Premature Optimization Is The Root Of All Evil
Source: “Premature optimization is the root of all evil” More and more, I’m realizing th… | Hacker News
Abstraction is a form of optimization and shouldn’t be done before the space has been properly explored to know what abstractions should be built. Standardization is a form of optimization and shouldn’t be proposed until there’s a body of evidence to support what’s being standardized.
Failure to validate a product before building it? Premature optimization.
Build infrastructure without understanding the use case? Premature optimization.
Build tools before using them for your end product/project? Premature optimization.
This advice comes in different forms: “Progress over perfection”, “Iteration quickly”, “Move fast and break things”, “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good enough”, etc. but I find the umbrella statement of not prematurely optimizing to encompass them all.
Created from: In Defense Of Tags In My Zettelkasten 202204101843
uid: 202204101914 tags: #insights
In Defense Of Tags In My Zettelkasten
Andy Matuschak claims that Tags are an ineffective association structure for use in a Zettelkasten. I agree with his general sentiment that explicit associations should be preferred to implicit associations, and tags don’t provide anything more than a grab-bag of notes, with no explanation for how those notes fit together. However, if you’re starting to build your repository of evergreen notes and don’t yet know how your notes fit together into one story or are worried that by trying to connect ideas cleanly, you’re not going to be able to take rapid notes in the first place (and thus limit your thinking, because writing is a way of thinking 202204102301 TODO: Fill in from taking smart notes), then tagging as an easy way to find discover associations between notes is a great practice. This also connects to the idea that there are two different types of note collectors 202204101911, which is also from the taking smart notes book. TODO: Fill out this link too). I would much rather be a writer, who is more concerned about being able to effectively retrieve notes when needed (which I know I can do because of how good the search functionality in The Archive is 202204102121), than concern myself deeply with setting up a perfect structure in which to take notes (because premature optimization is the root of all evil 202204101914).
uid: 202204101843 tags: #zettelkasten #notetaking
Legionnaire’s Disease
- It’s pretty interesting how diseases that seem to have been at the forefront of the public consciousness for a while - swine flu and Legionnaire’s Disease - weren’t properly studied in America and indeed the developed world until as recently as 1976. It goes to show how quickly epidemiology changes, and how much epidemiologists have to stay on their toes to keep up to date with the latest diseases.
- It’s also interesting how health officials at Fort Dix realized that the disease that affected Private Lewis might not have ben influenza, but they could not risk the possibility of being wrong, so they went through with the assumption that the epidemic was imminent anyway. This is reminiscent of the response that China and several other Asian countries had in response to COVID-19 - they knew that COVID-19 was different from SARS and could easily have less of a health hazard, but because of how significant a toll the 2003 SARS epidemic had placed on these countries, they could not take the risk of being wrong.
- In general, the parallels between comparing the 1976 Fort Dix breakout with the 1918 flu, and what we’re doing today with COVID-19 and comparing it to the 2009 swine flu outbreak, 2003 SARS, 2016-2019 Ebola, etc. are quite interesting. Obviously epidemiologists and virologists need some sort of reference to asses how serious a given outbreak is, but it is uncanny how much of the fears and discussion, sparked by a previous epidemic, hold true both now and in 1976.
uid: 202009202345 tags:
Response to Koch Reading
It’s pretty cool how Koch did the bulk of his research alone; while scientists like Davaine, Rayer, and Pasteur were well integrated within the broader scientific community of Europe, Koch was making his discoveries in remote Prussian village, which somehow makes them more impressive.
Koch’s engineering genius is also just as impressive - while he was obviously a great scientist, his ability to figure out the best way he could accomplish the goals he had (like giving a mouse a fatal dose of anthrax) with limited equipment and no prior experience was just uncanny.
It’s pretty incredible how such a realization as “one certain kind of microbe causes one definite kind of disease” - something incredibly obvious to us today - was once incredibly unobvious, and Koch was the one who discovered it. He truly jumpstarted microbial research as we know it today.
Wow! He also discovered that some bacteria can form spores, allowing them to survive in inhospitable conditions? Koch was truly visionary.
It’s really unfortunate that even after presenting his wonderful discoveries to the researchers at the University, Koch eventually found himself unrecognized for a period of time, finding himself beaten and returning to Wollstein. It’s one of the unfortunate parts of scientific research - the showmanship and politics involved.
WOW - Pettenkofer swallowed an entire bottle of bacteria, and didn’t get cholera? Even with today’s medical advances and knowledge, that still seems almost unbelievable.
uid: 202008302359 tags: #mcb55
Computer Science (Roggenkemper), A-N UGSIs
- If you want to use polls, you can! Set them up in options. But you have to set them up ahead of time.
Three fears I have about teaching
- Not being able to answer a student question effectively
A:
- If you don’t know how to answer it, then say that you’ll reach out to them over Piazza/email than to make something up on the spot.
- Narrowing down the question, because often students ask really general questions.
- Not realizing when I’m losing my students (I keep talking even though they’ve zoned out)
A:
- Give students a chance to have a dialogue with you (pauses in slides, give them a chance to provide a response)
- Set the tone for the discussion in the very first day (I want to talk to faces and not names).
- Give people a water break
- People can do polls (or anonymous feedback form)
- Use Zoom reactions to get a sense of the room, non audio/video ways to engage
- Inadvertently confusing/misleading people
Susan:
- Unintentionally confusing/misleading students
- Not knowing how to answer student questions
- Grading as objectively as I can with a subjective rubric
Ruhi:
- Technology problems that students can’t help with in the first couple weeks
Akshara:
- Keeping students engaged, drop-off in attendance
Angela:
- Enrollment/waitlist students (answering those questions)
- Being supportive for new students
Zoom lowers the bar for interaction, allowing people to interact more easily
Challenging section scenarios
uid: 202008211000 tags: #meetings #teaching
Meeting with Yash
- Talked about haircuts
- Talked about Hasan Minhaj, and how he doesn’t like him too much because he’s very forthright with the views he’s projecting, and he doesn’t really talk about the other side
- Talked about Arizona, the weather conditions there, there’s a lot more political ads because it’s being targeted as a swing state
- Over there, on the side of the road, there’s cacti and rocks instead of grass and trees which is pretty interesting
- Apparently Yash saw a group of like 30 cockroaches right before they fell back into a ditch area
- Talking about how much money there is in the healthcare industry, and how nurse practitioners are now deemed able in California to act as physicians almost? Hospitals can now save money and it only benefits people at the top and the lobbyists, but patients are getting a worse quality of care
- At the end, we were sitting on the side of the road, and just observing stuff around us, talking about high school, suburbia
- I mentioned that everything around us exists because it’s making someone out there a profit. I thought that was a really deep, wise thing — it might not have been LMAO
- I talked to him about the negotiations book, and the way he talked about the doctor-patient relationship and how you have to listen to them, use what they’re saying to make a diagnosis, put in prior preparation for the conversation, etc.
- He’s been involved in lobbying, etc, and it’s a way to get involved and actually make a difference for the rest of doctors as well.
uid: 202008160017 tags: #talks #insights