Sunday, May 18, 2008

Links ...


Health was like the wilderness: it could only be spoiled by human intervention. “We’re not saving patients,” Rajiv told me. “We’re just stabilizing them so they can save themselves.”

That's from Sandeep Jauhar, excerpting from his Intern: A doctor's initiation.

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Geoffrey Colvin on becoming great in any field [link via Anand Kashyap]:

The first major conclusion is that nobody is great without work. It's nice to believe that if you find the field where you're naturally gifted, you'll be great from day one, but it doesn't happen. There's no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice.

Reinforcing that no-free-lunch finding is vast evidence that even the most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work before becoming world-class, a pattern so well established researchers call it the ten-year rule.

Much of what this article talks about is from Anders Ericsson's work on developing expertise through, among other things, deliberate practice and effortful study. Here are two related posts with links.

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Vikram Doctor on why Marathi food lost out (outside Maharashtra) to those from other regions [link via Deepak Krishnan].

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Finally, for a change, a mystery cartogram [link via Economic Woman].

1 Comments:

  1. ggop said...

    Abi,
    Thanks for the link on Maharashtrian food. I grew up in Maharashtra and had the fortune of eating home cooked usals and many other wonderful dishes. Their koshimbirs kick the butt of any crappy salad bar.

    Its a pity that this simple healthy cuisine does not enjoy the popularity of desi chinese (barf! There I said it)