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Hamming, "You and Your Research" (June 6, 1995)
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.Hamming gave a this talk again in 1995 and it was recorded!
Agreed, an interesting book. And also, the youtube video of course: https://youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
Fantastic recommendation! Hamming's writing is so clear and inspiring.Not a book but his speech "You and your research" is quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
I enjoy Hamming's thoughts on this subject[0].Also don't forget to have fun.
Or watch him giving the talk in 1995 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSwIt was the final lecture in his 31 lecture graduate engineering course "The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn":
⬐ vymagueI wonder why this is downvoted. They mostly cover the same thing iirc. I think he mentioned he has been giving the same lecture multiple times at different venues.⬐ teddyhI think this version has better quality:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3msMuwqp-o&list=PLctkxgWNSR...
⬐ yesenadamOhh thank you, yes. Seems like enhanced version of the playlist I linked to. The whole lecture series in this enhanced version:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLctkxgWNSR89bl7hTOS3F...
Given the Bell Labs mention, you may be thinking of Hamming's talk “You and Your Research” (https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html), where that idea is mentioned:> Now for the matter of drive. You observe that most great scientists have tremendous drive. I worked for ten years with John Tukey at Bell Labs. He had tremendous drive. One day about three or four years after I joined, I discovered that John Tukey was slightly younger than I was. John was a genius and I clearly was not. Well I went storming into Bode's office and said, “How can anybody my age know as much as John Tukey does?” He leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, grinned slightly, and said, “You would be surprised Hamming, how much you would know if you worked as hard as he did that many years.” I simply slunk out of the office!
> What Bode was saying was this: “Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.” Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest. I don't want to give you a rate, but it is a very high rate. Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.
Slightly edited in the version published at https://d37ugbyn3rpeym.cloudfront.net/stripe-press/TAODSAE_z... (linked from https://press.stripe.com/):
> Now to the matter of drive. Looking around, you can easily observe that great people have a great deal of drive to do things. I had worked with John Tukey for some years before I found he was essentially my age, so I went to our mutual boss and asked him, “How can anyone my age know as much as John Tukey does?” He leaned back, grinned, and said, “You would be surprised how much you would know if you had worked as hard as he has for as many years.” There was nothing for me to do but slink out of his office, which I did. I thought about the remark for some weeks and decided that while I could never work as hard as John did, I could do a lot better than I had been doing.
> In a sense my boss was saying intellectual investment is like compound interest: the more you do, the more you learn how to do, so the more you can do, etc. I do not know what compound interest rate to assign, but it must be well over 6%—one extra hour per day over a lifetime will much more than double the total output. The steady application of a bit more effort has a great total accumulation.
Looks like there also exists a video of the talk: https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw
⬐ mettamageAh yea! It was Hamming! I recognize the lecture.
I picked up Hamming’s book: “The Art of Doing Science and Engineering Learning to Learn”, I already love the messages he’s conveying.Is this the lecture you speak of?
I am reminded of this lecture by Hamming entitled you and your research where he basically says you will fail at research because you're lazy and/or will lose time reading useless stuff.
Richard Hamming disagrees:"Is effort to be a great person worth it? ...those who did succeed said - Yes it's better than wine women and song put together... Doing something really first class and knowing you've done it is better than anything else they can think of."
⬐ physiclesIt's a roll of the dice though. Of those who attempt to do something first class and pin their hopes on it, how many can succeed? You can at least say that the Stoic path is a more reliable path to satisfaction.
Don Eyles' writing about programming the lunar module (which was something he did!) is fantastic [1]. There's also a gallery of photos on that site and he has a whole book!And, click around on Bret Victor's references page[2] -- it's a real treasure. Despite my constant fear that mentioning it will make it go away, it needs to be shared to be useful. It's a big collection of classic papers and interviews. Someone mentioned "As You May Think", which is on there, as is Bush's follow-up from ~20 years later, and Douglas Engelbart's own partly annotated version of the original!
Also check out folklore[3], which is a great bunch of stories about working at Apple in its early days, by people who worked there (mostly Andy Hertzfeld, I'm pretty sure).
