I remember an example similar to this from high school algebra-- when we had started learning about conic sections and polynomials. A barber's profit was modeled as a function of the price he charged per haircut. It turned out that the graph was an upside-down parabola. If he charged too much, no one would come and he wouldn't make any profit. If he charged too little, he wouldn't be able to cover his expenses, and he wouldn't make any profit. Our job was to find the function maximum in order to find what he should charge in order to make the most money. This article surprised me be cause it suggests the price-profit function is not only linear but horizontal over an interval. One possible explanation is that we don't have continuous data, and the actual function is some kind of complicated polynomial that has a lot of waves, which would allow a horizontal line to intersect the function at several points.
It's based on pageviews as I recall, but that's a decent metric for getting a feel for a distro's "buzz". The data suggest that Mint started to surpass Ubuntu nearly 6 months ago-- not 2 like this article's author implied.
Interesting. I actually tried a few different variations of Jupiter's symbol (like making the curve more or less exaggerated, higher and lower, etc.) and couldn't get it to work.
"So was Mr. Jobs smart? Not conventionally. Instead, he was a genius."
To me, this is just an abusive twisting of the word "genius". I know it has different meanings to different people, but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions.
It seems like Isaacson thinks being a genius just means being really good at something. Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields.
In science, as well as in other fields of human endeavor, there are two kinds of geniuses: the “ordinary” and the “magicians.” An ordinary genius is a fellow that you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what he has done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. They are, to use mathematical jargon, in the orthogonal complement of where we are and the working of their minds is for all intents and purposes incomprehensible. Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.
> They seldom, if ever, have students because they cannot be emulated and it must be terribly frustrating for a brilliant young mind to cope with the mysterious ways in which the magician’s mind works. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.
That's a strange statement, because Feynman was perhaps the most revered physics teacher of the 20th century.
I think a lot of smart people cling to the idea that they have the capacity for genius because they can solve hard problems or because they have created something interesting or unique. But when you see real genius, it works differently than that. It's not a matter of more processing power, it's a different perspective. Maybe Jobs had that, maybe he didn't. But to tie genius strictly to "intellectual capacity" is a mistake IMHO.
>...but I think being smart, or having some kind of intellectual capacity, is probably the best common ground between definitions.
Being intelligent is no the best common ground because there are so few of them out of many intelligent people. It is creating an artificial common ground.
>Dan Marino and JFK are geniuses based on their prowess in their respective fields.
As great as those you mentioned were, they are not geniuses. Dan Marino did not change the game of football. He had a great arm and was very good at recognizing defenses. People like Joe Montana and Lawrence Taylor changed the game because opposing teams had to develop strategies just around those two players.
JFK, while great, was not a genius. Though he does have the Cuban missile crisis as his crowning achievement, he didn't even finish his first term. Much of JFK is about symbolism rather than accomplishments.
To me, genius is the creative application of extreme knowledge. Geniuses posses a mind, like Clarke's Third Law on advanced technology, that is indistinguishable from magic.
You can't pretend that Michael Jordan is simply some preternatural freak of athletic nature. I mean, he is that, but there are others stronger, faster, smarter and with much better leadership qualities then he could ever pretend. But none could excel in such ways as he could, not even his successor, LeBron James. The way he could push himself along with his team. He elevated modern basketball to the stratosphere, and inspired countless basketball players and coaches.
So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have?
I also disagree with that law because there is always a handful of people capable of explaining an advanced technology, but no one can explain magic. For example, Siri might seem magical to end-users with no technical background but it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it.
>So what kind of extreme knowledge/magic did Jobs have?
Understanding design and people and making it applicable to his chosen profession.
>...it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it.
It's obviously not magic but, for the large majority, it appears to be so. Even if you wanted to explain how the concept of Siri works to the average person they wouldn't want you to. I think it would ruin it for them.
it is definitely not magical to the engineers and programmers who made it.
I'm not sure if you're saying engineers in general, or specifically the ones who programmed it.
I'll say this: I tried Siri for the first time the other day. It is magical. Not because any single part of what it does is such a huge leap, but the way in which it combines existing elements to create a whole new direction which is so much greater than its parts.
While Google was busy making voice-driven Google searches, Apple was making voice-driven user interface.
Overall, I was amazed at how much more integrated and useful the iPhone was than my Android device. Siri just brings that to a whole new UI level that others had the technical ability to bring, but not the willingness.
Is that a product of genius? I don't know, but I get the impression that both Google and Microsoft are driven by committee, and have very smart people who can't seem to really finish anything properly. They seem to lack creative genius, leadership, and/or drive.
I thought those "notes" were really poorly transcribed. Did the author really not have time to turn them into sentences?
"Personally like to thank you for saving me winter algebra last year through Khan Academy investment."
"Africa, 800m today will be bigger than China or India, 20M in 2040. In terms of stability, education."
"Politics and role of web?"
"Student question on negative impact of technology."
I understand that he was just trying to get the gist across, but this is a news article. I would have rather read a more readable article an hour later.
They probably had something else to do in that next hour. Lots of events like this go completely unreported precisely because the notetaker doesn't want to publish them until they get around to going through and tidying them up, which, of course, then never happens. Generally I'm happier with rough notes like this than if they don't get published at all.
