don't spend your money on anything except apple stock for the next 4 years.
Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
61–70 of 72 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#62I would be more concerned with my 16 year old self developing their technical skills and social network rather than thinking about doing a startup, so my advice reflects that. -Stay away from python, dynamic typing is a sick joke for anything other than scripts. {controversial} -Good development tools can increase your productivity by an order of magnitude. I'm looking at you, Resharper. -You will get banned from wor…
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Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#63I just came back from a long walk, and wow! Didn't expect to get this many replies. Thanks a bunch to everyone.
Time to go rock climbing, try new stuff every day, and finally get around to finishing my project and starting a new one.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#64Watch all episodes of the first three seasons of Fringe and La Femme Nikita (old version). Read Carroll Quigley, Olaf Stapledon and Jon Rappaport. Question all symbolic media including this message.
Know that time will only provide additional reasons why you must or cannot do XYZ. Thus your task is to safely and soon go beyond claimed boundaries, before you become convinced that they are non-negotiable.
Read "how to code a secure system": http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/27.25.html#subj16 . Life offers the challenge of coding a secure self-modifying mind. As the piece above quotes Seneca, "There is a great deal of difference between a person who chooses not to sin and one who doesn't know how".
One answer to your question is another question. What do you want to say now to your 15-year old self? What if all of your possible future selves were each trying to convince you to bring them into existence? How would you choose between their justifications for existence? Do you consider this to be a security, optimization or spiritual question?
As much historical "hardware" becomes software, historical constraints will disappear. What will be the basis of the new software constraints that we (you) will choose for our shared worlds? Should it be the future worlds/startups with the best team, best marketing or largest cluster of peers?
It is harder than it seems to identify when choices lead to divergent futures, or when all official choices lead to equally undesirable futures. Thus the obligation of every startup and teenager is use their imagination to grow the pool of possible choices, future selves and future worlds.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#65Stop playing computer games, look to HS sports like bb/soccer/baseball/track as a way to learn social interactions instead of playing Diablo 2 and Starcraft.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#66Be yourself, everyone else is taken - Oscar Wilde
IMO no truer words have been spoken. Much unpleasantness would have been avoided had I known . HTH.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#67Let's list some practical things: Eat more bacon. I was a skinny teenager. After I was 22 I gained a lot of weight. I'm 33 and finally discovered keto/low carb eating and it's working wonders. I recognize that I never really had the interest in doing sports growing up, so if 16 year old me kept to a low carb diet we'd have maintained a low weight through the years. Finish college. It's a real popular idea to drop out…
It's the increased protein and reduced kcal intake (greater satiety by protein + less choice by excluding vast amounts of food groups) that works. No need to go very low carb/keto.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#681. Read Books. Alot. On life, programming, startups, entrepreneurship, design, health and finance. 2. Get a ton of deliberate exercise as much as you can 3. Time infront of the computer should be for building or learning, not playing games or surfing 4. Try a simple business. Any business 5. Travel 6. Learn a martial art 7. Swim alot 8. Watch the top 30 films in the AFI 100 9. Go to bed on time every night. 10. Do an…
Speed-reading (applicable to most non-fiction) helps with #1. Yes, it works. The brain can derive meaning faster than we can speak or mechanically move our eyes. Basic SR techniques can be picked up in a few days of practice and self-timing of reading speed. Given increasing advances in mobile sensors, we'll soon realize the value of optimizing how we use our biological sensors.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#69Stop eating gluten. Go rock climbing. Find a summer job. Keep studying.
Re: Ask HN: What would you tell your 16-year-old self?
#701. Read Books. Alot. On life, programming, startups, entrepreneurship, design, health and finance. 2. Get a ton of deliberate exercise as much as you can 3. Time infront of the computer should be for building or learning, not playing games or surfing 4. Try a simple business. Any business 5. Travel 6. Learn a martial art 7. Swim alot 8. Watch the top 30 films in the AFI 100 9. Go to bed on time every night. 10. Do an…
Speed-reading (applicable to most non-fiction) helps with #1. Yes, it works. The brain can derive meaning faster than we can speak or mechanically move our eyes. Basic SR techniques can be picked up in a few days of practice and self-timing of reading speed. Given increasing advances in mobile sensors, we'll soon realize the value of optimizing how we use our biological sensors.
I tried it. I learned speed reading at a pretty young age, so I can do it, but for now I feel it's not right for me. I'm reading books to contend the points presented, really understand why the author is saying what they're saying and understand how that affects my life and what i need to do to change. While i might able to derive what is being said very quickly, i dont feel i can go through the whole thought process so fast. I need to take my time with each chapter and really absorb it before moving onto the next.