[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
Inspired by David Perell's tweet -
https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1257484391204352002
Author : yarapavan
Score : 179 points
Date : 2020-05-06 16:08 UTC (6 hours ago)
| woodruffw wrote:
| It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or
| indeed even beyond it, that could be taken to be good without
| limitation, except a good will.
| abetusk wrote:
| "Premature optimization is the root of all evil"
|
| More and more, I'm realizing this applies more broadly than just
| for code. Abstraction is a form of optimization and shouldn't be
| done before the space has been properly explored to know what
| abstractions should be built. Standardization is a form of
| optimization and shouldn't be proposed until there's a body of
| evidence to support what's being standardized.
|
| Failure to validate a product before building it? Premature
| optimization.
|
| Build infrastructure without understanding the use case?
| Premature optimization.
|
| Build tools before using them for your end product/project?
| Premature optimization.
|
| This advice comes in different forms: "Progress over perfection",
| "Iteration quickly", "Move fast and break things", "Don't let
| perfection be the enemy of good enough", etc. but I find the
| umbrella statement of not prematurely optimizing to encompass
| them all.
| dnautics wrote:
| Yeah, I just wish the quote were "folly" instead of "evil".
| gridlockd wrote:
| All fine and well, just consider that Donald Knuth was talking
| about shaving off some cycles by carefully selecting machine
| instruction.
|
| Donald Knuth, the same guy that got upset about being forced to
| use 64-bit pointers in a binary compiled for x86-64 even in
| programs where he would've been just fine with a 4GB address
| space.
|
| He didn't exactly mean to say "omg wtf computers are so fast
| just use create-react-app", but that seems to be the general
| reception.
| movedx wrote:
| > Build infrastructure without understanding the use case?
| Premature optimization.
|
| Hence my issues with micro services and
| Kubernetes/containerisation (by default.)
|
| I've always hated the fact people simply jump onto these
| technologies and methodologies as if they're automatically the
| right solution because everyone is talking about them. What
| they don't understand is that they're optimisations.
|
| You build a monolith and put it on one machine to begin with.
| No load balancer. Just a single EC2 instance with snapshots. As
| the customer count grows and demand increasing you scale it
| out...
|
| Now you're on two EC2 instances and might want to consider
| using RDS. You have an ALB and you're using ACM to offload TLS
| certificate management. More customers come along and the
| monolith begins to slow down, so you optimise the application
| this time...
|
| Now you have the most successful/popular parts of your
| application split out into separate components but still using
| the same database. You're still just running Docker on a few
| EC2 instances though. You don't need orchestration yet. But now
| your customers start demanding more features and changes on a
| more frequent basis. Also your customer count is rising more
| and more. You're now ready to scale out and re-architect things
| again...
|
| Now you've got 80-85% of your monolith split out into separate
| components, in Docker images, and you're using Kubernetes to
| orchestrate the whole thing because you need to iterate and
| deploy parts of the software on a near daily basis.
|
| Taking it slow and keeping things simple in the beginning
| allows you to focus (from a systems perspective) on stability
| and security, which are much easier when you have a monolith
| and two EC2 instances. As you need to iterate faster and more
| often you increase the complexity of the network to meet the
| needs of the development team. It becomes much harder to secure
| and manage, but the trade off is worth it.
|
| That's how you optimise your infrastructure over time.
|
| The only situation in which I would contradict my self on this
| point is if you're developing a product that you know will need
| micro services and K8s to begin with AND everyone on the team
| has extensive experience implementing an application in that
| manner.
| frenchie4111 wrote:
| Good ideas are grown, not found.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| Pursuit of knowledge should be a goal until your last breath.
| Never stop learning. Learn about new things that aren't
| necessarily related to your career. Use what you learn as a
| launching pad to explore even wider areas.
| stewfortier wrote:
| Opportunity cost.
|
| It's relatively easy to measure how much an investment of time or
| money will "cost" in absolute terms.
|
| But it's pretty unnatural to try and define the opportunities
| you're not going to pursue and factor them in as a cost.
|
| Understanding opportunity cost has led me to make a few important
| decisions in my life that would have otherwise gone another way.
| brianliou91 wrote:
| Chase curiousity, don't chase money
| MichalSternik wrote:
| Permaculture.
|
| First paragraph from wikipedia article:
|
| > Permaculture is a set of design principles centered on whole
| systems thinking, simulating, or directly utilizing the patterns
| and resilient features observed in natural ecosystems. It uses
| these principles in a growing number of fields from regenerative
| agriculture, rewilding, and community resilience.
| mistermann wrote:
| We don't live in reality, or even "see" it directly.
|
| The reality that we live in is firstly based on _perception_ of
| actual physical reality, and then also experienced
| /conceptualized _via a proxy_ , which is a _model_ of our
| _perceived_ reality (and all the objects, people, and ideas
| within it), all implemented by a sophisticated biological neural
| network of sorts.
|
| An example of how you can test this theory is to observe
| conversations on forums, where you will find plentiful (and
| ultra-confident) examples of supernatural acts like mind reading,
| future predicting, _knowing_ things that are not knowable, etc.
|
| Even more interestingly, these "beliefs" seem to be entrenched
| _extremely deeply_ in the human psyche, and almost "protected"
| in some way, by some sort of process. Merely pointing out the
| obvious fact (the existence of this phenomenon) is _highly
| unpopular_. But even further, most people seem to be _literally
| unable to even ponder_ the phenomenon, particularly in real-time.
| Abstract discussion seems much easier for most people, but rare
| is the person who can consistently walk the talk - personally, I
| only have one friend who can do it, _across multiple domains_
| (cross-domain capability is a key differentiator that separates
| those who can from those who cannot).
| seanwilson wrote:
| > Even more interestingly, these "beliefs" seem to be
| entrenched extremely deeply in the human psyche, and almost
| "protected" in some way, by some sort of process.
|
| My explanation for this is the brain has lots of mental
| shortcuts that help it make useful quick decisions when lacking
| complete information (like in survival situations), but these
| shortcuts break down in the modern world
|
| E.g. "everyone else is doing it so it must be good" is a decent
| rule of thumb when you don't have time to look into things but
| you have to resist this rule of thumb when seeking scientific
| knowledge, which isn't natural for many.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| When you are surrounded by assholes, chances are that it's you
| who is the asshole.
| abj wrote:
| The Elephant in the Brain
|
| A lot of common ideas about education, charity and laughter (we
| laugh because something is funny) are evolutionary useful lies we
| tell ourselves.
|
| "But while we humans often play by ourselves (e.g., with Legos),
| recall that we laugh mostly in the presence of others. So what
| communicative purpose does laughter serve in the context of play?
| Gregory Bateson, a British anthropologist, figured it out during
| a trip to the zoo. He saw two monkeys engaged with each other in
| what looked like combat, but clearly wasn't real. They were, in
| other words, merely play fighting. And what Bateson realized was
| that, in order to play fight, the monkeys needed some way to
| communicate their playful intentions--some way to convey the
| message, "We're just playing." Without one or more of these "play
| signals," one monkey might misconstrue the other's intentions,
| and their playful sparring could easily escalate into a real
| fight"
| asdff wrote:
| "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution"
| Dobzhansky.
| dullroar wrote:
| One that knocked me upside the head once was, upon remarking
| "That's going to take a long time, like a year" to accomplish
| something, as if that made it not worth doing, being told, "That
| time is going to pass anyway." In other words, you can either
| start working towards it now, and be in a better place in a year,
| or let that length of time discourage you and then, when next
| year rolls around, still be discouraged. So just start.
| downerending wrote:
| If your friends--or especially your SO--don't have your back,
| it's time to move your back.
|
| You deserve to have at least one person in your life that is
| _always_ on your side. Especially for an SO, if they can 't do
| that, get rid of them. Far better to be alone.
| dnautics wrote:
| Forget your friends. You want a BOSS that has your back. If
| your boss doesn't have your back, it's time to move jobs.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Not sure I agree with this. I don't want someone to have my
| back if I'm on the wrong side. I want my SO to challenge my
| ideas and to help me improve as a person, not to reinforce my
| bad ideas.
| downerending wrote:
| To me, "having my back" doesn't mean nodding yes to
| everything. It means starting with the strong assumption that
| I'm a pretty good guy. It means doing for me what someone who
| loved me would do. Kind of the opposite of an Internet troll.
| In any case, it's up to each person to set the mark.
| purerandomness wrote:
| The idea that your mind is not _you_.
|
| That "thinking", as a process, is just a tool of your body, just
| like eyesight, for example.
|
| Listening to meditation and mindfulness practitioners like Jon
| Kobat-Zinn and Eckhart Tolle, I found it absolutely
| groundbreaking, for myself, to realize that the mind is an
| instrument that needs training and tuning, and sometimes can lead
| you astray, and can't be trusted unconditionally.
|
| Disassociating from my mind and understanding that my _thinking_
| is not my _being_ has helped me in innumerable ways.
| chrstphrhrt wrote:
| This is especially useful for those of us who have grown up
| thinking of ourselves as smart and becoming very identified
| with intelligence as personality. It can lead to anxiety
| disorders because sometimes rumination and thinking harder just
| can't help explain things. Listening to nature and letting it
| happen to us is such a sweeter ride than trying to carry around
| a simulation of everything.
| avmich wrote:
| Do you think your premise is arguable? If yes, is it
| defendable?
| wazoox wrote:
| Related : you are more what you do than what you think. What
| you think mostly comes from what you do, and that determines
| who you are; act more, think less. Do things, don't overthink
| it.
| TACIXAT wrote:
| The other more Daoist end of this spectrum is that your mind
| and body are you. Through the power of will you control both of
| these.
|
| As a long time meditator the "I am not my body, I am not my
| mind" mantra has always bothered me. I am both of those and
| will shape both of those in my image. Dissociative practices
| will not bring me closer to my goals.
|
| The comparison to eyesight is strange too. If your eyesight is
| poor you can not really train it to be better. Through regular
| meditation practice, and practice in other areas (self-
| discipline) you can absolute shape your mind and change your
| thought patterns.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Antifragility
|
| Or more specifically, just getting the term for it. I spent years
| trying to articulate in my own mind many of the ideas in Taleb's
| book, and once I had a word for it I could see it everywhere and
| actually start to change my life to take advantage of the chaos
| in the world.
