January 2012
3 posts
Design & Compromise →
[…] a real effect of compromise is that it prevents intact ideas from being tested and falsified. Instead, ideas are blended with their antitheses into policies that are “no one’s idea of what will work,” allowing the perpetual political regurgitation, reinterpretation, and relational stasis that defines the governance of the United States.
“[…] we all search for what can be transacted upon, for attention or esteem...”
– We have forgotten leisure as “non-activity”
“[…] It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of...”
– Autobiographical Notes, Einstein
December 2011
5 posts
“A certain type of writer begins ‘The essence of poetry is’ or...”
– C. S. Lewis
Firsthand knowledge →
[…] The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentators.
“New ideas have the same effect on me as heroin does to an addict. The initial...”
– Intervention by Sean King
How Doctors Die →
[…] One of my patients was a man named Jack, a 78-year-old who had been ill for years and undergone about 15 major surgical procedures. He explained to me that he never, under any circumstances, wanted to be placed on life support machines again. One Saturday, however, Jack suffered a massive stroke and got admitted to the emergency room unconscious, without his wife. Doctors did everything...
“The ability to write well co-evolves with having stuff that you want to say....”
– chillyconker’s comment on Hacker News
November 2011
1 post
“Can you trust a teacher who doesn’t use what he teaches? Who has never...”
– Bret Victor — Some Thoughts on Teaching
September 2011
2 posts
“Твердое убеждение в материальной реальности Ада никогда не отвращало...”
– Олдос Хаксли — Двери восприятия
“When we reduce risk in some areas, we tend to take on more risk in others. For...”
– Smeed’s Law for Programming
August 2011
1 post
“Experts say our brains need boredom so we can process thoughts and be creative....”
– Scott Adams
July 2011
1 post
“I hate symbolic abstraction, I think it’s a barrier to creativity. So I...”
– Fast Company article quoting Bret Victor
June 2011
4 posts
David Foster Wallace about staying conscious and... →
A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.
[…] “Learning how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you...
“[…] except in very rare
circumstances the idea of special learning places...”
– John Holt — How Children Fail
“The idea of doing the
dividing mentally rather than with white rods did not...”
– John Holt — How Children Fail
“The children are willing to accept all kinds of mathematical shorthand if I...”
– John Holt — How Children Fail
May 2011
8 posts
“My conjecture became that the world’s biggest problem isn’t poverty or disease...”
– Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out – The Startup Genome Project « Steve Blank (via igrigorik)
“When you are solving a difficult problem re-ask the problem so that your...”
– Aza Raskin – You Are Solving The Wrong Problem
“It was reasonable for Plato to think that the ideal of, say, a horse, was more...”
– Peter Norvig – On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning
“Note the danger of using a child’s concept of himself to get him to do...”
– John Holt - How Children Fail
“Ялта была едва видна сквозь утренний туман, на вершинах гор
неподвижно...”
– Чехов, Дама с собачкой
“Many of the software engineers that I’ve worked with have only the most...”
– Bret Victor - Kill Math
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me,...”
– Chuck Close Quotes
“I recently watched “Waiting for Superman”, a documentary about the...”
– Bret Victor - Kill Math
April 2011
4 posts
“There never was an age when such an amount of artistic food was at the disposal...”
– Harold Speed, The Practice & Science of Drawing
“[…] in painting, the great painters never lose sight of the fact that it...”
– Harold Speed, The Practice & Science of Drawing
“Talent is just another name for the love of a thing”
– William Bouguereau, French academic painter
“[…] one thing we’ve found is that groups that manage themselves are...”
– Jason Fried
March 2011
7 posts
“[…] pain is an opinion on the organism’s state of health rather than...”
– Phantoms in the Brain
People don't learn from science videos unless... →
It is a common view that “if only someone could break this down and explain it clearly enough, more students would understand.” Khan Academy is a great example of this approach with its clear, concise videos on science. However it is debatable whether they really work.
The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition... →
“Performance increases monotonically with deliberate practice. This is perhaps the most important point of the paper. You can break past plateaus and crank up your performance — if you are ready to put in the hours of deliberate practice.”
““I have found that, in general, our brains our smarter than we are. They...”
– jonmc12 on HN
Quotes from Stephen King's "On Writing"
Working when you don’t feel like it
[…] stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
Being in control
[…] put your desk in the corner, and every...
“It’s my opinion that “adolescence” is a new social construct...”
“Perfectionism is a matter of fantasy, not reality. Here’s how it works in...”
February 2011
2 posts
“In our studies, we found that the final outcome of a negotiation is affected by...”
“The North American lottery system is a $70 billion-a-year business, an industry...”
– Wired
January 2011
8 posts
“You wouldn’t believe how many things I’ve started writing, and three hours later...”
– Chris Clark
Miller's Law
Miller’s law, part of his theory of communication, was formulated by George Miller, Princeton Professor and psychologist.
It instructs us to suspend judgment about what someone is saying so we can first understand them without imbuing their message with our own personal interpretations.
The law states: “To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and...
How Facebook ships code →
Resourcing for projects is purely voluntary.
A PM lobbies group of engineers, tries to get them excited about their ideas.
Engineers decide which ones sound interesting to work on.
Engineer talks to their manager, says “I’d like to work on these 5 things this week.”
Engineering Manager mostly leaves engineers’ preferences alone, may sometimes ask that certain tasks get done first.
Engineers...
“If you’re making a significant life change, you can’t accurately...”
– techiferous on HN
7±2 items bullshit →
Many years ago landscape architects used my +/-7 paper as a basis to pass local
laws restricting the number of items on a billboard. It was funded by the big
motel chains; if you run a mom-and-pop motel you have to put a lot of
information on your sign, but if you have a franchise everybody knows you have
hot and cold running water, color televisions, free breakfasts, etc. The
restriction on...
Advice for the young bride →
Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an...
“People say suicide is selfish. I think it’s selfish to ask people to...”
December 2010
6 posts
“If you had a manager that talked to you the way you talked to you, you’d quit....”
– Seth’s Blog: The world’s worst boss (via igrigorik)
“… in my experience, it is doing the work that teaches you what you need to...”
“I find OOP methodologically wrong. It starts with classes. It is as if...”
– Alexander Stepanov
What does it feel like to be stupid →
tl;dr - it feels awesome!