HOW TO SPEAK HOW TO LISTEN by Mortimer J. Adler

• Writing and reading go together; so, too, speaking and listening. The members of each pair are obviously complementary.
• Some individuals may have native endowments that enable them to become better speakers than others, but training is required to bring such talent to full bloom. Likewise, skill in listening is either a native gift or it: must be acquired by training.
• How extraordinary is the fact that no effort is made anywhere in the whole educational process to help individuals learn how to listen well—at least well enough to close the circuit and make speech effective as a means of communication.
• One can improve one’s reading endlessly, by reading something over and over again.
• In writing, one is always able to revise and improve what one has written. No writer need pass on a piece of writing to someone else until he or she is satisfied that it is written as well as possible.
• Unlike writing, ongoing speech is generally unamendable. Any effort to take back what one has said while one is speaking often turns out to be more confusing than letting the deficiencies stand.
• A prepared speech is, of course, amendable before being delivered, as a piece of writing is. An impromptu or improvised speech is not.
• In contrast to writing and reading, which are usually solitary undertakings, speaking and listening are always social and cannot be otherwise. They always involve human confrontations.
• We speak to others, but when our speaking involves us also in listening to what they have to say, we are engaged in talking with them.
• Without communication, there can be no community. Human beings cannot form a community or share in a common life without communicating with one another.
• A lively and flourishing community of human beings requires that the social aspect of their speaking and listening be consummated rather than aborted.
• Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are the three arts concerned with excellence in the use of language for the expression of thought and feeling.
• Practical persuasion in all its myriad forms is salesmanship.
• Rare is the person who can completely bypass the business of persuasion. Most of us, in our daily contacts, are involved in it most of the time.
• Establishing one’s character is the preliminary step in any attempt at persuasion.
• Of the three factors in persuasion—ethos, pathos, and logos—ethos always should come first.
• Unless you have established your credibility as a speaker and made yourself personally attractive to your listeners, you are not likely to sustain their attention, much less to persuade them to do what you wish. Only after they are persuaded to trust you, can they be persuaded by what you have to say about anything else.
• Whereas ethos consists in the establishment of the speaker’s credibility and credentials, his respectable and admirable character, pathos consists in arousing the passions of the listeners, getting their emotions running in the direction of the action to be taken.
• Reasons and arguments may be used to reinforce the drive of the passions, but reasons and arguments will have no force at all unless your listeners are already disposed emotionally to move in the direction that your reasons and arguments try to justify.
• Persuaders cannot always count on desires that are generally prevalent in their audiences and ready to be brought into play. Sometimes they must instil the very desire that they seek to satisfy with their product, their policy, or their candidate.
• Sometimes people have needs or wants that are dormant, needs or wants of which they are not fully aware.
• Above all, the persuader should avoid lengthy, involved, and intricate arguments.
• For the same reason that listening is more difficult than reading, lecturing is more difficult than writing. The reason is that both listening and speaking, unlike writing and reading, take place in a limited span of time and occur in an irreversible flow.
• The silent listener must catch on the fly what is being said. That imposes on the audience of a lecture the obligation to be persistently attentive.
• Each time the curtain goes up, no matter how many times it has gone up before for the lecturer, it should always seem like a new performance for the audience.
• The skill of lecturers in dramatizing the moments of discovery will draw listeners into the activity of discovering the truths to be learned. Without such activity on their part, there can be little genuine learning.
• The more abstract your argument becomes, the more remote from everyday experience it tends to be, the more it may appear “academic” to your audience, the more it is necessary for you to overcome the difficulties your audience is likely to have in listening to and following what you have to say.
• Most human beings, even those who have had sufficient schooling, find it difficult to rise above their imaginations or to think without appealing to vivid images and concrete examples. But abstractions—and often abstractions of a fairly high level—are indispensable to thinking about any important subject, certainly any subject that involves fundamental ideas.
• Never talk down to your audience about any subject. If you do so, they will quite rightly turn you off.
• It will not hurt if some of the things you say may be beyond their reach. It is much better for them to have the sense that they have succeeded in getting some enlightenment by their effort to reach up (even if they also have the sense that some things to be understood have escaped them) than it is for them to sit there feeling insulted by the patronizing manner in which you have talked down to them.
• The only lectures that are intellectually profitable for anyone to listen to are those that increase one’s knowledge and enlarge one’s understanding.
• Repetitions should be employed rather than avoided. They can be made more effective by reiterating the same point in a number of different ways.
• Some of the greatest orations ever delivered are marvellous to read, but were almost impossible to listen to when given.
• A speech that is to be delivered to an audience that comes to listen for the sake of learning can have greater length and more complex organization.
• Repetitions may be necessary to help the listeners discern where they have been, where they now are, and what they are about to move on to.
• The reason why repetitions should be avoided in writing (because readers can turn back to earlier pages to refresh their memory of a point merely referred to and not spelled out once again) does not apply to speaking. On the contrary, repetitions are needed precisely because the listener cannot turn back to something said earlier and hear it all over again. The speech is continually moving forward, and the speaker must repeat something said earlier if the listener needs to have it in mind in order to understand a point being made later.
• One word more about the length of a lecture. From thirty minutes to an hour is probably the most comfortable length for an audience. However, sometimes the substance to be covered requires a lecture to run longer than that. If that is the case, the speaker should find a breakpoint at which he can give the audience a short rest and then go on to the end.
• So far as possible, the speaker’s vocabulary should be designed so that it is generally consonant with the vocabulary of the audience.
• Keeping technical terms or terms of art to the minimum, and using common words with uncommon senses as infrequently as possible is, perhaps, the first rule of linguistic style in effective teaching by telling, especially in speaking to popular audiences.
• Jargon and esoteric language should be avoided at all costs.
• To fit all the parts of one’s speech into the allotted time and to fit them together in proper proportion to another, it is necessary to plot the organization of a lecture carefully and to have that plot written out and visibly present on the lectern as one speaks, just as most conductors of symphony orchestras turn the pages of the composer’s score that they have in front of them on the podium.
• It always amazes me what one can learn from delivering a speech, things one cannot discover in advance of that experience. The reaction you get from your audience tells you something about how to improve your speech. Certain discomfort you experience in the actual delivery of the speech calls your attention to things you must change in order to make the speech more comfortable to deliver.
• Audience reaction is an essential ingredient in this whole business of speaking.
• Listening, like reading, is primarily an activity of the mind, not of the ear or the eye. When the mind is not actively involved in the process, it should be called hearing, not listening; seeing, not reading.
• The most prevalent mistake that people make about both listening and reading is to regard them as passively receiving rather than as actively participating.
• Passive reading, which is almost always with the eyes in motion but with the mind not engaged, is not reading at all.
• In both, the mind of the receiver—the reader or listener—must somehow penetrate through the words used to the thought that lies behind them. The impediments that language places in the way of understanding must be overcome. The vocabulary of the speaker or writer is seldom if ever identical with the vocabulary of the listener or reader. The latter must always make the effort to get at a meaning that can be expressed in different sets of words. The listener must come to terms with the speaker, just as the reader must come to terms with the writer. This, in effect, means discovering what the idea is regardless of how it is expressed in words.
• In most discourses, whether spoken or written, the number of truly important propositions being advanced is relatively small. The listener, like the reader, must detect these and highlight them in his mind, separating them from all the contextual remarks that are interstitial, transitional, or merely elaborative and amplifying.
• With regard to anything that one understands, either by reading or listening, it is always necessary to make up one’s own mind about where one stands—either agreeing or disagreeing.
• Unlike reading, listening is subject to the limitations of time. We can only listen once to what is being said to us and the pace of our listening is determined by the pace set by the speaker.
• The essence of being a good reader is to be a demanding reader. A demanding reader is one who stays awake while reading, and does so by asking questions as he reads. Passivity in reading, which really renders the process null and void, consists in using one’s eyes to see the words, but not using one’s mind to understand what they mean.
• The good listener, like the good reader, is a demanding listener, one who keeps awake while listening by having in mind the questions to be asked about the speech being listened to.
• What is the whole speech about?
• What are the main or pivotal ideas, conclusions, and arguments?
• Are the speaker’s conclusions sound or mistaken?
