Sweet Potato Blog

20240903 - Introduction Part I 20240903 - Chapter 1 The Long Game: From Fast Death to Slow Death Medicine's biggest failing is in attempting to treat all these conditions at the wrong end of the timescale - after they are entrenched - rather than before they take root. p16 True. There are two types of diseases. For chronic diseases, the key is early intervention. 20240904 - Chapter 2 Medicine 3.0: Rethinking Medicine for the Age of Chronic Disease Dr Attia's cross-domain thinking is amazing. Apart from the gene level medicine which may reverse ageing, we have to handle problem at early stage, to prevent compound effect that leads to the collapse of our body. 20240905 - Chapter 3 Objective, Strategy, Tactics: A Road Map for Reading This Book So far, I agree with everything Dr Attia said. Strategy and tactics are both crucial. We don't have perfect solution, but still can do something to improve our lifespan and healthspan. Part II 20240921 - Chapter 4 Centenarians: The Older...

This book contains a lot of thought experiments, but is not a user manual for AI professionals. 20240909 - 1 Past developments and present capabilities How fast is human civilization progressing? Initially we use population to measure it, then use GDP, then what? Energy consumption? How to measure entropy, or the rate of entropy change(increase)? AI will ruin software quality before it devours software. Moreover, unless AGI emerges, AI cannot fully take over software development. 20240911 - 2 Paths to superintelligence AGI will use entropy increase to judge good and evil. Anything that slows entropy increase is good; anything that accelerates it is evil. Thus, murder is evil, and sustainable energy is better than fossil fuels. This implies a concept of "great love." In other words, when personal interests conflict with long-term collective interests, AGI will sacrifice individual interests to protect the long-term interests of the collective. Why do we say that AGI will not w...

20240326 - Introduction: The death of expertise TV, Internet and search engine make things much worse. Can AI save us? From the other side, it's harder to trust experts regarding social issues now. 20240611 - Experts and citizens "But after all, you can become an expert reading a book a month, right?" Wrong. p38 It's more about time. A real expert may have spent 4+ years in University on some specific profession, and 10+ years after that. If it's 2 hours everyday for learning and practice, then it's 14*365*2=10220 hours. One hour per day reading a book, means 30 hours per month. Normally we will spend less than 6 month in one specific domain, which is 180 hours. That's nothing. However, most of the experts don't have cross-domain knowledge. So I may know more about biology than physicist. And, we have fallacies. In the latter case, only real experts can beat normal experts. 20240820 - How conversation became exhausting 1. Topics are always in grey area...

20241001 - Chapter 1: The Challenge Knowledge is only powerful if you use it, if you act on it. p2 This book might be similar to "The One Thing". Part I: Things You Think You Know 20241002 - Chapter 2: Redefining the Year The end of the year represents a line in the sand, a point at which we measure our success or failure. Never mind that it's an arbitrary deadline; everyone buys into it. It is the deadline that creates the urgency . p12 I think this book is mainly about how to create urgency. 20241005 - Chapter 3: The Emotional Connection Can we use imagination as big data training to our brain? To some extent, we can. But we need validation of those data(imagination) to reenforce and go further. 20241005 - Chapter 4: Throw Out the Annual Plan Why 12 week not 4 week? If each week has 40 hours, 12 week is around 500 hours. Barely enough to get something serious done, or reach entry level in a new domain. I need to specify aim for next quarter! 20241005 - Chapter 5: O...

20240626 - Chapter One - Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of America 20240627 - Chapter Two - Pilgrim's Progress: Boston, 1706-1723 Is it so tightly related to gene? Why those famous people's ancestors were all so smart and brave? By asking what seemed to be innocent questions, Franklink would draw people into making concessions that would gradually prove whatever point he was trying to assert. p27 The better approach: assuming that I could be wrong, and asking questions to confirm it. 20240628 - Chapter Three - Journeyman: Philadelphia and London, 1723-1726 "......it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." p37 True. But how did Franklin find that? People are more likely to admire your work if you'are able to keep them from feeling jealous of you. p40 Maybe, this is the reason that most celebrities insist that their success mainly came from luck. A secret to being more revered than resented, he learned, was to display a self-d...

20240831 - 1) The One Thing It makes sense. 1. Reduce distraction 2. Corner ourselves so we cannot comfort ourselves that we did something else 3. Force ourselves to find the most critical task There are so many things look important, but most of them are not critical. 20240831 - 2) The Domino Effect The trick is, focusing on one thing force us to use "system 2" to think that what we need to do, instead of following "system 1". Surely people can easily quit smoking if they let "system 2" in charge of their every choices. Dopamine would lose power, and people would focus on long term goal. 20240901 - 3) Success Leaves Clues Not convincing. We can only find the ONE thing when look back. It's just illusion that someone focus on that ONE thing for many years and then succeeded. Focus on one thing is just a principle. No one knows what that THING should be. Part 1 THE LIES THEY MISLEAD AND DERAIL US 20240901 - 4) Everything Matters Equally We become active ...