On Becoming Expert

I came across a terrific motivational post today through my del.icio.us hotlist.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/05/become-an-exper.html

The post is primarily about the method of ‘deliberate practice’ and becoming better at something through regularly timed conscience meticulous effort. I particularly found the post to be motivational and the comments at the bottom of the post just as good as reading the actual article.

While I do agree that deliberate practice is without question a primary requirement of becoming ‘expert’ or even ’skilled’ at whatever it is you are interested in there still is something to be said for natural ability.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/10/30/8391794/index.htm

This article at fortune is also a great motivational read on pushing oneself to achieve greatness or expertism but I do not completely agree that natural ability can be so quickly discarded or forgotten. It is undeniable to me that natural talent does exist in some things. Tiger Woods does work incredibly hard to get where he is but he did initially have a natural talent for swinging the golf club. Mozart is famed for his tours around Europe to all the royal courts where he would play both on the piano and violin blindfolded while a very young youth of some half dozen years of age. Yet, not all experts, nor even the ‘best’, in something need to be natural talents.

The true question to me is the relationship natural talent has to becoming adjusted to some skill at a very early age. Tiger Woods for instance was submitted to golf at 18 months of age. By the time of his third birthday he would have already spent half of his lifetime practicing golf. Is this the relative equivalent to a 20-year old golfer having practiced for 10 years? Furthermore, would Tiger Woods have been just as good a golfer today had his first initiation to golf been postponed from eighteen months to three or five or ten years? It is intriguing to think that early introduction to some ability leads to what people might call ‘natural ability’ at a later date in life. Meanwhile, would that person adapt a good skill at an older age, it is attributed to hard work rather than natural ability since the relative time needed to spend on learning something is of a completely different scale. These are intriguing thoughts to me with which I play devil’s advocate in favor of the Fortune article.

Another curious relationship is that of desire and motivation and their lead up to deliberate practice. If you can properly practice something deliberately, and not just practice by rote which leads to you gaining almost no value out of the practice, then I would argue that you must already require that motivation and desire to succeed. I don’t think the opposite is true where one may try deliberate practicing to eventually hope to gain that motivation — I don’t think it works this way. Motivation gives your mind the proper boost required for finding a reason to care for what it is you’re doing. Without it, even to some degree, you will find yourself thinking that all this effort and time that you are spending is somehow pointless and not required. You could easily be enjoying doing something else entirely.

Neuromancer – William Gibson

Read: April 25 – May 3, 2008

Rating: 3/5

I have wanted to read Neuromancer for years. I probably first was interested in it when I first learned of its acclaim with winning the triple crown of Science fiction awards and also because of its involvement for setting so much for both the science fiction community and the computer-related future. Yet, I must admit I wasn’t overly thrilled with the novel.

Neuromancer is an incredibly difficult novel to critique since after reading it I can fully understand people’s views of either completely loving or disliking it. I myself felt both emotions while reading the book. A reader not accustomed in reading science fiction and only reading this particular novel because of someone’s advice or recommendation would likely find this book very confusing and full of head-swelling jargon. On the other hand one very into the world of science fiction or technology may find this book one of the best they have read in years. This book really can be judged fairly in either case I believe.

On an enjoyment scale I rate the book quite low. I was confused at times for much of it and I found the writing to be like walking in sand. This is especially relevant to the second half of the book. Yet, some of the writing is very original and without question the novel is terribly well thought out in its own way.

I fully acknowledge the historical relevance that Neuromancer can be accredited in terms of coining cyberspace, starting the cyberpunk writing movement and also, perhaps, having a hand in developing what we find in today’s Internet and computer world. It is unquestionably easy to find an unnervingly large part of the popular Matrix movies in this one book. So much so, it makes me question whether the writing duo that put The Matrix together ever gave Neuromancer a large citation of influence.

I would be quite wary in recommending this novel for others pleasure. It is an acquired taste and perhaps, due to Gibson’s fame, reading more of his work is a very much needed thing to do before judging him as an author. He certainly shows great imagination with this first novel.

…pain beyond anything to which the name of pain is given…

The high wore away, the chromed skeleton corroding hourly, flesh growing solid, the drug-flesh replaced with the meat of his life.

