What Lucky People Do Different • Hacker News Board

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#41

Post by zwischenzug » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 6:30 AM UTC

krschultz wrote: post #23

The problem with the cliche "look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are happy doing what you are doing today knowing you could die tomorrow", is that for any day I'm not spending the entire time with family & friends, the answer is NO. You can be sure if I was dieing tomorrow I'd not go to work and spend the whole day lieing on the beach. Unfortunately you can't do what you'd do on your last day on earth, because…

I think you're very much missing the point: if you want to spend all your time with family and friends then find a way to do that - start up a family business, go live in the woods, live on benefits. I suspect the reality is that you want to do more than simply spend time with family and friends.

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#42

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 9:35 AM UTC

stretchwithme wrote: post #29

bhangi wrote: post #10

Whenever I see these kind of articles, two words run through my mind: survivor bias. I'm also unconvinced by the John Galt argument that if Steve Jobs had not taken calligraphy courses, we would not have nice typefaces on computers today. After all, typography predates the Mac and it would have been only a matter of time before someone else figured it out. If you don't believe this, look at practically every major di…

Its only a matter of time before everything is figured out. There have been major discoveries and inventions where more than one person or team were trying to solve a known problem. But is there proof that it is the case "practically every" time?

The book What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly (I've got about 40 pages left in it) makes a compelling argument that it is (though it falls short of "proof," which may be impossible in this case).

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#43

Post by nitrogen » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 9:36 AM UTC

baggachipz wrote: post #17

hoag wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I guess some people (and companies) just like to "Think Different.™" :)

Yes, but that's a clever double-entendre in which they encourage thinking differentLY, as well as encourage you to think about their product, which is (supposedly) different. Aaaaand now that I've killed the joy in this, exit... stage left! poof

I find that analyzing and explaining a joke, phrase, or idiom increases the joy I derive from it. I only wish everyone else agreed.

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#44

Post by delackner » Tue, Apr 12, 2011, 10:17 AM UTC

I'm having conflicting reactions to this article on a few levels. I notice that the entire content of it is simply the cross product of two articles that I read months or years ago, and as soon as he started I was already wondering "is he going to bring up the newspaper experiment...".

So sure enough the whole thing reads exactly as I'd expect. But then I wonder, perhaps it is a sign of my advanced information-hoarding instinct that I have hoovered (dysoned?) up so many of these sort of studies and speeches and clever counterintuitive articles. A mind made up of a vast store of useless factoids.

Finally I throw my hands up and resolve that I am glad to see that this article at least will hopefully expose more people to some very good ideas on living well.

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#45

Post by stretchwithme » Wed, Apr 13, 2011, 9:01 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #42

stretchwithme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its only a matter of time before everything is figured out. There have been major discoveries and inventions where more than one person or team were trying to solve a known problem. But is there proof that it is the case "practically every" time?

The book What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly (I've got about 40 pages left in it) makes a compelling argument that it is (though it falls short of "proof," which may be impossible in this case).

Yeah, I think you'd have to track every innovation there ever was. And that could take a whole weekend.

Re: What Lucky People Do Different

#46

Post by mak120 » Thu, Apr 14, 2011, 3:53 PM UTC

I was recently asked "Why did you learn , especially when there was no scope for its use in your career at the time?". I found out it was an almost impossible to understand concept for the asker.

Most people are so obsessed with counting the pictures, they cannot imagine someone doing something else.