Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 118 posts

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#61

Post by tomatocracy »

nunez wrote: post #55
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have time to read it right now, but on the topic, does anyone know easy ways to script directing e-mails? I have used filters in Gmail, but they are annoying to create and maintain. Would prefer to use JavaScript to direct where an e-mail should go to or whether it should grab my attention or not.

Personally I'm against using any automation (aside from spam filtering) to keep your inbox clean. If I see emails I don't want, I delete them on the spot. If I see those emails frequently enough, I unsubscribe from their feed or mark as spa, if that's not possible. Over time, unwanted emails should go down, which will convert your inbox into a to-do list of sorts (if it's there, it needs to be actioned).

My work emails are in Outlook and I automatically sort into folders (and then I use search folders to see everything new).

But one thing which I was surprised helped me enormously was setting up some simple "canned replies" using Quick Actions in Outlook (my simplest is to send a one word reply "Approved"). I think this is because it seems to avoid the need for me to mentally "context switch" so much.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#63

Post by al_borland »

BoredPositron wrote: post #43
al_borland wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in a car and eating dog food? Maybe I'm too tired and missed the point, but usually when I read things about living more simply and not keeping up with the Jones, it's presented in a more romantic way than sleeping in the back of a $1,000 car and dog food. Is the point to make the reader feel better about the stress they have, because they don't want the stresses of the alternative?

>>Stoic meditation with reference to being homeless. Written to myself at a particularly low point; like many, I take comfort in considering how things could be worse. Right at the top of the article... and putting your own shitty life in perspective doesn't hurt and can help to keep your sanity. Eating dog food in a trashy car is still better than drowning in the Mediterranean or in the Gulf or staying put in a war…

Oops, I skipped that and jumped right into the article. Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#64

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

This blog post on dating.

https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ...

Alright, it's not really a blog post about dating, per se. It's more of a blog post about becoming the kind of person who maxes out their dateability, no matter what their starting physical/mental/spiritual condition.

It's hard to explain what reading this post did to me. There are a few times in my life where I consciously decided to switch life trajectories radically and become someone entirely different. First age 8, when I vowed to become an idiot. After reading this was the second one, age 24, where I vowed to become a sexy idiot. I printed it out at the college library and reread it every day at breakfast - a strategy I highly recommend to my fellow nimrods. And, voila, age 25 when I, the jester, moved countries with no passport, no job lined up, and no plan, to go live with the woman who I would eventually call my wife.

Now I'm her sexy idiot. Progress!

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#65

Post by jprete »

nunez wrote: post #55
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have time to read it right now, but on the topic, does anyone know easy ways to script directing e-mails? I have used filters in Gmail, but they are annoying to create and maintain. Would prefer to use JavaScript to direct where an e-mail should go to or whether it should grab my attention or not.

Personally I'm against using any automation (aside from spam filtering) to keep your inbox clean. If I see emails I don't want, I delete them on the spot. If I see those emails frequently enough, I unsubscribe from their feed or mark as spa, if that's not possible. Over time, unwanted emails should go down, which will convert your inbox into a to-do list of sorts (if it's there, it needs to be actioned).

Filtering is still useful even in that system for sorting mail according to its context, so that one can entirely ignore everything from the context until you're ready to work on it.

E.g. if I run a book club or something via email, and all book club mail goes to a label or folder instead of the inbox, I can wait to look at it for when I'm doing book club work, instead of seeing it all the time.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#67

Post by cko »

jprete wrote: post #58
cko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who FIREd, his assumptions of 5% real returns and 4% SWR may not hold in the future. He himself also retired with a free and clear home and a free and clear rental home, which meant he didn't have to tap into his capital, not to mention $400k annual blog revenue shortly after. But generally I enjoyed his articles over the years and a high savings rate combined with investing is always a wise choice.

I never thought about FIRE in those terms. Your comment (unintentionally?) makes FIRE sound like a self-help trend that primarily makes money for self-help gurus.

The theory sounds good but there's a difference between having to sell parts of your portfolio (which is volatile) and never touching the capital because you have blog/YouTube revenue.

A big part of "retirement" is feeling financially secure. I'm sure Pete (MMM) practices what he preaches for the savings rate part of FIRE, but when I quit my job, the lumpiness of my investment returns made me very uneasy.

Having a steady stream of income outside of your investments makes the "safe withdrawal rate" part of the theory kinda moot. (By the way, here's some nuance to Bengen's 4% SWR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rH7h7ljHg)

Nowadays my FIRE stance has softened to "it's nice to have this pile of capital in case things go wrong" and frugality has always been my nature anyway.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#68

Post by glonq »

This is from a million years ago, so is technically a 'letter distributed via usenet', not a blog post. I would be impressed if somebody is able to find a copy of it again.

Like many young developers, I once aspired to be a game developer. But then I read a public letter by somebody at Origin Systems (possibly named Bill Armintrout?) who explained what a grind it is to work in the game industry and how [humorously] maybe he should just get a job working on boring business software instead.

I might have the details wrong; this was probably 30+ years ago! But it did make me aware that doing the thing you love for a day job can kill your love for that thing, which I have also seen happen to other people. So I focused my career on intellectually fulfilling work in a different industry, leaving me free to happily tinker with game development as a hobby in my spare time.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#69

Post by DesiLurker »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #14

https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

Meh, the glengerry glen ross one gets forwarded every couple of years by hustle bros. IMO its total BS, its predicated on what I call the 'don't outrun the bear, outrun the fattest camper' ideology.

I know this will not be appreciated here, but, the problem with hustle mindset is that as labor you only have your time to trade for money. the hope hustle-bros have is that do it enough and they'll make it to 'capital class' and enjoy fruits of other 'labor class'. problem is in process of doing so they introduce additional rat-race and make thing difficult for other labor-ers while capital enjoys fruits of their collective competition for free.

Re: Ask HN: What's the most life-changing blog post you've ever read?

#70

Post by runjake »

glonq wrote: post #68

This is from a million years ago, so is technically a 'letter distributed via usenet', not a blog post. I would be impressed if somebody is able to find a copy of it again. Like many young developers, I once aspired to be a game developer. But then I read a public letter by somebody at Origin Systems (possibly named Bill Armintrout?) who explained what a grind it is to work in the game industry and how [humorously] m…

Possibly it, or at least related?

https://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue18/misc/origin.html

Post reply on HN