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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org

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Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#141

Post by lamename »

Excellent points and very true to my experience. I like this. I like it so much I'm wary of it being the last word. Accounting for details & getting perspective elsewhere is incredibly important for solving problems.

But with details alone in mind it's easy to fall into the trap of "there must be 1 more detail I'm missing" ad infinitum.

If you do anything where you have to solve problems in a fixed period of time, it's important to decide when to pivot to a new, more productive problem (depending on the scale of your problem and freedom to change).

Take this advice or learn it the hard way.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#142

Post by 52-6F-62 »

sly010 wrote: post #117

A few years ago I co-founded a standing desk company without any experience in real world products in general. The plan was to source desks and sell them to companies. How complicated could it be? Well, the freight company requires a lot of information about the destination building. The destination building require a lot of paperwork in a very specific format just to deliver something. The paperwork is always a litt…

Your short tale reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyTf7y3ityk

In sincerity, I found that interesting. Lessons noted!

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#143

Post by logfromblammo »

dekhn wrote: post #69
jasode wrote: post #53

>Do you remember the insights that were crucial in learning to ride a bike or drive? The author mentioned bicycles and inadvertently missed an opportunity to show another "unknown reality" that beautifully illustrates his point. Consider typical adults (not physicists) with 20+ years of bicycle riding. If you ask them, "how does a bicycle turn?" , they'd respond that "you just lean into the direction of the turn and…

A long part of my scientific career has been unpacking simple statements about things like bike riding, and finding the underlying process is subtle, and reveals many interesting things. When I was a kid, I had a teacher who said that cutting paper wasn't a chemical change- no bonds were broken. That seemed odd to me, but after I had a PhD, I understood a few things better. That when you cut paper, mostly hydrogen bo…

If you smash a salt crystal with a hammer, all the resulting pieces end up with equal charges of anions and cations, so were any ionic bonds really broken?

That covalent bonds are broken seems obvious if you ditch the paper and cut through a sheet of long-chain polyethylene. The scissors don't just stop if they're about to break a polymer chain.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#144

Post by 52-6F-62 »

Isamu wrote: post #138
yyzhero wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't blame yourself. Go read argument culture. Everything is positioned as a debate rather then a discussion ; take an opposing side and it's about winning not understanding. As an example If you've caught yourself ever leveraging syntax in a discussion to derail someone's ideas

I've always hated debate because of that and could never understand why it was valued. It is always about winning and never about getting to the bottom of what could be the truth.

Unfortunately, I find this to be a similar case with office/workplace politics pretty often as well.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#145

Post by dingo_bat »

littlestymaar wrote: post #120
dingo_bat wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think regular driving schools teach you to countersteer when you turn.

Oh interesting, in what country do you live ?

India. We're not known for the thoroughness of our driving schools :)

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#146

Post by lamename »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #27

The suggestion to simply try and notice more detail seems tantamount to advising "just do it better". Why not ask someone who has done it before, or who does it for a living. There are many domains of human endeavour, but few with no experts. Experience is not necessarily expertise, but the experienced know what details to look for even if they don't know how to fix them. That to me is another problem of capitalism -…

Agreed. But I interpreted part of his point to be: seek out the perspectives of others to help you notice new details.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#147

Post by dsacco »

sly010 wrote: post #117

A few years ago I co-founded a standing desk company without any experience in real world products in general. The plan was to source desks and sell them to companies. How complicated could it be? Well, the freight company requires a lot of information about the destination building. The destination building require a lot of paperwork in a very specific format just to deliver something. The paperwork is always a litt…

> The destination building require a lot of paperwork in a very specific format just to deliver something. The paperwork is always a little different.

Automating this sounds like a business worth several million in annual revenue, easily.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#148

Post by shoover »

kthartic wrote: post #70
shoover wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absurd how people actually do this all the time in Amazon product questions. Will it work with my Samsung phone? "I don't know." Does it come with batteries? "I think it did."

It's because Amazon emails everyone (who bought that product) every time someone asks a question. The subject is "John Doe: Can you answer this question about ...". I've had this email a few times. Some people (I'm guessing old/non-tech savvy) assume someone has asked them directly, and so feel the need to reply.

That makes sense. The answers I refer to read just like a slightly annoyed text message reply to a family member who should know better than to ask.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#149

Post by om69 »

CurtMonash wrote: post #8

There's something of a connection here to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Two examples come to mind: 1. The narrator thinks it's important to have in your toolset hammers of multiple hardness, because your hammer should be softer than whatever material you're hammering on at the time. At least, that's how I remember it; I might well be wrong about -- well, about the DETAILS of that example. Please correct…

I've long noticed this, it's easy to build complex thing with simple blocks.

Lego and Minecraft fit into this. I once got my old Legos out and suddenly had dozens of ideas of what to build. Although I could've done the same in woodwork at any other time. The boundary is the most important thing to fuel creativity imho.

Re: Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

#150

Post by dsr_ »

falcolas wrote: post #72
dsr_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’d been innovating extensively. He’d been having trouble with students who had nothing to say. At first he thought it was laziness but later it became apparent that it wasn’t. They just couldn’t think of anything to say. One of them, a girl with strong-lensed glasses, wanted to write a five-hundred-word essay about the United States. He was used to the sinking feeling that comes from statements like this, and sugge…

Err, Bozeman doesn't have an opera house. Certainly not one with a burger stand across Main Street. Just sayin' ;)

Demolished in 1965, which is consistent for the reminiscence from the 1950s.
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