All Quotes

"In the very near future, I guarantee that the pictures you post on social media will affect your credit rating, health and auto insurance policies, and much more. It will all happen automatically. In a very real way, our rights and freedoms will be modulated by our metadata signatures. What’s at stake, obviously, is the future of the human race!"

"in favor of woman suffrage."

"relegated to the realm of ignorance and servitude” as a “subordinate class, and most women are seen as something to be “bartered, or sold as a thing of merchandise."

"continuing to govern women without giving them the right to vote was essentially “taxation without representation."

"there has not been a “movement of any great importance…which woman has not taken a prominent part,” and the women’s suffrage movement was not to be any different."

"The fundamental principle of woman suffrage is, “That every human being has a right to mark out his or her own destiny, subject only to those restraints of society which are applied to all alike."

"It might be an English-as-a-second-language thing, but “sustain” to me sounds a bit like “survive”. And that feels like a low bar to be shooting for; I optimize for thriving :)."

"I work on things I am intrinsically excited about -- things I can’t not work on! These can be questions I am curious about (what would happen if we had humans go through the same processing pipeline we put machines through?), activities I can’t wait to go back to (macrame, origami, generative art), outcomes I want to be a reality (a machine that you can ask questions to about images and it answers, a model that can generate fantastical depictions of creatures), projects I think would be fun to work on (e.g., semantic understanding of clipart scenes), etc."

"External validation certainly feels (really) good! But I am not happy when I am optimizing for that. So I don’t. A good number of things I find intrinsically motivating have gotten external validation, so things have worked out (in terms of career trajectory). A lot of things I have worked on haven’t gotten external validation (in research, in generative art, in side-projects), and that’s fine. Partly because I was happy while I was working on them and that’s what I am optimizing for. Partly because those things gave me some new skills, built some muscles, and gave me updated world models -- which is all valuable. And partly because many of those projects created connections with communities I wouldn’t have connected with otherwise (e.g., generative art), or created long-term relationships and collaborations with individuals that I value. So overall, while I am very grateful for the external validation when I got it, I don’t regret doing the things that didn’t get external validation. I did them because I couldn’t not do them!"

"I minimize things that don’t bring me joy -- where I am not bringing any value and it is not bringing any value to me. I ruthlessly optimize for this. If I find myself in a meeting where I zone out and think “what am I doing here?”, that’s a trigger for me to take a very careful look at my involvement. Depending on what role I am playing in the effort, it could mean reconsidering the format or cadence of meetings or reconsidering my involvement altogether."

"For me, minimizing drag often involves saying no to things that I think would be good for external validation, but I know I am not going to enjoy doing. A recent example: I was invited to be on a panel at a high-visibility event, but I knew I wouldn’t particularly enjoy it, so I said “no”."

"On the flip side, I’ll often say yes to things that are somewhat “random” and won’t bring external validation, but I think would be fun to do (e.g., I agreed to do a brief interview with an effort organized by a small Indian publication for Engineer’s Day (I didn’t know that was a thing :)) or where I think I bring value (e.g., I often agree to chat with folks I don’t know who reach out to me looking for advice or perspectives on something). A lot of community-building activities pass this “minimize drag” threshold (with flying colors!) -- because I get joy from bringing value."

"I came across this quote by Adam Grant recently that resonated with me. "Saying no frees you up to say yes when it matters most." This brings me to the next theme."

"I am fairly particular about my calendar. I am a big believer in “how you spend your time is how you spend your life”. I’ve written before about how I manage my time."

"I am very cautious about adding meetings to my calendar. For any recurring meetings, can they be one-off with additional instances being as-needed? For one-offs, do we need a meeting or can we connect async? If it is a meeting where most folks are going to be listening, can the presentation be pre-recorded and posted so everyone can watch async, and then answer questions or discuss in comments? If it is clear that the meeting will be valuable, I am more than happy to do it (including recurring ones). I just carefully assess that for each meeting."

"On Sunday evenings, if I am not hanging out with friends, I like to look ahead in the week to see if I can spot things I can get done now. Getting them done ahead of time opens the possibility for me to work on art (say) during the week -- and just that possibility sparks joy! It also provides a buffer for any unexpected things that might come up on short notice, which helps keep stress down."

"Unless I see the need to be thoughtful about it, I try to get bureaucratic things done as quickly as possible to “get it over with”."

"I’ve also written about how I manage email. I apply the same zero-inbox strategy to all communication -- Chat messages and notifications at work, WhatsApp messages, Messenger messages, etc. It annoys me that Twitter and Instagram DMs don’t have an “archive” option :). This plays a big role in keeping communication channels “clean” and uncluttered."

"I am a huge fan of bots that let me send delayed messages on chat or email at work. To be honest, I wish there wasn’t this need for folks who like working “odd hours” to find ways to be “quiet” and tiptoe around via these bots. It would be ideal if everyone changed their settings so they don’t get pings in certain hours of their choice. That way everyone can work (or not) freely whenever they like. Both as a matter of principle, but also practically, given that many of the organizations we work at are global. It is not uncommon to have people on the team who have 0 overlap in work hours (e.g., west coast in the US with some countries in Europe). Does that mean all communication on the team needs to be via these bots? (I understand that power dynamics complicate these things, and so "just set your settings as you like" is easier said than done. There is also a good chance I am missing other perspectives here. So I plan to continue tiptoeing when I am working outside of “normal” hours :))."

