I started eating with them [the chemists] for a while. And I started asking, ‘What are the important problems of your field?’ And after a week or so, ‘What important problems are you working on?’ And after some more time I came in one day and said, ‘If what you are doing is not important, and if you don’t think it is going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?’ I wasn’t welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with!…In the fall, Dave McCall stopped me in the hall and said, ‘Hamming, that remark of yours got underneath my skin. I thought about it all summer, i.e. what were the important problems in my field. I haven’t changed my research’, he says, ‘but I think it was well worthwhile.’ And I said, ‘Thank you, Dave’, and went on. I noticed a couple of months later he was made the head of the department. I noticed the other day he was a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. I noticed he has succeeded. I have never heard the names of any of the other fellows at that table mentioned in science and scientific circles.

-- Richard Hamming - “You and Your Research”

Yak Shaving

Any seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you're working on.

你看到路边有个人在剪羊毛，然后上去问他，你剪这羊毛是要做啥啊，结果他告诉你为了给汽车打蜡。Antfu 就是通过做这些看起来偏离原本工作的事情，开始了他的全职开源之路。

到最后，我们的 App 最终没有成功，但是我却收获许多我在一路上解决问题做出的各种项目以及参与开源的宝贵经验。i18n Ally 从最初的 vue-i18n 专用到现在支持超过 20 个主流框架，VS Code 下载量超过 6 万。VueUse 从最开始一个简单的工具集，到现在成为一个拥有 10 个成员，8 个生态库的 GitHub Organization。

This article describes how AI helped creating a util script that captures ChatGPT chat history into own server. AI is very good at handling general problem like how to handle CORS or how to intercept fetch. so as long as you have this kind of problem, AI can be very helpful to boost your productivity.

第一次感受到地震，震感还挺强烈的，好在就一下下。

This is Zach Weiner(Author of SMBC)'s AMA, someone asked about his creative process, here's his response:

Ideally, I spend the first 5-8 hours of my day learning science/math, then 3-4 hours writing jokes, then 2-4 hours reading a book, then at the end of the day I draw.

So yeah. Basically, the main thing is to get a lot of good input if you wanna have a lot of good output. Writer's block is bullshit. If you're putting in the time to intake info, process it, and sit at your keyboard fighting for good ideas, you'll never hit a wall.

How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF), this leaked onboarding document for new members of his production company is a compelling read. Very detailed, even if you don't want a successful Youtube career, there's still stuff you can take away.

---

About Mr Beast

I spent basically 5 years of my life locked in a room studying virality on Youtube. Some days me and some other nerds would spend 20 hours straight studying the most minor thing.

And the result of those probably 20,000 to 30,000 hours of studying is I’d say I have a good grasp on what makes Youtube videos do well.

Youtube is the future and I believe with every fiber of my body it’s going to keep growing year over year and in 5 years Youtube will be bigger than anyone will have ever imagined and I want this channel to be at the top.

People Related

I only want "A Players"

You’re either an A-Player, B-Player, or C-Player. There is only room in this company for A-Players. A-Players are obsessive, learn from mistakes, coachable, intelligent, don’t make excuses, believe in Youtube, see the value of this company, and are the best in the goddamn world at their job. B-Players are new people that need to be trained into A-Players, and C-Players are just average employees. They don’t suck but they aren’t exceptional at what they do. They just exist, do whatever, and get a paycheck. They aren’t obsessive and learning. C-Players are poisonous and should be transitioned to a different company IMMEDIATELY.

Work Related

Nothing Comes Before Your Prios

If the studio is burning down and you stop working to put out the fire and don’t get the lamborghini, THAT’S YOUR FAULT. (jokes haha) but seriously don’t let anything come before your prios.

Higher forms of communication.

If you spend any amount of time with James you’ll hear him bring up higher forms of communication a lot. Because it’s important and somehow very overlooked by most people. The worst thing you could ever do when you need something for your critical component is email someone at the company. The best is to talk to them in real life. It’s very important you know when to call people for stuff, grab them in real life, and when to text them. The lower the form of communication the more miscommunication you will face.

Don’t take anything at face value, always dig

Communication Lines

Ideally when communicating across departments you go up and then over. If you skip and just go below you prizemust then call and let the people in charge know.

It’s your fault, track the contractor

I can’t stand when people dump and forget their project on a contractor and then the day before the shoot blame them when it’s not ready. That’s on YOU, not the contractor.

you need to then decide whether or not it’s a critical component. If it is, you should also begin working on a backup and while working on a backup you should check in with JB every single day. Ask him to send videos everyday to spot problems early, hell maybe talk to him twice a day. I don’t care just don’t leave room for error. No excuses, stop leaving room for error.

Video everything

The questions get more and more detailed and all you have to go off of is what's in your mind. The rest of your production team also needs to start planning bits but they don’t know what it looks like and it’s a shit show. This is why we say video everything.

Video Related

How to measure the success of content

CTR(Click Thru Rate), AVD(Average View Duration), and AVP(Average View Percentage).

CTR

why does the title and thumbnail matter to me? Expectations is why. The title and thumbnail on the videos you will be producing set the expectations for the viewer for your video.

How can you know how to start your video if you don’t even know what expectations the viewers have of you?

AVD

As with almost every video on Youtube, the first minute has the most loss (go look). This is why we freak out so much about the first minute and go so above and beyond to make it the best we freakin can.

We also want to do something around the 3 minute mark called a 3 minute re-engagement. A re-engagement can be described as content that is highly interested that fits the story and makes people genuinely impressed.

Misc:

Brand Deals Are Content

BRAND DEALS ARE CONTENT! And when treated as such boosts retention. We need to make them in entertaining. Also, fun fact, the last CEO that sponsored a video said that the return was 1.7x the return they get on a NFL championship game ad.

