95th percentile isn't that hard to reach • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by nebulous1 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

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…

This is the author's failure, not the commenters'.

In the article he's saying that a lot of people fail to improve because they're practicing wrong. Now that's probably a valid point, and it should have been his thesis. In fact, he probably considers it to be his thesis, but he muddied the waters by providing it with a debatable introduction and title.

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

#222

Post by empath75 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

junar wrote: post #211

empath75 wrote: post #168

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. 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.

except to get back to your original rank you need to win 2 more games.

ranks 3 5 stars and rank 2 0 stars are the same exact rank from different directions.

rank 3, 4 stars + 2 = rank 2, 1 star rank 2, 1 star - 2 = rank 3, 4 stars

You don't get free stars.

You do, however, get free stars on win streaks below rank 5.

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

#223

Post by snowwrestler » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

peripitea wrote: post #213

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…

One of the big factors in outdoor sports is how you define participants. Advocacy groups are usually the ones who bother to do this, and they have a vested interest in making it look as big as possible (so as to better advocate for friendly policy). I think at one point the American Canoe Association defined a boater as anyone who had been in a canoe or kayak at least once within the past year.

Obviously if this is your universe of participants, it makes it a lot easier to get to 95%.

If you define it as anyone who spends time in a canoe or kayak at least once per week, in comparison, that 95% level of ability goes way way up.

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

#224

Post by JamesBarney » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

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…

I think this is a deliberate misreading of what Dan wrote. I think it's obvious he's not talking about physical characteristics, or activities where learned skill has little influence on the outcome.(reaction speed, IQ, deadlifting, sprinting speed, endurance)

And it seems like most of the activities we care about rely on learned skills more than physical traits.

Now also his explanation also relies on how dedicated and competitive the average player is.

But the overall point of the piece is that we probably don't try to systematically improve on nearly as many life skills as we should which I think is a valuable and true insight.

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

#225

Post by the_af » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

huac wrote: post #151

The Overwatch example reminds me of Playing to Win ( http://www.sirlin.net/ptw ), and in particular, "the scrub" section ( http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub ). "A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win."

I always liked the Scrub post by Sirlin, but I think it's too confrontational and likely to generate a negative reaction in the person you're mentioning it to. Nobody wants to be called a scrub.

I'm not into card or videogames, but I like tabletop miniatures wargames (like Warhammer et al) and if you're familiar with them, you'll know there is this stereotype of a gamer derisively called a "WAAC" -- a "Win At All Costs" competitive gamer who will crush you and play in an unsportsmanlike manner and laugh while you lose, because he only cares about winning while you tried to play "thematically" and with honor. If you exclude outright cheaters (which this WAAC thing confusingly includes, even though I think that's a different thing), I think this falls well within the Scrub phenomenon Sirlin mentioned. Non-cheating WAAC players are playing the actual game, "thematic" players are playing a different game under self-imposed limitations not prescribed by the actual rules, and this mismatch results in a lot of grief.

The few times I mentioned Sirlin.net to Warhammer players, it was not well received though. So don't try it...

As a final word, I don't think the Overwatch example fits this phenomenon. The Overwatch thing is players who don't know they are playing badly because they don't get feedback, not players willingly playing under self-imposed limitations and complaining about others playing the actual game ;)

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

#226

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

empath75 wrote: post #222

junar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

except to get back to your original rank you need to win 2 more games. ranks 3 5 stars and rank 2 0 stars are the same exact rank from different directions. rank 3, 4 stars + 2 = rank 2, 1 star rank 2, 1 star - 2 = rank 3, 4 stars You don't get free stars. You do, however, get free stars on win streaks below rank 5.

[deleted]

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

#227

Post by hardwaregeek » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

Much respect for Dan's minimalist site (can't say I've ever waited for it to load) but this much CSS makes it so much more readable:

  html {
      display: flex;
      flex-direction: column;
      align-items: center;
      line-height: 1.2em;
      font-size: 1.1em;
  }
  
  body {
      width: 650px
  }

As for the actual content, I agree with it a lot. I suspect most people are quite bad at learning. It's not something that's taught in schools, and when it is, it's probably lost upon kids due to their lack of executive decision making skills.

For instance, I tutor kids in math. I don't think I'm an amazing tutor. My limited bag of tricks are stolen from my teachers. But what I do provide is a fully concentrated hour long study time with feedback. Which is more effective than 10 hours of slightly distracted studying with little to no feedback.

Basically, improvement is a combo of concentration and feedback. Sounds facile but it does work.

There's a great Donald Glover^[1] quote about this:

> “I realized, if I want to be good at P.E., I have to be good at basketball. So I went home and shot baskets in our driveway for six hours, until my mother called me in. The next day, I was good enough that you wouldn’t notice I was bad. And I realized my superpower.”

[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/05/donald-glover-...

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

#228

Post by hinkley » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #227

Much respect for Dan's minimalist site (can't say I've ever waited for it to load) but this much CSS makes it so much more readable: html { display: flex; flex-direction: column; align-items: center; line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 1.1em; } body { width: 650px } As for the actual content, I agree with it a lot. I suspect most people are quite bad at learning. It's not something that's taught in schools, and when it is…

Oh man. I can't unsee this now.

Why is the text so close to the edge of the screen? It's the same feeling when the gravy is about to touch my dessert.

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

#229

Post by jefftk » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #220

jefftk wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I usually stick in some css like:

    body {
       max-width: 45em;
    }

Viewport size isn't a great clue to the ideal font size: someone can have a large monitor that they're close to, or a small one that they're father from.

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

#230

Post by pja » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #227

Much respect for Dan's minimalist site (can't say I've ever waited for it to load) but this much CSS makes it so much more readable: html { display: flex; flex-direction: column; align-items: center; line-height: 1.2em; font-size: 1.1em; } body { width: 650px } As for the actual content, I agree with it a lot. I suspect most people are quite bad at learning. It's not something that's taught in schools, and when it is…

I always end up hitting Firefox’s readability mode button when reading Dan’s site. Normal browser width is just too wide for wall-to-wall text.