Edge interview with Kai-Fu Lee

The Edge interview with Kai-Fu Lee is very good. He is one of the original A.I. researchers and has worked in the industry for most of the big name technology companies.

He discusses the history of A.I., the current situation involving Deep Learning, and goes on to talk about the future."We're all going to face a very challenging next fifteen or twenty years, when half of the jobs are going to be replaced by machines. Humans have never seen this scale of massive job decimation."

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Quote from Moonwalking with Einstein

"Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthily and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next - and disappear. That's why it's so important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives." -- Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

More Notes on Changing Behaviour

I wrote up a post this morning on micro-behaviours, triggers and rewards. Later on I was checking out Hacker News when I stumbled on this post by Alex Coleman, on how to get stuff done. Both posts refer to the same original work by Dr Fogg on micro-behaviours. In my post I emphasize using “triggers” to trigger the new habit, which may be an existing habit or environmental cue. In Alex's post, he puts a lot of emphasis on setting up a routine or schedule. The time itself becomes the trigger.

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Bret Dunlap, Runner

There is a wonderful story over at Runner's World about Bret Dunlap, a guy who was badly injured when he was a kid. His brain and body are damaged. It's about how he moves on and adapts. How his mother helps him recover and build a life. How he discovers running and it helps change his life. The story is poignant and well written. It's definitely worth reading.

A Poignant Account of Depression

There is a poignant account of a person falling into depression over at Hyperbole and a Half. It is beautifully illustrated too. The author explains how you can't externally induce happiness in someone who is depressed. This really struck home for me, as someone who is obnoxiously upbeat. There is actually a light at the end of the rather long blog post.