• What of it?
• Since listening to a speech or any other form of oral discourse is intrinsically more difficult than reading a book or an essay, it is even more necessary to put pen or pencil to paper in the process. Skillful listening involves skillful note-taking, both while the speech is going on and after it is over, when one reviews one’s notes and reflects on them.
• What is true of reading is equally true of listening.
• Making notes while reading is highly useful, certainly to be recommended to anyone who may lapse back into passive reading, but it is not absolutely necessary. It may not be necessary to make notes while listening if the speech to which you are listening is sufficiently brief. However, if it promises to be fairly long and complex, you would be well advised to bring pencil and paper to the task of listening to it.
• Writing while listening is productive and desirable. Talking while listening is counterproductive.
• Many listeners wait too long before they begin to jot down notes.
• Don’t be a pushover for persuasion, but at the same time do not erect insuperable barriers to being moved by it.
• The person engaged in persuasion should be as anxious and ready to engage in two-way talk as the audience being addressed.
• Speakers who seek to instruct also profit from engaging in the two-way talk of a forum or question and answer session after the speech is finished. Without it, they can seldom if ever be sure that what they have tried to say has been well listened to, nor can they make a reasonable estimate of how far they succeeded in affecting the minds of their audience in the way they wished.
• I would almost dare to say that speaking and listening, when properly conjoined in a lecture-forum, is the best way to write a book.
• One is to improve the questions asked by rephrasing them in a way that accords better with the substance of the speech.
• It is often the case that the listener has a good question in mind but is inept in phrasing it. Sometimes a question is thrown wildly at the target rather than being carefully directed. Here again a reformulation of the question by the speaker helps to advance the discussion instead of allowing it to wander far afield.
• In politics, in business negotiations, in selling, delivering a persuasive speech is never enough. It should always be followed by a question and answer session in which the persuader can both answer questions raised by his audience and raise questions, especially good rhetorical questions, that elicit the answers he wishes to get from them.
• When instruction is the purpose of the speech, listeners should have two objectives in mind. One is to be sure that they fully understand what they have heard. The other is to challenge the speaker in such a way that they can decide whether to agree or disagree with what has been said about this point or that.
• A good social conversation can never be planned in advance. It just happens if the circumstances fortuitously favor its occurring.
• Socratic teaching—teaching by questioning and through discussion—is the most difficult kind of teaching, as well as the most rewarding for everyone involved.
• Language is the instrument that we use, and must use for the most part, in communicating with one another.
• It is a very imperfect medium of communication—cloudy, obscure, full of ambiguities and pitfalls of misunderstanding.
• The language of a specialist includes many terms that are the peculiar jargon of his trade, not shared by specialists in other fields.
• Self-knowledge is still another factor that, when present, facilitates intelligent conversation and, when absent, impedes and frustrates it. Understanding one’s self is a necessary condition for understanding anyone else.
• One should be at least able to talk clearly to oneself. Such clarity in soliloquy is indispensable to clarity in dialogue. Those who lack the insight that is required for intelligent conversation with themselves can scarcely be expected to have the insight needed for intelligent conversation with others.
• Pick the right place and occasion for a conversation, one that provides sufficient time for carrying it on and one that is free from the annoyance of distractions that interrupt or divert it.
• There are times for small talk and times, so to speak, for big talk.
• Good talk is usually slow in getting started and long in winding up.
• Know in advance what kind of conversation you are trying to have.
• For whatever kind of serious conversation it is to be, select the right people with whom to have it. Don’t try to discuss everything with everybody.
• Most important of all, never engage in the discussion of a problem with someone you know in advance has a closed mind on that subject.
• A judicious selection of the persons with whom to talk about certain matters is as important as a judicious choice of the right time, place, or occasion for conversation about them.
• Certain matters are undiscussable and, therefore, one should avoid discussing them.
• Only about matters concerning which objective truth can be ascertained is it worthwhile to engage in argument of one sort or another for the sake of ascertaining it.
• The personal prejudice or unsupportable opinion that I hold may have subjective truth. It may be true for me, but not for you.
• Objective truth, in contrast, consists in that which is true, not just for you or for me, but for everyone everywhere.
• Don’t listen only to yourself.
• A closely related rule calls on you to listen to a question with an effort to understand it before answering it, and then with an effort to address yourself to the question in the light of your understanding of it.
• Many persons take questions as nothing more than signals for them to speak, uttering whatever happens to be on their mind at the moment, whether or not it has any relevance to the question that calls for their response.
• If you have any sense at all that you may not understand the question you have been asked, don’t try to answer it. Instead ask your interrogator to explain the question, to rephrase it in some way that makes it more intelligible to you.
• A parallel rule, if you are on the questioning rather than the answering end of a conversation, is to ask your questions as clearly and as intelligibly as possible. Don’t be a lazy questioner.
• Don’t interrupt while someone else is speaking. Don’t be so impatient to say what is on your mind that you cannot wait for the other person to finish speaking before you say it.
• Don’t be rude by engaging in a side conversation while someone to whom you should be listening is talking. At the same time, don’t be too polite.
• Recognize that anything that takes time should have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Ask others about themselves; at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about yourself.
• Keep your voice modulated.
• Listen to whoever is speaking and make it apparent that you are listening by not letting your eyes wander or your attention be diverted.
• If you are an active participant in a conversation or discussion, your first obligation is to focus on the question to be considered.
• In short, be relevant, first, last, and always.
• Being relevant simply consists in paying close attention to the point that is being talked about and saying nothing that is not significantly related to it.
• My only recommendation here is that you should be on the alert to recognize when you are failing to understand something and press for help in understanding it.
• You should be aware that you have certain preconceptions and assumptions, and try to dredge them up from the recesses of your mind and lay them on the table for everyone to examine.
• Never argue about facts; look them up if you wish to settle a difference of opinion about them.
• Many persons have difficulty in dealing with generalizations, especially when these are stated at a high level of abstraction. A concrete example offered to illustrate something stated abstractly helps them to understand what is being said.
• If you don’t understand what others are saying, it is not only proper but also prudent for you to ask them to give you an example of the point. If they cannot do this to your satisfaction, it may be fair to suspect that they themselves do not fully understand what they are trying to say.
• Our emotions play an important role in everything we do and say, but they do not help us to talk sense or to converse in a profitable and pleasurable manner.
• Do not allow an impersonal discussion to become a personal quarrel. Argument is not aggression. There is no point at all in trying to win an argument simply by putting your opponent down or beating him up.
• Practical conversations are often unsuccessful because misunderstanding prevents them from reaching a decision.
• The pursuit of truth has many stages. At each stage some progress may be made and yet still fall short of the goal aimed at.
• Human beings—creatures of passion as well as of intellect, with minds that are often clouded by their feelings, and with all the other limitations to which their fallible minds are subject—must be satisfied with some measure of approximation to the ideal and not inordinately seek its complete realization, at least not at any given time or place.
• We can never completely master our emotions and should not expect to, even when managing them properly is highly desirable.
• We can never completely get out of ourselves and into the other person’s shoes and see things as he or she sees them.
• Skilled habits can be formed only through practise under supervision by a coach who corrects wrong moves and requires that right ones be made.
• The three kinds of teaching—didactic, Socratic, and coaching—are correlated with three kinds of learning. The acquisition of organized knowledge in basic fields of subject matter is the kind of learning that is aided by didactic teaching—teaching by telling, lectures, and textbooks. The development of all the intellectual skills is the kind of learning that requires coaching. The third form of teaching—the Socratic method of teaching by asking and by discussion—facilitates the kind of learning that is an enlargement of the understanding of basic ideas and values.
• The task of the moderator is threefold:
• (1) to ask a series of questions that control the discussion and give it direction;
• (2) to examine the answers by trying to evoke the reasons for them or the implications they have; and
• (3) to engage the participants in two-way talk with one another when the views they have advanced appear to be in conflict.
• Of all the things that human beings do, conversing with one another is the most characteristically human.
• Human communication in two-way talk can achieve a meeting of minds, a sharing of understandings and thoughts, of feelings and wishes.
• A republic in which there is no discussion of the res publica—the public things that we refer to as public affairs—is as much a caricature of its true self as would be a military organization in which there is no armament and no consideration of the strategy and tactics for the use of arms.

