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Nat Geo’s air crash investigation series gives a good deal of idea behind what went wrong behind an air crash or failure. I was watching one of the episodes which was about the rudder malfunction of Northwest Airlines Flight 85 and how the pilots kept such a large plane in control and landed it safely. All the pilots in that plane continued to fly the plane by adjusting the engine thrust and ailerons to fly to the nearest airport and land safely.

As per the captain’s account it was a very tough thing to fly such a large plane manually. The captain is also a flight instructor so he had a sound understanding of the dynamics of the plane. When interviewed he said “Learning to fly manually is an art, sadly that is a dying art“. Increasingly planes are being designed and manufactured to fly themselves most of the times. This makes the lives of the pilots so easy that most part of the journey is assisted by the machines. But when the machines fail or not designed to handle failures, can humans take over?

What happens to other professions where there is an ever increasing assistance provided by the computers and machines? The result must be the same; when something goes terribly wrong; then there will be a disconnect between the man and the machine. From that point onwards it will be just trial and error handling if there is no deeper understanding of the system.

I read this article on leaky abstractions longtime ago. The author states that if something non trivial is abstracted then the abstraction will be leaky and put us in a spot. This article also prompted me to dive deeper into something if I am learning new. It is really tempting to hang on to the hello world examples & the new hello world of GUI “To do lists” and get away with a feeling that I have got a fair exposure. If I just learn that but not spend enough time to understand the internals, then I would be in a bad spot someday when I least expect.

Image: bk images / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Patents were introduced to encourage inventors to come out in public and get the due credit for the invention. It also granted exclusive rights to the inventor for a certain period to enjoy the fruits of the invention. Though patents are a great way to protect inventor’s effort the laws and enforcements are generally tricky. Some countries have chosen to ignore the Pharma company patents to protect the health of the public as patents were monopolizing life saving drugs.

Paul Graham mentions in his book Hackers and Painters about the copyrights & patents in software and how the laws enforcing them are beginning to threaten intellectual freedom in the field of computers. Laws can be so tight that it can prevent an individual from dismantling something and looking at how it was built. Many people I have met are of the opinion that patents do not have a place in software.

Assume that we work hard and create something,  secure it with a patent and prevent a large corporation from copying it. They can still ignore the patent go ahead with money power to face the lawsuit. So patents for inventors might not guarantee immunity. Then how can we be sure that someone cannot copy our work?

Paul Graham’s answer is to run up the stairs. His analogy was interesting, assume in the computing world the giants are usually large, burly people and startups or individuals are slim and agile; if they are trying to chase us out of existence then it is fairly easy when running downstairs or on the corridors but it is extremely difficult for them to chase when we run upstairs.

The examples are in the profession of sports, arts and music. What a top musician does is so easy to imitate, but she/he can keep coming in with more performances that others find it hard to emulate the success. Innovation is the key skill, the skill cannot be copied. What we need is to find what is tough for others to do and do exactly that. To run up the stairs we need to be strong and healthy, similarly to be ahead at work we need to be strong at what we do.

If we run upstairs chances are high that the competition is always left behind. Here is Paul Graham’s essay which covers the topic of running up the stairs.

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Right from the school days I have enjoyed sharing knowledge with others in such a way that it stays with person who receives it. The good side effect it got me was that it made me stronger with the fundamentals. The easiest way for me to learn something was to commit to someone that I will teach the same. The fact that I will be questioned on many aspects made me dive deeper into the subject as well as look at the meta part of it.

I started learning music recently, my progress was really slow. I struggled to understand or visualize many of the concepts like why the chords have to progress in a certain way, how do you identify its minor or major etc. Until I volunteered to teach someone else the basics, I did not dive deep enough to find the physics behind the music. As I begun to teach, my ability to express something which I understood started increasing multifold. Slowly I was able to draw analogies from different subjects to explain music.

How did it help me at the workplace? Periodically signing up for sharing something with the peers helped me to learn a lot. The eustress provides the right push to dive deeper and come to a good understanding. Many of the organizations have a constant turnover of people which means that it is necessary to get new people on board with culture and technology.

Signing up as trainers at the workplace has a good effect. This has two benefits, one it eliminates full time position of trainers, the other is it provides the trainers the right platform to sharpen and strengthen their skills. It also helps to break the monotony of regular job and provides a different view of it. Some of the questions posed to me in the classroom also made me rethink on some of my beliefs and led me to relearn some things, so it is not just learning but also unlearning.

Joy of teaching is as much as joy of learning.