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Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

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181–190 of 839 posts

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#181
All these responses are pretty good, and there's some valuable lessons in there. I thought of a simpler idea than most others have.

Honestly, coroutines.

Coroutines challenged everything that I had learned about programming at the time with something different, this made my program more powerful than just one line running after the other. It was mind-blowing to me as a young man, and I remember the impact setting me towards a journey of learning.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#182

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot o…

"Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something." -- Jake the Dog

When I was learning to play the game Go, someone told me that there's some old advice about "losing your first 100 games as quickly as possible". That's stuck with me.

Another one is (and I don't even know if it's 100% true, but I don't much care) that a common housefly will change its path if it runs into a window more than twice. I strive to be better than a common house fly.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#183
post #51

You've only failed if you stop trying. In my case go homeless or die is what it means to fail. edit: granted I'm not trying to split an atom or something crazy like that, but yeah. The fear of failure is always in the back of my mind.(currently means lose job/debt or generally just making an ass of myself eg. in meetings/srum/professional convo)

"Only the one who gives himself up is lost" Hans-Ulrich Rudel

"Fun" fact: This guy was a convinced Nazi who basically destroyed two Russian tank divisions alone. I told this quote to an African American friend when he was struggling badly and had to go abroad for a job and it has inspired him ever since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

Beowulf has a similar quote: "fate often enough will spare a man if his courage holds"

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#184
When I was 12 I saw a kid on a local tv show who was autistic and had intentionally started cataloging facial expressions and body language because he couldn't do it automatically like most people. I remember thinking "You can do that!?" I was very similar to him and that tv show started me on the path of trying to figure out how to get past my mental limitations, which has significantly improved my life.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#185
post #169
post #160

Ignorance can be bliss. Didn't change my life, but has definitely helped me in a lot of cases, especially recent times. Generally speaking, I can't affect what is currently happening in the news, despite how upsetting it might be, and it won't even affect me in a lot of cases. I try to consume little information for things I don't care about or will have a negative effect on me as a way to spare myself from anxiety.…

Edit: Just saw this link on here and this is great blog post about just this. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

And this: https://www.raptitude.com/2016/12/five-things-you-notice-whe...

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#186

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot o…

Worse yet, most people have bad taste and actually can't tell good and bad design work apart, so you're really spending all that effort to please a minority that you're unfortunate enough to be part of.

https://xkcd.com/1015/

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#188
All ideas/technology are living organisms:

- they reproduce imperfectly through a two stage process.

- First they 'infect' a human (human sees tech or is told idea), then they replicate when that human manifests or speaks that idea to others

- Through this imperfect replication, ideas/tech evolve over time

If we believe life is inherently valuable, we should consider our stewardship of the kingdom of ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#189
post #18

News == entertainment. Originally by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews Although I have slightly different takes from his and the level of avoiding the news might be different too, but the core idea that I follow these days is there. I used to think following the news was a mix of my duty as a citizen and important for my life, personal and professional. Now I believe it's quite the opposite, I be…

Something you read in the news today, is going to worth nothing tomorrow.

Re: Ask HN: Name one idea that changed your life

#190
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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