Lastly, look up "Ignition!" by John Drury Clark[4], which is a tangent, but is amazing -- it's about the history of the design of rocket engines, largely about the wild experiments and chemical science involved, and is very well written. I didn't feel right finding a pdf to link straight to, but they aren't that hard to find.
As a bonus, this isn't so much historical, but it's a great inspirational essay, Richard Hamming's "You and Your Research"(transcript[5], a video version[6]). Talks about working at Bell Labs and the different cultural elements there across people as part of analysing what makes certain people truly great.
1 - https://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html
2 - http://worrydream.com/refs/
4 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Drury_Clark
5 - https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.htm
> Does anyone have any ideas around how to go find inspiration...Richard Hamming's classic advice on this subject is timeless > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
'Great Thoughts Friday' from Richard Hamming
⬐ teddyhSlightly better video and sound (from the same source material):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3msMuwqp-o&list=PLctkxgWNSR...
More or less the same point which Richard Hamming makes in his talk You and Your Research:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw&list=PL2FF649D0C...
Except, of course, that Hamming gives a few more practical pointers.
⬐ hprotagonist“make friends with admins” is no joke!⬐ teddyhSlightly better video and sound (from the same source material):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3msMuwqp-o&list=PLctkxgWNSR...
Unfortunately it would be hard to ask him directly as to why but a good proxy is to listen to one of his colleagues, Richard Hamming explain. https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw. He mentions Claude around the 4:30 mark.
I cannot recommend highly enough, You and Your Research. Great life and career advice from a great man near the end of his life.
Richard Hamming: You and Your ResearchIt's on picking the right problems. When I heard him give it I was shocked that he criticized Einstein for working on a unified field theory (of course unlike me, he was actually qualified to offer such criticism). His point for that example was that the necessary tools to attack the problem hadn't yet been developed so it was a fruitless endeavor. While many very important problems are tractable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
He gave this talk several times (I heard it at NASA in 84). Here's a good transcript: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
⬐ guiambrosFascinating indeed; thanks for sharing!
In his "You and Your Research" talk, Hamming focusses on the selection of the problem you should work on as a researcher. I believe it does apply even if you are not in academics : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw(transcript : http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)
⬐ nemildMy dad (now data science/stats professor) was at the 1986 version of this talk at Bellcore (where he spent almost two decades working). He speaks glowingly of it.Original transcript and previous HN discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4626349
EDIT: I can have my dad respond on this thread, if anyone has questions about Hamming — or the Bell Labs culture.
⬐ booleandilemma⬐ brian_spieringYour dad is cooler than my dad :)⬐ bsrhngI don't have a specific question but I would be interested in reading any books on Bell Labs' culture at the time if he or you are aware of any.⬐ jeyI've been enjoying The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner. It's well written and covers the history of Bell Labs from the early days.⬐ nemildThat's the one I'd read as well!List of books by Richard Hamming - https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/richard-hamming/242314/⬐ j7akeHis entire lecture series is excellent. It's worth listening and re-listening through the course of a career. Just amazing.His other topics that are memorable: Creativity, Experts, How do we know what we know?, Mathematics, Information Theory.
⬐ dangPrevious submissions, including one from a couple months ago:https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22You%20and%20Your%20Research...
⬐ gHostsHis book on coding theory was an epiphany for me....ie. Most books on technical are hard to understand, not because the subject is so hard, but because most author's are crappy at writing books and explaining there field.
Hamming is an example of how are hard topic could be made readable.
⬐ marcosdumayHis chapter on error correction codes on the You and Your Research book made me finally understand why they work so well. That after undergrad classes, a couple of books, and way too many articles on the subject.Is there any chance he wrote a book on complex analysis?
Richard Hamming (as in Hamming codes, Bell labs etc): "You and Your Research". This had a profound effect on me at 18 when I heard him present it (it was by then a "set piece" talk) and it still holds valuable advice for me now.In general his published talks have all been good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw or just read it at https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dahlin/bookshelf/hamming.html
youtube version (1995, 44 mins), from Hamming's Learning to Learn coursehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
(The original linked text has a good Q&A session, worth reading.)
