SAST Wingees

FTOTW ending Jan 13, 2007 (#15) – Prodigies, Procrastination, Movie Baran..

Science:

1. Top 10 most beautiful physics experiments. My personal favorite is Eratosthenes measuring the earth’s circumference using just 2 sticks. F***ing brilliant. 
2.  Why do we procrastinate? 
   Piers Steel published his research after analyzing procrastrination
   studies from the 1920s to 2006. He concluded that impulsive people are
   likely to procrastinate more. His conclusions have strong ties to the ABC Theory that i have been evangelizing.

Leadership:

1. The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters – insightful article by Eric Wargo, includes a surprising demolition of Mozart’s genius by Malcolm Gladwell. <Via Kottke.org>
2. Bob Nardelli’s fall at Home Depot has kicked off a firestorm of sorts with management thinkers falling over themselves to theorize on what went wrong. Amidst this, Influx Insights wrote a short insightful article with 4 important lessons for leaders. With McNierney’s not-so-great stint at 3M coming to an end last year (he moved to Boeing),  it looks like Jack Welch’s  proteges are falling off the pedestal like nine pins. Additionally, we already noted that Jack Welch’s management playbook has been rendered obsolete.
3. Excellent interview with Daniel Goleman – the pioneering writer of the classic “Emotional Intelligence“.  <Via Sadagopan>

Entertainment:

• Priya Raju picked up the brilliant movie Baran by Iranian director Majid Majidi. Al though it has a very simple love story as its backbone, the movie is a melange of culture, problems that Afghan refugees face in Iran, poverty etc. In every frame, the actors seem to be just weaving in and out as if it were real life. Fantastic. Actors in Indian movies who think that exaggerated emotions are important for acting, could learn a thing or two from these actors.
• Since the story involves people speaking multiple languages (we watched with english sub titles), the director uses people from the different ethnic backgrounds in Iran to portray them accurately in the movie.
• The director’s delicate touches are visible throughout – for instance,
  where Lateef spots Baran’s hairpin with a strand of hair.  Majid Majidi shows that he really understands the medium extremely well with his absorbing visuals using a small amount of dialogue to pepper the movie.
• This is an outstanding movie but you may need to be an alternative movie lover to like this. Mainstream movie lovers may find it slow-moving.