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I thought it was way too verbose going over too many examples to make a simple point. "Okay, I get it, what used to be exceptional is now just "meh".. Get to th

I thought it was way too verbose going over too many examples to make a simple point. "Okay, I get it, what used to be exceptional is now just "meh".. Get to the point".. It didn't address the actual matter, the one in the title, that not all practice makes perfect, until very far in the article. I then thought about an article that would have given much more information with fewer words, a seminal paper entitled "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" by Anders Ericsson. I was then surprised taking a look at the article's author.

HiroshiSan 11y ago
This was an excerpt from his book PEAK. It's verbose because he has written this for the layman.
- Jugurtha 11y ago
  I wasn't aware of that book, thanks for the title! Sorry for the late reply.
afarrell 11y ago
Thank you for reminding me of that paper's title. Jacobian mentioned it to me at PyCaribbean, but I've since been hunting for it. It is available for free at https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice(PsychologicalReview).pdf https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/...
- Jugurtha 11y ago
  Oh, you're very welcome. This paper sent me down the rabbit hole: after graduating as an incompetent Electronics Engineer, I thought about the essence of competence and I stumbled upon this article. I'm always happy when I find a resource that addresses an abstract idea I'm thinking about but can't formulate for two main reasons: it always opens a door -if it has a name, it can be searched effectively- and it always amazes me how come I didn't think of it before. For instance, after graduation, I read a book titled "How to Study in College". Why didn't I ask such an obvious question before. I learned many things, one of which is the Cornell Note-taking method. I've always been interested in how to search for, acquire, and keep knowledge, how to apply it, how to manage it, and how to track its evolution -mental breadcrumbs, which idea lead to the other?- So it got me interested in how memory works: how we forget, how we remember, and what to do about it. It led to Hermann Ebbinghaus and "spaced repetition". I wasn't satisfied, though, for I wanted to know the underlying brain processes. The neuroscience behind it. This led me to Hebbian Theory and the concept of Long Term Potentiation. (The Brain from Top to Bottom - http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/ http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/) which frankly blew my mind to a thousand shards: memory viewed in terms of ions. (Here's a very nice video from Carleton College "Neuroscience - Long-Term Potentiation" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9jgfpI_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9jgfpI_c) and here's a good presentation by Carleton's Dr. Matthew Hollahan: ("How We Can Improve Memory": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXX58QhNfjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXX58QhNfjc) In the meantime, I put a name on the discipline: Cognition/Cognitive psychology, etc.. That was good, but I still wanted to think about it in a "meta" way. Some overarching theme or discipline that englobes other things I might be missing. After some time, though, I stumbled on "metacognition", and here's where it's truly amazing how the mind works: How didn't I make the connection before between "cognition" and "meta-cognition" even though "meta" was the very word I used to think about it. It's the very thinking about thinking and was humbled because I missed such an obvious link. I have already met that word before and read about it, but it didn't "click" until that very moment. This has also driven me to think about "learning" in a larger context: learning organization and learning countries. Why are some countries more evolved than others, etc. (Which led me to a book titled "Why Nations Fail" (again, how on Earth did I miss such an obvious question). How can we make poor countries better, or asked from another perspective: in a post-apocalyptic world where all countries are the same, what would we do to rebuild civilization? How to bootstrap civilization? Can we take those steps and apply them on difficult countries. (Bill Gates was on Jimmy Fallon and the latter asked a marvelous, in its form, question: How do you solve a poor country?). It got me thinking about the necessity of having some conditions A and B present to have X and those conditions being absent in poor countries, you can't have X. It then got me thinking about it backwards: Given C and D, can we get Y that's either a substitute for X or something at least better than nothing. First thing that popped in my mind was the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide filter hacking. After some time, I stumbled across an article titled "The Genius of the Tinkerer" [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703989304575503730101860838 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487039893045755037...] and it appears there is a company called "Design that Matters" that does just that. It also was interesting to see the Apollo 13 feat mentioned. Steven Johnson has also some talks on Youtube and a book titled "Where Good Ideas Come From". Anyway, the point is you never know where a piece of content can lead to and it can be frustrating to forget some of those references or the title of an article. Here are some useful resources, too: [Book]: The Complete Problem Solver - John R. Hayes. [Book]: Make it Stick, The Science of Successful Learning - Peter Brown et al. [Video]: Study Less, Study Smart - Marty Lobdell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0).
song 11y ago
Sometimes when teaching, repetition of examples to drive the point is key so it makes sense that for a vulgarization article, the same author takes time to get to the point while for an academic paper, he gets directly to the point... And this is why I was bored out of my mind in school as a kid. Thanks for the name of the academic paper, I'll spend some time reading it.
- Jugurtha 11y ago
  That's a valid point. I didn't hold it against him, though: as a reader, I can skim through but someone who's not familiar with it could appreciate the verbosity.
dk8996 11y ago
I really liked the read but I kinda agree, he seemed to make the same or similar point paragraph after paragraph.

