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

Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 579 posts

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#281

Post by techsin101 »

mrhackerpoland wrote: post #42

From my experience: After my startup got acquired, i ended up with lots of money (10s of millions, small start-up) and time. This created a vacuum in my life. I was very sad having finally made it. I had no purpose in life. Since then, Self Acutualization - walking the path devised by yogic culture of spritualism. Cannabis - The king of herbs, it helps me in self Acutualization and achieving state of trance aka ultim…

You could have another goal. Help others achieve same success by mentoring them. For example for my startup, yime.app if I had a mentor doesn't matter how rich just experienced will I could talk to once in a while.. like startup dad. Id be very happy person.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#282

Post by dorchadas »

galfarragem wrote: post #113
monster_group wrote: post #55

Learning Sanskrit. I have spent the last few years learning it and it's been tremendously rewarding. Sanskrit is a beautiful language. Learning it is a great mental challenge and gives great satisfaction (to me). Before learning Sanskrit I had never really pursued a hobby this seriously. Since I have been doing this I no longer feel like a machine who just goes to work, eats and sleeps. Before this, I used to feel gr…

I would say, knowing any foreign language, is a very rewarding skill. I'm not a 'natural' regarding language learning - I've to push it - but it definitely pays. In my case is Slavic languages with emphasis on Polish. It's a long-term hobby.

Same. Language learning is a hobby of mine, and it's been absolutely rewarding. It's allowed me to do university courses through another language, learning more about the culture and stuff of another area. It's also enabled me to connect with more people on their own terms, an experience which has definitely made me a better person.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#283

Post by dwaltrip »

mmirate wrote: post #239
tshannon wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah as a species we're accomplishing much bigger things now than an acre or two of crops. I like to think that we're working towards a bigger goal than simply surviving.

Indeed, and we are able to do so via the artifices of trade and commerce - the only thing that need be agreed-upon is the price, the quantity and the quality.

And things like social norms, etiquette, laws, contracts, and so on...

We are not economic robots.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#284

Post by nkassis »

fredsir wrote: post #275

> Your most important asset is your ability to produce income. I think that's an incredibly sad way to view yourself and your life, albeit I bet that for many people producing income is the single most important thing. I see that as a consequence and a failure of society.

It's more of an incomplete goal than a failure. Humanity has made progress towards reducing the impact of work but there is room for lots of improvement.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#285

Post by mattlondon »

xor1 wrote: post #231
Royalaid wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can contribute some. Mostly it comes when you attack problems and conceptualize your solution to that problem, it does not come when looking for a library or digging through the API. Almost all of the problems you will encounter in your day to day work will be something with an already known solution or use a well known and researched pattern. Knowing the common language and use cases for data structures is probabl…

The most brilliant and successful engineers I know don't have degrees, and they accumulated their vast CS knowledge on their own. They all dropped out of college within the first two years and started working at 19-20. Two of them now run their own software consulting businesses, one is a lead at Netflix, and one is a lead at Google. They're all a bit older than me, in their early 30s now. The younger ones -- one jus…

> Do you believe that you need to the environment, structure, and pace provided by college/university to actually learn CS, and that you're incapable of doing so on your own?

For me, it was not a case of not being able to do it on my own, it was not knowing what I should know.

You could probably spend years becoming an expert on C# or Java or C++ or Go or whatever just by coding in it at your own pace (or at a job) and slowly learning by osmosis/experience/mistakes along the way etc. That's fine. But would you learn the useful theory along the way as well? And if you did, would you bother if someone hadn't created a nice structured syllabus for you? I know that I almost certainly would not had I just stuck to churning out fairly clunky (as I know it was now) code without the formal education in it.

As you said, I am sure some people dont need this though, and somehow just have limitless time or already somehow know exactly what they should learn next, when, and in what order and never need to ask any experienced people any questions to clear up misunderstandings or have their knowledge checked. Lucky them.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#286

Post by [deleted] »

mattlondon wrote: post #142

Computer Science degree. Sure, lots of us "learnt" programming in our bedrooms or whatever by doing our own thing and messing about in whatever language. I went into my compsci degree arrogantly thinking that I pretty much knew how to code already so please just give me the bit of paper saying I have the degree and I'll be on my way thanks very much. I was very wrong. Although I was pretty good at the coding (or at l…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#288

Post by s0rce »

Riding a bike and driving a car. While I didn't really chose to do these (my parents chose for me) they both provide immense use from getting to work, fitness and recreation to exploring the country. I'm glad I learned them young.

Also, I think this has been mentioned, but learning to cook. I never really formally made an effort to learn but my mom is a great cook and I seemed to have absorbed the knowledge/natural ability and over a decade of trial and error I seem to have managed to be decent. Useful day to day and for special occasions. Only downside is eating too much.

Re: Ask HN: What things have richly rewarded the time invested in mastering them?

#290

Post by lc5G »

csomar wrote: post #224

Drinking lots of water. It might not be the same for everyone. However, I have noticed that I rarely drink water. It is interesting that I only noticed that this year (late twenties). The effects on my body and mind were phenomenal. I used to drink less than 1 liter a day. I don't feel thirst. So I don't drink water when I'm dehydrated (because I almost never feel it). Instead, I have a prescribed quantity that I dri…

I tried drinking that much water but it made me wake up once or twice a night having to urinate even if I reduce water intake before bed. I felt that this disrupted my sleep too much to be worth it.

Do you have the same problem? Is there anything I can do about it? For a while I thought I just had a small bladder measuring the amount I urinate showed normal values of roughly 500-600 ml when waking up with a stronge urge to pee. This does make sense to me because the 3 to 4 liters from drinking plus the extra water from food has to go somewhere after all, so I am wondering why other people do not have this problem.

Post reply on HN