General: Learning to Learn

12/22/2012

As opposed to traditional methods of learning, such as lecture, homework, and projects, I've always had trouble learning via textbook. I am stubborn about reading every detail in the book, down to the last word, but often I will either lose focus mid-paragraph or fall asleep. Something has to change.

During this past finals week, I came across an article written by Cal Newport on "ultra learning" (oh, the irony). I was immediately enticed by the potential to master linear algebra in ten days. I realized my obsession with details was impractical; after a few books, there's essentially an infinite number of words, of which no one has the time to read in their entirety. I need to find the balance between understanding the big picture and being able to crank through the implementation (so, grinding through practice problems is not the solution).

This winter break, I decided to try and apply the ultra-learning techniques to Udacity's Artificial Intelligence course, with a focus on understanding the Extended Kalman Filter and the Particle Filter. 

Here are my favorite online-education websites:
Udacity
Coursera
edX
TopCoder
CodeForces

General: My Blog's Purpose

12/21/2012

I'm planning to use this blog for writing, food/recipes/restaurants, exercise, and project updates.

Some of my friends' sites:
http://nolanhergert.com/doku.php
http://www.chrisharrison.net/ <- inspiration for site layout and calendar!
http://christopherhsing.com/
http://robo-nut.blogspot.com/

Some sites I enjoy frequenting:
http://hackaday.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/eevblog
http://lifehacker.com/

Food: Yam Leaves with Tsuyu Sauce

 Yam Leaves with Tsuyu Sauce

Salmon with Onion, Avocado, Egg with Tsuyu Sauce. Forgot to take picture before eating.

Four cheese alfredo rigatoni pasta with bacon, egg, onion.

6/10 decrease pasta:sauce ratio. egg was pleasing addition.

Cheese and Onion Meatballs with Marinara Sauce

4/10 needs more flavor

Top: Bacon, Salmon with Onion/Mushrooms, Bagel, Water Spinach
Bottom: Lobster Bisque from Pittsburgh Fish Market

Pasta alfredo with onions and green pepper.

Steak

7/23/12
Steak, Potatoes, Water Spinach, Onions
Starting today, I'll present things in the order that they were cooked, in order to better understand where the inefficiencies are in my build order.

---
Bacon.
2 strips, torn in half so that all 4 fit in the pan at once. Starting with this because I can use the oil to make everything else.
---
Mashed Potatoes with Bacon and  Sauteed Onions.
Potatoes were made up front, bacon and  sauteed onion were finished and added later.
---

Water Spinach
Cooked with garlic.
---
Steak (bought raw from Giant Eagle).
Used some leftover grease from bacon to cook this.
A1 sauce was added after cooking.
---
Sauteed Onions
Diced 1/8 onion and cooked it in the bacon grease/steak juice. Made the pieces a brownish color.

Interesting note - these onions made me tear up, but the last batch of onions didn't. I didn't realize there was such a large range in the strength of onion sulfuric acid; I thought the variance was in people's tolerance to sulfuric acid.


My Rating
4/10
The meat was too dry. This configuration has delectable potential but some kinks need to be worked out.

Comments

Need to work on my timings to maximize efficiency and minimize time elapsed. Examples:

• Meat ended up being cooked too long, becomes dry and not as tasty. 
• One greased pan resulted in bottlenecking the entire process (mashed potatoes vs. {bacon, water spinach, steak})

Consider the opportunity cost of a second greased pan. Could split the bacon into two pans since you end up draining most of the grease from one pan.

One package of the mashed potatoes was too much for one person. Serves about 1-3 people.

Don't crumble bacon by hand. That was silly and messy.

Note times for each stage, and costs.

What to do with shredded cheese?

quiche (spinach, cheddar, bacon)

macaroni and cheese
stuffed shells
[mashed potato] pizza
potato dishes
cheese soup
casserole
taco
fondue
french onion soup
pasta
pasta salad
enchilada

week of 7/23

additional inventory:
2 Alfredo Sauce, 1 Gallon Milk, 1 Chicken Breast, 1 Steak, 1 Ground Pork, 2 Hummus, 2 Mashed Potatoes, 1 Bacon, 2 4-Pack Yogurt, 4 Avocado, 12 Jumbo Eggs, Green Pepper, Tomato, Garlic, Onion, Banana, Lemon, Lime
cost: 55.80


possible dishes:
steak and mashed potatoes
pasta marinara w ground beef
smashed potato pizza w bacon and chicken
pasta alfredo w chicken
guacamole w chips
scrambled eggs
omelet
water spinach w. garlic
bacon
hummus w chips

anticipated meals:

