(토요모임) [29th, April. 2017] Saturday meeting Topic

[Scarlet]

Howdy ! 

It's me Scarlett !   

This week we have 3 topics. 

◈ Leadership : 15 Signs You Will Become A Great Leader

◈ Future tech. : Uber's Flying Car/ AI/ a Human-Computer Brain Interface

--- Tech. 1 : Uber’s Flying Car Chief On Noise Pollution And The Future Of Sky Taxis

--- Tech. 2 : The mind in the machine: Demis Hassabis on artificial intelligence

--- Tech. 3 : Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to turn cloud-based AI into an extension of our brains 

◈ Art of Living : Critical Thinking/ Comperitive Skills/ Plan B

--- Skill 1 : Warren Buffett's Best-Kept Secret to Achieving Massive Success: Critical Thinking

--- Skill 2 : Mastering these skills could get you hired in 2017

--- Skill 3 : Why Successful People Will Never Neglect A Backup Plan

Hope you enjoy the topics. 

With luv 

Scarlett

---

15 Signs You Will Become A Great Leader

Ryan Wiggins

Throughout the ages, great leaders have forged new societies, built great companies and advanced progress toward social change using a set of skills and abilities that are the awe of anyone who wants to inspire people to take action.

So often confused with one’s position within a hierarchy, leadership is not a title, a role or a position of authority. Leadership is the sum of many different moving parts — it’s definition difficult to pin down and for most, a matter of opinion.

For me, great leadership is a set of values, attitudes and beliefs brought to life through an individual’s actions and behaviors while working towards achieving progress.

A leader is as such no matter their position within social or organizational structures. And sometimes, people with the greatest potential for leadership, don’t even realise they have it.

Here are 15 signs you are going to be a great leader, even if you don’t realize it right now.

1. You empower others

Leadership is not a position of privilege or power. It is a position of service. A leader’s job, first and foremost is to help and guide people achieve what they want to achieve; not to make them subservient to their own whims and agenda.

Research out of Penn State University, Claremont McKenna College and Tsinghua University found that so-called “transformational leaders,” those who empower self-guided teams by cultivating trust and autonomy, lead teams that achieve more and are personally more effective and successful in their job.

2. You have emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is one of the single most important characteristics of good leaders. Without it, the most intelligent, skilled and ambitious people will still fall short of achieving greatness in leadership.

Studies undertaken by psychologist Daniel Goleman, author of Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence, found that emotional intelligence was twice as important for “excellent performance” as IQ and technical skills for people in jobs at all levels.

3. You use logic

Logic is the principles of reasoning. Among the discourse of leadership and management, logic, reasoning and rational thought are often overlooked in favour of intuition and gut feelings.

Although intuition is important, the ability to follow and create logical processes, arguments and strategy is a cornerstone of high-performance and success.

4. You start with why

According to recent studies, 70% of the American workforce are disengaged from their work. So what’s missing? Inspiration!

Simon Sinek, author of global best seller Start With Why explains that people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Whether you’re starting a social movement or building a great company, you need followers. Great leaders use the power of why to find people that believe what they believe and inspire them to take action.

5. You focus on solutions, not problems

When the pressure is on and deadlines are approaching, what separates great leaders from the rest is their ability to focus on solutions, rather than problems.

Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company and pioneer in establishing mass production said “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” Great leaders only spend enough time focusing on a problem to learn from it what they need to overcome it.

6. You are a learner

Albert Einstein, one of the most prolific leaders of scientific progress the world has ever seen believed that “intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

A commitment to life long learning is one of the most important attributes of great leaders. The ability to challenge one’s own assumptions and learn lessons from he successes of failures of themselves and others is the cornerstone of progress.

7. You make others better

Great leaders are not interested in subordinating their followers. Instead, they want to create more leaders. Personal and professional development of team members and building an army of capable and effective drivers for whatever cause a leader is working toward is a great-leader’s top priority.

8. You think outside the box

Great leaders challenge the status quo. They disrupt the natural order of things to find new and better ways of doing things. Anyone can tow-the-line. Great leaders achieve great things because they’re willing to ask questions, be critical and create change where it’s needed to drive progress.

9. You are a good follower

Great leadership comes from being a great follower. Robert Kelley, author of The Power of Followership, says that good followership is the opposite of what you might think.

A good follower is not a sheep or a yes-man. A good follower is active, independent and is constructively critical of directions and decisions before carrying them out. Most importantly, a good follower can function at a high level without a leader present.

10. You listen more than you talk

Great leaders are life long learners, and nobody has ever learned anything from talking. Arguably one of the most successful leaders in history, Richard Branson, swears by the power of listening over talking and says that the most successful business people he knows all have the habit of listening in common.

Listening over talking gives you the full picture when trying to tackle challenges. It puts things in full and proper perspective which gives great leaders an advantage.

11. You give frank and fearless advice

Abraham Lincoln said, “I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.” What he meant was that we shouldn’t compromise what we know is right for personal gain.

One of the most important attributes of a great leader is integrity. A great leader stays true to their convictions, even when the advice they’re giving is not what the people around and above them want to hear — and even at their own expense.

12. You communicate effectively

Leadership and effective communication go hand in hand. Great leaders spend most of their time in some kind of interaction with other people. Whether it’s the people they want to influence at the highest levels or future leaders who need inspiration to take action, a leader cannot lead without the ability to communicate effectively.

Peter Economy, author of Managing for Dummies, says that effective communication can be achieve by sticking to the 7 C’s: Clear, Consistent, Credible, Confident, Civil, Concise and Compassionate. Get these right and you’ll find your interactions with others to be more successful.

13. You are compassionate

Great leaders care about the well being of the people around them. And it pays dividends. A recent study found that employee loyalty is influenced more by having positive relationships at work than by the salary.

Great leaders are so effective because they’re able to generate loyal followers, in part due to a compassionate approach to their relationships.

14. You ask for forgiveness, not permission

People are hard wired to resist change. Triggers for change resistance include fear and habit. Great leaders know this and, guided by their belief in what’s right and their ability to think outside of the box and challenge the status quo, will move ahead with new and sometimes controversial projects in the interests of progress.

15. You are not afraid of making the big decisions

Stepping up to make the big calls is hard. That’s why it takes an extraordinary leader to do it. They don’t do it because it’s easy. They do it because they know that, in many cases, failure to make a decision is worse than making a bad one.

The ability to lead can be learned and this list is a great starting point. What leadership characteristics would you add to this list?

Article source : http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/15-signs-you-will-become-great-leader.html?ref=sidebar

---

The morning rituals of Elon Musk, Richard Branson​,​ and 8 other successful people

Zoë Henry, Inc.