|
| Basically: you can't control what happens to you, but you can set
| your life up so that the natural variability of the world can be
| used to your advantage.
|
| I can't do it justice in an HN comment, but it's one book and one
| idea that has changed my life.
| na85 wrote:
| Money really does buy happiness.
|
| To a point, anyways. Vacations, homes in safe neighborhoods, the
| best schools for your kids, drugs, hookers, technology gadgets,
| early retirement, just about anything is more accessible if you
| are wealthy.
|
| The day I realized this was a disappointing day.
| lutorm wrote:
| That every dollar you spend directly translates into pushing your
| financial independence further into the future.
|
| I hadn't really reflected on becoming financially independent as
| a real possibility, but now I'm mentally bookkeeping spending
| against being locked into needing to work longer. The real
| revelation was when I realized that this "save 20% of your income
| for retirement" advice that's thrown around is totally backwards.
| Your _income_ is not the yardstick, your _spending_ is. Rather
| than scaling your spending to your income, spend what you _need_
| and save the rest. If you have a tech salary, that likely means
| you 'll be financially independent much, much, earlier than
| traditional retirement age.
| seph-reed wrote:
| Life is a paradox.
|
| The ultimate point is that there is no point. If you want
| something, the best way to get it is to not want it. You have to
| try to relax.
|
| Humans can handle cognitive dissonance, things don't have to be
| logical for us to believe. We can believe two things that can't
| both be true at the same time. If we didn't we'd die.
|
| Somehow life requires the ability to believe conflicting
| things... so in order to even begin perceiving reality, you have
| to be incapable of pure logic.
| el_don_almighty wrote:
| The more you scare people, the more they will pay you
| crankylinuxuser wrote:
| Reprap.
|
| From Adrian Boyer's start, we all can have the means of
| production on our desk. I can start with some plastic spool, and
| have finished structural pieces to do what I wish.
|
| It's the first major step to a replicator.
| mLuby wrote:
| It's amazing to me how little progress is being made in such an
| important area.
| mlamina wrote:
| The Dichotomy of Control
|
| A concept I discovered when reading about stoicism. Focus on the
| things that you can control and disregard what is outside of your
| control. Sounds simple and obvious, until you apply it to
| everyday life and realize that most things you worry about are
| not under your control - other people's actions, opinions,
| politics, most external circumstances, really. What you can
| control however is how you react to those circumstances - your
| thoughts, actions and words, for example.
| chrstphrhrt wrote:
| I used to love Stoic thinking and read the usual primary
| sources a few years ago. I still do love it and practise it.
|
| However, I became more and more turned off by the modern
| company of success porn bros who use it as a kind of macho way
| to justify not caring about others. This is not the truth of
| it, as Stoic ethics is about concentric circles of concern
| emanating outward (family, friends, community, country). I wish
| there was more focus on that.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Solipsism is correct.
| downerending wrote:
| For what it's worth, I agree.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Correct, but worthless, from what I can tell.
| carapace wrote:
| Yes, but of whom?
| mikro2nd wrote:
| Iterated Prisoners' Dilemma
| joyj2nd wrote:
| Has a Nash Equilibrium for the first n-1 iterations if I
| remember correctly.
| matthewwk wrote:
| "It's not done when you can't add to it, it's done when there's
| nothing left to take away."
|
| Ken Segall (former ad executive that worked with Steve Jobs)
| shared this during a talk in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater in
| 2018.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| That idea is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery, actually.
| matthewwk wrote:
| I figured it wasn't novel to Segall, but that is the first
| time I heard the line.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Probability distributions.
| tmaly wrote:
| I just saw a similar tweet thread last night
|
| https://twitter.com/orangebook_/status/1257710884719333376?s...
|
| Some gems in there.
| eranation wrote:
| Bell's theorem, proving Einstein's intuition was wrong, and that
| quantum mechanics does have some sort of a spooky action at a
| distance, (this or that the moon is not necessarily there when
| you don't look at it). E.g. we have either no locality (cause and
| effect can't propagate faster than light), or no realism (things
| don't have a "realness" until measured, e.g. the wave function
| mode of particles), or superdeterminism (everything is
| predetermined, no free will, nothing is random, not even the
| random behavior of quantum particles that seem the most random
| thing in the world)
| formercoder wrote:
| No one is out there to help me (other than family). Everyone is
| trying to advance their own interests and wealth. Once I learned
| that this was true above all else, I started pushing my own life
| forward as opposed to waiting to be pushed.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Nothing (or nearly nothing) is black and white. It's shades of
| gray. Understand where _this thing_ is at on the spectrum.
| bananamerica wrote:
| IDK dude, some things seem black and white. The Holocaust, for
| example.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, seems to be just as much a fallacy to believe "all
| things are shades of grey".
| kleer001 wrote:
| Only thing I can think of that's anywhere close is that
| without WWII we wouldn't have modern computers.
|
| Still, doesn't seem worth it. I say, using a computer, my
| entirely lively hood being based on computers.
| [deleted]
| awat wrote:
| "Before Enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment
| chop wood, carry water".
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| before with a frown, and after with a smile though?
| aerovistae wrote:
| What
| kleer001 wrote:
| Any pursuit or attainment of enlightenment should be kept in
| relative place to everyday behaviour. Even the most holy of
| holy person (whatever your religion or creed) still has to
| attend to their basic needs.
| JadeNB wrote:
| I think the point is that enlightenment doesn't change _what_
| you do, only _how_ you do (and /or perceive) it.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Is that the point? Or is it that enlightenment is grounded
| in the every day. That monks and Buddhist masters can
| simply sit and do basic chores and that's it, enlightenment
| is grounded next to the most basic human needs of fire and
| water and food.
| Rury wrote:
| It's that enlightenment doesn't change anything.
|
| People set out pursuing enlightenment to try to find
| fulfillment or happiness, but enlightenment is realizing
| that fulfillment or happiness is entirely dependent on
| your attitude towards things.
|
| Therefore, nothing changes from becoming enlightened,
| other than your decision to keep a positive attitude
| about the every day.
|
| As they say, you can choose to be happy, and mind over
| matter...
| JadeNB wrote:
| I agree with you, but I see our phrases as different ways
| of saying the same thing. When you can perform the same
| mundane tasks in a way that brings meaning to, and takes
| meaning from, them, then you have found enlightenment.
| [deleted]
| carapace wrote:
| First the mountain is a mountain,
|
| then it is not a mountain,
|
| then the mountain is a mountain.
|
| https://terebess.hu/zen/qingyuan.html
| throwaway7281 wrote:
| As a German, the idea that mass murder and high tech are
| different sides of the same coin has shaped my world view forever
| (after reading Dialectic of Enlightenment).
|
| Horkheimer red-pilled me on our western societies and I'm
| grateful for it.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| The greatest strengths are almost always also the greatest
| weaknesses.
| splatzone wrote:
| "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all Ye know on earth,
| and all ye need to know." from Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn
|
| Realising that honesty and candour is the root of all good things
| has made me a much better musician and, yes, programmer and
| businessperson! I don't try to appear impressive or sophisticated
| any more, just tell the truth and speak sincerely, and it makes
| life much more manageable
| Balgair wrote:
| Emerson's take on Beauty is also pretty good:
|
| https://www.scribd.com/doc/15437251/Emerson-on-Beauty
| armandososa wrote:
| I don't remember where I got it, but "do the important, not the
| urgent" help me focus my life.
|
| Also, the central message from (the otherwise mediocre) Coelho's
| The Alchemist novel teach me at 25 that I didn't have to conform
| to living the life of an unhappy low-grade employee for the rest
| of my life.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Language is thought.
|
| But like the chicken and egg paradox, how can one come before the
| other? I was incapable (I think) of formulating even the concept
| of "Gestalt" until I had heard the word for it, had it explained
| to me.
|
| Now I see the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of
| its parts everywhere.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Thought exists without language, does it not? How can dogs
| dream of sticks and walks and chasing squirrels? Can't cats see
| a high place and think about how to reach it, those aren't
| thoughts?
|
| The word Language comes from the word for tongue, language
| therefore is grounded in human ability to make complex thoughts
| borne out in simplistic squishy tongue air sounds.
|
| We could extend language beyond tongues though, if we think of
| binary or rust or gobbledygook made up languages impossible to
| speak. Those still Express thoughts, though they be divorced
| from tongues.
|
| So, IMO, thoughts are broader than language, which can come
| close to thought but can not adequately encapsulate the color
| red, a beautiful piece of music, or a cat's devilish designs.
| joyj2nd wrote:
| "Thought exists without language, does it not?" This is a
| very interesting question.
|
| The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I
| know is what I have words for." Wittgenstein
|
| "How can dogs dream of sticks and walks and chasing
| squirrels?" Do Androids dream of electric sheep? :-) You may
| want to read the books mentioned here. I found it so
| impressive, I bought a first issue.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameralism_(psychology)
| p0d wrote:
| Praying to God at a party 30 years ago changed my life. I guess I
| felt like I was broken on the inside and the idea that some
| higher power could help led me to pray while sleeping on
| someone's sofa. I was so into the idea I went on to work for a
| missionary organisation with no salary at 19. After 25 years in
| IT I am on an accelerator programme now and feel like I am 19
| again... doing something out there with no money...hopefully I
| will enjoy being a startup as much as I enjoyed my first job.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| What about praying to God changed your life? Were you religious
| before then? What led to the transformational moment?
| aaron_seattle wrote:
| "Nothing is ever personal."
|
| The way people treat you, has nothing to do with you. They are
| just living out their own stories.
|
| Related idea: "You train others how to treat you." Think
| reinforcement learning as applied to training a dog. (And I love
| dogs, have the deepest respect for them). The concept isn't that
| different when applied to our social interactions.
| dkarl wrote:
| For me, it was important to learn the converse, that other
| people will interpret my behavior in a situation as being about
| them. I have social anxiety and other issues that tend to
| create a strong undercurrent of aversion and discomfort in me
| in any social interaction. I realize now that a lot of people
| think I don't like them because when they talk to me they can
| read in my face that on a deep level I would rather not be
| interacting with them. I do my best to communicate enjoyment
| and interest, but in the context of evident discomfort, it can
| come off as fake. The onus is on me to minimize (ideally) or
| hide (when necessary) my social discomfort so people don't
| think I'm faking my appreciation of them.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| True for about 90% to 95% of interactions but the reason I
| still find this idea very problematic as it is easily used an
| excuse by all sorts of sociopaths, narcissists and power
| addicts that their behavior is somehow ok because it's either
| "not about you", or it's your fault in the first place because
| "you asked for it".