字节一个季度有3次匿名（如果没记错的话）的机会在内部论坛发布内容，让情绪有一个出口，对上级/同事有一定的约束。

一个组织最强的粘性应该是：你不愿放弃与如此优秀的人共事的机会。

The main point of this article can be summarized as follows:

To understand something, you must actively engage with it. However, non-fiction books make an implicit assumption: that people absorb knowledge by reading sentences. Lectures face a similar problem: conveying knowledge through words is difficult. To improve learning, there should be a new medium that embraces the idea of "actively engaging."

However, in my opinion, it is not the medium that matters, but rather the content that can transform a reader from a passive mode into an active one. Take Feynman's book, "Six Easy Pieces" for example. He describes the topics so well that you can visualize what is happening.

The lectures-as-warmup model is a post-hoc rationalization, but it does gesture at a deep theory about cognition: to understand something, you must actively engage with it. That notion, taken seriously, would utterly transform classrooms. We’d prioritize activities like interactive discussions and projects; we’d deploy direct instruction only when it’s the best way to enable those activities.

When books do work, it’s generally for readers who deploy skillful metacognition to engage effectively with the book’s ideas. This kind of metacognition is unavailable to many readers and taxing for the rest.

不闻不若闻之，
闻之不若见之，      
见之不若知之，      
知之不若行之；      
学至于行之而止矣    

-- 荀子                                    

Not having heard is not as good as having heard,
having heard is not as good as having seen,
having seen is not as good as mentally knowing,
mentally knowing is not as good as putting into action;
true learning is complete only when action has been put forth

-- Xunzi

The main point of this article is to discuss how to use Anki to enhance long-term memory. The primary reason is that Anki aligns with the memory system known as Spaced Repetition. By using Anki, you can significantly improve your ability to remember information. In this article, the author describes how he adapted Anki to learn from the AlphaGo paper. Following this success, he expanded the strategy to broader domains.

The most important reason is that making Anki cards is an act of understanding in itself. That is, figuring out good questions to ask, and good answers, is part of what it means to understand a new subject well. To use someone else's cards is to forgo much of that understanding.

Indeed, I believe the act of constructing the cards actually helps with memory. Memory researchers have repeatedly found that the more elaborately you encode a memory, the stronger the memory will be. By elaborative encoding, they mean essentially the richness of the associations you form.

My cards are always one of two types: the majority are simple question and answer; a substantial minority are what's called a cloze: a kind of fill-in-the-blanks test.

Finally, he elaborated on the conflict between book notes and Anki. Creating Anki cards takes time and effort, which can slow down reading. Perhaps the best strategy is to take notes first and then, at the end of the day, turn these notes into Anki cards.

PS: 可以在这里查看中英双语版本： https://readit.vip/a/npBn7

字节会隔一段时间（印象中是半年）召开一次全员大会（线上+线下），CEO 和高层会向全员汇报这段时间的工作成果、发现的问题、值得表扬的个人和团队、以及接下来的重点。员工可以提出问题（按票数排序），请高层回答。这种双向沟通非常棒，信息可以在组织内更顺畅地流通。我就职过的其他公司，都没有将这件事常态化。

天气好极了，钱几乎没有

-- 契科夫

翻出一张 16 年去日本环球影城的照片。当时刚下完阵雨，也没耽误夕阳下山，倒是把天空搅成了打翻的颜料盘。这样的场景怕是再也见不到了。

Having an AI agent as an English assistant is like having a coach sitting next to you while you drive. You can identify the areas where you went wrong and learn how to improve, all without the risk of having an accident.

Optimizing for speed is worthwhile. Life is short; if you don’t work quickly enough, you will complete fewer projects, which leads to fewer opportunities for success. Meanwhile, working at a fast pace allows you to dive into projects quickly and gather feedback, which is crucial for the success of our projects.

When I think about speed I think about the whole process - researching, planning, designing, arguing, coding, testing, debugging, documenting etc.

It's also really hard to get better at having good ideas because you get such little feedback. It might take a year to build out a complex idea before finding out if it's good or not, which means you get maybe 40 attempts in your career.

When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found.

-- John McCarthy

Cursor 的存在感太强了，不太习惯，还是回到 VSCode

讲述了电影「里斯本丸沉没」背后的故事，方励这个人很有点意思。

重生之 Cursor 教我写代码

洗冷水澡第 4 天，波澜不惊，已基本适应。不过还是会担心之后天气冷了下来，会迈不出这一步。

付费体验了下 Cursor，确实强，几分钟就完成了两个 Feature。可以把自己转换为一个新角色：懂技术的产品经理。

PS: 对比了下 Cody VS Code 插件（相比 Cursor，便宜了一半），功能上类似，但 Index 总是有问题，有点慢，有时还会 Apply 到错误的代码块。

以后仓库管理员也可以远程办公了···

Lex 针对读者问到的「感觉自己的编程能力会/已经被 AI 取代，如何克服这种焦虑感」的回复，挺到位的。

• ride the wave of code generating LLMs
• become a big picture architect
• constantly switch to the best AI tools & models
• design with natural language 1st
• don’t compete with the AI, use it to work better

核心思想是拥抱 AI，使其为自己所用。还有就是把自己从「程序员」的角色解放出来，向 CEO, Product Manager 转变。

NotebookLM, Google 出的这款产品（目前还在内测，有区域和年龄限制），可以让你上传 PDF 文档、论文、文章，然后生成两人聊天的 Podcast，很方便。听了下聊天的效果，非常接近真人（英语）。

体验了下，非常震撼！真的就像两个人在讨论一本书！