Old Advertising

Sometimes I cannot help but be cynical and think to myself how crazy times were in the past compared to what Western society has molded us into thinking today.

Take this following advertisement for instance. People knew at this time that smoking was generally bad for your health. They might not have known exactly how bad but even Tolstoy in Anna Karenina wrote that smoking was harmful for the lungs. Anyway, this advertisement is not only for cigarettes but shows a very un-PC image of a woman with a black eye as well as mentions in the written statement how good Activated Charcoal really is. Just a great little sneak back in time this picture is.

One of my favorite little actors

Here is a small article and interview with Warwick Davis. Everyone knows him well for his roles as the cute little Ewok Wicket in Star Wars as well as Willow and other roles in Harry Potter, Labyrinth and Leprechaun. Willow was an important film in my youth and I think I have watched the film at least 15-20 twenty times since it was produced. I even nostalgically remember playing the original Nintendo console game titled Willow that was in the top-down style of the original Zelda.

I have always had a fascination in the roles and films Warwick Davis has been a part of. Additionally, the interview he gives is the first time I can recall seeing him outside of a film and he seems like a smart and kind person.

Wizard’s First Rule – Terry Goodkind

Read: 07.12.2007

Rating: 4/5

This huge novel is one of the rare examples of epic fantasy available that is truly original, unique, well thought through and, at times, full of good food-for-thought and philosophical backing.

This was the second time I have read this book -the first being some seven or eight years ago. I still can remember sitting at my old desk in my old room at my parent’s house reading through the magical first pages of this novel. It left a pleasant and memorable experience within me that I now always recall when thinking back about this fine book.

I think one of the things that makes this novel fun and enjoyable is the combination of originality that always makes sense within itself and the well-structured flow of the story. It is obvious that the author put a lot of effort and time into the planning of the novel. There is nothing more aggravating than an author who adds neat ideas to stories for no other reason than for them just being there and doesn’t really use them for anything that adds to the book. It is also obvious Terry Goodkind had many ideas and themes he wished to state through the many pages he gives here.

The characters are not too deep in the book -they (the good ones that is) are a bit bland I find with no overly large amount of flavor. Goodkind’s characters shine more with the evil-natured ones -I will always love Darken Rahl’s habit of licking his fingers followed by smoothing down his eyebrows. At times the story is quite predictable, especially closer to the end, yet it always comes together very nicely.

This novel will always stand as one of those which brought my love of serious fantasy writing and although it has a few scenes which are quite graphic and detailed for younger readers it is perfect for an adult audience.

PDA-Phone

I am interested in getting a PDA-Phone device sometime in the second-half of this year. I have never had one before nor have I really any expectations on what brands are good and what I should really be considering when looking at these devices. I am really not too fussy on what it comes with as long as I can access Internet apps like Gmail, Google maps, GCal. Perhaps a built-in camera would be good too and I would like the ability to read ebooks in html format as well.

I have come across a database site which has tons of brands and information but I really feel drowned in all the selection. This site is: http://www.pdadb.net/. Seriously, I feel like I shouldn’t plan things too much and just make my decision when I go into a store later on and actually see what they have available in their selections.

I would appreciate anyone else’s thoughts regarding these devices too.

On the future of book reading

This article at Teleread really brings to the attention what state reading is developing towards. That is, everything is shifting online.

I am not sure what to personally make of this. Of course, Amazon and Google know that accessibility makes money. They are trying to offer new things is their field of expertise and the accessibility of reading a book at any time or place you want is a big item to them. Sure, I think their services could improve by allowing you to upload your own ebook perhaps and working in a standard nonproprietary file format but the premise and method is sound.

I would like to see an online center eventually where I can keep both my digital books as well as my annotations and comments about those same books. A sort of book center where it is easy to find what I what or need and the ability to organize it and refer to it as needed. The ability to read samples of books such as the main services provide now is totally inadequate and I am sure most people would be naturally uninterested in reading a book when they immediately learn that it is not all accessible before they even attempt it.

I am excited to see what happens in the world of ebooks and online reading over the next couple years.

Welcome All!!

This morning I posted an article about my experiences using Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and when I came back tonight to see my stats for the site I realized that this single post has generated almost twice as much traffic through my site than the total time it has been online.