The 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris

• Without question, the biggest mistake people make is obsessing over their idea and not focusing enough on finding people willing to pay for their product.
• It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
• You can never predict what happens after you start a business. Long-term plans and detailed documents are pointless. Most businesses go on to do something very different from what they set out to do. Today, this is called a pivot.
• You don't learn until you launch.
• A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
• There is a lot of bullshit in startup land.
• If there's no innovation, then it's not a startup. That's why the majority of startups have a technical focus. That said, innovation can also be present in ways other than with technology.
• Anyone can create a job for themselves. But not everyone can change the world.
• Once you have an idea that has some merit, it needs to be executed well.
• Execution is your ability to present your idea just as well as the best ideas in the world.
• Hustle is relentlessly pursuing what needs to be done at the time.
• Hustle for an early stage startup is generally about spending your time on the things that are most likely to bring you customers.
• Anti-hustle is what wantrepreneurs do. They do everything other than what needs to be done.
• Be honest with yourself. If idea, execution, or hustle are not you, then find a co-founder who excels in those areas. You will need it if you want to have a successful startup.
• Move fast and break things.
• The ability to learn from real data is why the 7-Day Startup works.
• The reality is that most ideas aren't going to go viral. Let's face it: the chances of you coming up with the next Dropbox are low. This is particularly true for bootstrapped companies.
• Email opt-in/beta signup totals do not indicate purchase intent.
• As Steve Jobs said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." The opposite is also true: people don't know what they don't want until they are forced to open their wallets.
• Just because you can get a few people to sign up for your "coming soon business," it doesn't validate the business.
• Momentum is a key part of a successful startup.
• To really test whether you can build a business, you have to start building it.
• There's a huge forgotten void between "idea" and "successful business" that validation doesn't account for.
• It's proven in research. You work more efficiently when you are close to a deadline.
• Once you start something with a clear end date, it drives you forward.
• A wantrepreneur is someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, but is so obsessed with watching TED talks and talking about their business ideas that they never launch them.
• If you have a conversation with a friend about your business idea this month, and next month you are having the same conversation, you are a wantrepreneur.
• If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to launch.
• It's amazing what you can achieve in 7-days.
• Beware that launching fast requires you to compromise a lot.
• Once you commit to launching in 7-days, you'll change your thinking on exactly what to launch.
• Once you aim for a week, you will start to question every assumption and figure out a way to make it happen.
• Let's consider the things that need to happen before you launch.
• Day One: You need to have an idea.
• Day Two: You need to have something to launch at the end of seven days.
• Day Three: You need a business name.
• Day Four: You need a landing page or some sort of online presence.
• Day Five: Getting your business in front of enough people to help you decide whether or not to continue.
• Day Six: You need to measure what success means to you.
• Day Seven: You have to launch.
• There are a lot of thing that matter in making a successful business:
• The idea matters: A bad idea, executed well, will not make a good business.
• Execution matters: A good idea, executed poorly, will not make a good business.
• A founder's ability to get customers (to hustle) matters: A great idea, executed well, will fail without customers.
• Timing matters: Speaking hypothetically about an idea is pointless if the timing is wrong.
• Luck matters: In fact, it matters much more than most entrepreneurs would care to admit.
• Your idea matters. At the same time, you don't want to stress over it for weeks on end. In fact, you should spend just one day on it.
• If you only spend one day on your idea, you'll be more open to changing it if it doesn't work out.
• It makes no sense to start a business that is going to have you doing work you don't enjoy.
• Some people are perfectly matched with their companies and some people aren't. It's worth thinking about what skills you have, what you are known for, and where you can provide the most value.
• Business is not just about making money. It's about creating something that is valuable.
• Focusing on short-term launches or projects won't build assets. Assets are built over time by ignoring short-term distractions in favor of a bigger, long-term vision.
• All that matters is what your customers care about.
• For a business idea to be a good idea for a bootstrapper, it needs to be something you can launch quickly.
• Choose an idea that you can launch and modify quickly. Then when you start getting real data from paying customers, you can innovate and get the product just right.
• Creating a startups means creating something valuable for your customers that is a long-term asset.
• Consistently producing original concepts will boost your motivation and confidence, set you up as an authority, and put you in a place where you can develop real, long-term assets.
• It is possible to start a business without constructing anything, but in the long term the businesses that stand out are the most creative ones.
• Fundamentally entrepreneurship is about creating a product that people want and selling it to them.
• Jobs' statement, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them," is correct. It's also extremely dangerous advice for a new entrepreneur.
• Playing the visionary is a privilege reserved for second- and third-time entrepreneurs. It's fun, but it's fraught with danger.
• As an entrepreneur you need something that people want to pay for, with their money or attention. Asking them will not work, because people are bad at predicting their own behavior.
• Solve problems where people are already paying for solutions.
• Everyone might be saying that your idea is great, but look at whether or not they are currently paying for a solution to the same problem.
• Start by solving existing problems that people are already paying for solutions to.
• Idea Evaluation Checklist:
• Enjoyable daily tasks
• Product/founder fit
• Scalable business model
• Operates profitably without the founder
• An asset you can sell
• Large market potential
• Taps into pain or pleasure differentiators
• Unique lead generation advantage
• Ability to launch quickly
• Day 1 Task: Brainstorm a bunch of ideas and evaluate them against the checklist. Choose the idea that stands out as being the best option to you.
• Rather than spending six moths creating a product or service, do only the smallest amount of work required to truly test it.
• A common MVP mistake is over-emphasizing the "minimum" and under-emphasizing the "viable".
• Once you have your product or service idea, it's time to think about what you can launch within one week that represents your final vision for your product or service as closely as possible.
• The key is to forget about automation and figure out what you can do manually.
• An MVP in a service business isn't too hard, but with software or physical products it becomes a bit trickier.
• Five lessons:
• Build what you need, not what you think others need (i.e. don't act on assumptions)
• Charge from day one
• Stop trying to build the perfect product
• Ship fast, ship frequently
• Price for the customers you want
• Day 2 Task: Write down exactly what you will launch on Day 7. What will your customers get, what is included, and what is excluded? If necessary, write down what is automated and what will be done manually in the short term.
• Your business will probably change significantly b the time you get established.
• You will grow into whatever name you come up with. Most names mean very little when they are first conceived.
• You can change your business name down the track--often quite easily.
• Having the perfect worldwide brand can come later, but we want to avoid having a terrible name.
• The irony is that a terrible name is often the result of overthinking it.
• The more time you spend looking at names, the weirder it gets.
• It's best not to choose a name that's already taken.
• Always favor a name that's simple. Even if it doesn't mean anything, being simple makes it memorable. Eventually it will mean something.
• Here are some quick guidelines: Try to avoid making up words. Don't use misspellings or words that people commonly misspell. This only increases the chance people won't find you.
• Every single one of the top 25 brands in the world are 12 characters or less.
• Your business name has to be easy to say in order for people to talk about you.
• As a bonus, if the name clearly makes sense for your idea, then it's a real winner.
• You are an early stage company, so it's hard to know exactly what you will be doing down the track. Don't use specific keywords in your domain name or specific mentions of your service or your location. This could easily change and create a bit of unnecessary work for you.
• As a general rule, something broader will serve you better.
• Company name checklist:
• Is it taken?
• Is it simple?
• Sound good?
• Do you like it?
• Is it sensible?
• Is it broad?
• Day 3 Task: Come up with a bunch or potential business names and evaluate them against the criteria above. Choose whichever one makes the most sense to you and run with it. Grab the best domain you can for that name.
• A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
• The purpose of the landing page is twofold:
• To start communicating with customers and learning how they respond.
• To being to build what will ultimately sell your product.
• You don't want to spend weeks or months on the landing page. One day is a reasonable amount of time to get a page ready.
• It's imperative that on Day 7 you have a page with a payment button on it, because that is the only way you'll learn if people want what you are offering.
• Once you are happy with your name, it's time to register a domain. Ideally the .com is available, but if it's not you can use another extension.
• If your host supports cPanel, it will make your life a lot easier.
• WordPress gives you the ability to get world class themes very cheaply and install them in seconds.
• A marketing funnel is the process by which someone will become a customer.
• PayPal is still by far the easiest way to get online payments happening quickly.
• The [ad] copy is extremely important and it can make or break your business. If you are just getting started with copy-writing, you should use Dane Maxwell's Copy-writing Checklist as a starting point.
• When you are selling online, images make a huge difference.
• Set up Google Analytics so you can understand how people are using the site.
• The power of WordPress is that you have the ability to customize and expand your site.
• The site you build on Day 4 is a good place to start, but the important thing is that you've built it on a platform with virtually no limits.
• Day 4 Task: Build yourself a website.
• The main purpose of marketing is to get your product in front of qualified buyers. This means getting people to your landing page or your sales page.
• Create in-depth content based around the customer problems that your business solves.
• Make content as actionable and useful to your target audience as possible.
• Optimize your site for email opt-ins so you can get people back to your site by sending emails.
• Your email list will become one of the most valuable assets in your business. A list of people who trust you, that you can contact exclusively whenever you like, is a gold mine.
• I suggest building an email list before you launch and continually looking at ways of growing your list.
• Set up landing pages that you can point people to. One of the highest-converting landing pages will be the page you have before you launch. This can become your emails list after you launch.
• Hearing your voice builds people's trust significantly.
• Most podcasts I know, even the ones with seven-figure businesses, are doing their podcast from home.
• Effective guest blogging is like every other form of marketing: it's all about targeting. If you can get your message in front of the right people, it will work well. If you get the message in front of irrelevant people, it won't work at all.
• Doing life, local events is a powerful form of content marketing.
• Free users are not the same as paying customers.
• Getting press attention for your company can be a huge bonus.
• Look for stories in everything you are doing and maintain good relationships with journalists and influencers.
• Test out a bunch or options and double down on what is working well. Look for sources of momentum and do more of what is working.
• Day 5 Task: Build a list of what marketing methods you are going to choose. Put together a rough plan for the first week or two of your launch.
• The point of launching a business quickly is that you can get real data from real customers. This will help you determine if the business is having an impact.
• Pay particular attention to who is signing up. If it's just your friends, then that's very different from the general public.
• Save your excitement until you land people you don't know as customers.
• Don't measure something that no longer represents an important metric for your business.
• The truth is that running a business is never black and white.
• You need to use your own judgement to determine if you feel like you are onto something that will meet your expectations.
• Focus on what your paying customers are saying and how many people continue to pay you, and you can't go too far wrong.
• Day 6 Task: Create a spreadsheet that covers the first few months in business, the number of signups, revenue, estimated costs, and monthly growth.
• If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.
• The most important thing is...don't stress! A launch will very rarely make or break a successful sustainable business, which is what you are trying to build.
• Dan Andrews of Tropical MBA has said that it takes 1,000 days to build a business.
• Launch day is just 1 our of 1,000.
• Day 7 Task: Launch and start executing your marketing plan.
• Creating a product and getting customers is great, but businesses will not survive and thrive without growing profits over time.
• For you to achieve ongoing growth, you need a self-sufficient business model.
• Every decision you make about hot you design your business and what work to take on will impact its ability to grow.
• If you want something that grows, it has to have something to grow into, and the last thing you want is to kill your momentum by hitting a ceiling.
• Make sure there is enough potential in what you are doing to have a continually growing business.
• Assets help your business grow and make it worth something when you sell.
• What are you working on today that will make you indestructible tomorrow?
• Having a simple product and a simple value proposition makes everything else easier.
• If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
• Follow the momentum.
• Not every service suits a recurring model, so you could think about other ways to build predictable revenue. Seriously consider offering a recurring aspect to your business if you think there's a chance you can make it work.
• Information products might give you big bursts of revenue, but a few years down the track your business may not have progressed.
• Build growth elements into the DNA of your business and optimize for ongoing profit and growth and asset value. In a few years you will have something valuable instead of a job that just pays reasonably well.
• The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.
• You are better off launching quickly and paying attention to real data rather than making assumptions. This doesn't just apply to launching; it's a general business principle that you can apply to almost every decision.
• Most of the assumptions you have prior to and after launching your business will be wrong.
• A lot of business owners spend time solving problems they don't have.
• These days you can solve most business problems quickly. There's no reason to spend any time on problems you don't have. Doing so will only cost you valuable time and money. It will talk attention away from the work you should be doing.
• There's a good chance that if you are a new business, you only have one problem: not enough customers. That's where you should be spending your time.
• Being true to your word is a very important part of building trust in business. Whether you are offering services or selling a product, make sure you always deliver on what you promise.
• Your reputation is everything and it will impact every business you start, not just this one.
• Launching quickly is important early on when the conditions are uncertain. Once you have a clear path, however, quality is more important.
• Any time you feel yourself wondering if what you are doing is good enough, compare it to the best.
• By comparing yourself to the best, you set higher expectations for yourself, and you will be better for it.
• The minutiae that you are debating could be distracting you from a fundamental problem that you aren't seeing.
• Always take a step back and ask yourself if it's feasible that someone else may have solved this problem before.
• The companies that learn the quickest, win. This is partly because they do not make decisions based on assumptions and partly because they learn from their predecessors.
• Eric Ries calls it "Build, Measure, Learn". Michael Masterson calls it "Ready Fire Aim". I call it "Getting shit done".
• Don't believe that people should only work on their business and not in their business. It's crucially important that you do both.
• You'll naturally gravitate to things that you do well, but if your skills are hard to replace, you have to be careful.
• Do more of what is working.
• Momentum is a powerful force, so keep an eye out for what is working and do more of it.
• Your own personal happiness and motivation are the most important keys to the success of your business.
• You should be more excited about Monday than you are about Friday. If that's not the case, there's a good chance things aren't going to work out.
• Difficult customers will waster your time, kill your confidence, and destroy your motivation (and soul). No amount of money is worth working with a difficult customer.
• Every difficult customer can be replaced by a better one, generally much quicker than you think. The work required to replace them is a far better use of your time than any work spent trying to help them.
• The only thing that will kill a recurring business is that more customers leave than sign up. It's hard to get new customers, but it's easy for them to leave.
• You need to do everything to keep your customers and the data you get from churning customers is priceless.
• Make sure you are delivering constant value for your existing customers.
• Launching a whole bunch of related services will boost short-term revenue, but it will add complexity to your business that will hurt you in the long term.
• Think in the long term about what asset you are building as a result of actions you complete today. Getting carried away on short-term projects will kill any chance of momentum.
• If you are in doubt, come back to the product. Anything you can do that improves the product or improves the customer experience will be a sound investment.
• If you are feeling overwhelmed with all of the things you need to do, just focus on how to make your product slightly better.
• Treat business advice with suspicion and test every assumption including your own. It's far more important to learn from your customers.
• Understand growth and understand how your business looks without you, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.
• Make difficult decisions early that lead to more growth and higher value latter on. Look out for sources of momentum and keep doing what's working.
• Listen to your customers and watch what they do.
• It's a big world, and if you are smart about the way you structure your offering, there is unlimited room for growth.
• Make a great product, do one thing well, and learn to say "no". It's your business. Constantly improve your product above all else.
• Move quicker and learn faster than your competition.
• Business rules to live by:
• Test every assumption
• Solve problems as they arise
• Do what you say you will do
• Benchmark against the best
• Learn from others and yourself
• Out learn your competition
• Always consider how your business looks without you
• Look for sources of momentum
• Manage motivation
• Cull difficult customers
• Focus on retention
• Avoid short-term thinking
• Focus on product
• Love your work

