Curiosity

Before I get into today’s subject, I want to say that I have newly discovered ear buds that have become my favorites. If I have enough space, I will discuss them after covering my main subject.

“Hope I die before I get old” is a line from My Generation by The Who. Well, arguably I’m old and dying is the last thing I want to do! What keeps me going is a healthy curiosity. I would guess that you have a similar curiosity since you’re reading this newsletter. While mine is mainly focused on technology, yours might be in cooking or hiking or travel or history or … well, anything!

Why talk about curiosity in a tech newsletter?

You might wonder why I’m writing about curiosity in what is considered a tech newsletter. The short answer is that curiosity is what’s driven me to write this thing in the first place. The longer answer? In my opinion, a healthy sense of curiosity has kept me “young”, interested in life, and interested in staying current with my passion which is technology. It keeps my mind relatively sharp because I hear or read about a new development and I work my mind to understand it and how I might use it or how it might apply to life in general, hopefully improving it for one person or several people. And then I have the motivation to share what I’ve learned.

Curiosity is what’s driven me

Curiosity has driven me throughout my life. What new things will be shown at the next conference? What will Apple do next? What will Google do next? And now we have Generative Artificial Intelligence! Whereas before new things would crop up maybe every few years, now it can be every few weeks or even weekly!

Professional curiosity

In many jobs, a healthy dose of curiosity will help advance you more quickly. In technology related jobs, curiosity will help the individual stay current and be aware of newer developments which can lead to promotion and awards. The same is true in health care and in legal professions. For a small business owner, curiosity can help them discover new ways to market or demonstrate their product and increase their income

Curiosity in everyday life

In non-professional environments it can help the individual discover new things. In cooking, curiosity will motivate you to seek out and try new recipes and methods of preparation. For travelers it can help them find new places to visit and for hikers, well, the same thing. See how it applies?

Curiosity for younger people

For younger people who are still in school, be it high school or college, a sense of curiosity can help them excel in their studies or their chosen field of study. Developing that sense of curiosity is, I believe, key not only to their success but is also key to their ability to contribute to the overall advancement of society as a whole. Curiosity would hopefully motivate them to explore new concepts and new ideas and even take action on those explorations. When I was a hiring manager that’s one thing I looked for in applicants and one attribute I wanted to see for promotion in the folks that worked for me.

My new favorite ear buds

Technology is always moving forward and, as a result, so are my choices when it comes to ear buds. I’m still a fan of open ear buds. My new favorites use newer versions of Bluetooth which tend to give them longer battery life. They also have larger speakers which greatly enhances their sound. Both of my new ones you can pick up from Amazon and both cost much less than $100. I use the Lingo headset (https://a.co/d/dBW0xRC) for Zoom meetings because it has a boom microphone so it can better focus on just my voice and not any surrounding noise or discussions. And it can easily do double duty for listening to music because of the size of its speakers. It has really good battery life, on the order of 10 hours and it charges with a standard USB C cable. It’s from Avantalk which is a spinoff from Avantree, a company that I’ve purchased from many times in the past. Right now they’re selling for just under $50.

My other new favorite I use strictly for listening to music. They can be used for calls and do a good job at that but I prefer to use ear buds with a boom for calls as I’ve discussed above. The V20i (https://a.co/d/f1ntFrx) is from Soundcore, another company that I’ve bought from many times in the past. They provide about 8 hours of battery life and their case provides another 25-30 hours of charge. They use the absolute most recent version of Bluetooth and have an app that provides the ability to tune the sound and you can adjust how they sit on your ears. They normally cost just under $50 but are available right now for just over $30.

That’s all for this time

I hope you understand the role of curiosity in life and how it can help you stay active and motivated How can you develop a sense of curiosity? Find a subject that you love and start pursuing it. Hopefully that will help you develop an ongoing sense of curiosity. Don't hesitate to write to me if you have questions!

As always, my intent is to help you understand the basics and equip you to search for more detailed information.

Please feel free to email me with questions, comments, suggestions, requests for future columns, to sign up for my newsletter, or whatever at [email protected] or just drop me a quick note and say HI!

If you like, you can read my most recent newsletter in the Hillsboro Times Gazette at https://go.ttot.link/TG-Column - I should have that link updated shortly after this edition of the newsletter appears in the online version of the newspaper.