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Work Hard (2007)

terrytao.wordpress.com

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Re: Work Hard (2007)

#4

Post by herodoturtle »

> there is an important distinction between “working hard” and “maximising the number of hours during which one works”. In particular, forcing oneself to work even when one is tired, unmotivated, unprepared, or distracted with other tasks can end up being counterproductive to one’s long-term work productivity, and there is a saturation point beyond which pushing oneself to work even longer will actually reduce the total amount of work you get done in the long run

Worth highlighting, for those of you that are skipping through.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#5

Post by snakeboy »

Off-topic, but why is it that Terry Tao's blog attracts such low-quality comments? When I look at SSC/ACX, Shtetl-Optimized, Marginal Revolution, etc. the comments are mostly constructive, engaged, and well-informed. With Tao, it's a huge proportion of random people asking for generic life advice, or fanboy-ism.

This seems counter-intuitive, because Tao's blog is by far the least accessible of those above 3 blogs on a technical level. There's almost no reason to visit Tao's blog if you don't have a graduate maths degree.

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#6

Post by thaumasiotes »

snakeboy wrote: post #5

Off-topic, but why is it that Terry Tao's blog attracts such low-quality comments? When I look at SSC/ACX, Shtetl-Optimized, Marginal Revolution, etc. the comments are mostly constructive, engaged, and well-informed. With Tao, it's a huge proportion of random people asking for generic life advice, or fanboy-ism. This seems counter-intuitive, because Tao's blog is by far the least accessible of those above 3 blogs on…

> When I look at SSC/ACX, Shtetl-Optimized, Marginal Revolution, etc. the comments are mostly constructive, engaged, and well-informed.

There are constructive, well-informed comments on Marginal Revolution, but I wouldn't call them the majority...

Re: Work Hard (2007)

#9

Post by gonehome »

snakeboy wrote: post #5

Off-topic, but why is it that Terry Tao's blog attracts such low-quality comments? When I look at SSC/ACX, Shtetl-Optimized, Marginal Revolution, etc. the comments are mostly constructive, engaged, and well-informed. With Tao, it's a huge proportion of random people asking for generic life advice, or fanboy-ism. This seems counter-intuitive, because Tao's blog is by far the least accessible of those above 3 blogs on…

Tao has gotten a lot more public media attention for the most part (Netflix, shows, TV, news, etc.) than any of the others which remain more niche. I'd guess as a result the audiences of the others are better selected to lean more high quality.
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