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Clams and Mussels

Loved reading this story about using clams to monitor water quality - so simple and clever. And this is not an over-worked bunch either. They do their tour of duty for three months and return to their natural habitat. No funny business with IoT sensors and data and whatnot. Just learning lessons from nature. Turns out that the solution is not super novel 

This Polish Waterworks company claims that this biomonitoring method is one of the most effective proven technologies for water quality testing. According to them, mussels monitor water quality for over 8 million people in Poland. Turns out, Minneapolis is using this method as well. Minneapolis Water Treatment and Distribution Services credit 12 mussels for keeping the water clean and safe.

Reminded me of a very boring training I had to take as a new hire one time. The trainer was truly the worst and he got zero participation from the class so he had to keep talking and alienating his audience even more. We did not want to be there and most definitely did not want to hear him deliver his prepared content. Yet, there was a point in the class when he told us his mantra for life  - just know enough to do the next step and keep repeating it. It sounded simple and stupid until he illustrated with an example that made us all pay attention.

A couple of years ago, his mother had taken ill very suddenly while working abroad. He had to get her medically evacuated and become her care giver overnight. She went from high- functioning and completely normal to fully broken overnight so there was no time to plan or think. On the day of our training, she was having a medical crisis but he made her tea first thing in the morning before leaving to work. When he returned home and the end of the day, he would do whatever was needed - help his mother get through that day. He did not know what the next morning would bring but most likely he would know the next step to take when he woke up. 

The training was awful but we all learned a lot from him as a person. It would be fair to say. I was not the only one who wished he abandoned the soul crushing curriculum and just shared lessons from his life. They must have been full of moments of inspiration like using a dozen mussels to test the quality of water for an entire city. 


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