Advice from a quantum physicist

3. (a). Advice to people at the beginning of their careers: do not imagine that you have to know everything before you can do anything. My own best work was done when I was most ignorant. Grab every opportunity to take responsibility and do things for which you are unqualified.
(b). Advice to people at the middle of their careers: do not be afraid to switch careers and try something new. As my friend the physicist Leo Szilard said (number nine in his list of ten commandments): “Do your work for six years; but in the seventh, go into solitude or among strangers, so that the memory of your friends does not hinder you from being what you have become.”

Via interview with Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson的女儿Esther Dyson是业内人士，非常牛。

So It Is 2012 Now

2012 will be a year of humble existence for me. I have slowly come to know the damage done by my very bias and narrow vision on things. The world as I saw it couldn't be further from what the world really has been. And I decide to try my best to perceive things as they are. There was a certain pride in the way I perceive things in my own biased ways. The exact reason is hidden somewhere in my unconsciousness.

2012 marks my first year completely exposed in the adult world. It will be a challenging year pitted with failures and mistakes. Also I shall embrace them with enthusiasm and persistence. I will go back to the basic skills and learn about them with fresh eyes: speaking, reading, writing, listening, and socializing. If there were a "reset" button on me, I shall press it everyday before sleep.

Software Productivity

From “What Happened to The Future” by Founders Fund

“the exponential growth of computational power (represented by Moore’s law), storage capacity (Kryder’s law), data transmission (e.g., Butters’ law), and other physical embodiments of computing is familiar. What is equally familiar is the somewhat slower rate of development in the utility of computers – software has gotten more powerful, but the rateof improvement doesn’t seem to be as swift as in hardware, though measuring improvements in software is somewhat impressionistic. Never theless, as anyone who has used a Bloomberg or Lexis can attest the amount of data we collect clearly outstrips out ability to make easy use of it. One way to look at this is to compare increases in computing power (as measured by the density of transistors on a chip) versus the change in productivity. Few technologies have ever improved as quickly and consistently as computer processors and yet the impact of computing is the (admittedly wildly onverdetermined) productivity statistics is difficult to detect. This suggests that however fast hardware imporves, software might be running behind. We certainly don’t have anything approaching a general artificial intelligence, a lack many futurists 30 years ago would have found rather surprising. Indeed, until fairly recently, it was difficult to find a stable operating system."

My thoughts: Perhaps the next great leap forward in productivity (for average consumers) lies in the development of new user interface technologies. Keyboard and mouse, despite their extremely long product lives, are not the perfect fit for our input needs. They are far from doing a good job (time, accuracy) at helping us getting what we need with a PC. Voice, touch, eyeball-tracking seem all promising but how quickly will these technologies be deployed at average consumers’ disposal with reasonable cost?

True Grit

via Farnam Street

We speculate that individual differences in the intensity dimension of effort are salient and, therefore, described by many adjectives in the English language (e.g., energetic, conscientious, dutiful, responsible, lazy). Whereas the amount of energy one invests in a particular task at a given moment in time is readily apparent both to oneself and to others, the consistency of one’s long-term goals and the stamina with which one pursues those goals over years may be less obvious. Similarly, whereas the importance of working harder is easily apprehended, the importance of working longer without switching objectives may be less perceptible.

总结一下：什么难练习什么，坚持做很久很久  (isolate the most difficult part and keep correcting them with deliberate practice)

Brilliantly said, on Wall Street analyst

via Asymco

independent analysts are theorists who make observations while professionals are data gatherers who make predictions.

 Wall Street sell side analysts are rewarded for making Buy/Sell recommendations that cause clients to retain the services of the firm they work for. They are not paid to be accurate with specific forecasts in fundamentals. They are paid to predict how stocks move. The objective is not to be accurate in the quarterly but to support the “call” or prediction. The disconnect from accuracy comes in trying to sustain the call with a “conservative” forecast.

By dampening expectations, the stock rises on the “surprise”.
Because an analyst sells predictions, he self-censors what he believes.

So here is the difference: Analysts have an incentive to put forth a version of the future that supports their call on the stock. Bloggers have an incentive to put forth the most accurate version of the future.

Word(s) of the Year

2011 - Patience
2012 - Ideal over Desire