|
| Let me tell you, for these people, it absolutely is about you
| and it is personal. And the more you try to ignore it or brush
| it off or search the fault within yourself, the more they will
| see it as confirmation of their own behavior.
| [deleted]
| pendu wrote:
| Can you point to some source/material that elaborate on this ?
| Would like to read more about it.
| lukifer wrote:
| The evolutionary biologist Diana Fleischman is currently
| writing a book (a bit tongue-in-cheek) called "How To Train
| Your Boyfriend". She's discussed the ideas in a few talks and
| podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jre_xN2HSrk
| aaron_seattle wrote:
| https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-second-agreement-dont-
| take... , opening passage.
|
| Be warned, there's a "woo-woo shit" risk factor here, which
| my skepticism keeps at arm's length. I'm more of a
| neuroscience / mindfulness meditation kind of guy. But I do
| cherry-pick from other areas, where my curiosity takes me.
| And the original quotes were good cherries.
|
| Reframing the "nothing is ever personal" idea in more
| neuroscience terms: some astonishing high degree of our
| neurological processes (90+% ?) are subconscious or
| preconscious. A similar percentage of neurons are formed
| before the age of 18. In many ways, the quest to improve
| ourselves reduces down to the skill of paying slightly more
| attention to the activity of our minds.
|
| So when someone interacts with you in a way that causes you
| stress or hostility, you can choose to recognize the above
| facts as playing out in the arena of their brain, in the same
| way as they are playing out in yours.
|
| This is not to excuse behavior, nor disregard the need for
| boundaries, protection, standing up for yourself, etc. But it
| does take the sting off. What's better for your own
| equanimity? Succumbing to a feeling of being singled out? Or
| recognizing your counterpart as being stuck in their own
| behavior loop, unaware that they're (arguably) in a state of
| some kind of suffering?
|
| Socializing is our most complex and wonderful skill; there
| are a ton of attendant instincts that evolved with it: status
| signaling, negotiation and exchange; hierarchies for
| coordinating group actions; grudges and revenge as deterrents
| meant to preserve social harmony (see chimpanzee behavior;
| then see bonobo behavior for something more inspiring). All
| of this monkey software can be dialed down, even outright
| idled at times. Because nothing is ever personal.
|
| These are some truly advanced and empowering concepts, so
| apologies if I'm probably not representing them properly.
| sharemywin wrote:
| You have to accept the world doesn't revolve around you. and
| that's hard for people.
| pstuart wrote:
| I have a twist on that: "You are the center of the universe,
| and so is everybody else"
| brain5ide wrote:
| How's the water today, boys?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
| lukifer wrote:
| And in the same breath, accepting that it's entirely natural
| / inevitable that others tend to operate as though the world
| revolves around them, and forgiving them for it (within
| reason). Carnegie's "How To Win Friends..." is corny and
| dated but still relevant.
| ver_ture wrote:
| I'm glad that I can recognize it for the corny and giddy
| book it is, because a few years ago I worshiped it. Many of
| its lessons regard selflessness, and fanning others' egos.
| It's like the fast food of social advice, 'let them eat
| cake.'
| duxup wrote:
| I've worked with so many folks who take things personally and
| then I don't know if they realize it but all sorts of
| possibilities are closed off to them because of their response.
|
| My career started weirdly but at one point I wasn't put off by
| a grizzly old guy at my first 'real' job. He was a wealth of
| technical information and etc, but could be kinda rough around
| the edges. He wasn't mean by any means, just not friendly in an
| office of really friendly folks who took things personally too
| often IMO.
|
| So many folks were sort of scared / avoided him. I made it my
| job to watch for what he liked folks bringing him and what he
| didn't, made notes... and in a year or so we got along great.
|
| After a while people who had a lot more experience than me
| would bring things to me ... to take to grizzly guy.
|
| Technically I wasn't nearly as skilled as most folks (maybe
| all), but I just didn't take technical things personally as
| they did and ended up being this gateway that management
| recognized was ultra useful / valuable. Anyone could have done
| it, but for social reasons people just didn't.
| Cactus2018 wrote:
| > Because of our desire to get a project going, most of us have
| a tendency to overlook and downplay early resistance and
| skepticism. We delude ourselves into thinking that once clients
| get into the project, they will be hooked by it and learn to
| trust us. This can lead to our bending over more than we wish
| in the beginning, hoping that we will be able to stand up
| straight later on. This usually doesn't work. When we bend over
| in the beginning, the client sees us as someone who works in a
| bent-over position. When we avoid issues in the beginning, the
| client sees us as someone who avoids issues. It is difficult to
| change these images and expectations of us - particularly if
| the client wishes us to bend over and avoid issues.
|
| > Flawless Consulting, A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used
| by Peter Block (2011)
| aaron_seattle wrote:
| You'd be surprised how hard it is to internalize the first
| principle. The mind can become very attached to the feeling of
| being attacked / rejected / overlooked / snubbed / etc.
| folkhack wrote:
| ...And with abuse patterns a lot of us had that ingrained at
| a super young age as a control lever our parents/guardians
| installed.
|
| I think a hard part of this is that people commonly abuse
| these mechanisms for control in social structures. I grew up
| with it, I experienced it in school, I've experienced it in
| relationships, and I've experienced it professionally.
|
| In so many ways it's human social nature to subvert each
| other and I think that's why so many of us get attached to
| those concepts. It's _really_ hard to not get bitter and
| still let the good in =(
| aaron_seattle wrote:
| That sounds really rough man, I'm sorry to hear that. I too
| have struggled with being on the receiving end of other
| people's power trips. My curiosity on "what's really
| happening here, at the level of the brain" lead to some
| interesting reads.
|
| Chimpanzee behavior: when a higher ranked member is
| smacking and harassing a lower ranked one -- the higher
| ranked one is literally experiencing a rise in serotonin.
| Their dominance becomes a self-soothing behavior that
| relaxes them, makes them want to repeat the behavior. It's
| not hard to extrapolate this "very mammalian script" into
| whatever workplace situation where your counterparts are
| just lesser skilled at valuing the well-being of those
| around them.
|
| I think part of the paradox here is your counterpart can
| both "be a huge asshole" and also just be a mostly helpless
| automaton of their own harmful behavior, applying a lack of
| critical thought or self-reflection about their own
| impulses and tendencies. It's not that you're trying to
| reframe the situation into one where you are better than
| them, or that you pity them. Rather, it's just to recognize
| the sharp qualitative differences between the state of
| their mind, and yours.
|
| The Aurelius quotes: "The best revenge is to be unlike him
| who performed the injury."
|
| and (more dramatic than appropriate here, but all the
| same): "Today I shall be meeting with interference,
| ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and
| selfishness - all of them due to the offenders' ignorance
| of what is good or evil." -- i.e. of course these default
| behaviors are a starting feature of the human animal.
|
| I wrote a lengthier reply here, it may give you a possibly
| new way to reframe things:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093457
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'd try not to read too much into chimpanzee behaviour.
| While they're genetically the most similar to humans,
| they have quite different behavioural patterns. IMO
| Orangutans are much more similar to humans behaviourally.
| dbancajas wrote:
| So sorry to hear this man. Do you have examples? I'm trying
| to learn to recognize if it exists in my current social
| relationships.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/ is a support community
| for people who have experienced childhood abuse. It might
| be helpful for looking for examples.
|
| From my personal experience, I've had:
|
| - conditional parental approval based on performance -
| teacher: "do what i say because i'm authority, I don't
| have to explain" - More I can't remember or don't feel is
| relevant
| lostmsu wrote:
| Bitcoin.
| mLuby wrote:
| "Homo Economicus": that we all act out of rational self-interest,
| subject to mental and physical constraints (though few are
| _conscious_ of the reasons they act as they do).
| movedx wrote:
| > we all act out of rational self-interest
|
| That's why the (global) economy can exist and function as it
| does: the desire for things.
| vmception wrote:
| Credit Default Swaps
|
| good times
| ncfausti wrote:
| The Growth Mindset.
|
| To briefly sum up the findings: Individuals who believe their
| talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and
| input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve
| more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe
| their talents are innate gifts). This is because they worry less
| about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.
|
| Along with this goes embracing "feeling dumb" and pushing
| through. I don't understand something because _I don 't
| understand it_...yet.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| On my Twitter bio, I labeled myself an infosec noob. I've been
| doing it for 4 years now, but I'm definitely still a noob.
|
| And I will always be a noob. When I stop calling myself a noob,
| I stop learning.
| NewEntryHN wrote:
| Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard. But if
| talent starts working hard, it's game over.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| I think of it as more relevant to the inner game.
| quezzle wrote:
| This hits the mark.
|
| Anyone can be moderately good at most things if they work and
| try hard.
|
| But to be truly exceptional it often requires built in
| talent.
| adamsea wrote:
| "Talent" is not always a there-or-not quality. IMHO it
| depends what we're talking about, and to what degree. Math
| genius, NBA player, obviously yeah you need some degree of
| inborn talent plus a crazy intense environment (for the NBA)
| in your youner years.
|
| But there's a huge range below "world elite" where "talent"
| is relevant, and it's not at all clear when it's a "you-have-
| it-or-you-don't" kind of thing.
|
| Same with hard work. Two people work hard; one person has a
| more efficient system, or a better teacher.
|
| It's not zeros and ones here imho.
| jpn wrote:
| Bayes Rule.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Nick Cave, on writer's block:
|
| "My advice to you is to change your basic relationship to
| songwriting. You are not the 'Great Creator' of your songs, you
| are simply their servant, and the songs will come to you when you
| have adequately prepared yourself to receive them. They are not
| inside you, unable to get out; rather, they are outside of you,
| unable to get in."
|
| https://www.theredhandfiles.com/do-u-have-any-spare-lyrics/
| tvanantwerp wrote:
| This reminds me of Sam Harris's guided meditation app. One of
| the common questions raised in the guided meditations is
| whether or not you can observe the part of your mind that is
| generating your thoughts. His suggestion is that you can't--the
| thoughts come into consciousness on their own; you can observe
| the thoughts as they come and go, but you can't observe where
| thoughts come from. Like the sensation of breathing, of
| temperature, or of pressure, thoughts enter consciousness as if
| they were an external stimulus.
| rtx wrote:
| Its like we don't have access to all the conscious regions of
| our brains. Who knows, what evolutionary pressure might have
| locked us out of there, who know
| Scarblac wrote:
| I actually started using that meditation app because Nick
| Cave recommends it in one of the Red Hand Files too.
| eCa wrote:
| As an aside, that is also why he declined[1] the MTV Best male
| artist nomination back in the 1990's. The short of it is "my
| muse is not a horse".
