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Second installment of LFK Thoughtful Weekends – if you missed the first one or want to read the story behind it is here: LFK Thoughtful Weekends 001

But in short these posts are meant to highlight some articles that has made me think a little extra about my life, taught me something or maybe just made me smile.

Well let’s get underway.

The first one highlights somewhat of a potential problem with our consumer-economy. I guess bringing on this together with the one on basic income from last weeks post makes me seem like more of a socialist than what I would see myself, but as mentioned in that post, my own stand doesn’t matter all that much with regards to what I find interesting in these.

Getting back to the article. It revolves around the right to repair. As you have probably noticed from own or others behavior we very rarely repair and most often just buy new. Repairs are done, but primarily within warranty and once beyond items are mostly replaced rather than repaired. The no. 1 reason for this is economy. Economy from two sides but with one side sort of trying to force the hand, which is what this article revolves around.

We buy new because it is cheaper than having it repaired and our behavior is largely reliant on cost. Company policy almost solely controls this. Within warranty they are “forced” to repair but once we go beyond the warranty, they are not and if you go to a third party to get your item repaired, no money is coming back to the company that made the item. As a lot of these companies try to maximize profits they are of course looking at ways to make you buy yet another item from them once the “old” once runs out of warranty and if they can make the old ones harder to repair they might be able to sway you into buying new instead of repairing.

This of course isn’t the best solution for the earth in general as it leaves a hell of a lot of waste to be taken care of. One way to help this underway would be to become better at recycling, but as this article highlights the right to repair is also a struggle that can go a long way of helping this. So with no further explanation:

The right to repair: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/fight-right-repair-180959764/?no-ist

I love Richard Feynman. I have praised him several times before on this blog and will surely continue to do so in the future. What I really love about him is his aversion of pretentiousness and his ability to see and break down the world into simple understandable terms. If you haven’t already read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! you should absolutely go pick it up. It is just so enjoyable!

This specific article is on the difference between knowing and understanding. It mentions some passages that are also present in the book. In short Richard Feynman is asked to be on an educational board for grade school that should help decide what should be taught and which books should be used to teach the children. In order to prepare for this he thinks he better read all the available books to see help decide on which to choose. Of course he is the only one on the board who actually did this mammut task, but what he finds is even more amusing. They are all crap! They try to use to difficult language to teach something that could be told way more easily. They try to sound wise without really teaching anything. All pretentious!

As he mentions in the book his father always anchored new knowledge to something already knew and understood. Paraphrasing he tells about his father reading aloud from a book that mentions the size of a tyrannosaurus rex. Which was X number of feet tall. But does that really mean anything. A child could recite this number but then if you asked him would that make it larger than a cat, he/she would have no idea. The facts aren’t anchored to anything. So each time his father taught him something like that he always anchored to something he already knew. The tyrannosaurus rex is X feet tall which means that if he stood outside the house his head would be at the hight of the top of our roof on the house. Well this way of thinking is one of the points of this article, but again I can highly recommend reading the actual book!

Feynman on teaching kids: https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/07/richard-feynman-teaching-math-kids/

Finally a little piece on something almost everyone has experienced and something that you probably won’t experience relaxing through the weekend – but then you are prepared first thing Monday morning. The topic in question is brain fog. Closely related to procrastination as one usually leads to the other. It is no groundbreaking article on brain fog, but a good reminder as to what can be done while struggling with brain fog. I can personally attest to the recommendation of starting something very simple. Just set out to do a little unimportant thing and before you know it you have done way more than you initially set out for. But I won’t dig too deep into this, it is not that deep of an article but sound advice.

Brain fog: http://blog.trello.com/foggy-brain-4-ways-to-better-leverage-your-off-days/

This concludes the second installment of LFK Thoughtful Weekends. Hope you enjoy it. Have a very good weekend and remember to relax!