Quotes About Optimization

I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with.

The thing is, I have a zillion apps, and I'm always looking for the perfect arrangement for them, so scrambling my home screen is part of that eternal quest.

It seems kind of nutty to send up something new when there's something already there that can do the job.

Have as your center idea — elimination. Everything that takes your time from your business or your family is an extra tax on your strength. Eliminate every habit that holds you back, every practice that unfits you for progress, every person who depresses you, every move that is not necessary, every footless idea that crowds your brain.

Systems learn by removing parts, via negativa.*4

His idea is that if we were to optimize at every step in life, then it would cost us an infinite amount of time and energy. Accordingly

For the antifragile, shocks bring more benefits (equivalently, less harm) as their intensity increases (up to a point).

He would be forced to act as a satisficer instead of a maximizer

everything is "organized" with optimizing intent

The question remains whether optimizers are unhappy because they are constantly seeking a better deal or if unhappy people tend to optimize out of their misery.

Systems learn by removing parts, via negativa.

I would not be the first to say that this optimization set back social science by reducing it from the intellectual and reflective discipline that it was becoming to an attempt at an "exact science." By "exact science," I mean a second-rate engineering problem for those who want to pretend that they are in the physics department—so-called physics envy. In other words, an intellectual fraud.

as a patent side effect of mathematics is making people over-optimize and cut corners, causing fragility. Just look how the new is increasingly more perishable than the old.

when it isn't spending half its energy scanning for viruses or painting a pretty drop-shadow under the mouse pointer it runs like greased whippet shit.

An unoptimized instance of H. sapiens maintains state coherency for only two to three gigaseconds before it succumbs to necrosis.

economy is the art of making the most of life." Economics is the study of how we do that.

Productivity is the efficiency with which we convert inputs into outputs. In other words, how good

8. Embrace waste.

Our goal has never been to make the most. It's always been to make the best.

Even a very tiny amount of useful intelligence embedded into an existing process boosts its effectiveness to a whole other level.

their social influence (how many people followed them and what their influence was) in order to optimize attention and influence per dollar. Done at the scale

People are looking for efficient and convenient ways to simplify their life, save time, and make more money.

Optimizing Oracle response time is, for the most part, a solved problem.

The real secret of how to use time is to pack it as you would a portmanteau, filling up the small spaces with small things.