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The Top Idea in Your Mind

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#151

Post by anthonyb »

TotlolRon wrote: post #139
anthonyb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes - but it's not productive , is it? Particularly the biblical example that you gave. Suppose that I'm an evil supergenius - someone cuts me off in traffic or tells me that unitards are going out of fashion, so I use my orbiting death ray to blast the entire world into ashes. Perhaps it's assuaged my sense of injury, but at what cost? This is what happens when you use 2,000 year old fiction to support your mor…

Now imagine you are me and this is the sugar-coated version of your story: http://www.totlol.com/t/story

Good answer.

It's a sad story, and I feel for you, but it's a fairly predictable outcome, particularly given the way that you were trying to make money from YouTube. There's all sorts of copyrighted content from 3rd parties, eg. Disney and others, and they'd likely sue both you and YouTube if you were to put ads up. The only part I would've changed if I were them would be to let you know upfront that you were likely to be infringing the terms of use - if not directly, then at least in spirit. But perhaps there were legal reasons not to.

Back on topic, I think your situation is precisely the one that PG was talking about and where you should turn the other cheek. You basically have two options:

1) Hate Youtube, Stephanie Kuan and Google. Get bitter and twisted, stew over it for years and years, to the point where it's consuming the bulk of your waking hours. Gollum, gollum. I've seen friends who've gone down this path after being mistreated by companies, and it's not pretty.

2) Forget it - as in, completely forget it, and go on to something else. Hard to do, but you'll free up huge amounts of time for more productive things. Take a break and do consulting/day job stuff. Maybe build something cool on the side, or just rebuild your savings, ready for next time.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#152

Post by philwelch »

portman wrote: post #131
johnfn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I challenge you to follow up on it. Block them. Let me give you some anecdotal background story... I realized this was happening to me a few months ago - that I was wasting more and more time just surfing Facebook or Twitter and so forth. So I started adding websites to my /etc/hosts file. (That is, my computer now blocks me from accessing these websites, unless I edit a file, and then restart). It started with Reddi…

"edit a file, and then restart" Our of curiosity, what operating system do you use? On Windows, hosts entries take effect immediately. No need to restart.

I wrote an ad-hoc adblocker out of /etc/hosts files and shell scripts for Mac OS X. (The shell scripts just block and unblock--unblocking is necessary sometimes for a chess site I use which detects adblockers.) Usually restarting is overkill for a new hosts file to take effect--on Mac OS X `dscacheutil -flushcache` will reinstate a hosts file. Ubuntu must have a similar command.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#153

Post by cake »

vorg wrote: post #105
dangrossman wrote: post #18

I realized the ability of my unconscious mind to solve hard problems some time around high school. I made good use of it in college, especially in courses involving coming up with algorithms or proofs. I could rarely come up with a good solution consciously, but if I spent 30 minutes thinking about the problem right before bed, the next morning optimal answers would come easily. I also formed a habit of driving at le…

I go for a long walk: the inspirations come, plus it's healthier than sitting in a car, and better for the back.

Not that I disagree with the benefits of a long walk but driving in a car really helps in my opinion because of the white noise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_noise#Applications), general silence with closed windows and change of scenery.

I don't know if white noise has really been proven to help concentrate but some people believe that. Alone in the car I've come with interresting thought and came up with good problem processing.

Showers are supposed to produced the same kind of environment (white noise and isolation from much of the external stimulus).

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#154

Post by philwelch »

ErrantX wrote: post #59

On the subject of dispute as a distraction; I've observed this almost every day for the last 4 years as a Wikipedia contributor. You jump into article looking to improve them - add content, format, tweak, source and so on. But within hours someone disputes the use of a word or the reliability of a source. Which usually gets sorted in a quick discussion - but often takes ages, drags in other editors and winds up with…

That's why I quit Wikipedia three years ago after three years as a contributor.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#155

Post by revorad »

istari wrote: post #44
noonespecial wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After one too many great ideas fogged over, I've decided that there's a product idea in semi-waterproof "dry" erase markers for shower doors. I'd buy a dozen.

A random Calvin and Hobbes comic strip popped into my mind: Calvin bugs his mom about money Calvin's mom is exasperated Calvin asks his mom for soap. "Yes, have all the soap you want" Calvin sitting before his parents' car, grinning, with "4 SALE, CHEEP" written across the windshield Maybe you should buy some soap?

