#t-shaped

Para quem atua com o vital, o vitalismo, com vida e matéria, ser alguém especialista-generalista, conhecido como T-shaped é essencial. Recentemente conheci o termo “T Shaped” (o nome, não a definição) e o interpretei como [especialidades + generalismo + complexidade]. Continue reading Sou especialista-generalista, conhecida como T-shaped

Septic tanks are a common feature of homes, and we are all aware of how important they are to families. In India, a significant proportion of houses do not use the municipal wastewater system. It's not that they choose to install the septic tank themselves.

The majority of India, however, regrettably lacks the luxury of having sewer lines in their town or hamlet. Instead, they decide to treat the water using a septic system. It is essential to understand the routine septic tank maintenance procedures you should carry out if your property has a septic system in order to prevent clogs and leaks and increase its longevity.

Are you interested in learning more about septic system upkeep? Please read the entire essay through to the conclusion in order to learn the solution to this issue. Let's first discuss what a septic tank is in order to comprehend how to maintain one on your own.

An underwater sedimentation tank known as a septic tank is used to treat wastewater through drainage and biological decomposition. A septic tank treats wastewater from residential plumbing, including that from bathrooms, kitchen drains, and laundry, using natural processes and tried-and-true technology.

The design of a septic tank system is quite straightforward. It is a waterproof underground container composed of concrete, fiberglass, or plastic.

Sludge and scum cannot exit a septic tank and enter the drain field region due to compartments in the tank and a typical T-shaped outlet. Simple onsite sewage facilities like septic tank systems only offer minimal treatment.

Septic Tank Maintenance: What Do You Need To Know?

Keep these eight most essential septic tank maintenance tips in mind to keep it in good shape:-

Step1: Check for leaks throughout the septic system

Regular inspections are the first stage in septic tank upkeep. Strong sewage odors are released when the septic tank leaks. Because the tank is underground, it will be difficult to find any leaks. So the best time to look for leaks is when the septic tank is pumped.

One of the worries with doing a quick daily blog is that everything you write is superficial and speculative. I do no research. I write whatever comes into my head and trust my instincts as to whether it is true.

How accountable should you be for your assertions? In Superforecasters, Philip Tetlock tracks predictions to see how accurate people perform over time. I wonder whether the same should be true of assertions. What does it mean for something to be true? Are you working from first principles or just being pragmatic. How much value is there in speculative thinking when you are experimenting with ideas that are tendentious, unsourced, and untested? Does it expand a realm of creativity or is it just flim-flam?

I admire those people who dedicate themselves to a single long-term research project — relentlessly thinking and writing about it, gradually building up expertise and becoming the 'go-to guy' on that topic. By focusing on a subject you learn whether your instincts were correct. You become accountable.

In design circles, we talk of the T-shaped person who knows something about everything (the horizontal dimension) and everything about one thing (the vertical dimension). That always seemed like a good approach to me.

(via The Expert Generalist: Why the Future Belongs to Polymaths)

By Zat Rana

Some of history’s greatest contributions have come from polymaths.

Aristotle practically invented half a dozen fields of study across philosophy. Galileo was as much a physicist as he was an engineer when he helped kick-start the scientific revolution. Da Vinci might have been even more famous as an inventor than an artist if his notebooks were ever published.

Even in the last 100 years, we have had people like John Von Neumann and Herbert Simon who have made breakthrough advances across fields as diverse as computer science, economics, and psychology.

That is, of course, not to detract from the specialists who have pushed our progress forward. In fact, until now, these specialists have far outnumbered the polymaths in both their historical ranks and their contributions.

After all, it takes a lot of time to master the depths of a specific field so that you can eventually add something that pushes it ahead. From this point of view, it makes sense that polymaths have been as scarce as they have been.

Still, it’s clear that whenever we have had giants like Aristotle, Galileo, and da Vinci, the contributions they made even in specialized fields may not have been made in the same way if they hadn’t attacked a problem with a diverse inventory of mental knowledge and understanding.

Polymaths see the world differently. The make connections that are otherwise ignored, and they have the advantage of a unique perspective.

In a world increasingly dominated by machines, I have a feeling that this approach in going to become increasingly valuable.