monday dinner
steak, mashed potatoes, water spinach

tuesday breakfast
scrambled eggs, bacon, bagel w peanut butter

tuesday lunch
guacamole

tuesday dinner
smahed potato pizza w bacon and chicken

wed breakfast
scrambled eggs, bacon, toast w peanut butter

wed lunch
guacamole

wed dinner
pasta alfredo w chicken

thurs breakfast
scrambled eggs, bacon, toast w hummus

thurs lunch
half price mad mex

thurs dinner
half price fuel and fuddle

friday breakfast
scrambled eggs, bacon, chips w hummus

friday lunch
taiwan cafe

friday dinner
pasta marinara w ground beef

7/21 Inventory

7/21
Inventory
Pizza Crust x2
Jar of Marinara Sauce x1
Mixed Shredded Cheese x1
Box of Pasta x7
Yogurt x5
Asian Bread x1
Bundle of Water Spinach x1/2
Blueberries x1/2
Bagel x3

Restock
Avocados
Tomato
Onion
Garlic
Banana

Guacamole without Tomato

Guacamole without Tomato
7/20
Guacamole without Tomato

---
Avocado x3
Onion x3/4
Lime
Lemon
Whole Grain Chips
---

My Rating
3/10

Comments
Because the avocados turned out to be a little premature, I used a blender instead of mashing the avocados. Some onions were blended with the avocados, along with lime and lemon juice, while the other onions were added directly to the guacamole.
In the future, I should wait for the avocados to further ripen before using them, so that they are easier to mash and so that the final result has a creamier texture.

Add tomatoes next time. I did not add tomatoes today because I had run out from last time.

For me, 2 avocados = full meal. As a snack, recommended 1 person = .5 avocado.

Lunch ft. Tea Egg

Lunch ft. Tea Egg
7/19
Shrimp, Bagel with Peanut Butter, Clam Chowder, Tea Egg

---
Lime Garlic Shrimp (from costco)
---
Clam Chowder (from costco)
---
Tea Egg (made by Gillian)
---
Bagel x2
Peanut Butter
---

My Rating
6/10

Comments
Tea Egg uses black tea, soy sauce, along with many other spices. Then you let it brew for ~4 hours.

Water Spinach

7/17/12


Blueberries
-
Water Spinach (空心菜) (purchased at Lotus)
-
Lime Garlic Shrimp (premade from costco)
-
2 Bagels
Hummus


My Rating:
5/10

Comments:

Tried to cook too much water spinach at once. Sautee less in the pan at one time. 

"Monday Brunch"

"Monday Brunch"
7/17/12
Bagels, Egg, Bacon, Hummus, Yogurt

1 Lemon-Lime Gatorade
1 Raspberry Yogurt
---
2 Sesame Bagel, cut in half
Hummus
---
1 Egg
Cheese
---
4 Bacon Strips
---
Garlic Lime Shrimp (costco)

My Rating:
7/10

Comments:
Add onion and peppers to egg.

"Sunday Brunch"

"Sunday Brunch"
7/15
Scrambled Eggs, Bagel, Hummus, Bacon

1/4 Green Pepper
1/4 Onion
2 Eggs
---
1 Bagel
Hummus
Tortilla Chips
---
1.5 Strips of Bacons

My Rating
6/10

Comments
n/a

Guacamole

Guacamole
7/13

2 Avocados
1/2 Lime
1/4 Lemon
1/2 Tomato
1/4 Onion
Served with Tortilla Chips

My Rating:
8/10

Comments:
Could try mashing more finely.

Sauteed Spinach

Sauteed Spinach
7/13/2012

Spinach
Garlic
Lemon Juice

My Rating:
5/10

Comments:
Use less vegetable oil.

"College Pasta"

"College Pasta"
6/28

Penne
Eggs
Spinach
Marinara Suace
Ground Beef
Onions
Green Peppers

My Rating
1/10

Comments
Too much, couldn't finish. Didn't taste that good. Ham was bad so had to pick it out.

How software companies die

Source: http://fuzz-box.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-software-companies-die.html

How software companies die

An essay by Orson Scott Card, found it lurking in my articles folder but i lack the source.

A very true and entertaining read. Hope you enjoy it.

The environment that nutures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa. Programming is the Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul. When you're caught up in it, nothing else matters. When you emerge into daylight, you might well discover that you're a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear is older than the average first grader, and judging from the number of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring already. But you don't care, because your program runs, and the code is fast and clever and tight. You won. You're aware that some people think you're a nerd. So what? They're not players. They've never jousted with Windows or gone hand to hand with DOS. To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B - not a language. They barely exist. Like soldiers or artists, you don't care about the opinions of civilians. You're building something intricate and fine. They'll never understand it.

