Posts Tagged: applied

Teaching Leadership

Some individuals are thought to be ‘natural’ leaders – they seemingly step into the role fully functional – such as George Washington. Some individuals develop as leaders once in the role – Steve Jobs, for example. Some individuals learn leadership by opening their mind and soaking up the rich material provided by other leaders, coaches,Read… Read more »

In Praise of Basic Research, or It Doesn’t All Have to Be Useful

I try to remember to do basic research every once in a while, where I figure out how the world works without a goal in mind. This contrasts with applied research, which is about solving particular problems or taking advantage of specific opportunities. The distinction can be pretty clear in science. For example, in physicsRead… Read more »

The Passing of an Amazing Public Servant — Maynard Hill

Today I was saddened to read of the passing of Maynard Hill in the Washington Post. Mr. Hill was a pioneer in unmanned aerial vehicles, and set many records for speed, duration, and altitude for radio-controlled aircraft. His most recent was the first trans-Atlantic flight of a model aircraft in 2003. I interviewed Maynard HillRead… Read more »

Transparency Camp thoughts: an ode to basic research

Several people have asked me what I took away from Transparency Camp, an “unconference” held this past weekend here in DC (read the Twitter stream to get an idea what it was like). I did get a few concrete facts out of it, but fundamentally to me, it was all about basic research, not applied.Read… Read more »