"I keep an eye out for when I feel stressed or am generally not as happy as I’d like to be. I think about it analytically (to the extent that I can) to identify what the source of discomfort is. And I try to think of what I can do to make it better."

"When a lot of pings are coming my way -- I pause to think whether they all need to be addressed right away. Can some wait till tomorrow? Can some things planned for tomorrow be done later in the week? I have found this to be highly effective in not feeling overwhelmed."

"If something worrisome comes up (e.g., interpersonal conflicts, or a critical approval running into roadblocks), I pause to notice the discomfort. I explicitly assess whether there is something I can do about it in the moment, or if I need to think about it before doing anything. If I can do something about it, I do it and try not to dwell on it till there is an update in the situation. If I need to think about it, I mark my calendar for later in the day or the next day with “think about X” and move on with the rest of my day. “Moving on” doesn’t come naturally to me and is something I have to explicitly remind myself to do. But I’ve been able to build this muscle faster than I expected -- once I did it a couple of times and found that it helped quite a bit, it made it easier to do it in future instances."

"I often experiment with different systems and structures. For instance, I have experimented with spreading out meetings across days of the week and packing a couple of days in the week with meetings to see what works well for me."

"To be honest, I don't get the phrase “work-life” balance. To me, all of it is life! Life is a portfolio, and work is one part of the portfolio. Why don’t we talk about work-family-friends-hobbies-health-etc balance? Why do we pull just work out, and almost think of it as “anti-life”? I understand that I am privileged to have a job that I do out of interest. In contexts where one works primarily to support the rest of their life, the work-life divide makes sense. But I believe most people I interact with who discuss work-life balance are not doing their job just as a way to support the rest of life. I suppose the reasoning behind the work-life "split" is that studies show we run the risk of burnout by working too much, and we don’t run the risk of burning out by hanging out with friends too much :) I imagine that’s why work gets pulled out? Shellye Archambeau's take on work-life integration (as opposed to work-life balance) resonated with me."

"I approach life holistically. Everything I described above applies to all of life. I optimize for thriving in life (not just work). I optimize for being happy in life (not just at work). The proportion of time I spend on work has varied (non-monotonically) over the years. At each point though, it was what it was because it made me happy."

"Approaching life in this holistic way has led to it being overall an interesting, rewarding, and fun journey so far! We’ll see how it goes in the future :)"

"It costs less than getting your hair done three times a year. And if you don't have the surgery, then you're asking to die."

"If you see a problem and don’t seek a solution, you have no right to complain,"

"My entire breast was removed in a modified radical mastectomy, and I didn’t bother with reconstructive surgery,"

"SMEs in Uganda are keen to participate in the oil and gas sector."

"We also recognise that SMEs are a key engine of economic growth in Uganda and we are ranked as a top entrepreneurial country in the world, with over 160,000 MSMEs operating in Uganda."

"Accounting for 90% of the entire private sector. SMEs employ over 2.5 million people."

"Despite their significant contribution to GDP, SMEs face numerous challenges including skills and knowledge gaps and access to both finance and markets."

"To support SME involvement in oil and gas, we established the Stanbic Business Incubator, which aims to provide business development training programmes to SMEs to scale them up for opportunities in the oil and gas sector and the wider economy."

"Stanbic continues to play a critical role in the transformation of Uganda’s economy."

"Over the years, the bank has been instrumental in supporting Uganda’s economic growth through investments in key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, the SME sector, power and infrastructure, and Uganda’s budding oil and gas sector."

"you had asked me when I was graduating from George Washington in 1970 if I would be here doing this, I would have said no. And if you had asked me in 1996, when I got elected, if I would be in a position to influence national health issues, or international health issues, I would have told you, “Oh, no, that wasn’t possible,” but today it is. And it’s really an honor and a privilege, and a responsibility, to be able to do that."

"I think it’s really important for young people of color to see people of their own racial or ethnic background in positions like mine—not only on the political front, but also as a health care provider—so that they will know that yes, it’s possible for them. Because sometimes in their day-to-day environment it may not seem that way. So I think it’s really encouraging for them to see us and to interact with us."

"If a customer is granted a holiday for example for 3 months, they will not pay their installment for those months however at the end of the 3 months."

"The delayed installments including interest will be added back to their loans and installments will start again. *This will mean that there may be a slight change in the installment amount paid."

"The loan will also be extended by the period of the holiday."

"All loan information is submitted to the Credit Reference Bureau and customers are rated according to performance on their loan obligations."

"Normally a restructure would affect the customer’s credit rating negatively however for this period that is between 1st April 2020 and 1st April 2021."

"If a restructure or moratorium is granted, the customer’s records within the credit reference bureau will not be affected in line with guidance from Bank of Uganda."

"All customers who have been affected by the Covid-19 Pandemic are eligible for restructures and holidays on a case by case basis."

"The Bank understands that customers may have been affected differently by this crisis and may have unique needs."

"Customers may actually want to pay back their loans early so as to remove this ‘burden’ on their revenues."

"It is therefore necessary to consider the impact of the virus and government restrictions such as the lockdown on each business before applying for a holiday or restructure."

"The Bank is reaching out to various employers to establish the impact of the pandemic and agree on relief packages for their staff who have borrowed under a scheme arrangement."

"Individual or personal customers can proactively reach out for support by sending a request for a restructure or holiday to the Bank specifying the impact of the virus on their ability to continue payment and attach evidence such as an E-mail or Letter clearly stating the impact of COVID-19 as the reason for unpaid leave, termination or redundancy."