BEEKEEPING

Here's the secret that every successful software company is based on: You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they're not looking, you can carry off the honey. You keep these bees from stinging by paying them money. More money than they know what to do with. But that's less than you might think. You see, all these programmers keep hearing their parents' voices in their heads saying "When are you going to join the real world?" All you have to pay them is enough money that they can answer (also in their heads) "Geez, Dad, I'm making more than you." On average, this is cheap. And you get them to stay in the hive by giving them other coders to swarm with. The only person whose praise matters is another programmer. Less-talented programmers will idolize them; evenly matched ones will challenge and goad one another; and if you want to get a good swarm, you make sure that you have at least one certified genius coder that they can all look up to, even if he glances at other people's code only long enough to sneer at it. He's a Player, thinks the junior programmer. He looked at my code. That is enough. If a software company provides such a hive, the coders will give up sleep, love, health, and clean laundry, while the company keeps the bulk of the money.

OUT OF CONTROL

Here's the problem that ends up killing company after company. All successful software companies had, as their dominant personality, a leader who nurtured programmers. But no company can keep such a leader forever. Either he cashes out, or he brings in management types who end up driving him out, or he changes and becomes a management type himself. One way or another, marketers get control. But...control of what? Instead of finding assembly lines of productive workers, they quickly discover that their product is produced by utterly unpredictable, uncooperative, disobedient, and worst of all, unattractive people who resist all attempts at management. Put them on a time clock, dress them in suits, and they become sullen and start sabotaging the product. Worst of all, you can sense that they are making fun of you with every word they say.

SMOKED OUT

The shock is greater for the coder, though. He suddenly finds that alien creatures control his life. Meetings, Schedules, Reports. And now someone demands that he PLAN all his programming and then stick to the plan, never improving, never tweaking, and never, never touching some other team's code. The lousy young programmer who once worshiped him is now his tyrannical boss, a position he got because he played golf with some sphincter in a suit. The hive has been ruined. The best coders leave. And the marketers, comfortable now because they're surrounded by power neckties and they have things under control, are baffled that each new iteration of their software loses market share as the code bloats and the bugs proliferate. Got to get some better packaging. Yeah, that's it.

Persistently Bad Startup Ideas

Source: http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-startup-ideas-that-persistently-fail?srid=hsN

1. Social Shopping - Learnt this the hard way, (May be ahead of it's time).
2. Rivals to Google - DDG and Bing seem to be doing a decent job though.
3. Foursquare for something - Foursquare is a great service but checkins do not work in every space unlike many think.
4. Most Messaging Apps - Facebook and SMS are taking this space over and startups trying to replicate BBM just miss the main points.
5. Any App/Site which just adds some Social Feature expecting to push them ahead of the competition. We are not the same as everyone we have on Facebook.
6. Social Browsers - Look at Rockmelt, their iPhone effort is shameful and Flock is Dead, RIP.
7. Facebook Rival - People watch the Social Network and think it's that easy to kill facebook just by "telling their friends about it".
8. YouTube Rivals - Unless they hit a niche (A la Vimeo) they have no use as YT offers up to 4k resolution, 3D video, partnerships and lots of content.

iPhone App generators - there're enough of them and they all produce default apps that suck.

Q&A-Portals - because there're enough of them and it takes very long to make them good. And there's Stakcexchange and Quora.

ToDo-Lists - because either they're too simple to fit in people's workflow or too complex to be usable and it involves creating apps on all different platforms

Anything that involves syncing or developing for every platform - cause syncing is hard and developing for different platforms is nothing that a small startup can handle

• Anything that makes programming "easy for non-programmers or businesspeople"
• Micropayments
• T-Shirts (except Threadless (and Busted Tees ... thanks Adam Kazwell))
• Recommendations based on what your friends like
• RSS readers
• Find nearby people to meet/date through your mobile phone
• Anything involving paying people to look at ads
• Sites that purport to measure someone's trustworthiness as a standalone service, separate from any other context or functionality
• Customized personalized newspapers focusing on mainstream news
• Craigslist killers - but not sites that attack individual categories on Craigslist (see diagram in this question's summary)
• To-do lists - there are tons of these, but everyone's workflow tends to be so personalized and specific to that person that none of them really catch on
• Most blogs that are started with the intent of being businesses
• Business that let consumers scan some kind of code, number or barcode in real life, with some special device, or lately their phone, and they get sent a URL, ad or coupon in return

Improving Your Programming Skills

http://www.antoarts.com/10-ways-to-improve-your-programming-skills/

The two I most disagree with are 3 and 5, primarily because they have such a steep learning curve.

Tau vs. Pi

http://www.thepimanifesto.com/

Pi is clearly superior because it is also the name of a dessert. Mmmm.

Silence

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128191.600-specs-that-see-right-through-you.html?full=true

I need these.

Innovation

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/07/06/137621529/thinking-thoughts-the-others-haven-t-thunk

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Don't just break the mold - shatter it to pieces.