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqdX-aglsXU
| bananamerica wrote:
| I cannot fathom how this metaphysics would help me at all.
|
| And I'm both religious and a film major/screenwriter.
| m463 wrote:
| I think productivity rewards focus - deeper focus on
| discerning the fine details of a problem and actively diving
| and driving.
|
| Creativity rewards sort of the opposite. It's like letting
| your gaze wander and see what's around you. Capturing the
| ideas that fly by like butterflies in a net, and being their
| steward.
|
| Try doing a side-project based on a whim and then expand it
| as butterflies collect.
| dang wrote:
| It might be more helpful to call it a metaphor. Metaphors can
| be powerful for reframing one's thinking, dropping limiting
| assumptions, even reorienting how the body relates to a
| habitual activity.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Maybe the flowery words obscured the message for you.
|
| If it helps, I first came across the quote in a blog post by
| Austin Kleon[0], an author, talking about people who say they
| have a book in them.
|
| "I never feel like I have a book in me. I always feel like
| there's a book around me. It's like I'm a planet and there's
| all this space junk orbiting me, and all the junk starts
| smashing together and forming book chapters. My job is to
| grab that stuff around me and shape it into something."
|
| [0]: https://austinkleon.com/2019/06/06/its-not-inside-you-
| trying...
| kjakm wrote:
| That's interesting considering it sounds to me that he
| approaches songwriting like work rather than something he has a
| lack of control over: "He gets up early, goes to work in his
| office (a flat connected to his house in Hove), does an honest
| day's work, returns home in the evening to his wife and kids,
| and starts out again the next day."[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/feb/23/popandrock.fea...
| dorkwood wrote:
| I don't see any conflict, personally.
|
| In the linked article, he goes on to say that songs "are
| attracted to an open, playful and motivated mind". To
| cultivate that, you need to show up.
| telesilla wrote:
| "She who chases two rabbits catches none" - _Confucius,
| apparently_.
|
| Keeps me on task.
| bobbydreamer wrote:
| "Do what you made for" When my mind tells me this, I get
| energized and start to work and complete lots of things. This
| particular words gives me all the focus I need.
| j_p_hackworth wrote:
| The boot theory of economic inequality.
| daledavies wrote:
| "Starting the work is two thirds of it."
|
| I wish I knew the source of this but my parents used to say it
| was a Welsh proverb.
| ilikepi wrote:
| Often I feel like finishing is the other four thirds.
| deltaveedaddy wrote:
| All these responses are pretty good, and there's some valuable
| lessons in there. I thought of a simpler idea than most others
| have.
|
| Honestly, coroutines.
|
| Coroutines challenged everything that I had learned about
| programming at the time with something different, this made my
| program more powerful than just one line running after the other.
| It was mind-blowing to me as a young man, and I remember the
| impact setting me towards a journey of learning.
| lukifer wrote:
| Learned Optimism & Explanatory Style:
|
| - Permanence: Optimists point to specific temporary causes for
| negative events; pessimists point to permanent causes.
|
| - Pervasiveness: Optimistic people compartmentalize helplessness,
| whereas pessimistic people assume that failure in one area of
| life means failure in life as a whole.
|
| - Personalization: Optimists blame bad events on causes outside
| of themselves, whereas pessimists blame themselves for events
| that occur.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_optimism
| ge96 wrote:
| You've only failed if you stop trying.
|
| In my case go homeless or die is what it means to fail.
|
| edit: granted I'm not trying to split an atom or something crazy
| like that, but yeah. The fear of failure is always in the back of
| my mind.(currently means lose job/debt or generally just making
| an ass of myself eg. in meetings/srum/professional convo)
| alok-g wrote:
| >> You've only failed if you stop trying.
|
| There are more details to the above, which I've explained in my
| blog: https://alokgovil.com/winners-quit-strategically/
| joyj2nd wrote:
| "Only the one who gives himself up is lost" Hans-Ulrich Rudel
|
| "Fun" fact: This guy was a convinced Nazi who basically
| destroyed two Russian tank divisions alone. I told this quote
| to an African American friend when he was struggling badly and
| had to go abroad for a job and it has inspired him ever since.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel
|
| Beowulf has a similar quote: "fate often enough will spare a
| man if his courage holds"
| reubenswartz wrote:
| We don't get a practice life. There's no "play again." Make the
| most of it.
| alexslobodnik wrote:
| You must believe to see; not see to believe.
| dqpb wrote:
| The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation.
| imakwana wrote:
| Stumbling upon "Latticework of Mental Models" concept of Charlie
| Munger [1] really helped me over the years to develop mental
| clarity, ignore noise and focus on fundamentals in many aspects
| of life.
|
| [1] https://fs.blog/intellectual-giants/charlie-munger/
| stblack wrote:
| "Always deliver superlative value, and your customers will take
| care of you."
|
| Changed everything.
| Cerium wrote:
| As a follow on - my grandpa often said to "give each customer
| the best you have at that moment." Selling goods or giving
| attention, if every customer gets the best you have none will
| have reason to feel bad towards you.
| chrstphrhrt wrote:
| This can sometimes lead to burnout for me. When I blindly try
| to please no matter what, it also raises the bar of
| expectations. Sometimes people just want to feel superior and
| will take advantage, which can be hard to see in the moment.
| KerryJones wrote:
| "Do more and more with less and less until you can move a
| mountain with the push of a button."
|
| Advice I got from a born-low-class turned upper class -- richest
| man I know (and father of a highschool friend).
| carapace wrote:
| There have been many. (I collect ideas.)
|
| The single most important and far-reaching idea that changed my
| life is simple to state:
|
| All are One.
|
| Oddly enough it was Hofstadter's GEB[1] that clued me and not a
| religious or spiritual book. Somehow I directly intuited that the
| "strange loop" at the core of each being was none other than the
| _Universal_ "strange loop" at the core of everything.
|
| "Thou art _That_. "
|
| The thing that is both speaking and being said.
|
| You have a body but you are not your body; you have emotions but
| you are not your emotions; you have thoughts but you are not your
| thoughts; you have will but you are not your will. You are _that_
| which is awareness: Being-Consciousness-Bliss Sat-Chit-Ananda.[2]
|
| From this, all morality and ethics flow easily and firmly.
|
| One can walk down the street and watch the expressions on peoples
| faces change as they are observed from this context or viewpoint.
| Toughs melt into shy little boys and old ladies smile.
|
| On the subject of _bliss_ : it's not an emotion. It's more like
| gravity or electricity, fundamental and physical. (Just something
| I wanted to record.)
|
| [1] "Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godel,_Escher,_Bach
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satcitananda
| stareatgoats wrote:
| That the existence of infinity and eternity is the most probable
| hypothesis.
| zkirill wrote:
| Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing
| thinking) was debilitating well into my adolescence.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Ctrl + right arrow moves to the end of a word. Game. Changer.
| imwally wrote:
| macOS has emacs style key bindings like this OS-wide.
|
| Ctrl+e: end of line
|
| Ctrl+a: beginning of line
|
| Ctrl+p: go up a line
|
| Ctrl+n: go down a line
|
| Ctrl+f: go forward a character
|
| Ctrl+b: go back a character
|
| etc...
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| And paired with this:
|
| * Ctrl+backspace/delete to delete an entire word at a time.
|
| * Ctrl+shift+left/right arrow selects entire words at a time.
| endymi0n wrote:
| Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone
| told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because
| we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple
| years you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be
| good, it has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing
| that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is
| why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past
| this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting,
| creative work went through years of this. We know our work
| doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all
| go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are
| still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most
| important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a
| deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only
| by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap,
| and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took
| longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met.
| It's gonna take awhile. It's normal to take awhile. You've just
| gotta fight your way through.
|
| -- Ira Glass
| apengwin wrote:
| Five beats a day for three summers - Kanye West
| teraflop wrote:
| "Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being
| sorta good at something."
|
| -- Jake the Dog
| grecy wrote:
| .. and the only thing that matters is you don't give up.
| devin wrote:
| When I was learning to play the game Go, someone told me that
| there's some old advice about "losing your first 100 games as
| quickly as possible". That's stuck with me.
|
| Another one is (and I don't even know if it's 100% true, but
| I don't much care) that a common housefly will change its
| path if it runs into a window more than twice. I strive to be
| better than a common house fly.
| mncharity wrote:
| The quote appears in many variants -- here's one as an
| interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2wLP0izeJE .
| gridlockd wrote:
| Worse yet, most people have _bad_ taste and actually can 't
| tell good and bad design work apart, so you're really spending
| all that effort to please a minority that you're unfortunate
| enough to be part of.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1015/
| avmich wrote:
| True, but here is - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gutenb
| erg_bible_Old_Testa... - an example of old font. Do you think
| a lot of people would have problems with reading this?
| gridlockd wrote:
| > Do you think a lot of people would have problems with
| reading this?
|
| I don't know. Readability and aesthetics are at odds. I
| believe there used to be a strong aesthetic desire for text
| to be of uniformly block-like shape. It took centuries for
| spaces to appear between words and even longer for
| paragraphs to become as short as they are today.
| Uhhrrr wrote:
| Also, between two years in and death, it's still very common to
| fail into the trough of despair when working on a creative
| project. Brian Eno has had a pretty good creative run, but he
| didn't make that Oblique Strategies card deck because he never
| runs out of great ideas.
| avmich wrote:
| The rocket science is not a rocket science.
|
| Meaning that we sometimes habitually consider something hard
| because it used to be hard, or it became known to be hard. But
| with time passing, sometimes things like that change.
|
| The literal rocket science is a prime example - we reached orbit
| in 1957 using technology which is very modest by today's
| standards. It's still hard to launch a satellite - but it's so,
| so much easier.
|
| Knowing that, SpaceX approach suddenly becomes practically the
| most logical.
| callesgg wrote:
| Everything is a metaphor. Literally everything.
| lucb1e wrote:
| How did that help you or change your life?
| kladskull666 wrote:
| Toilet paper.
| yizhang7210 wrote:
| "The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative
| experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative
| experience is itself a positive experience. (p.9)"
|
| That whole book by Mark Manson:
| https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/48297245-the-subtle-ar...
| floathub wrote:
| Adaptation == Learning
|
| This was at the early stages of a lot of agent based modeling,
| genetic algorithms, etc., etc. And John Holland wrote a book
| called Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems[1]. The
| universality of the idea that "simple" adaptation _is_ learning
| applied to a lot of different domains was crisp and very
| powerful.
|
| 1. (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/adaptation-natural-and-
| artifi...)
