roflmyeggo

There is a simple counter-example that proves that this is the wrong question to ask.

You cannot simply make a zygote with just the DNA from a sperm and an egg together alone. Both parents pronuclei are required for epigenetic reasons. If you try to do this, and the pronuclei are not present, then you will not make any viable offspring.

This is just one example of how oversimplified the model taught by the book is, though it is a useful one. The only thing that is certain is that we are not anywhere near being able to claim to know how many genes it takes to make a person.

Agreed. It's refreshing to read a justification to learn to enjoy such moments.

This is especially true in a society that tends to only place value on thoughts that directly lead to tangible means of moving forward. Sometimes, however, these moments of thoughtlessness can complement the aforementioned moments of intensity. This combination can actually lead to an overall net gain in achieving ones goals, whatever they may be.

A tough concept for the prototypical Type A personality to grapple with, no doubt. But something that is worth pondering.

I use these for coding/studying all the time. If you download all of them and put them on shuffle you basically have ~40 hours of music to jump into at any given moment.

I love this approach to learning. It's something I've been really working to take on in my studies (and my own projects).

I've been using the Anki iOS application for a while now. I'm considering moving my stack over to org-drill.el to minimze context switching. Anyone made a similar switch or can compare the two at all?

Meditations is the usual go-to read by Marcus Aurelius. Then if you are still interested check out the writings of Seneca, Epictetus, etc.

This is the reason I am pushing myself towards simpler solutions, even if I end up losing some functionality/connections out of it. The added cognitive load of dealing with managing all of these services is becoming really painful.

Yes, I may not have push via the cloud to my latest iGizmo, but at least I don't have to worry that I forgot an important calendar, todo, file, or chat message on one of 5 services that mix and match between what they offer.

Org-mode can run calendar, todo, notes, habits, journal, etc.

Chat is where I still haven't found a solution. Switching to XMPP/SMS semi-exclusively is probably the next step.

The notoriety that this concept has managed to garner in the past 36 hours only secures the fact that a clone app (and however many more) will be made in a short period of time.

How much of an effect is removing the app really going to have?

I wonder if Apple will go this direction in the future..

Yet another reason to get a good nights sleep.

Many of these metabolic degradation products (not just beta-amyloid) of neuronal cell activities should readily be cleared quickly and efficiently from the interstitial space of the brain due to the highly sensitive nature of neuronal cells to their environment.

Some negative effects documented from these byproducts include: negatively effecting synaptic transmission[1], decreasing cytosolic Ca2+ concentrations[2] (Ca2+ is one of the final players in the triggering the release of neurotransmitters into the synapse between neurons to facilitate messages), and irreversible neuronal injury[3].

[1] - K. Parameshwaran, M. Dhanasekaran, V. Suppiramaniam, Amyloid beta peptides and glutamatergic synaptic dysregulation. Exp. Neurol. 210, 7–13 (2008)

[2] - K. V. Kuchibhotla, S. T. Goldman, C. R. Lattarulo, H. Y. Wu, B. T. Hyman, B. J. Bacskai, Abeta plaques lead to aberrant regulation of calcium homeostasis in vivo resulting in structural and functional disruption of neuronal networks. Neuron 59, 214–225 (2008)

[3] - M. P. Mattson, Calcium and neuronal injury in Alzheimer’s disease. Contributions of beta-amyloid precursor protein mismetabolism, free radicals, and metabolic compromise. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 747, 50–76 (1994)

It's not so simple as simply increasing the amount of CSF influx into the brain, but also increasing interstitial space via adrenergic receptor inhibition.

The clearance of beta-amyloid, etc. is largely linked to the state of sleeping that would be tough to isolate without inducing sleeping itself.

+1 for looking into peer reviewed publications, specifically review articles.

Not only are they concise, but they are highly referenced and well annotated. As long as you are willing to dig into the specific terms and concepts relevant to the subject yourself, you will find a very high S:N ratio in these papers.

The best part is that you can easily find yourself down 4-5 different rabbit holes by the time you are done because of the easy to follow references.

Imposter syndrome is when people are unable to internalize their accomplishments despite external evidence of their competence.

The phenomenon is highly common among high-achievers which is why Popova references it.

Vsauce makes a good point that we just aren't made to intuitively understand this type of stuff. Recognizing this fact, in my opinion, is a key driver in helping to wrap our minds around these concepts. It's important to understand that these concepts are valid in both our visible world and the hidden quantum world, the main difference is scale.

For example, I could never wrap my head around the fact that electrons can have multiple paths/histories simultaneously when travelling. The same is true of a baseball thrown in the air, the only difference is that on the visible scale that we are used to the chance of that baseball taking a different path/history is so small that it will never happen.

It's his passion for the material that always keeps me watching. Listening to someone explain a topic that they find deeply intriguing is a pleasure. Reminds me of Feynman.

I almost can't even believe that commercial is real.