Contagious by Jonah Berger

• One reason some products and ideas become popular is that they are just plain better.
• Another reason products catch on is attractive pricing. Not surprisingly, most people prefer paying less rather than more.
• People love to share stories, news, and information with those around them.
• Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.
• Consequently, social influence has a huge impact on whether products, ideas, and behaviors catch on.
• Word of mouth is more effective than traditional advertising for two key reasons. First, it's more persuasive. Second, word of mouth is more targeted.
• Word of mouth tends to reach people who are actually interested in the things being discussed.
• To fully understand what causes people to share things, you have to look at both successes and failures. And whether, more often than not, certain characteristics are linked to success.
• Virality isn't born, it's made.
• Regardless of how plain or boring a product or idea may seem, there are ways to make it contagious.
• Whether you're in marketing, politics, engineering, or public health, you need to understand how to make your products and ideas catch on.
• After analyzing hundreds of contagious messages, products, and ideas, we noticed that the same six "ingredients", or principles were often at work. Six key STEPPS, as I call them, that cause things to be talked about, shared, and imitated.
• Principle 1: Social Currency
• Principle 2: Triggers
• Principle 3: Emotion
• Principle 4: Public
• Principle 5: Practical Value
• Principle 6: Stories
• Knowing about cool things makes people seem sharp and in the know.
• We need to find our inner remarkability and make people feel like insiders.
• Triggers are stimuli that prompt people to think about related things.
• People often talk about whatever comes to mind, so the more often people think about a product or idea, the more it will be talked about. We need to design products and ideas that are frequently triggered by the environment and create new triggers by linking our products and ideas to prevalent cues in that environment. Top of mind leads to tip of tongue.
• Naturally contagious content usually evokes some sort of emotion.
• Emotional things often get shared. So rather than harping on function, we need to focus on feelings.
• Making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular.
• People like to help others, so if we can show them how our products or ideas will save time, improve health, or save money, they'll spread the word.
• And we need to package our knowledge and expertise so that people can easily pass it on.
• People don't just share information, they tell stories.
• Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter.
• These are the six principles of contagiousness: products or ideas that contain social currency and are triggered, emotional, public, practically valuable, and wrapped into stories.
• These principles can be compacted into an acronym. Taken together they spell STEPPS. Think of the principles as the six STEPPS to crafting contagious content. These ingredients lead ideas to get talked about and succeed.
• Talking and sharing are some of our most fundamental behaviors. These actions connect us, shape us, and make us human.
• The most powerful marketing is personal recommendation. Nothing is more viral or infectious than one of your friends going to a place and giving it his full recommendation.
• In case it's not already clear, here's a little secret about secrets: they tend not to stay secret very long.
• As it turns out, if something is supposed to be secret, people might well be more likely to talk about it. The reason? Social currency.
• People share things that make them look good to others.
• This desire to share our thoughts, opinions, and experiences is one reason social media and online social networks have become so popular.
• Just as people use money to buy products or services, they use social currency to achieve desired positive impressions among their families, friends, and colleagues.
• So to get people talking companies and organizations need to mint social currency. Give people a way to make themselves look good while promoting their products and ideas along the way. There are three ways to do that: (1) find inner remarkability; (2) leverage game mechanics; and (3) make people feel like insiders.
• Remarkable things are defined as unusual, extraordinary, or worthy of notice or attention. Something can be remarkable because it is novel, surprising, extreme, or just plain interesting. But the most important aspect of remarkable things is that they are worthy of remark. Worthy of mention.
• Remarkable things provide social currency because they make the people who talk about them seem, well, more remarkable.
• Our memories aren't perfect records of what happened. They're more like dinosaur skeletons patched together by archaeologists. We have the main chunks, but some of the pieces are missing, so we fill them in as best we can. We make an educated guess.
• But in the process, stories often become more extreme or entertaining, particularly when people tell them in front of a group.
• The key to finding inner remarkability is to think about what makes something interesting, surprising, or novel.
• One way to generate surprise is by breaking a pattern people have come to expect.
• The best thing about remarkability, though, is that it can be applied to anything.
• Emphasize what's remarkable about a product or idea and people will talk.
• Game mechanics are the elements of a game, application, or program--including rules and feedback loops--that make them fun and compelling.
• Good game mechanics keep people engaged, motivated, and always wanting more.
• One way game mechanics motivate internally. We all enjoy achieving things.
• But game mechanics also motivate us on an interpersonal level by encouraging social comparison.
• People don't just care about how they are doing, they care about their performance in relation to others.
• Just like many other animals, people care about hierarchy. Apes engage in status displays and dogs try to figure out who is the alpha. Humans are no different. We like feeling that we're high status, top dog, or leader of the pack. But status is inherently relational. Being leader of the pack requires a pack, doing better than others.
• Game mechanics help generate social currency because doing well makes us look good.
• After all, what good is status if no one else knows you have it?
• Leveraging game mechanics requires quantifying performance.
• Leveraging game mechanics also involves helping people publicize their achievements.
• Great game mechanics can even create achievement out of nothing.
• Effective status systems are easy to understand, even by people who aren't familiar with the domain.
• Scarcity is about how much of something is offered. Scare things are less available because of high demand, limited production, or restrictions on the time or place you can acquire them.
• Exclusivity is also about availability, but in a different way. Exclusive things are accessible only to people who meet particular criteria.
• But exclusivity isn't just about money or celebrity. It's also about knowledge. Knowing certain information or being connected to people who do.
• Scarcity and exclusivity help products catch on by making them seem more desirable. If something is difficult to obtain, people assume that it must be worth the effort. If something is unavailable or sold out, people often infer that lots of other people must like it, and so it must be pretty good.
• Scarcity and exclusivity boost word of mouth by making people feel like insiders. If people get something not everyone else has, it makes them feel special, unique, high status. And because of that they'll not only like a product or service more, but tell others about it. Why? Because telling others makes them look good. Having insider knowledge is social currency.
• Making people feel like insiders can benefit all types of products and ideas.
• The mere fact that something isn't readily available can make people value it more and tell others to capitalize on the social currency of knowing about it or having it.
• People don't need to be paid to be motivated.
• Furthermore, as soon as you pay people for doing something, you crowd out their intrinsic motivation. People are happy to talk abut companies and products they like, and millions of people do it for free every day, without prompting. But as soon as you offer to pay people to refer other customers, any interest they had in doing it for free will disappear.
• Social incentives, like social currency, are more effective in the long term.
• People like to make a good impression, so we need to make our products a way to achieve that.
• But what most people don't realize is that they naturally talk about products, brands, and organizations all the time.
• If you want to get a better sense for yourself, try keeping a conversation diary for twenty-four hours. Carry pen and paper with you and write down all the things you emotion over the course of a day. You'll be surprised at all the products and ideas you talk about.
• Give people a product they enjoy, and they'll be happy to spread the word.
• Triggers are like little environmental remainders for related concepts and ideas.
• Different locations contain different triggers.
• Most conversations can be described as small talk.
• These conversations are less about finding interesting things to say to make us look good than they are about filling conversational space.
• Triggers boost word of mouth.
• By acting as reminders, triggers not only get people talking, they keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue.
• Going for interesting is our default tendency.
• Products and ideas also have habitats, or sets of triggers that cause people to think about them.
• Most products or ideas have a number of natural triggers.
• But it's also possible to grow an idea's habitat by creating new links to stimuli in the environment.
• Triggers can help products and ideas catch on, but some stimuli are better triggers than others.
• The more things a given cue is associated with, the weaker any given association.
• Linking a product or idea with a stimulus that is already associated with many things isn't as effective as forging a fresher, more original link.
• Is is also important to pick triggers that happen near where the desired behavior is taking place.
• Different environments contain different stimuli.
• Consequently, different triggers will be more or less effective depending on where people live.
• Triggers are the foundation of word of mouth and contagious.
• The more something is triggered, the more it will be top of mind, and the more successful it will become.
• Triggers and cues lead people to talk, choose, and use. Social currency gets people talking, but Triggers keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of tongue.
• Humans are social animals.
