Pipsqueak Articles

Posts written by Olga Werby or Christopher Werby

My Books, Pipsqueak Articles, sci-fi bites, short story

Sci-Fi Bites: The Black Queen

by Olga Werby • March 23, 2016

The Black Queen I’m a seed. Plant me. All night it called. A rat came by to investigate. It sniffed the small smooth sphere, but the object didn’t smell like a seed or food of any kind. The rat scurried away. I’m a seed. Plant me. The cat passed by without even a glance. A family of raccoons stopped by. Poked. Left. The sun came up. A fractional mind crawled over. It tasted and touched, walked about and left a pheromone trail for others to follow. Soon dozens of fractional minds surrounded the sphere. By this time, the object grew to the size of a very large marble. I’m a seed. Plant me. It kept repeating to them, flaunting itself for them. And they gathered in greater and greater numbers to roll the sphere underground. Just about the time small sinuous lines started to appear of its surface, a big black bird flapped over. I’m a seed. Plant me. The sphere called to the raven. The bird prodded the object, which was now the size of a tennis ball, with its beak. It wasn’t food, like it claimed. And it wasn’t one of those shiny, sparkly objects that the bird…

Sci-Fi Bites: The Boy Who Finds

by Olga Werby • March 2, 2016

Short Science Fiction Stories for Kids These are stories that are written for middle school and high school kids. The stories are fun and different and introduce characters and situations that might be new and yet eerily familiar. My aim was to help develop empathy in children. The stories are available in Kindle Vella, but since there is no way to share illustrations, I have included illustrations for the first short story, The Boy Who Finds, below. Have fun reading!

Something from Nothing

by Olga Werby • February 19, 2016

I like writing quite a bit — it is one of the few creative activities where we get to invent an entire universe without outside interference. Movies, plays, games — they all require teams of people and large budgets to get birthed. Written stories are not like that. We can control all of it — from each individual word choice, to how things turn out for our characters, to what font is used for the presentation, to how the story gets delivered to the readers. There used to be a time when one could program games (I used to do so) all by herself — code, graphics, ideas, even publishing. But that is not possible anymore. The skill set required to make something of quality is too wast. The same is true for movies. And plays can only be experienced in front of an audience with actors… But novels! There is freedom of creativity in writing stories. When I type “the end” something became that never existed before! Something from nothing — that’s creative writing! It’s like magic, only cooler. Particularly if the author enjoys the act of writing as much as having written…

Hacking Weight-loss with Brain Science

by Olga Werby • February 18, 2016

Financial rewards for weight-loss and exercise work…but only if you take the money away at the end for non-performance. Rewards are just not as effective as punishments! [Study: Framing Financial Incentives to Increase Physical Activity Among Overweight and Obese Adults: A Randomized, Controlled Trial] This result is, of course, very consistent with Dr. Daniel Kahneman’s work in behavioral economics, memory, and our perception of happiness. One of the key points is how we assign value on items that we already owe versus those that we are considering acquiring. Consider your house (if you own one) or your car. Would you sell it for the same amount of money as you would be willing to buy it for? The answer is no! We value what we own far more than other people’s stuff. Our reaction to ownership is emotional. Mathematics of equivalence just doesn’t penetrate how we feel through to our judgement. Consider the following social incentive program: At the start of my weight-loss program, I get $50 to lose 10 pounds over a 6 months period. At the end of that time period, I only lose 4 pounds. I have to give back $30 — that’s the deal, right? I…

My First Three Science Fiction Books

by Olga Werby • November 22, 2015

I wanted to be a scientist and go into space. I got my B.A. from Columbia University in Mathematics and Astrophysics and I worked at NASA on the Pioneer Venus Project as a programmer. I received my masters from U.C. Berkeley in Education of Math, Science, and Technology and went on to earn my doctorate in education. Together with my husband and business partner, I conceive, design, and create products, ideas, websites, and exhibits. Along the way, I’ve learned how to write. I’m also a binge reader — I find an author I like and I read everything they’ve ever written! I love science fiction. I have consumed voraciously thousands of books (some are neatly shelved in alphabetical order and some lie completely disorganized in piles on the stairs — my children now read science fiction too and it’s more difficult to keep things in place). I wrote my first story when I was about eight — I got hooked on a book series about an orphan boy who traveled the world with his uncle collecting animals for zoos. Unfortunately, only the first three books were translated into Russian. So I wrote what happened next (I didn’t have a choice,…

Thoughts on An Event Apart San Francisco

by Olga Werby • November 5, 2015

We just returned from An Event Apart San Francisco and I am trying to put down notes and ideas while they are fresh in my mind. It was three full intense days of information — some great, some good, some not so much. But overall, it was a valuable experience (and they do conference right — great food, comfortable location, endless supply of coffee and sugar). My take is always unique — I overheard some people who were ecstatic over the presentations that I felt were completely off — but I have been in the business for over three decades now and I want ideas that are new to me. So here are my notes from the presentations. “The Fault, Dear Brutus (or: Career Advice From a Cranky Old Man)” by Jeffrey Zeldman A lot of what Jeffery spoke about resonated strongly: the need to force ourselves to get rid of disdain for our clients that just “don’t get it” — mutual respect is the foundation of designer-client relationship in conversation about design, focus on purpose and use and stay away from esthetics — every person has their own sometimes, people (clients, bosses) are incapable of seeing our growth as…

Commons Assembly: Bridging Health Divides

by Olga Werby • September 28, 2015

Last week was the week the Sage Event—a conference of Sagers (individuals who have been Sage Bionetworks supporters over the years and some new comers) that I have been organizing for the last 5 months. At its core, the idea for this event was the provide an opportunity for Sage Scholars and Sage Mentors to come together and share their projects. These Sagers are incredible people! Below are some of my thinking as it emerged from listening to their presentations. And when the videos become available, I will link to those as well in another post. There were four general themes for the day: 1. ICT and Health; 2. Delivering Health to Hard-to-serve Populations; 3. Rare/Orphan Diseases; and 4. Health, Education, Patient Data, and Advocacy. But the ideas shared at the event were not to be constrained! So allow me to present a very different non-technical view as a way of summarizing ideas that floated during the day. First, allow me to break the science investigations into two parts: • First based on DATA Science—analysis of information available about patients and the environment as coded in medical records or submitted via apps or gathered via sensors. In other words, scientific…

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