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

Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 348 posts

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#251

Post by corwinstephen »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #189
firefoxd wrote: post #114

* Five co-founders are too many. * If you are working on someone else's crappy idea, think about working on your own crappy idea. * Call people you might need later when you don't need them. Or they tend to disappear when you do need them. * Learn about the stock market and invest right away. You'll make money, lose money, then understand money. * Build as many projects as time allows. It's nice to have the option to…

> "I'll end with this. If you are bored, create something. Make a clay pot, a drawing on paper, a JavaScript file, a wooden structure, a shoe rack, a sand castle, a matchstick home, a story. Make something you can look at the end result and you'll never get bored again..." This might be the best single sentence I've read on the internet so far this year. Kudos. In short: Boredom is a function of creativity / creating…

Best part is, it doesn't even have to be something new or innovative. Even spending time creating a really excellent meal is rewarding.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#252

Post by tudelo »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #196
LawnDart1 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Don't bother disagreeing with people on social media." You should put that on a tee-shirt, or maybe a billboard.

Why not? Some of their arguments might change your view for the better, and vice versa.

But what chance do you think there is to actually have a real conversation with someone over social media (or even text)? Most of the time seems to be spent on making the wrong assumptions about what you think someone means or just straight up disagreement over the pillars of an issue.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#253

Post by nickstefan12 »

I've learned that the housing crisis is really just a wealth inequality crisis. Basically every city in America now thinks it has a housing crisis. Big. Small. Cheap. Expensive. Seriously, talk to people in every city and state and they all think their city has its own special housing crisis.

I think as long as there are people with deep pockets, anywhere desirable will be expensive regardless of supply. Like when dieting, "you can't out exercise the fork", you can't out build the wealthy and multi property investors.

The housing crisis is a wealth inequality problem. Trying to build out of it destroys the character of cities and their access to nature and for what? To appease the always too deep pockets of people buying up multiple houses...

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#255

Post by isolli »

nrjames wrote: post #38
rroriz wrote: post #35

I didn't know happiness until I had a daughter. I thought I had a pretty happy life until she was born. After that, i learned to value my lonely hours :)

As the father of two girls, I relate to all of this. I'm sure you've heard this 1000 times, but they grow up fast, so enjoy they time you get with your daughter.

A random stranger once shared this piece of wisdom with me: "the days are long but the years are short".

Sometimes at the end of a long day I try to remember this :)

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#256

Post by MattyRad »

97s wrote: post #192

Turn off the TV. Turn off all social media. Turn off any negative influences. Eat as healthy as you possibly can. Exercise, yoga, tai chi, or anything that gets you moving. Enjoy the benefits of all the time you thought you didn't have while having really good mental power because of your healthy diet and exercise. Live a good life.

I've distinctly noticed a sharp rise in toxicity in media (mostly, but not limited to, politics). But even if you cut that toxic part out of your own life, we don't live in a vacuum; friends, co-workers, and family will relay toxic news and media, despite effectively all of it being irrelevant to our everyday lives. This actually affects my demeanor not in that I just heard toxic news, but that I can see this person in my life is actively being needlessly poisoned by irrelevant negativity.

I don't have an answer to this though. Thoughts on how to improve the situation would be appreciated.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#257

Post by Clubber »

philangist wrote: post #232
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #127

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans. - There is no integrity in keeping silent when witnessing wrongdoing, even when speaking out may harm your current business prospects. - Most "interesting" ideas in tech currently simply aren't. - "Software Craftsmanship" is a scam. - Programmers are far less logical than they would themselves believe. - Non-tech project managers in tech teams are beyond useless; they'…

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans. I'd love if you could expand on this topic. What do you mean by charlatans?

I'm not the OP but I would guess it's because most of the tech leaders aren't there because they did something great and are all knowing, but more because they were at the right place at the right time and met the right people. You could replace any of those people with 10,000 other people with similar qualifications and they would do just as well.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#258

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

philangist wrote: post #232
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #127

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans. - There is no integrity in keeping silent when witnessing wrongdoing, even when speaking out may harm your current business prospects. - Most "interesting" ideas in tech currently simply aren't. - "Software Craftsmanship" is a scam. - Programmers are far less logical than they would themselves believe. - Non-tech project managers in tech teams are beyond useless; they'…

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans. I'd love if you could expand on this topic. What do you mean by charlatans?

I mean much of their work is building a public profile as a "thought-leader", and making big bucks speaking at conferences and advising large companies when in reality, they have no experience of building anything with the technologies they hype, and often no real technical understanding of those technologies either.

I am not saying this is the common case. Naturally, there are many brilliant people in our industry. I am however saying that this happens enough for it to be a concern of mine.

As tempting as it is, I won't name names.

Re: Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?

#260

Post by avensec »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #127

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans. - There is no integrity in keeping silent when witnessing wrongdoing, even when speaking out may harm your current business prospects. - Most "interesting" ideas in tech currently simply aren't. - "Software Craftsmanship" is a scam. - Programmers are far less logical than they would themselves believe. - Non-tech project managers in tech teams are beyond useless; they'…

- Many well known people in tech are charlatans.

This is something I learned first hand in the previous year. I joined a company that purposely seeks out known entities in a specific space. These are people I've seen do tech-talks and lead meetups. I specifically joined with the idea of mentorship and gleaning as much information as I could.

What I learned is that some of the ideas being pitched via tech-talk were actually introducing some of the most convoluted and inefficient practices into the department. I learned that some of those individuals were in untouchable ivory tower positions, and crossing them would cost you your job. I learned that upper-management didn't actually know a damn thing about the space and sought after those known entities to cover that gap and make themselves appear more relevant.

Post reply on HN