Category: Art

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Power of Simplicity

Blaise Pascal once famously ended a letter with an apology: I’m sorry that this was such a long letter, but I didn’t have time to write you a short one. Computer science has pretty much the same problem. It’s a young field, and young fields are messy. They get weighed down with excess Jargon. There are multiple names for the same ideas and the ideas themselves are often snarled together. It’s a complicated science, because we haven’t had enough time to make a simple one.

Read the article: Pascal’s Apology

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Nothing is withheld from us what we have conceived to do.

“Nothing is withheld from us what we have conceived to do.”

Read the article: An Unexpected Ass Kicking

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The two paths to success

Of course this leads to the question, “What is success?” Someone who spent his life working 80 hour weeks, living in hotels, and fighting his way up the corporate ladder to become VP of toilet paper marketing would probably consider himself more successful than a sandwich shop owner who spends his nights and weekends playing with his kids and working on hobby projects, but maybe the sandwich shop owner would be happier and healthier. Ultimately, it is up to each person to decide what success means to them, but I think it’s important that everyone be mindful of the decision they are making.

Read the article: Paul Buchheit: The two paths to success

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The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working

For most of my adult life, I’ve accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.

During the past year, I’ve read no fewer than five books — and a raft of scientific research — which powerfully challenge that assumption (see below for a list). I’ve also written one, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, which lays out a guide, grounded in the science of high performance, to systematically building your capacity physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

Read the article: Six Keys to Being Excellent at Anything

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Art Education Life Meta

Tips for Successful Self-Learning

The longest path is the shortest and the shortest path is the longest. Learning is all about abstractions.

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.“

Read the article: Measuring Measures – 7 Tips for Successful Self-Learning

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If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

If you wish to be rich, however, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family. But thick enough to shrug off the inevitable sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures. Not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success.

Read the article: If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

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How to be clever

Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics. If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong.

New research strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes.

Read the article: How to Raise Our I.Q.

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An idea whose time has come

Entrepreneurialism has become cool. Victor Hugo once remarked: “You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come.” Today entrepreneurship is such an idea. The triumph of entrepreneurship is driven by profound technological change. A trio of inventions—the personal computer, the mobile phone and the internet—is democratising entrepreneurship at a cracking pace. Today even cash-strapped innovators can reach markets that were once the prerogative of giant organisations. An activity that was once regarded as peripheral, perhaps even reprehensible, has become cool, celebrated by politicians and embraced by the rising generation.

Read the article: A special report on entrepreneurship: An idea whose time has come

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Evolution of the interface designs of operating systems

Over the years a range of Graphical User Interfaces have been developed for different operating systems such as OS/2, Macintosh, Windows, Amiga, Linux, Symbian OS, and more. Here is a look at the evolution of the interface designs of the major operating systems since the 80’s.

Read the article: Operating System Interface Design Between 1981-2009

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The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox

You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so. In game-theory terms, you would call the first group “strong bidders” and the second “weak bidders.” Your first thought might be that the “strong bidders”—women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch—would consistently win this kind of auction.

But this is not true…

Read the article: Game theory explains dinner-party dates