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's almost all small stuff.
|
| If you're finding yourself stressed out about something, ask
| yourself...will it have a significant impact on your life within
| the next month? Will you even remember it in a year?
|
| If you can truly adopt this mentality, it cures road rage. Okay,
| so some asshole cut you off in traffic. Why lose your mind over
| it? It won't even have an impact on your day, let alone a month.
|
| Even something more significant like a minor car collision. Yeah,
| you might be out your car for a few days while it gets repaired,
| but once it's resolved, life returns to normal.
|
| I'm lucky that even this COVID-19 crisis hasn't significantly
| affected my life. The only difference is that I'm working from
| home and cooking more rather than eating out all the time. A
| vacation and two conventions have been cancelled, but life goes
| on.
| groby_b wrote:
| Life always goes on. Until you're dead. But then you won't
| care. (Flippant advice given to me a long time ago, but with a
| lot of truth buried in it)
|
| It's just important to remember that most of us care _how_ life
| goes on. And so "the small stuff" suddenly spirals into big
| stuff, because you didn't pay attention. So, be careful to
| label things "small stuff" unless you can't influence them.
|
| You can't fix idiotic driving, so the idiot driver? Small
| stuff. The fact that every driver on the road is potentially an
| idiot, or, worse, actively out to get you? A really important
| reminder.
|
| Focus on what you can control, dismiss the rest.
| mettamage wrote:
| The Wim Hof Method. I never had any issue with:
|
| - snow
|
| - rain (being soaked was in rare cases still an issue)
|
| - anything cold really
|
| Before that I was unhappy with whatever was cold. Now I'm neutral
| at worst and super exhilarated and hyped like I'm taking drugs
| (but legally) at best. The adrenaline rush is very strong and
| very real, and a lot of fun :)
|
| How I would pitch this to my younger 18 year old self: want
| insta-ten-percent more happiness without changing anything about
| yourself, but by simply learning a breathing technique? Learn the
| Wim Hof Method and never complain about being cold again!
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| Can you explain the method simply? I Googled and all the
| websites seem to be full of marketing BS.
| starpilot wrote:
| Take cold showers and do the breathing exercise. The first
| part was easy when I lived in LA, in Seattle it has been a
| struggle.
| roter wrote:
| From [0]: 30 cycles of controlled hyper-ventilation, followed
| by holding breath with lungs empty as long as possible, then
| deep breath and hold for 15-20 secs.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wim_Hof#Wim_Hof_Method
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| Interesting how closely this matches many Yogic breathing
| techniques.
| jczhang wrote:
| I have a headache right now and am wondering if you have seen
| success with wim hof for that.
| pacomerh wrote:
| "No One Knows What They're Doing"
|
| This gave me more power to make stronger decisions and feel on
| the same plane as everyone else. I used to think there where
| people that had everything figured out
| Balgair wrote:
| "You're not co-workers, you're co-owners" and "you _are_ both
| right, even when you are saying _opposite_ things "
|
| This really helped my relationships with loved ones. It's not
| about chores and the lack of doing them. Or about who is _right_
| in an argument. It 's about both of you deciding what to do as
| equals, accepting differences, and loving each other especially
| when you don't like each other right then.
| 0xFFC wrote:
| Courage Alexander Solzhenitsyn
| jzwmowzzeayzzaj wrote:
| Differentiation of Self
|
| https://thebowencenter.org/theory/eight-concepts/
| ForrestN wrote:
| Our thoughts are subconsciously motivated
| rokhayakebe wrote:
| Expand.
| TeaVMFan wrote:
| "Write Once, Run Anywhere"
|
| * The concept is powerful, and at the time Java popularized it,
| Java was the only practical system where it worked. C, C++ and
| scripting at the time were heavily environment dependent, with
| little hope of non-trivial code running unmodified elsewhere.
|
| * The effort Sun put behind it (compatibility testing,
| enforcement, massive testing suite using a wide range of hardware
| and operating systems) made it actually work.
|
| * It continues today in frameworks like TeaVM (http://teavm.org)
| that let Java and other JVM languages target the browser.
| jasoneckert wrote:
| As childish as it seems, this one actually stuck with me for over
| 20 years and makes me step back and relax in situations where bad
| thoughts can snowball and result in stress.
|
| Basically, it's a saying that a neighbour's 5-year-old son said
| once (likely repeated from his father): "It's better to be pissed
| off than pissed on."
| MattGrommes wrote:
| When I was 12 I saw a kid on a local tv show who was autistic and
| had intentionally started cataloging facial expressions and body
| language because he couldn't do it automatically like most
| people. I remember thinking "You can do that!?" I was very
| similar to him and that tv show started me on the path of trying
| to figure out how to get past my mental limitations, which has
| significantly improved my life.
| dilandau wrote:
| That doing the right thing, even when it seems unfair, even when
| I shouldn't have to, always works out for the best.
|
| Doing the selfish thing, even if I'm justified, even if it makes
| sense, ultimately never leads to getting what I want.
| Balgair wrote:
| The fastest way up the corporate ladder is not knifing people
| in the back, it's complimenting others behind their backs.
| elliekelly wrote:
| Don't accept a "no" from someone who doesn't have the authority
| to give you a "yes".
| Envec83 wrote:
| Intermittent fasting. These days I only have one meal a day
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| How has it affected you? Are you doing it for weight loss, or
| for other reasons?
|
| I had a month off work recently (unrelated to the pandemic),
| which I spent learning programming. During this time I never
| ate lunch, only a small breakfast and a normal supper. But now
| that I'm back at work and I'm on my feet all day, I _have_ to
| eat, otherwise I get super hungry, lightheaded and generally
| lethargic. But I 've discovered that I don't have to eat very
| much before I'm back to normal.
| Envec83 wrote:
| I decided to do it to get healthier. There is overwhelming
| scientific evidence that fasting for long periods is good for
| you and that living by on 1200 cal per day increases your
| lifespan by 5 to 10 years.
|
| I lost a lot of weight, feel much better, and save money and
| time every day now.
| scojomodena wrote:
| Passive income. Or recognizing at least the goal of increasing
| your income/time ratio.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| out of curiosity do you apply this into expenditures too? ie
| spending time when it's expensive or spending money when its
| time intensive?
|
| Classic examples could be learning to do automotive work to
| save money and hiring out cleaning services to save time.
| (please ignore the specifics, but understand the concept).
| cactus2093 wrote:
| > the goal of increasing your income/time ratio.
|
| Not sure that's quite the right simplification of the appeal of
| passive income. Your time is fixed, the appeal of passive
| income for many is recovering more of your time. There's always
| more money you could make if you just get that next raise or
| promotion, so the most straightforward way to maximize your
| income/time is just to climb the corporate ladder and make more
| income.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| An interesting issue with climbing the corporate ladder is
| that often your time spent actually increases. I've yet to
| find a role w/ seniority that is less than 40 hrs a week.
|
| Some have even said that getting a promotion+raise can lead
| to less $ per hour because of a variety of factors such as
| more responsibility/time spent, increased requirement for
| dry-cleaning (suits or whatever)...
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| You could increase your income to time ratio by getting a
| higher salary, no? Whereas passive income is about investing
| your income to make you money, which is agnostic of how much
| money you actually pull in due to salary.
| mettamage wrote:
| The cool thing about passive income is that there's a bit of a
| tax "trick" involved.
|
| Because I'd rather have 5 years of $20k passive income than
| $100k in 1 year.
|
| Well, I guess in SV it wouldn't matter, but in Amsterdam it
| does ;-)
| fegu wrote:
| "Keep your identity small." From a Paul Graham essay.
| smoe wrote:
| "Coming back to where you started is not the same as never
| leaving." -- Terry Pratchett
| Mindless2112 wrote:
| "You can use your laptop power brick as a foot warmer."
|
| Not quite so grand as some ideas here, but still... my feet are
| warm.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Along the same lines, my new (to me) Apple Thunderbolt display
| generates a ridiculous amount of heat, and the vents are on the
| bottom, right above my keyboard (I have the display on a VESA
| mount). Which is great, because my hands get cold easily and my
| office doesn't get very warm. It won't be very fun come summer
| though.
| cwkoss wrote:
| All ideas/technology are living organisms:
|
| - they reproduce imperfectly through a two stage process.
|
| - First they 'infect' a human (human sees tech or is told idea),
| then they replicate when that human manifests or speaks that idea
| to others
|
| - Through this imperfect replication, ideas/tech evolve over time
|
| If we believe life is inherently valuable, we should consider our
| stewardship of the kingdom of ideas.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| If information equals knowledge, and knowledge equals power, then
| secret information is secret knowledge and hence secret power.
| (of course if correct and applied correctly).
|
| One I learned at a young age is that you can learn to absorb the
| good traits of people around you while avoiding picking up bad
| traits (mostly around the idea that just because you don't like
| what a person does in area Y, doesn't mean they can't be good
| teachers/mentors etc in other areas). Rejection for single issues
| is a major problem in todays society I think.
| denzil_correa wrote:
| "One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat
| in a tree. 'Which road do I take?' she asked. 'Where do you want
| to go?' was his response. 'I don't know,' Alice answered. 'Then,'
| said the cat, 'it doesn't matter."
