What I’ve Learned Lately #1
On falling, counting, reading, listening, and looking.
Every now and then, I write a letter about what I’ve learned lately. This is an edited version of the first one, which I sent on July 3, 2011.
Around 3am last night, restless and far from sleep, I thought — today! Today is the day to send my first newsletter. It was only this morning, when I woke up, that I realized today marks two months of living this dream. I started Expert Novice as a lens for my work: a constant reminder that every problem and project is a chance to learn something new. As part of that promise, here are six big things I’ve learned lately: on falling, counting, reading, listening, and looking.
Falling
In June, I learned for the second time that skydiving defies all reason. But the feeling of flying and then floating is unbelievably powerful. When I close my eyes now, I can remember the earth drifting toward me.
Counting
My friend David Cole has been working on a new board game, Menagerie. It pits people vs. animals in an escape from a zoo, and it’s amazingly fun. While we were typing side-by-side on Wednesday, he asked me if I was good at algebra. “Sure!” I said, fondly remembering solving for x in high school. He then asked me a complicated probability question related to whether the people or the animals would win in various scenarios. It only barely resembled algebra problems of old, and after battling the question for about 45 minutes, I took to Twitter. Thus ensued a massive, delightful group effort the likes of which I’ve never seen.
Roberto Greco was kind enough to recount the whole caper via Storify: Real-World Math.
In the end, Robin Sloan wrote a Ruby script to run a Monte Carlo simulation that would answer the question: “what’s the probably that w + x < y + z”? All around, it was a completely delightful and illuminating experience. As maddened and motivated as I was by the question, it was even more exciting to see my friends be maddened and motivated too, and to all work toward a solution together. This is what solving problems should feel like.
In the (ac)counting department, I’ve been taking a Financial Accounting tutorial in preparation for starting at Harvard Business School in August. One part of the tutorial focused on the “realization concept” of accounting. According to Wikipedia, this principle states that “revenues are recognized when they are (1) realised or realisable, and are (2) earned (usually when goods are transferred or services rendered), no matter when cash is received.” This made some sense to me when I learned it the first time, but even more sense when I encountered it in the wild in this Wall Street Journal article about Zynga’s IPO filing:
Zynga’s filing also shows how it accounts differently for its revenue, depending on the type of virtual goods sold. Revenue from “consumable” virtual goods like energy is recognized by the company immediately after a player’s game avatar consumes it.
In contrast, revenue from “durable” virtual goods like tractors, which can be used over and over again, is recognized over the estimated average playing period of players for particular Zynga games, a period that ranges between 10 and 25 months, Zynga said in its filing.
Thanks to this crazy example, I think I’ll remember the realization concept for the rest of my life.
Reading
These are books I’ve finished in the last two months:
- Anything You Want, by Derek Sivers. (My friend Amber Rae brought this book to life!)
- The Effective Executive, by Peter Drucker. Recommended by Amit.
- Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of New Technology, by Alexis Madrigal. May’s SF techbookclub selection.
- Rework, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
And these are books I’ve started:
- The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You, by Eli Parisier. July’s SF techbookclub selection.
- It’s Always Personal: Emotion in the New Workplace, by Anne Kreamer. Very useful to me so far.
- Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre, by Keith Johnstone. Assigned reading for myimprov class, one of the most transformative things I’ve ever decided to do. The book is great, too.
Listening
Thanks to Rdio’s analytics, I know that these are the albums I’ve been captivated by these past two months:
- Bon Iver — Bon Iver
- Lesser Matters — The Radio Department
- Tamer Animals — Other Lives
- This Modern Glitch — The Wombats
- Forget — Twin Shadow
- Neon Golden — The Notwist
- Pixel Revolt — John Vanderslice
- Sigh No More — Mumford and Sons
Looking (Forward)
In just over a month and a half, I’ll be on an airplane to Boston, to start my first year of business school. I’m excited to begin again, but there’s still so much to learn here in San Francisco — I’m going to try to explore everything I can while I’m still here. Thank you for learning with me, and I would love to hear about what you’ve been learning lately, too. As always, I’m just an email away.
– Diana
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