cdicelico's comments

A loved AI: A Modern Approach—still the best all around textbook on AI imho. I'd only add Susanna Epp's Discrete Mathematics with Applications, and I'd just focus on methodically and thoroughly working through those two, personally. First, Discrete Mathematics, then AI: A Modern Approach. This is exactly what I did and it was a great experience, super helpful.

I went straight to work and didn't get to college until 41/42. I'm working on my undergrad and plan to continue to my masters. I've found it incredibly rewarding for two main reasons.

First, since I have a career already, I'm free of the pressure to go to school for career purposes and can focus on something I enjoy, which also provides immense value to what I'm doing every day (I chose philosophy, much more relevant and practical than I think many realize).

Second, I enjoy the experience and get quite a bit more depth from it than I would have in my 20's. It's a richer, more meaningful experience now that I'm older, have a strong sense of who I am, and am not put off in the slightest by naysayers or influenced by people's opinions of what I should or shouldn't be doing. I have more maturity now than at any other time in my life, and this has served me well in the sense of approaching topics with intellectual humility and just enjoying the process of knowing nothing to knowing a little. I do all the reading and then some, reading far and wide as well as doing deep analysis, writing all my notes, reviewing, and doing practice essays, and I enjoy every bit of it rather than seeing it as a chore.

So, some initial thoughts for you, hope they're helpful. The only advice I can give is to enjoy it, realize it's a wonderful opportunity, be structured and disciplined with your time, and use your hard-earned experience to your advantage.

Well said. Just adding https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/jones-ben/htm/A... and https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes... for examples and specifics.

Agree. The way I see it, not being in my 20s is an edge, not a liability. I don't have to suffer all the things young people are about to because I've already been through that part of my life. There's a lot you don't have to worry about any more once you get to the other side of it. Plus, I've had plenty of years to make mistakes and have a better sense of who I am (and who I'm not) and what I want (and what I emphatically don't) than ever. In my 20's everything was about screwing and appearances and destroying the old; now it's all about Love, Beauty, and Creation.

There's just no question to me—life really doesn't even begin to be amazing until all the noise quiets down sometime in the 30s–40s. That stage is important, we NEED to burn hot through that period and it's important, but it's by absolutely no means whatsoever some kind of "peak"—that idea is so much bullshit.

If there is such a thing as a "peak", I feel like it's probably more accurately something like the 50s, with a long tail through the 60s and beyond. Those decades make up (imo) the window where you can bring all the things you've lived to bear and live the culmination of all your insights—powerful stuff.

Re: "Now there is still a lot of golden days, but it will never be like you were 20, for sure.", this is not necessarily a bad thing. 20-somethings move so fast because they don't have the experience to move strategically, to stop, think slowly and methodically, gather perspectives and advice, and make deliberate, powerful moves. Older people don't need to be so hyperactive; we move with more efficiency because we don't need to move as MUCH. Learn to play chess rather than checkers. This worship of youth is disease.

There is no zenith. Own your life. Get out of your head.

Everything you've done up to this point has only been a prelude to whatever you choose to do next. If you choose to see those years as your zenith and stop doing anything, that's on you, it's not because you've supposedly reached some mythical temporal horizon. You've accrued experiences, skills, wisdom, perspective, understanding, relationships, and resources. If you can't see a way to turn those into meaningful next pursuits, then (again) that's on you. Don't make excuses for yourself.

Our culture unfortunately worships youth. We seem to think that life after 40 is downhill, but this just isn't true. From 40 to 70 or even 80 is a PRIME period of life. You have the things you need to do world-changing work, the confidence that comes from hard-won experience, and the tangible life experience to appreciate the meaningfulness and beauty of every single moment.

So-called "zeniths" are whatever you decide they are. If you reached your absolute best in one skillset, pick up a new one. Reinvent yourself and kick off a whole new career. Serve the people around you. Try to make the world better somehow for your having been here. There's no end of things you could do. Don't waste any more time with this angsty self-pity. Life is too fleeting and too wonderful to be so self-absorbed.

Discrete Mathematics with Applications by Susanna Epp is the one book that I feel took me from simply knowing how to write programs to being a software engineer by filling in the theoretical blanks I had from being self-taught. Discrete mathematics in general is so wonderful and applicable to day-to-day software engineering problems and to me, that book is the best, most coherent, and most thorough one available on the topic.

Wonderful collection of techniques! :)

I'm not aware of any, but I have thought quite a lot about creating a course on this subject. The key issue for me is that modern academic philosophy is perhaps more properly "philosophology", or the study of philosophy. It would be interesting to study and share more practical applications of philosophy, the way the great ancient philosophers perceived philosophy themselves (see John Sellars' The Art of Living for an in-depth analysis of the Greeks' perception of philosophy as a "techne ton bion", or perhaps "lifecraft").

