Time Capsule #172
Making time for what matters.
Greetings,
I wrote much of this on another trip to Vancouver!
PS. Don’t fly Flair Airlines.
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
—André Gide
✏️ Don’t wait.
I recently returned from a trip to the Dolomites with my PhD group. It is a beautiful place.
Naturally, we talked about work and careers and research. We helped each other craft a vision for our own programs and futures. All of this was very nice and valuable from a professional perspective. But I won’t remember this trip for that reason. To me, this trip taught me one of the most important lessons in life: don’t wait to have fun.
Every morning, I make a cup of instant coffee and go into my office. Behind me is a whiteboard with all the ongoing and planned research projects for our creativity research program. I am constantly adding, modifying, and updating the plan. Combine that with a day job and a personal life, it feels like there is no time for fun. In many ways there isn’t.
But this trip taught me that, in the same way that I make time for work, I need to prioritize life. And life means doing things for the hell of it. It means investing in people — in friendship, in personal connection, in networking. It means enjoying each moment, each laugh, and the small passages of time in between. These are the moments that make a life.
It’s not necessary nor good to fill each moment with calendar invites and email.
We should time-block time for life too.
tempus fugit
time flies
💡 Food for Thought
The truth is often hidden in plain sight.
🔗 Sunday Best
Bureaucracy Be Like....
By some talented local artists!
The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity
A new white paper by the Apple Machine Learning team.
In this paper, we systematically examine frontier Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) through the lens of problem complexity using controllable puzzle environments. Our findings reveal fundamental limitations in current models: despite sophisticated self-reflection mechanisms, these models fail to develop generalizable reasoning capabilities beyond certain complexity thresholds.
Masterclass nº3 Lang Lang - No 23 - Barenboim on Beethoven
Two supreme talents on Beethoven’s No 23 "Appassionata" 1st movement.
I watched the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra last Thursday play a nice selection of Beethoven.
What makes Barenboim an authority on Beethoven? Well, he was a pupil of Edwin Fischer, who was a pupil of Martin Krause, who was a pupil of Franz Liszt, who was a pupil of Carl Czerny, who was a pupil of Beethoven himself. He is a direct musical descendant of Beethoven!
The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
—H.L. Mencken
See you next week!
AT