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95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

danluu.com

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Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#211

Post by junar »

empath75 wrote: post #168
hearthstonebad wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is because improving your rank at hearthstone is a matter of playing as many viable games as possible. the outcome of most matches is mostly dependent on randomness as opposed to player error. The largest source of randomness being the order of card draw, which can turn around a highly favorable or unfavorable matchup between decks. the actions of players have very little impact in hearthstone. in a typical game…

> this is because improving your rank at hearthstone is a matter of playing as many viable games as possible. the outcome of most matches is mostly dependent on randomness as opposed to player error. I think because of the matching system it seems that way because you quickly get to people at your own skill level so randomness and luck feel like they have more of an impact. You pretty much by definition get to player…

Edit: I remembered incorrectly, child comment has a better explanation.

Even if you win exactly 50% of your games, you will still eventually rank up. This is because you gain an extra star when you rank up. For example, let's say you start at rank 3, 4 stars.

* Win: Rank 2, 1 star

* Lose: Rank 2, 0 stars

* Lose: Rank 3, 4 stars

So even though you went 1-2, your rank didn't change.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#212

Post by clarry »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #114
speeder wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learned the hard way that lie is mandatory for some questions. For example: many companies insist on asking how you did "x" (for example solves a conflict of idea of solution) in situation "y" (for example between two teams in same department) and you are obliged to answer something, even if you never been in that situation (a certain multinational company for example asked me that question three times across two dif…

I think you're overcorrecting here. I've been on the other side of the table for questions like that, and the intent is to ensure that you have been in the appropriate situations before. At most multinational companies, resolving conflicts between two engineering teams is an everyday occurrence, and any new hires above entry level are expected to know how to do it. That some people manage to escape the requirement by…

> resolving conflicts between two engineering teams is an everyday occurrence

And how difficult do you think it is to learn this skill?

If it's an everyday occurrence in huge companies, and any new hires above entry level are expected to know how to do it, it sounds like something anyone and everyone will learn. Which sounds like a real easy skill.

If it's a real easy skill, why do you need to have it already when you join? Why can't you learn it on the job, like you learn a bazillion other skills?

This kind of thing comes up a lot with technical stuff... people think that X (something you can look up on wikipedia or SO and teach yourself in an hour or two tops) is really important, therefore they can't hire anyone who hasn't learned X. But whoever they hire must be a person who's super eager to learn new stuff.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#213

Post by peripitea »

malisper wrote: post #197

It seems like most of the top level responses are responding to the title and not the actual argument. The argument Dan is making is that you can easily get relatively good at most activities. This is because most of the people doing those activities aren't actively trying to get to get better. 95th percentile is probably not the best way to put it since there are tons of activities where nearly everyone is trying to…

There are plenty of sports for which I find this still holds true. A lot of it comes down to how much the required skills to be great are around more innate skills (e.g. speed, height, jumping ability) vs acquirable skills (technique, flexibility, problem solving, mental fortitude). It's very hard to be a 95th percentile soccer, basketball, or track athlete without a decent amount of innate athleticism. But I've seen plenty of not-particularly-athletic people get to 95th percentile in things like climbing, grappling, long-distance running, etc.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#214

Post by clarry »

eshyong wrote: post #81
cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

I hope you've found success and happiness in life nowadays! Honestly interviewing is in some ways closer to dating than contests of skill. Sometimes your area of expertise is just not what the team is looking for. Sometimes that company just wouldn't be a good culture fit for you. I've had similar experiences with rejection and I've since learned that interviews are really bad at sorting out good engineers from bad e…

The last two interviews I had involved no coding at all. I got an offer from both companies..

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#215

Post by fyp »

bonoboTP wrote: post #176
krick wrote: post #57

Yeah, no, that's just about lousy definitions. The premise suggests that it's easy to become 95%-ile in anything, say, deadlifting among men who deadlift and not just entire population of the planet Earth. Before I can suggest author to try, he hastily corrects himself, that it doesn't mean "95%-ile among people who practice regularly", so "men who deadlift" is invalid domain after all. Rather, it should be... "peopl…

> Rather, it should be... "people who lifted a thing from the ground at any point of their lives"? Not that impressive. And, sure, just converting yourself from "people who lifted a thing" to "people [of the same sex] who actually go to the gym regularly and deadlift" will get you into 95%-ile of the first, broader domain within a couple of years, because people who regularly deadlift would already be less than 5% of…

> If you always had to be 95th percentile in your current peer group (general couch potatoes, high school championship participants, world championship participants, Olympians, Olympic medalists, Olympic champions, Olympic champions twice in a row), then the 95 just doesn't mean anything. Then you just have to be the single very best according to your logic.