Well put! :)

This also tripped me up for a long time. The issue (at least for me) is that modern English is poorly suited to extremely nuanced thought. The best modern language we have today for philosophical discourse is possibly German, and of course Greek and Sanskrit excel at expressing nuance and subtlety. An example of this is the observation that it often takes an entire English sentence or paragraph to express the meaning and shades of meaning that are encapsulated in a single Greek or Sanskrit word.

I agree with you, though, it seems like this language issue is a roadblock to many. The same could be said of mathematics and science, and most of my own learning has revolved around breaking through the initial barrier to entry to a given subject that's in the form of its technical language and notation.

Thank you, but I do not blog regularly. It's an interesting idea, though, and I appreciate the sentiment. However, none of these are my thoughts, and all of them are easily discovered in the same places I found them myself! :)

These techniques are more general psychological tools than specifically about controlling bias. They're also meant to be internally-facing, not necessarily for sharing outside yourself. In the context of the original question about "brain hacks" (not necessarily group dynamics) the underlying thread is finding ways to change your perspective in order to gain insight, which is a very useful "brain hack" indeed!

My top 3, in order of how I try to apply them (i.e., if 1 doesn't help, move on to 2, etc.). I learned these all from reading various philosophy works, by the way, so perhaps cognitive hack #1 should be "read books".

1) Suspension of judgement (from Sextus Empiricus, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): avoid forming an opinion at all about things that are not evident. The way I do this is by thinking through an opposing argument or two, and using language like "it seems" or "it appears" rather than "I know", "I think", etc. This technique saves time and energy by helping me avoid getting wrapped up in opinion-based thinking and helps me develop equanimity.

2) Suspension of value-judgements (from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Zhuang Zi, Ecclesiastes): being aware and in control of the value-judgement loop (this thing is good or bad). I do this by shifting the language in my mind from "that is bad" to "I feel this way because..." Again, like #1, this is about inverting the locus of control in my cognitive discourse such that my mind can easily go its own way from there, only on a more productive path.

3) Awareness of the mode of thinking I'm in, and the kind of learning that's appropriate to the task or objective at hand (from Plato). There are several modes of thinking or learning (eikasia, pistis, dianoia, episteme, techne, phronesis, and noesis, for example). Simply being aware of which mode you should be in for a task is much more valuable than it might appear at first glance. I see these less as bins to put various kinds of thought in and more as tools to apply to a problem.

Reviewing this, a common thread is self-awareness developed to a point of disciplined introspection and intentional change by adopting these kinds of cognitive tricks. Also, reading is good for you. :)

Don't mind the weenies, this is a wonderful explanation!

Great name.

I'm sorry, but I don't care what you do—if you work in tech, you need to be able to demonstrate an ability to think algorithmically in order to solve problems with a computer. It's a) not acceptable to get by in tech without knowing anything about computers and b) not rocket science—anyone can learn!

I feel like you took the specifics around how your evaluation was done and your choices regarding how you solved the problem and conflated those with the entire HackerRank platform, which seems at best disingenuous and at worst intellectually irresponsible.

Regarding the idea that "they expect input and output in a necessarily contrived form", they are giving you a problem to solve. You could say any expectation around input and output is contrived. As a professional, you will not always be able to control this, and need to be able to work against the constraints that are imposed on you.

Regarding the idea that "there is no communication or creativity involved", this is just flat out wrong. You might have had a bad experience due to the way the exercises were set up by the interviewers, but that's not because of HackerRank. What I did is limit the allowed languages and progress people from initial code puzzle screenings to pair programming sessions, where the communication and collaboration evaluation comes in. In every case (puzzles included), there is plenty of room for creativity. In fact, in my own hiring, I have seen a very wide range of different solutions—some very interesting and creative!

I found your choice of Bash to be pretty odd. I'm not sure I'd allow people to write their solutions in Bash, because I realize that a lot of it comes down to fiddling with things like the sed expression you described, which I don't care about. If, as an employer, I want to evaluate your problem solving skills, I'd prefer languages that abstract as much as possible away and force you to focus on the problem as a whole. If, as an applicant, I wanted to highlight my ability to solve problems with code, I would never in a million years choose Bash.

It seems like the way the company you applied to set up the HackerRank platform, mismanaged their communication with you, and selected and configured the questions combined with your choice of Bash, as well as your own personality idiosyncrasies (like getting stressed about the countdown instead of focusing on the problem & remaining calm) came together to create a perfect storm for you, but in my own experience, I've really enjoyed doing their puzzles. I've also had great success using their platform for my own hires and have found that the platform does a great job of highlighting exceptionally skillful engineers and reducing bias in the hiring process. Our team avoided several very bad hires who looked great on paper with the help of the HackerRank platform. So, I think that while it's easy to blame HackerRank, that's not where the real problem is IMO.

The thing with HackerRank is that a LOT comes down to the hiring manager. If s/he doesn't do a good job managing the candidate pipeline, communicating, setting up the puzzles, doing the pair programming sessions, running interviews, etc., then people are going to have experiences like yours. There's no magical platform that will solve for a bad hiring process.

I wish I had known that programming was something I wanted to know how to do, not something I want to do with my life. :P