⬐ vfinnWhat I remember from the talk: 1) Don't be a drunken sailor that aimlessly wanders from one topic to another; 2) There are millions of competitions out there, pick one, and become the best. It's an excellent talk.⬐ godelmachineI downloaded Hamming’s The Art of doing Science & Engineering - Learning to Learn book only 2 days ago. Skimmed through the chapters on hardware & software.What you have summarized above is very much applicable to me :) Thanks
⬐ yesenadam⬐ ameliusI love all his books - you get the know-how, not just know-that. But the complete Learning to Learn lectures are on youtube, which is even better:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD4b-52jtos&list=PL2FF649D0C...
> Don't be a drunken sailor that aimlessly wanders from one topic to anotherThis is a pity because new people often have fresh insights.
⬐ vfinnIf you browse for a while and come up with an interdisciplinary fresh idea, I don't think he would mind at all, as long as you stick with it as your main focus :).
Richard Hamming, "You and Your Research" (June 6, 1995): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
Richard Hamming developed error-correcting codes while working along side Shannon at bell labs, his book The Art and Science of Engineering: Learning to Learn and the associated lectures he gave at the naval postgraduate academy are tremendous
⬐ MaysonLPDF of the book: http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn...
It's true that we ought to be comfortable experimenting without fear of embarrassment, as well as to learn to tolerate more serious failure on occasion, and certainly unexpected failures can serve to draw attention to symptoms of deeper issues worthy of rectifying before they cause you even greater trouble down the road.However, I will point to Richard Hamming's advice to learn from our successes rather than our failures.
"There are so many ways of being wrong and so few ways of being right that it is much more economical to study successes."
And:
"Study successes. If you study successes, when your time comes, you'll know how to succeed. If you study failures, then you'll know how to fail. So study success very closely: not only yours, but other people's. Why did Galileo do what he did? How did Newton do it? Try as best you can to study other people: how they succeed, and what the elements of their success are, which elements of that can you adapt to your personality. You can't be everybody, but you have to find your own method. Studying success is a very good way of informing your own style."
(The latter quote is from 25:30 of https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw)
⬐ nur0nAs a young person trying to build things which change the world, I appreciate the wisdom found in the link. Thanks!
I couldn't find the year for this one in particular, but it looks as if Hamming had a talk in this vein that he gave fairly frequently. For instance this http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html is a 1986 talk transcript that hits a lot of the same notes (it includes the anecdote about the lunch table which segues into the colleague who thought all summer about Hamming's question and went onto success; it has the bit about working with your door open; it talks about great scientists keeping a list of 10 or 20 important problems; it talks about selling your work; and so on). And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw is a 1995 video where Hamming says he's given a talk with that title many times.
> the work is techincally interesting and low pressure.What are you learning? What are the big problems in your field? How is this role stretching you professionally? Relative to career suicide vs vitality-- one should be continually adding and building skills that will be in demand.
Richard Hamming offers briliant food for thought on your career > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
> I am eager to learn something new...Learning is a life-long process. As it relates to the industry, consider these questions.
1) What are the most important problems in your field? 2) Are you working on ONE of them? 3) Why not? On this subject, Richard Hamming offers excellent advice > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
⬐ 0x54MUR41> Learning is a life-long process.You're right. Anyway, thank you for giving suggestions. I'll watch it.
⬐ JSeymourATLHere's an idea if you want it-- Security is a Big Problem that will not go away. The demand drivers are human fear & greed.
Richard Hamming: You and Your Research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw(All the recordings from "Intro to The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn" are amazing)
⬐ f00_also:Alan Kay: "OOPSLA 1997 - The computer revolution hasnt happened yet"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY
and +1 to anything by bret victor
Richard Hamming's You and your research.
> come up with a meaningful project to take on.Three areas to explore -
1) What are the most important problems in your field?
2) Are you working on ONE of them?
3) Why not?
On this subject, Richard Hamming offers excellent advice > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
> 2. What in your job are you missing?There's thought provoking lecture by Richard Hamming on considering your job and career. He asks -
1) What are the most important problems in your field?
2) Are you working on ONE of them?
3) Why NOT?
Timeless advice, applicable to a variety of professions > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
It's been posted here before, but Hamming's talk "You and Your Research" is one for the ages.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
Hamming passed in 1998, this talk was given about three years earlier. So much sage advice as compiled over a very long and fruitful career.
