if you want something important or fun create it
I truly think that autodidacts are responsible for all that is good and great about alternative culture.
Celine Nguyen • research as leisure activity - by Celine Nguyen research as leisure activity
Research as leisure activity is directed by passions and instincts . It’s fundamentally very personal: What are you interested in now ? It’s fine, and maybe even better, if the topic isn’t explicitly intellectual or academic in nature. And if one topic leads you to another topic that seems totally unrelated, that’s something to get excited about—n
... See moreCeline Nguyen • research as leisure activity - by Celine Nguyen research as leisure activity
There are also people who are para-academic researchers. While there’s a lot of great computer science and human-computer interaction research happening in academia, I’ve often been disappointed by some of the actual interfaces being produced by the ivory tower. Some of the most interesting work seems to be happening outside academia.
Celine Nguyen • research as leisure activity - by Celine Nguyen research as leisure activity
Young people look at so many of the status games of older folks—what brand of car is parked in your garage, what neighborhood can you afford to live in, how many levels below CEO are you in your org—and then look at apps like Vine and Musical.ly, and they choose the only real viable and thus optimal path before them. Remember the second tenet: peop
... See moreEugene Wei • Status as a Service (StaaS) — Remains of the Day
“The anditode to doom is curiosity.”
-Ezra Klein
I used to go a lot more out of my way to add to the world. A few years ago, I installed a bunch of dog bag dispensers on the telephone poles of my neighborhood. I still keep them stocked.
I was, somewhat naively, hoping that somehow I could get a snowball of care going. I built curb ramps on legacy curbs that lacked them. I lobbied the city to open ... See more
I was, somewhat naively, hoping that somehow I could get a snowball of care going. I built curb ramps on legacy curbs that lacked them. I lobbied the city to open ... See more
I once sat in a room with a bunch of machine learning folks who were developing creative artificial intelligence to make “good art.” I asked one researcher about the training data. How did they choose to operationalize “good art”? Their reply: they used Netflix data about engagement hours.The problem is that engagement hours are not the same as goo... See more
This is why it is so important to figure out the big question you’re trying to answer. Putting yourself in situations that feed your mind what it’s hungry for lets you outwork everyone else without even realizing you’re working. You’re just trying to answer your question!