Note to self: How to Win Friends & Influence People

~ pdawg ~ Leave a comment
  1. Smile
  2. Always begin in a friendly way
  3. Let the other person save face
  4. Don’t criticize, condemn or complain
  5. Give honest and sincere appreciation
  6. Let the other people do all the talking
  7. To get the best of an argument, avoid it
  8. Ask questions rather than giving orders
  9. Show respect for other people’s opinions
  10. Always begin with praise and appreciation
  11. Remember and use the other person’s name
  12. Become genuinely interested in other people
  13. Talk in terms of other person’s interests
  14. When wrong, admit it quickly and definitely
  15. Arouse an eager want within the other person
  16. Be a good listener, let the others do more talking
  17. Go out of your way to make people feel important
  18. Publicly praise the other person’s accomplishments
  19. Try to see things from other person’s point of view

Refreshing perspective on Artificial Intelligence from Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis

~ pdawg ~ Leave a comment

I enjoyed reading Rebooting AI — building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust (published in 2019). Gary and team survey progress in AI and some of the shortcomings with the latest approaches such as Deep Learning. For AI to make next leap, Gary and team argue that AI needs to have some basic common-sense built into it, which current approaches largely overlook. This book is an easy-read and will provide value to readers interested in artificial intelligence, shortcomings (which is somewhat contrarian given the hype that media continues to give to AI) and its impact to society.

Insertion Sort in Ruby – Code snippet

~ pdawg ~ Leave a comment

Popular insertion sort algorithm written in Ruby. 

sampleList = [12, 11, 13, 5, 6]
sortedSampleList = []

sampleList.each_with_index do |inputtedItem, inputtedItemIndex|
    if sortedSampleList.length == 0
        sortedSampleList.insert(0, inputtedItem)
        next 
    end
    sortedSampleList.each_with_index do |outputtedItem, outputtedItemIndex|
        if inputtedItem < outputtedItem 
            sortedSampleList.insert(outputtedItemIndex, inputtedItem)
            break
        elsif outputtedItemIndex == sortedSampleList.length - 1 
            sortedSampleList.insert(sortedSampleList.length, inputtedItem)
            break
        end
    end
end

p sampleList 
p sortedSampleList

The output is the following.

% ruby insertionSort.rb
[12, 11, 13, 5, 6]
[5, 6, 11, 12, 13]

The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhou (former Facebook/Meta VP)

~ pdawg ~ Leave a comment

This is a great read. Reading regularly is one of the key ways to make sure that one continues to grow in whatever endeavor being pursued. In a matter of sitting down for a few hours, there is usually a wealth of insights that can be obtained by reading. I definitely recommend this one to engineering managers and those that may be curious about the role.

Next chapter (?)

~ pdawg ~ Leave a comment

I started this blog with a post having the picture of me moving out of the first apartment I moved to in Seattle. My time in that apartment formed the foundation of what was to come next in my life. From that micro-apartment, I moved into what would be my first purchased property in the US & used that as motivation & fuel in pushing myself further.

Now the time has come again for me to pack bags, and set my compass to a new location — only this time my bags will be little heavier from when I first moved to the states with barely a luggage full.

I am moving to Southern California. Stay tuned as I share more updates.

Bringing back the blog