lkrych's comments

I'm going to second ativzzz. It's a great program. I did it the same way: 1 class a semester over 4 years.

This is a good question and it is going to depend on your learning style. That being said, I feel like this quote encapsulates some wisdom that I've used:

“If you want to learn something, read about it. If you want to understand something, write about it. If you want to master something, teach it.”

- Yogi Bhajan

My technique involves reading the technical book and then writing down the most important parts of what I've learned. This is useful for reference later, if I need a quick refresher.

Another useful technique is the third part of this quote, finding some way to teach and explain the concepts you are using. Often times the best audience is a smart but non-technical person. Can you find a way to explain the concept you are learning in a way so that your audience understands?

Typically this involves a lot of simplifying and I think this simplification can frustrate the engineer part of our brains that cries out "But it isn't simple!" Try to fight this urge to reject simplification because it can become easier to work with concepts as simple discrete components. Think of Newtonian mechanics, it was a nice simple explanatory framework for how things work (good enough) until we needed to add electromagnetism and quantum mechanics to explain natural phenomena that didn't abide by the framework.

Edit: Oh and lastly, and most people have already mentioned this, build something useful with the concepts you are learning.

Cisco.

Great teamwork and culture, tons of smart and friendly people, interesting technical problems (I think computer networking is interesting ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), opportunities for growth, and good work-life balance.

One thing to note is that much of this might be because I got lucky and joined the team that was part of the OpenDNS acquisition.

Thanks for the response morlockabove!

I interpret your response to suggest that taking risks comes with consequences and that most of the time those consequences are negative.

My question was meant to ask (in a round-about way) why collectively we don't subsidize risk-taking (especially when the risk-takers have a track record of producing neat things)?

Adding a comment because I hope folks will stop and read this delightful review about a curious mind.

Here are a few things I stopped to ponder about:

1. How important are visual representations for understanding reality? What about beautiful visual representations?

2. Why are so many pioneering minds left by society to struggle with mountains(ha) of debt?

(EDIT: Formatting)

For anyone who wishes to explore some of the ideas presented in this article about wilderness, I would recommend Michael Pollan's essay "The Idea of a Garden".

I read Pollan's essay as part of a discussion about wilderness ethics and it has stuck with me for years. It can be found in his book, Second Nature.

If you are still reading this comment, I would also recommend Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. It takes a more irascible approach to some of the ideas of wilderness ethics, but is is a damn-good, swashbuckling time.

Some poetry serves the "higher" meaning of discussing political ideas like Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric.

Some poetry is made to make you laugh like Billy Collins' Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun in the House.

Some poetry is purposefully inscrutable and difficult because the author wants you to work to understand them. A good example of this might be r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r by E.E. Cummings.

Each of these examples is meaningful in its own different way. I think trying to decide what has meaning is hard because you might automatically discard a work of art that is "just for fun". Isn't play meaningful?

I second this.

Poetry is play and learning to play with language can open up new worlds. Here is a favorite of mine.

Again by Ross Gay

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92019/again-586e779b0...

This book[1] compares poetry to music. There are many genres and styles of music, and it is likely that you don't like all genres. Enjoying poetry is about trying to find the "genre" of poetry that moves you.

[1] Don't Read Poetry: A Book About How to Read Poems - Stephanie Burt

Hey, thanks for sharing!

I recently read A.R. Ammons Tape for the Turn of the Year (1965) and it is composed in much the same way (although it is a little more polished ;p).

Non-Fiction (Science)

  - *The Selfish Gene* by Richard Dawkins

  - *The Righteous Mind* by Jonathan Haidt

  - *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman

Non-Fiction (Social)

  - *The Art of Not Being Governed* by James C. Scott

  - *The Unwinding* by George Packer

  - *People's History of the United States* by Howard Zinn

Fiction

  - *East of Eden* by John Steinbeck

  - *Sometimes a Great Notion* by Ken Kesey

  - *The Brothers Karamazov* by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

edit: formatting

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Thanks for posting this randcraw. I was about to do the same before I saw your link.

To add to your description: The author of this article suggests that The Road Less Traveled is not about the action of taking the riskier or more adventurous path. It is about how, in the future, we need to justify the decisions we made in the past.

"According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives."

There is a lot of advice on this thread, so I might have missed it, but perhaps what I can contribute to the OP is that they should reflect on what they have the ability to change, and what they can not.

Be realistic about what you can contribute now, and what in the future you will be able to contribute with a concerted effort. Focus on your short-term ability and try to dovetail that with your long-term goals.

I don't really like quoting Tech Barons, but here's a good one from Bill Gates.

"We often overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in ten."

I'm going to plug a few great non-fiction books that are easy(ish) to read and deep on content. I'm sure there are a lot more out there.

Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

Coming Into the Country - John McPhee

The Unwinding - George Packer

Anything by James C Scott (Thinking Like a State, The Art of Not Being Governed)

The Righteous Mind - John Haidt

The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins (Regardless of how you feel about his current public persona, this book published in 1976 is an absolute classic)

I'm going to plug Calculus: Single Variable from the University of Pennsylvania on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/learn/single-variable-calculus).

This was the best Calculus course I've taken online.

I have spent a lot of time taking online courses. Here are my favorites.

CS50 (https://www.edx.org/course/cs50s-introduction-computer-scien...) - Best Intro to Computer Science

Nand2Tetris I and II (https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer) - Build a computer from logic gates up to a compiler, this is the best class I've ever taken.

Agile Development Using Ruby on Rails (https://www.edx.org/professional-certificate/agile-developme...) - Great introduction to web development and software engineering principles

I've also been reading some technical books. Would definitely recommend

Modern Operating Systems - Tanenbaum Designing Data-Intensive Applications - Kleppmann

This author won't stop 'til he gets enough.