I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who seem to have learned nothing during four years at university. Until recently I’ve wondered how it was possible, but now I think I understand.

People who learn a lot in college are the people who had questions floating around in their heads before they got there. They’re curious. They have a sense of wonder about the world. As such, when answers (or provocations) are offered, they are subconsiously paired with their natural curiosity, and learning ensues.

Those who don’t benefit from school simply aren’t tuned to the world’s questions, and as such they are unable to appreciate potential answers. I finally groked this when I asked myself why I didn’t learn more in my programming classes in college.

The reason is now very clear: it wasn’t interesting to me. I thought I was going to be a sysadmin, or a “networking” guy. I didn’t really know what I was going to be, but I was damn sure it wasn’t going to be a programmer.

Because of this I went on autopilot, i.e. the mode where you say to your brain, “Temporarily absorb the minimum required to get the grade you want in this class. Nothing more.”…and that’s no way to learn.

So what’s the answer? The answer is for parents and teachers to foster within children curiosity and interest in a wide range of subjects. Don’t impart knowledge, per say, but the thirst for understanding. This way, when the opportunity to learn something presents itself it will be embraced enthusiastically instead of being ignored or mechanically processed for a short-term goal.

Here’s the list of courses that have been opened up to the world for free by MIT.

(and by the end of the year they’ll have every class they teach up there…)

Now if I can just figure out how to get this stuff into audiobook format. How about a business model where you take the free MIT content and make it into audiobook format? Now that’s a good idea…

A short beginner’s explanation of why you can’t truly “hide your IP address”.

Hiding Your IP Address

Here’s another old post of mine from 1997:

The more questions you have floating around in your mind at any given time, the more answers you can glean from day to day experiences. You can see it like this: knowledge and truth are jumping out of every experience, yet unless you have the appropriate question or curiosity associated with that body of answers, you will not learn anything. So basically, you need two things to be able to expand your mind. You need to have the questions and/or curiosity, and you need to have experiences that have the potential to be learned from. As one or both go down, you become limited. As one or both go up, you grow.

Nothing deep really, but I was only 23.

I’ve posted about this before, but if you are a reader and don’t use LibraryThing.com — you’re missing out.

LibraryThing lets you archive, rate, and search your books, as well as compare your collections to those of others. It’s totally amazing. I just signed up for the life membership for just $25.

Seriously, go check it out.

LibraryThing.com

About LibraryThing.com

LibraryThing.com Zeitgeist

My Library

(** Oh, and the coolest feature? http://librarything.com/m lets you check whether or not you have a book from your phone/pda while you’re in the bookstore)

A very cool piece that closely follows my line of thinking:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/28

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to get to the next level in my field of information security, and I’ve come to a pretty interesting conclusion:

It’s not really possible to just study in this field — you have to implement each thing you’re trying to learn if you want to get the full benefit.

Now, yes…I realize this is true of just about every field, or even skills in general, but it’s especially important in fields such as information security that bcth focus on fairly complex concepts, but also on being familar with a myriad of specific technologies. In other words, in order to be good in information security, you can’t just know that RBAC does a certain thing. You also have to know how that plays out in the real world. Specifically, you have to know how to implement this concept in various operating systems and applications.

Duh

Again, this is fairly well accepted. Most good InfoSec practitioners have a fairly stout lab at home to play with. So I’m not just saying, “Build a lab and practice what you learn.” What I’m saying is that when you want to get to the next level, there’s a certain path you should follow.

Set a Project-Oriented Goal

When you want to learn how to do something, don’t set out to do it at all. That’s the tendency, and it’s a bad one. Don’t try to learn Python, for example; it’s not efficient for probably 80% of people to sit down with a book or do a series of example exercises. Instead, find a project you want to work on and use Python to do it.

Now this will inevitably lead to you doing some academic studying of the subject, to be sure, and that’s a good thing. In fact, I do strontly recommend learning concepts before diving in, but when you set out to truly understand something — to really feel it — you need to be using it to accomplish a real-world goal. It can’t be for the sake of it. Learning like that doesn’t burn in the same way as it does if you’re learning for a purpose.

Examples

• Instead of reading the Stevens book on protocols, enter a Honeynet Challenge and use the book.
• Don’t read three books in a row on Lisp. Take a program you’ve written in a previous language and redo it in Lisp. Use your three books as a reference.
• If you have a question about an OS vulnerability, start a VMWare session and run the exploit. Stop reading about it and do it. You can read about it as you’re waiting for the VMWare image to copy over.
• Use whitepapers as references, not as textbooks. If you try the latter, you’ll end up with information overload and little practical experience. Instead, start a project using said technology and keep the whitepaper by your side.

That’s a very short list, but hopefully you get the idea. Again, I’m not saying not to read; I have a book by my bed, my toilet, in my car, and anywhere else I might spend 15 seconds. I am big into learning underlying concepts and I don’t think that should ever suffer. The issue is that you can’t actually do so if you don’t implement.

Conclusions

The bottom line is that I think the human mind can be adversely affected by trying to cram information into the brain that lacks a foundation. The foundation being the implementation that you’re stacking this high-level knowledge on top of. It’s almost as if the brain takes in some sort of interesting concept, pauses, and then says, “Ok, show me.” And if you don’t show it, the brain then says, “Hmm…didn’t quite get that — must not have been too important.”

