joshrule

PG's essay for those wanting a refresher: http://paulgraham.com/top.html

I actually majored in both computer science and philosophy at a school with a top 5 CS program and a top 50 philosophy program. I found the combination useful, but eventually grew frustrated with much of the philosophy. My classes often spent more time splitting hairs than trying to say useful things. The philosophy that actually proved most useful were my logic courses, and one or two papers from philosophy of mind.

That said, philosophy is incredibly important. But, as PG has noted, we tend to do a poor job of it (http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html). We need to spend more time focused on saying useful, testable things. In short, the best scientific results merge with philosophy. So, everyone should be a philosopher, but should do the majority of their philosophy as science.

Again, both philosophy and computer science are important, but after studying both pretty intensely for 3.5 years (I graduated with over 180 credit hours), you have to pick and choose the philosophy. It's mostly useful for setting the initial biases on which the rest of your science will depend and for continuing to think about things science can't speak to, yet.

original paper: http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(11)00002-X

A related paper just came out in Science a few days ago. The authors used the inner workings of a fruit fly's brain to provide a robust solution to the Maximal Independent Set (MIS) problem.

Check it out here: http://barkai-serv.weizmann.ac.il/GroupPage/ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/183.abstract

original paper: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MC.2010....

original paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1003.4410

The instruction set of a properly designed computer must be isomorphic to a minimal, elegant high-level programming language.

I've been a bit confused about the details of the loper-os project. For some reason, this sentence sparked a micro-epiphany and the whole thing came into focus. So, I thought the article, and the project at large, was worth sharing with HN.

Cal Newport also does a great job in keeping up with a lot of the published literature in these fields. Check out his books and blog at http://calnewport.com. It's been incredibly helpful to me over the past few years.

The applications for this sort of material are pretty incredible. Rubbery materials can often tear/degrade easily; I can't tell you how many times I've torn some soft plastic and thought to myself, "Well, that's useless now..." This material has the potential to totally change that.

Also, did anyone think of Superman when reading this story? I couldn't help but be reminded that he, too, is healed by "the power of the yellow sun".

a link to the original paper: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nphys1...

I apologize. They typically do more 'adapting' than that.

Link to the referenced paper: http://homepage.mac.com/peptoids/RZ_paper_pdfs/Murnen_JACS_2...

The original press release from Berkeley: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2011/01/18/nanosca...

I imagine the research about non-verbal communication in humans would be instructive here. A relatively small minority of our in-person communication actually comes from the spoken words. The rest comes from body language, tone, inflection, and so on.

I wonder how much of that a dog or similar animal picks up on regularly? Could it be that they actually pick up on the majority of our communicated meaning?

What's more, I wonder if we are we actually poorer communicators than animals, because they understand our messages better than we understand theirs?

I'm always a bit awed when recognizable functions like 'if' and 'let' start emerging from a mess of lambdas and Xs. It amazing how simple items and simple rules can combine to create fantastically intricate systems (i.e. the entire space of computable functions). Thanks for sharing, Matt.

The same article, posted on the author's homepage, hit HN about a month ago. There are some pretty good comments there as well. Check it out. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1999010

I will say that, as I'm preparing for grad school, this sort of writing is incredibly helpful. If anyone else is considering writing a piece like this, I encourage you to do so.

I agree that a clearer definition of wrong here. My guess is that it has to do with the solution being empirical and not-guaranteed, rather than analytic and airtight.

Just because the solution isn't perfectly analytic doesn't mean it's wrong, though. In fact, it seems hard to argue that the solutions which work well in natural systems are wrong.

Really, we need a lot more research like this that takes well-working natural systems and distills the underlying model. It seems a bit arrogant to try and independently solve problems when existing solutions are sitting all around us.

Here's the paper's abstract: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/183.abstract

Here's the supplemental materials: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/183/suppl/DC1

Does anyone have a link to the actual paper?

Here's another video of it doing close to 0-radius turning: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gk-yQ1H3M8

This prototype reminds me more of big dog: - http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html

A quick google search didn't turn up anything at deere.com. But, the device was made by Plustech, now Timberjack. Anybody find anything more specific?

So, are you saying, for example, we should get subjects with good copies in these experiments to spend the same amount of time reading as those with bad copies?

Or, do you think it's some other factor?

The main point of this piece is not that you take time at the end of the day, or in the middle, or a few times throughout. The point is that, whenever you do it, you need to take time to think, time to reflect on what you've been doing. If you never take time to reflect and answer some of the nagging bigger questions, you severely short-change your long-term effectiveness.

I've been running an experiment recently to take at least 15 minutes each day to think about my research (I do neuroscience research for a university in DC). The results have been great, and I'm starting to add in more reflective time throughout the day, even when I'm not 'working'. If you're interested, I have been, and will continue to be, writing about it here: http://joshrule.com/blog. Look for posts about trial 2.

