131–140 of 171 posts
> Recently, I came across a few old and new interviews of Donald Knuth I have developed the conclusion that reading digestive summary from original source materials is ultimately ineffective for me at this stage of the life. Unfortunately, the author did not provide links to these interviews. For anyone who is writing a summary from other source material, please do provide references. That's one of the things I learn…
Ironically, a significant portion of Knuth's lifetime work consists of digested summaries of original source materials.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
probably the Lex Fridman podcast interviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BdBfsXbST8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE1R8FYUJm0 the second one is definitely where the last paragraph in the article is from. Weird that the interview is dated 2021-09-09 and the post is 2020-04-30?
Wow, Lex has gotten some of the greats on his podcast. I should probably give it a go. The few episodes I've seen were more shallow than I was looking for as an engineer, but I assumed that was because he's helping bring these interviews and ideas to a wider audience.
>In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how to live now, not that we should live in some particular way because there's going to be pie in the sky some day. The end means almost nothing to me. I am glad it's there, but I don't see it as much of a motivating force, if any.…
It's kind of a balm for when I feel particularly atheist and annoyed at the world at large.
> ...it turns up in Philippians 3:16, where the writer says that: > "You don't race to get to the goal; the process of racing itself, of keeping the pace, is the real goal. When I go on vacation, I like to enjoy the drive." > In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how to…
So, Knuth wrote this rather unusual book called "3:16" in which he took every chapter-3-verse-16 in the Bible (where chapter 3 is too short for that, he continued past the end into chapter 4 in the obvious way), thought about it a lot and wrote down his thoughts, and also commissioned eminent calligraphers to render his translations of all those verses. (He was inspired, if that's the right idea, by the notion of str…
His commentary on Tanakh—especially on the Chumash ("Five Books of Moses")—serves as the basis for more than 300 "supercommentaries" which analyze Rashi's choice of language and citations, penned by some of the greatest names in rabbinic literature.
I still read TAOCP, particularly vol 4, for fun from time to time, but I have to admit that the days are long gone when an ordinary engineer needs to study algorithms in depth. The vast number of libraries and services are good enough that most people just need to know a few terms to function adequately for their jobs. I guess it's a good thing as it shows how robust the software abstractions are, in contrast to math…
The most valuable part of TAOCP, for me, is its writing. I've never read anything that is more precise or intuitive. TAOCP is also pleasant to read. It's the book that I go back to once a while after being bothered by the sloppiness in the documents and papers and many other written materials consumed everyday. Reading it gives a sense of enlightenment that regardless of all those poor writing, there is hope to reach…
> My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at the end of the day, she's accomplish…
> My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at the end of the day, she's accomplish…
Until eventually someone invariable has to clean up your mess due to awful choices. But why should you care? You've moved on with your trail of collateral damage by then, reaped the benefits and the fixer will subconsciously take the blame for any problems from outside observers.
> My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at the end of the day, she's accomplish…
This only works for simple tasks (can be brute forced), and ones you've done before (you know steps that lead to goal), and those with greedy strategies (heuristics).
> My mother is amazing to watch because she doesn't do anything efficiently, really: She puts about three times as much energy as necessary into everything she does. But she never spends any time wondering what to do next or how to optimize anything; she just keeps working. Her strategy, slightly simplified, is, "See something that needs to be done and do it." All day long. And at the end of the day, she's accomplish…
"Long-term consistency trumps short term intensity" - Bruce Lee https://www.dannyok.com/blog/2015/9/26/long-term-consistency...