Here's how the world's top business leaders set each morning up for success and motivation.REUTERS/Danny Moloshok

Mark Twain said it best: "Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day."

Here's how the world's top business leaders set each morning up for success and motivation.

Richard Branson

In a 2014 blog post, the entrepreneur explained why he wakes up at 5 a.m.: "I'm able to do some exercise and spend time with my family, which puts me in a great mind frame before getting down to business." 

Jack Dorsey

To make time for a 30-minute meditation, the Square CEO also rises early, at 5 a.m. After, Dorsey completes a workout and then brews his own coffee.

Tory Burch

The founder of her eponymous fashion label wakes up at 5:45 a.m., checks emails, gets her three sons out of bed, and exercises for 45 minutes. Often, she'll leave the house with wet hair — preferring speed over effort, and the look when it "dries naturally." 

Arianna Huffington

The cofounder of the Huffington Post is a staunch believer in the value of sleep. She needs eight hours of rest time each night — winding down with a hot bath and Epsom salt. She starts her morning with 30 minutes of meditation.

Steve Jobs

In his commencement speech to Stanford in 2005, the late Apple cofounder elaborated on what he asks himself each morning: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do?" If the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he'd have to "change something."

Benjamin Franklin

The American inventor set a precedent for entrepreneurs when he wrote in his 1791 autobiography that each morning he must: "Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness [God]." He also penned "Early Rising: A Natural, Social, and Religious Duty."

Michelle Phan

The internet celebrity and cofounder of Ipsy told Inc. that she often wakes up at 5:30 a.m. to respond to individual user comments on her YouTube channel. 

Elon Musk

The famed SpaceX and Tesla founder splits his time between Los Angeles and the Bay Area, driving to work in his Model S. His first phone calls — starting around 10 a.m. — are to journalists and job candidates, or conference calls.

Gary Vaynerchuk

The VaynerMedia cofounder wakes up at 6 a.m. and takes his phone into the bathroom to read the news. Before leaving the house, he hugs his kids for "five minutes," and calls a family member while driving to work.  

Jeff Bezos

The founder and CEO of Amazon said he gets eight hours of sleep each night, and avoids  having morning meetings to eat breakfast with his wife, instead.  

Article source : http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-richard-branson-and-others-share-morning-habits-2017-4/#richard-branson-1

---

<Questions>

Q1. What is the definition of a leader? What is the roles of a leader? 

Q2. Are you more close to a leader type or a follower type? 

Q3. Many have a chance to take a role as a leader. Would you share your successful experience as a leader? 

Q4. What time do you wake up? What is your morning ritual? For example, many successful people set each morning up as below. Make your own answer based on these cases. 

Name	Wake up time	Morning Activities
Richard Branson	5 a.m.	Take time for some exercise and spend time with my family
Jack Dorsey	5 a.m.	Exercise for a 30-minute meditation and brews his own coffee
Tory Burch	5:45 a.m.	Checks emails, gets her three sons out of bed, and exercises for 45 minutes
Arianna Huffington	-	Needs eight hours of rest time each night/   Start morning with 30 minutes of meditation.
Steve Jobs		What he asks himself each morning: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I'm about to do?" If the answer was no for too many days in a row, he knew he'd have to "change something."
Benjamin Franklin		"Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness [God]."   "Early Rising: A Natural, Social, and Religious Duty."
Michelle Phan	5:30 a.m.	Respond to individual user comments on her YouTube channel.
Elon Musk	-	Make phone calls — starting around 10 a.m. — are to journalists and job candidates, or conference calls.
Gary Vaynerchuk	6 a.m.	Takes his phone into the bathroom to read the news. Before leaving the house, he hugs his kids for "five minutes," and calls a family member while driving to work.
Jeff Bezos	-	Gets eight hours of sleep each night. Avoids  having morning meetings to eat breakfast with his wife

Q5. What is the basic qualities of a Great leader? Please tell us 3 crucial requirement. 

Q6. What is the important qualities to be a great leader among below 15 items? 

1. You empower others

2. You have emotional intelligence

3. You use logic

4. You start with why

5. You focus on solutions, not problems

6. You are a learner

7. You make others better

8. You think outside the box

9. You are a good follower

10. You listen more than you talk

11. You give frank and fearless advice

12. You communicate effectively

13. You are compassionate

14. You ask for forgiveness, not permission

15. You are not afraid of making the big decisions

Q7. Why do you want to be a 'Great leader'? What changes can you make for your community? Do you think you are prepare enough system for changes of our society? 

Q8. We are facing unpredictable changes of our society. Things are changing at a unprecedentedly high speed. In this perspective, what is the crucial qualities of a great leader? 

---

Uber’s Flying Car Chief On Noise Pollution And The Future Of Sky Taxis

Ex-NASA engineer says that slower-spinning electric motors will keep noise to a hum—

with only a couple of planes overhead, even at rush hour.

BY SEAN CAPTAIN04.24.17 | 9:00 AM

Flying cars still seem like one of those futuristic technologies that only exists for now in the realm of science fiction and old episodes of The Jetsons. But Uber is taking the technology seriously and this week it takes another step forward with a summit meeting that lays out its vision.

In October, the ride-hailing giant published a 97-page white paper laying out all the challenges for setting up an urban flying taxi system to link with its on-demand car service. Since then, it’s hired NASA veteran Mark Moore as director of aviation engineering for its Uber Elevate initiative. Moore headed the space agency’s research on electric propulsion, autonomous control, and personal craft until February.

On Tuesday, Uber is convening its three-day Uber Elevate Summit in Dallas to lay out its plans for urban air travel. Given that the San Francisco-based company is flying everyone out to the Texan city, there’s a good chance that Dallas will be one of the cities with which Uber has promised to announce “collaborations.”

“What were looking at is, in the next several years, being able to bring experimental aircraft into and test them in the relevant environment of the city,” says Moore.

Uber will provide a live stream of the event from the conference home page, beginning Tuesday at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

Uber will also announce the companies that will supply these electric taxi planes. Note the word “planes.” Several companies, such as Germany’s E-Volo and China’s EHang, have introduced electric copters—known as VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) craft that look a bit like upscale toy drones. (EHang, in fact is, a drone maker). But that’s not the way Uber is going, says Moore. (Dubai’s transport agency will start a flying taxi program using EHang’s copters this summer.)

Instead, Uber plans to use electric VTOL planes that briefly tilt their wings and propellers up to take off vertically like drones, then tilt them forward to fly forward. Such planes—as well as electric propeller systems—were being developed by Moore before he left NASA. He isn’t saying yet what companies will make planes for Uber, but Airbus provides a good example with its Vahana autonomous electric plane, announced in February and set for flight tests in the fall.

