Strategy Boffins

|

WhiteHat Jr vs. codeacademy vs. scratch vs. tynker

Startup Strategy

While all these platforms serve the fundamental purpose of teaching coding, their approaches and target demographics vary widely. WhiteHat Jr and Tynker cater more directly to young children with a structured learning path, whereas Codecademy and Scratch appeal to a broader range of ages with a focus on self-paced and exploratory learning. The choice between these platforms often comes down to the specific needs and preferences of the learner—whether they seek personalized tutoring, self-directed learning, educational integration, or free access. Each platform holds a unique position in the coding education ecosystem, with varying strengths that cater to different segments of the market.

Models that can be translated into intuitive insights

Idea Almanac

“The authors argued that the models were so complex that their outputs could produce results that the unaided human brain could not possibly understand intuitively. Richard and I taught just the opposite. While a model can yield a result that might not have been obvious, an analyst’s job is not complete until he or she can decipher the intuition behind the unexpected result – and be able to explain it to decision and policy makers in plain language (maybe with the help of a diagram or two). Models whose results remain a mystery are not useful; models that can be translated into intuitive insights and be broadly understood can be useful”

Excerpt From: Dan Levy. “Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser.”

Memory for information age

Idea Almanac

“Much as our taste for sugar and fat may have served us well in a world of scarce nutrition, but is now maladaptive in a world of ubiquitous fast food joints, our memories aren’t perfectly adapted for our contemporary information age. The tasks that we often rely on our memories for today simply weren’t relevant in the environment in which the human brain evolved. Our ancestors didn’t need to recall phone numbers, or word-for-word instructions from their bosses, or the Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum, or (because they lived in relatively small, stable groups) the names of dozens of strangers at a cocktail party.”

Excerpt From: Joshua Foer. “Moonwalking With Einstein.” – Amazon Link

Book Review: Ultralearning

Book Review

” In many ways, the process of writing this book was a reflection of its subject—an ultralearning project to write a book about ultralearning. Ultralearning isn’t easy. It’s hard and frustrating and requires stretching outside the limits of where you feel comfortable. However, the things you can accomplish make it worth the effort.

Learning how to learn it

Idea Almanac

“The prefix meta comes from the Greek term μετά, meaning “beyond.” It typically signifies when something is “about” itself or deals with a higher layer of abstraction. The character 灶, for example which means “stove,” has a 火 on the left-hand side to indicate that it has some relationship to fire. Learning this property of Chinese characters is metalearning—not learning about the object of your inquiry itself, in this case words and phrases, but learning about how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it.”

Excerpt From: Scott Young. “Ultralearning.”

That Local Minimum

Idea Almanac

“Look out there, Lenny. Ain’t those hills and valleys pretty?”
“Yeah George. Can we get a place over there when we get some money? Can we?”
George squinted. “Exactly where are you looking Lenny?”
Lenny pointed. “Right over there George. That local minimum.”

Excerpt From: Susskind, Leonard. “The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics.”

Measurement of the Earth

Idea Almanac

The word geometry literally means “measurement of the Earth.” It’s ironic that had Euclid actually taken the trouble to measure triangles on the Earth’s surface, he would have discovered that Euclidean geometry doesn’t work. The reason is that the Earth’s surface is a sphere,2 not a plane. Spherical geometry certainly has points and angles, but it’s not so obvious that it has anything that we should call straight lines. Let’s see if we can make any sense out of the words “straight line on a sphere.”

Excerpt From: Leonard Susskind. “The Black Hole War.

Displacement in time will have no effect on physical laws

Idea Almanac

In the same way, we also believe today that displacement in time will have no effect on physical laws. (That is, as far as we know today—all of these things are as far as we know today!) That means that if we build a certain apparatus and start it at a certain time, say on Thursday at 10:00 A.M., and then build the same apparatus and start it, say, three days later in the same condition, the two apparatuses will go through the same motions in exactly the same way as a function of time no matter what the starting time, provided again, of course, that the relevant features of the environment are also modified appropriately in time. That symmetry means, of course, that if one bought General Motors stock three months ago, the same thing would happen to it if he bought it now!

Excerpt From: Feynman, Richard Phillips. “Six Not-So-Easy Pieces. – Amazon Link

Frozen light beam

Idea Almanac

“Earlier, he had read a children’s book, Aaron David Bernstein’s Popular Books on Natural Science, that asks you to imagine racing alongside a telegraph wire. Instead, Einstein envisioned running along a light beam, which should look frozen. Racing neck and neck alongside the beam, the light waves should be stationary, he thought, as Newton might have predicted. But even as a sixteen-year-old boy, Einstein realized that no one had ever seen a frozen light beam before. Something was missing. He would ponder this question for the next ten years.”

Excerpt From: Michio Kaku. “The God Equation.” – Amazon Link

Einstein was wrong since he said

Idea Almanac

“Dear Professor Susskino [sic],
Einstein made a bad mistake and I discovered it. I wrote to your friend Hawkins [sic] but he didn’t answer. Let me explain Einsteins’ [sic] mistake. Force equals mass times acceleration. So I push something with a constant force for a long time the acceleration is constant so if I do it long enough the velocity keeps increasing. I calculated that if I push a 220 pound (that’s my weight. I should probably go on a diet) person with a continuous force of 224.809 pounds in a horizontal direction, after a year he will be moving faster than the speed of light. All I used was Newtons’ [sic] equation F = MA. So Einstein was wrong since he said that nothing can move faster than light. I am hoping you will help me publish this as I am certain that the phycicist’s [sic] need to know it. I have a lot of money and I can pay you.”

Excerpt From: Leonard Susskind. “Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory.” – Amazon Link

Strategy Boffins

Explore

Collections

Energy

Captivating