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

Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

awesomekling.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–268 of 268 posts

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#261

Post by Aerbil313 »

ineedasername wrote: post #258
Aerbil313 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Reincarnation leads to a paradox: How would the last life before the universe’s end’s deeds and sins be karma’ed? It actually only works in a religion with a proper afterlife. Not one in which everyone is saved regardless and go to heaven no matter what. One in which punishment is one-to-one to the sins in this life, like Islam.

Why “no”? I was literally describing the framework in which the spiritual idea of karma is commonly found: religion with the belief of cyclical rebirth. What you go on to describe does not match up to “karma” as found- using that term- in religions.

Sorry, I was referring to the specific idea of one facing the rewards and consequences of good and bad deeds as karma.

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#262

Post by cyrillite »

andorov wrote: post #216
dr_dshiv wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my summer camp, we used to hear: “Sow an act, reap a habit Sow a habit, reap a character Sow a character, reap a destiny”

Similar quote from Lao Tzu. I like the inclusion of thoughts -> words -> actions. "Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny."

The only thing I would change here is “watch your thoughts, thoughts become words” and reverse it.

Your words are so often careless attempts at thought. First approximations of ideas. All too often, however, they are spoken to oneself and heard by oneself as truth. Be very careful about your words, they will go on to constrain oh so much.

Now, strictly speaking thought may come first. But, it’s that thinking about words which becomes so trapping, not the initial conditions that give rise to the words. Interrogate your language, distrust it, scrutinise it.

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#263

Post by achenet »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #211
mikrl wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to live virtuously in a way Russian oligarchs might laugh at. No yacht, but no enemies either. Never have to worry about novichok or a drone hitting me. It’s not bad at all.

Doesn't matter. their experience disproves that bullshit about "karma", that's all.

It doesn't. they live in constant paranoia of being assassinated. Their super-yacht comes at the price of their peace of mind.

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#264

Post by dehugger »

Arisaka1 wrote: post #14

Ever since I quit my first job I've been tinkering with languages and frameworks. And every time I would complete a book or course I'd face the decision of building something on my own. That building never happens. 1 month later my portfolio is nonexistent, there are no projects, and my blog is a figment of my imagination. And right now I'm in the process of learning yet another framework. So I've been thinking: This…

My advice is not to focus on a portfolio or a "project". Find things that annoy you in life that code can fix, write that code. Some of these things will become more complex then others. I would advise against anything larger than 3 days of work (as in distinct days spent working on the project ,not total hours) in scale, as you'll just feel bad when you don't finish the latest grandiose dream.

Don't worry about how pretty or impressive the code is. The point is the function. Save everything in a projects folder, no matter how shit.

At some point you'll hit a point where a project hits the right intersection of elegance/function/polish, and then you can throw that on a portfolio page. Then another one, and another one.

The important thing is the end goal. As long as that goal is to impress other people you will be paralyzed by fear of rejection. If the goal is to fix a problem for yourself that's much more achievable, as the only bar you need to meet is "did it fix my problem?".

Random sampling of my own "frustration" projects: - automatic version control in SQL Server for object/table definitions - cron script that scrapes + downloads the latest driver from Nvidia from their website, installs it, then deletes the file - command line tool that formats text in the clipboard various ways (mostly I use this for transforming csv/excel files into SQL lists or table inserts) - a small utility for printing notes on a receipt thermal printer - a Lemmy scraper that combines different communities into a single coherent image board (I hated their default media presentation)

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#265

Post by adamsmith143 »

sph wrote: post #202
adamsmith143 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No one becomes obese eating natural foods" That is the most hippy BS I have ever heard. Eat 10,000 calories of raw sugarcane a day for 1 year and get back to me on the results. >If you remove the sense of taste from someone, I assure you they won't enjoy food and will lose weight very quickly. Almost like that was the answer all along. Yes, reducing the number of calories you eat is how you lose weight.

Show me someone that has become obese eating 10,000 calories of sugar cane for a year. Certainly not for the lack of trying, sugar cane is delicious. We are not calorimeters, nor furnaces. There is a reason people get obese on 10,000 kcal of junk food and virtually no one ever on 10,000 kcal of sugar cane. Focusing only on the caloric figure is completely missing the point. Yet the immensely reductive CICO bullshit i…

Are you really saying that you don't think someone eating 10,000 calories of Kale won't get obese?

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#266

Post by adamsmith143 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #200
adamsmith143 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No one becomes obese eating natural foods" That is the most hippy BS I have ever heard. Eat 10,000 calories of raw sugarcane a day for 1 year and get back to me on the results. >If you remove the sense of taste from someone, I assure you they won't enjoy food and will lose weight very quickly. Almost like that was the answer all along. Yes, reducing the number of calories you eat is how you lose weight.

I don't think anyone is disputing that? The challenge has always been getting people to eat less, not making them realize that is what they need to do.

They're disputing that literally in this comment thread.

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#267

Post by adamsmith143 »

sph wrote: post #203
BitwiseFool wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is disputing that? The challenge has always been getting people to eat less, not making them realize that is what they need to do.

No, the challenge is recognising that food is not equal, and we have chemical and physical reasons why we overeat some and not others. "Eat less food" is technically true, but as useful dietary advice as "become less obese".

> No, the challenge is recognising that food is not equal, and we have chemical and physical reasons why we overeat some and not others.

Those reasons still add up to Calories in - Calories Out. You need Out to be > than In or you will not lose weight. Eat all the kale and celery you want if you aren't burning more than you eat you won't lose weight.

Re: Excellence is a habit, but so is failure

#268

Post by loco5niner »

croes wrote: post #201
vorpalhex wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually you do. Like obviously there are edge cases, but for the most part consequences aren't a surprise. Eat too much, you get fat. Fail to work out, your body goes to hell. Fail to sleep and your mind goes.

It not that simple. Eat healthy and you become obsessed with it and get a eating disorder. Work out, get injured, need pain killers, get addicted. In hindsight it's easy to spot your mistakes. Should have turned left instead of right.

Those are such hyperbolic statements. You're more likely to die of heart disease (at least in the US) from the standard diet and activity levels. Just get off the couch and move. Find something fun to do. It's not hard.
Post reply on HN