justinabrahms/gist:1638664

## gistfile1.txt
* You and Your Research
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
** Necessities for Success
*** Courage
It seems as though the speaker said this as if this was also
synonymous with confidence. Asking impossible questions, etc. Maybe
brazenness would be a reasonable quality too.
*** Thinking
*** Age
Math folks are best when young. Composers best when old. His theory is
people who are best when young are victims of their own success, eg
You were smart, so go on this committee. Or perhaps mentoring /
teaching instead of doing. Also likely moving into management.
*** Turning faults into advantages
The prime example given is "They won't give me enough people to do the
computations I want." becomes "How can I make computations with fewer
people." which lead to making machines do the computations.
*** Paging in 10-20 well thought through problems. When you hear information that triggers an idea on them, go back to it.
*** Living longer increases the chance that you'll do something successful b/c you'll have more attempts.
*** Keep up with your field (conversations, reading), or you'll wake up in 10 years and not realize what is relevant.
*** You must sell your work
When people are flipping past your article in a journal (eg Hacker News), you need to present it in a way where they'll stop and read it, else you won't get the credit.
*** Being nice now pays off later.
*** Be honest with yourself.
Its easy to make excuses, and if you want to give them to others, that's your deal. You should at least be honest with yourself and say something to the effect of "The reason I didn't get X is because I didn't do Y".
** Quotes
*** When told 'I need this by Friday', "You set your deadlines; you can change them."
*** "[When solving a problem] ...you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've done. It isn't just a matter of the job, it's the way you write the report, the way you write the paper, the whole attitude."
*** The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.
*** "Failing to plant acorns so the oak trees can grow."
*** "''How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?'' He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said, ``You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years.''"
*** ``Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.
*** "Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying, ``creativity comes out of your subconscious.'' Somehow, suddenly, there it is. It just appears. Well, we know very little about the subconscious; but one thing you are pretty well aware of is that your dreams also come out of your subconscious. And you're aware your dreams are, to a fair extent, a reworking of the experiences of the day. If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and there's the answer. For those who don't get committed to their current problem, the subconscious goofs off on other things and doesn't produce the big result. So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention - you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free."
** Random Thoughts
*** Avoid fighting the system and just take advantage of all the system has to offer.
Drop the ego and stop asserting that things must be done your way. (Example he gave:) Instead of showing up all the time in shorts and a tshirt, angry that you don't get respect, dress like a conformist. Otherwise "you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your professional career", which he says adds up to lots of hassel.
*** If you're looking for a reason to not be able to do something, its easy to find one. Just fucking do it.
*** It is good to go into management when your vision for something exceeds your ability as an individual contributor.
*** You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done.
*** You must believe in your idea enough to go ahead, but doubt it enough that you notice the errors and fault. This seems like tricky balancing.
*** If you want to do important work and you don't think your current job is solving an important problem in your field.. why the hell are you doing it?
*** Instead of getting mired in details of daily problems, step back and ask if you can solve all of next years problems by using a more general method.
*** Great thoughts time. Spend lunch on Fridays talking about great problems.
*** When giving a technical talk, don't just dive into the technical bits. Give a good overview of the field because very few people will be as well versed as you are in the topic.
*** Don't brainstorm. Go have conversations with individuals and you will come back energized (assuming you have a good selection of individuals you can bounce things off of)
*** He mentions reading enough of a book to understand the problem, then pausing to figure out the answer for yourself. Only then read the answer so you actually do some original thought, rather than just reading what everyone else thinks.
*** When asked about the relative effectiveness between lecturing, writing papers and writing books, he says he prefers books b/c knowledge doubles incredibly quickly. Books are worth a lot b/c they necessarily filter out the irrelevant information.
** Questions
*** What are the most important problems in my field?
	* You and Your Research
	http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
	** Necessities for Success
	*** Courage
	It seems as though the speaker said this as if this was also
	synonymous with confidence. Asking impossible questions, etc. Maybe
	brazenness would be a reasonable quality too.