What other craft might Uber fly? Also in attendance at the conference will be Slovenian electric plane maker Pipistrel and German “electric jet startup” Lilium (it actually uses small, high-speed propellers). Big aviation players such as Embraer and Bell Helicopter will also attend.

KEEPING QUIET

Noise is one major reason why Uber is going with planes instead of helicopters or oversize quadcopter drones like EHang’s. “One of the reasons helicopters haven’t gained traction in cities as a transportation solution is because they are so noisy,” says Moore. “They have a [low-pitched] noise characteristic that just travels forever, and it’s quite annoying.”

Brien Seeley, founder of the Sustainable Aviation Foundation, agrees. I spoke with him over the weekend at the organization’s 2017 SA Symposium. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you think you are going to come into to a quite residential, serene community and land close by the houses, with a noisy [helicopter] rotor downwash vehicle, you’re crazy,” he says. (Seeley isn’t affiliated with Uber.)

Moore claims the sound from Uber’s planes will be higher-pitched, as well, blending into the hum of car traffic in cities rather than rumbling on over a longer distance and rattling windows.

Switching from piston engines or turbines to electric motors cuts down noise, but what really makes a difference is that plane propellers can spin slower. Moore gives an example of a plane’s propeller tips slicing through the air at half the speed of a helicopter’s. Based on the physics of flight, that makes the plane propeller as much as 32 times quieter. “That’s where the magic happens,” says Moore.

In case you’re wondering why, it’s in part because helicopter blades are essentially spinning wings. The faster air flows over a wing the more lift it generates. As a blade swings forward toward the front of a helicopter, it’s moving in the same direction the helicopter is traveling. Airflow speed is a combination of how fast the rotor is turning, plus how fast the helicopter is moving forward. It’s kind of like walking up an escalator that’s already heading up. As the same blade spins toward the back, it’s heading in the opposite direction the helicopter is flying—like trying to walk down that same “up” escalator—hitting the air more slowly and generating a lot less lift. Adjusting the tilt of the blades and spinning the rotors very fast are the tricks helicopters use to even out lift, but faster-spinning rotors make more noise.

Outsiders say Uber may be understating the noise challenge. “Noise is going to be a big issue, that I don’t think anyone’s addressing appropriately,” says Tyler MacCready, the CEO of Apium, which is developing swarm technologies so that craft like drones and sky taxis can fly in tight formation. “And that’s one that even Uber in their Elevate report—they say hey, don’t worry this is going to be quiet. That’s wrong,” says MacCready.

Brien Seeley reckons that the sound of a plane or helicopter has to be below 50 decibels, about the volume of a conversation at home, at a distance of 40 meters from its landing area at a small airport. (Here’s a good decibel guide to the noise level of different real-life sounds.) Otherwise either the noise will annoy neighbors or the airport will have to be too big to create a buffer. About VTOL, Seeley says that, “It’s appealing because of its perceived small landing pad; however, again, its noise signature will dictate the true acreage and thereby its proximity.” He’s proposed an XPrize competition to develop air taxis that meet the 50-dB at 40 meters target, which he calls a “Herculean challenge.”

Uber talks about putting its mini-airports, called vertiports (complete with fast battery charging), on top of buildings to minimize the noise. “You would think so,” says Seeley, “but those people going out of the skyscrapers want to go to their suburban McMansions, whose serene community won’t allow them to land there.” Dallas, for instance, is a very flat city.

The type of craft is very important to noise, says Seeley. He agrees that planes are better than helicopters, but the type of plane matters. A tilt-wing craft is essentially a helicopter when it’s taking off. Also, Moore is a longtime advocate and developer of what’s called distributed electric propulsion—spreading a bunch of small motors and propellers across the airplane wing. One of Moore’s last projects at NASA was the X-57, a research plane with 14 electric motors and propellers. Covering the wing in small propellers is more efficient than using a few large props, but it’s generally a lot noisier, as they have to spin faster. Perhaps this won’t be as noisy as a helicopter, but it could still be too loud.

“The great spectrum that pushes and pulls against itself is, extremely tiny little rotors, and 30 of them, all blowing; and they’re screaming like banshees,” Seeley says, “or one extremely large [propeller], slow-turning like a Danish windmill that moves the same amount of air silently.”

SKY GRIDLOCK?

Even if robo-taxi planes are virtually silent, how will people feel about a sky full of them? “You’re never going to blacken the skies,” says Moore. “It’s never going to look like Star Wars.” Even with a thousand air taxis per city, Moore says someone would see only “a couple aircraft” when they look up. Others tend to agree, saying that the promised reduction in street traffic will be worth it. “There’s a lot more room in the sky. I think we’re way off from the day when the skies get too crowded,” says Tyler MacCready. (He recommends using systems like his to help aircraft fly in tight formation so that traffic is kept to minimal areas.)

One reason the skies will stay clear, says Moore, is because Uber will use planes and not helicopters. To keep noise manageable, electric choppers would have to fly slower—around 50 miles per hour. (E-Volo projects a max speed of 100 kilometers per hour, about 62 mph. EHang lists an average cruising speed of 60km/hour, about 37mph.) Moore says that Uber’s taxis will fly at around 150mph. “So they get to where they’re going very quickly. They don’t stay up there,” he says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sean Captain is a technology journalist and editor. Follow him on Twitter @seancaptain. More

Article source : https://www.fastcompany.com/40411391/inside-ubers-ambitious-project-to-fill-the-sky-with-flying-taxis

---

The mind in the machine: Demis Hassabis on artificial intelligence

The co-founder of DeepMind explains how AI will help us make unimaginable leaps in understanding the world

Modern civilisation is a miraculous feat, one made possible by science. Every time I take a flight, I marvel at the technology that has allowed us to soar above the clouds as a matter of routine. We have mapped the genome, built supercomputers and the internet, landed probes on comets, smashed atoms at near light speed in particle accelerators and put a man on the Moon. How have we managed to do any of this? When one stops to contemplate what has been accomplished by our 3lb brains, it’s quite remarkable.

The scientific method might be the single most powerful idea humans have ever had, and progress since the Enlightenment has been simply astonishing. But we are now at a critical juncture where many of the systems we need to master are fiendishly complex, from climate change to macroeconomic issues to Alzheimer’s disease. Whether we can solve these challenges — and how fast we can get there — will affect the future wellbeing of billions of people and the environment we all live in.

