Category Archives: amaths-wars

The Sixth Sense

Posted on by

.

Cole: I see dead people.
Malcolm: In your dreams? (Cole shakes his head no)
Malcolm: While you’re awake? (Cole nods)
Malcolm: Dead people like, in graves? In coffins?
Cole: Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dead.
Malcolm: How often do you see them?
Cole: ALL THE TIME.

— The Sixth Sense

.

Cole: I see dumb people.
Malcolm: In your dreams? (Cole shakes his head no)
Malcolm: While you’re awake? (Cole nods)
Malcolm: Dumb people like, in graves? In coffins?
Cole: Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don’t know they’re dumb.
Malcolm: How often do you see them?
Cole: ALL THE TIME.

— Me@2010.09.15

.

.

.

2010.09.16 Thursday ACHK

Futurama

Posted on by

.

Professor Farnsworth: For example, if you killed your grandfather, you’d cease to exist!

Fry: But existing is basically all I do!

— Roswell That Ends Well

.

.

.

2010.09.14 Tuesday ACHK

Language courses

Posted on by

.

Language courses are an anomaly. I think they’re better considered as extracurricular activities, like pottery classes. They’d be far more useful when combined with some time living in a country where the language is spoken. On a whim I studied Arabic as a freshman. It was a lot of work, and the only lasting benefits were a weird ability to identify semitic roots and some insights into how people recognize words.

— Paul Graham

.

.

.

2010.09.11 Saturday ACHK

Matrix Reloaded

Posted on by

.

Neo: D’you already know if I’m going to take it?

The Oracle: Wouldn’t be much of an Oracle if I didn’t.

Neo: But if you already know, how can I make a choice?

The Oracle: Because you didn’t come here to make the choice, you’ve already made it. You’re here to try to understand why you made it. I thought you’d have figured that out by now.

— The Matrix: Reloaded

.

.

.

2010.09.08 Wednesday ACHK

The American Scholar

Posted on by

.

Emerson wrote in his speech “The American Scholar”: “We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; Divine  Soul which also inspires all men.” Emerson closed the essay by calling for a revolution in human consciousness to emerge from the new idealist philosophy:

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes. It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will. … Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.

— Wikipedia on Transcendentalism

.

.

.

2010.09.07 Tuesday ACHK

Upwind

Posted on by

.

I think the solution is to work in the other direction. Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. This is what most successful people actually do anyway.

In the graduation-speech approach, you decide where you want to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there? I propose instead that you don’t commit to anything in the future, but just look at the options available now, and choose those that will give you the most promising range of options afterward.

It’s not so important what you work on, so long as you’re not wasting your time. Work on things that interest you and increase your options, and worry later about which you’ll take.

Suppose you’re a college freshman deciding whether to major in math or economics. Well, math will give you more options: you can go into almost any field from math. If you major in math it will be easy to get into grad school in economics, but if you major in economics it will be hard to get into grad school in math.

— Paul Graham

.

.

.

2010.09.03 Friday ACHK

天才之道 3

Posted on by

.

Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that’s one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it’s not our fault if we can’t do something as good.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as genius. But if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

— Paul Graham

.

.

.

2010.08.31 Tuesday ACHK

Startup 2

Posted on by

.

Startups in 137 chars: Make something someone specific needs, launch fast, let users show you what to change, change it, repeat last two.

— Paul Graham

.

.

.

2010.08.29 Sunday ACHK