12/26/25
Ran into this idea as an anecdote about a professor in Algorithms to Live By in a chapter about “overfitting”:
Interesting example of a professor overfitting a lecture to his own taste. On a less buttoned up presentation, his students received it better. I feel like there could be an interesting nugget about creativity/game design here too.
As a designer, I spend a lot of time fixating on very specific details people are unlikely to notice. I do believe that “Good” design is layers of a thousand little details. It seems possible that I am “overfitting” to good design when I do this. I’m not sure if I should or want to make a change based on this, but the thought is interesting.