#complex problems

Car Crashworthiness: Are There Physical Limits to Improvement?

Computer simulation of car crash is certainly among the most demanding tasks that engineers in the automotive industry perform. The size and cost of computer models for car crash is steadily growing and models with millions of finite elements are not uncommon. Huge compute power is needed to run such a model in acceptable time. But does this growth of modelsize and bandwidth really pay off? Is it…

“Lose weight fast with this one weird trick.”

“The investment secret banks don’t want you to know.”

“Three things you should always take to a restaurant (number 2 will shock you).”

There’s something about us that loves the quick fix. The simple solution to the complex problem. The one thing…that changes everything.

It’s why we fall for clickbait online. Every. Time. Even when we know it’s clickbait.

Why? Because we want it to be true. Not any particular “secret” or “weird trick” in an online ad. But we want the idea behind it to be true.

Deep down, you and I desperately want simple solutions to life’s complex problems. This is what clickbait is tapping into.

The thing is, almost nothing in life works that way. Just about everything in life is cumulative. That is, both the problems we face and the solutions to those problems – are made up of the cumulative total of a lot of different stuff.

There’s more to a healthy relationship than remembering birthdays and anniversaries. Not that you shouldn’t try to remember them.

But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. There’s more to it than that.

There’s more to a healthy relationship than trying to see things from the other person’s perspective. Not that you shouldn’t try. On a regular basis.

But that’s only one piece of the puzzle. There’s more to it than that.

Both are good ideas. Neither one by itself will do the job. No matter how well we do it.

This tendency in us? This desire in us try to solve complex problems by doing only one good thing? That’s exactly what Jesus is pushing back against in today’s Gospel when He says,

“Woe to you, Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done, without overlooking the others.”

Jesus isn’t dismissing what may seem like small, maybe even silly, outer signs of faith.

Jesus is dismissing doing only the small, outer signs of faith – to the neglect of our interior life.

Jesus is telling us to do the small, outer signs of faith. The Rosary. Prayer during the day. Starting the day with gratitude to God.

Because they create habits that will open our hearts to God and God’s love. Even when our interior lives are a hot mess.

Jesus is telling us to exercise judgment. To think before we act or speak. To be aware of the effect of what we do and say on ourselves. And on others.

Because exercising judgment will call us back to God. And will keep us from hurting others. And ourselves.

Jesus is telling us to love God. To let our hearts – and our lives – be filled with God’s love.

Because God’s love cannot be contained. It will spill over into every area of our lives. And it will move us to make a difference in the lives of others.

All of that together? Done over the course of a lifetime?

It’s nothing less than the sure and certain road to God, the path to becoming a saint.

What is Industry 4.0? To put it briefly, the idea is to collect a lot of data from the factory floor using a bunch of sensors, and use it to make better decisions, achieve better efficiency and identify anomalies. Today, many factory/plant managers think that Artificial Intelligence (formerly known as Linear Algebra) is able to solve all of their problems. Yes, AI can solve many problems, but it…

The Kepner-Tregoe methodology is a problem-solving and decision-making framework that helps individuals and organizations systematically analyze problems, make decisions, and manage risks. Developed by Charles Kepner and Benjamin Tregoe in the 1950s, the methodology has been widely adopted by businesses, governments, and other organizations worldwide. One of the core components of the…

On Covid-19, Multi-morbidity, Causality and Complexity Profiling

Multi-morbidity is a common condition in older age, and can substantially influence individuals’ health and quality of life, making management more difficult. The COVID-19, like other types of influenza, is know to kill mainly old and debilitated individuals, suffering from serious chronic diseases.

In the times of COVID-19, it has become popular to say the following:

If an elderly…

On Theories, Complexity and Decision Making

In highly complex contexts, or when one runs out of arguments in a debate, it is customary to resort to elaborate conspiratory theories. Theories are constructed based on a set of data points. When many data points are available, one can contruct many theories. The problem is that all these theories will agree in the very set of data points used to construct them. The figure below explains the…