Sunday Posts

Katy Milkman points out that the Spring solstice is a good time to start new things. Certain days work well, her research shows, to start new endeavours: New year's day, birthday, anniversary of something significant! I have missed this year's start to do anything new; right now is my next best chance. I am in the middle of a big change. I, along with a few other people, built a business over the years. But it was flawed from the start. My partners had different aims, which they, self-declaredly, did not disclose. It was more like an academic project put together, without proper structures. I went along with it, acknowledging the limits of my power and boundaries of my engagement. The goal for me was learning and doing, which I have done in abundance. But it was never meant to be a successful in its original aims because of its structural shortcomings, and right now, it is being morphed into something other than its intended form. It is painful, as it will be for any creator in

  Are skills dead? It is awkward to ask just when everyone is talking about skills. In our post-GPT age, the consensus is that while ‘higher education’ may be over, we are entering the age of ‘skills’. Governments worldwide are pouring money into skills education, multinational agencies and think tanks are publishing reports on which skills are needed, and even university leaders are straying into the skills language. Yet, the same reports, employers, and experts are talking about the ‘half-life of skills’. That skills get outdated was known, but we are now talking about them getting outdated faster than it takes to master them. For example, a programming language becoming outdated in 2.5 years would mean that it would not be required by the time one gets to a level of professional maturity in programming with that language. One can argue th