|
| -- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
| iluvblender wrote:
| Not to be afraid of taking the road less traveled by. It is not
| going to be easy, but needs to be done.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Lovely sentiment, and I agree. Also I learned recently the
| original poem was meant sarcastically:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH3Y_-Hxh_Q
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The OODA Loop [1]
|
| Air Force Colonel John Boyd came up with the OODA loop as a
| simplified way to explain a very complex system of observability
| and feedback that he developed. I read about this in the early
| 2000s and ever since I've been totally obsessed with the concept
| of learning, iteration and optimization - and it's the prime
| mover in my research and work motivations to this day.
|
| There are many parallel theories and concepts in Reinforcement
| Learning and Control Theory such as Sense Plan Act, but the
| fundamental system is the same.
|
| The OODA loop is often abused and the depth of Boyd's
| contribution to decision science has been underserved in my
| opinion.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
| kleer001 wrote:
| That destruction is easy, creation is hard, but the most valiant,
| boring, thankless, and difficult task, that we should all do to
| some extent, is maintaining.
| gfodor wrote:
| What are the most important problems in your field? If you're not
| working on them, why not?
|
| From Hamming
| searchableguy wrote:
| Selfishness is a strong motivator and one that remains
| consistently in your life.
|
| You will change your country, city, neighbours, partner,
| community, and company once you are no longer satisfied with
| them.
|
| The motivation to improve those is temporary. The motivation to
| improve your life and you remains till the day you die. The want
| to live healthier, happier, and better.
|
| The distinction is important because motivation resulting from my
| selfishness is responsible for things I do for others. That
| means, I am only improving myself by bettering the environment I
| live in and everything that exists in it but my end goal still
| remains a better me.
| kyoob wrote:
| My favorite thing about "Finite and Infinite Games" by James
| Carse is you can yadda-yadda the whole book:
|
| "There are two types of games. One could be called finite; the
| other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of
| winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.
| [...] There is only one infinite game."
| krapp wrote:
| God's not real. We're just apes whose ancestors caught a lucky
| break when an asteroid flattened the dinosaurs 60 million years
| ago. We shouldn't even be here.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Not a literal actor in time/space, for certain.
|
| That said I've come around to the usefulness of deification of
| ideals and the idea that not every moment should be lived in
| object-space, but also in drama-space.
| krapp wrote:
| >That said I've come around to the usefulness of deification
| of ideals and the idea that not every moment should be lived
| in object-space, but also in drama-space.
|
| I can agree with that.
|
| God as an _idea_ is real in the abstract sense that all
| powerful ideas are real, and people believe in them, and
| treat them as real.
|
| But as someone who was raised in a (Christian, US Southern)
| religious background, I've come to believe that everything
| wrong with religion comes from taking it literally.
| kleer001 wrote:
| > I've come to believe that everything wrong with religion
| comes from taking it literally
|
| I don't disagree, but would only refine your point.
|
| I think the pathology of religions come from several
| places: the inevitable divide between the environment in
| which they were written and the current world and not
| refreshing that original view quickly enough with enough
| wisdom, the projection of one's ethics on to other people,
| and, like you said, mistaking the metaphorical for the
| literal when it is not adaptive (which is difficult as
| sometimes feedback can take decades if not generations to
| hit).
|
| IMHO religions are like Swiss army knives. They've got a
| huge number of blades and tools. Idiots use Swiss army
| knives like a hammer and bang away and their problems.
| People that have only seen it used as a hammer miss out on
| its finer wisdom. And if one gets stabbed with it they're
| less likely to look openly upon the tool or kindly upon the
| user.
| soneca wrote:
| News == entertainment.
|
| Originally by Aaron Swartz
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
|
| Although I have slightly different takes from his and the level
| of avoiding the news might be different too, but the core idea
| that I follow these days is there.
|
| I used to think following the news was a mix of my duty as a
| citizen and important for my life, personal and professional. Now
| I believe it's quite the opposite, I better understand the world
| because I avoid the news. These days I think it is as much
| entertainment as Netflix or comics.
| dkarl wrote:
| In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, CNN was seen as
| somewhat skeptical of the rationale and purpose of the war, but
| the intro to each segment about the war was _so_ thrilling:
| rousing, percussion-heavy music, tanks roaring over sand dunes,
| fighter jets banking in formation, night vision shots of anti-
| aircraft fire. Their primary, overriding mandate was to make
| people watch, so they made war exciting and attractive. What
| was said in their coverage made very little difference next to
| that.
| inv13 wrote:
| Something you read in the news today, is going to worth nothing
| tomorrow.
| smartbit wrote:
| Rolf Dobelli [0] wrote a few columns on _Avoiding News
| Consumption_ and will publish a book later this year with the
| title _Stop Reading the News: How to cope with the information
| overload and think more clearly_.
|
| In 2011 he wrote an essay _Quit the News_ in Dutch NRC Next
| newspaper[1]. The next day the withdrawals poured in :-)
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Dobelli#Avoid_News_Cons...
|
| [1] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2011/09/01/weg-met-het-
| nieuws-1203...
| fredsir wrote:
| I'd like to hear more about how you have implemented this. Do
| you not read any news? Some? How do you find out what's going
| on?
|
| I've been dabbling with this too, and my current state is that
| I don't consume any news or social media (twitter) that I
| cannot consume via my RSS reader, which in practical terms
| means I don't subscribe to any major news outlets, but instead
| subscribe to a smaller newspaper in my country that sends out
| daily newsletters which I then forward to my RSS reader that
| then shows it along regular RSS content - it's a feature of
| feedbin.com and it's a great feature!. Then I follow a lot of
| personal blogs, lobste.rs and HN, and then a curated list of
| twitter accounts, all via my RSS reader. The twitter thing is
| also a feedbin.com feature. And then I try to read books about
| a lot of different topics according to my mood, obviously. I
| get the feeling that any news that is not relevant to me after
| a month, six months, a year and so on, is probably not worth my
| time anyways except if it touches me directly, in which case
| I'll know anyways, so by reading books about, say covid-19 in a
| few years instead of news now, I'll get a much better picture
| of the whole thing than if I was intensely following the news
| every single day doing the pandemic.
|
| But fear of missing out does often present itself. It's a
| constant fight between my rational mind, and some kind of
| stupid, irrational thing that is also part of me.
| soneca wrote:
| It's not hard for me. I have a very low fear of missing out.
|
| I do end up consuming news, but always either through some
| sort of filter or directly (rarely), but realizing the role
| of entertainment in whatever I am watching.
|
| I use Twitter a lot, but I follow people who mostly don't
| replicate the news. I try to follow people that say
| interesting things.
|
| I read Hacker News a lot, but there is the explicitly idea to
| not replicate mainstream news here, so another good filter.
|
| I use Whatsapp a lot, but I am only in groups with friends
| and family, so another source of news, but filtered by people
| I care about. Maybe luckily, or even by my influence, these
| few groups are not just spamming news to me.
|
| I am not against the news, I don't particularly _" hate"_ the
| news.
|
| I do inform myself through podcasts, a few that talk about
| books for example, so it is another filter to consume the
| news.
| mmsimanga wrote:
| I would like to echo WhatsApp groups as a news source. I
| don't own a TV, don't do twitter and keep Facebook for the
| odd monthly visit. WhatsApp groups keep informed. The best
| group is my the one made up of people who went to same
| boarding school. What's great about this group is you get
| both sides of the story without anyone leaving in huff.
| Somewhere down the middle is the real news. I find you
| can't have similarly discussions out in the open.
| jcoletti wrote:
| Steve Jobs' explanation of the simple, obvious truth that the
| world is made up of everyone's contributions and how much power
| each individual person has to contribute and influence it too:
|
| "Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and
| that is: Everything around you that you call life, was made up by
| people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you
| can influence it, you can build your own things that other people
| can use. The minute that you understand that you can poke life
| and actually something will, you know -- if you push in,
| something will pop out the other side -- that you can change it,
| you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to
| shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're
| just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it,
| make your mark upon it. I think that's very important and however
| you learn that, once you learn it, you'll want to change life and
| make it better, cause it's kind of messed up, in a lot of ways.
| Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."
| kratom_sandwich wrote:
| The idea of marginal utility (among other ideas of economic
| theory)
| lootsauce wrote:
| My opinions are not mine and they are holding me back.
|
| Give multiple and opposing views equal respect and disdain at the
| same time. Treating a thought as your own, as an opinion "you
| hold" greatly holds you back from a great deal of valuable
| perspective. Of course you surely hold some world-view and gauge
| things from that position but try to cultivate more of these
| positions as if you were someone else.
|
| Don't get your sense of self so wrapped up in all the thoughts
| and ideas that flit about in your brain. You will surely be a
| different person in 1, 5, 10, 20 years and may well have a
| completely different perspective then.
|
| There is very little original thought, mostly there is just
| repetition and re-contextualization of the same old stuff. That
| is not a bad thing but you should really divest yourself from
| being emotionally wrapped up in opinions (yours or others) and
| treat them as the conclusions of research papers with small
| sample sizes.
|
| Now when you converse with someone, stop thinking about "your"
| response, and just listen, really listen to what they are saying
| and try to really understand where they are coming from so you
| can integrate that into your thinking.
| pedalpete wrote:
| I think you may mean "My opinions are not me", or "I am not my
| opinions" gives you the space to separate your identity from
| your thoughts, giving you the freedom to change.
| darkerside wrote:
| This might be super basic, but... assume positive intent.
|
| Your parent is not your enemy. Your teacher is not your enemy.
| Your boss is not your enemy. The other team at work is not your
| enemy. The corporation is not your enemy. The other political
| party is not your enemy. Or, more accurately, YOU are not THEIR
| enemy. At best, you're an NPC in their game. Many of them
| probably even want to help you, because you are another person in
| the world, and that feels good.
|
| I take back what I said about this being basic. The first steps
| (learning your parent, teacher, boss are on your side) is pretty
| basic. But applying this concept to more complex systems, like
| corporations and communities, can be pretty advanced. But at the
| end of the day, what it means is that, most of the time there
| isn't a conspiracy against you, there are simply incentives that
| you don't understand.
| contravariant wrote:
| Positive intent is a somewhat subjective term. I prefer the
| term good faith.