• People love to share opinions and information with others. And our tendency to gossip--for good or ill--shapes our relationship with friends and colleagues alike.
• Few people have time to seek out the best content in this ocean of information. So they start by checking out what others have shared.
• For something to go viral, lots of people have to pass along the same piece of content at around the same time.
• It turns out the science articles frequently chronicle innovations and discoveries that evoke a particular emotion in readers. That emotion? Awe.
• Awe expands one's frame of reference and drives self-transcendence. It encompasses admiration and inspiration and can be evoked by everything from great works of art or music to religious transformations, from breathtaking natural landscapes to human feats of daring and discovery.
• Awe is a complex emotion and frequently involves a sense of surprise, unexpectedness, or mystery.
• There are reasons to believe that experiencing any sort of emotion might encourage people to share. Talking to others often makes emotional experiences better. If we get promoted, telling other helps us celebrate. If we get fired, telling others helps us vent.
• Sharing emotions also helps us connect.
• The most obvious difference between different emotions is their pleasantness or positivity.
• The answer was definitive: positive articles were more likely to be highly shared than negative ones.
• Arousal is a state of activation and readiness for action. The heart beats faster and blood pressure rises. Evolutionarily, it comes from our ancestors' reptilian brains. Physiological arousal motivates a fight-or-flight response that helps organisms catch food or flee predators.
• Some emotions, like anger and anxiety, are high-arousal.
• Positive emotions also generate arousal.
• Other emotions, however, have the opposite effect: they stifle action.
• Marketing messages tend to focus on information. But many times information is not enough.
• Rather than harping on features or facts, we need to focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate people to action.
• When trying to use emotions to drive sharing, remember to pick ones that kindle the fire: select high-arousal emotions that drive people to action.
• Simply adding more arousal to a story or ad can have a big impact on people's willingness to share it.
• Marketers tend to avoid negative emotions out of fear they could taint the brand. But if used correctly, negative emotions can actually boost word of mouth.
• Negative emotions, when used correctly, can be a powerful driver of discussion.
• Technology has mad it easier for people to organize behind a common interest or goal. By allowing people to connect quickly and easily, social media enable like-minded individuals to find one another, share information, and coordinate plans of action.
• Certain types of negativity may be more likely to escalate because they evoke arousal and are thus more likely to go viral.
• Understanding that arousing situations can drive people to pass things on helps shed light on so-called oversharing, when people disclose more than they should.
• If situational factors end up making us physiologically aroused, we may end up sharing more than we planned.
• Emotions drive people to action.
• Some emotions kindle the fire more than others. As we discussed, activating emotion is the key to transmission. Physiological arousal or activation drives people to talk and share. We need to get people excited or make them laugh. We need to make them angry rather than sad. Even situations where people are active can make them more likely to pass things on to others.
• Jobs realized that seeing others do something makes people more likely to do it themselves. But the key word here is "seeing". If it's hard to see what others are doing, it's hard to imitate it. Making something more observable makes it easier to imitate. Thus a key factor in driving products to catch on is public visibility. If something is built to show, it's built to grow.
• People imitate, in part, because others' choices provide information.
• Social influence has a big effect on behavior, but to understand how to use it to help products and ideas catch on, we need to understand when its effects are strongest.
• The famous phrase "Monkey see, monkey do" captures more than just the human penchant for imitation. People can imitate only when they can see what others are doing.
• Observability has a huge impact on whether products and ideas catch on.
• Observable things are also more likely to be discussed.
• Most products, ideas, and behaviors are consumed privately.
• If people can't see what others are choosing and doing, they can't imitate them.
• One way to make things more public is to design ideas that advertise themselves.
• Shapes, sounds, and a host of other distinctive characteristics can also help products advertise themselves.
• Designing products that advertise themselves is a particularly powerful strategy for small companies or organizations that don't have a lot of resources.
• Yellow is a color people almost never see.
• Behavioral residue is the physical traces or remnants that most actions or behaviors leave in their wake.
• As with many powerful tools, making things more public can have unintended consequences when not applied carefully. If you want to get people not to do something, don't tell them that lots of their peers are doing it.
• Rather than making the private public, preventing a behavior requires the opposite: making the public private. Making others' behavior less observable.
• It's been said that when people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate on another. We look to others for information about what is right or good to do in a given situation, and this social proof shapes everything from the products we buy to the candidates we vote for.
• People like to pass along practical, useful information. News others can use.
• Offering practical value helps make things contagious.
• If social currency is about information senders and how sharing makes them look, practical value is mostly about the information receiver. It's about saving people time or money, or helping them have good experiences.
• One of the main tenets of prospect theory is that people don't evaluate things in absolute terms. They evaluate them relative to a comparison standard, or "reference point".
• People like to pay less, so dropping the price makes things more desirable.
• As discussed in the social currency chapter, the more remarkable something is, the more likely it will be discussed.
• As prospect theory illustrates, one key factor in highlighting incredible value is what people expect.
• Another factor that affects whether deals seem valuable is their availability. Somewhat counter intuitively, making promotions more restrictive can actually make them more effective.
• Putting something on sale can make it seem like a good deal. But if a product is always on sale people start to adjust their expectations.
• Just like making a product scarce, the fact that a deal won't be around forever makes people feel that it must be a really good one.
• Even restricting who has access can make a promotional offer seem better.
• Researchers find that whether a discount seems larger as money or percentage off depends on the original price. For low-priced products, price reductions seem more significant when they are framed in percentage terms. For high-priced products, however, the opposite is true. Framing price reductions in dollar terms (rather than percentage terms) makes them seem like a better offer.
• A simple way to figure out which discount frame seems larger is by using something called the Rule of 100.
• If the product's price is less than $100, the Rule of 100 says that percentage discounts will seem larger.
• If the product's price is more then $100, the opposite is true. Numerical discounts will seem larger.
• Useful information, then, is another form of practical value. Helping people do things they want to do,or encouraging them to do things they should do. Faster, better, and easier.
• Our desire to share helpful things is so powerful that it can make even false ideas succeed.
• False information can spread just as quickly as the truth.
• People like to help on another.
• We need to make it clear why our product or idea is so useful that people just have to spread the word.
• That's because people don't think in terms of information. They think in terms of narratives. But while people focus on the story itself, information comes along for the ride.
• Stories are the original form of entertainment.
• Narratives are inherently more engrossing than basic facts. They have a beginning, middle, and end. If people get sucked in early, they'll stay for the conclusion.
• People are so used to telling stories that they create narratives even when they don't actually need to.
• We're so used to telling stores that we do it even when a simple rating or opinion would have sufficed.
• Stories carry things. A lesson or moral. Information or a take home message.
• Stories are an important source of cultural learning that help us make sense of the world. At a high level, this learning can be about the rules and standards of a group or society.
• Stories save time and hassle and give people the information they need in a way that's easy to remember.
• You can think of stories as providing proof by analogy.
• And that is the magic of stories. Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter.
• When trying to generate word of mouth, many people forget one important detail. They focus so much on getting people to talk that they ignore the part that really matters: what people are talking about.
• There's a big difference between people talking about content and people talking about the company, organization, or person that created that content.
• Not just virality but valuable virality.
• Virality is most valuable when the brand or product benefit is integral to the story. When it's woven so deeply into the narrative that people can't tell the story without mentioning it.
• In trying to craft contagious content, valuable virality is critical. That meas making the idea of desired benefit a key part of the narrative.
• Critical details stick around, while irrelevant ones drop out.
• First, any product, idea, or behavior can be contagious.
• Second, we saw that rather than being caused by a handful of special "influential" people, social epidemics are driven by the products and ideas themselves.
• The same six principles, or STEPPS, drive things to catch on.
• Social Currency: We share things that make us look good.
• Triggers: Top of mind, tip of tongue.
• Emotion: When we care, we share.
• Public: Built to show, built to grow.
• Practical Value: News you can use.
• Stories: Information travels under the guise of idle chatter.
• So if we're trying to make a product or idea contagious, think about how to build in these key STEPPS.