⬐ gumbyI hear him give this talk at NASA Ames in the early 80s. It had a huge influence on me.⬐ nemildMy father went to this talk, and speaks glowingly about Hamming.
> I've worked on harder projects that taught me more in internships. This is what I'm most dissatisfied with...Turns-out that the lack of feeling personal & professional growth is a very common complaint with people early in their careers. The pace and variety of corporate work life can be extremely stifiling compared to university & internships.
Before you jump to a new job-- one way to consider the next step in your career is ask:
- What are the most important problems in your field?
- Are you working on one of them?
- Why not?
- How can you leverage where you are now into the Next Big Thing?
On this subject, Richard Hamming offers brilliant advice> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
>Into what areas would you direct your energies?Classic advice from Richard Hamming on life & work. What are the most important problems in your field? Are you working on one of them? ... Why not?
Here's a video presentation from 1995> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
I know! According to [1] the minimax algorithm does indeed originate here. And Hamming said in that talk [2][3] that Shannon didn't do anything killer after Info Theory...[1] - http://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~sutton/book/the-book.html [2] - http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html [3] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
⬐ campermanThe really incredible thing to me is that I could sit down with this and write a chess engine using the method outlined here and it would work. This paper is the Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation By Machine of the computer chess world.
As the essay mentions Hamming's talk, here's a recording: http://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw
⬐ zachIt's a good sign that there are no comments yet (less than 44 minutes after posted).I've seen the video version before, but it never fails to inspire me, so I think I'll go watch it now as well.
Really gets you to think in terms of the impact you could have and what intentional steps you could take to get there.
Maybe even reading less Hacker News. I can't think of a more appropriate place for this message. As the monthly Who's Hiring posts are effectively automatic, I suggest this talk should appear regularly as well.
Transcript of the original version of this talk: http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
⬐ resdirector⬐ gfodorAgreed, except maybe read more Hacker News. I used to, like many people here, consider HN a distraction. Thanks to changing my reading style (I now set aside an hour to read/skim every single front page article) I find that the distraction is worth it.Somewhat similar to Hamming's "open door" philosophy, I suppose.
(Also, HN's comments and community seem to have improved, lately.)
I try to re-read Hamming's "The Art of doing Science and Engineering" every year or so. It's basically the book version of this talk IIRC.⬐ patrickmclaren⬐ lkozmaThanks for the reference! I had no idea Hamming elaborated further on this topic.⬐ monochrHe didn't. It's just the (full set) of lectures he gave here in book form. There is literally a one to one correspondence between the two.The only difference it could make to you is if you like your material presented by a person or by a book.
Just for good measure, here is a short criticism of a few points in this talk:http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~steele/Rants/HammingBelco...
⬐ SixSigma> On this matter of drive Edison says, "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration." He may have been exaggerating, but the idea is that solid work, steadily applied, gets you surprisingly far.The thing that is often forgotten about this little gem by Edison is that it was during a live radio debate with Tesla. Tesla came back with "If Mr. Edison thought a bit more, he wouldn't have to sweat so much". It is ironic in that it would have been a more appropriate quote for Hamming to use.
⬐ DanAndersen⬐ mistermannSource? I'm having trouble finding information on that "radio debate" context, and Wikiquote doesn't mention it: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison⬐ SixSigmai cant find a decent one either but i remember reading quite a long story about itI take some exception to the part at ~14:46 where he says essentially that if the work you're doing isn't important and isn't likely to be important, why are you doing it?I'd suggest that a lot of our progress is because of people that are passionate about things that other people think are a dead end. Also, some fields are more mysterious than others.
⬐ zindlerb⬐ MichaelAOI think he touches on this. He later elaborates that you should work on problems that will become important.⬐ espeedMeaningful work is a personal thing. Passion and insights arise from deep within, and the creative sparks and fuel powering you to the edge of discovery may not yet exist in others. Each artist is on their own trajectory, almost by definition.The key is that you are working on something that you think is important. Unless other people have spent time contemplating the problem and building up the mental vista, they won't be able to see what you see -- their lens will be cloudy and filled with spots.