|
| Assuming good faith does have two downsides. Firstly, handling
| in good faith isn't the same as handling in your best
| interests. Secondly not all people are handling in good faith,
| and some collectives are subject to selection bias.
| TACIXAT wrote:
| I agree with this, it's much better to collaborate or collude
| when possible. The one exception is that corporations are
| absolutely my enemy.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| Most of us (non-sociopaths) don't get to choose our enemies
| though. They choose us.
| yissp wrote:
| Honestly, I think the majority of us don't have any enemies
| at all. We might imagine we do, though.
| groby_b wrote:
| Assume good intent _until proven otherwise_. Because there are
| plenty of people who 'll repeatedly treat you like shit, and
| then continue to demand you assume good intent.
|
| To which I say, pardon my french, fuck that noise. People are
| entitled to the benefit of doubt only as long as there can be
| doubt. Once that is gone, act accordingly.
| quezzle wrote:
| This is so true.
|
| Ditch the toxic people in your life.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > assume positive intent.
|
| I feel like this is somewhat related to Hanlon's Razor:
|
| "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately
| explained by stupidity."
|
| Maybe the guy driving like an asshole and making a sudden lane
| change is actually unfamiliar with the area and noticed a bit
| late that their lane ends or is becoming an exit/turn-only
| lane.
| gridlockd wrote:
| I think that's bad advice. Enemy is too strong of a word, but
| there are conflicts of interest between you and your teacher,
| your boss, your team members and even your parents.
|
| What's best for you is not necessarily what is best for them.
| They may help you to achieve what's best for both of you, but
| not what's best for you alone. Those are often not the same
| things. Assume people are acting in _their_ best interest, not
| yours.
| lhuser123 wrote:
| > Assume people are acting in their best interest, not yours.
|
| This. And even people that actually cares about you, could be
| wrong due to biases, beliefs, etc.
|
| I guess it depends a lot on the type of environment you were
| raised.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Always, always, stop people to ask them questions. Whenever they
| do something you are surprised by or say something you don't
| understand, ask them to explain.
|
| I never fail to get a positive response.
|
| Sometimes you feel silly if it was a simple thing, but you get
| used to that easily, and now you know that thing for the rest of
| your life.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| Compounding, growth etc
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY
|
| Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go up
| by x% per year, forever.
|
| Taught me that getting better today (however small) can give
| resources to getting better(er?) tomorrow.
|
| Taught me that many "experts" just say whatever to get voted in
| or to get a budget without regards to the absurdity of their own
| statements, and that many people eat up this kind of absurdity
| without fact checking / validating it.
| imrish wrote:
| Man, I saw the whole video. Amazingly informative.
|
| Thanks you so much.
| maest wrote:
| > Taught me the logical impossibility of the stock market to go
| up by x% per year, forever.
|
| I mean, it's just a number, at ofc it can go up x% every year.
| For example, consider the case where the currency gets
| aggressively devalued.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| we only care about the real return % which would account for
| what you're saying. Non-real return is meaningless
| abetusk wrote:
| For me, this type of thinking does the exact opposite in that
| it has a chilling effect on finding solutions and correctly
| assessing reality.
|
| While some of what Al Bartlett says is true, that unfettered
| exponential growth can't go on forever, other statements are
| misleading or outright false.
|
| He has a soapbox about limiting population growth now (in the
| US) [0], tied in to concepts of peak oil and other "dark green"
| talking points. This type of thinking misses the larger
| picture. The irony is that exponential growth happens all
| across the board, not just in population growth and energy
| usage but in innovation for more efficient energy usage and in
| finding alternative energy sources.
|
| Al Bartlett builds a straw man argument, saying "technological
| optimists assure use that technology will always solve all of
| our problems ..." [1] but this isn't true. The argument against
| Bartlett's statement is that we haven't hit the ceiling on
| energy that's available to us. This is one of the first issues
| I have with this thinking: if we were to take his argument at
| face value, limit population growth, turn down our energy usage
| and try to live with what we have, then we're setting ourselves
| up for failure as every other country on the planet shifts to
| solar because it provides cheaper energy (yes, even to coal)
| and will only get exponentially cheaper for a good period of
| time [2] [3].
|
| Here's some simple arithmetic [4]: The average US household
| consumes 30kWh of energy a day. The available energy falling to
| the surface of the earth is about 700 * 10^12 kWh per day. That
| means, at _US levels of consumption_ , the ceiling on _just
| using the sun for our energy needs_ is 23 trillion people. The
| earth 's population is 7.6 billion now. Even taking Bartlett's
| estimate of population doubling every 40 years, that's over 400
| years of growth.
|
| This is zero-sum thinking and leads to all sorts of "us vs.
| them" mentality. My first thought is that these are the proto
| arguments for new forms of eugenics and other oppressive
| behavior. It also ignores the complexity of the situation of
| population in the US. I think it's pretty conclusive that
| strong public education and financial freedom lead to _less_
| children. In the US, we already are at sub-replacement but for
| immigration that boosts our population [5].
|
| I would suggest you take Al Bartlett's advice and not let other
| people do your thinking for you [6].
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4042
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3640
|
| [2] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/renewables-cheaper-
| than-75-perc...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law
|
| [4] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=4070
|
| [5] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_01-508.pdf
|
| [6] https://youtu.be/O133ppiVnWY?t=3332
| vmception wrote:
| I want to point out the primary indices like the Nasdaq and
| S&P500 kick out poorly performing companies.
|
| So they very well could go up x% per year if their managers
| felt like it. It doesn't really bound to the marketcap of its
| components, just their relative marketcap amongst each other.
| new2628 wrote:
| Understanding is a poor substitute to convexity.
|
| There is no such thing as rationality of belief, only rationality
| of action.
|
| both by NN Taleb.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Spaced repetition. It's a method of learning where you only get a
| reminder of material when you're about to forget it. I've found a
| way to use spaced repetition to self-learn maths without
| forgetting processes between obsessive cycles. I memorize names,
| birthdays, dates, locations, and anything else I want to remember
| much easier than before because of it.
|
| https://www.gwern.net/Spaced-repetition
| [deleted]
| aazaa wrote:
| Favor interrogative-led questions over leading questions.
|
| A leading question attempts to get the listener to agree or
| disagree with a premise you feed to them.
|
| An interrogative-led question often begins with the words: who;
| where; what; when; why.
|
| Imagine the responses to these two questions:
|
| - "Did you like the movie?" (Leading)
|
| - "What did you think about the movie?" (Interrogative-led)
|
| How do each of these questions make you feel? How comfortable
| would you be saying something you think would displease the asker
| in each case. What kind of responses are possible/likely in each
| case?
|
| Of course, you can always be talking to someone who's not
| interested in talking. It's possible to answer either question
| with a word or two. So there's some assumption of willingness to
| participate. Even so, you can still sometimes use carefully-
| chosen interrogative-led questions to find reasons for the
| disinterest.
|
| Asking good interrogative-led questions is essential for above-
| average results in many pursuits: science; engineering;
| interviewing; and negotiation; to name a few. It can also be an
| important way to de-escalate tense situations. I've found it
| especially useful when talking to subject matter experts when
| trying to learn something about areas I know little.
|
| Here's an actionable way to apply the idea. The next time you
| find yourself asking a question that doesn't begin with {who,
| where, what, when, why}, stop yourself and rephrase it to begin
| with one of those words. What differences do you notice in how
| the conversation goes compared to similar conversations you've
| had in the past?
| ghayes wrote:
| I also find a similar technique useful when searching online.
| If you search "do Aliens exist?" or "does teflon cause cancer"
| you're guaranteed to find articles that match the bias of your
| question. Instead, search "extraterrestrial life" or "teflon
| health effects" or similar terms that are likely to match
| articles that both agree and disagree with the premise in
| question. You will end up significantly more informed from the
| results.
| brian_cloutier wrote:
| The most significant time that I made this mistake was during
| the attempted coup in Turkey.
|
| I was living close to Istiklal Street, and I was woken up by
| a very loud boom. I was pretty sure it was a sonic boom but
| wanted to make sure. The smart thing would have been to
| search for "Explosion Istiklal" or maybe even "Boom
| Istiklal". Instead, I searched for "Bomb Istiklal", and of
| course I found the 7 people who had leapt to conclusions.
|
| It took me a while to realize I also needed to search for
| other alternatives, that was a good lesson in the
| availability bias.
| pagade wrote:
| You don't HAVE to finish reading a book.
| jjice wrote:
| Ignorance _can_ be bliss. Didn 't change my life, but has
| definitely helped me in a lot of cases, especially recent times.
| Generally speaking, I can't affect what is currently happening in
| the news, despite how upsetting it might be, and it won't even
| affect me in a lot of cases. I try to consume little information
| for things I don't care about or will have a negative effect on
| me as a way to spare myself from anxiety.
|
| I've gotten a lot of shit for this in the past from people saying
| "you just don't stay informed?" or "it's your civic duty to know
| what's happening in the world!". If information is really
| important for me to know, I'll see it. If it doesn't end up on
| one of the few media sources I consume, it probably won't affect
| me. I got this idea from MMM [1], which was inspired by The Four
| Hour Work Week.
|
| [1] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/10/01/the-low-
| informati...
| jjice wrote:
| Edit: Just saw this link on here and this is great blog post
| about just this.
|
| http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews
| dullroar wrote:
| And this: https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-
| notice-whe...
| grativo wrote:
| I feel a bit conflicted on this idea as I too believe that some
| things do not require attention. However, I always try to
| maintain a balance and try to read information if it feels
| imperative even when I might not be necessarily interested.
| This topic looks very similar to one's Circle of Competencies.
| js2 wrote:
| Erik Hagerman is on a four year news blackout:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/style/the-man-who-knew-to...
| dilippkumar wrote:
| The Central Limit Theorem.
|
| It's hard to explain the precise way in which an understanding of
| the central limit theorem has changed my life. However, knowing
| how any random distribution sums up to a Gaussian has subtly
| changed how I perceive and comprehend the world around me. Over
| time, this has added to a significant number of choices and
| decisions that I've subconsciously made, informed only by rough
| estimates of a mean value and it's standard deviation.
| Natsu wrote:
| Can you give an example of when this has informed a decision
| and how?
