dlo

Yes!!!

You are completely spot-on.

> As for the rest of your argument, there are books and books and books that address all of it point by point.

Can you name a few?

Love it. Lmk if you never need a hand. I was on the core analysis team at Fortify.

I used to work on a static analyzer that did taint analysis, model checking, buffer bounds checking, and so on -- a bit like a compiler backend on steroids. If there's a specific topic you'd like an explanation on, I could be convinced to write something up.

My favorite was always context-sensitive, interprocedural points-to analysis. And dataflow analysis in the presence of higher-order controlflow constructs.

> I doubt it's really production ready given he likes to start and stop projects

A likely good strategy for success in startups is productizing projects started by George Hotz. :-P

That's very admirable behavior. If he assents, please do share his identity -- even if privately.

This is an excellent quote. I'd like to attribute it properly -- would you mind naming this professor?

+100 for this book. Absolutely amazing.

On that note, this is an excellent class based on the book:

http://ai.berkeley.edu/home.html

> How do you convince someone like this that universal healthcare is better for all of us?

Here is one approach.

1) Enumerate the different options.

2) For each option, enumerate the upsides versus the downsides, which includes cost of implementation and operations, along with their likelihoods. Every option has potential downsides -- are we willing to accept them for the potential upsides?

3) Rank the options by expected utility. Which one comes out on top?

Ironically, you may find that universal healthcare is not the top-ranking option or that we have not yet come up with a high-expected-utility option.

> even if one source is factual and the Daily Stormer is…

I think it's disingenuous to use the Daily Stormer here as an example. I have definitely come across publications on the left that play loose with the facts or have unlikely explanations for directly observable facts.

It would be more fair to use something like PragerU:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45247302

Oh, cool. This is my project. I'm the CTO of the Insights Network and am available to engage in discussion today if there happens to be interest.

A couple of suggestions.

- Many conferences use blind peer-review.

- After you've finished up with the work, you can ask a PhD to provide feedback/editing in exchange for co-authorship.

Ah, right: "My peak concentration is usually right before break and after break it's generally gone."

One thing I do is, before I take a break, I dump my current notes, as well as things I'd like to do, into a Google Doc. When I return from my break, I take the time to read the notes, which loads pertinent facts back into working memory and gets me back into it.

Another practice that helps is that I let a fine-grained todo list guide me during work. I make sure to explicitly mark what I am currently working on. If I get distracted, it is straightforward to remind myself what I was doing, and once I am done with it, I know exactly what I should be doing next.

You might enjoy reading the section, "Intensely Single-Task," in this article, Philip Guo's "How to Be Effective."

http://pgbovine.net/productivity-tips.htm

He also expanded that section into a full article:

http://www.pgbovine.net/intense-single-tasking.htm

Here is an excerpt I think you might find useful: "This tip has had the greatest benefit to my effectiveness: When you want to work on a task (e.g., from your to-do list), get your mind to enter a specific 'mode' where it only knows how to do that task. Forget everything else. Remain fixed in that mode until you get tired and have to "break character". Then move onto the next task and repeat."

I think it addresses: "Tasks take way longer to complete with forced breaks, especially if the breaks are longer."

I was there myself. It turned out to be undiagnosed sleep apnea. I agree with everyone here who says to see a doctor as one of the first things you do.

I'm not involved in the operations of YC, but this is really terrific feedback! I hope they notice.

23:10: "Cancer is not one specific disease. Cancer is actually many diseases put together. In fact, cancer is many rare diseases -- if you take cancer to the limit, it's likely the case that the same cancer has never occurred twice.

"If you look at the genetic footprint of cancer, even within the same patient -- as I'll explain in just a moment -- you get very different cancers from the same originating source. And I'll explain why that is. That's why this sort of very information-driven approach to curing cancer is absolutely critical."

26:29: "... the genome has syntax. And in fact, it has a semantics. And beyond that, it has an instruction set too."

30:00: "So when you're fighting cancer, you're fighting evolution itself inside your own body."

1) Turns out there are a bunch of volcanoes, 91, underneath the west Antarctic ice sheet that we previously didn't know about. In fact:

(Excerpts are placed between square brackets.)

["We were amazed," Bingham said. "We had not expected to find anything like that number. We have almost trebled the number of volcanoes known to exist in west Antarctica. We also suspect there are even more on the bed of the sea that lies under the Ross ice shelf, so that I think it is very likely this region will turn out to be the densest region of volcanoes in the world, greater even than east Africa, where mounts Nyiragongo, Kilimanjaro, Longonot and all the other active volcanoes are concentrated."]

2) Furthermore, eruptions would cause the ice sheet to melt:

[“Anything that causes the melting of ice – which an eruption certainly would – is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.]

3) They could already be erupting and causing the ice to melt:

[“We just don’t know about how active these volcanoes have been in the past,” Bingham said.]

4) Also, consider this quote:

[If one erupts, it could further destabilise some of the region’s ice sheets, which have already been affected by global warming.]

I followed the link. The headline is:

[Although fracturing and surface melting on the Larsen C ice shelf might sound like indicators of climate change, these processes are natural]

The article links to a source, another article in the same paper, that actually contradicts the claim it is making. Another quote from the article:

[So, while ice fracturing and surface melting may sound like signs of climate change in action in Antarctica, they are really part of the background against which we must look for real change.]

The author seems to be teaching a "student-initiated course." Many universities give students to teach a 1-unit course that is not really part of the mainstream curriculum and does not really count toward the degree.

Here's a study you might be interested in:

http://time.com/money/4779223/valedictorian-success-research...

> Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing Princeton math wiz.

Rare. But when it happens, it rocks the Earth. [1]

[1] Richard Feynman

> The biggest one is made-up ideas. The best startups come from personal experience. It was something you or someone you know needed.

My cofounder and I chose our idea as a result of reading research papers. We were so prescient with our analysis that we found many people within our circles who needed what we built. I became a user myself -- it ended up saving me!

Guess I'll have to pass on getting funding from pb. :-)

Another possibility is to work on your ability to work out the different algorithms and data structures on your own with perhaps a minimal specification or statement of the requirements.

This would require a focus on understanding as opposed to memorization. Also, this ability has broader application than doing well at interviews.

Thanks for the recommendations. I love SAT solvers and have been looking for a way to get into them.

Hm. Wonder how it could've leaked. I have to imagine that this incident impacts the likelihood of you sharing something like this with the YC network in the future. I would support rooting this person out and giving a stern warning.

Other possibilities, besides someone being untrustworthy, is that the journalist was bluffing. Or perhaps someone's account was hacked.

You might enjoy this. I actually think this is well done.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/index.html

Obviously, it could use more work, but the kernel of something really good is there.

Been thinking of doing the same.

Additionally, I think game development is a compelling way to teach math and science.

I'm going to expand the definition of "daily life application" from things you actually use daily to things you experience daily. These could be engaging too!

For example... what are sunspots? How does the plumbing around your house work? How does a car battery work? How does a microwave oven work?

Another thought. If we are unable to find applications for a technique, should we place such an emphasis on teaching it? I look around and see all the very practical (and interesting!) math and science that is not being taught, e.g. signal processing, just because they are nontraditional. It's a shame to me.