It seems that it might be more helpful to whitelist sites. The web grows too quickly, and the mass of spam sites overwhelmingly so. If I had some way to blacklist sites, I'd end up spending a lot of time doing so. In fact, it could quickly take up most of my search time.

If, though, we could whitelist sites, it seems that results would get cleaner faster. I don't care about how many bad sites are out there, as long as helpful sites make it to the top. Plus, I typically use just a few sites to access reliable information anyway (the number's about 7, right?), so if I can whitelist results from those sites, I'll probably find my desired content more quickly.

What about the case when there are 30 spam sites listed before 1 good site? That hasn't happened too often for me. Instead, the results I'm looking for are usually just 4 or 5 spots down the front page, and very occasionally on the second page.

White listing seems like it would still be faster and easier for now.

Probably the two most important things as I close my first year of marriage (2 January is my anniversary):

- Do as much as possible together. Try to play games on the same team. Eat meals together. Talk together. Get ready in the mornings together. Watch movies together. Do as much as you possibly can - together. If you think about the way we use the word 'marry' in other concepts (i.e. the perfect marriage of X and Y), it talks about a blending of two things that becomes a new, third thing. So, marriage isn't just two people living in the same place. It's two people becoming something new together. One of the best examples I've seen of this idea is the second chapter of the book A Severe Mercy. The togetherness the author writes about is ridiculously complete.

- The wedding, as much work as it takes to put together, is just the starting line. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you've won your wife and can move onto another project. It's an incredibly easy mistake to make, and a terribly dangerous one. Marriage, especially because of my first point, is hard work. It's breath-taking and awe-inspiring, but it's also hard work. I Love it!

Congratulations!

Minimalism isn't the problem here. Minimalism can be used a number of different ways, and the author discusses only one of those ways - luddite asceticism. I rarely encounter that attitude, though.

Instead, many of the better minimalists I've read cut back on most things so that they can dig in extremely deeply with a few things. They want to be extremely good at a few (2-5) things, and to do so, they sacrifice being moderately good at a large number of things.

The author talks about great achievers soaking themselves in things, building lots of connections, and building great ideas. This 'minimize to maximize' approach does the same thing. It just tries to build connections where they are most likely to be helpful. It understands that with our limited capacity, we should be devoting as much as possible to the most important things in our lives.

Many of the same dangers are present in democracy, especially as it degenerates into mob rule. Unless individuals bear responsibility for their own actions, we can be pretty barbaric. Witness the war brutalities committed in Vietnam or WWII when soldiers thought they could absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming the chain of command. Also, see the later chapters of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.

Corporations have rights to free speech only if they are people under the law. Currently, they are, but I think there are major problems with that. It takes responsibility from those making decisions and puts it on some general body.

Corporations don't make decisions, though. People make decisions. We act as individuals. France doesn't attack Britain. Soldiers in one army attack soldiers in another army. We act as individuals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_individualism

I don't agree with everything it said, but The Corporation makes some good points about how corporations as legal entities allow people to abdicate responsibility. Watch it on Youtube here: http://bit.ly/hb0wuL.

When I write anything longer than about a paragraph, I always start with an outline. I used to hate outlines; I'd just bust out a 10-15 page paper and write up the outline afterward (who didn't do that?).

Now though, for a 1000-1500 word piece, I spend at least an hour outlining it. Even the outline itself goes through a few drafts before I start trying to add complete paragraphs. I'd rather have a solid grasp on the ideas I want to communicate than on the specific turns of phrase I'll communicate them with. Turns of phrase are a dime-a-dozen. A clearly communicated idea is much harder to find.

A lot of that has come from practice, but I also owe a lot to PG's essays on rapid iteration from mush to presentable product.

I've had a similar surge in clarity. I spend at least an hour each day writing. But, I recently started an experiment to spend another 15 minutes each day just thinking. I have pen and paper, but the goal isn't to write. It's to think. The pen and paper just capture a few notes. For more details, see http://wayofthescholar.com/trial-2-day-1-reflecting-for-15-m... (I'll have an update coming out tomorrow).

The results have been great so far, and those 15 minutes are becoming the most productive part of my entire day. It seems like this time basically assigns problems to my brain, which it works on unconsciously while I'm walking home from the lab.

Because writing is thinking, writing is great. I wonder, though, are there other ways to think which are just as potent, or even more so?

It's interesting that most of her other emotions function normally. It was my understanding that the amygdala facilitated a number of emotions, not just fear. Am I wrong?

Those two are not necessarily related, though. For example, poor understanding of a situation can lead to wild misjudgments of danger, whether or not someone experiences fear.

The point is well-illustrated, but not at all new. Jim Collins's book Good to Great dedicates an entire chapter to what he calls the flywheel effect. Consistent effort applied over a long period of time with a consistent vision can generate massive results. But, I doubt the concept was new with him, either.

By the way, if you haven't read Good to Great, I highly recommend it. Although based on large, slow-moving businesses, the general points Collins and his team extract are easily applicable to just about any significant project.