So imagine the concept phase of learning as being like making pottery. You have wet material being shaped into a form you’ve never seen before. It’s new, it’s fluid, and it expands the mind. When you’re done with this phase you have a new shape, but it’s fleeting.

If you want to keep said form, you have to put it into the oven at very high heat. That’s the part that hardens it into place and makes it solid. Well, that’s the implementation phase of learning. You have to lock it in. If you don’t, you’ll have a bunch of warped, wet goo sitting in your brain. And with every passing day each of these non-hardened pieces it will lose more of their form. Eventually you’ll have to re-make the pots (relearn the concepts) if you want to use them, i.e. you’ll have to study whatever it was all over again.:

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m back playing Table Tennis. The group I’m playing with now is the best I’ve ever been exposed to, and my drive to improve my game has never been stronger (it’s hard to get motivated to excel at technique when no one can even return your serve). With this group I get beat more often than not; it’s an excellent environment for me to grow in.

Anyway, my main focus now is on properly generating power, i.e. using the correct technical movement to do so. The study of how to do this is precisely why I love the sport so much. Effectively generating speed (and especially spin) is euphoric.

My latest realization, or re-realization actually, is that tension kills power.

This is a “re-realization” because this is the sort of concept that I already “know”, but am unable to transfer into action. Basically, when I see my serve come back long with underspin (just how I wanted it), I immediately tense up as I get into position to loop.

After I execute I realize immediately that my shot was neither that fast nor that spinny. Why? Because I was all tight and restricted. I know this, I kick myself for it, but the next time I get back a return where I want it I do the same damn thing.

I have the same problem in Golf, actually, which makes this more than a post about Table Tennis. It’s natural for people to associate power with tension. I find with my Golf shots that when I “don’t try” — especially with my short irons — I can hit some incredible shots. I am at the point now where I tee off for most par 3′s with no more than a pitching wedge. That’s roughly 150 yards or so (the tee helps) with ease. I am not tight, I don’t swing hard, I just do the motion.

When I do this it feels absolutely amazing. I get the perfect Titleist click with no vibration in the club and my ball goes flying like I wound up and swung as hard as I could. Of course when I try to swing hard, I can’t get half of that power. But over and over I have to remind myself of this. I go for entire days struggling with consistency and power until I force myself to “start over” with the basics and relax.

So that brings me to Table Tennis. I am doing the exact same thing there, only my loop form probably isn’t even as good as my 9 iron shot — which is sad since TT is my favorite sport.

Ultimately the problem is simple — I’m still associating power with tension.

Once I can break this mental link I’m going to become very dangerous. I am starting to see the power of a relaxed grip in practice, but once I get into a match I tighten up to generate power. I simply have to figure out how to make a full turn, a full uncoil motion, and remain loose during the entire process.

The frisbee throw is really a good analogy for the backhand. Imagine trying to throw a frisbee a long distance if you kept your throwing hand tight and controlling. You couldn’t. The power of the throw comes from the ability to release fully from the coil. Once I subconsciously make that connection in Table Tennis my rating’s going to jump by a few hundred points almost overnight.

It seems many in the academic community are coming out publically against Wikipedia — which in my opinion is one of the coolest things available on the Internet.

The argument seems to be that having information available online, vs. only through higher learning institutions such as universities and libraries, somehow diminishes the education you receive when using the Internet method. Or, in other words, getting educated via the Internet will necessarily yield an inferior education.

Perhaps it’s because I just read the latest Dan Brown book, but I can’t help but see a similarity between this idea and one of the main tenets of the Catholic church. The notion of, “You can only get true education by going through our universities.” is strikingly similar to, “You can only be truly saved by going throug our churches.” Naturally, both sentiments are disturbing to me.

I think it’s time, at least in the case of education in the Internet culture, for institutions such as Universities to realize a simple fact. Universites were centers for learning in the past for a very simple reason — you couldn’t get that concentration of information anywhere else. This is not so much the case anymore. I wouldn’t say the Internet easily yields an Ivy Leauge education yet, but this isn’t for lack of information; it’s due to the environmental differences and strict rules imposed on students at Harvard vs. at ones computer desk at home. So in that sense I agree with the argument being made by the academics; the environment in a good university is still more conducive to learning than the average household.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only avenue they are attacking; they are going after the very quality of the information being offered by these newer mediums. The main reason for this is as old as dirt–ego, and fear of becoming obsolete.

Below, Clay Shirky (an academic himself) puts it quite nicely: (excerpt from Boing Boing)

Of course librarians, teachers, and academics don’t like the Wikipedia. It works without privelege, which is inimical to the way those professions operate. This is not some easily fixed cosmetic flaw, it is the Wikipedia’s driving force. You can see the reactionary core of the academy playing out in the horror around Google digitizing books held at Harvard and the Library of Congress — the NY Times published a number of letters by people insisting that real scholarship would still only be possible when done in real libraries. The physical book, the hushed tones, the monastic dedication, and (unspoken) the barriers to use, these are all essential characteristics of the academy today. It’s not that it doesn’t matter what academics think of the Wikipedia — it would obviously be better to have as many smart people using it as possible. The problem is that the only thing that would make the academics happy would be to shoehorn it into the kind of filter, then publish model that is broken, and would make the Wikipedia broken as well.