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Time is the only real currency we have

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Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#271

Post by allannienhuis »

bobthepanda wrote: post #236
allannienhuis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several large cities in China that I've been to tend to use pedestrian tunnels at many large intersections. It works pretty well - subway-like staircases at each corner, and nice wide hallway/tunnels going around the whole intersection. Occasionally with some shops. It has the advantage of being easy on the eyes above-ground. I can imagine in places with serious homelessness issues there could be problems, but the on…

These are fine if you're perfectly abled. If you are disabled (permanently or temporarily), old, have strollers or luggage, then level-changes add quite some time in the best case or are completely unusable in the worst case. In my experiences traveling with Asia, usually these systems were not outfitted with elevators.

yes, I didn't see elevators, but I did see escalators on the busier ones.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#273

Post by hackeryogi »

moosey wrote: post #104

If you want to stop wasting your time, and want to learn something thoroughly and once, I would recommend learning how to use Anki effectively. It has reduced the amount of time it takes to learn new things, while simultaneously allowing me to remember them for far longer periods of time. I can currently stop an online course for months, and return to the same point when I come back, with far more knowledge of the su…

Thank you for this - and the references to how you came across the concept. I was personally only recently introduced to anki [1] & [2]

However, I tried it out but I couldn't end up using it to 'remember books' or broader concepts that the books convey indirectly. I've started summarising books and using a manual form of spaced repetition to remember them better.

Do you have any advice on organising such knowledge better?

[1] https://ncase.me/remember/ [2] https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-to-build-a-learni...

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#274

Post by tluyben2 »

keiferski wrote: post #62
tluyben2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long commutes are really the killer here They are, but you are on HN so it's safe to assume you have other options, so why do you commute?

I meant in general, for society. Personally I have a 10 minute bike commute to a private office because I prefer to have a little bit of space between work and home.

I think many people have that issue; they cannot actually stay at home doing what they want. It is a restricting factor actually creating the commuting issue you mention. Many people need to go to the office. I think it would be better to educate the kids to not have that mental hangup. Personally I never had that feeling (and never worked in an office for 25+ years; I am at my kitchen table and so is my wife); I was expecting to hear either of a) I have no other choice, because job/money b) I need space between work & home. Over the years I had business partners trying the same thing and getting divorced (like now with the virus; people simply cannot sit at home or endure their spouse and kids); maybe it wasn't too solid to begin with?

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#275

Post by hackeryogi »

carapace wrote: post #87
hackeryogi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does xkcd even need attribution? I was sure most readers would recognise the art (if not the comic) :) Point taken and corrected (noob blogger mistakes!) Thanks!

You're a scholar and a gentleman! Well met! ("Does xkcd even need attribution?" Sir? https://xkcd.com/1053/ would you forego the delight of being the one who introduced somebody to XKCD? (^_^) <3 )

You, sir, seem to have a xkcd catalogued in your head much better than I do.

Thank you sensei ! Well met indeed :)

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#276

Post by keiferski »

tluyben2 wrote: post #274
keiferski wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant in general, for society. Personally I have a 10 minute bike commute to a private office because I prefer to have a little bit of space between work and home.

I think many people have that issue; they cannot actually stay at home doing what they want. It is a restricting factor actually creating the commuting issue you mention. Many people need to go to the office. I think it would be better to educate the kids to not have that mental hangup. Personally I never had that feeling (and never worked in an office for 25+ years; I am at my kitchen table and so is my wife); I was…

> people simply cannot sit at home or endure their spouse and kids); maybe it wasn't too solid to begin with?

Eh, I think this is a symptom of what I’ll call “Modern Excess Syndrome”: the idea that if unlimited amounts of something aren’t beneficial, then the thing itself is broken. I.e., if ‘more = better’ isn’t true for X, then X is undesirable or broken. It just illustrates the lack of nuance we have in contemporary western society.

You see this play out in lots of ways. Helicopter parenting is a good example: the prevailing assumption is that a good parent is one who spends as much time and resources as humanly possibly with their kids. Yet as a consequence the children have worse outcomes, are less independent, etc. And people are less likely to become parents as they perceive parenthood as an end to their own life as individuals.

The truth is: it is in the nature of some things to be focused, or sporadic, or limited in some way. Chocolate cake is a delicious treat, but eating it for every meal is both unhealthy and destroys much of its uniqueness.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#277

Post by tluyben2 »

keiferski wrote: post #276
tluyben2 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many people have that issue; they cannot actually stay at home doing what they want. It is a restricting factor actually creating the commuting issue you mention. Many people need to go to the office. I think it would be better to educate the kids to not have that mental hangup. Personally I never had that feeling (and never worked in an office for 25+ years; I am at my kitchen table and so is my wife); I was…

> people simply cannot sit at home or endure their spouse and kids); maybe it wasn't too solid to begin with? Eh, I think this is a symptom of what I’ll call “Modern Excess Syndrome”: the idea that if unlimited amounts of something aren’t beneficial, then the thing itself is broken. I.e., if ‘more = better’ isn’t true for X, then X is undesirable or broken. It just illustrates the lack of nuance we have in contempora…