The Redundancy of Reality

One of the reasons Aristotle created so many sub-fields of philosophy and early forms of science is because these fields were so young back then.

They were branches of the same underlying tree trunk, and Aristotle had a deep enough understanding of what was contained in that trunk to then divide it into different parts and make his early contributions.

Even so, however, the questions he asked and the answers he provided are still up for debate, and he is still a highly influential figure in philosophy. He didn’t just collect all of the low-hanging fruit, but he went the full length in developing the path that lay ahead.

The lesson here extends beyond philosophy. Reality is categorized in our mind by words. That’s how specialization is born. We move from a general observation through our senses and then we divide this observation into specializations like philosophy, psychology, economics, and art.

The tree trunk is reality, and the branches are the different disciplines, which then become their own trunks of knowledge with branches.

What polymaths realize by studying the different branches is that many of them have the same foundation, and if this foundation is deeply understood then all they need to do is apply that ingrained knowledge to a different context rather than do the work of surface-level specialization.

For example, as a writer, if I want my work read, I need to know marketing.

I’ve been fortunate and done relatively well for myself in the time I’ve been active, and yet I don’t read marketing books, and nor do I spend all that much time trying to formally learn about it. Why is that?

Well, because I’ve always had a deep fascination with psychology, and to me, marketing is just psychology dressed up in a particular context. Psychology is the trunk, and it’s a trunk I’ve thought about a lot, and as a result, I can already see the patterns that most people think of as marketing tactics.

Reality is redundant, and when you learn widely, that becomes clearer and clearer. The more you explore, the more you can exploit these redundancies.

A Higher Rate of Learning

The big difference between the approaches of a polymath and a specialist is that the specialist picks a spot and then goes deep, whereas the polymath is on a lane that continuously gets wider.

These are obviously not mutually exclusive, and the ideal combination to me is one that relies on a strong understanding of the fundamentals of many disciplines with a specific domain or two in which you specialize.

That said, if we take just a specialist and a polymath separately, beyond just the benefit of the creative connections that are available from having studied broadly, the polymath also has a learning advantage.

Learning itself is a skill, and when you exercise that skill across domains, you get specialized as a learner in a way that someone who goes deep doesn’t.

You learn how to learn by continuously challenging yourself to grasp concepts of a broad variety. This ironically then allows you to specialize in something else faster if you so choose. This is an incredibly valuable advantage.

It explains how some of history’s polymaths were able to contribute in such a specialized way even though they were primarily focused on going broad.

Now, in a world where Artificial Narrow Intelligence systems are going to displace most routine, specialized work, it isn’t too much of stretch to assume that this skill of learning to learn across disciplines may just be the difference between those who reinvent themselves and those who don’t.

In fact, chances are that our current distinctions between disciplines will start to fade away and new ones will arise. Many of them will likely reside between areas that aren’t currently covered by specialization.

Traditionally, the idea of having a single career over the course of a life wasn’t unreasonable. The future, however, looks different. People will likely have multiple careers that differ significantly. Even if they don’t, we will see more and more project-based work, which will require similar skills.

In such a world, the learning ability of a polymath may just be the difference.

The Takeaway

At any point in history, most of our knowledge is contained outside of individual minds. It’s contained in the cultures that spring up around us.

A big part of today’s culture is the internet. It’s not only democratized knowledge, but it’s made it so accessible that those who are curious enough can’t help but embrace the approach of a polymath. As such, we’re going to see more and more people playing at the intersection of different disciplines.

While specialization will still have its place, the boundaries between the many aspects of reality are going to continue to be blurred, and those who can comfortably embrace such blurring will thrive.

Although this may appear to many as unfamiliar, the truth is that it’s actually a far more accurate representation of what is going on. We’ve just been conditioned to think otherwise.

As Leonardo da Vinci would remind himself,

“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses — especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

What makes the world interesting is the interaction between objects and not the objects in and of themselves. If we’re always restricting these interactions by creating boundaries, we’re also taking away from our comprehension.

Nothing exists independently of its surroundings and that fact doesn’t change just because we decide to be blind to it with narrowed disciplines.

In an evolving world, those who can see that will have the edge.

[Entire post — click on the title link to read it on Medium.]

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              ~Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, Executive Coach, Consultant, and Mentor.

What is a T-shaped professional?