Describes the approach of taking computational algorithms and applying those in our own lives for guidance. A bit hard to get through at some pieces with meaty math equations to consider. But for the most part; stunningly enlightening and it generates a lot of philosophical advice taken from computer science.
#Things to consider
- Algorithms have been a part of human technology ever since the Stone Age.
- Some problems are better avoided than solved.
- Explore when you will have time to use the resulting knowledge, exploit when you’re ready to cash in. The interval makes the strategy.
- In general, it seems that people tend to over-explore—to favor the new disproportionately over the best.
- We refer to things like Google and Bing as “search engines,” but that is something of a misnomer: they’re really sort engines.
- The truncated top of an immense, sorted list is in many ways the universal user interface.
- The nearest thing to clairvoyance is to assume that history repeats itself—backward.
- A natural way to think about forgetting is that our minds simply run out of space.
- Every time you switch tasks, you pay a price, known in computer science as a context switch.
#Reading log
2017-05-25: I’m getting to the end of 📚 Algorithms to Live By, it’s been great but some of the chapters included a bit too much math. Then I lose interest. Other chapters have been more philosophical in nature and that draws my interest.