The 9 alignments from the Baldur's Gate series.
Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
481–490 of 839 posts
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#482Happiness depends on the discrepancy between expectations and reality.
Your mind has a simulated copy of reality. The more you develop opinions about the future based on this copy, the more likely that they are out of sync by the time the future comes.
Seeing these two as separate, and their distance as something that hurts, has made me wary of elaborating my expectations. I dream about stuff I consider important and this category shrinks with age.
I’m not saying don’t plan/dream/hope. Just pick your battles and focus your efforts on the ones you decide to keep. Otherwise, just go with the flow.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 a…
Why people start at the K8 end state is twofold, fashion and a lot of younger people don't look at highways and see they started out as either single lane tarmac or dirt roads that were remade in place. There's a lot more talk these days about refactoring complex systems. But its really a job for senior engineers or young folk who have time for it (Like the new grads who complain about being dumped on legacy systems…
I really, really like your metaphor of the dirt roads remade in place. It’s fascinating to look down at the sidewalk in NYC and know that it was farmland only a few centuries ago. We know the aphorisms: Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we don’t always think them through.
At work, when a new person joins our team, it’s fascinating (in a non-cynical way) to hear “why are we using a dirt road here instead of a highway? Wouldn’t that be more efficient?” It’s fun to imagine the implications of such a project, and it’s a great opportunity to give perspective on the traffic flow of customers, developers, operations.
Could we build a highway there? Yes. But usually, it’s a better allocation of our finite resources to do some maintenance on the existing highway. Sometimes, we actually need to take highways apart and replace them with something more informal, since their maintenance costs more than they’re worth.
Something tangential this reminds me of is the concept of “Desire Lines”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path. The work of an SWE can be summed up as the identification and “improvement” of desire lines. If you build a highway, but it’s not on a desire line, you’ve just wasted a lot of energy!
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#484The 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…
I have a headache right now and am wondering if you have seen success with wim hof for that.
Seems like it only takes a few minutes...did you try it? How did it affect the headache?
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#485The principle of non-violent communication (NVC)[1] completely changed my approach in life to stressful situations. Practicing the same with my family, friends, work colleagues changed my life. Changed the way I approach situations. Allowed me to also apply it in reverse where I am now able to lead those stressed with me towards a NVC path. I am trying to understand their fundamental base need rather than just focus on what they are saying. This allows those around me also to become in tune with themselves and I can see it on their faces when they get the aha moment. I've received simple thanks sometimes for this so I know it is not just me that finds it useful. Works wonderfully well with toddlers as well! The whole premise that kids are stupid or don't understand stuff also gets upturned when you apply NVC to communicate with them or help understand their point of view.
It wasn't easy, took months before it became habit, just had to keep it going. Even now sometimes I forget and my lizard brain pops up from years of conditioning that will take some time to undo. But am I so happy I found out about it.
[1] https://baynvc.org/key-assumptions-and-intentions-of-nvc/
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#486Don't worry about remembering facts; instead, seek to understand how and why things are the way they are. By understanding deeper reasons behind things, the facts will make contextual sense, and will be much easier to recall, or if necessary, to deduce. This can apply essentially anywhere, from physics formulas to historical events to programming conventions to political actions.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#487I'm distinct from the voice in my head.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#488My 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 you…
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.
No, that’s something very different. The point GP is trying to make is that most opinions people hold on things are not actually their own formed conclusions, they are just regurgitations from authorities they trust.
This happens excessively in politics. Suddenly a huge chunk of a political faction will have the same “opinion” on a complex topic they have no day-to-day interaction with or previous educational coverage. When you try to dig deeper on these topics people hold such fervent “opinions” on, it turns out that it’s just a restatement of what they heard from a friend/talking head.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#489You CAN have your cake and eat it too.
Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think your example disproves Glass' statement. Surely students are in the beginner phases and their work does not represent their full potential. Glass' statement seems to say forgive students (and yourself for being one) instead of writing them off as hopeless.
Look at the first sentence of Glass’s statement. It is meant to be told to beginners to encourage them. He’s telling beginners that because you’re trying you must have good taste (which is clearly not true) so stick with it.
I don't read it that way. I read it as a message to not be discouraged if you aren't immediately a master because nobody is immediately a master. If everyone looks at the results of their work and says "I can't do this" then nobody will ever improve. It's a hacker's viewpoint for sure. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of not just the good but anything. Fail fast, etc, etc.
I didn't learn to use a command line or write python scripts instantly. I spent thousands of hours banging my head against the wall. Progress is slow. Imperceptible even. Stick with it and eventually you get there.
Does this mean everyone can do everything? No. It means you'll never find what you are good at it if you just give up at the first sign of failure.