| abetusk wrote:
| Just a word of warning, the central limit theorem is a bit
| misleading.
|
| Assuming the sum independent and identically distributed random
| variables converges to a distribution, that distribution is
| _not_ necessarily the Gaussian, but a larger family called the
| Levy-Stable distributions [1].
|
| Levy-Stable distributions are "heavy-tailed" in that far away
| from zero they behave like (inverse) power laws. This is
| probably why you see so many power laws in nature (gravity,
| "small-world" networks, income distribution, galaxy
| distribution density, etc.). This was one of the central themes
| of Mandelbrot's soapbox, that power laws were more fundamental
| than normal distributions. Mandelbrot gets remembered for the
| highly symmetric and pretty fractal pictures but those images
| (Koch curve, Dragon Curve, Sierpinski gasket, etc.) are like a
| focusing on a sine wave when talking about Fourier analysis.
|
| The central limit theorem applies to sums of random variables
| _with finite variance_ [2]. Once you relax the condition of
| finite variance, or finite mean for that matter, Levy-Stable
| distributions are the more likely result.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_distribution
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem " ...
| Mathematically, if X ... is a random sample ... taken from a
| population with mean ... and _finite variance_ ... the limiting
| form of the distribution ... is the standard normal
| distribution. " (emphasis mine)
| mturmon wrote:
| On the other hand, for many systems the energy is related (in
| some way) to the square of the value. For example, voltages,
| currents, photon counts, etc. So if energy is finite, then
| you get CLT behavior.
| GistNoesis wrote:
| Here is a smart one : Being wise is better than being smart.
| saadalem wrote:
| "You live in a mechanical universe. It's time to start
| understanding that."
|
| I was disillusioned with myself. I was performing badly in
| highschool(even dropped out) I couldn't understand why.
|
| I wanted so badly to do something epic. I feared being an average
| guy and living an ordinary life.
|
| I didn't understand this advice at first. However, I decided that
| I couldn't take the life I was living, so I decided to change.
|
| If you accept that the universe is essentially mechanical, then
| you accept that there is nothing actually standing in your way.
| You do not have inherent bad luck, and you aren't cursed.
|
| Probably the best example of this is Elon Musk. The guy watched
| his entire fortune burn as his companies crumble. He worked 20
| hour days. But what separated him was a very specific ability,
| and it wasn't just his ability to work hard.
|
| "Most people when confronted with a disastrous scenario start to
| make bad decisions. When that happens to Elon, he becomes hyper-
| rational. I've never met someone with his ability to take pain."
|
| This is a paraphrased quote from Musk's biography, from a Tesla
| engineer who knew Musk personally when the company was on the
| verge of collapse. The ability to make hyper-rational decisions
| during hardship is one of the most important traits of a leader.
|
| This advice got me through that period. I understood that
| everything had a cause and effect, so I decided to change.
| Reading made me more prepared for anything. Building and making
| things made me more friends.
|
| The second you understand that we live in a mechanical universe
| is the second you are given the key to changing it. I may never
| become the next Elon Musk(asking myself how can I do it better,
| but that's another subject if you want to talk about it I'm happy
| to do so) but my life will be so much happier because I
| understand that it can change according to rules.
|
| Rationality and a cause-effect mindset is an incredibly tough
| road to go down because there are no easy answers. When you do,
| however... you can change anything.
| Balgair wrote:
| I disagree, but I am happy that this has helped you.
|
| For me, it was the opposite, it was that the universe is
| stochastic. That the random parts happen, and you can't fix
| that. But you can bet on the 'averaging' of the universe. You
| can't guess the roll of dice, but you can build systems that
| will survive bad rolls.
|
| I'm glad you've found something that works for you and I'm glad
| you shared this with us.
| fredsir wrote:
| > Elon
|
| Obviously, it's also a good advice to be born with wealth from
| the blood of an emerald empire. Hyper-rational, being born
| wealthy. Great advice!
|
| Kidding aside. I'm just sick of people putting people like Elon
| up on a pedestal. Look at all the rich, successful people out
| there. How many come from wealth, and how many come from dirt
| poor conditions and just worked themself up? Working hard is
| good advice, but it doesn't guarantee success, quite the
| contrary. A lot of successful people never worked hard a single
| day in their life, and billions of people work hard their whole
| life and never come close to the kind of success the former
| enjoys.
|
| Hell, I guarantee that Elon is not even the hardest worker at
| his companies, even though he enjoys most of the fruit of the
| labour.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Would you deny Elon has a knack for finding great
| opportunities and executing? He's at the head of two of the
| most innovative companies, you make it seem like hes totally
| lucky and there's nothing to his approach.
| gfodor wrote:
| Being born into wealth helps, but it also hurts. If you have
| something to lose, its harder to take risks. Elon put all of
| his wealth on the line for SpaceX and almost lost it. Anyone,
| from him down to the person who scrapes together pennies to
| start a risky business to make a better life for themselves,
| deserves respect for taking risks to achieve their dreams.
| monkeydust wrote:
| 2 minute rule. Only useful productivity tool I learn from reading
| dozens of books a decade ago.
|
| https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-stop-proc...
| jjice wrote:
| This one is great. As a student, there are a lot of 2 minute
| tasks out there that are easy to push off, like adding
| something to a calendar or responding to an email. Mundane
| things that take very little time (generally speaking), but can
| cause much bigger problems down the road if not taken care of.
| klohto wrote:
| Midway through the article I was thinking it sounds exactly
| like Atomic Habits... Finished to read it's from James Clear. I
| can recommend AH if you haven't read it yet. It has quite more
| to say about this concept than just a short article.
| motiw wrote:
| My personal realization that Evolution is the other "theory of
| everything", with the exception of the laws of physics,
| evolutionary processes are shaping everything, including progress
| in science, economy, history, politics, ideas, social, emotions,
| religion, etc.
| josephpmay wrote:
| Have you read https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html ?
| gfodor wrote:
| I came to the same conclusion, and here's the result:
|
| https://medium.com/@gfodor/evolutionary-simulation-theory-81...
| medell wrote:
| Everything is a remix
| kibwen wrote:
| That you are the average of your five closest friends. In other
| words, if you would like to achieve or become something, surround
| yourself with people who are also focused on (or have already
| achieved) that goal.
| yizhang7210 wrote:
| The Tyranny of Structurelessness. My shallow interpretation of it
| is essentially: wherever there's a group of people, there's
| politics.
|
| https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm
| Dowwie wrote:
| Effectuation:
| https://innovationenglish.sites.ku.dk/model/sarasvathy-effec...
|
| Entrepreneurship is a process. Effectuation helps to explain how
| opportunities are not just discovered but made.
| stillbourne wrote:
| Skepticism.
| ronilan wrote:
| The misguided idea that there is more than one sense of something
| being someone's data, and that thus, some how, the public has
| eternal right to any comment I make in Hacker News.
|
| As expressed here by Paul Graham
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6813226 and enforced with
| blind loyalty by Daniel Gackle who repeatedly refuses to delete
| my stuff instead spending his nights examining and debating the
| minute details of my words deciding which should or should not be
| deleted.
|
| If this misguided idea never existed, HN would be like all normal
| web services, the user would have a delete button and my life
| would be better.
|
| But, the idea and the power position it allows are here, and my
| life is changed for the worse.
| olalonde wrote:
| That free market capitalism is a good system that works. I grew
| up in a family that pretty much believed the opposite so I
| probably never would have become an entrepreneur otherwise. I
| mainly credit Milton Friedman's "Free to Choose" series for
| persuading me, as well as some of Paul Graham's essays.
| chrstphrhrt wrote:
| What are your thoughts on the welfare state and its
| compatibility with your freedom? What do you think about
| homelessness?
| olalonde wrote:
| HN is probably not the best medium to discuss this but the
| "Free to Choose" series I mentioned touches on those issues
| and is available for free on YouTube. It's still quite
| relevant today despite its age.
| acrophiliac wrote:
| You don't have to believe your thoughts.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only
| have one.
|
| Confucius
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I like that a lot.
| mettamage wrote:
| Oh man, so true, realized this when I became 25. Nowadays I
| talk to my grandparents about these things and they say
| "grandson, when I was your age _I never_ thought about how it
| was to be 80 years old or any other age for that matter. "
|
| I sometimes wonder how it is to be older. I also venture back
| to younger ages, and of course think about my current age.
| alchemyromcom wrote:
| Reading about alchemy, especially the concept of transmutation,
| has inspired my life in numerous ways. I would also suggest
| reading The Kybalion which, if I recall correctly, is about
| Gnosticism more than alchemy? Anyway, it has some great general
| concepts to open up your imagination, plus the prose is
| beautiful.
| surfsvammel wrote:
| That which seems very important today, will seem far less
| important tomorrow.
| ilamont wrote:
| "No one on his deathbed ever said, I wish I had spent more time
| at the office." - Paul Tsongas
| avh02 wrote:
| I found this funny because the opposite thought also exists by
| Henry Royce (of Rolls-Royce), lifted straight from wikiquotes:
|
| >I have only one regret ... that I have not worked harder.
|
| >Deathbed assertion, as quoted in Outlook Business, Vol. 3, No.
| 4 (23 February 2008)
| AirMax98 wrote:
| "Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake."
| downerending wrote:
| That's a depressing thought.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| "Less is more"
|
| Applicable to programming, applicable to life. Covers everything
| from device convergence to PR reviews to retirement planning.
|
| I discovered that spending less on personal happiness brought me
| more personal happiness. Try it sometime, give yourself
| permission to give away half of your stuff and see if you don't
| feel better.
| sharemywin wrote:
| I remember when I used to work at a pizza shop the manager
| would always say "where here to feed them, not fatten them".
| lutorm wrote:
| Stoicism.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| "The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy
| isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with
| unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead."
|
| Thanks Mr.Peanutbutter
| JadeNB wrote:
| I guess that the bleakness is the point, but I prefer a more
| optimistic spin on the same thing: the key to happiness isn't a
| _search_ for meaning, because the universe has none to offer.
| It is the _creation_ of meaning for yourself--what you do has
| the importance you attach to it, neither more nor less.
| shry4ns wrote:
| Underrated comment. Bojack Horseman is one of the best shows
| out there :)
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