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

Are you paid to look busy?

pbs.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 223 posts

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#171

Post by alayne »

DougWebb wrote: post #158
WalterBright wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inversely proportional to your odds is success, though. I seriously doubt that is true. > For many people the stakes are a bit too high: Starting a business with little capital has little downside risk, especially if you are already unemployed. BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. A friend of mine started his own businesses tuning up peoples' cars in their driveways so they didn't…

BTW, I started my business with nothing more than an ordinary computer. Really? Nothing more? You were out in the middle of an empty field, with a computer that you somehow acquired for free, and with that you were able to start a business? What kind of business was that?

Why are your comments in this thread so rude?

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#172

Post by eaurouge »

hawkharris wrote: post #54

This reminds me of a study focusing on soccer games. It analyzed A) how often players shot goals toward the left, middle and right sides of the net; and B) how often goalies responded by jumping toward the left, middle and right sides. The stats revealed a surprising phenomenon. Though opposing players shot toward each area of the goal evenly — about 33% of the time — goalies jumped toward the left or the right 80-90…

You're referring to penalty kicks. And I think the study you refer to is discussed here: http://www.scienceofsocceronline.com/2009/04/penalty-kicks-b....

That discussion gets a number of things wrong and trivializes the odds against the goalkeeper. Any goalie preparing for a match in the sudden death stages of a tournament, like the World Cup [1], would study previous kicks from the opposing players. The players also study goalkeepers past shootouts. So any pattern the goalkeeper chooses to adopt influences the direction of future kicks by opposing players, and vice versa. In other words, if I know that the opposing goalie stays in the center, as a rule, 30% of the time (heck even 10%), there's no way I'm going to shoot down the middle. I'm going to go for the right or left corner to increase my odds.

Going down the middle actually requires more skill than the linked article credits it with. As a player, you'll have to disguise the direction and you'll want to aim for the upper half (if it's too low, the goalie can save with the feet), meaning you could miss and hit the bar or worse, row Z.

The reason goalies don't just stay in the center is that it's more likely that the opposing player would aim for the bottom left/right corners. And if a goalkeeper spent more time in the center, he/she increases the odds further that shots against that particular goalie would go to the bottom left/right corners.

I think the reason most penalty kicks go to the bottom left corner (left from the player's perspective) is that most players are right-footed and they can strike the ball with more force to their left than (with the open foot) to their right. With enough speed and accuracy, a shot to the bottom corner (just sneaking by the post) will beat the goalie even if the goalie dives in the right direction. A shot to the upper corner will always beat the goalie; just can't get there in time. But shots to the upper half of the goal are tough, especially when you consider that the player is very likely suffering from nerves at the time.

1. 32 days, 8 hours and 45 minutes from now, yay!!

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#173

Post by xrange »

ScottBurson wrote: post #147
paulhauggis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds great, but you still need money to survive. This would mean that the few that did work would essentially be supporting the rest of society. Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of…

> You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of your life. Indeed. I think you and Bucky are more in agreement than you realize. Bucky isn't suggesting that people go home and drink beer and watch TV for the rest of their lives. He is urging them to think , to be creative, to find themselves. Starting a business, for those so inclined, would be an outcome I think he would celebrate.…

Is there some test that we could perform to identify whether we are living in that type of world? Would someone from say, 1848 think that we're already there, and most people would apparently prefer to work crappy jobs than live a life measureably better than the majority of people who lived in 1848?

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#174

Post by copperx »

chadcf wrote: post #105
paulhauggis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds great, but you still need money to survive. This would mean that the few that did work would essentially be supporting the rest of society. Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of…

> Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? Why do people start million dollar businesses now when they can work at McDonald's or work at a call center or or teach schools or be a policeman or or or... It's almost like some people are naturally motivated to do certain thing…

Exactly. I don't know why some people think that economic stability is everything to humans. Fame and recognition are so much stronger motivators than money.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#175

Post by tim333 »

DougWebb wrote: post #156
WalterBright wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Starting any business requires capital. Not really. A large number of businesses can be started with essentially nothing. Rowling wrote "Harry Potter" on a yellow pad, for one example.

Did she live in a house made of yellow paper, and eat yellow paper as well? Who paid for the yellow pads? And how did her scribblings on the yellow pad become a best-selling novel? Did she just leave the pad in a bookstore and charge people to read it there? Maybe starting a business doesn't require much capital, but running it until it becomes self-sustaining (or fails) sure does.

JK Rowling was basically on social security payments from the government which paid for accommodation, food and the like. I'm not sure that would normally be considered capital.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#176

Post by dang »

zanny wrote: post #123
hippich wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Initially I wanted to write about proprietary/opensource software, but knew people here will downvote it, so brought up different example. But I am glad you got message :))

I don't care if people downvote me, the only reason to read the comments anyway to is to get other peoples insight into the matters of whatever the threads subject is. Doesn't it defeat the purpose of being here if you are afraid to speak your mind? I have plenty of unpopular opinions, but until someone can persuade me with facts and reasoning and not an arbitrary Internet number that I'm wrong I'll keep espousing th…

Complaining about downvoting is the archetype of off-topicness in HN comments. Please don't.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#177

Post by eli_gottlieb »

paulhauggis wrote: post #55
ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

This sounds great, but you still need money to survive. This would mean that the few that did work would essentially be supporting the rest of society. Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of…

> Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything??

Our time to actually get on with better lives is running out while you capitalists poison the planet and quite literally work the human race to death. Climb the Hierarchy of Needs to higher levels, or we will drag you up there by force ;-).

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#178

Post by eli_gottlieb »

zo1 wrote: post #74
ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

"We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed" You make it seem like there is some entity or group of entities that thinks "Hey, let's go make up jobs". For what reason, you ask? Well, because he has to "justify his right to exist". That puts your argument in the same bucket as "karma", "quantum wellbeing", "deepak-nonsense" and "homeopathy". Seriously though. What is that rant…

>People don't have a right to exist.

Uuuuh, says you?

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#179

Post by tim333 »

paulhauggis wrote: post #55
ryandrake wrote: post #22

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery becau…

This sounds great, but you still need money to survive. This would mean that the few that did work would essentially be supporting the rest of society. Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from me by the government to support people that didn't need to do anything?? You don't have to get a crappy job and work for someone you hate for the rest of…

>Why would I ever want to start a million dollar business if I knew the majority of my earnings would be taken from... >you could even live in the woods on berries...

It's not necessary to go as far as berries - in most of the developed world you can not work and be supported automatically by the government. But it's boring! Most people would much rather be building million dollar businesses even if the pay was much the same. In fact many people working for corporations build multi million dollar businesses where 99% or so of the value goes to the corporation but you don't see them complaining much.

Re: Are you paid to look busy?

#180

Post by zo1 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #178
zo1 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed" You make it seem like there is some entity or group of entities that thinks "Hey, let's go make up jobs". For what reason, you ask? Well, because he has to "justify his right to exist". That puts your argument in the same bucket as "karma", "quantum wellbeing", "deepak-nonsense" and "homeopathy". Seriously though. What is that rant…

>People don't have a right to exist. Uuuuh, says you?

Gee, way to cherry-pick. How about you go back and read the two sentences that come after the one you quoted.

Is that really how you have discussions with people? Blow up and scream bloody murder when you see something you remotely think is objectionable? It's very disingenuous.

Post reply on HN