More Winston Wisdom
6.803 - Lots of topics today: Technology and Courage (the title of a Sutherland paper that was a good read) and a paper by Simon Kirby regarding language evolution without natural selection. Winston also mused on people at MIT and their relative confidence levels: 50% are afraid of being found out that they don’t belong here, 30% think they are gods among men and 20% can’t decide between the two categories. He also identified the “fear of failure syndrome” at MIT: people would rather give up and knowingly fail than try their best and potentially not win. This is because most MIT students are unused to failure, having been successful their entire life. Thus they’d rather slack off and knowingly fail because they didn’t do the required work rather than do their best and potentially still fail, which would challenge their self-confidence. Three reasons for smart people to go to MIT: 1) smart people 2) research opportunities 3) the network. Winston remarked graduation is only the beginning, that an MIT education is not just 4 years but rather 4 + forever.
6.033 - Hari Balikrishnan is lecturing again — his dynamic and engaging style is refreshing and a pleasure to listen to. More on networks today, mostly covering congestion.
6.UAT - A recitation/lecture on chalkboard technique and when to use or not one.