One issue he touches on when he talks to the people at Boeing is the art of the checklist. A detailed checklist is more likely to turn your brain off. Where as a checklist that is not so much a how to but worded more as a reminder keeps the brain engaged.

Also I found the idea that complicated problems are not so much about the struggle to understand the problem but the struggle to remember all the basic steps and applying them in a preferable order. Or to put it another way, being able to break the problem down to its steps.

I was really avoiding reading this book because I did not need someone telling me how to make a checklist, but it is more than that and at the end maybe I did need someone to explain how to create a useful checklist.

Cheers,
Sunjay

I thought you’d enjoy this article about online poker that uses ’steep learning curve’ correctly:

Yet it is also part of a trend. Youngsters are flocking to poker as never before, attracted by its growing cachet and the ever-expanding
pots. The plethora of books, blogs and DVDs now easily accessible, and the rapid growth of poker online, means newcomers can learn the art much more quickly than in earlier eras. “When I started out it took years of hard grind at the table to get good. Now the learning curve is much steeper,” says Howard “The Professor” Lederer, a professional player.

It is often said that while Texas Hold ‘Em, the most popular version of poker, may take only minutes to learn, it takes a lifetime to master. Annette_15 may beg to differ.

http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10281315

Where did you see that Timeplot doesn’t support IE? I gave the docs a cursory overlook, and didn’t see that.

Also, timeline (the related project) has been on my list of ‘things to look at’ for a long time. It seems like it has some fascinating possible uses. (Does something change over time? Make a cool representation of it.)