Author Archives: daveatrice

Take time to identify the items in your inventory. If you are the only one with a gun, don’t rent it out for others to hunt with.

I stand at the crossroads of destiny once more. As with all past fateful bifurcations, I must be prepared to lose something I value for a chance to gain something more instrumental. Probabilities are estimated, but in the end these probabilities are being tweaked to justify what my intuition tells me to be true. ItContinue reading “Crossroads”

Despite it being an open secret in academia that Teaching has near-zero impact on the career success of professors, I realize now in retrospect after leaving academia for 4 years that this was the single most important skill that I learned during my 8 years as a professor.  There is only a limited amount ofContinue reading “Teaching Skill”

The lakes and rivers are filled not only with swords and death, but also with favors and karma.

One of the strongest correlates of both happiness and success, based on my personal experience and observations of others around me, is the ability to stay vulnerable as we get older. This vulnerability applies broadly to business, love, and wisdom — only by subjecting oneself to significant risk does one obtain the possibility for substantialContinue reading “Staying Vulnerable”

One of the best ideas in AI is the generative adversarial network (GAN), in which the designer creates two competing AI systems that constantly fight each other in a zero sum game. An example of a GAN would be an art forger paired with a forgery detector. The GAN training process elevates the capabilities ofContinue reading “Embracing GAN”

The worst sin for a fundraising entrepreneur is not to be viewed as crazy, but to be viewed as boring. You yourself know if the story you’re pitching is an exciting moonshot or a commoditized McStartup. It is better to be Priority #1 for 1 investor, than be to Priority #10 for 100 investors.

Back when I was in college, I would read and write fan fiction (fanfics) about different books and animes.  Within the community of fanfics, there are two related but very distinct classes of fanfics that were derived from two different source materials:  crossovers and fusions. Crossovers are fanfics in which the two worlds and charactersContinue reading “Crossovers vs. Fusions”

The only difference between a visionary and a madman is whether the person has the execution ability to make the visions real.

赤色长路，步履艰难行， 心如明镜，无欲亦无怒。 手握孤剑，最后的武器， 残破铠甲，难挡血与汗。 伤痕累累，麻木了疼痛， 寸步难行，前路似无尽。 往事如烟，不愿再回想， 赤色长路，代价太惨重。 枯骨成丘，脚下皆坍塌， 无暇清扫，身陷困境中。 仰望天际，日影渐西移， 缓慢前行，不敢有迟疑。 曾经无惑，如今更坚定， 如何是问，何时不再问。 茫茫荒野，何方是归途？ 斩敌制胜，边战边思忖。 热血沸腾，激荡在心头， 重燃斗志，冲刺向前方。 他人路径，与己无关联， 唯有开拓，方得真赤色。 The above is the AI translation by Claude-3 (Opus) of my poem “The Crimson Path” reproduced below: Staggering forward along the crimson path,Mind empty, with neither avarice nor wrath.Sword in hand, the only one that’sContinue reading “赤色长路 (AI-translated poem)”