Compiler Construction by Niklaus Wirth

Compiler Construction

• Compilers convert program texts into internal code. Hence they constitute the bridge between software and hardware.
• However, from my experience as a teacher, genuine understanding of a subject is best acquired from an in-depth involvement with both concepts and details.
• A partitioning of the compilation process into as many parts as possible was the predominant technique until about 1980, because until then the available store [of memory] was too small to accommodate the entire compiler.
• Modern computers with their apparently unlimited stores make it feasible to avoid intermediate storage on disk. And with it, the complicated process of serializing a data structure for output, and its reconstruction on input can be discarded as well.
• A wise compromise exists in the form of a compiler with two parts, namely a front end and a back end. [...] The main advantage of this solution lies in the independence of the front end of the target computer and its instruction set.
• The idea of decoupling source language and target architecture has also led to projects creating several from tends for different languages generating tress for a single back end.
• A compiler which generates code for a computer different from the one executing the compiler is called a cross compiler. The generated code is then transferred--downloaded--via a data transmission line.
• Every language displays a structure called its grammar or syntax.
• Syntactic equations of the form defined in EBNF generate context-free languages. The term "context-free" is due to Chomsky and stems from the fact that substitution of the symbol left of "=" by a sequence derived from the expression to the right of "=" is always permitted, regardless of the context in which the symbol is embedded within the sequence.
• A language is regular, if its syntax can be expressed by a single EBNF expression.
• Sentences of regular languages can be recognized by finite state machines. They are usually described by transition diagrams.
• Regular languages are subject to the restriction that no nested structures can be expressed. Nested structures can be expressed with the aid of recursion only.
• The method of recursive descent is only one of several techniques to realize the top-down parsing principle.
• Parsing in the bottom-up direction is also called shift-reduce parsing. The syntactic constructs are built up and then reduced; the syntax tree grows from the bottom to the top.
• Ultimately, the basic idea behind every language is that it should serve as a means for communication. This means that partners must use and understand the same language.
• Procedures represent functional units of statements. It is therefore appropriate to associate the concept of locality of names with the notion of the procedure.
• The simplest form of data structure for representing a set of items is the list. Its major disadvantage is a relatively slow search process, because it has to be traversed from its root to the desired element.
• In order to speed up the search process, the list is often replaced by a tree structure. Its advantage becomes noticeable only with a fairly large number of entries.
• In languages featuring data types, their consistency checking is one of the most important tasks of a compiler. The checks are based on the type attribute recorded in every symbol table entry.
• The size of an array is its element size multiplied by the number of its elements. The address of an element is the sum of the array's address and the element's index multiplied by the element size.
• Absolute addresses of variables are usually unknown at the time of compilation. All generated addresses must be considered as relative to a common base address which is given at run-time. The effective address is then the sum of this base address and the address determined by the compiler.
• Although bytes can be accessed individually, typically a small number of bytes (say 4 or 8) are transferred from or to memory as a packet, a so-called word.
• [To prevent a variable from occupying several different words you should enforce variable alignment.] A simple method of overcoming this problem is to round up (or down) each variable's address to the next multiple of its size. This process is called alignment.
• The price of alignment is the loss of some bytes in memory, which is quite negligible.
• The acronym RISC stands for reduced instruction set computer, where "reduced" is to be understood as relative to architectures with large sets of complex instructions, as these were dominant until about 1980.
• An architecture defines those aspects of a computer that are relevant to the programmer and the compiler designer. A computer consists of an arithmetic unit, a control unit, and a store.
• There are three types of instructions and instruction formats. Register instructions operate on registers only and feed data through the arithmetic-logic unit ALU or through a shifter. Memory instructions move data between registers and memory. Branch instructions affect the program counter.
• There are only two instructions accessing memory, load and store. It is a characteristic of the RISC structure that access to memory is not combined with any other operation. All arithmetic or logical operations are performed on registers.
• Branch instructions are used to break the sequence of instructions.
• Our ideal computer would be capable of directly interpreting postfix notation. Such an ideal computer requires a stack for holding intermediate results. Such a computer architecture is called a stack architecture.
• Computers based on a stack architecture are not in common use. Sets of explicitly addressable registers are preferred to a stack.
• The principle of delayed code emission is also used to avoid the emission of arithmetic instructions if the compiler can perform the operation itself. This is the case when both operands are constants. The technique is known as constant folding.
• Type checking is typically performed along with syntactic analysis. But, whenever arithmetic expressions are evaluated, the inherent danger of overflow exists. The evaluating statements should therefore by suitable guarded.
• The essence of delayed code generation is that code is not emitted before it is clear that no better solution exists.
• The principle of delayed code generation is also useful in many other cases, but it becomes indispensable when considering computers with complex addressing modes, for which reasonable efficient code has to be generated by making good use of the available complex modes.
• Conditional and repeated statements are implemented with the aid of branch instructions.
• The destination location of branches is still unknown when the instruction is to be emitted. This problem is solved by adding the location of the branch instruction as an attribute to the item generated. This attribute is used later when the destination of the jump becomes known in order to complete the branch with its true address. This is called a fixup.
• Procedures, which are also known as subroutines, are perhaps the most important tool for structuring programs. Because of their frequency of occurrence, it is mandatory that their implementation is efficient. Implementation is based on the branch instruction which saves the current PC value and thereby the point of return after termination of the procedure, when this value is reloaded into the PC register.
• Algol-60 introduced the very fundamental concept of local variables. It implied that every identifier declared had a limited range of visibility and validity.
• Addresses of local variables generated by the compiler are always relative to the base address of the respective activation frame. Since in programs most variables are local, their addressing also must be highly efficient. This is achieved by reserving a register to hold the base address, and to make use of the fact that the effective address is the sum of a register value and the instruction's address field. The reserved register is called the frame pointer (FP). This scheme makes it possible to call procedures recursively.
• Parameters constitute the interface between the calling and the called procedures. Parameters on the calling side are said to be actual parameters, and those on the called side formal parameters. The latter are in fact only place holders for which the actual parameters are substituted. Basically, a substitution is an assignment of the actual value to the formal variable.
• Most programming languages distinguish between at least two kinds of parameters. The first is the value parameter where, as its name suggest, the value of the actual parameters is assigned to the formal variable. The second kind of parameter is the reference parameter, where, also as suggested by its name, a reference to the actual parameters is assigned to the formal variable.
• Most programming languages feature certain procedures and functions which do not need to be declared in a program. They are said to be predeclared and they can be called from anywhere, as they are pervasive.
• In many computers, instructions for floating-point operands use a special set of registers. The reason behind this is that often separate co-processors, so-called floating-point units (FPUs) are used which implement all floating-point instructions and contain this set of floating-point registers.
• An open array is an array parameter whose length is unknown (open) at the time of compilation.
• In order to check index bounds when accessing elements of the open array parameters, the length must be known.
• Relationships between components are expressed explicitly by pointers.
• The step from the referencing pointer variable to the referenced record variable is called dereferencing.
• The range of visibility of an identifier in the text is called scope, and it extends over the block in which the identifier is declared.
• The desire to hide certain objects and details is particularly justified if a system consists of various parts whose tasks are relatively well separated, and if the parts themselves are of a certain complexity.
• This encapsulation of details solely responsible for the specified invariants is the true purpose of information hiding and of the module concept.
• The principle advantage of separate compilation is that changes in a module M do not invalidate clients of M, if the interface of M remains unaffected.
• Symbol files thus make it possible to make modules available without giving away the source text.
• Perhaps the best known case among the target independent optimizations is the elimination of common sub-expressions.
• The dominant theme in the subject of optimization is the use and allocation of processor registers.
• A primary goal of good code optimization is the most effective use of registers in order to reduce the number of accesses to the relatively slow main memory. A good strategy of register usage yields more advantages than any other branch optimization.
• A widespread technique is register allocation using graph coloring.