The problem is that these challenges are so complex that even the world’s top scientists, clinicians and engineers can struggle to master all the intricacies necessary to make the breakthroughs required. It has been said that Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the last person to have lived who understood the entire breadth of knowledge of their age. Since then we’ve had to specialise, and today it takes a lifetime to completely master even a single field such as astrophysics or quantum mechanics. 

The systems we now seek to understand are underpinned by a vast amount of data, usually highly dynamic, non-linear and with emergent properties that make it incredibly hard to find the structure and connections to reveal the insights hidden therein. Kepler and Newton could write equations to describe the motion of planets and objects on Earth, but few of today’s problems can be reduced down to a simple set of elegant and compact formulae. 

This is one of the greatest scientific challenges of our times. The founding fathers of the modern computer age — Alan Turing, John von Neumann, Claude Shannon — all understood the central importance of information theory, and today we have come to realise that almost everything can either be thought of or expressed in this paradigm. This is most evident in bioinformatics, where the genome is effectively a gigantic information coding schema. I believe that, one day, information will come to be viewed as being as fundamental as energy and matter.

At its core, intelligence can be viewed as a process that converts unstructured information into useful and actionable knowledge. The scientific promise of artificial intelligence (AI), to which I have devoted my life’s work, is that we may be able to synthesise, automate and optimise that process, using technology as a tool to help us acquire rapid new knowledge in fields that would remain intractable for humans unaided.

Today, working on AI has become very fashionable. However, the term AI can mean myriad things depending on the context. The approach we take at DeepMind, the company I co-founded, focuses on notions of learning and generality, with the aim of developing the kind of AI we need for science. If we want computers to discover new knowledge, then we must give them the ability to truly learn for themselves. 

The algorithms we work on learn how to master tasks directly from raw experience, meaning that the knowledge they acquire is ultimately grounded in some form of sensory reality rather than in abstract symbols. We further require them to be general in the sense that the same system with the same parameters can perform well across a wide range of tasks. Both these tenets were demonstrated in DeepMind’s 2015 Nature paper in which a single program taught itself to play dozens of classic Atari games, with no input other than the pixels on the screen and the running score. We also use systems-level neuroscience as a key source of inspiration for new algorithmic and architectural ideas. After all, the brain is the only existence proof we have that a general-purpose experience-based learning system is even possible.

This is a radical departure from the approach of many of our predecessors. The difference is perhaps best illustrated by comparing two breakthrough programs that achieved world firsts in the field of games: IBM’s Deep Blue, which beat the world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, and our recent AlphaGo program, which last year beat one of the world’s top players at the even more complex game of Go. Deep Blue used what is known as an “expert systems” approach: a team of programmers sat down with some chess grandmasters to explicitly distil and codify their knowledge into a sophisticated set of heuristics. A powerful supercomputer then used these handcrafted rules to assess a vast number of possible variations, calculating its way by brute force to the right move. 

Deep Blue’s victory against Kasparov represented a major milestone in the history of AI. But its win was more a testament to the brilliance of its team of programmers and grandmasters, as well as to the computational power of the contemporary hardware, than to any inherent intelligence in the program itself.

AlphaGo played a handful of highly inventive winning moves, one of which was so surprising it overturned hundreds of years of received wisdom

After chess was cracked, Go became the new holy grail for AI research. Go is around 3,000 years old and has profound cultural importance across Asia, where it is considered to be not just a game but an art form, and its professional champions are public icons. With an astonishing 10 to the power of 170 possible board configurations — more than the number of atoms in the universe — it is insoluble by brute-force methods. In fact, even writing a function to determine which side is winning in a particular Go position was long thought to be impossible, since a tiny change in the location of a single piece can radically alter the entire board state. Top human Go players deal with this enormous complexity by leaning heavily on their intuition and instinct, often describing moves as simply “feeling right”, in contrast to chess players, who rely more on precise calculation.

For AlphaGo we realised that in order to capture this intuitive aspect of the game we would have to take an approach radically different from chess programs such as Deep Blue. Rather than hand-coding human expert strategies, we used general-purpose techniques including deep neural networks to build a learning system, and showed it thousands of strong amateur games to help it develop its own understanding of what reasonable human play looks like. Then we had it play against different versions of itself thousands of times, each time learning from its mistakes and incrementally improving until it became immensely strong. In March 2016 we were ready to take on the ultimate challenge: playing the legendary Lee Se-dol, winner of 18 world titles and widely considered to be the greatest player of the past decade.

More than 200 million people watched online as AlphaGo emerged a surprise 4-1 victor, with the consensus among experts that this breakthrough was a decade ahead of its time. More importantly, during the games AlphaGo played a handful of highly inventive winning moves, one of which — move 37 in game two — was so surprising it overturned hundreds of years of received wisdom and has been intensively examined by players since. In the course of winning, AlphaGo somehow taught the world completely new knowledge about perhaps the most studied game in history. 

These moments of algorithmic inspiration give us a glimpse of why AI could be so beneficial for science: the possibility of machine-aided scientific discovery. We believe the techniques underpinning AlphaGo are general-purpose and could be applied to a wide range of other domains, especially those with clear objective functions that can be optimised, and environments that can be accurately simulated, allowing for efficient high-speed experimentation. In energy efficiency, for instance, we used a variant of these algorithms to find a set of novel techniques able to reduce the energy used to cool Google’s data centres by 40 per cent, which we are now rolling out across the fleet, and which will deliver a huge cost saving and be great for the environment.

We believe that in the next few years scientists and researchers using similar approaches will generate insights in a multitude of areas, from superconductor material design to drug discovery. In many ways I see AI as analogous to the Hubble telescope — a scientific tool that allows us to see farther and better understand the universe around us. 

Of course, like any powerful technology AI must be used responsibly, ethically and to benefit everyone. We must also continue to be highly cognisant of both the utility and limitations of AI algorithms. But with rigorous attention to programs’ capabilities, and more research into the effects of the quality of the data we use as inputs and the transparency of their workings, we may find that AI can play a vital role in supporting all manner of experts by identifying patterns and sources that can escape human eyes alone.

It is in this collaboration between people and algorithms that incredible scientific progress lies over the next few decades. I believe that AI will become a kind of meta-solution for scientists to deploy, enhancing our daily lives and allowing us all to work more quickly and effectively. If we can deploy these tools broadly and fairly, fostering an environment in which everyone can participate in and benefit from them, we have the opportunity to enrich and advance humanity as a whole.

