Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Entropy Is Fatal

kerkour.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 119 posts

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#91

Post by lbotos »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #39

The author makes a mistake here. It's fine to think of entropy as messiness; that's the Boltzmann picture of statistical mechanics. The mistake is thinking that lowering entropy, or getting rid of the mess, is a satisfactory strategy. Think of it as a negative feedback system, like a thermostat. Keeping entropy low means continually correcting errors. This is a successful strategy only if the world always stays the s…

Thanks for this comment. I work as a senior leader and I've been trying hard to help my teams understand that we should do small mutations and successful mutations are things we should scale.

A lot of people struggle with this disconnect of "the mess" of "variety" but I think your comment helped me to maybe get some more analogy that could help folks get unlocked to the thinking.

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#92

Post by [deleted] »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #39

The author makes a mistake here. It's fine to think of entropy as messiness; that's the Boltzmann picture of statistical mechanics. The mistake is thinking that lowering entropy, or getting rid of the mess, is a satisfactory strategy. Think of it as a negative feedback system, like a thermostat. Keeping entropy low means continually correcting errors. This is a successful strategy only if the world always stays the s…

[deleted]

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#93

Post by sylvain_kerkour »

Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #39

The author makes a mistake here. It's fine to think of entropy as messiness; that's the Boltzmann picture of statistical mechanics. The mistake is thinking that lowering entropy, or getting rid of the mess, is a satisfactory strategy. Think of it as a negative feedback system, like a thermostat. Keeping entropy low means continually correcting errors. This is a successful strategy only if the world always stays the s…

Hi, author here.

Thank you very much for this very precious feedback! I think it way better explain what I wanted to say in "3rd Poison: Momentum".

But, there is an important distinction to make: The China you are describing seems to have way more "available energy" (people and resources) than needed and no really specific goals, while in my experience it's rarely the case for smaller organizations, teams and individuals.

So, how to innovate and avoid starvation while operating on limited resources? This certainly deserves its own post :)

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#94

Post by toss1 »

wildmanx wrote: post #71
toss1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: >> ...a program with more lines of code is better... Immediately reminded me of Bill Gates' comment on how measuring progress on a designing and building a software project by using a Total_Lines_Of_Code metric is about as dumb as measuring progress on designing and building an airplane using a Total_Weight metric. What you want in both is the least amount of code/material that will actually do the…

> Yet so many supposedly intelligent managers use such approaches... Yet so many supposedly intelligent engineers work for such managers...

Yup!

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#95

Post by tomcam »

anigbrowl wrote: post #83
Lyapunov_Lover wrote: post #39

The author makes a mistake here. It's fine to think of entropy as messiness; that's the Boltzmann picture of statistical mechanics. The mistake is thinking that lowering entropy, or getting rid of the mess, is a satisfactory strategy. Think of it as a negative feedback system, like a thermostat. Keeping entropy low means continually correcting errors. This is a successful strategy only if the world always stays the s…

This is why I feel wary whenever I hear the phrase 'best practices'. Although they're generally promoted with good intentions, they're often accompanied by a utilitarian certitude that rapidly hardens into dogmatic inflexibility, followed by defensiveness or outright dishonesty in response to unforeseen consequences. Most 'best practices' are good defaults, but the superlative rhetoric comes with the unstated assumpt…

> a utilitarian certitude that rapidly hardens into dogmatic inflexibility…

Fascinating perspective to me, and probably the right one. The term “best practices“ gives me a warm feeling because I view it as a good starting point, one that will save me some time because others have figured out what not to do. It never occurred to me that best practices would be a static thing.

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#96

Post by soheil »

> So when they have no incentive to take the "right" decisions, they will, most of the time, allocate the available energy towards useless work, sometimes for ego reasons, sometimes by ignorance, sometimes by corruption.

This neatly sums up the reason for Apple's ever expanding set of Animojis with every iOS release.

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#97

Post by soheil »

I wonder what the author's view of the gaming industry is. On the one hand I agree with him that useless work or work that achieves little shouldn't be done. (in case of gaming a lot of work provides entertainment which could have been achieved by other much more efficient means.)

On the other hand we're not gas molecules confined in a chamber. So as much as we'd like to apply the laws of thermodynamics to our lives it just won't work. The reason we exist is a mystery. Usefulness takes an entirely different shape when you're not sure what it is that you're trying to optimize for. Useful to what end?

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#98

Post by soheil »

> Yet, not doing things is what, most of the time, brings the greatest results.

The only result nihilism brings is a slow and dangerous detachment from reality and the world we live in.

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#99

Post by anigbrowl »

tomcam wrote: post #95
anigbrowl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I feel wary whenever I hear the phrase 'best practices'. Although they're generally promoted with good intentions, they're often accompanied by a utilitarian certitude that rapidly hardens into dogmatic inflexibility, followed by defensiveness or outright dishonesty in response to unforeseen consequences. Most 'best practices' are good defaults, but the superlative rhetoric comes with the unstated assumpt…

> a utilitarian certitude that rapidly hardens into dogmatic inflexibility… Fascinating perspective to me, and probably the right one. The term “best practices“ gives me a warm feeling because I view it as a good starting point, one that will save me some time because others have figured out what not to do. It never occurred to me that best practices would be a static thing.

I feel the same way in the sense of not wanting to reinvent the wheel, but I often reflect on how implementation of 'best practice', 'zero tolerance' or other aspirational standards often falls upon administrators who might not have (or want) expertise in the practice area.

Re: Entropy Is Fatal

#100

Post by lazide »

kgwgk wrote: post #86
lazide wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A share buyback is a way to convert extra cash (or new debt) into almost a dividend. It’s gotten popular lately for exactly this tax efficiency reason. It is not a guaranteed way to do it however, as unlike a dividend, there is no way to directly tie the repurchase of shares to x amount of actual long term market value. It often works though, and when markers were going up, it helps.

> unlike a dividend, there is no way to directly tie the repurchase of shares to x amount of actual long term market value I don't understand what you mean. From the point of view of the company - and what you called its significant incentive to go ‘growth’ if I understood your comment - there is no difference between spending $1bn repurchasing shares or distributing dividends.

To the investors there is!

If you spend $1bln buying back shares, that isn’t money in their pocket until they sell. And if they sell, they don’t get any future ‘growth’.

And if the company/economy doesn’t do well next quarter, they’re losing it in the form of decreased stock value, or even implosion/complete loss.

A dividend is direct cash in the bank. Much lower (zero) ongoing risk of losing that payment. But it gets taxed directly at a higher rate.

Post reply on HN