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The Top Idea in Your Mind

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#181

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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…

I see it in Hacker News contributing. I fire off a quick (careless) remark and find a day later, a chain of comments which in my mind misinterpreted my intent. I feel bad about it; I want to clear it up but its far too late (too much water under the bridge; nobody paying attention any more).

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#182

Post by ddelony »

Artists, writers, and other creative people have the same frustration of having to think about money when they'd rather be thinking about their work that Graham describes in the essay.

I know we live in interesting economic times, but maybe it's about time for patronage to make a comeback.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#183

Post by klipt »

alnayyir wrote: post #118
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All work and no play..

I do a lot of non-work-related coding in addition to my work-related coding. I do it because I enjoy it. Nobody's going to pay me to (edit: because I'm not a tenured professor) make finite state machines, toy languages in LLVM, and roguelikes.

The problem with roguelikes is that while coding them is good practice, actually playing them is pretty much a pure waste of time. Which makes me wonder whether I can still justify coding them...

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#184

Post by thewhitewizzard »

klipt wrote: post #183
alnayyir wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a lot of non-work-related coding in addition to my work-related coding. I do it because I enjoy it. Nobody's going to pay me to (edit: because I'm not a tenured professor) make finite state machines, toy languages in LLVM, and roguelikes.

The problem with roguelikes is that while coding them is good practice, actually playing them is pretty much a pure waste of time. Which makes me wonder whether I can still justify coding them...

This can be said of any game. Whether or not something is a waste of time is determined by the user, not the creator of the game. If you like coding them, then code them and gain the experience of coding them.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#185

Post by Kliment »

hugh3 wrote: post #71
redsymbol wrote: post #28

(I hear similar complaints from friends who are professors. Professors nowadays seem to have become professional fundraisers who do a little research on the side. It may be time to fix that.) Now there's a startup idea!

How exactly? In an ideal world, you could sell the service of helping professors to prepare their research proposals. You could also keep an eye out for grants which the professors might be interested in, and generally handle the money side of things for professors who would rather be worrying about something else. However, I don't think this would work, because the professors have no way to pay you. As far as I know…

I know a company (and its founder) who did exactly that, with success. Apparently research institutions have some buffer funds, and if they have a decent chance of getting more funding, will use them to commission such services. What they did was writing the proposal, proofreading and editing input supplied by partners, then taking a share in the project and dealing with management and documentation. Pretty much exactly what you describe here.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#186

Post by dkersten »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #174
dkersten wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend more time browsing HN than any other site.. I guess this means byebye HN? :'(

I understand your jest, but it got me thinking... I think I finally connect with reason why some people here defend the community so fiercely; It is so that time spent on HN is spent learning something useful. I have probably wasted lots of time here, yes, but I have also learned so darn much! I just need to leave a few hours of the day open to actually implement what I've learned... which I do, thankfully. If you st…

I understand your jest

I was only partially joking... I actually DO spend more time than I should on HN! You are right though - I do learn a lot from HN, but at the same time, I often browse just for the sake of it, or to procrastinate. So it goes both ways really.

If you stop finding HN useful, or you start coming here just to burn time or be entertained or to avoid work

Exactly.

and you really don't put any of the things you learn here to use

I hope that I do put the things I learn to good use! There is a lot of really useful information floating around here, I'd hate to spend all this time reading it without applying it. Most of the startup related information has yet to be applied, but I hope to soon. The programming related information does get good use though.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#187

Post by [deleted] »

thetrumanshow wrote: post #174
dkersten wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend more time browsing HN than any other site.. I guess this means byebye HN? :'(

I understand your jest, but it got me thinking... I think I finally connect with reason why some people here defend the community so fiercely; It is so that time spent on HN is spent learning something useful. I have probably wasted lots of time here, yes, but I have also learned so darn much! I just need to leave a few hours of the day open to actually implement what I've learned... which I do, thankfully. If you st…

[deleted]

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#188

Post by tkahn6 »

dkersten wrote: post #166
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…

I spend more time browsing HN than any other site.. I guess this means byebye HN? :'(

HN has noprocrast. The default 180 minutes is good for me.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#189

Post by haidut »

The "ambient thinking" in the shower you are referring to has been studied extensively. Here is the New Yorker article on the studeis of insight and creativity: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_...

Research suggests (as you have discovered yourself as well) is that the most creative moments are 1) while showering 2) shortly before going to bed 3) shortly after waking up.

Re: The Top Idea in Your Mind

#190

Post by thetrumanshow »

revorad wrote: post #155
istari wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, thanks you you and hugh3, I just spent 10 minutes searching for a product such as this.
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