I would love to see how it affected Cadillac's sales.

Amazing how quick the honey bees respond in unison to attack the hornet.

Even more amazing that the honey bee can withstand temperatures up to 118 degrees F, just 3 degrees higher than the hornet, and yet they still manage to use heat as a means of attack.

Fair enough, but as the level of abstraction increases in crime it becomes easier for people to commit crimes that wouldn't have otherwise. Remove the human interaction and the guilt that comes along with that situation is suddenly minimized.

Ultimately headed towards an IPO? Probably.

How long? Probably a while.

More and more companies are staying private as VC/hedge fund/private equity firm valuations stay high, it's fairly easy to continually raise money through private avenues, etc. There is less of a need to go public for the founders and investors of these backed companies to get rich.

I've thought about this often and the only solution I can come up with is to disallow myself to think quickly when solving problems, even when I believe that I should reliably be able to do so[0].

I've noticed that when I take the time to think slowly through problems, although the initial activation energy is higher, that I end up saving time in the long run. Also, I tend to end up with a higher percentage of correct answers. This trend tends to increase with the complexity of the problem.

Yes, you probably lose some time on the easy problems, but I look at it as a method of gaining net time over days, weeks, etc.

This, unfortunately, is tough to stick with. It's tempting to skip the easy steps along the way (and let our System 1 do all the work, leaving System 2 to collect dust).

[0] - This is still a working hypothesis that I will undoubtedly go back and forth on for the years to come.

There have been a lot of startups over the past decade centred around the sharing economy that have helped to prove that humans can be civil in these situations where one might think that we would default to nefarious activity - Airbnb, Local Motion, etc. to name a few.

Humanity is continuing to prove itself as capable of dealing with each other harmoniously and we are seeing great businesses emerge that are benefitting the masses as a result.

twitch.tv, Periscope, etc. or just about any form of live streaming application seems like a huge time-sink to me (and largely inferior products when compared to curated content).

These type of communities tend to remind me of the "extreme couponing" crowd and the like.

Sure you can get some free stuff, but at what price? What if you took that time and invested it in bettering your skill sets, etc.?

Jekyll can set the basics such as meta descriptions via YAML front matter and the page template system, custom page titles, custom URL structure, etc. You can also use proper formatting quite easily (h1, etc.) with your choice of formatting.

As long as you have that covered that is all you really need for good SEO - the rest is keyword research, quality content, links, etc.

Seems a little bit rash to differentiate web development from "real programming" with such a binary lens.

There are both good and bad web developers, just as there are software engineers.

If one wants to learn more about software engineering then of course there is nothing wrong with that, however it strikes me as odd to pursue it solely for the "higher prestige" that it carries amongst the programming forums.

Collary: similarly, switching from social norms to market norms would decrease the motivation of the user base to help each other out. The intrinsic motivation to do a social favour comes with its own rewards - you take that away by switching to monetary payment (even if they could pay an equivalent, fair price).

Great book. Interleaving contexts, spaced repetition, etc. - all great concepts.

The most important takeaway for me was accepting that the tougher something is to remember, the greater the benefit will be when we actually remember it.

As someone who has dabbled in both biology/chemistry and now computer science academically, my thoughts on flash cards and spaced repetition software has changed over the years.

On one side you have the biology/chemistry guys who tend to use a lot of flashcards, and have a reputation for "just memorizing" facts. Then on the other end you have the physics/computer science guys who often refer to themselves as "lazy" for lack of memorizing and have a reputation for only focusing on conceptual ideas.

It seems to me that the people who succeed utilize a mixture of both approaches ("memorization" and "conceptual understanding"). I'm not sure when these two approaches suddenly became mutually exclusive.

As an example, although there were some classes in Biology that required a heavy amount of memorization, without the flash cards it would have been very hard for me to make the conceptual connections during lectures, while reading, etc.

Knowledge and understanding is kind of like a spider web, the more you have, the more you are able to grasp.

Purely focusing on conceptualizing the topics at hand has never worked out as well as I had hoped.

The stark reality of entrepreneurship can be one of the greatest teachers.

My buddies and I experienced similar situations, albeit not at MIT, but at a private US D1 University as we pursued our dreams of medical school.

Luckily we basically threw in the towel one day and said it wasn't worth the stress anymore. We learned the importance of Pareto's Principle, Parkinson's Law, and a good nights sleep.

The crazy thing is our grades remained unchanged.

These were great life lessons that we learned that I wouldn't trade for the world.

Although I chose not to pursue medical school, both my buddies are in their first years and they constantly witness similar experiences to the article above and our initial undergraduate experiences, regardless of the schools that their classmates graduated from - MIT included.

Meanwhile my friends are doing very well in graduate school and continue to have just as much time as during our undergraduate years.

I hate to say it, but if it wasn't MIT, it probably would have been something else for these kids.

Hard Work != Productivity