EthicMinds

Revolutions in Artificial Intelligence and Me ;-)

2012-01-27T23:51:00.000-08:00

I am not interested in "hard" things. I don't want other people to do "hard" things either. So, when I read about previous AI revolutions and learned about their "hard" problems, I was not inspired, to say the least. Tough to do even a tic tac toe problem. Tough to overcome "knowledge bottleneck". Tough to encode "commonsense", as demonstrated by CYC project. Machines will learn on their

Playing a Weak Hand

2012-01-24T18:55:00.000-08:00

Many a journalist (this and this) praised the late Mr Kim Jong Il for playing his weak hand really well. I wonder why they failed to praise Mr Gaddafi for the same achievement. The way he got killed so easily and quickly proved that his hand was really weak. But he did rule Libya for 42 years with that weak hand. "42 years" is a long long time even by the standards of emperors and kings. For

Editted Version of the First Innovation Seminar

2012-01-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

[[ Sections Deleted]]1. 2 persons, 2 different behaviors: both succeeded. Please check up Prince by Machiavellior Thinking About Leadership.2. You box the same way. George Foreman boxes the same way, but he thinks he'll win the bout. He even believe the older version of George Foreman will beat the younger version. Am I mad? Is he mad? Are you mad? Please check out By George. At least, you will

Hedgehog vs All-terrain Homosapien

2012-01-17T18:36:00.000-08:00

Bill Gates: "Intelligence is not fungible."Proverb: "Jack of all trades, master of none"Jim Collins: "hedgehog"Buffet and Munger: "circles of competence"Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie: "Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket extra-carefully."I like this spirit of humility and modesty. Given our human limitations, we can't escape focus and specialization.However, hedgehogs shouldn't

Innovation Seminars USD 10,000 per week - My Credentials

2012-01-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

I was very innovative in Myanmar. But let's just say, "That doesn't count." I agree, it's a totally different planet and a totally different existence.So, let's just talk about what I can easily show you evidence of. I will limit the evidence to Singapore and to where I failed. I choose those situations where I failed not because I lack things to boast about but because I don't want to sound

Settling Old Scores for New Years, for New Lives

2012-01-13T21:30:00.000-08:00

I have settled these scores unconsciously many decades back.I have talked about this settlement within my family many months back.Only now I'm discussing this settlement publicly.If I Had Done Well in Medical CollegeThen I became a doctor. Then, I would gradually admire those who sell blood-purification herbal powders, balms, cough syrups, itching powders etc -- yes, there are solid reasons for

Marathon Tyre Kicking and Insecurity

2012-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

From Dec 20 last year to Jan 7 this year I did a marathon of checking out various web frameworks. I burned both ends of the candle as well as the middle so long that the seasonal flu caught up with me. Still I kept on testing till my PC too went down.It took me a couple of days to find and fit replacements for the PC. Then I went on with my testing. In a couple of hours with the revamped PC, I

Innovation Seminar 10,000 per hour - Backend Innovation

2012-01-03T19:31:00.002-08:00

(1) Goldman Sachs alumnus who did well during their time at the company, did not fare that well when they ran their own companies. e.g. MF Global(2) Joel Spolsky once remarked the same about Microsoft alumnus.The explanation for Goldman case: Compliance auditing, compliance accounting, risk management and many other such best practices were not noticed by these alumnus while working Goldman. Then

Innovation Seminars $ 10100 per Day

2011-12-02T21:04:00.000-08:00

In my days in Myanmar, modern business books were rare.I was going abroad and learning programming. My intention was to work, to save and then start my own software business.I needed a lot of courage. I was going into a new country, a new culture, a new corporate culture, a new profession, new technologies ... uh ... so many new and new stuffs.I needed a lot of courage. Fortunately, during one of

Future of Blogging : Our Methods and Madness

2011-11-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

Polonius(in Hamlet) says of the Prince : "Though this be madness, there is method in it".Let's see how much that applies to our blogging style here. Is there a madness? Is there a method? Is there only one, none or both or something else altogether?Some years back I read lots of how-to blog books. I still update my knowledge base in this area on a continual basis. But then, I use my finger-tip

Data-Driven Decision-making

2011-11-06T20:52:00.002-08:00

Great By Choice by Jim Collins is a terrific book. Wonderful, timely, and very readable and accessible!It is also very entertaining for the numerous anecdotes in it.The idea I find the most useful for me is being "empirical." By that, the author apparently means that your decision must have data to back it up, that you must have proof, reason other than and outside of your feelings, hunches, gut

Startup Wing Chun - Intent

2011-11-06T20:51:00.000-08:00

I once read in Wing Chun Compendium that Intent is more important than force, muscle pressure, energy etc. The book explains the concept of intent (in my paraphrase) as"Just think about it. The hand will hit the target, the foot will raise and kick the target, all by themselves."Doesn't it sound as magical as the Law of Attraction folks?The I recalled what I often see in TV documentaries on wild

