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Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

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Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#171

Post by spudlyo »

znull wrote: post #153
spudlyo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. I know a guy who is an extremely talented programmer, but for a number of reasons currently has a very poor work ethic. While he is able to be considerably more productive than a number of his lesser clued co-workers, he isn't.

And why do you think that is? I've seen too many situations where the reward for being more productive than lesser-clued co-workers was a greater share of grief and stress.

Well in his case it's because he's obsessed with finding the shortest possible solutions to the more difficult levels in the puzzle game Fish Fillets. He's recently rewritten the game's undo/redo system to help him in this.

Sometimes people, even smart people, are unproductive for the usual reasons -- they're lazy/unmotivated or simply just goofing off.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#172

Post by da5e »

Right now this is the bottom comment which it is recommended by others that one should read first. Bill Gates is one of the richest men and he would feel he had inferior talent reading the comments on HN. (Well, he might not feel it but it might be an objective opinion.)

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#174

Post by st0p »

Recently I saw a poster by a wierd but beautifull Dutch organisation called Loesje, translated it said:

"It was a day like this one that Marco Polo set sail to China.

What are your plans for today?"

IMHO it's not about where you are today, it's about where you might be tomorrow.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#176

Post by strait »

exit wrote: post #104
galois wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think you're talented? You say people have always told you you were a smart kid. Do you have any actual achievements to back this up? I come on here and find that the vast majority of people are well below my intelligence level. I find that this site is basically a bunch of talentless wantrepreneurial pundits. I come on here to test my patience with idiotic circlejerks - praise Apple, bash Facebook, on…

ignoring the tone from galois - what do we think the untalented should do? certainly someone will be in the ops position (including reading hn / awareness of the wider tech industry) without actually being talented.

I'm not sure that 'untalented' is really a significant concept, since being talented is much more a perception than a definite reality. It's like saying someone is uncharismatic. I guess the severity of such claims would depend on who was doing the assessment. Just as valid is 'latent talent' that even the potentially talented person may not be fully aware of until later in their life. Anyway, I think it's nearly safe to assume that anyone who has made it a habit of reading HN, would not have to risk the disappointment of actually being technically untalented.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#177

Post by wr1472 »

Didn't someone once say something about ten percent inspiration, and 90 percent perspiration...?

Intelligence alone doesn't make for greatness. Besides, no matter how clever* you are there will always be someone cleverer than you out there - don't compare yourself to others, no wonder you feel down about it!

The universe is an immense and varied place, we are but a speck within it. Amongst us are many clever and great people, but I guarantee you, there are far more problems out there that need solving, and things that need discovering than all the clever people that ever lived on this earth will have the ability or patience to solve. Just keep your eyes and ears peeled for when it comes your way - you'll know when because you'll have just the right combination of skills and traits to solve it - grab it by both hands, and give it all you got!

* You can substitute "cleverer", for "faster", "stronger", "richer", whatever and it still applies.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#178

Post by noonespecial »

mechanical_fish wrote: post #112
jakevoytko wrote: post #103

I'm late to this party, so I'll give you two quick pointers: "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming [0], and "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" [1] Read both in their entirety. You will gain a new perspective on those who make great achievements. They experience the same self-doubt you do! Feynman notes in dismay that other researchers at Los Alamos effortlessly solved problems mentally after he'd spend days wo…

I'm even later to the party so I'll just cite Ira Glass: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hidvElQ0xE All of us who do creative work... we get into it because we have good taste. And it's like there's a gap... for the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't so good. But your taste is still killer... it's good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to y…

I'm actually really afraid of closing the gap. What if I get to the point that I'm really pleased with what I've made. That's the end. I can't grow past that point and likely, what I make still sucks on the grand scale.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#179

Post by rwhitman »

If you really want to feel like shit imagine this: you're a guy who went to a chain art school and spent most of his career updating mom & pop websites and tweaking Wordpress, and you're sitting in a board room in San Francisco full of execs, engineers & multimillionaire entreprenuers who went to Stanford or NYU or Harvard and trying to BS your way into making them think you're capable of working on their project. Imagine how you squirm when they ask you questions about processing some algorithm or conversion metrics and you have no freakin clue what they're talking about.

Welcome to my world. At least on HN you don't have to see the condescending look on their faces when they think to themselves 'who let this idiot in here?'. Its MUCH worse in the real world.

Re: Ask HN: Does reading HN ever make you feel like shit?

#180

Post by dkersten »

lobo-tuerto wrote: post #151
dkersten wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the rest of your comments on this site you're far too intelligent What comments are you talking about? The ones I see are either retarded, extremely arrogant (but not intelligent), or about average (relative to other comments on this site). From his previous comments, I would guess hes of average intelligence, for this site, but EXTREMELY arrogant. Not really a desirable combination, if you ask me.

He was being a little bit sarcastic about it. ;)

Well, that does make more sense.
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