Edward Tufte’s, The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint. I have this in book form but there is a pdf here. A classic, and free.

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I like this because it shows how discovery should and can work, and how it all relies on a generosity of spirit (just as a reader must give an author some slack). Also because several years after, I was first shown a browser when I was visiting NIH, and I just didn’t ‘get it’. (music is a bit loud, but persist…)

https://archive.org/details/Munnecke-MarkFrissesMessageToTimBernersLee313

“Obesity is the biggest health emergency — it’s this generation’s smoking,” warns Duffy, “but it is also the biggest market opportunity.”

FT    [direct link to this aside]

No industry can remain immune to technology. Kushner says. “We can have engineers look at [any industry] and say ‘this doesn’t make any sense’, and do it better. There’s government, education, financial services… but healthcare is the most screwed up — it is a total train wreck.”

FT (usual tech delusions apply..)   [direct link to this aside]

JAMA reports that the new Surgeon General of the US is (just) 37 years of age.

At only 37 years old, Vivek Murthy has a long list of accomplishments: valedictorian of his high school class, magna cum laude Harvard graduate, MD and MBA Yale graduate, cofounder of 3 nonprofit organizations and a successful software technology company, and Harvard Medical School instructor and researcher….

Now, Murthy, who was born in the United Kingdom to Indian immigrants and moved with his family to Miami at the age of 3 years, has added a new job to his resume. He traded his white coat for the blue uniform of the surgeon general of the United States, a position that carries the rank of vice admiral in the US Public Health Service (USPHS).

I just don’t see this sort of thing in the UK, and we are worse for it. When McMaster med school was founded, the foundation Dean was aged 35.

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There is a disconnect between how a college or university functions and public perception. From research to classroom teaching, and even to administrative duties, faculty are expected to take on too much. As a result, innovation in education—a university’s main product—often takes a back seat. The same is true for administrative decision-makers. Modern universities must provide space, time, and resources for faculty and administration to innovate.

Rich DeMillo. [direct link to this post]

Wake-up call for UK as giants stir in the global student market. Around 20% of students at UK universities are from overseas, providing 12% of income. In the name of courting popularity, the current UK government is doing its best to encourage them to go elsewhere . Without these students, parts of UK higher education would suffer a major shock. Other countries, especially the US, are now stepping up recruitment. We used to make the best cars in the world as well, and as a kid I would visit Cardiff docks, and see rows and rows of cars all ready for export.

The First 70 Minutes of The Hour. This deserves a longer post but the parallels between ‘the pitch’ [I have only done one, and it was unsuccessful] and the death by Powerpoint lecture are obvious. “When, in 2002, I was invited to join the ranks of venture investors by Barry Weinman, my Gentleman Capitalist mentor, I voiced a concern: I didn’t want to go blind looking at PowerPoint presentations for the rest of my life.”

Preparing for the digital university. One of the authors (Dragan Gašević) is from my institution. Stephen Downes is not too warm about it. I think it is essential reading, but as Downes says, so is Tony Bates’ book.

The industrial education system myth by Martin Weller ( as a riff on Audrey Watters on the same topic).

Via John Naughton from here (These Are Hysterically Genius…). So, what answer did you want, I hear you say….

Seems to be my daughter’s motto too. Although Fintan O’Toole puts a deeper meaning on what Beckett meant.

This is an impressive talk by Don Berwick. A lot of it will be old hat to those who know about the history of improvement ‘science’ and how, as in so much economics, what passes as common sense, really makes no sense at all. But all I can see are the parallels with how we think about inspection — as in testing— of medical students. What he and others have pointed out for years, is that inspection doesn’t work. But please, lets not call it science: rationality yes, empirical observations, yes. But not all that is a sound basis for action is science. Concentrating on the failures is only a part of making things better.

I like his list of myths. He is talking primarily about health care, but as he admits, at another level, he is talking about learning and learning systems. That is why I cannot read them, and not think about medical education.

Myths to abandon

1. Incentives will save us.
2. Skin in the game will save us.
3. Measurement will save us.
4. Accountability will save us.
5. Standards will save us.
6. Markets will save us.
7. Technology will save us.
8. Heath care will save us.