Theoretical thoughts and experimental deeds involving computation, physics, and electronics - The Stuff Dreams Undreamt Are Made Of. :)
I've never learned to think "That looks awfully hard... I don't think I can do it in a year, not even a decade, so I won't even give it a try." For many people hearing something is hard equals "Don't bother, it's been attempted by people far smarter than you with far more resources; it's impossible." They have resigned to the "fact" that it's not going to be solved during their lifetime. Not by...
I like well-defined problems with a definite solved-state. I seek out problems that lie within my capacities. But most of the problems I've (often unsuccessfully) dealt with earlier have been beyond my then inadequate skills. After failure I've put them on the back burner, with the idea of revisiting them perhaps in a decade or two, to see if I'm skilled enough by then.
Part of the problem of problem-solving is of course acquiring the requisite skills without wasting time on skills you have no use for, ever. Schools, I'm looking at you with a disappointed s...
I guess I'm sort of living the life of an expected utility maximizer. All I do all day long, year in year out, is optimize. Every night I go to sleep having optimized more problems out of existence, or having learned about ways that fail. Some days I find more problems. I don't believe I can ever be done with it, because I've chosen problems with high challenges and complex novelty.
I've optimized my emotional landscape: it's barren when it's not filled with the radiant joy of successful optimization. I don't care how my mind or body feels. It's all in the ...
I don't think it would be such a bad idea to have some prerequisites for breeding, such as:
• Self-reliance • Rationality • Non-violence • No criminal record • And the most important of all: having already given birth to a brain child... or a few. Just one useful thing that didn't exist before you were born. Just one. You can come up with one in a lifetime, can't you?