[deleted]
Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
101–110 of 257 posts
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#102Being already known by my friends and family to be an "overthinker" and prone to "analysis paralysis", I sometimes wonder why I'm still a SWE. I've slowly started to realize over time that my profession is filled with overthinking and over-engineering, and that our interview process can even select for it. IMO its hard to be the person that aces the technical interview gauntlet then walks out of the building and turn…
Recently I've been interviewing and assessing technical tests regularly. We have this one technical coding challenge. Most of the submissions are 1000+ LOC and quite heavily engineered. One submission though was 300 LOC, runs 3x as quick as everyone elses and is the only one to get 100% in our acceptance tests. The author was very self-deprecating about it - describing it as a quickly cobbled together submission. I'm…
Generally speaking, the less complicated something is, the less weird combinations of states one can find themselves in.
Now you probably shouldn‘t code golf either, but KISS works as an operating principle for a reason.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#103thinking too much certainly does not help with sex
or with attracting a mate in the first place.
"Just be yourself" essentially means "Stop thinking... about how to look confident, how to impress her, etc." Such thinking usually yields the exact opposite effect.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#104It is not really "not thinking", but not using your conscious mind, which can only focus on a single thing. You think with your subconscious mind too. But this can do multiple things at the same time, way faster than the logical mind. The harder you focus on a single thing, the more you ignore the entire system and the slower you perform. It is not just instinct as the article say, a tennis player does not play by in…
There is a word that is missing from the language or at least common usage, and that is differentiating something done with conscious effort of every little detail, and something you just do without thinking about it. (there are probably lots of words which somewhat fit the bill) The hardest way to do something is complete conscious control of every step, the easiest way is something you can do perfectly on autopilot…
"Tacit knowledge" I think captures what you are talking about. Its the knowledge embedded in our bodies and automatic responses. Most commonly this can refer to mechanical tasks, like when you go on autopilot while driving.
It can also be used to describe mental tasks and ways of thinking. An engineer has tacit knowledge that shapes their natural way of thinking and intuition. A novelist, a nurse, or a tailor, in contrast, will have very different mental structures.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#105thinking too much certainly does not help with sex
Absofuckinglutely. Too much mind. My arsenal for this includes: Beer, wine, wine coolers, hard cider, stoli vodka, malibu, rum, champagne, cbd isolate sublingual tincture, music, Hue mood lighting, candle-like scents, soft sheets, massage, MIV, cell phones in the microwave (faraday cage), and not talking about anything current. If involved parties aren't relaxed, it's unlikely to be that good.
The alcohol definitely cuts out the overthinking, or any thinking at all. If you are a good soul at heart, the real you that comes out when inebriated can be quite charming, and the opposite if you the real you is a jerk.
But it isn't the always greatest thing for the actual sex.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#106Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older. Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all…
You might want to check that thread from 1 week ago or so ; "Me and ADHD" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25992390 I'm not diagnosing you or anything but that thread put me on to the fact I might have that type of wiring too ... it would explain a lot ( for me ) and possibly some of that ^ ? [ EDIT ] Anxiety is hands down my primary problem, but sometimes some issues can obfuscate others, and cause deductive fal…
Yeah my mum and sister (around 65 / 35 years old) were diagnosed last year. I'm thinking I should go along soon since it runs in families. For some reason it's not that easy to book these things in when you have trouble planning and following through on stuff :)
My mum also had insomnia for years. She did get some sleeping pills as a twice a week "reset" and I think a lot of mental issues are exacerbated by poor sleep leading to weak willpower so that could help. But she said the ADHD meds helped a lot with her sleep too.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#107Well the approach of a certain successful EV CEO certainly seems to follow this advice.
(Though snarky, this is a reasoned observation/opinion after reading the article in full)
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#108Being already known by my friends and family to be an "overthinker" and prone to "analysis paralysis", I sometimes wonder why I'm still a SWE. I've slowly started to realize over time that my profession is filled with overthinking and over-engineering, and that our interview process can even select for it. IMO its hard to be the person that aces the technical interview gauntlet then walks out of the building and turn…
> the ability to scope things down to what exactly what matters
In the last few years, I started shifting my focus from what variety of cases to handle with an elaborate solution, to what possible cases I might be blocking with a simple solution. Gratuitous YAGNI was an important intermediate step in that process. It might not be very FAANG-friendly (or it might not scale to four-digits-engineers regardless of brand), but both in terms of real life performance and peer feedback, it's yielded very good results.
While the first is prone to becoming a bottomless pit of SWE-self-pleasuring; the latter is actually very useful in coming up with something that's cheap, easy and maintainable, but still flexible enough -- which doesn't necessarily mean extensible! Ease-of-refactoring is another flavor of flexibility, and that's where I found this kind of thinking beating YAGNI alone.
One actual drawback I see is that it makes DRY difficult to achieve, but the more people I work with, the more I'm becoming disillusioned with that anyway. It's such an overly adaptable dogma to generate work that is often pointless, and becomes harmful so easily. I think we found so much comfort in "don't type the same thing twice" (though I still try to keep it to 3) that we don't stop to think about "don't maintain the same information twice" anymore. But this is 3AM rambling, so I'll stop here.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#109Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older. Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all…
I really do think that I personally made the mistake of allowing myself to think actively in bed and like a pebble down a mountain it is suddenly an avalanche that feels impossible to stop. I have to be completely exhausted in order to get to sleep reasonably quickly after going to bed. I might try meditation at some point... but yes my mind as well suddenly turns on. I also seem to drift off lightly for some period…
Yes me too! It definitely feels like something I trained myself into during my teens. I don't know why but I guess the quiet time lead to contemplation of all my teenage troubles. I do the same on bus rides since I used to catch the bus for school every day and had one of the longer rides. The problem is I actually enjoy it so it's hard to stop.
I also drift off and notice it and jerk wide awake. Sometimes with hypnagogia, shadows take the form of bad people or I see spiders hovering or running across my vision. It's a bit disturbing and definitely doesn't help when I get an adrenaline response. I seem far more prone to it when I'm very tired and parts of my brain are shutting down but this one stubborn conscious area keeps me up.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#110[deleted]