HiroshiSan 11y ago

This was an excerpt from his book PEAK. It's verbose because he has written this for the layman.

Jugurtha 11y ago
I wasn't aware of that book, thanks for the title! Sorry for the late reply.

afarrell 11y ago

Thank you for reminding me of that paper's title. Jacobian mentioned it to me at PyCaribbean, but I've since been hunting for it. It is available for free at https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice(PsychologicalReview).pdf https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/...

Jugurtha 11y ago
Oh, you're very welcome. This paper sent me down the rabbit hole: after graduating as an incompetent Electronics Engineer, I thought about the essence of competence and I stumbled upon this article. I'm always happy when I find a resource that addresses an abstract idea I'm thinking about but can't formulate for two main reasons: it always opens a door -if it has a name, it can be searched effectively- and it always amazes me how come I didn't think of it before. For instance, after graduation, I read a book titled "How to Study in College". Why didn't I ask such an obvious question before. I learned many things, one of which is the Cornell Note-taking method. I've always been interested in how to search for, acquire, and keep knowledge, how to apply it, how to manage it, and how to track its evolution -mental breadcrumbs, which idea lead to the other?- So it got me interested in how memory works: how we forget, how we remember, and what to do about it. It led to Hermann Ebbinghaus and "spaced repetition". I wasn't satisfied, though, for I wanted to know the underlying brain processes. The neuroscience behind it. This led me to Hebbian Theory and the concept of Long Term Potentiation. (The Brain from Top to Bottom - http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/ http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/) which frankly blew my mind to a thousand shards: memory viewed in terms of ions. (Here's a very nice video from Carleton College "Neuroscience - Long-Term Potentiation" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9jgfpI_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9jgfpI_c) and here's a good presentation by Carleton's Dr. Matthew Hollahan: ("How We Can Improve Memory": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXX58QhNfjc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXX58QhNfjc) In the meantime, I put a name on the discipline: Cognition/Cognitive psychology, etc.. That was good, but I still wanted to think about it in a "meta" way. Some overarching theme or discipline that englobes other things I might be missing. After some time, though, I stumbled on "metacognition", and here's where it's truly amazing how the mind works: How didn't I make the connection before between "cognition" and "meta-cognition" even though "meta" was the very word I used to think about it. It's the very thinking about thinking and was humbled because I missed such an obvious link. I have already met that word before and read about it, but it didn't "click" until that very moment. This has also driven me to think about "learning" in a larger context: learning organization and learning countries. Why are some countries more evolved than others, etc. (Which led me to a book titled "Why Nations Fail" (again, how on Earth did I miss such an obvious question). How can we make poor countries better, or asked from another perspective: in a post-apocalyptic world where all countries are the same, what would we do to rebuild civilization? How to bootstrap civilization? Can we take those steps and apply them on difficult countries. (Bill Gates was on Jimmy Fallon and the latter asked a marvelous, in its form, question: How do you solve a poor country?). It got me thinking about the necessity of having some conditions A and B present to have X and those conditions being absent in poor countries, you can't have X. It then got me thinking about it backwards: Given C and D, can we get Y that's either a substitute for X or something at least better than nothing. First thing that popped in my mind was the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide filter hacking. After some time, I stumbled across an article titled "The Genius of the Tinkerer" [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703989304575503730101860838 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487039893045755037...] and it appears there is a company called "Design that Matters" that does just that. It also was interesting to see the Apollo 13 feat mentioned. Steven Johnson has also some talks on Youtube and a book titled "Where Good Ideas Come From". Anyway, the point is you never know where a piece of content can lead to and it can be frustrating to forget some of those references or the title of an article. Here are some useful resources, too: [Book]: The Complete Problem Solver - John R. Hayes. [Book]: Make it Stick, The Science of Successful Learning - Peter Brown et al. [Video]: Study Less, Study Smart - Marty Lobdell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0).

song 11y ago

Sometimes when teaching, repetition of examples to drive the point is key so it makes sense that for a vulgarization article, the same author takes time to get to the point while for an academic paper, he gets directly to the point... And this is why I was bored out of my mind in school as a kid. Thanks for the name of the academic paper, I'll spend some time reading it.

Jugurtha 11y ago
That's a valid point. I didn't hold it against him, though: as a reader, I can skim through but someone who's not familiar with it could appreciate the verbosity.

dk8996 11y ago

I really liked the read but I kinda agree, he seemed to make the same or similar point paragraph after paragraph.