There’s a concept in search algorithms that makes a good analogy for life. As analogy, imagine a large forested area with small hills and depressions in it. You have the task of finding the highest point in this area. … Continue reading Using Randomness as a Tool
I try to read a lot. I find it valuable to change my perspective, teach me new things, or simply for entertainment value. The following are books that, whether by content or by chance, taught me something that has stuck … Continue reading Books that have changed my life [2012-2018]
10,000 hours is famously (and likely wrongly) quoted as the number of hours of deliberate practice one needs to achieve mastery in a skill. I was curious today, so I put together some calculations of how many hours I’ve put … Continue reading Hours to Mastery
I’ve always been intimidated by drawing. I vividly recall times when being invited to do art projects with others has made my palms sweaty and my heart speed in my chest. As a fairly competent person, this fear has always … Continue reading 5 Lessons Learned Drawing Daily for a Year
A dot on a graph with no context is often fairly useless unless you have already established a sense of context. A good example from my last job: if I tell someone that they used 200 kWhs last month, for … Continue reading Drawing Lines, Not Dots
Last week I found myself arguing with one of our engineers at Simple Energy about the ‘correct’ implementation of a feature. This argument centered around the issue of accruing ‘tech debt.’ (If you’re not familiar with the concept, check out … Continue reading Prioritizing Tech Debt and Opportunity Cost
I was recently trying to determine the value of building a P&L for some development projects. Concerned that it might end up being a time sink that doesn’t pay off in the end, I asked a mentor of mine for his thoughts. Here’s his reply: I think if you approach the per project P&L with a big grain of salt, it can be a very useful tool. The grain of salt = your P&L will never be precise and you get diminishing returns past a certain point. Your instinct about using rough numbers and not spending much time is right … Continue reading Should I Use a P&L as a Product Manager?
Dating has long been a subject I’ve avoided on my blog. First, because I tend to want to write things about dating when I’m feeling frustrated with it and I don’t want all that logged in the public record. Second, … Continue reading Black Boxes and Filling in the Blanks — Early Dating and Compatibility
I drew this diagram on my whiteboard several months ago to explain to a friend why eating a Standard American Diet (SAD) and trying to fix it with supplements is foolish. The SAD is the column on the right, achieving, … Continue reading Premature Optimization and the 95/40 Rule
My typical method for learning new music is something like this: Get the music and look over it for general patterns in the music like repeats, etc. Find a recording if possible and familiarize myself with the music Learn the music by singing/playing through it with a keyboard Make clips of the music and listen/run it a lot to work memorization Repeat 3&4 as much as I can If I’m singing in another language, I usually try to get the IPA and translations when I get the music to plug that info in as early as possible into the process. … Continue reading Technology for Learning Vocal Music
Jeff Ammons 