If you see a meaningful problem that you know how to attack, it's up to you to make it a priority because if you have a unique perspective on a problem, you may be the only one in the world right now with the vision to solve it. He's saying make the conscious choice to seek meaningful work. Be guided by vision, don't waste time working on frivolous shit when you know you could be doing something more.
Very cool post. Here's a link to his book, "The Art of doing Science and Engineering": http://worrydream.com/refs/Hamming-TheArtOfDoingScienceAndEn...⬐ indralukmana⬐ DifwifThanks, i have been wanting to read his book for a while.On the side note, is this book free? if it is not i would like to buy it sometime.
I am also wondering , Richard Hamming has died in 1998 right? if his books is distributed electronically (like in ebooks) is it violating his copyright? (i don't really understand about ebooks copyright)
This is amazing. I'm watching the whole playlist now. Please someone make any additional suggestions to more things like this. Also any criticism on Hamming's lectures?⬐ jmspringGreat lecture.For those familiar with the name Hamming in telecom related interests -- Hamming Code, Hamming Distance, etc. -- this is that Hamming.
⬐ RBerenguel⬐ arithmaDon't forget the Hamming window, this is where I got to know his name. I re-read this talk more or less each year. Didn't know there was a video of it, glad to be sble to watch it.There are two ways to interpret the lecture.- Whatever you work on, should be really great, otherwise why are you doing it?
- Do things fearlessly, since fear is the most limiting constraint researchers (or anyone) impose on themselves.
I find the second take more personally relevant. Even if I'm not on par with Feynman, Turing, Von Neumann... I still should try weird things courageously.
⬐ ehurrellI was introduced to this recently and it has become one of my favourite talks. Maybe also of interest on the topic of doing important work, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo⬐ NoneNone⬐ selimthegrimThis talk literally changed my life. I owe my academic career to it.⬐ 0xdeadbeefbabeWow the audio on this video is really good. How did they do that?⬐ bondoloHis endorsement of survivor bias seems like a gaff.⬐ himanshuyGreat lecture to start my day!⬐ monochrIt's worth mentioning this is just one of around 30 lectures that cover a lot of indepth material on design, theoretical computer science, systems engineering and what in 1995 he thought future technology will be like. You won't go wrong if you watch there from start to finish.⬐ captainmojoAdded to http://www.reddit.com/r/hnyoutubechannels.
Complete luck. Timing to start out in the right industry, followed by vigorous effort, learning, and experimentation. I also built many relationships early on in my career that I've mostly kept alive throughout the last decades. I've changed careers twice when the old skills/industry lowered the value of those skills. Keep learning - read Richard Hamming's _You and Your Research_ [1]. Keep friends and work hard. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
I just wanted to say "You and your research" by Hamming. Awesome!
⬐ jk4930And a transcript from 1986: http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG66hIhUdEU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFhc8R_uO4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nii1n8PYLrc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP9AIUT9nos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-bdWKwXsU&playnext=...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCZMoY3q2uM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKg1hTOQXoY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Own-89vxYF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlzM3zcd-lk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx082gDwGcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7nfN4bOOQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt8jyPqsmxE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUf75_MlOnw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPBkvYh-ss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX3iRjKj7C0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAf9HK16F-A
⬐ ricardobeatAnd here are them with titles + thumbnails:⬐ waqas-how awesome are you? thanks⬐ ExpezThank you so much for this!⬐ X4This is cool :) Btw. the first link was somehow (re)moved. The blip.tv link is now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JXhJyTo5V8
Single best is difficult, here are some favourites of mine:"You and your research" by Richard Hamming:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
"How to design a good API and why it matters" by Joschua Bloch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw
Google TechTalk on Git by Linus Torvalds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8
All talks ever given by Alan Kay, for example:
⬐ stblackDouble thumbs-up to Google TechTalk on Git by Linus Torvalds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw> Intro: I have given a talk with this title many times, and it turns out from discussions after the talk I could have just as well have called it "You and Your Engineering Career," or even "You and Your Career." But I left the word "Research" in the title because that is what I have most studied"
There's also a youtube video of this talk from '95 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1zDuOPkMSw
⬐ stiffWow, this youtube user also has the complete "Learning to learn" course video lectures available, I made a separate submission out of this as I know the course from Hammings book based on it and it's excellent stuff, I was really happy discovering it.