Wow!! I didn’t know this would occur so I welcome all the newcomers and hopefully even a couple of you wish to subscribe to my feed. The link can be found in the right-side menu.

Thank you for all interest in both my humble site and also for your interest in open-source computing using the great Ubuntu platform.

Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron

I installed the new version of Ubuntu fresh on my laptop yesterday. This is the Hardy Heron release that is labeled 8.04. These are just some thoughts I realized so far.

I noticed early that even the basic setup screen when booting off the CD has changed. You can now run directly into the installer without even needing to run the OS off the Live CD. This version all comes with the famous WUBI package that lets one run a virtualization instance of Ubuntu in your Windows partition. I didn’t attempt this feature and I expect it to be a big thing to people inexperienced with using Linux and wishing to merely touch it for awhile. I expect that the performance this way would be a little lessened as is usual of virtualization.

As is usual with the combination of my laptop and Linux is my Broadcom 4318 integrated wireless card. The silly non-open drivers have always been a plague in trying to adopt Linux for me and this time I had problems again. The real problem I should clarify is not that I cannot get the actual card working anymore, it is very easy by using the b43-fwcutter package on Synaptic but the real problem is that this firmware method lacks any real power of amplification in the wireless signal. In Windows I might have had a full excellent connection to the Internet but with the fwcutter package my signal is terrible and constantly cuts in and out of service. I haven’t attempted the ndiswrapper solution yet as I have heard that it is a pain in this new release. I will wait until things are a little more refined before attempting more serious modification of the system.

I had assumed that very little in the features department would be added to this release since it is to be a LTS (long-term support) release. More time would be spent in adding stability to basically what was 7.10 with the added kernel and Gnome updates. From what I have noticed so far this seems pretty accurate. I admit though, I was surprised to see Firefox 3.0 beta 5 being used as the standard browser. Only for the fact that it is still in beta if for nothing else. This is my first time using the 3.0 version and what I’ve noticed so far was been good and very smooth. I like the new download menu and password remembering manager and the auto-recognition part of the url browser is pretty spiffy.

All in all I am impressed with this latest version of Ubuntu. It has been very stable and a complete breeze to setup. Now only if the Broadcom wireless was more forgiving I wouldn’t have really any issue with any feature yet.

Digital Cameras – how fast can you use yours?

What is the deal with some people and their digital cameras?

Today at Keukenhof, the world’s largest flower garden, I saw an Asian man taking picture after picture with his small Sony camera but not once did he actually stop for a second to admire what it was in front of him. He would keep his sight on the digital display of the camera stretched out before him with unflinching eyes bulging wide less he might miss something and I watched as he would walk to and from each flower bed clicking countless photographs, not even once taking his sight away from the camera screen. To me this seems a mix of pure addiction and a smattering of extreme closed mindedness. I watched as he did this for nearly ten minutes while his wife walked beside him and in that time he must have easily taken over one-hundred photographs. The most shocking thing about this matter to me was his lack of removing his eyes from the screen and never actually looking at the gorgeous flowers and tulips that lay around him. I can just see this guy going back to his home and telling his friends and family what beautiful flowers he saw when in reality he went all that way and didn’t actually see anything.

Such a strange phenomena this is and, intriguingly, I’ve noticed it in Asian men more than anyone else. Sure taking photographs of what you have seen is nice but it’s never better than actually seeing it with your own eyes and taking a minute to admire and think about that which is before you. If I was that interested in looking at photos of flowers, there are millions of flower and tulip pictures on the Internet already without me needing to dish out thousands of dollars to travel to Holland just to make more countless pictures and still not really see them even then.

I think this carries also from when I was on the public transportation bus I took to Keukenhof. There were many Asian men aboard too and they would take pictures through the window of the countryside as we passed. This in itself is not bad but many would be so absorbed in having to take picture after picture that they wouldn’t even realize that the flashes that are coming from all their cameras (besides for being terribly annoying to everyone else around them) is ruining all their pictures because it just causes glare off the window glass. Clearly one good photo is better than dozens, or hundreds, of poor ones?

Sometimes it would be nice to have eliminated digital cameras from the invention annals of history, or maybe just make people earn the right to use digital ones. Really, some people just need to relax and admire things for a change.