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Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#491

Post by joseda-hg »

eru wrote: post #475
ayewo wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The steps in this witty quote helps puts things in perspective as what anyone should do first when in doubt: "Make it work, make it correct, make it fast".

And the 'fast' can be optional. But sometimes you already have something that works, is correct and fast, but you still want to simplify: for example, when understanding _why_ that code is correct is too annoyingly complicated to explain and understand.

It breaks the flow of the quote, but it really should be 'make it fast enough'

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#492

Post by fsckboy »

aguacaterojo wrote: post #218
stevejb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why this comment? This was a really interesting anecdote about how complicated situations in life can be.

i think that the story is loaded with about 80% superfluous context and 20% story. op worked at us airforce base managing access control to global intel systems. he delegated authorisation check to jr. jr told op they checked out, however, jr had not adhered to latest security protocol that required cross checking request against request database, relying instead only on physical credentials. op granted access howeve…

and he doesn't sound humbled

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#493

Post by djeastm »

mablopoule wrote: post #129
massysett wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd think that he beat me at one thing by neglecting another, but nope, the guy was excelling in every category. This is literally impossible. A person cannot be Einstein and Picasso at the same time. A person cannot be Steve Jobs and Pope Francis at the same time. We all have limited time in life, and it is only possible to excel in one thing by focusing on it and, as a result, not focusing on something else. Th…

You just need to meet someone like that, they are rare but they exists. It doesn't means that they are good at everything , just that they are better than you in every way. I had a colleague like that. She was super nice, super smart, very good looking, was well-balanced emotionally, and dated a professional athlete. The kind of person who has a very good career, and then train for the marathon on the weekend. Even h…

>Even her name sounded cool.

I don't know why, but I found this hilarious. Was her name "Max Power"?

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#494

Post by Dangeranger »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #141

I was a full-time mom and military wife when my kids were little. We moved into a 2 bedroom, 50 year old duplex at a new duty station and there was a low-ceiling basement that was mostly consumed by a giant boiler but there was one low-ceiling room down there and we made it a playroom because our two kids were sharing a really tiny bedroom. So we set up a TV down there and it's a rental so we don't want to drill hole…

New eyes, new mind, freedom of ideas.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#495

Post by CoastalCoder »

mhaberl wrote: post #450
bitwize wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the early nineties. If you've touched a computer, companies would assume that any skill gap you had you could straightforwardly bridge yourself, on the job. It wasn't like today where you have to be a perfect cinnamon roll of a candidate who ticks all of HR's required-skill checkboxes before you can move on to the grueling 5-6 rounds of interviews.

This is so true. I remember one of my interviews that went well in the end. In the middle of the interview, they mentioned using Java and building web apps. At the time, I was a C++ developer with no web development experience. I said: "I never did web development," and their response was, "You do know how to write source code, don't you?" I said: "Of course I do, but..." They cut me off with: "You will pick it up, d…

Maybe they figured knowing C++ was a sign of your general programming aptitude?

Also, how right were they?

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#496

Post by neilv »

mr-wendel wrote: post #187

Caught a senior sysadmin in a small company using a proxy on our infrastructure to hide misc web browsing from oversight. The logs were the give-away. It was typical misc IT/nerd news stuff... the kind of thing a different company culture (which did come later) would actually encourage. I was sure the right thing to do was to report it to the CEO (there wasn't anyone else higher in the hierarchy to consider) for cert…

A humble and honest story of growth.

Normally, depending on the circumstances, you might have a quiet and subtle word with someone about something they really can't be doing, whether because it's a real problem, or because of some silly political reason.

But it's also worth mentioning that someone's slightly mischievous "just something to browse reddit" could actually be cover for a covert channel or backdoor, intended for some darker other purpose, such as exfiltrating data, or providing access to criminals. Or it could have innocuous intent, but be a weakness exploited by an attacker. Or it could someday inadvertently be a red herring diversion that slows response while investigating a real attack.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#498

Post by theoriginaldave »

Easily, this Ted Talk!

How to tie your shoes https://www.ted.com/talks/terry_moore_how_to_tie_your_shoes?...

I had randomly had shoes untie all my life. I had to teach myself to tie them consistently the same direction.

I can't believe I was never taught this, much less learned it on my own.

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#499

Post by wantsanagent »

nicbou wrote: post #78

In college, meeting someone that was better than me by every conceivable metric. You'd think that he beat me at one thing by neglecting another, but nope, the guy was excelling in every category. Perfect grades, involved in many communities, and generally pleasant to be around. There was no caveat, no excuse. Dude just straight up rocked. I have met more people like that while travelling. I felt badass riding my moto…

“Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

Hiro used to feel that way, too, but then he ran into Raven. In a way, this is liberating. He no longer has to worry about trying to be the baddest motherfucker in the world. The position is taken. The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen bomb. If it wasn't for the hydrogen bomb, a man could still aspire. Maybe find Raven's Achilles' heel. Sneak up, get a drop, slip a mickey, pull a fast one. But Raven's nuclear umbrella kind of puts the world title out of reach.

Which is okay. Sometimes it's all right just to be a little bad. To know your limitations. Make do with what you've got.”

― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Re: Ask HN: What was your most humbling learning moment?

#500

Post by kseifried »

Watching a video of a chimpanzee eating a banana at the zoo a few years ago and I realized I was peeling bananas wrong my whole life. Would you have them open with a knife or a key on the stem side. It turns out there’s a better method. You just pinched the end and then peel it.
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