That could indeed be the case. I have, however, another explanation; most people just do stuff without thinking, planning or any forethought whatsoever just because 'it is normal'. You get married, you have kids, you buy a house, you get a job, you go to an office 9-5, you mingle with your colleagues (and you like it!) etc and everything else is weird or not for them. When confronted with major change, like this virus and as a result, working from home (getting laid off, health issues etc), they are forced from the path and realise that they do not like it. I 'zoom' with friends in my home country who have kids because 'it is something you do'; they love them when they see them 1-2 hours/day, but now they hate (big word, probably not true, but that's what they use, and not jokingly; they are getting burnt out) them, quite openly. They didn't think it through and that works because normally the kids are in school, sportclub, piano lessons, sleeping etc so you don't have to think too much.

A big issue is that people are not taught and don't teach their kids to enjoy things without outside stimulants. If I have a computer that works (it can be, and actually I prefer, one from the 70s or 80s) and a manual, I can be alone for years. Now with internet it is even easier. But I was taught by my parents to enjoy myself with minimal 'stuff'; books, pen & paper and just my own thoughts. Many people seem to lack that resulting in decisions that are unwise and don't work long term.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#278

Post by yowlingcat »

cryptica wrote: post #34

Unfortunately, in essentially all big corporations, the incentives encourage developers to waste as much time as possible - Mostly by focusing their attention on creating elaborate and ever-changing development processes and constantly adding unnecessary software complexity at the same time. This doesn't work well at all when you also allow individuals to detach themselves from any responsibility over the code that t…

I was with you up until this point:

"Usually ... it's not possible to measure the impact of your work in relation to achieving a real company goal"

You say a few things here: 1. Earning money is a worthy goal if you can measure your personal contribution towards it

2. It's not possible to measure that way in a big company

3. Too many people working towards different and even conflicting goals at big companies to do so

4. Because you cannot practically do so, your work's use value is not objectively measurable or provably useful

I don't think this is wrong in a statistically significant number of cases. But I also don't think it's helpful for thinking about the bottlenecks, release hatches and self regulation systems that tend to dominate a corporation's behavior. Your day to day experience being an engineer at a company has everything to do with:

1) how customers buy what makes the company money

2) how the company's continuing operation is funded

3) how executives and founders have structured leadership and management

In some companies, the customers are other businesses. In others, they're directly consumers. In still others, they're imaginary, or planned to exist in the future. In some companies, the continuing operation of a company is funded by present and future sales. In others, the continuing operation is funded by successive rounds of seed and growth stage dilutive fundraising. In some companies, leadership and management is structured around loose confederations of business units, lines of revenue, and product subdivisions. In others, it's structured around research domains, manufacturing pipeline stages, geographical market regions, or intellectual property holdings.

In any case, that's a far cry from "it's not possible to measure the impact of your work in relation to achieving a real company goal" -- just because it's not possible for _you_ to measure or argue the impact of your work doesn't mean that it's generally not possible. In fact, I would argue that learning how to credibly and objectively plan, measure and articulate the impact of your work is a huge part of what makes for a senior individual contributor. You will obviously come across challenges and inaccuracies in the exercise, but it doesn't invalidate the use value of it for both you and the firm. If personal goals are trumping company goals every time, then you work at a company with weak executive leadership and vision and should find one stronger at those areas if you can.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#279

Post by teleforce »

WalterBright wrote: post #199
keiferski wrote: post #11

I’ve often wondered what society would look like if optimized for saving people time. Just some quick thoughts: - Crosswalks and traffic lights would become non-existent and replaced with more pedestrian overpasses, turning/merging lanes, and other designs. Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers. It seems like we might get this eventually with self-driving cars. - Min…

> Waiting for the light to change is a huge waste of time for both pedestrians and drivers That's because it's designed and run by the government, which has no interest in saving time. How many hours do we all waste waiting for a light to change when there's no cross traffic? having a "platoon" of cars come to a halt to let one car cross? having a light turn yellow at the last moment to slam on the brakes? How much g…

This. Instead of obsessing on level 5 autonomous car that we probably will never achieve in our lifetime, why not optimized the AI for level 5 equivalent of traffic lights and control. Imagine having Waze like system integrated with city wide dynamic and intelligent traffic lights for seamless urban travel.

Re: Time is the only real currency we have

#280

Post by kortilla »

ct520 wrote: post #258
kortilla wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you justify writing this comment? No snark intended, I’m just actually curious how one justifies time wasted commenting on this site.

Great question - if I feel like taking leisure time I take it. Easy as that. I justify it by kicking ass and optimizing everything else as best as I can. That is what brings me peace. Knowing I do my best. It's a good balance for me, I naturally found a circle of successful people that do the same(birds of a feather). I don't think one should try to be this way if you are not and I do realize its a bit different. But…

> I never do any singular thing with the exception of work.

This is the part that misled me. It sounds like that blanket statement doesn’t include deliberate leisure time.

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