With the advent of my newest project Autodidactic, which premises itself on harnessing the power of "fate and irony," I thought it'd be timely to explain just what that means and how it is actually more literal than one might think.  At its core, it's about setting up the least likely situations to always be in your favor, what others perceive to be your worst case scenarios to actually be your best case.  You set yourself up such that the most ironic thing that can happen to you is the best thing that could happen to you, and everything else falls in line behind that.  This is a lot of the thinking that bleeds into most of my endeavors, whether it be in my trading, planning my life, or even just making sure I get from point A to point B on time.

     It sounds a bit like superstitution or voodoo, but it really is more about planning, psychology, and just staying ahead of the game.  When planning any sort of event or organization, for example, the biggest mistake one often makes is leaving open that 0.0001% chance that things go terribly wrong.  Instead take that and flip it on its head.  Make the 0.0001% case the case where everything goes terribly right.  In practice, I often *seem* like the more conservative risk taker on any team (despite my super left-field ideas and approaches to things),  but when the unthinkable happens, it's to my favor.  What better irony than the safest plans thriving in absolute chaos? And there's nothing to say you can't simply be so in control (or so impervious to a lack of control) that it just looks like you're passive when you've actually already set plans in motion to take over the world.  It's about always knowing your edge cases and putting them in alignment with your goals.  It's about eliminating chance from the equation and only leaving open possibilities that help your cause.  When the unthinkable happens, you win, and when it doesn't, life just continues as usual.

     The other aspect is just mental, when you declare the most absurd things with no expectation they happen, when you jinx or counter-jinx things, when people give up at the exact moment they should have doubled down, etc.  This definitely sounds much more like superstition now, but think of all the situations in the past where you or your friends jinxed things and how often these ironic situations actually came true.  Words have meaning, whether they leave a guilt chip in the back of someone's mind or make yourself doubt your best judgement (too good to be true, unwillingness to go against what you just said, etc).  The key again is to let the things you think most absurd always be in your favor but also in a psychological aspect.  If someone else is doubting something (often you), let them be on the losing side of the ironic outcome and not yourself.  If someone is about to give up but thinks something will work out right as they quit, be on the receiving side of that luck.  Sometimes, it's almost like witchcraft, where in order to ensure my success, I purposely make sure there are enough people thinking or making a claim they'll regret, where they unintentionally jinx themselves such that, in the (misleadingly) remote chance they're wrong, it leads an outcome most extremely in my favor.  Think of famous last words; often times I purposely get someone to declare verbally the opposite of what I want just to jinx him.  This extends to all other activities mental and psychological - trading, poker, etc. If someone is about to exit a trade they think they'll regret doing so, take that as a sign that trade will probably work.  If someone thinks they'll fold a good hand, let that be in your favor if it comes true.  Often times, my reputation in poker is that of a blind better with beginner's luck, when in actuality I'm letting my opponents self destruct against themselves.  It's letting people's own irrationality and biases get the better of them... at least, that's the politically correct way of putting it.

    ...[More]

     "What do you see when you hear this music?" I once asked someone.
     To my surprise, he said, "Nothing."
     "Really?" I asked.  "Not even a story or anything?"
     "Nope.  I just like how it sounds.  Why? What do you see?"
     It still surprises me whenever I come across others who can be appreciating the same work before us but seeing nothing at all.  It never really occurred to me until after college that others might only hear the sound or see the word, the notes, or the colors.
     I still remember a conversation several years back where several coworkers were debating whether thought was organized based on what language one spoke.  "Of course not," I wanted to say, "Otherwise what would you be thinking as a child before you knew any language?" But the debate simply moved towards whether children had any real thoughts...[More]

This is another idea for a short film or animation (probably better fit) that I woke up with as a dream.  It was extremely vivid, like an actual animated film being watched.  The colors come off very strong, with death and decay being black and red while life is green and blue.  Both share occasional streaks of purple though.
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Two brothers are living in a somewhat burned down or devastated forest/wilderness/village.  One of them is out in the woods one day when they are cutting down a tree and release a water spirit.  The water spirit takes the form of an innocent child-like figure that heals the countryside.  

One of the friends get obsessed in dark magic upon realizing magic exists in the world and eventually starts becoming some sort of electricity or energy spirit, spreading smoke/decay and mutation but overall kept in a small corner of the woods because the water spirit would find out and destroy him.  He also doesn't...[More]

     Where do I find people like myself? That question has consumed me for as long as I can remember.  Over the past few years after college, I've managed to only come across maybe a handful of people out of the thousands I met who I can really relate to or consider like-minded.  In the eighteen years of school before that, there were maybe three, each at different times of my life.  What do I consider as being like-minded or similar to myself? For me, understanding a person is all about understanding the person's motivations - seeing through their actions, breaking them down and figuring out what really drives them deep within, what would cause them to crumble if they lost it but what would also make them truly happy.  It is being able to be that person, even if just for that moment, and live their life as they would, to tell their story as they would tell themselves.
     Given an open one-to-one conversation, I've found I can often...[More]