In doing so, we may learn something about ourselves, too. I’ve always felt that physics and neuroscience are in some ways the most fundamental subjects: one is concerned with the external world out there, and the other with the internal world in our minds. Between them they therefore cover everything. AI has the potential to help us to understand both better. As we discover more about the learning process itself and compare it to the human brain, we could one day attain a better understanding of what makes us unique, including shedding light on such enduring mysteries of the mind as dreaming, creativity and perhaps one day even consciousness. 

If AI can help us as a society to not only save the environment, cure disease and explore the universe, but also better understand ourselves — well, that may prove one of the greatest discoveries of them all. 

Demis Hassabis is co-founder and CEO of DeepMind

Photographs: Caleb Charland

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

Article source : https://www.ft.com/content/048f418c-2487-11e7-a34a-538b4cb30025

---

Elon Musk’s Neuralink wants to turn cloud-based AI into an extension of our brains

BY DARRELL ETHERINGTON/ Apr 20, 2017

Elon Musk has been working on a Neuralink, a human-computer brain interface company, in whatever spare moments he has between running Tesla and also running SpaceX. Neuralink’s ultimate aim may actually be the most ambitious of all three of his companies, surprisingly, and a new exploration of the foundational ideas behind Neuralink on Wait But Why goes deep within what Musk hopes to achieve by creating better, higher-bandwidth connections between our brains and computers.

Musk has confirmed that he will indeed occupy the CEO role at Neuralink, which means he’ll be the CEO of three separate companies. But Neuralink’s goals definitely sound the most science fictional of all three of his ventures, which is saying something considering Musk’s SpaceX is all about making humans an intergalactic colonial species.

Basically, Musk seems to want to achieve a communications leap equivalent in impact to when humans came up with language – this proved an incredibly efficient way to convey thoughts socially at the time, but what Neuralink aims to do is increase that efficiency by multiple factors of magnitude. Person-to-person, Musk’s vision would enable direct “uncompressed” communication of concepts between people, instead of having to effectively “compress” your original thought by translating it into language, and then having the other party “decompress” the package you send them linguistically, which is always a lossy process.

Neuralink’s tech would also be able to help humans keep pace with the rapid advances in AI, and would achieve this by basically integrating AI with human consciousness. Neuralink’s tech would enable human use of AI as just an additional faculty – like our sense of selves or other higher in-brain thought faculties. Making it possible to connect with such high bandwidth directly into the brain would allow us to integrate cloud-based AI computing within our selves in a way that’s indistinguishable from our core selves, Musk proposes, much like how most people would now find it difficult to separate their statements and expressions in language from the parts of the brain that generate them.

This tech is still far away from any kind of broad commercial application – maybe farther than a SpaceX trip to Mars. Musk says that it’s probably going to be at least “eight to 10 years” before tech the company produces can be used by someone without a disability. Neuralink is aiming to create therapeutic applications of its tech first, which will likely help as it seeks the necessary regulatory approvals for human trials.

Musk taking on a third CEO role is bound to raise eyebrows among his company’s investors, but Neuralink’s mission is in keeping with the aim of his other two companies: All three focus on solving problems that present what Musk would term existential threats – Neuralink’s agenda of countering AI not least among them.

Article source : https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/20/elon-musks-neuralink-wants-to-turn-cloud-based-ai-into-an-extension-of-our-brains/amp/?utm_content=buffer36183&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

---

Elon Musk - 2 Things Humans Need to Do to Have a “Good Future”

February 22, 2017  by PAUL RATNER

A fascinating conference on artificial intelligence was recently hosted by the Future of Life Institute, an organization aimed at promoting “optimistic visions of the future” while anticipating “existential risks” from artificial intelligence and other directions.

The conference “Superintelligence: Science or Fiction?” featured a panel of Elon Musk from Tesla Motors and SpaceX, futurist Ray Kurzweil, Demis Hassabis of MIT’s DeepMind, neuroscientist and author Sam Harris, philosopher Nick Bostrom, philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, as well as computer scientists Stuart Russell and Bart Selman. The discussion was led by MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark.

The conference participants offered a number of prognostications and warnings about the coming superintelligence, an artificial intelligence that will far surpass the brightest human. 

Most agreed that such an AI (or AGI for Artificial General Intelligence) will come into existence. It is just a matter of when. The predictions ranged from days to years, with Elon Musk saying that one day an AI will reach a “a threshold where it's as smart as the smartest most inventive human” which it will then surpass in a “matter of days”, becoming smarter than all of humanity. 

Ray Kurzweil’s view is that however long it takes, AI will be here before we know it:

“Every time there is an advance in AI, we dismiss it as 'oh, well that's not really AI:' chess, go, self-driving cars. An AI, as you know, is the field of things we haven't done yet. That will continue when we actually reach AGI. There will be lots of controversy. By the time the controversy settles down, we will realize that it's been around for a few years," says Kurzweil [5:00].

Neuroscientist and author Sam Harris acknowledges that his perspective comes from outside the AI field, but sees that there are valid concerns about how to control AI. He thinks that people don’t really take the potential issues with AI seriously yet. Many think it’s something that is not going to affect them in their lifetime - what he calls the “illusion that the time horizon matters.”

“If you feel that this is 50 or a 100 years away that is totally consoling, but there is an implicit assumption there, the assumption is that you know how long it will take to build this safely. And that 50 or a 100 years is enough time,” he says [16:25].

On the other hand, Harris points out that at stake here is how much intelligence humans actually need. If we had more intelligence, would we not be able to solve more of our problems, like cancer? In fact, if AI helped us get rid of diseases, then humanity is currently in “pain of not having enough intelligence.”

Elon Musk’s point of view is to be looking for the best possible future - the “good future” as he calls it. He thinks we are headed either for “superintelligence or civilization ending” and it’s up to us to envision the world we want to live in.

“We have to figure out, what is a world that we would like to be in where there is this digital superintelligence?,” says Musk [at 33:15].

He also brings up an interesting perspective that we are already cyborgs because we utilize “machine extensions” of ourselves like phones and computers.

Musk expands on his vision of the future by saying it will require two things - “solving the machine-brain bandwidth constraint and democratization of AI”. If these are achieved, the future will be “good” according to the SpaceX and Tesla Motors magnate [51:30].

By the “bandwidth constraint,” he means that as we become more cyborg-like, in order for humans to achieve a true symbiosis with machines, they need a high-bandwidth neural interface to the cortex so that the “digital tertiary layer” would send and receive information quickly.

At the same time, it’s important for the AI to be available equally to everyone or a smaller group with such powers could become “dictators”.

