Some slogans I find helpful. In Research: "Algorithmic complexity must be earned": If you propose a hairy algorithm to solve a problem, it better have empirical or theoretical support to make it worth using over something simpler. "It's always easier to get funded if you don't ask for any money." "The quality of your output is directly proportional to the quality of the stuff you throw away." Dave Ackley's edit: "The value is in what you throw away." "Beware that your knowledge-free optimization algorithm is not also free of wisdom." "Sleep is for post-docs." -ML, 3/2005 "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny means the development of the researcher mimics the development of the field. Each individual essentially has to reinvent what came earlier before contributing new results." -ML, 2/2007 "Pointless inconsistency is a sign of a disordered mind." -ML, 4/2008 (Thesis topic selection.) "You need to carve out a problem that you can argue is important, unsolved, and addressed by your ideas." -ML 12/10. Be tolerant to other research styles. (Sergiu's reformulation of some advice I gave.) 11/13 About learning: * Experience into expertise * Focus on application-independent approaches for improving behavior via learning; experience is the critical resource * Start in the middle and you're stuck in the middle * A system must ultimately derive its own representations from data from scratch or we'll be forever maintaining them * Data, not data structure * Traditional knowledge representations are brittle, limited, and seemingly impossible to derive from data * Seeing is "seeing as" * Perception and understanding are about making connections to past contexts via experience-tuned similarity metrics MACHINE LEARNING Program a computer to fish and you have taught it one skill. Program a computer to learn and you have taught it everything. REINFORCEMENT LEARNING give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime give a man a taste for fish and he'll figure out how to fish, even if the details change! --> Some silly variations on standard sayings: <-- Do not ask for whom the bell tolls, just answer it, dagnabit! If you let a smile be your umbrella, the world will rain on your face. Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do! A day without chocolate is like a week without chocolate, only shorter. Children should be seen and not rushed to the emergency room. or Children should be seen and not hurt. Feed a cold, starve a dieter. No good screed goes unpublished. Max Isaac Newton's Three Laws of Child Motion 1. A child at rest will remain at rest. A child in motion will come to rest unless watched by an adult. 2. The acceleration of a child is directly proportional to the number of adults urging him or her on and inversely proportional to how important it is to get ready on time. 3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite overreaction. Those who do not study history are doomed to misquote it. If I can touch just one life... I still have 6,651,608,835 to go. (September 27th, 2006) See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have 1 cent until it gets lost in the washer/dryer. (Max, Feb 2008) While I nodded nearly napping suddenly I heard a tapping like someone was gently rapping, rapping on my chamber door. Then I got up and it was the mail man. (Molly, in response, Feb 2008) Kids and tantrums: The secret is to provide for their needs without bending to their will. (Charles Isbell says I said that. It sounds too wise to be me, frankly.) Chocolate Cake Commandments 1. Thou shalt have no other desserts before me. 2. Thou shalt not make for thyself any chocolate cakes with artificial sweeteners: Thou shalt not bake them, nor serve them: for I chocolate cake am a jealous sweet, visiting tofu and molasses upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing rich fudginess unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of chocolate cake in vain: for those who do so will look silly. 4. Remember the Birthday, to keep it happy. Three-hundred sixty-four days you can be on a diet: But chocolate cake was created to celebrate birthdays so have some chocolate cake already. 5. Honor thy baker: that thy chocolate cake may be delicious to the last bite. 6. Thou shalt not smoosh chocolate cake. 7. Thou shalt not eat chocolate cake from other people's plates. 8. Thou shalt not steal chocolate cake. 9. Thou shalt not falsely claim to people that you don't enjoy their chocolate cake recipes. 10. Thou shalt not look longingly across the table at your neighbor's chocolate cake after you have finished eating yours---you should have savored it more. We use adverbs right. (7/08) Did you know that Eskimos have over 200 words for "urban legend"? (7/08) The body, unencumbered, seeks equilibrium. The mind, unchecked, prefers extremes. 1/27/07. Life is balance. (6/08) Feelings are real---not reality. (6/08) Men are educated children. Girls are uneducated adults. (<1/07) Know what problem you are solving. (3/09) (In response to Sutton's slogan: Approximate the solution, not the problem.) In today's consumer economy, you can't always get what you need. But, if you have the cash, you can get what you want. (5/10) If the game is rigged, there's no shame in quitting. (5/10) Sometime after we solve the AI problem, we will conquer the AV problem. (10/16) Regret is a dish best served to the person across the table from you. (1/19) (c) Copyright 2004, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2005, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2006, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2007, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2008, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2009, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2010, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2016, Michael L. Littman (where applicable) (c) Copyright 2019, Michael L. Littman (where applicable)