A memoirs of sorts reflecting the talks I've had with most engineers that I met in SF the last few years.  It's funny to encounter at first, but when you're living it everyday, it really drains one's patience.  Maybe I'm having the worst of luck meeting people here, but this has been the bulk of my experience.  All responses are based on real conversations I've had; many are actually toned down from the original statements while others are pretty much direct quotes (besides obvious name changes, etc).  
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Sam: Hi, I'm Sam. Nice to meet you.
Engineer: Hi.
Sam and the engineer shake hands.
Engineer: Sorry....[More]

Much of what people refer to as machine learning today is what's considered "weak AI", in that it is not actually thinking, hypothesizing, or behaving with a sense of self.  The latter is what some would call "strong AI," "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), "artificial life," or just plainly "artificial intelligence" (as opposed to "machine learning").  Below is an approach I've been rummaging for a while on how to create an intelligence that behaves like a person would in any circumstance.  It's something that I've loosely applied to my own projects, but I've not managed to fully explore it in the general sense due to time and resource constraints.  This approach to AI is intended to behave more like a creature or child than anything mechanical or data-driven.  If one reflects on intelligence in biological life, it really doesn't make sense that a truly sentient AI would...[More]

This is primarily a response to Erik McClure's blog post on age discrimination.

I'm of the same age, followed a roughly similar path through school, and also thought that young adults in general were fully capable if given the chance. I've since graduated and moved to the SF Bay Area though; you'd be surprised just how many new college grads actually cannot think freely and critically. I'm sure you must have seen at least a few headlines pointing out some of the absurdity in Silicon Valley now. (Having lived here for 6 years now, I'd say the media actually understates how nonsensical some of the thinking around here is, but that's for another discussion.) That's not to say we should box people up even more when they're younger, just that I can see where some of the prejudice is coming from (yet it can be argued that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy from treating people like drones in the first place).

Speaking on just my own experience in the SF Bay Area though, my thoughts are not so much that the issue is a prejudice against age as much as the issue is an overemphasis on credentials, test scores, and numbers in general. The problems with education today are what I personally see more as part of an overall lack of critical and creative thinking in society - too much data driven. People just want to look at some threshold, do an if-greater-then condition, and be done. If you look at some of the most talented programmers, as an example, many actually do not have a formal degree in Computer Science or are self taught; recruiting based on numbers like we do now would never find them and actually weed them out. On the other side of things, I've met engineers from Ivy League schools who can barely code but get the job nonetheless from great marks in school; some cannot build a program from scratch at all unless you give them the skeleton to fill in the details on, which is arguably the bulk of the work.  I've come across engineers from firms as prestigious as Google who would not even dare explore restaurants without some external confirmation of their decisions, justifying their decisions with "social validation" (their words, not mine); there's actual fear in their eyes at the thought of going somewhere that doesn't have enough Yelp reviews, fear of the uncertainty and making any decision not backed with numbers. Of course, this is flawed thinking, lots of appeal to majority, authority, and other fallacies, but the sad part is a lot of our peers who do this most likely are not even aware of what things like logical fallacies are (in a non-math context). If you've read books like "City and the Stars" or "Childhood's End", it is getting quite close to that at least in some pockets of the country.

I agree with...[More]

We started on a planet once located in the Asteroid Belt, but that exploded.  We came to Mars, but the atmosphere blew away.  Finally, we came here but hit our heads and called ourselves Earthlings.

     These days I don't know what I'm doing anymore.  It seems completely illogical that I'd be on the path I am now given my history.  What am I doing just making songs or chasing stocks when I used to make games, movies, entire websites, etc?

     Sometimes I forget my frustrations, but every once in a while something like this shows up and just really tests my patience with myself:
     http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/10/crash-bandicoot-as-a-startup/

     Besides the fact I use to play those games when I was younger, being able to form a team and produce something on that scale was something I've always dreamed of doing.  It's tough finding finding people of equal or better calibur though and even tougher to find those who share similar ambitions and drive.  Like the author, I also learned most of my programming myself (home-brewed), so it's really hard to relate to colleagues who otherwise...[More]

Had this whole script idea in my dream this morning.  It was like watching a live-action movie with really good effects. It even came with an ending credits song - recorded a bit of it, maybe will make it a full fledge song later one day.

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An advanced society is led by one man (the leader) who seems to have invented a means for everything (free energy, robots, etc).  He himself seems immortal and omnipotent now from his own inventions.  His daughter - he turned into part machine so she does not grow old.  His company headquarters is actually a giant parked spaceship in the city.

One day, however,...[More]

Two friends have known each other since childhood.  One has always been a bit weaker and slightly ill with an unknown virus.  The other friend makes the promise to one day find a cure to the other's condition and studies to become a doctor.