He brings up an illuminating quote about how he sees the future going:

“There was a great quote by Lord Acton which is that 'freedom consists of the distribution of power and despotism in its concentration.' And I think as long as we have - as long as AI powers, like anyone can get it if they want it, and we've got something faster than meat sticks to communicate with, then I think the future will be good,” says Musk [51:47]

You can see the whole great conversation here:

Article source : http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/elon-musk-the-two-things-humans-need-to-do-to-ensure-their-future?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1493054951

---

<Questions>

Q1. When you heard about the words '4th industrial revolution' or 'technological development', what ideas or feelings are coming up? How about a flying car, an AI or a human-computer brain interface?

Q2. When we are planning our future, we have two criteria to consider such as technological development and social preparedness. And our plan should be interwinded with those two perspectives together. In this perspective, how much percentage of people are accepting those technological development at a proper speed? Are you against to technological development or for it?

Q3. What chances could we make if we can lead the technological development issue globally? How about vice versa?

Q4. Which technological development sounds attractive to you? 

Q5. If you can be assisted your brain functioning by 'human and computer interface', would you apply it to your body? 

Q6. Uber released their plan for urban air travel by a flying car in Dubai and Texan city. If this transportation is realized in Korea at a reasonable rate, would you use this transportation?

---

Warren Buffett's Best-Kept Secret to Achieving Massive Success: Critical Thinking

Denise Hill/ Speech Writer/Senior Editor

Critical thinking skills are essential to success — any kind of success. Successful individuals are thinkers and they surround themselves with thinkers.

Consider Warren Buffett. He is known as the most successful investor of all time, and by his own estimate, he has spent 80 percent of his career reading.1 And what makes him so successful is that he isn’t willing to be a passive recipient of what he reads. Instead, he schedule time to eval‎uate the information he gets so as to form his own insights. This may sound counterproductive. We’ve been taught to work more, sleep less, and hyper-focus on the things that directly pertain to our goals. We call it being productive. Buffett and those like him find thinking, reading, and contemplating more productive than taking meetings and “working.” He actively pursues knowledge.

 Why people with strong critical thinking skills like Warren Buffett are more likely to succeed

Critical thinking involves being able to process information independently and to think clearly, logically, and reflectively. It is the ability to engage in rational thought and to understand and establish a connection between ideas. In essence, critical thinking is the ability to reason. It is about being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.2

They always question the status quo

The status quo is the current state of affairs. It’s the norm. It’s how things are done. You know you’ve found it when you hear the phrase,“We’ve always done it this way.” Critical thinkers ask questions such as, “Why do we do it that way?” “How can we make it better?” “What are our other options?”

They break down problems into smaller components and see the subtle connections between them

They love to test boundaries. They dissect issues and then find a way to systematically solve them. By examining the individual pieces of a problem they are able to apply solutions that create a domino or cascading effect. They solve one issue which effects another issue and are able to solve them both simultaneously.

They are sensitive to the loopholes in their logic 

Critical thinkers ruthlessly question ideas and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value. They will always seek to determine whether the ideas, arguments, and conclusions represent the entire picture. They do not rely heavily on intuition and instinct. They test, prove, and disprove their hunches.

We are all fallible. Critical thinkers understand this and actively work to find the flaws in their own logic. One’s ability to think critically varies according to his/her current state of mind. Thinkers work to maintain objectivity, view the problem from all possible angles, and seek the input of others who are adept in logic and reasoning.

They tackle problems with a systematic plan

A system is designed to streamline and simplify processes. It improves effectiveness and makes effort more efficient. Most critical thinkers use a top down approach to problem solving. They are systematic in their efforts. They also set aside time for investigating challenging issues and brainstorming ways to push through them. They don’t tackle a problem without a plan.

They apply the scientific method to problem solving

Critical thinkers are usually highly methodical. They approach a problem the same way a scientist would and then move through the phases of the scientific method, conducting experiments to prove and disprove their hypotheses. Each experiment provides insight into the problem and proves or eliminates an idea or solution.

 3 steps to improve your critical thinking skills

Critical thinking is a skill set, meaning it can be learned. Learning to think critically often involves tweaking some of our processes instead of merely trying to adjust our way of thinking. If you do things a certain way, your thinking will follow a certain pattern. You will begin to develop the habit of thinking practically and then critically. Developing this skill takes deliberate practice and persistence.

Here are three steps to get you started:

1. Recognize the biases in your thinking

Biases are common. We all have them. However, our biases lead to fallacies in our thought processes and rob us of our objectivity. The most common and detrimental bias is the confirmation bias- our tendency to see what we want to see. We tend to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirm‎s our preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

To cure confirmation bias, experts3 suggest that inundating yourself with information is not the answer. It’s all about how you filter the information you do have. When you don’t selectively filter information, you lose your objectivity which is the heart of logical thinking. This particular prejudice is most preval‎ent in emotionally- charged situations and when you have something to lose. It also shows up when wishful thinking is present.

For example, in the middle of basketball season the home town team has a record that is below 500 and has been on a seven game losing streak. The star player has just gone out with a torn ACL and your friend says to you, “I know in my heart that our home team will win the NBA Championship.”

This statement disregards the facts–or at the very least, fails to consider them– and makes a prediction based on a feeling.

Here are a few ways to overcome confirmation bias:

When you recognize a bias don’t abandon your initial hypothesis right away. It may be completely or even partially correct. Test your theory.

Keep an open mind. Work on trying to come up with alternatives no matter how far-fetched they may seem. Test all of your ideas.

Embrace surprises. Don’t discount them or get discouraged. The unexpected happens. Use this new “surprising” information to your advantage.

2. Use 5 “Whys” to find out the root causes of problems

The “Five Whys” methodology, developed by Sakichi Toyoda (founder of Toyota), uses a”go and see” philosophy. This turns the decision-making process into a search for a solution that is based on an in-depth understanding of what’s actually happening. This method simply involves asking, “Why?” five times, allowing you to dig deeper each time. The goal is to drill down and find the core of the issue.

Here’s a quick example:

The problem you are attempting to solve is that customers are complaining that when they receive merchandise they purchased online it does not match what they ordered (they are getting incorrect items, sizes, etc.).

Why are customers receiving the wrong products? Because the shipping company’s warehouse shipped products that are different from what the customers ordered.

 Why did the shipping company warehouse ship different products than what was ordered? 

  Because the personnel filling the online orders called the order in and gave it to the warehouse via telephone to expedite shipping. Errors were made during this process.

 Why are the online order fillers calling in orders instead of using the normal process?

  Because each shipping order has a slip that must be signed by the shipping directory before it is put into the system and sent to the warehouse.

 Why does each order slip have to be signed by the shipping director before it is shipped?

  Because the shipping director records the information for his weekly reports to the company CEO.