White to Blue by Oliver Stark

• When you have been rolling for many years, things change. They are still great but that feeling of learning something basic that clicks and blows your mind gets less and less.
• According to my own professor it's at Black Belt that the next real true learning curve begins, this is where it all comes together and everything starts again.
• One of the most frustrating areas of jiu jitsu when I started was I didn't know how to put it all together.
• If you feel your academy does not have any structure at white belt level and this bothers you then you seriously need to consider training at another academy.
• The 'tap' is the most powerful element in jiu jitsu and should not be considered a weakness, as my own professor tells me, "You have to tap a thousand times before you can consider yourself a black belt."
• If you get in a tough spot with a higher ranking belt or heavier opponent know this: There is no disgrace in tapping.
• You must train to improve. That's it!
• The scientists have realized that to get that dopamine moving we can do several things:
• Engage in a physical activity that raises the heart rate.
• Learn new skills that test us and keep our brain active.
• Spend time with friends and family (a sense of community).
• Those are the main three [things you can do] that you can help us live a long and happy life.
• This is one of the most important ideas that I know can help accelerate your progress: clarity. If something is unclear then don't just press on in an ocean of arms, legs, and sweat. Stop, ask your training partner if he can help you. If he can't then ask a coach or your professor after the class is over.
• Regardless of your motivations to start training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the surest way to improve is spending time on the mat. Mat time is one of the biggest factors that will determine your speed with which you progress.
• You don't even know what you don't know yet.
• Get in good drilling time, improve your conditioning and get a handle on the details in techniques.
• Time on the mat sometimes doesn't mean time on the actual mat, it means time working on your jiu jitsu and this can be drilling technique, at the academy or elsewhere.
• Ultimately it boils down to taking things one step at a time, or gradient learning.
• To move into  any position we need to be in constant communication with the hip, both your own and your opponents.
• The way of martial arts starts with 1,000 days of training and is truly commanded after 10,000 days of training.
• Keeping your thoughts written down in an organized manner helps keep the filing cabinet of the brain in an orderly fashion. It commits the techniques that matter to memory much better than just 'trying' to remember.
• To reduce the space (and therefore control the space) you will need to break your opponents posture.
• Try and relax on bottom. I know it's hard to do, but your potential to escape will increase dramatically if you go all loosey-goosey on bottom and just slink right out of there.
• If you are in a tight spot and looking to create opportunities, space must be created, this is a path to victory.
• If you decide to stand to break guard than you need to be aware that the number of sweeping options just increased incrementally.
• Your attitude determines your altitude.
• Don't try and submit your opponent from just anywhere. You must get yourself into a position of control first.
• You need to move into the correct position first, then the transition to the submission. There are no shortcuts here, so it's worth committing to memory. Position->Transition->Submission.
• If weight transfers through your hips and pins you, the first action needs to be to break your opponents posture so he has to re-group.
• It is impossible to attack from your back without free hips. Always keep that in mind when you are using the closed guard.
• Marcelo Garcia never lets anyone get grips on him, even if he is in mid transition and his technique is coming together, he will stop, break grips and then continue.
• For you as a white belt, victory is in controlling the action.
• Have you ever noticed that when a black belt gets in the mount they are eager to climb higher and get their knees under their opponent's armpits. This is the correct position for the hip, as the opponent's hips can raise now and there is no contact with the black belts hip.
• Landing in mount, first, stabilize your position. Get head control and then lock your feet under (behind) your opponents knees (as if getting closed guard from the top mount), keep your hands out wide, spread wide open.
• There is an alternative to everything in jiu jitsu.
• If you can lock your feet or grapevine as soon as you mount then this will allow some precious seconds for that stabilization process to take place. The grips in the mount are your hips and your feet.
• When you have back control, hooks in, then your hips should naturally be on the same alignment as your opponents. This is where you start and keeping that level is important to you keeping in control.
• Sweeping your opponent is essential to gaining top attacking positions.
• The half guard as an attack position is littered with sweep opportunities.
• Being able to flow from one technique to another is the mark of a quality jiu jitsu player.
• Your ability to defend in jiu jitsu is essential at white belt, as the time will come when you move up to blue belt and start sparring with purple and brown belts the number of submission attempts can be relentless so learning to have a solid defense is a priority at this stage in your development.
• Adopt the survival mindset. Stop trying to beat anyone and everyone. Just don't lose anymore.
• When you are studying at the white belt level the most important factor is the act of survival.
• The key issue as a white belt is to survive first, and then you can move into more favorable positions. This is also a good test of your attitude towards training and training partners. The process of being patient and letting your ego get a good stomping are real tests at this stage.
• Learning to survive is probably the most valuable lesson jiu jitsu has to offer.
• One of the key principles that a lot of white belts misunderstand in the concept of guard breaking and passing is that it isn't a fair fight. It's you and gravity against the guy in the guard.
• If something is happening to you on the mat that you don't like and your opponent is getting his grips and hips in place. Get out of there and reset. There is no rule in jiu jitsu that you have to allow your opponent or training partner to work his game on you. It's the opposite--you should be working your game.
• You must be the one dictating the pace and then putting on the controls.
• Don't run into the dreaded guard-accumulation game, this is a dead-end, I promise you.
• Focusing on the fundamentals at white belt is key, though the tractor beam of fancy-shmancy moves is very potent.
• Stabilize the position first before moving.
• There are two main methods of controlling the hip in side control top, one is using the knee and the other is using the hand as a blocking mechanism.
• Concentrate on keeping your opponent controlled when you pass to side.
• One of the first things I like to see white belts do is get comfortable with head control.
• Do not fear the man who has thrown 10,000 kicks. Fear the man who has thrown one kick 10,000 times.
• Promotions are merely milestones, don't become too attached to them.
• We, as westerners, become too attached to our status and the perception of belt color is no exception to our ego driven society.
• Unfortunately, one of the biggest reasons that students wash out of BJJ is due to injuries. Injury management will be part of your long-term game plan and needs to be managed.
• Remember, you don't have to compete, it's not essential but it can be a good test of many skills not just your jiu jitsu.
• All tournaments are not created equal.
• The biggest problem with any tournament outside of the IBJFF is that the rankings are not in anyway standardized.
• The three items that I know have worked well for me over the years are: calendar, training journal, and training dummy. With these three you can do really well, and really boost how you perform at the academy as well as speed the growth process.
• Listen to your body. Even if you feel fit and strong and ready to go, then still mix light workouts, rest days along with hard workouts.
• Be smart. Log your training days in a visual way and make sure there are some blank spaces in there.
• Keeping a track of your progress is paramount if you are to improve in your jiu jitsu training.
• Keeping a series of techniques in your head is a complex matter. This is human chess, for every attack there is a defense, for every sweep, takedown pass, submission there is a counter and counter to that counter. It makes much more sense to keep taking notes than trying to remember what you did.
• It's hard to remember all the techniques that you will be picking up in BJJ. This is a sport that is almost completely technique driven, yes, athleticism is a factor but you need the techniques regardless of your athletic prowess.
• The easiest and in my opinion one of the most effective ways to drill is with a training dummy.
• Training without a partner is still an excellent way to train.
• My game went from zero to hero using the dummy and staying with the thirty-day Zen program.
• We never drill enough even tough all the evidence points to the fact that drilling creates champions. The problem is that rolling is just a ton of fun.
• We need to drill effectively with or without a partner.
• A grappling dummy is an excellent aid in your development. There is no other method of training--human or otherwise that can let you hit one hundred techniques in fifteen minutes. And you can include that as a cardio workout!
• What is the main purpose of a grappling dummy? For getting high repetitions without a partner. That's it. End of story. Repetitions create muscle memory. Muscle memory allows you to do movement (techniques) quickly and in a coordinated way without having to consciously think about the action. Of all the things you can do to improve your skill, creating muscle memory is undoubtedly the #1 thing you should focus on.
• Do not telegraph your attack. Keep it hidden until the last minute.
• The most common position used in BJJ is the half guard. Learn various escapes and counters, including if your head is controlled or if you have the top position and need to get out of it.
• When all else fails have a guard positions that you can rely on. Default back to that guard regardless of what happens--this is your reset.
• Every attack has a counter, don't forget this is human chess. Learn the counters.
• Control the space. Always.
• Every fighter needs to counter attack at some point so having counters is a very high level concept.
• As you progress your confidence level will increase too, you will begin to feel more like a jiu jitsu fighter than just a guy or a girl doing jiu jitsu for the first time.

