81–90 of 124 posts
Everyone I meet is not better than me.
Don't forget Thoreau's quote that he could learn from everyone. I think the problem is thinking of people in terms of rankings. Some are better at some things than others but that should not translate into being better than others. It's a hard distinction to make because the the latter is shorter and more convenient to grasp.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
Death is inevitable and life is meaningless. Most people would be depressed with this epiphany but for me, it was liberating.
Many things which you consider out of your reach are achievable. And they are not as difficult as they seem. You just have to set goals and start working towards them.
That our time is limited and we must choose carefully where to focus our personal efforts.
That realization was a gradual one for me. I tell people that I have a limited amount of Life Force and I don't want to waste it. The upshot of that is (A) that you can't do "everything" just because you can afford it (B) life is too short to "stick it out" if you really don't like what you are doing. Books are a perfect example of "B": If you read part of a book and you don't like it, stop/quit and read another inst…
You can probably guess where I put my focus.
Nobody's out to get you.
I've had a couple of memorable epiphanies. The fact that they are programming related probably says something about me but heck, I can't change that. Epiphany 1: one day I realized that Bresenham's line algorithm wasn't just a way to draw lines. In reality, it linearly interpolates values over a range. Example: get the gradient/color values along a horizontal line from x0,color0 to x1,color1. Epiphany 2: The 2nd big…
Sadly, colors don't blend as easy as coordinates: http://www.stuartdenman.com/improved-color-blending/ ... but in general I agree.
I have a few off the top of my head: - Learned helplessness is one of the biggest enemies to learning, but it's insidious in that sufferers don't recognize it. Often, I'll try to teach someone something, and I'll know for sure that they can and will grasp a concept, but they'll just stop short on their own accord, chalking failure up to their own (imagined) inherent inability rather than a specific situational lack o…
Yes. I assume most HNers are "rational", logical, analytic thinkers that despise office politics and allowing feelings to clout "sound" decisions. However, feelings exist, office politics exist, and humans are irrational. Therefore, being logical and "rational" we have to account for these pesky "stupid" things and act accordingly if we want to maintain our logical and "rational" self labels.
EDIT: quotes.
The observer is the observed.