know aboutContinue reading “Let’s Keep Talking”

It is 1968. I have just turned 16. It’s a Saturday. My father says, “Hop in the car.” “Where are we going?” I ask. “You’ll find out when we get there.” He drives. I sit in silence and look out the window. “There” turns out to be Bolek’s Foreign Car Repair where Bolek is theContinue reading “Professional Tradesman”

by: Brooke Allen Peter Pichler of Stockholm is one of the wisest, most productive, rational, scientifically trained, and humane people I know. He is also one of the best computer programmers around. When I’m in Sweden I seek him out the way a novice seeks a sensei.

by Brooke Allen In February of 2014 I retired after 30 years of navigating the moral minefield that we call Wall Street. I was looking forward to a stress-free retirement. Fat chance. My problems began when I spent the month of August, 2014 in Edinburgh for the largest arts festival in the world, the EdinburghContinue reading

Right now some of the richest kids in the world are meeting at something called the Nexus Youth Summit. Their last powwow was at the White House and now through July 26, they are meeting at the United Nations. According to its own website: “Nexus is a global movement of 2000+ young people from overContinue reading “What I want to say to the richest kids in the world”

The only thing I’ve ever been expert at is programming in a language called APL that requires a special keyboard just to type the weird symbols that it uses. This is what happened. In the Fall of 1972 I took a class that introduced me to APL two weeks before the semester ended at whichContinue reading “I owe EVERYTHING to some funny symbols.”

In the middle of July, 2013 I presented at the Practical Wisdom for Management conference at Yale. Click on this image to see my slides on SlideShare:

About a decade ago someone in accounting, or personnel, or wherever, asked me for job titles. I said, “We don’t have job titles in our group.” She went away. Soon she was back saying that a new policy required that we have job titles, and that I had to give them some. I said, “IContinue reading “Should Caring Be Part of Every Job description?”

What follows is an advertisement for an assistant I ran in early 2013. It goes with a story I wrote published in Quartz magazine called: How to hire good people instead of nice people. Read the story to understand what would have happened if you had responded to this ad.

OFFER SUPERCEDED This offer was superseded by another offering a more reflective quieter one. I have kept this post and moved it way down in date order merely as a matter of record. Can you survive seven days with only slow-speed internet access?Do you like hearing people’s stories?Are you up for adventure? If so, thenContinue reading “Free 7-Day Voyage on the QM2 if you’ll help me collect stories from fellow passengers”