End of Average: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches

First, the author tried GRE Verbal Reasoning problems with a method that overloads his working memory.

Then his father suggested he tried a method that exploited his strengths: visualization.

A heart-warming, inspiring story indeed.

How did Stanislaw Ulam arrive at the Monte Carlo solution that helped the  Manhattan project a good deal? Hoe did Rodney Brooks revolutionize robotics by shifting from world-representations to  world-sensing?

If you can't do a thing a certain way, maybe there are many other ways you can do it.

Innovate around any tricky, knotty problem. Your way, non-average way.



CANDOPI.COM   inspires all "average" folks to reveal their true  non-average selves. Good luck!

Demand or Supply Is Never Ever Fixed

When demand is not good, increasing efficiency and productivity, cutting costs, etc help. But they still do not tackle the main issues. The main thing to counter declining demand, is to conceive the kind of products that arouse lust in the potential users, like Pokemon Go, Nintendo Wii, Apple iPod, iPhones etc.

Nothing is Unthinkable: Z.E.R.O.

What do you truly believe? Go do it. What others call heresies can be your true legacies.



What is totally unacceptable to the conventional wisdom, can be a truly revolutionary thing. As long as it serves people and does not harm them, just go do it.

One at a time? All at once? Vary Your Approach --2

Do A, then B, then C and then mix them up.

Or let A, B and C happen all at once.

Both! Variation is the answer sometimes.

We have talked about a similar example before on this blog.

Patent Joke from New Scientist

At first the missile site sent only a few signals. The fighter jets caught onto these signals and fire-bombed those sites.

Later the missile site sent 10, 000 signals and while the fighters got confused, the missile site shot down the planes.

Arm race!  It was wonderfully described in "The Age of the Unthinkable" by Joshua Cooper Ramo.

The same seems going between the trolls and the defenders. It is funny, the machine, the code seems this time to be on the true innovators' side.

Encouraging as well as entertaining.

Book Covers

Mere photos of covers of books?

Don't they inspire you in any way?

Strategy from Boston Consulting Group, it's here.
Marketing and persuasion, they are here.

AI, machine learning, , it's here.
Just plain solid code, it's here.

How programming is used in an important domain i.e. finance, it's here.

Even if you don't understand any of this, don't you get an idea where things are going is this world?

Oscar Wilde and Entrepreneurship

HBS professor Howard Stevenson's definition of entrepreneurship is rather well-known: "Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled."

What is not so well-known is, Oscar Wilde had more or less similar idea many years ahead:

Merger and Acquisitions

Abundance, they say, is about giving.
That applies even in the hard-nosed corporate finance: that is Merger and Acquisitions.

One at a time? All at once? Vary Your Approach

Identifying faces in a crowd is time-consuming. With terrorist violence on the rise, law enforcement agencies need technology's assistance.

Here is an innovative solution. Previously, AI algorithms, especially decision-tree-based ones, handle one decision at a time: One at a time.

This new approach handles all decisions all at once at the end. Varying their approach like this has done good to the designer of the algorithm.

Subjective Problems Objectively and Just Don't Wait

You can treat subjective problems objectively as if they were objective problems in the first place.





And just don't wait. You don't need answer for al you questions.







Have fun.

Personality before Practically

Mastushita asks us not to focus lopsidedly on what we lack.

Steve Jobs would sometimes claimed that his product became better because it lacked certain features its rival products had!







So, don't worry if you cannot be practical right now. You can be cute, or be a personality!!

Igenuity of India Space Programme

Lead a good life.

Abduction: The best definition

Deduction and induction are well-known. Abduction is relatively new, but not truly obscure.



I'd like to define it as plain bluffing. This book has a better definition:

Concepts are blur and therefore useful

Earth Tunnelling, Air Tunnelling

Earth tunnelling makes me hot and bothered. But, boy, do I enjoy air tunnelling!

In a foreword to a book on the Yum Kippur war, an Israeli general remarked that future battle grounds are getting more and more "congested."

That kind of situation does call for air tunnelling. Tunnelling where there is noting to tunnel, nothing to dig, noting to shovel ... cool ...

What do you mean by 'abstract'?

What do you mean by 'abstract'?

There is no such thing.

Everything can be traced back to something concrete.

Look at Picasso.

Look at Dali.

Look at mathematics.

Wit and Force

I have used "A D U L T . . . I N T E L L I G E N C E" only twice on my children.

 (1) I asked one of them to push a bike for an hour, then mount and push with one foot for an hour, then put both feet on pedals and push and glide a far as he can for an hour. After only 5 sessions, he could bike well and declared that he had learned biking all by himself! With no teacher!

 (2) I read them some story in English about 15 mins about 5 days a week when they were in K1, and 2 days a week in K2.

About 10 mins of discussions on what they had read almost every day in P1, P2, P3. Then I stopped.

No grammar analysis. No rhetoric discussion.

We ban speaking in English at home. They also had to learn Chinese. They now speak Myanmar, Chinese and English.

After P6, they all could take and pass Junior College/A-Level/(General Paper). They believe they had learned English all by themselves.

They thought I didn't teach or help them at all, but just had fun with them!

Force or wit? I will use only what is good for others. That is my moral authority.

Software Secrets --- 1 : Let's be humble

We love Disney. So, last week when we watched Looney Tunes ... for the first 1 or 2 episodes, I felt really sorry for Disney.Whatever Disney team can do, Warner Bros Team can do too. Then their episodes started falling apart.

A movie, even a short episode, is more than cameras, sounds, lighting. images, effects and animation. There are higher level structures and systems too.





So, software is more than iOS, javascript, and Hadoop and Radis. It is even more than data structures and algorithms. Let's be humble.

Powers of Limited Systems : Shakespeare vs James Joyce

Shakespeare didn't invent a new language, James Joyce did.

Shakespeare got rich in his life time , James Joyce didn't.

Shakespeare got fame in his life time , James Joyce didn't.

Shakespeare was happy in his life time , James Joyce wasn't.

Now you see working too hard is not that good.

Power of Limited Systems : World Cup 2014 Germany 7 Brazil 1

World Cup 2014's semi-final  ended with Germany beating Brazil 7 : 1. Germany won in spite of and because of its limited systems. Limited systems are that powerful and devastating.

Main Reasons for Brazil's Loss

1. Brazil coach's big picture does not seem to include "flanks" and "midfield." 
2. Germany's limited systems are powerful and devastating.
3. Brazil failed to come up with better or newer systems e.g. Germany already know how to cope "total football," "tiki taka," etc. Brazil should at least borrow from Stephen Chow and his Shaolin Soccer Have you noticed that Muay Thai's kicks are useful in getting the balls back in crowded situations? 

Limited Systems

 They are limited because

1. they apply to only certain specific situations.
2. they lack creativity, inspiration, flair, sparks.
3. they can miss certain opportunities.
4. they can break down totally in certain scenarios.

 Still they are extremely powerful because

1. they are simple to carry and execute
2. they are simple to change for certain opportunities and system breakdowns.
3. Even when you have to discard them all, they are too simple to cost you a lot.