MCDP 1-0: Principles of War

Principles of War
(excerpt from MCDP 1-0 Marine Corps Operations)

The Marine Corps’ warfighting philosophy of maneuver warfare is rooted in the principles of war. These nine principles apply across the range of military operations and at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. They are listed under the age-old acronym, “MOOSEMUSS.”

The principles of war are useful aids to a commander as he considers how to accomplish his mission. They assist the commander in organizing his thinking about his mission, the enemy, the battlespace, and his forces. They should not be considered as prescriptive steps or actions that must be accomplished, but as tools to plan, execute, and assess operations. Successful application of the principles requires a commander’s judgment, skill, and experience to adapt to constantly changing conditions and situations.

MASS

Concentrate the effects of combat power at the decisive place and time to achieve decisive results.

Commanders mass the effects of combat power to overwhelm the enemy and
gain control of the situation. Mass applies to fires, combat support, and combat
service support as well as numbers of forces. Proper use of the principle of mass, together with the other principles of war, may achieve decisive local superiority
by a numerically inferior force. The decision to concentrate requires strict economy and the acceptance of risk elsewhere, particularly in view of the lethality of modern weapons that mandate rapid assembly and speedy dispersal of forces.

OBJECTIVE

Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive, and attainable objective.

The ultimate military objective of war is to defeat the enemy’s forces or destroy
his will to fight. The objective of each operation must contribute to this ultimate
objective. Intermediate objectives must contribute quickly and economically to
the purpose of the operation. The selection of an objective is based on consideration of the ultimate goal, forces available, the threat, and the AO. Every
commander must clearly understand the overall mission of the higher command,
his own mission, the tasks he must perform, and the reasons therefore. He considers every contemplated action in light of its direct contribution to the objective. He must clearly communicate the overall objective of the operation to
his subordinates.

OFFENSIVE

Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.

Offensive action is the decisive form of combat. Offensive action is necessary to
seize, retain, and exploit the initiative and to maintain freedom of action. It allows the commander to exploit enemy weaknesses, impose his will upon the
enemy, and determine the course of the battle. A defensive posture should only
be a temporary expedient until the means are available to resume the offensive.
Even in the conduct of a defense, the commander seeks every opportunity to seize the initiative by offensive action.

SECURITY

Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage.

Security is those measures taken to prevent surprise, ensure freedom of action,
and deny the enemy information about friendly forces, capabilities, and plans.
Security is essential to the preservation of combat power across the range of military operations, even in benign environments. However, since risk is an inherent condition of war, security does not imply overcautiousness or the avoidance of calculated risk. In fact, security can often be enhanced by bold maneuver and offensive action, which deny the enemy the chance to interfere.
Adequate security requires an accurate appreciation of enemy capabilities,
sufficient security measures, effective reconnaissance, and continuous readiness
for action.

ECONOMY OF FORCE

Allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts.

Economy of force is the reciprocal of the principle of mass. The commander
allocates the minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts. This requires the acceptance of prudent risks in selected areas to achieve superiority at the decisive time and location with the main effort. To devote means to unnecessary efforts or excessive means to necessary secondary efforts violates the principles of mass and objective. Economy of force measures are achieved through limited attacks, defense, deceptions or delaying actions.

MANEUVER

Place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible application of combat power.

Maneuver is the employment of forces on the battlefield through movement in
combination with fires, or fire potential, to achieve a position of advantage in
respect to the enemy to accomplish the mission. That advantage may be psychological, technological or temporal as well as spatial. Maneuver alone
cannot usually produce decisive results; however, maneuver provides favorable
conditions for closing with the enemy in decisive battle. Maneuver contributes
significantly to sustaining the initiative, exploiting success, preserving freedom
of action, and reducing vulnerability. Effective maneuver—in combination with
mass, surprise, and economy of force—allows an inferior force to achieve decisive superiority at the necessary time and place. At all echelons, successful
application of this principle requires not only fires and movement, but also
flexibility of thought, plans, organization, and command and control.

UNITY OF COMMAND

For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander.

Unity of command is based on the designation of a single commander with the
authority to direct and coordinate the efforts of all assigned forces in pursuit of a
common objective. The goal of unity of command is unity of effort. In joint,
multinational, and interagency operations where the commander may not control
all elements in his AO, he seeks cooperation and builds consensus to achieve
unity of effort.

SURPRISE

Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which he is unprepared.

The commander seeks every possible means to achieve surprise by striking the
enemy at a time or place, or in a manner for which the enemy is unprepared. It is
not essential that the enemy be taken unaware, but only that he become aware too
late to react effectively. Factors contributing to surprise include speed, the use of
unexpected forces, operating at night, effective and timely intelligence, deception, security, variation in tactics and techniques, and the use of unfavorable terrain. Surprise can decisively affect the outcome of a battle and may compensate for numerical inferiority.

SIMPLICITY

Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise orders to ensure thorough understanding.

Plans should be as simple and direct as the situation and mission dictate. Direct,
simple plans, and clear, concise orders reduce the chance for misunderstanding and confusion, and promote effective execution. In combat, even the simplest plan is usually difficult to execute. Other factors being equal, the simplest plan is preferred.

Multinational operations place a premium on simplicity. Language, doctrine, and
cultural differences complicate military operations. Simple plans and orders minimize the confusion inherent in joint, multinational, and interagency operations.