	*** Thinking
	*** Age
	Math folks are best when young. Composers best when old. His theory is
	people who are best when young are victims of their own success, eg
	You were smart, so go on this committee. Or perhaps mentoring /
	teaching instead of doing. Also likely moving into management.
	*** Turning faults into advantages
	The prime example given is "They won't give me enough people to do the
	computations I want." becomes "How can I make computations with fewer
	people." which lead to making machines do the computations.
	*** Paging in 10-20 well thought through problems. When you hear information that triggers an idea on them, go back to it.
	*** Living longer increases the chance that you'll do something successful b/c you'll have more attempts.
	*** Keep up with your field (conversations, reading), or you'll wake up in 10 years and not realize what is relevant.
	*** You must sell your work
	When people are flipping past your article in a journal (eg Hacker News), you need to present it in a way where they'll stop and read it, else you won't get the credit.
	*** Being nice now pays off later.
	*** Be honest with yourself.
	Its easy to make excuses, and if you want to give them to others, that's your deal. You should at least be honest with yourself and say something to the effect of "The reason I didn't get X is because I didn't do Y".
	** Quotes
	*** When told 'I need this by Friday', "You set your deadlines; you can change them."
	*** "[When solving a problem] ...you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've done. It isn't just a matter of the job, it's the way you write the report, the way you write the paper, the whole attitude."
	*** The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not.
	*** "Failing to plant acorns so the oak trees can grow."
	*** "''How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?'' He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said, ``You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years.''"
	*** ``Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former.
	*** "Everybody who has studied creativity is driven finally to saying, ``creativity comes out of your subconscious.'' Somehow, suddenly, there it is. It just appears. Well, we know very little about the subconscious; but one thing you are pretty well aware of is that your dreams also come out of your subconscious. And you're aware your dreams are, to a fair extent, a reworking of the experiences of the day. If you are deeply immersed and committed to a topic, day after day after day, your subconscious has nothing to do but work on your problem. And so you wake up one morning, or on some afternoon, and there's the answer. For those who don't get committed to their current problem, the subconscious goofs off on other things and doesn't produce the big result. So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention - you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free."
	** Random Thoughts
	*** Avoid fighting the system and just take advantage of all the system has to offer.
	Drop the ego and stop asserting that things must be done your way. (Example he gave:) Instead of showing up all the time in shorts and a tshirt, angry that you don't get respect, dress like a conformist. Otherwise "you pay a small steady price throughout the whole of your professional career", which he says adds up to lots of hassel.
	*** If you're looking for a reason to not be able to do something, its easy to find one. Just fucking do it.
	*** It is good to go into management when your vision for something exceeds your ability as an individual contributor.
	*** You have to neglect things if you intend to get what you want done.
	*** You must believe in your idea enough to go ahead, but doubt it enough that you notice the errors and fault. This seems like tricky balancing.
	*** If you want to do important work and you don't think your current job is solving an important problem in your field.. why the hell are you doing it?
	*** Instead of getting mired in details of daily problems, step back and ask if you can solve all of next years problems by using a more general method.
	*** Great thoughts time. Spend lunch on Fridays talking about great problems.
	*** When giving a technical talk, don't just dive into the technical bits. Give a good overview of the field because very few people will be as well versed as you are in the topic.
	*** Don't brainstorm. Go have conversations with individuals and you will come back energized (assuming you have a good selection of individuals you can bounce things off of)
	*** He mentions reading enough of a book to understand the problem, then pausing to figure out the answer for yourself. Only then read the answer so you actually do some original thought, rather than just reading what everyone else thinks.
	*** When asked about the relative effectiveness between lecturing, writing papers and writing books, he says he prefers books b/c knowledge doubles incredibly quickly. Books are worth a lot b/c they necessarily filter out the irrelevant information.
	** Questions
	*** What are the most important problems in my field?