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Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

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Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#91

Post by algaeontoast »

brailsafe wrote: post #37
algaeontoast wrote: post #9

How to effectively learn and balance my use of mental energy. My diagnosis of depression and ADD inattentive-type (my parents were great, but denied that mental health was a factor until I decided to at age 22). I don't fault them, but I know for a fact my years in highschool and college struggling to learn / focus but knowing I had cognitive ability will irk me until the day that I die.

Was going to respond with this as well. At 27 I decided to reflect on my abilities vs test scores and ability to focus and spoke to a doctor. Parents never considered mental health as a factor, and looking back—but without blame—opportunies and growth were missed. Care to expand on your case? Edit: Saw your response below.

Glad to hear I'm not alone with my later-ish diagnosis.

Like you, I don't blame my parents. But I do wonder what I would've been able to accomplish academically when I was in high school and a majority of college if I'd had my diagnosis. Many of my friends in college (both ADD and non-ADD) assumed I had a diagnosis and was just distracted by personal projects to perform academically.

How'd you make up for lost time / improve your work habits after your diagnosis?

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#92

Post by algaeontoast »

gwbas1c wrote: post #60
nicoburns wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can personally attest to being at least 50-70% more creative / productive as an engineer when I'm using stimulants in low-doses and eating right. I'm not saying that ADD/ADHD aren't a thing (as it happens, I'm pretty on the fence about that), but I just wanted to point out that pretty much everyone will be more productive/creative when using stimulants and eating right.

Sometimes I wonder if low-dose stimulants should be available without a diagnosis. Most people don't know this, in the US, a doctor can only prescribe medication for therapeutic use. A doctor can't prescribe someone a low dose of stimulants because that person genuinely enjoys using them, but has no medical need. Thus, I suspect that some doctors will just write down ADD as a diagnosis because someone wants legal acc…

I think the population would generally benefit from legally available low-dose amphetamines or drugs like modafinil.

If it can keep the airforce flying planes for 40hours straight it can probably help people learn more and be better educated.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#94

Post by sebastianconcpt »

AIX2ESXI wrote: post #79
sebastianconcpt wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I swear I cleaned up my room so now I'm heading to choose to lift some sacrifices at the gym.

Yeah, that the concept I am struggling with now. Picking my damn sacrifice (been struggling to quit cannabis, been using it as a crutch since I was teen)

Cleaning the room comes first (as metaphor). Then things will start to align around that and your new, more mature self, will signal you what's the new best use of your time/resources.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#95

Post by SamReidHughes »

molteanu wrote: post #16
jszymborski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have specific suggestions re: peripherals. I've been using the Logitech MX Vertical Wireless lately and it's been a huge improvement from my previous bulky Logitech G600. I'm wondering if there are keyboard set-ups people really like? I'm enjoying my Gigabyte mechanical keyboard, but would be willing to give it up for something that'll let me get more mileage out of my hands/arms.

Mechanical keyboards are nice and all, but by default they still don't solve for that awkward hand position. Take a good look at your hands while you type. Your wrist is bent sideways, your fingers are higher than the base of your wrist since the later is standing on your desk, but the keys are much higher than the desk. Also, since your hands are quite close to one another, you tend to hunch. Now your back will have…

The key press quality of keyboards affects ergonomics too. It doesn’t have to be mechanical, but some cheap keyboards are heinous.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#96

Post by mhuck0625 »

I wish I had learned to appreciate the now so to speak. Too often do I look back and think of the old Andy Bernard quote "I wish there was a way to know you're in "the good old days"

Anymore I try to take a step back sometimes and look at myself objectively and look at what makes me happy so I can appreciate it NOW instead of when time has passed. I think its made me a better father, brother, son and friend.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#97

Post by huehehue »

valgor wrote: post #49
otras wrote: post #5

Learning How To Learn ( https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn ) and Barbara Oakley's book A Mind For Numbers . Completely changed my approach to studying and learning, and my academic efforts after taking it were tremendously better than before. Also related: highly recommend Anki. It feels like magic when the spaced repetition works!

Is it necessary to go through the entire Learning How to Learn course or is there a TL;DR somewhere?

I don't remember who posted it or if it's the same course, but https://workflowy.com/s/E9HW.jGUYboLrGj

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#98

Post by bobosha »

wurp wrote: post #72

Meditation. Download a free 20-minute guided meditation and do it every day. Maybe at some point read "The Miracle of Mindfulness" by Thich Nhat Hanh. I can provide a good guided breathing meditation on request. Meditation will help you be calm and focused. It will help you recognize and work through emotions with a minimum of harm to yourself or others. I'm definitely not advocating self-immolation, but the same tra…

Absolutely second this. Long-time PTSD sufferer here, just meditating 30 mins every day has worked wonders for me.

Re: Ask HN: What things do you wish you discovered earlier?

#99

Post by tracer4201 »

juddlyon wrote: post #70

Here's a couple for web dev: * how DNS works and how to configure common record types * regular expressions - specifically for URL rewriting * setting up good logging and monitoring * asking for help earlier

When you think about scaling your service or application, don’t forget about how your logs will grow. Think about this impact on CPU and disk usage. If you wrote your own agent to ingest your logs, don’t forget to scale up your logging service.

Source: peak traffic event... person who did back of the envelope math based on p99 request size forgot about logs and specifically the increased log event volume.

Machines were about to tip over. I recall having to ssh to hosts to manually kill the log agent process because the logging ingestion service was shitting itself (not properly throttling either) and we had no other levers in place. Lolz did I mention deleting logs on live hosts because logs were just accumulating and not getting cleared off? Now imagine this across 20,000 hosts. Teehee.

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