 Why does the shipping director have to record the information for each order this way?

  Because he does not know how to generate the report using the system the order fillers use to send their orders to the warehouse.

Using this process, we were able to locate the breakdown in the process around the third “why.” Asking “Why?” the last two times generated our solution: train the shipping director to use the existing software to generate his reports for the CEO.

3. Treat each problem like an experiment

Using the scientific method to solve problems is an effective and efficient mental model for solving problems. Most people approach problems haphazardly and dive into the middle of the issues and become overwhelmed or miss key elements. Following a process allows you to establish a habit. Remember critical thinking is a skill that requires practice and persistence. Start at the beginning of the process every single time. Here are the steps:

 Define the problem. Ask a question to discover what the true issue is.

 Do background research. Gather information.

 Construct a hypothesis. Make a prediction based on what you know so far, being careful to account for confirmation bias.

 Conduct experiments. Test your hypothesis. Apply the “Five Whys” methodology when necessary.

Analyze your data and draw a conclusion. Analyze the results of your experiments and put them to the test. Are there any other possible solutions? If so, test them out.

 Communicate your results. Present your solution along with your research and evidence.

Always reflect on and review your processes. It helps you to find gaps in your thinking and to adjust. Reflection helps develop objectivity.

With time, practice, and diligence using these three steps your critical thinking process will become a habit. You’ll be able to better predict results, anticipate pitfalls, and avoid biased thinking.

References

[1] ^ Inc.: Why Successful People Spend 10 Hours a Week Just Thinking

[2] ^ Skills You Need: Critical Thinking Skills

[3] ^ Global Cognition: Confirmation Bias: 3 Effective (and 3 Ineffective) Cures

Article source : http://www.lifehack.org/572725/why-critical-thinking-essential-your-success-and-how-you-can-improve?ref=featured_article

---

Mastering these skills could get you hired in 2017

25 Oct 2016/ Jacquelyn Smith/ Careers Editor, Business Insider

It's October, and there's a good chance you're looking for a new job.

According to LinkedIn data, this is the month job applications spike on the social networking site.

To find out what exactly employers are looking for, and what it takes to successfully land a job, LinkedIn looked at billions of data points and analyzed all of the hiring and recruiting activity that occurred on its site so far in 2016to identify the most sought-after skills.

Ultimately they uncovered the top 10 skills that can get you hired in 2017 in 14 different countries.

"While we see job applications spike on LinkedIn in October, we know companies aren't actually hiring at the same rate until January," says LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher in a press release. "While some skills expire every couple of years, our data strongly suggests that tech skills will still be needed for years to come, in every industry. Now is a great time for professionals to acquire the skills they need to be more marketable."

Here are the hottest, most in-demand skills around the globe:

1. Cloud and Distributed Computing

2. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining

3. Web Architecture and Development Framework

4. Middleware and Integration Software

5. User Interface Design

6. Network and Information Security

7. Mobile Development

8. Data Presentation

9. SEO/SEM Marketing

10. Storage Systems and Management

In a post on LinkedIn, Fisher explains that the "top skills" list reveals several trends about the global job market, including:

1. Demand for marketers is getting lighter

While marketing skills were in high demand in 2015, "things have changed," she writes.

"This year, SEO/SEM dropped five spots from No. 4 to No. 9 and marketing campaign management dropped completely off the list. Demand for marketing skills is slowing because the supply of people with marketing skills has caught up with employers' demand for people with marketing skills."

2. Data and cloud reign supreme

"I smell a dynasty in the making!" Fisher writes. "Cloud and distributed computing has remained in the No. 1 spot for the past two years ... . Following closely on its heels is statistical analysis and data mining, which came in No. 2 last year, and No. 1 in 2014. These skills are in such high demand because they're at the cutting edge of technology. Employers need employees with cloud and distributed computing, statistical analysis and data mining skills to stay competitive."

3. User interface design is what's hot right now

"User interface design (No. 5), which is designing the part of products that people interact with, is increasingly in-demand among employers," Fisher writes. "Data has become central to many products, which has created a need for people with user interface design skills who can make those products easy for customers to use."

Click here to see the full report and breakdown of in-demand skills by country.

Article source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/10/2017s-most-in-demand-skills-according-to-linkedin

---

Why Successful People Will Never Neglect A Backup Plan

Wen Shan/ Proud Philosophy grad. Based in HK. 

A contingency plan doesn’t sound like what you would discuss with friends over cake and coffee, but it’s an essential part of any actual plans you make. You may need one (or more) for your business, school project, or even a family vacation. The biggest problem with making a contingency plan is that people often aren’t sure about what to include in it. Here is a handy guide for you to make a comprehensive one.

What is a contingency plan?

A contingency plan is a set of actions that you will take when something unexpected happens. Think of it as a backup plan, or a Plan B. It should have instructions that you can follow when your original plan doesn’t work out due to changes in the situation.

A contingency plan prepares you to deal with any future troubles you may encounter, and gives you some sort of escape route out of any accident.1

What happens if you don’t have a contingency plan?

If something goes wrong with your Plan A unexpectedly, or if accidents force you to change your current plan, chances are you will panic. Especially if you’re not well prepared to deal with contingencies, you probably can’t think straight enough to come up with the solution you need at that moment. You won’t know what to do.

What’s worse, until you’re able to get the situation under control, business can’t go back to normal. You’ll have to fix the trouble and make new plans.

What if the contingency plan is a bad one?

Don’t think making a contingency plan is a simple task. A contingency plan should be comprehensive, which requires lots of careful consideration. Otherwise, it is not helpful.

For instance, you may be prepared for the wrong kinds of accidents. And when your plan doesn’t work out as expected, you won’t be organized enough to handle the crisis. That is, you’ll panic.

How can a contingency plan benefit you?

For instance, a contingency plan allows you to deal with accidents quickly and effectively.2 In a business scenario, it can even help you save time and cost in repairing the situation.

Also, a contingency plan helps minimize the negative consequences or losses caused by the unexpected event. It guides you to start dealing with the situation as soon as something goes wrong and keeps you safe.

After all, having a contingency plan ready is reassuring, because you won’t have to worry about making new plans in a rush.

You may think that accidents are unlikely. You may think that your Plan A is perfect. However, you should keep in mind that the future is uncertain until it becomes the present, and that we as human beings can’t control 100% of what happens. You don’t want to regret not having a contingency plan when it’s too late!

How to write a good contingency plan?

There are basically 5 steps:3

We’ll now go through them one by one:

1. Identify

As a contingency plan has to do with what’s unexpected, you have to first try and predict the risks:4

- What could possibly go wrong?

