“there are two ways you can fail: stopping early and stopping late” — Brian Christian Failure Copy Share Image
“the math tells us why: the unknown has a chance of being better” — Brian Christian Chance Copy Share Image
“Searcher, there is no road. We make the road by walking.” — Brian Christian Journey Copy Share Image
“exploration is gathering information, and exploitation is using the information” — Brian Christian Data Copy Share Image
“the crucial dilemma is not which option to pick, but how many options to even consider” — Brian Christian Choice Copy Share Image
“Living by the wisdom of computer science doesn’t sound so bad after all. And unlike most advice, it’s backed up by proofs.” — Brian Christian Computer science Copy Share Image
“When our expectations are uncertain and the data are noisy, the best bet is to paint with a broad brush” — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“the number of robberies you should carry out is roughly equal to the chance you get away, divided by the chance you… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“But if we really want to start fathoming someone, we need to get them speaking in sentences we can't finish.” — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“high-demand items are placed in a different area, more quickly accessible than the rest. That area is Amazon’s cache.” — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“machine-learning tasks suggests that we can make better decisions by deliberately thinking and doing less” — Brian Christian Decision making Copy Share Image
“I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking… — Brian Christian Education Copy Share Image
“Learning self-control is important, but it’s equally important to grow up in an environment where adults are consistently present and trustworthy.” — Brian Christian Discipline Copy Share Image
“Like most conversations and most chess games, we all start off the same and we all end the same, with a brief… — Brian Christian Chess Copy Share Image
“The most prevalent critique of modern communications is that we are “always connected.” But the problem isn’t that we’re always connected; we’re… — Brian Christian Communication Copy Share Image
“We asked Shoup if his research allows him to optimize his own commute, through the Los Angeles traffic to his office at… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“And it suggests, perhaps, reversing the equation, that if we want to gain the most insight into a person, we should ask… — Brian Christian Conversation Copy Share Image
“We go through digital life, in the twenty-first century, with our guards up. All communication is a Turing test. All communication is… — Brian Christian Communication Copy Share Image
“One of the implicit principles of computer science, as odd as it may sound, is that computation is bad: the underlying directive… — Brian Christian Computation Copy Share Image
“If changing strategies doesn’t help, you can try to change the game. And if that’s not possible, you can at least exercise… — Brian Christian Football Copy Share Image
“I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more 'information' than films is that they outsource the scenic design… — Brian Christian Books Copy Share Image
“How do we connect meaningfully with each other, as meaningfully as possible, within the limits of language and time? How does empathy… — Brian Christian Empathy Copy Share Image
“Many of my all-time favorite movies are almost entirely verbal. The entire plot of My Dinner with Andre is “Wallace Shawn and… — Brian Christian Cinema Copy Share Image
“Unless we’re willing to spend eons striving for perfection every time we encounter a hitch, hard problems demand that instead of spinning… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
Pleasantries are low entropy, biased so far that they stop being an earnest inquiry and become ritual. Ritual has its virtues, of… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“Though all Christians start a wedding invitation by solemnly declaring their marriage is due to special Divine arrangement, I, as a philosopher,… — Brian Christian Christianity Copy Share Image
“The more helpful our phones get, the harder it is to be ourselves. For everyone out there fighting to write idiosyncratic, high-entropy,… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“The same challenge also appears in an even more fraught setting: dating. Optimal stopping is the science of serial monogamy. Simple algorithms… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“Though time management seems a problem as old as time itself, the science of scheduling began in the machine shops of the… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“But any distrust regarding the analogy-based approach would soon vanish: at IBM, Kirkpatrick and Gelatt’s simulated annealing algorithms started making better chip… — Brian Christian Optimization Copy Share Image
“To see what happens in the real world when an information cascade takes over, and the bidders have almost nothing but one… — Brian Christian Real world Copy Share Image
“look no further than Peter A. Lawrence’s developmental biology text The Making of a Fly, which in April 2011 was selling for… — Brian Christian Copy Share Image
“Simply put, the representation of events in the media does not track their frequency in the world. As sociologist Barry Glassner notes,… — Brian Christian Gun violence Copy Share Image
“Information, defined intuitively and informally, might be something like 'uncertainty's antidote.' This turns out also to be the formal definition- the amount… — Brian Christian Data Copy Share Image
“It’s fairly intuitive that never exploring is no way to live. But it’s also worth mentioning that never exploiting can be every… — Brian Christian Computer science Copy Share Image