https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/Recent content in Thoughts on Kevin KuhlHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usSun, 24 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/quenched-disorder/Tue, 02 Jan 2024 19:54:01 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/quenched-disorder/Millions of years ago a staggeringly complex system (post-ice-age Earth) began warming. After a very long time, probabilities collapsed: continents and oceans formed at random locations on our planet. Then, time: Biology… Civilization… Quenched Disorder is a concept in physics whereby properties of a system are randomly generated and then frozen. The system now works with (or against) them. I love this because it’s grounded in natural law and so fundamentally human.https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/leaders-and-ambiguity/Mon, 18 Dec 2023 12:19:21 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/leaders-and-ambiguity/Candidate is comfortable with ambiguity and can work independently. Nope, Sorry. The thing about ambiguity is, at a certain level, no matter how ambiguous or exploratory your project is, what you are asking people to do in it should not be. It is your job to make it clear what you are trying to learn or accomplish. You should be able to provide context and clarity in the face of ambiguity.https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/the-electric-state/Thu, 07 Dec 2023 21:16:17 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/the-electric-state/Lighthouse keepers were once warned they shouldn’t listen to the sea for too long. You could lose your mind and hear voices in the static. As if there was a code in there—a code that could, as soon as your mind detected it, irrevocably conjure demons from the depths. – Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State, 2017 The Electric State is 90% art 10% textual fiction about humanity’s relationship with technology.https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/a-certain-slant-of-light/Fri, 01 Dec 2023 17:05:31 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/a-certain-slant-of-light/Working outside just now I noticed how the winter sun is different somehow. It reminded me a lot of the titular Emily Dickinson poem I read several winters ago which stuck. The analysis is interesting. Just the diffusion of light can stir us. There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar,https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/what-is-talent/Sat, 25 Nov 2023 22:09:16 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/what-is-talent/Scholars seem to think talent is innate. But that’s weird, right? It doesn’t matter how I am talented; I either am or I am not. Another common angle is the Dad Speech: Well if you practice every day you’ll get better at this. This is the ever-encouraging “you’re bad and I know you don’t feel good so you should feel this way every day until you are good... I saw this clip of a well-known clip of Bob Ross recently.https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/a-mine-before-gold/Fri, 24 Nov 2023 14:27:42 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/a-mine-before-gold/We crave machinery because it’s order incarnate: it is well defined and it the thing it makes is well defined. There’s no mess. But sometimes we have to make a mess first. When we’re starting a project we must ask ourselves: Should the energy be to build the mine, or to search for gold. And by the way, it’s just as bad to ignore machinery as it is to build it too early.https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/love-after-love/Fri, 24 Nov 2023 14:01:55 -0600https://kevinkuhl.me/thoughts/love-after-love/From an article by Maria Popova @ The Marginalian , which I recommend. This has something happy and mournful about it: LOVE AFTER LOVE by Derek Walcott The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self.