15 Comments

Jack of all trades and master of none, but most often better than a master of one.

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Maybe we are accidental masters of a couple of trades, but that's just a relic of our youth.

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I, too, have been called "two inches short of a four-foot stool," whatever that means. (I may have made that up.)

But I'm definitely the "go broad" type of person. Take AI, which I've been writing about for 2+ years. I tend to check out lots of different genAI tools in different areas (images, video, music, text, etc.), and while there are a few that I know more deeply (e.g. Midjourney), I like having this more holistic perspective.

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I think you do a good job of balancing deep/wide. You certainly know more than me about what's going on in the AI space (like a lot more, especially these days), but there are folks who are even more plugged in that you are. That focus comes at the expense of paying attention to other things, though, and I think if you focused too much more on one topic, you wouldn't be able to come here and make self-deprecating jokes so frequently, at a minimum.

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Self-deprecating jokes is the one subject I have truly deep knowledge of.

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I might add: also wide. Dad jokes, mom jokes, robot jokes... you've got 'em.

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It seems Polymath is the modern term for “Renaissance Man” such as Da Vinci

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It's actually an older term ironically coined during the Renaissance before we called it that. So Renaissance men called themselves Polymaths before we called Polymaths Renaissance men.

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As I was once told by a neighborhood mom, “You learn something everyday.” Thanks.

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Everything is connected. Always ask yourself what CAN be connected, then how/why. Better than counting sheep, by far.

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I dig the greats that started out going deep and then went broad. I always appreciated those stories. The dude who runs all of MSFT sales was originally a mechanical engineer. Goatfury knows a few things about BJJ

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It's good to have a little of both, right? Those deep dives taught me how to find hidden knowledge, and I can use that skill set in going wide too.

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Base layer!

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"a journalist named Bill Nye (no, not that Bill Nye),....

Edgar Wilson "Bill" Nye was part of a generation of American journalists who pioneered American humor with their syndicated writings, often taking the form of fictional characters who dispensed supposed "wisdom" and criticism of the world around them. By far the most famous of this group was Mark Twain; others included Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte and Petroleum V. Nasby.

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Thanks, David. It helps to understand that Nye would have been in a similar category along with Twain and others.

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