This Friday: live Q&A session (2022-07-22 @2PM PDT)

Not easy to reproduce, sorry! Since only about a dozen people attended, no need to worry about duplicates…

Andy Matuschak

Would it be possible to get the questions that were asked so we don't ask duplicates next time and out of general curiosity? :)

Can Sar

Here is my question(s) along with some thoughts. When you are entering into a new domain and you are trying develop your understanding it, how do you approach reading dense texts in said domain? For example, can you recall what it was like when you first started reading into human learning? Would you approach things differently now? Or did you already know what your goals were? A little context, in your livestream from last September where you read through Agarwal et al, 2021, it was obvious that you understood the domain and you had clear goals within it. Those goals guided even your first pass through. They kept you focused and efficient. I find this extremely difficult as I enter into a new topic, and I'm reading a dense book (I usually try to find the best books within that domain), I feel so new and ignorant, that writing prompts can feel so premature due to my lack of understanding, and the organization of information that I feel like I'm still trying to accomplish. I guess this is the key idea is that it feels like I need to still organize things before I can write the prompts properly... Said another way: Reading is supposed to have goals. But, how do you read when you don't know the goals to have because you are just starting out? Thanks!

Maybe another experiment with the office hours could be to set loose themes in advance. People could bring small presentations/work-in-progress/questions/interesting findings as before, but the preset topic may spark some more dynamics.

Ruben Artus

Looking forward to it! My question: in which area of life do you think software tools would have the biggest positive effect right now, but too few people seem to pay attention to?

Ruben Artus