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Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#751

Post by a-saleh »

thisisbrians wrote: post #421
celticmusic wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. This very much screams "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" to me.

A hammer and a nail is also a system. In all seriousness, though — what alternative do you propose? When nothing seems to violate the laws of physics, we can make sense of things using our understanding of those laws.

Alternative could be, sometimes things don't form a system, because 'system' could imply more order and predictability than there really is.

Sometimes stuff just happen, and if you try to look for the system behind, you would see patterns that are not really there.

I would say this is what leads to magical thinking, right?

And I even like magical thinking, all those little nudges where I take a wrong turn, but then meet an interesting person and thing to myself "turns out I was supposed to be here", despite the my second thoughts being buzzkill about "that is not how world works!"

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#752

Post by celticmusic »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #556
starpilot wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take it further, it means that everything is deterministic and there is no free will. I'm not surprised this sentiment is popular on HN.

That's reductio ad absurdum if I've ever heard it. People often follow behavioral patterns, or respond somewhat predictably to various events. That is all.

that sentiment is exactly how many people have gotten convicted for murder. Because it was believed there was a specific way one should react to ones SO getting murdered, and it was wrong.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#753

Post by ISL »

throwlaplace wrote: post #554
ISL wrote: post #531

1) There is no DC. We do our scientific work at millihertz frequencies (one cycle every 1000 seconds or so). The age of the universe is ~13.6 billion years, which corresponds to ~10^-18 Hz. Thinking about the zero-frequency limit is a useful crutch, but all things are always changing. Materials creep, the Earth deforms, temperature changes, aging happens. There is no DC. 2) Small forces for long times yield great cha…

> There is no DC. what does that mean? just because there's ripple doesn't mean it's not DC. DC doesn't mean flat and AC doesn't mean non-flat (AC means periodic).

DC generally means time-invariant/the zero-frequency limit. Offhand, I can't think of a measured physical quantity (aside from the physical constants, so-far observed to be constant within uncertainties) that has been constant for all time.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#754

Post by throwlaplace »

ISL wrote: post #753
throwlaplace wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no DC. what does that mean? just because there's ripple doesn't mean it's not DC. DC doesn't mean flat and AC doesn't mean non-flat (AC means periodic).

DC generally means time-invariant/the zero-frequency limit. Offhand, I can't think of a measured physical quantity (aside from the physical constants, so-far observed to be constant within uncertainties) that has been constant for all time.

but that's like saying there's no such thing as a 1 or 0 (or any number at all). of course. but given enough time/money/effort you can get close to zero frequency right? just add enough smoothing caps and wait right?

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#755

Post by markc »

loh wrote: post #317
Waterluvian wrote: post #137

Life is fleeting. Most of us here are 1/3 or more of the way done. Divest yourself as much as possible from your job. Find other sources of identity. You don't need that fancy car or to buy a boat as much as you need that ejector seat savings account. And when you realise that conditions have evolved to a point where you're not having fun anymore (and they always eventually do), eject yourself and go spend far more t…

Life is definitely fleeting, but we (or most of us) have to work in order to live. The key is finding work to do which doesn't feel like work, but the difficult part to this (for many people but not all) is making enough of an income to live comfortably. In this case, I would say it is perfectly okay and probably a good thing if your identity and your work are one. It is crazy to me to think that so many people spend…

>Family is the most important thing in life. Material things don't matter.

Aye, but there's the rub.

Do you want your kids to live in a safe and healthy town with good schools and a decent home? Do you want them to have nice things and great life experiences? Do you want to be sure they can go to a college that matches their abilities?

Even if you're personally a minimalist without the need for status and luxury, it still costs a lot to give your kids the stuff that makes them flourish.

Your time is probably the most important thing you can give them however, so now you're faced with an optimization problem. How much time with family vs how much money will make for the ideal family life? It's not easy to know.

Since many of us can't find a job we love that pays enough to optimize family well being, there's a need to sacrifice one value for another. You can't always "have it all".

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#756

Post by gaspoweredcat »

ta999999171 wrote: post #113
gaspoweredcat wrote: post #46

a huge amount of the items you buy "new" have actually been opened multiple times.

Why would you work for such a company?

they paid me well and i enjoyed what i did so why wouldnt i

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#757

Post by animesh »

frequentnapper wrote: post #675

that perception is everything. no matter how good you are, but if your work doesn't get noticed by the right people, then your career will suffer. People with good social skills who may be mediocre developers will move up much faster than you, and you will think why is it that you get left behind? Example: You're a senior supporting your more junior devs whenever they run into trouble, and you hardly get credit for i…

Once I got an unexpected praise from a customer for some proxy work I did. I was overjoyed and exclaimed something to the lines of "see, that's how is done." A few days later I didn't get the recommendation letter I was supposed to receive by the same customer. There might be other things at play here or maybe he overshot with the praise. I don't know, but ever since, I don't make much of such praise. I just say thank you and move on.
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