191–200 of 286 posts
> When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it. Yup, look closely in the place you expected it to be. Something may be on top of it, or it may have fallen off.
Could someone elaborate on "Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points" ?
The higher-IQ person is more likely to get it right the first time. But there won't be much conviction on try No. 2, and after that, his/her position will be: "It doesn't work. Can't be done. Dumb idea."
In a lot of work that I see, the IQ adjustment might be more like 10-15 points. For gnarly problems, we might still get better results with the really smart guy who's not 100% invested. And even grouchy geniuses can get enthused once they see that their ideas might work in a problem that has most other people stumped.
Still, for problems that just require a lot of different attempts until something clicks, well-aimed enthusiasm can work wonders.
Shakespeare knew what to do with people who proffer great quantities of unsolicited advice; look what happened to Polonius. A bunch of these are good, a bunch are just... OK, and some are questionable or just a matter of simple opinion. A lot just reek of "truthiness"; a sort of middle-brow confidence about art/business/doing stuff that's manages to frequently just pass off made-up bullshit as authoritative. The "rul…
E.g., the phrase "It is what it is" is on the surface tautological and useless. But in context, it's a valuable reminder about coping with some of the flaws in human consciousness.
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The author of that post isn't in software; he's a writer and editor. E.g., he founded Wired magazine, and runs Cool Tools: https://kk.org/cooltools/
OK, so perhaps it extends to journalism. It's a sentiment I would have agreed with wholeheartedly when I was in software, and here in veterinary medicine I know that training is difficult, people with seemingly high aptitude often don't help you train them, and experience is a great measure of someone's ability.
He's pretty clearly talking about creative work here, where the goal is to make new things. Whereas the goal of most of medicine, presumably yours included, is to reliably do a known thing. If I'm going to have surgery, I'm going to find a surgeon who has done the procedure a large number of times, because there's a clear expected outcome, and a deviation from that likely means failure.
A useful tool here might be the Cynefin framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework
You're talking about work that's mostly in the Obvious and Complicated buckets. He's talking about work in the Complex and Chaotic domains.
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Spot on! I once read that Warren Buffet doesn't recommend leverage greater than 1.4x and I can only say I agree fully. The fact that most of the people find 5x leverage "normal" is scary.
Yet Warren Buffet has made most of his wealth through either normal leveraging or leveraging using his insurance companies' float. https://www.nber.org/papers/w19681
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You cut out the meat of the advice. The point is that you may not need the tools to last a lifetime; you buy a cheap set first, and then replace the ones you actually use with the quality ones, for the reasons you explain. This prevents you from spending excess money on tools you don't use.
Exactly. Buying pro-grade anything before you have proven need is a giant waste. A while back I was thinking I wanted a standing desk. My first urge was, "Find the best and buy it!" Instead I prototyped something out of an ironing board and a highly adjustable laptop stand. That's been adequate for months, and it's taught me a lot about what will work for me, and what "best" actually means. Eventually I'll get around…
I wonder if people arguing against the "cheapest thing that will work, then learn" also argue in favor of over engineering systems to address requirements that may come months or years from now.
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I suspect you live in the US. "Train for skills" is much more common in other countries, although less common than it used to be. Those experienced hires didn't get to be experienced at zero cost to anyone - other employers enabled them to become experienced. Be a good employer and do your part of the process: train for skills (so that someone else can hire those people too)
Sure, I'll just go ask my HR department to generate a training plan and hire a training department for my 9 person practice.
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And that's why there are products to insure you against this risk called payment protection insurance (PPI). It's a shame that in the UK, PPI is now synonymous with mis-selling. The true cost of debt should be the interest rate and the costs to insure the debt (buildings insurance, landlords insurance, car insurance, PPI...)
How are they working out right now? It's one thing for an insurer to have a steady but small stream of policy payouts; it's another when half of your customers suddenly need a bailout at the same time.
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This is one piece of advice that sound true and insightful, but in my opinion doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. An example of what I mean is the saying "perfect is the enemy of good", which directly conflicts with the above. Since I'm from the north, outdoor gear is a good example of this — there is no hardshell jacket in the world that ticks every box in my checklist. I've been through the lineup of both known and…
a number of months? I'm 56 and have spent some fraction of my entire life devoted to the hardshell question. For me, my current Berghaus (bought while visiting the UK) ticks every box. Just perfect. But that took 40+ years to get to, not a few months.