What I've been doing recently

🎓 Minerva Schools

I am currently a freshman in Minerva Schools, and one of our main focus is to immerse ourselves in various cultures and contexts through four-year global rotation in seven cities, with peers from 70+ countries and different disciplinary backgrounds.

Right now I am living in San Francisco, our first rotation city, receiving training on Habits of Mind and Foundational Concepts, which is an essential part of Minerva's curriculum. Our goal in the first year is to learn thinking tools and reinforce our grasp of these tools by applying them in real-world projects. We've written several thesis-driven essays, analyzed complex social systems, proposed scientific hypotheses, made statistical inferences, done literature reviews, interacted with local organizations, interviewed cultural informants, and collaborated with Civic Partners.

My Civic Partner is Mighty Health, a Y Combinator-backed startup that provides a cardiologist-designed treatment plan in the mobile app to help heart patients recover at home. My job is to develop strategies to help them effectively acquire new heart patients and seniors.

我目前是 Minerva 大學的大一生，會在接下來的四年間移動到七個不同的城市，與來自七十多個國家和不同學科背景的同學一同在這些城市中進行沈浸式學習。

我目前正在舊金山（Minerva 的第一個城市）接受思維習慣與基礎概念的訓練。我們第一年的目標是透過參與現實世界的專案來加深我們對這些思維習慣和基礎概念的理解。截至目前我們已經完成的一些內容有：數篇小論文、用複雜系統理論分析社會結構、用科學方法提出假說和實驗設計、分析資料並建立統計推斷、對特定主題進行學術文獻回顧、與當地組織交流、採訪文化夥伴、與城市夥伴合作專案等等。

我的城市夥伴是 Y Combinator 投資的醫療新創公司 Mighty Health，其主要產品是為心臟病患提供能在家使用的療程方案。我的任務是幫助這家公司設計吸引新用戶的策略。

🚀 Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework

Bret Victor's perspective on Human-Computer Interaction has inspired me deeply. In his A few words on Doug Engelbart, he said, "Our present-day systems do not embody Engelbart's intent. Engelbart hated our present-day systems." I am very curious about the world Engelbart wanted to create, so I decided to research his original paper.

Bret Victor 對人機互動的諸多觀點影響我很深。他在 A few words on Doug Engelbart 這篇文章中提到：「我們現在的系統並沒有符合 Engelbart 的初衷。Engelbart 討厭我們現在的系統。」我對 Engelbart 想要創造的世界感到好奇，因此我決定直接去研讀他的原始論文。

📚 The Dream Machine / The New Media Reader

I am very interested in the pioneers of computing in the 1960s and 1970s and hope to gain a deeper understanding of their history and the many important ideas that emerged during this period. Alan Kay said, "Your job is to wake up, find ways of criticizing the stuff that seems normal. You have to go against your genetic impulses to try and learn the environment around you." I believe that going through this history and these ideas will help me jump out of my current environment and truly wake up.

我對 1960-70 年代發展當代計算機的先驅們非常感興趣，希望對這段歷史以及在此期間出現的許多重要思想有更深入的了解。 Alan Kay 曾說：「你的工作是醒來，抵制那股試圖適應周遭環境的本能，學會看出眼前看似正常的東西背後存在的問題。」我相信學習這段歷史和這些想法將有助於我跳出當前的環境並真正「醒來」。

⛰ Dynamicland / Viewpoints Research Institute / Notion

Dynamicland, Viewpoints Research Institute, and Notion are the three organizations that I believe are closest to my current goals, values, and mission. I want to know more about what they've done, what they are currently doing, and what they are trying to do in the long-term future.

Right now, I am focusing on researching Dynamicland. What I've already done is learning the materials in Chapter 2 & 3 of Bret Victor's website. Here are some that I've found particularly useful for understanding Dynamicland: Media for Thinking the Unthinkable, The Humane Representation of Thought, A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design, Seeing Space.

I also searched the Internet for all the information related to Dynamicland. Here are some of the best pieces I've found (including my notes on them): At Dynamicland, The Building Is The Computer, Utopian Hacks, Computing is Everywhere: Bret Victor and Dynamicland, Notes from Dynamicland: Geokit.

My next step will be reaching out to people who have been to Dynamicland in Future of Coding community, and also find opportunities to visit Dynamicland in Oakland myself to ask questions to the researchers there and experience their current version of "Dynamic Computer as a Room."

Dynamicland、Viewpoints Research Institute 和 Notion 是我認為與我當前目標、價值觀和使命最相符的三個組織。我想要更深入地暸解他們已經做、正在做、以及在長遠的未來希望做的事情。

目前我主要聚焦在研究 Dynamicland 上。我已經讀完了 Bret Victor 的網站裏頭第二和第三章節的資源，以下是一些我認為對理解 Dynamicland 很有幫助的資源：Media for Thinking the Unthinkable、The Humane Representation of Thought、A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design、Seeing Space。

我同時也上網調查了所有跟 Dynamicland 有關的資訊，這些是我認為特別有幫助的幾篇文章（包含我的筆記）：At Dynamicland, The Building Is The Computer、Utopian Hacks、Computing is Everywhere: Bret Victor and Dynamicland、Notes from Dynamicland: Geokit。

我的下一步計畫是透過 Future of Coding 的社群接觸那些曾經到訪過 Dynamicland 的人，並且試圖找機會親自到 Dynamicland 向他們的研究員問問題，體驗當前版本的「Dynamic Computer as a Room」。

🤖 Complete Intro to Netlify in 3.5 hours

I believe the ecosystem of web development is facing a paradigm shift from monolithic server-run web apps to microservices. As a former web developer, Netlify and JAM Stack seems like a good start. I also want to spend time reading Modern Web Development on the JAM Stack to get into more details.

我認為網路開發的趨勢正逐漸從 monolithic server-run web apps 走向 microservices。對我這樣一個網路開發者來說，Netlify 和 JAM Stack 看起來是學習 microservices 很好的一個起點。時間允許的話我想花些時間讀 Modern Web Development on the JAM Stack 來暸解更深入的細節。