68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice • Hacker News Board

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#111

Post by 9wzYQbTYsAIc » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:20 PM UTC

newswasboring wrote: post #96

Just a question, and I know it is completely dependent on culture, do people really believe > Trust me: There is no “them”. I feel like there is constantly a them. The way I interpret it is that you should not modify your behavior based on other people's opinion. Or is it about people who don't matter? How do you know people who don't matter? I have never known from the beginning of a relationship that this person wi…

> In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#112

Post by barbegal » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

anthony_r wrote: post #100

> Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers. While true on credit, I would like to point out that the statement "something whose exchange value is extremely lik…

Yeah I completely disagree with this sentiment that debt = bad. You should use debt where it acts as an investment (in the true sense of the word investment, rather than speculation). If you need to take on debt to buy that car that saves you an hour walk to work every day then that is good debt. Is it a good idea to use debt to purchase a house? If we believe in free markets then ownership should have roughly the same cost as renting. But ownership allows you to have more certainty that you won't get evicted x years down the line and that may be a worthy thing to invest in.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#113

Post by MauranKilom » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #101

jonasvp wrote: post #13

> Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it. Absolutely - I've learned this the hard way and it's giving me new appreciation for phone calls. It's amazing how many people do _not_ remember that an email chain of several hundred pages _will_ contain something incriminating or embassaring if forwarded to someone outside the origi…

Sometimes even that isn't enough. You have to read it twice. I was having a text exchange with a manager on the road. Hard to come to a consensus that way. So I wanted to talk when he got back to the shop. I texted "We can talk some more when you get it." One letter. The issues it caused lasted for years.

Sorry, I don't see the one letter change that fixes the message. What did you intend to say?

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#114

Post by MaxBarraclough » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #108

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be solid advice, but he put there is no limit . That's the part I'm questioning. You'll never get anywhere without self-improvement, of course, but there's no sense pretending we can all be a prodigy like von Neumann - whose natural intelligence was shocking even to the top professors of his day - if we just work hard enough. There very much is a limit, but one need not be deluded to be motivated or succe…

There is no limit on your ability to improve yourself, but the effect can be described as a log function.

A sublinear function seems like the way to model it, but even log(x) will eventually reach a very high value. Even if I could live forever, I'd never reach von Neumann's intelligence.

Better to use a function that tends toward an asymptote, such as 1 - 1/(x+1)

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#115

Post by Autowired » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:32 PM UTC

> Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

Maybe take this one with a grain of salt.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#116

Post by mnsc » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

apk-d wrote: post #62

GuB-42 wrote: post #56

> Don’t be the best. Be the only. No, if you are "the only" you are going to do that for the rest of your life. Also, it is at odds with the second previous point "Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself". You can't have people smarter than yourself if you are the only. And it is at odds with all the other points promoting sharing and generosity too. If you are the only, it means you didn't share y…

I still think it's very good advice. Barely anyone bothers to share their knowledge, and even less people manage to communicate it effectively. In this context, if you put any amount of effort into sharing, you're probably already "the only" among your close peers. Just because you're "the only" doesn't mean you're the smartest person in the room. You might, however, have the knowledge in the right areas that makes y…

> ... only person around with enough knowledge in the areas of [x, y and z] to combine them effectively

This is a good interpretation of "only" that made it click for me as a jack of all trades-type of person! Thanks!

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#117

Post by ramshanker » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:35 PM UTC

tom-thistime wrote: post #89

Stunningly accurate but greatly exceeds promised 68b limit.

I did not count but I guess he is counting each bullet point as one bit.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#118

Post by newswasboring » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote: post #111

newswasboring wrote: post #96

Just a question, and I know it is completely dependent on culture, do people really believe > Trust me: There is no “them”. I feel like there is constantly a them. The way I interpret it is that you should not modify your behavior based on other people's opinion. Or is it about people who don't matter? How do you know people who don't matter? I have never known from the beginning of a relationship that this person wi…

> In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group

Are you implying that the out group is them? But that will mean that there is no out group, everyone is in the in group and thus we should listen to everyone's opinion and give it credence.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#119

Post by mnsc » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #103

hyperpallium wrote: post #38

> When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it. Yup, look closely in the place you expected it to be. Something may be on top of it, or it may have fallen off.

And pull an image of it into your mind. Then glance around. Your brain's mighty correlation/association engine may find it for you! It will seem to pop out of the clutter.

As someone with Aphantasia I am TriGgeReD! ;)

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#120

Post by ashtonkem » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #79

ashtonkem wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software is also weird when it comes to skills. While the total domain knowledge possible in software is absolutely massive, the set of baseline skills required to rapidly learn new domains and perform is surprisingly small. Any good programmer can learn a new language and a new portion of the stack within at least year, probably less, because the core skills of the profession are very very small. It’s not clear to m…

That's dated. This used to be true, absolutely. But the size of various eco-systems is such that if you want to really master something now you have to invest a lot of time and if you bet on the wrong horse then you can lose a lot of time and effort for little return. Front end is especially brutal in this sense.

Nonsense. You can migrate a back end developer to the front end in far less time than it takes to train a new front end developer from scratch. The domain knowledge of front end specific tasks must be learned, sure, but the core fundamentals of how to program remain. You don’t suddenly forget how to actually program once you pick up JS, all jokes notwithstanding.