There's a danger here of soap becoming the top thought in one's mind.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#156

Post by berryg »

Ap Dijksterhuis is a famous Dutch psychology professor and has written a lot about unconscious thought. He even has a Unconscious Lab, see: http://www.unconsciouslab.com/index.php?page=People&subp.... You can find a lot of links to scientific papers on this website. He is also the author of a Dutch bestselling book on unconscious thought "Het slimme onbewuste". Unfortunately it has not been translated in English.

In an article on the BBC website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4723216.stm) he says:

"The take-home message is that when you have to make a decision, the first step should be to get all the information necessary for the decision. Once you have the information, you have to decide, and this is best done with conscious thought for simple decisions, but left to unconscious thought - to 'sleep on it' - when the decision is complex."

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#157

Post by lkozma »

sridharvembu wrote: post #46

This is great essay - pg's best in my opinion! I call the thoughts my mind drifts to as the "background thread" in my CPU. And there are times when that background thread is very productive and enjoyable. Alas, there have are times when that thread is destructive - conflict, as pg mentions, is a very destructive background thread. In general, I have found that the bad threads are much more persistent than good thread…

Also the famous zen story describes a similar idea:

copy/paste:

Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk across because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her in his alms and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery. In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, "Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?" The elder monk answered "yes, brother". Then the younger monk asks again, " but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?" The elder monk smiled at him and told him " I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her "

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#158

Post by patrickk »

dangrossman wrote: post #18

I realized the ability of my unconscious mind to solve hard problems some time around high school. I made good use of it in college, especially in courses involving coming up with algorithms or proofs. I could rarely come up with a good solution consciously, but if I spent 30 minutes thinking about the problem right before bed, the next morning optimal answers would come easily. I also formed a habit of driving at le…

I find that by simply walking around the office, getting a coffee, or a snack, allows my mind to unconsciously work on an issue I'm stuck on. This happened to me two days ago, on the most recent occasion.

I find sitting in front of a monitor (attention is like bandwidth, this is like downloading multiple large files at once) blocks my ability to think clearly. If I ponder without really doing anything (low bandwidth consumption necessary, as subconscious needs all the bandwidth I can give it).

In conclusion:

- not appearing to do anything = optimal creative mode

- sitting in front of a monitor = execution mode only

Another reason why big companies are less productive. You can't simply appear to be daydreaming for half the day. Appearances are devastating to productivity.

ps. Daydreaming around the office is still far inferior to taking a long shower. It's funny that two activities that allow you to be highly creative (daydreaming in work and taking really long showers) raise awkward questions; or at the least, funny looks, from work colleagues/those you live with.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#159

Post by orionlogic »

I wonder why new essay didn't show up in the feed.

Its very true for me that i found creative solutions in shower to my hard thought problems. May be i need a water resistant pen to write on the shower cabinet (possibly there is one).

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#160

Post by Robin_Message »

TotlolRon wrote: post #139
anthonyb wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, yes - but it's not productive , is it? Particularly the biblical example that you gave. Suppose that I'm an evil supergenius - someone cuts me off in traffic or tells me that unitards are going out of fashion, so I use my orbiting death ray to blast the entire world into ashes. Perhaps it's assuaged my sense of injury, but at what cost? This is what happens when you use 2,000 year old fiction to support your mor…

Now imagine you are me and this is the sugar-coated version of your story: http://www.totlol.com/t/story

I read that story a while back, and it sucked. I empathise with your anger and sympathise with your loss. But I am trying quite hard to write a comment to say there is another way, and it is better.

> you can try and hurt them twice, no matter the cost. Culture choice.

In trying to hurt them twice, can you hurt them for what it costs you to do so? Or do you just have to pay that cost out of pocket? And if you hurt them twice, but they only directly did one bad thing to you, can they hurt you back? And can you hurt them back for that? Most wars are founded on logic such as this.

If you are talking Jewish philosophy, what about Job (the book is newer than an eye for an eye, but Job himself probably lived before the Torah was given)? I believe Job says (amongst other things), "Life isn't fair. Good things happen to the bad guys. Bad things happen to the good guys. Accept that in the knowledge that God will make it right in the end."

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