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Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#221

Post by bilsbie »

nahname wrote: post #214
IgorPartola wrote: post #166

Always take sides. By not taking a side you are automatically wrong. This doesn’t mean you should engage in identity politics, etc. but when faced with a choice take the time to make an informed decision. If you say something “should be a thing” you are automatically now in charge of creating it or convincing someone to create it. Do not tell people who are working on things that they should realize your idea if you…

>Pick people, not projects. I follow this as well and it makes life better.

I think “the office” is the best example of this. It seems like it would be a terrible job to sell paper but it still seems like a really fun place to be.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#222

Post by AuthorizedCust »

Never internalize advice based on folklore. That means you must critically review, and mostly reject, all common-wisdom advice given to you.

People who appear to be founts of knowledge and wisdom are often fools spreading harmful folk advice just to feed their self importance.

Not all things can be known, even with our flooded-by-evidence culture. But that doesn’t validate folklore.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#223

Post by jart »

javajosh wrote: post #203
pmoriarty wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead." You're lucky you didn't meet Stanislaw Ulam, who, when anyone told him about a project they were working on always responded with "What is that compared to E=mc^2 ?"

Ulam picked a strange place to stop zooming out. After all, E=mc^2 will be forgotten, too. Even now it is "forgotten" in the sense of not being understood by most of humanity. There is no static human achievement (scientific, artistic, or political) that survives into Deep Time. Consider that our most durable artifacts are the religious ones - some humans truly believe them to be otherworldly and precious beyond meas…

You talk about E=mc^2 like it was some kind of Mayan idol waiting for Indian Jones to uncover. In a way I guess that's true. But Einstein wasn't the one who placed it there, so if the knowledge is forgotten then that just means someone else will eventually get the thrill of discovery.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#224

Post by curiousgal »

SwiftyBug wrote: post #146
jemmyw wrote: post #125

After you've been lying or sitting and you get up and go for a wee, once done press up just behind your balls. Oftentimes that pushes out a big drip that was otherwise going to come out later once you had your pants done up. The best abstract advice I've been given is to say "I don't know" when I don't know. No waffle, no bullshit, no trying to save face. Saves a lot of time.

The peeing advice is gold! One day I just discovered that on my own and it changed everything.

No pun intended?

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#225

Post by onos »

jart wrote: post #98

I was one of the people who implemented Google's top-level domain system. One day in the microkitchen I met Vint Cerf and told him what I worked on. He very curtly told me that he hates generic top-level domains, they confuse consumers, and ICANN should have been focusing on making .com / .org / .net better instead. It surprised me when I learned that I'd spent the last four years of my life working on a project wher…

Out of the pot and into the frying pan, eh?

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#226

Post by deskamess »

Bakary wrote: post #190
nonasktell wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone reading this and thinking about spending your last 10 bucks on a programming book please use Libgen or a free mooc

Reference books are the one thing it's a good idea to spend money on, because flipping back and forth through a digital copy is still a miserable experience

If they can make flipping a finger pinch worth of pages somehow doable that would be killer. Some sort of wide-pinch gesture with a semi transparent overlay of the page you are going to flip to with your current pinch width.

A foldable reader with readable panels on each sides when you open it. You can flip pages either way. Pen for annotation if possible. Create/edit your own documents. An icon tap to overlay another document (a note, book page, research paper) so you can add to it or copy from it to the underlying panel.

A reader mode (distraction free) when simply reading. A document mode when you are doing something that requires writing (including simple annotations).

I like books and flipping through them. However if you can blend a book reader with a great note taker that would be ideal.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#228

Post by chiefalchemist »

javajosh wrote: post #124

My mother told me to not care what other people thought. She also told me that words can't really hurt people ("sticks and stones..."). She also believed its "mean" to have any preference about people, calling it a version of "keeping score". In fact, "keeping score" was one of the worst things you could be accused of in my household. Her advice fails to accept the reality of social and emotional needs. It also fails…

Fascinating. I'm finishing up "Art of Possibility" by R and B Zander. They make a case for not keeping score, and for creating - and believing in - a construct beyond traditional bounds. And then walk through examples.

I'm not doing it justice. And yes, it's a bit abstract. But it might be worth your time.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#229

Post by Bakary »

Time is the greatest resource, but energy management is your greatest goal. You will always run out of energy before you run out of time.

If you have a life where you pursue autonomy, the development of your capacities, and a sense of meaningfulness in what you do, you'll be able to withstand and enjoy much more than you think. If you don't pursue these things, everything will be harder.

Simply spending your time with more intentionality and being conscious of each moment changes so much.

It's easier to find satisfaction in goals outside of your own self, because they introduce a finite boundary whereas the self is infinite in its desires

Try to picture what a confident and well-adjusted person would do in the same situation, to determine if you are currently acting out because of trauma or fear.

If you have a habit, ask yourself what it will look like if it continues uninterrupted for decades. Conversely, try to picture what a habit you don't currently have could do for you over the same timespan.

Re: Ask HN: Advice that changed your life?

#230

Post by leobg »

mojomark wrote: post #188

I have two mantras that I heard at some point early in life and they have immensely helped me over the years: 1.) "Just remember that it's a grand illusion." - Dennis DeYoung. Human society is a made up thing job titles and heirarchies or castes, companies, governments, money, opinions, labels ("gay", "straight", "married", "healthy", "insane", "impossible")... the whole lot of it - all made up by humans. There is no…

Very true. The fabric of society is much more permeable than one would think. Many rules are not as hard as you think. Things that you’d think can never happen can actually happen, and will, if you just ask. Not asking is like the elephant that allows himself to be tied down by a flimsy string, simply because he never dares to pull and test its strength (which seems to be the prime metaphor of learned helplessness).
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