This is the typical experience for the ivy league types common on HN though.

They had to beat their way into the 95% of their zone school, then 95% of their magnet high school, then 95% of their elite college's graduating class, then 95% of their big N corporate ladder, etc.

Despite the filtering at every step of the way, the curve is always bellshaped! And it feels like shit if you find yourself on the left side of that curve among your peers.

But I guess it's healthier to think along the lines of: "What do you call a medical student who finished last in their class? Doctor."

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#216

Post by ericmcer »

His main example is video game playing, which is something many people do at an extremely casual level because engaging in it is so easy (turning on your computer). Reaching the 95th percentile in activities where just showing up requires a level of effort (team-sports, rock climbing, etc) is way more difficult, as people who just want to be entertained for 30 minutes are not present.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#217

Post by zubspace »

shorts_theory wrote: post #171
zubspace wrote: post #79

It's funny, because I started to play Spelunky again after a long absence, which is arguably one of the hardest games to master on your own. I'm not particularly good, played for about 28 hours and have not yet finished the game. (I rarely reach the ice caves...) The thing with this game is: It needs a lot of awareness, patience and you need to know all different kinds of game mechanics. It's not terribly complicated…

Spelunky is an absolutely terrific and soul-crushing game. Though I'm not sure if it's a good example here because most of the mechanics (apart from the absolutely ridiculously arcane series of things you need to do to go Hell) are designed around being amenable to self-discovery. The shortcuts system for each world is very useful for learning all the weird situations which can result in death.

It's the same with every kind of roguelike game:

a) Either you try to go for as long as you can, enjoy dying and discover the endless amount of content and interactions.

b) You bite the bullet, start to read everything there is in forums, wikis or on youtube and see yourself progress further.

To decide, which way to take, there are two questions: Can you play the game just for fun and accept losing a lot? Or do you want to compete with other players?

You can play each game both ways and I think, there must be a place for simply playing for fun. But if you really want to get into the 95%th percentile, there is no other way than go for b) I believe. You won't discover everything there is to know simply on your own. And this is the same for a game like Overwatch as it is for Spelunky or most other deep games. You cannot compete against a community of players.

And even if you know everything there is to know: you could soon learn, that the highscore table is a lot higher than you first thought... Maybe a) was the better way to play the game after all?...

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#219

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

clarry wrote: post #212
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overcorrecting here. I've been on the other side of the table for questions like that, and the intent is to ensure that you have been in the appropriate situations before. At most multinational companies, resolving conflicts between two engineering teams is an everyday occurrence, and any new hires above entry level are expected to know how to do it. That some people manage to escape the requirement by…

> resolving conflicts between two engineering teams is an everyday occurrence And how difficult do you think it is to learn this skill? If it's an everyday occurrence in huge companies, and any new hires above entry level are expected to know how to do it, it sounds like something anyone and everyone will learn. Which sounds like a real easy skill. If it's a real easy skill, why do you need to have it already when yo…

I agree it's not tremendously difficult to learn. The problem is that many people don't have the instinct to learn it. If left to their own devices, they'll just write code satisfying whatever requirements they're given, without any impulse to discuss or question what the requirements should be. I've seen many times where another team said "oh you shouldn't do X, you've gotta do Y instead", and a junior teammate of mine just accepted Y as another requirement instead of thinking about whether it was the right way to go.

So you don't want to give people the level of independent responsibility a senior title carries unless they've already learned how to avoid that.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#220

Post by tzs »

jefftk wrote: post #192
jonplackett wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On desktop the type is sooooo tiny!

You're right: on desktop it would benefit from a narrower column width and somewhat larger text

For articles like this, that are just simple text with nothing fancier than some headers and some lists, would something simple like this be a good way to deal with this?

  body {
    font-size: calc(0.5rem + 2vw);
  }
That sets a font size that gets bigger as you make the viewport wider, so that you keep about the same number of characters per line regardless of viewport size.

I'm just a dabbler with CSS. Is there a better way to say "the font size that gives me about N characters per line of random text"?

(It's 0.5rem + 2vw instead of just some multiple of vw so that if you make the viewport narrow the font doesn't get too small. Better would be something like max(0.5rem, 2.5vw) but max() is experimental and not supported well outside of chrome. I found the calc(fixed + variable) hack on Stack Overflow).

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