Twenty years later, the doctor gets close to understanding the nature of the illness and finding a cure.  Both are excited at the prospect, but as the cure is applied, the friend seems to gradually get weaker.  The doctor scrambles to figure out what went wrong, but each day that passes, the friend seems to slowly lose grasp on the world.  Eventually the friend becomes bedbound and the doctor caring daily for the friend.

Over time, the doctor notices that, although the friend is losing mental capacity, the friend seems physically fine.  In fact, as the friend becomes healthier, the friend becomes less mentally stable, as if gradually fading away.

The doctor...[More]

In the beginning, the world was but a blank canvas, a fresh landscape for gods to shape as they saw fit.  After they added life and other final touches to their work, they decided to strip themselves of their power, join their creation as mortals, so that their emotions and imperfections do not allow them to destroy what they so cherished, perhaps as they once did in another time.  What they did not realize, however, was that the capacity for their destructive nature came not from their omnipotence but from their ability to reason.  Thus even without their power, the destruction they feared for their creation came to be nonetheless, only this time they would not remember it.

     I fear boredom.  I don't know why.  It's just the way it is.  I should be happy that my two hardest classes are now over, but I instead feel empty.  I should look forward to a fun trip I've been planning this month, but I realize that once it passes (or even in the midst of it), there will be nothing but a void.

     I can't help feeling similar to Jonathan Shields in "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952).  It has haunted me ever since I watched it two years ago for a film class.  Of course, I will never betray anyone for any means, but like Shields, once a project or goal is finished, I don't feel satisfied at all.  Instead, I feel anguish and longing - like I have just lost purpose and have suddenly been reduced to nothing.  I can be anything and do anything, but once I stop, I sink away into the shadows.

     It is not as if I pursue a goal or task because I enjoy it either.  It...[More]

A young influential doctor is called in to assist in the operation of an elderly high-profile patient.  The patient has been left in a paralyzed state by unknown causes but continues to have thought processes and dreams; the paralysis is believed to have a mental rather than physical basis.  New technology by an experimenter is being used that would allow the doctor to enter the patient's dreams in an attempt to free him from his condition.  The doctor was chosen because the technology is not entirely understood, and it is hoped the doctor would be able to figure the situation out quickly once inside the patient's mind.

The doctor is placed into a deep sleep next to the patient, his head in a device connected to the head of the patient's.  The scene pans across the patient's brown eyes to the blue eyes of the doctor, the irises of which are blue.  The doctor awakens in a bed that is not his own and quickly realizes he is in the mind of the patient....[More]

This is an idea that came to me for possibly a short video ad of some sort.  Promotes safer driving I guess, but really.. change the ending and it could promote a lot of things.

  Scroll through a series of scenes showing every day life.  Closer shots show they are actually running backwards.  Over time, we see that these are all mistakes that people make (spilling coffee, breaking tables, etc) that are fixed by going backwards in time.

  Eventually we come to the scene of a car accident with a car pinning a helpless victim to a tree.  The scene running backwards, however, does not solve the issue.  The car pulls away and the victim slides to the ground.  The car is intact - in fact, it's brand new - but the person is still dead.

     A man is traveling with his family and gets stranded in a dark cave.  He is alone and trapped in a large pit within the cave.  Fortunately, there is a stream of sunlight reaching down towards one end of the pit and plants are growing there.  From these few crops he is able to survive.  Later he also climbs down rocks deeper into the cave where it's darker and discovers a river where he can catch fish.

     The whole time he is alone until he one day notices someone standing in the shadows on the other side of the river.  The person can't really be seen and is just a dark figure.  The man calls and waves out.  The person doesn't say anything, but the man assumes it's because they're too far apart to hear each other.  However, the person seems to motion or signal back before fading back into the shadows.

     The man doesn't see this person again until one day he injures himself along...[More]

     A freshman boy walks down the school hallway eating a cup of ice cream he got from across the street.  While walking, he suddenly looks up from his ice cream to realize his surroundings look different.  It's the same location with some things altered, perhaps looking older or worn out.  He eventually realizes he has ended up 3 years into the future.
     His friends tell him he's crazy.  When the boy tries to use his ice cream as proof, they tell him he just got it from across the street.  Defeated, the boy just accepts his situation for the time being.
     His learning is accelerated and he quickly adapts to his new life.  He seems to learn things instantaneously sometimes (such as math) even though he doesn't remember having been good at it before.  One day his friends bug him about the ice cream again and the boy gets irritated.  The boy suddenly shouts, "How could I have gotten the ice cream...[More]

Scene 1:
-- Cut to door outside hallway. --
» Boy opens it and walks in with Friend1 and Friend2 (back to us).
-- Cut to front of group, angled to show only Boy's face. --
» Group walks toward camera down hallway, talking and laughing.  Boy talking and laughing with them.
» Boy drops...[More]