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The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

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Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#171

Post by rmah »

xiphias2 wrote: post #147
closeparen wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While of course doing a startup is very hard and subject to a lot of unknowable, uncontrollable factors I don’t think it’s quite as dire as a retail investor picking stocks. There’s no “efficient markets” for software products; it’s much more likely that you can spot and exploit an unmet business need near your domain expertise than that you have unique insight into Walmart’s quarterly earnings.

As a sofware engieer I disagree: most software engineers have an edge over dumb analysts in analyzing companies, like Amazon / Apple / Tesla / Google / Walmart / Bitcoin / Ethereum / Goldman Sachs. We may not have a deep understanding in the balance sheet, but being able to read the code, APIs, and protocols (SWIFT vs BIPs, lightning protocol, cryptography books, testing infrastructure for example) we can see and und…

Engineers may have an edge in analyzing company products. But that's not the same as analyzing the company. Not understanding the difference has burned a lot of investors in the past.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#173

Post by pjmorris »

kjerzyk wrote: post #84
spideymans wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

My favorite for teaching cooking, not just recipes, is 'How to Cook,' Julia Child. We have our own and keep a copy at the in-laws for ready reference. We are also big fans of Alton Brown's 'I'm Just Here for the Food.'

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#174

Post by notJim »

DicIfTEx wrote: post #116
kjerzyk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

I was in the exact same position, and I can't recommend Ruhlman's Twenty enough. It goes through 20 techniques/ingredients, from ‘Water’ and ‘Onions’ to ‘Roast’ and ‘Boil’, giving you all the information you might possibly need, and then provides a handful of recipes to explore all the avenues of each. The only downside is that a lot of the recipes include meat and the book never really touches on how to make sensibl…

Seconding Ruhlman's Twenty, it's the book that really taught me how to cook. By focusing on techniques, it allows you to understand that when a recipe says "saute onions on medium-high heat", it really means to sweat them, and what that looks like. So rather than mechanically doing what the recipe says, you understand how the ingredients respond to different treatments, and how to get the results you want based on your equipment. And when watching a cooking show, you can see what the ingredients are doing and understand why, so that you can fill in the inevitable gaps.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#175

Post by joshhogg »

oarsinsync wrote: post #86
brabel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can try to convince yourself that the activity you want to perform is a given, just like eating and showering... you don't think whether you should do it, you just do it. It works for me. I can go to gym religiously 3 days a week, and been doing it for years. Sometimes there's a company online after-hours or something... sorry, can't go , it's my gym day. If you start allowing certain things to stop you from doin…

> You can try to convince yourself that the activity you want to perform is a given, just like eating and showering... I wish these activities were a given. It’s 5pm and I’ve not eaten since breakfast at 8am. I had to force myself to shower. Note: showering wasn’t a problem pre-pandemic and perma-WFH hermit life. Eating, however, still was difficult to remember unless food was brought to me. And even then, sometimes,…

It can help to set more strict 'triggers' for yourself.

ie: - When it is 12, I will take a break for lunch. - At 3 o'clock, I will take a break for a snack and stretch

I get what you are saying, in that once you are in a flow, you don't want to stop. But, you need to be strict about it, like the user you are replying to is saying. Don't let yourself off the hook.

Also, it helps me to realize there is value in stopping and stepping away from something. It helps me recharge, and step away from any problems I am trying to solve.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#176

Post by BeefWellington »

kjerzyk wrote: post #84
spideymans wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

The Joy of Cooking is a bit old but describes the practicalities of cooking fairly well. It's full of recipes yes but there's essentially an entire chapter at the start of each section that outlines different techniques and even how to select cuts of meat, etc. It's fairly basic advice but that + Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat will basically cover "intro to cooking" and give you a good set of the basic recipes to cover off.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#177

Post by slavik81 »

andai wrote: post #155
nemo44x wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to do it every day - creativity comes in bursts and you don't know when it's going to show up so you need to be the one showing up every day to work on it. Hemingway would write (sober) every morning and then be drunk by lunch and for the rest of the day and early evening. But he worked every day for a few hours. People like to focus on his appetite for drinking but he got his work done first.

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Frank Herbert was quoted in "Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers" saying something similar:

"A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.' There's no difference on paper between the two."

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#178

Post by jodrellblank »

throw1234651234 wrote: post #94

I feel like this notion is complete trash if you want to be anything but mediocre. In IT, I constantly have to work OT and take on challenging projects to advance and improve. This has NOTHING in common with showing up and closing tickets, which I can easily do with existing knowledge. Same with the gym - I constantly have to change up the routine, adjust to injuries, think about diet, etc. That's not even talking ab…

All your comment seems rather contradicted by the article, doesn't it?

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#179

Post by nkingsy »

joshhogg wrote: post #145
nkingsy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve lately been playing through the “real book”, sketching out each song quickly and doing a run through, maybe 8 songs per day. In just three months I’m on my third time through and have discovered probably 100 songs I just love to play that I’d never heard before (Ellington is a genius songwriter. “Cottontail” is one that I get excited to see when I flip to it, and I just have to play at least three times). Not ac…

Are you using the leadsheets to improvise accompaniments on each pass or, just enjoy the melodies as written?

On a song like cottontail, I still can’t play it perfectly at speed, so I’ll stick to what’s written until I can.

I fudge together a metronomic base line in the left hand and voice all chords with the right hand so the melody note is at the top (I don’t play the root in the right hand unless it’s the melody note).

Once I can do that easily without any halting or mistakes, I’ll start to improvise.

Wouldn’t dare to play with “real” players as I often haven’t heard the recording and am blissfully unaware of the missing comping, licks, etc. Most of the time when I finally listen to the recording of a song I love, I don’t even like it. No one plays the melody and everyone’s showing off. It’s fun to experience live, but often sounds too busy and aggressive as a recording.

I guess that’s a matter of taste. I enjoy sparse music unless it’s rigorously orchestrated (eg I love listening to Cuban music, which is quite busy, but everything fits together perfectly)

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of just showing up everyday

#180

Post by rmetzler »

kjerzyk wrote: post #84
spideymans wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Knowledge usually works like this. When I first got into home cooking a few years ago, the learning process was painfully slow. It must've taken several attempts spread across a week just to learn how to make basic scrambled eggs the "proper" way. Now after a few years of experience, every ingredient I learn to work with seemingly unlocks a dozen more dishes that I can easily assemble. The rate of learning accel…

Would you mind sharing what you used to learn cooking? My main struggle is recipe books that teach you the recipe rather than cooking. But I'd love to learn HOW to cook, not WHAT to cook.

I think cooking is very similar to programming. You need to basically do it with your hands otherwise you won’t “get” it. The ingredients are one thing. The chemistry behind it is another thing. Both probably easily to teach through a book. Knowing how to hold the knife and how to dice onions fast is something you can only learn by practicing. Even better someone showing it first (eg through a video), but it won’t work without practice.
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