This is a very smart guy. Graduated from Caltech with a 3.8 GPA. He was speaking to college students at the Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (CUSEC) <http://cusec.net/>, whatever that is. He had the guts to begin his talk like this.
Unlike the previous session, I don't have any prizes to give out. I'm just going to tell you how to live your life. This talk is about a way to live your life that most people don't talk about. As you approach your career, you'll hear a lot about following your passion or doing something you love. I'm going to talk about something different. I'm going to talk about following a principle—finding a guiding principle for your work, somethng you believe is important and necessary and right—and using that to guide what you do. and to end it like this. There are many ways to live your life. That's maybe the most important thing you will realize in your life -- that every aspect of your life is a choice. There are always default choices. You can chose to sleepwalk through your life and accept the path that's been laid out for you. You can choose to accept the world as it is. But you don't have to. If there is something in the world you feel is wrong, and you have a vision for what a better world would be, you can find your guiding principle and you can fight for a cause. So after this talk, I'd like you to take a little time and think about what matters to you, what you believe in, and what you might fight for. Thank you. And yet I didn't find the talk preachy. He just laid out what was important to him. And what he focused on wasn't even what you might think of as core ethical values. By principle he had in mind something that guides one's professional work. His was immediate connection, i.e., bringing the user into as direct contact as possible with whatever he is working with. Given that, is it even worth making so much of a fuss about it? At the end he asked if his listeners had any such principles. What came to mind for me was to find the right abstractions for whatever I'm doing. That seems to include two things for me. (a) clarity of thought and (b) abstracting from concrete instances to the right higher level way of framing them. *-- Russ Abbott* *_____________________________________________* *** Professor, Computer Science* * California State University, Los Angeles* * Google voice: 747-*999-5105 Google+: https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/ * vita: *http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ *_____________________________________________* On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Stephen Guerin <[email protected]>wrote: > The direct Vimeo link is here: > http://vimeo.com/36579366 > > On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 12:48 PM, David Mirly <[email protected]> wrote: > > Could someone repost the link to the talk? > > > > Thanks. > > > > On Feb 23, 2012, at 10:01 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote: > > > >> This link almost got past me as it got pushed down in my queue waiting > >> to be watched. Thanks to Josh and Roger yesterday at lunch for > >> recommending it. > >> > >> Definitely one of the better talks in the last 6 months for me. > >> > >> Bruce, it seems one could just reload the script on change without > >> having to mess with the compiler. > >> > >> -Stephen > >> > >> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 11:28 PM, Bruce Sherwood > >> <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> Tom, thanks much for advertising Bret Victor's fascinating talk. > >>> > >>> The programming language he's using is JavaScript, with the display > made on > >>> a 2D "canvas" element of a web page. Evidently he has modified the > >>> JavaScript compiler to compile incrementally, compiling just the line > of > >>> code that has been changed. > >>> > >>> His various demos, not just the JavaScript demos, are extremely > interesting, > >>> but also of high interest is his passionate exposition of the > importance of > >>> starting from a principle. > >>> > >>> Bruce > >>> > >>> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:44 PM, Tom Johnson <[email protected]> > wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Yes, Nathan's right. This is worth watching. > >>>> After you've seen this, do any of you know what program this guy is > using > >>>> to display his code-building and editing in real time, i.e. without > >>>> compiling? > >>>> > >>>> -tom > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> ============================================================ > >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >>> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... > >> [email protected] <[email protected]> > >> office: 505.995.0206 mobile: 505.577.5828 > >> > >> redfish.com | simtable.com | sfcomplex.org > >> > >> ============================================================ > >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > >> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > >> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > > > ============================================================ > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > -- > --- -. . ..-. .. ... .... - .-- --- ..-. .. ... .... > [email protected] <[email protected]> > office: 505.995.0206 mobile: 505.577.5828 > > redfish.com | simtable.com | sfcomplex.org > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
