Tagged “knowledge”

this is comforting. let lots go

love this

A random selection:

• not all life-changing advice is good advice
• An estimate is better than a guess. An measurement is better than an estimate.
• It's never the money. (They will always say it is, but it's not.)
• The best time to turn it on is before it's ready. You'll get plenty of data to finish it faster.
• Your positive mental attitude makes up for most of your shortcomings.
• Isolate. Isolate. Isolate.
• If it's not written down, it's not.
• The reason everyone we work for sucks is because those who don't suck never call us.
• Almost anyone can do almost anything.
• Always take sides

On the wonderful thing that is the www, and his introduction to it (I didn't notice who the author was until the end!).
I sometimes forget how shielded I am for the ad-covered dumpster fire that is many pages; either from blocking them or not visiting them. Enjoyed the upsides he mentioned: easy to contact the author of something, cross-referencing without stacks of books, and the ability to pulish things yourself.

Try to verify things you read (lies are rampant online, fact-checking is easier than ever!), write and contribute things, stay out the political trench fights.

Some suggestions:

• read more
• read slower, understand better
• write in books, apparently. I am still unconvinced

first 3 were more interesting to me

1. Define the problem. Be as specific as possible (boundaries and constraints).
2. Break it down. List possible solutions, list assumptons (gaps). Then fill the gaps.
3. Prioritize solutions. Look for high impact, high influence
4. Plan
5. Analyze
6. Synthesize
7. Tell the story

More links and suggestions in comments

on overly specific expertise

Love this term - this is exactly how I learn. Start by skipping over the details,
develop a coarse understanding, then refine your knowledge by learning about specific areas in more detail.

Good strategy to minimize hindsight bias and try to improve quality of decisions. Interesting point from some interview: good decisions that have bad outcomes (due to chance) are better than bad decisions with good outcomes, as the latter reinforces bad decisions.

The best way to practice is to spend time thinking