Dave's Whiteboard

One of John Medina’s brain rules is “we don’t pay attention to boring things.” Obvious, in the sense that fire tends to feel hot, but somehow missing as a design principle in a lot of training and education.

I’m working through Merona’s book and have gotten to the chapters on short-term and long-term memory. They’re as good an excuse as any for a side trip to honor a man who once described his goal like this:

 
 
I’d like to take you now on wings of song, as it were, and try and help you forget perhaps for a while your drab, wretched lives. 
 

It’s Tom Lehrer’s 80th birthday. I read once that he has collected newspaper articles discussing his death, though so far as I know he’s still around. For me, and I suspect many other people, his songs on That Was the Week that Was or on his albums moved quickly and permanently into long-term memory.

Three samples to show his range. First, something seasonal:

Then, a trip back to the early 1970s and The Electric Company:

And finally, a link well worth the trip: Mike Stanfill’s Flash animation of “The Elements.”

Happy birthday, Tom.

(From Randall Munroe’s xkcd.com )