Back to notes Just an ongoing list of ideas that I find insightful.
Engineering
It's 10 times harder to build the machine that builds the machine
This is a favorite of a friend of mine's (Shihao Cao), who started the UAV club at my school and has had a continued interest in building efficient and long lasting teams. It's something I like to keep in mind in engineering project teams and on engineering projects, because it's difficult to build a good team, and its near impossible to work in a poorly managed team, of which I have done both.
Learning
Not trying hard enough is a much better problem to have than trying hard but being too dumb
This is a paraphrase of something my boss Saurav Shroff said. Saurav is a startup founder who is a software engineer by training but has learned all sorts of skills and facts in mechanical and electrical engineering for his startup. It's something that I keep in mind when I try and fail to do something; I evaluate whether I put in too little effort versus not having the knowledge or even state of mind necessary to do something.
Music
If you think what you played sounded bad, that's not a bad thing. It just means you have good taste
My roommate Amrit Janardhanan once said this randomly, regarding improvising and writing music. I am a stereotypical classically trained pianist, so this hit especially hard, as I have basically never done improv or even noodled around with the instrument. I keep this in mind as I try to develop my improv skills by making stuff up sometimes while practicing. Eventually, I will make something that fits my taste, and eventually after that I will flesh out what exactly my tastes are.
You should improv or write as a musician, at least a little, because it is the pure expression of your taste
Adam Neely said this, and this also hit me hard as a musician who really only has read and memorized classical sheet music rather than making music. I've never really seen piano as a creative outlet, despite me having played for 11 years (most of them forced by my parents...). As I appreciate listening to music more and expand my taste to include more instrumental music, I do want to try to become familiar with piano, but it is almost like starting to learn all over again, just with some good technique skills.
Photography
That's why film shooters make better pictures: we only take the good ones!
Something from a Ken Rockwell post that summarizes why I love film. Each shot costs $1-3 (depending on the format), so you consciously think much more about each shot than you would with digital. I have spent up to 20-30 minutes setting up just one shot on film, when I have never done such a thing for digital (save for very long exposures). I just prefer putting more thought into my photos than taking thousands and picking the best ones.
