I've noticed that recently pg's twitter has a lot of comments that you would see on a typical stay-at-home mom's Facebook wall. It's refreshing to see someone with the financial opportunity cost of pg opt to stay home and hang out with the kids.
Life is Short
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Re: Life is Short
#22I lived in Sydney for 8 months and Brisbane for 4 years. When thinking back, both feel like a distinct part of my life to a surprisingly equal extent. Maximizing the number of distinct phases in your life seems to me to be important in making it seem longer.
Re: Life is Short
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Re: Life is Short
#24I'm a more productive engineer now that I have small kids than I ever was before. I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs. I don't waste time building some over-architected nonsense on a side project, I ship the MVP. When I do take time away from my kids I maximize it by learning three or four new technologies, patterns, or libraries at once. When you realize how short time really is you…
What is your reasoning behind labeling building one's own PCs as bullshit, as opposed to buying Macs?
I just took it to mean he doesn't really value spending his time building a PC when a Mac fulfills his needs. If you truly enjoy building PCs, then it's not bullshit.
Re: Life is Short
#25I'm a more productive engineer now that I have small kids than I ever was before. I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs. I don't waste time building some over-architected nonsense on a side project, I ship the MVP. When I do take time away from my kids I maximize it by learning three or four new technologies, patterns, or libraries at once. When you realize how short time really is you…
What is your reasoning behind labeling building one's own PCs as bullshit, as opposed to buying Macs?
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Re: Life is Short
#26This is article is contradicting itself although it may not be so obvious. I imagine dwelling on regrets can be classified as a bullshit activity. It certainly does for me. I am sure you can infer the rest of my argument.
Just do the best you can with your time. If you become unhappy with how you spent it you can use that to inform you on future decisions but you can't change the past.
The pain of having missed significant time with someone you care about is severe, but it is also a thing you can't change.
I am not saying pg is wrong, I am pointing out a problem.
Life may be too short to worry about how you are spending your time.
Re: Life is Short
#27[deleted]
Re: Life is Short
#28Mr Graham, I respect you and you've accomplished more that I will in my life, but I sincerely hope that this essay against "bullshit" and "arguing online" isn't you declaring that you'll be "bubbling" yourself after your last essay was met with wide disagreement. It's possible that sometimes, no matter how smart you are, your experiences have been limited in a way and you're missing a part of something everyone else…
I didn't read it as him suggesting that he'd stop writing, just that he'd make a conscious effort to stop defending himself from online attacks. I agree that it would be terrible if he quit writing his essays.
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Re: Life is Short
#29I'm a more productive engineer now that I have small kids than I ever was before. I don't have time for bullshit. I don't build my own PCs, I buy Macs. I don't waste time building some over-architected nonsense on a side project, I ship the MVP. When I do take time away from my kids I maximize it by learning three or four new technologies, patterns, or libraries at once. When you realize how short time really is you…
What is your reasoning behind labeling building one's own PCs as bullshit, as opposed to buying Macs?
When time is scarce, you start to prioritize things that are really important to you. If your main life goal is to ship great software, then building your own PC is just taking away precious time.
As DHH said in Twist interview: "If you're not working on your best idea right now, you're doing it wrong"
Re: Life is Short
#30> One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that matter: them. They grab your sleeve as you're staring at your phone and say "will you play with me?" And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option.
This also has a darker cousin for some parents: since spending time with one's children is always a viable and valuable option, spending time without them becomes difficult. People without children often notice that most of their parental friends disappear. This despite the prior protestations of many that "We'll still do things after we have kids."
Undoubtedly some parents work more efficiently than their childless selves (this is also motivated by a desire to earn money to support the kids). But can they socialize more efficiently too, in particular with people who don't have kids?