- How likely it would go wrong?

- What’s the impact and consequences of the contingency?

- What should be your reaction or solution?

- How can you prepare for it in advance?

2. Prioritize

Using what you’ve written down in Step 1, rank your risks by their possible impact and likelihood. The more likely the risk will happen and the more serious the impact will be, the higher it should rank.

You have to decide how much weighting to put on each risk according to your situation.

3. Plan

The next step is to actually write your contingency plan. Keeping in mind the resources available to you, design solutions to the risks you want to cover in the plan. Be realistic about your needs: perhaps some issues have to be dealt with before some others, or perhaps you have to take actions within a certain time frame, etc.

It is also important to give clear and simple instructions, so that you won’t forget what you’ve written months later, or that someone will misunderstand them.5

4. Execute

If your contingency plan involves other people, say, your colleagues or your family members, talk it through with them. Let them know what they’re supposed to do when certain things happen.6 Prepare them.

Then, if your plan includes actions to prepare for future accidents, execute them. This can help you lower the risks.

5. Review

Changes happen all the time. For your contingency plan to be practical, you should review it and make adjustments regularly. Eval‎uate the items in your plan. Over time, some risks may become more or less likely, or may bring about different outcomes. Learn your situation well, and update your solutions accordingly.

If your plan is about large-scale risks such as natural disasters or server failures, conducting drills is very helpful to identifying any weaknesses of the plan, as well as making sure the people involved will be prepared to act according to the plan when they have to.

Some concrete examples to put things into perspective:

Example 1: Contingency plan for an outdoor exhibition

Potential risk: Rain

Who will be affected: Exhibitors, visitors, organizers and crew members

Action 1: Secure exhibit items

Who will take action: On-site crew members

Preparation: Rain-proof covers for exhibitors’ stalls, email exhibitors with weather forecasts 3 days in advance

Action 2: Lead visitors to sheltered areas

Who will take action: On-site crew members, security guards

Preparation: Mark designated areas as no-parking areas, waterproof jackets for crew

Example 2: Contingency plan for delivering a speech to a big group of audience (co-workers)

tential risk: The projector or the computer doesn’t work

Who will be affected: Me

Action: Write outline and key points on whiteboard as I speak

Who will take action: Me

Preparation: Notes in hard copy, 3 colored markers, printed handouts

References

[1] ^ Mind Tools: Contingency Planning

[2] ^ Chron: Example of a Business Contingency Plan

[3] ^ Karen Dworaczyk: 5 Easy Steps of Contingency Planning

[4] ^ Project Manager: What Is Risk Management in Projects?

[5] ^ Mind Tools: Contingency Planning

[6] ^ wikiHow: How to Write a Contingency Plan

Article source : http://www.lifehack.org/569736/the-ultimate-guide-for-comprehensive-contingency-plan?ref=sidebar

---

<Questions>

 Critical thinking -----------------------------

Q1. Do you know any successful individuals like Warren Buffett or Bill gates around you? Do you find any unique characteristics of those people from ordinary person? For your reference, this article suggests 5 characteristics of successful person as follows. 

- They always question the status quo

- They break down problems into smaller components and see the subtle connections between them

- They are sensitive to the loopholes in their logic 

- They tackle problems with a systematic plan

- They apply the scientific method to problem solving

Q2. What is your definition of success? What components are required to be a successful person?

Q3. What is the definition of a 'Critical thinking'? How do you build up and improve critical thinking skills? For your reference, above article suggests 3 steps to improve critical thinking skills as follows. 

1. Recognize the biases in your thinking.

2. Use 5 “Whys” to find out the root causes of problems.

- Why did the shipping company warehouse ship different products than what was ordered? 

- Why are the online order fillers calling in orders instead of using the normal process?

- Why does each order slip have to be signed by the shipping director before it is shipped?

- Why does the shipping director have to record the information for each order this way?

3. Treat each problem like an experiment.

- Define the problem.

- Do background research.

- Construct a hypothesis. 

- Conduct experiments. 

- Communicate your results. 

Q4. While you are reading, are you an active learner or a passive recipient of information? 

 10 Hottest and most in-demand skills for job seekers -----------------------------

Q5. Here are the hottest, most in-demand skills around the globe. Which skills do you have among below 10 skills? Do you have any field you want to practice in the future? 

1. Cloud and Distributed Computing

2. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining

3. Web Architecture and Development Framework

4. Middleware and Integration Software

5. User Interface Design

6. Network and Information Security

7. Mobile Development

8. Data Presentation

9. SEO/SEM Marketing

10. Storage Systems and Management

 Contingency plan -----------------------------

Q6. What is the definition of 'Contingency plan'?

*** A contingency plan 

a set of actions that you will take when something unexpected happens. Think of it as a backup plan, or a Plan B. It should have instructions that you can follow when your original plan doesn’t work out due to changes in the situation.

A contingency plan prepares you to deal with any future troubles you may encounter, and gives you some sort of escape route out of any accident.

Q7. When you establish a plan, do you prepare a contingency plan or a Plan B? If you have some concrete examples for this from your experience, please share it with us? 

[메롱메롱]

굿모닝?^^ 아름다운 스칼렛?^^

폭풍같은 월요일에서 금요일 아침까지의 대장정을 마치고,

조금은 호흡할 수 있는 금요일을 맞이하게 된게 어지간히 좋게 느껴지네요.^^

조금 이따가 프린트해서 시간이 되면 오늘 오후부터 토픽 공부할라고요.^^

늘 생각하지만,

'질문'만드는 우리 스칼렛의 촌철살인 센스와 every 칼럼 하나하나 100퍼센트 이해하는 놀라는 영어실력에

늘 감탄해 마지 않아요.^^

언제나 다른 모습, 새로운 모습으로 성장해 나가는,

그래서 더욱 놀라운!!

우리 스칼렛 데려가는 멋진남자는 참 복도 많을거라 거듭 생각합니다!!^^

남자는,
용기가 있어야 사랑을 얻고

여자는
지혜가 있어야 사랑을 얻는다네요

낼만나요

[Scarlet]

헬로 패리스 !~ 토픽은 신경쓰려 노력하는데 시간이 많이 없어서 종종 필받을때만 자료에
신경을 쓰게 되는거 같아요. 어쨋든 우리 모임 회원들에게 도움이 될수있는게 준비되면 좋겠죠.
ㅎㅎㅎ 아직까지 저의 지혜는 덜 성숙했나봐요.ㅋ 천천히 좋은 사랑도 찾아야겠죠. ㅋ
그럼 곧 모임에서 봐요.