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

Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 785 posts

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#691

Post by samblr »

kevindeasis wrote: post #584

Most of these haven't become second nature yet, but I'm getting there. The hard part is having momentum and flow. But, generally, my day works out great if I can do all of this in a day. 1) Meditation 2) IFTTT that syncs trello and google calendar 3) Eating Healthier 4) Running 5) ABC: Always be coding 6) Talking to people who are really good at their domain 7) Sleeping: Flux helps 8) App that tracks how much time I…

10) Reading fiction from a good writer

anything you can recommend ?

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#692

Post by Nullabillity »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #589
ChuckMcM wrote: post #122

How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…

This happened to me when I was introduced to the game. I was playing my class, working out different angles. Did a bunch of quests and leveling. A friend eventually asked, "Dude, you realize you've been at this for around 8 hours now?" I thought, "No way!" Sure enough. So, I thought back on all I did in that time. I noticed the missions were all similar with slight variations. The levels, items, and so on gave me lit…

> I noticed the missions were all similar with slight variations.

Quick disclaimer: I'm primarily talking about WoW here, since that's what I have personal experience with, but most of it should apply in other MMORPGs too, to some degree.

That's absolutely not false, especially as a new player, but at the same time it's not really representative of the "true" experience that people play it for. Yes, questing (especially on low levels) is mostly the same fetch quests over and over with dull combat.

But once (if) you do get past that, there is a much more engaging endgame, where you have 10-30 people (20 at the highest level) who need to execute slightly different strategies, at the same time, more or less flawlessly. Plus, there's all the management stuff in trying to have all those people not get too angry at each other, while hitting their heads against the same boss for hours upon hours, over the course of several days.

So no, they're not flawless, and the levelling process is dull, but it's not really representative of what appeals to us that do play them.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#693

Post by qbrass »

gohrt wrote: post #550
naasking wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm especially interested in fasting. Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy. I'm surprised many believe this. It seems self-evident that our bodies are well adapted to periods of starvation. Any biology that wasn't so adapted would have been out-competed by those did. The link to cancer is typically due to free radical theories causing genetic damage, and caloric restriction is being employ…

Why do we eat food at all? It seems self-evident that a biology that didn't synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide would be outcompeted by those that did.

>It seems self-evident that a biology that didn't synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide would be outcompeted by those that did.

Their shortsightedness poisoned the Earth with the waste products of their energy production, changing the world's climate, and driving many of them to extinction. It also skewed the efficiency numbers towards organisms that didn't need to sit around synthesizing carbohydrates when there was so many free carbohydrates just sitting around for anything able to digest them.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#694

Post by patatino »

Reading a book about willpower and how it works in the brain.

Two years ago I started running once a week, I hated it! But I knew it's a good form of exercise. Now I'm running 3 times a week and I love it! I'd like to run 5 times a week. I could just push myself to do it for a time period but I know right now this would eat away to much of my willpower and I'm ok with that. I know I'm gonna run 5 times a week in a year or two.

I learned how I can increase my willpower but it takes time.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#695

Post by renaudg »

eldavido wrote: post #149
pbnjay wrote: post #14

Freelancing. Had I started just 2 years earlier (when I started grad school) I would have been able to knock out my debt much faster by the time I graduated.

Where do you live? In SF, it seems most freelancers are in it for the lifestyle benefits, rather than the pay. When you factor in the lack of vacation time, no benefits, often worse career development and networking vs. working at a proper tech company (one that hires good people, pays well, encourages learning/skill development) it seems a losing proposition. But then, this assumes you have the right kind of compani…

In London it's the reverse. Anybody who's any good at their job and has a few years of experience under their belt, would be crazy not to give contracting a try. You make almost twice as much as an employee doing the same job if you're full time, or you can choose to earn the same but take months-long breaks regularly instead. If you like variety or get bored quickly, it also allows you to justify switching jobs without anybody raising eyebrows on the short stints in your resume, because hey you're a consultant.

The downside is worse career/skills development if you're not careful (you need to keep up and go to lots of meetups), you tend to get hired for the same jobs as an expert and not ever move up the management ladder, also some of the best companies and top positions won't be available to you as an outsider (big tech names, CTO roles, early stage startups offering equity over pay)

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#696

Post by kevindeasis »

samblr wrote: post #691
kevindeasis wrote: post #584

Most of these haven't become second nature yet, but I'm getting there. The hard part is having momentum and flow. But, generally, my day works out great if I can do all of this in a day. 1) Meditation 2) IFTTT that syncs trello and google calendar 3) Eating Healthier 4) Running 5) ABC: Always be coding 6) Talking to people who are really good at their domain 7) Sleeping: Flux helps 8) App that tracks how much time I…

10) Reading fiction from a good writer anything you can recommend ?

I usually follow people's top list. I like this one:

http://i.imgur.com/E3r6vSE.jpg

and this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/wiki/suggested

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#697

Post by WA »

Slackwise wrote: post #359
WA wrote: post #86

Stopped playing computer games. I played Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone a lot. Like almost every evening when I had nothing else to do. I noticed over time two things: First, I can't play such games in a non-competitive way. While some seem to play Hearthstone for fun, I play to win and I want to figure out how to do so. This leads me to second: Ultimately, for an hour's worth of gaming time, I had a few feel-go…

Just a heads-up, but if you ever take interest in card games again, I'd recommend giving Magic: The Gathering a try. Why? • There are no cards with the words "random" on them • Of the cards you draw, you can mulligan several times to get a better hand • Many cards let you search your deck and pull out what you need, or something similar, further reducing "chance" being a factor • You play a game of Best-of-3, and on…

Hey thanks for mentioning it and your detailed introduction. I actually played MtG before Hearthstone for a while. Never played competitively, but I think I should take a second look at MtG now since I grew tired of Hearthstone :)

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#700

Post by Quiark »

andrepd wrote: post #553
patrickk wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal, I was like you, extremely skeptical of meditation. Seriously, try it, it's free! Immediate benefits: * Clear, focused mind. I stop hopping from topic to topic in my mind "oh should I tidy the apartment, work on my website, etc etc" to a far more focused state. What you should do next is there with extreme clarity. You stop reading random junk on the internet too, and get down to it * Much better sleep (thi…

It doesn't sound ridiculous at all to me (as long as it is presented spirituality- and supernatural-free). I was mostly skeptical about the fasting. Meditation sounds all right, I just never got around to trying it, nor do I like very much the idea of doing nothing for 30 minutes out of each day.

Do it while swimming. I found it works pretty well. And Don't stress about not doing it every day for exactly 20 mins.
Post reply on HN