Class 22 - Notes

Blue Belt Promotion

If you have been promoted to a Blue Belt:

• Read Neil deGrasse Tyson, Science's Endless Golden Age, from The Invisible Future, 2002. While reading this, you should think about how his arguments related to asymptotic growth. If feasible, you should read this before Friday's class.

If you have not yet been promoted to a Blue Belt:

• To qualify for a new attempt at Blue Belt promotion you should write clear and correct answers to all of the questions on the first Blue Belt test (see details below). Once you have qualified to take a new Blue Belt test, you'll receive instructions by email along with a test to take (relying heavily on the honor system that you follow the instructions about how to take it).

If you attempted the first exam, you can do this by re-submitting your original exam with improved answers to all of the questions you didn't answer well on the original exam. If you did not attempt the exam already, you can do this by writing answers to all the questions on a new exam (if you have not already completed Project 4, you need to do this also). You may use help, including any resources you want as well as help from other students as well as notes from today's class, but you should write your answers without consulting those resources.

This means you can get all the help you want and study any resources you want to understand the questions, but then should go off an do something else for at least 30 minutes before writing your answers, and then write your answers without using any resources to make sure you really understand things yourself. (This is sometimes known as the "Gilligan's Island Rule", where you are expected to watch an episode of Gilligan's Island between the time you use help to understand the questions and when you write up the answers yourself. I would recommend instead of watching Gilligan's Island, that you read Tyson's essay, try playing Go (which may be helpful for Project 5), or go for a walk.)

Slides

Andy Grove Links

Time Magazine, Andrew Grove: A Survivor's Tale, Man of the Year, 1997.

... And since no one would guide them, they gathered the last of their money, the last of their courage, and bought directions from a hunchbacked smuggler who spoke of secret byways the Russians hadn't yet discovered. And so, hours later, he found himself facedown in a muddy field somewhere near the Austrian border--but how near? Soldiers marched by, dogs barked, flares lit the night. Then a voice cried out, in Hungarian, the words paralyzing him with fear: "Who is there?"

Intel Museum, History of the Intel 4004.

Ben Horowitz' The Man Who Built Silicon Valley: A Tribute to Andy Grove (video), 24 September 2015.

Wired, Silicon Valley Mourns Andy Grove, a Titan of Tech, 22 March 2016.