Category: Reading Notes

What it takes to be great—notes (zz)

Weiran2 Comments

From Val’s space, Thanks. http://zakxu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!746D3A02D93DC7FE!420.entry

Specially agree on the 10-year rule and "practice makes perfect".

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What it takes to be great—notes

Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work

Talent doesn’t mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It’s an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. (Golf champ Tiger Woods never stopped trying to improve when he begin to play golf at 3 years old.)

No substitute for hard work

Reinforcing that no-free-lunch finding is vast evidence that even the most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work before becoming world-class, a pattern so well established researchers call it the ten-year rule.

Practice makes perfect

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call "deliberate practice." It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

The skeptics

Not all researchers are totally onboard with the myth-of-talent hypothesis, though their objections go to its edges rather than its center.

Real-world examples

Winston Churchill, one of the 20th century’s greatest orators, practiced his speeches compulsively. Vladimir Horowitz supposedly said, "If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, my wife knows it. If I don’t practice for three days, the world knows it."

The business side

Many elements of business, in fact, are directly practicable. Presenting, negotiating, delivering evaluations, deciphering financial statements – you can practice them all.

Adopting a new mindset

You aren’t just doing the job, you’re explicitly trying to get better at it in the larger sense.

Feedback is crucial, do everything you can get the feedback.

Be the Ball

Through the whole process, one of your goals is to build what the researchers call "mental models of your business" – pictures of how the elements fit together and influence one another. The more you work on it, the larger your mental models will become and the better your performance will grow.

How much of a difference could breast feeding make?

Weiran6 Comments

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2006/11/06/breastfeeding-your-child-is-it-better-for-their-mental-health/

The findings of this particular study indicate that those children breastfed for less then six months had a 52% likelihood of a mental health problem at as early as age two. In the sample, the risk was shown to increase to 61% at age eight and then decrease to 37% by the age of ten, in those children breastfed less then six months.

reading notes (1017)

WeiranLeave a comment

Three Mercedes-Benz BLUETEC vehicles are on their way
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/10/17/three-mercedes-benz-bluetec-vehicles-are-on-their-way/
大奔柴油车，V8的扭矩，V4的耗油量

What Not To Do With A $140M Painting
http://www.luxist.com/2006/10/17/what-not-to-do-with-a-140m-painting/
竟然不小心在一幅140000000元的画上撞一个洞。。。所以说，钱不是万能，但没有钱万万不能～

Crowdsourcing Creativity
http://www.micropersuasion.com/2006/10/crowdsourcing_c.html
Too many blablabla-sourcing, why not just say collaboration?

reading notes (last time ~ 1016)

WeiranLeave a comment

OnStar GPS
http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-23712.html
另类的GPS，半人工半自动。这类型的人工干预的商业模式，可以应用在很多领域。face the fact, there’s only to some degrees that automation can handle well.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets
http://docs.google.com/
我以为：
1. MS Office的market share不会因此减少（如果用过Office2007的会知道我的意思，也就是我之前讨论的web based和winform based的不同）；
2. MS Office不会free
3. MS will come up with something online collaboration version of Office pretty soon. See the Grove server, SharePoint, and Team System.
我还以为：
1. Google Docs会有越来越多的用户，free的，而且web 2.0
2. Google会继续不断提供新的online collaboration idea

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=D26B10CA0DE48DE1619FCEFC39D00D64
WTF?!!! But it makes some sense. Now that people are selling virtual goods for US dollars and being taxed, will that be one day people put US dollars in some virtual real estate then lose money and claim a loss when filing tax return??? Who knows… when more than half of your days are dealing with virtual stuff, ask yourself, is it real after all?

Digital age may bring total recall in future
http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/10/16/explorers.memory/index.html
ok，那些快要结婚的，不能假装失忆，让你bf像第一天追你的时候那样再追你一次啦～～～虽然很多bf都不介意

Maserati MC12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maserati_mc12
我见过最帅的maserati

2007 Mazda MX-5 hardtop convertible (Power Retractable Hard Top)
http://www.leftlanenews.com/2006/07/18/2007-mazda-mx-5-hardtop-convertible-power-retractable-hard-top/
始终的挚爱～～support！

reading notes (long time ago ~ 1010)

Weiran3 Comments

# IE7 will be pushed out, RSS rules!

# KiteShip
发明者一定看过《一个馒头引发的血案》～～～hoho

# Neovision Labs rolls out iFusion 3D display for PMPs
假3D stereo

# Chinese scientists invent first cooking robot
昨天电视新闻也看到了，想象力丰富！

# One Click Butter Cutter
这才叫干脆俐落

# What Do Kids, Tweens and Teens Do Online?
看看你几岁？

# Protein Gel Stops Bleeding in Unknown Way
极速止血，希望能尽早临床。

 

Google用16.5亿收购了YouTube，再一次证实我的去年4月份的一个post是对的：

One sure thing, "online personal DV sharing" will be the next target that VCs pour their $$ on. Let’s go and see.

YouTube是2月份成立的，4月份的时候我还不知道有这个网站，但觉得我的毕业典礼录像没有地方share，狠是不对劲，VC找的都是折腾不对劲问题的公司的。