Programmers in Singapore, Please Come and Accept My Worship

2011-11-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Programmers in Singapore, please come.Whatever your age, nationality, race, rank or religion,Whatever your language(PHP or Python, Scala or Smalltalk, Ada or Assembly),Please come, I want to worship you.I am not being sarcastic. Maybe a bit desperate ;-)There is no hidden agenda. The agenda is very open: I want you to work for me free for many months. ( As a bonus advantage, I may even allow you

A Letter to Mr. Barack Obama

2011-11-02T00:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Mr Obama,In Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, I read that1. Once you felt like hiding "confusion or doubt" from your "seasoned advisers."2. You also felt a big part of leadership is "projecting" "confidence" and "optimism" like FDR and Reagan.3. Since putting America's best and smartest brains in a room still not gets you "perfect technical answers"

Thinking Up New Products and Thesis Topics

2011-10-14T22:17:00.000-07:00

1. Steve Jobs once said that he's proud of products that he had done and maybe even prouder of products that he had chosen not to do yet.2. According to Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money, searching for business opportunities and great products is like mining: out of 10, you get 3, and out of those 3, you dig into 1.Is thinking up new products

Startup Lessons from Chinese Classic Literature

2011-09-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

Last 2 or 3 days, I read1. Water Margin (or Outlaws of the Marsh). This was Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual. Both version, 70 or 120 chapters, are good.2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms, 4-volume version and 10-volume comics version. This was also Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual.As usual, I draw some weird lessons:1. Water Margin methods are good for

Startup Wing Chun

2011-09-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

I don't know Wing Chun or any martial arts. Rather like the guy who "can't even catch a chicken" in Water Margin (or Outlaws of the Marsh) Aside: that book was Mao Zedong's childhood favourite and adulthood manual. Both version, 70 or 120 chapters, are good.Wing Chun somehow came from Shaolin.Differences, as far as I can see:1. Shaolin was invented when China was "the center of the Universe."2.

Myanmar, Singapore, Entrepreneurs and Einstein

2011-09-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

1. Myanmar has been in the news these days.2. So has Singapore.3. Entrepreneurs According to a recent BusinessWeek report(last week, maybe), entrepreneurs in China are worried that if they do something nice and new, Tencent will just copy those innovations, and entrepreneurs in America are worried that if they do something nice and new, Google will buy them out.4. Maybe I am worried that I am

Programming - The Answer , My Friend, is ...

2011-08-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

My Own Failures1. I wrote an application in a Ruby web framework 1.x.x. Everything worked, fine. Then the 2.x.x. version came along and I upgraded and my app broke in many places. I fixed them somehow.Then the 3.x.x. version came along and I upgraded and my app broke in many places again.That is not the framework's problem. The real problem is I had used too many plugins.2. I wrote an application

Some Reasons I Would Learn to Write Software

2011-08-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

This is a kind of brain-storming with myself, and thus they were jotted down in no particular order.to express myself in products, rather than in poetry, paint, dancing moves or tune etc.to father many a virtual world, where schools really behave like schools, kids behave like kids, lessons behave like lessons etc.to exploit market opportunities, technological opportunities, etcto get ease and

Essential Leadership Skills - Part 1

2011-07-05T19:18:00.001-07:00

Essential because ... First, you can't say, "It doesn't apply to me. I don't want to lead."You have to lead yourself when1. you are not led at all, or2. you are poorly led.Second, saying "I won't lead" is exactly like, "I won't decide." Choosing not to decide is a decision after all.Third, as in "Planning is essential, plans are nothing," you need to know whether you are being led at all or not.

Grief work - Homecoming in a Jet

2011-06-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

It's a misnomer, the title.1. Sad about losses and misses, but this is also a release and a celebration!2. True in the sense of reconnecting with one's true self. A shining, shining with greatness. But real visits may be years away. Sad.A fragment of Japanese poetry comes to mind:" For the sake of sons who pray,Let the parting day be thousand years away."What a samurai! Homecoming as in Healing

Toilet Training - Freudians and Buddha

2011-06-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

Toilet LearningToilet Learning is a very nice book. I'm sort of summarizing and paraphrasing the Chapter "The Freud Complex."1.Kids that Freud would describe as "anal erotics" are not holding back; they are just too young and not neurophysiologically ready to move their vowels at will.2. "It is not the anus ... -- it is the parent."(the author's words, not my paraphrase.)Please forgive Freud and

Practice and Theory of Gambling Part 1

2011-06-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

If you hate and/or despise gambling a tad too much, we need to ensure that you are not suffering from a shadow, which I'd like to define as those aspects of your own self/personality that you've estranged or disowned to please your primary caregivers and/or peers in your childhood and/or youth. Your shadow is there all the time but you just don't notice it except in your night dreams and/or

One-foot Fence Leadership

2011-05-22T22:25:00.001-07:00

Source of InspirationPeter Drucker has advised in many places to focus on strengths and tolerate minor or some of even major weaknesses. Especially in Effective Executive and Managing for Results.Warren Buffett remarks "I don't look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over". A nice collection of quotes here.Best of all, the Taoist thinker, Chuangtzu, mentioned