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Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

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Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#271

Post by andai »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I can't remember where I read this, but I read a very similar sentiment: "If you can only afford $2 pizza on a regular basis, never buy a $20 pizza, because it will just ruin the $2 pizza for you."

Another aspect of this which doesn't depend on price, is when I get attached to some regional variety, and then I move. That's always a bit painful.

Or sometimes they just stop making it. Or they change the formulation!

Attachment is the root of suffering...

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#272

Post by sibellavia »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #95

> I have come to understand that there are two kinds of people, those who do things only if it helps them achieve a goal, and those who do things just because. I think in this age of vibe coding where anyone can code anything, the discriminating factor between two developers, at a technical level, just comes down to "good taste" (lots of other more important factors, too, like a good human to work with). And like the…

> When anyone can vibe code, it is the ones with "good taste" in the design of systems that will thrive. Anyone can use an agent and code fast; few will be able to do it fast and well and build systems that do not eventually collapse under the weight of their own tangled mess.

This.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#273

Post by parpfish »

tetha wrote: post #183
stavros wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I played with a $15 racket for years. I only got a $150 one when I could tell the difference between them.

This is how I have it with my guitar. It's a simple Ibanez Gio from a starter kit, probably coming in at 150 Euros - 200 Euros or so, with another 40 Euros spent on a guitar tech to set it up properly. I'll replace it once I know how it is holding me back. At least that's the plan I've had for the last 4-5 years. But it has low action, fairly low-noise pickups, holds tuning. So no need so far.

When it come to equipment, sometimes I think it’s okay for a beginner to splurge on something mid level because of resale.

Do a little math and figure out how much it’d cost you to quit and cash out.

A more expensive intermediate-level instrument is easier to sell than the cheaper beginner model.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#274

Post by lukas099 »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #268
ants_everywhere wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the American chocolate for high volume candy bars is very waxy and not very chocolatey. For example, compare the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to Trader Joe's peanut butter cups [0]. It may be that the Reese's ones used to use better chocolate or it may be that my tastes changed as I grew up. But I used to love them as kids and now they taste off. Similarly for Twix etc. [0] I'm sure other stores sell peanut but…

Most chocolate things, like random chocolate cookies or commercial cake etc, breakfast cereal, irritate the back of my throat in a mild way. Couple that with the foreground taste not being anything special, and it's just enough to make the whole experience just the wrong side of neutral. Not terrible just not good either. All stuff that's made in factories and needs to have shelf life, so I can only imagine it's any…

> Most chocolate things, like random chocolate cookies or commercial cake etc, breakfast cereal, irritate the back of my throat in a mild way.

This happens to me too; I thought it was universal. I actually like it, though, for some reason (I guess the association with chocolate).

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#275

Post by CharlieDigital »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #141
mberning wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a distinctive style is also going to become increasingly rare in the age of LLMs. I see it with people at work already. They have no style. They learn very little. They get something to work but have no ability to discern whether it is a “good way” of doing it or simply “a way” of doing it. They have little interest in how or why things are built. I get the sense that they have little or no enjoyment or intere…

Distinctive style is actually bad. You want your code to be uniform, readers should not be unable to tell who wrote what. Otherwise you run into the danger of having parts that are peculiar and or obscure to everyone except the one who wrote them. That's if you are lucky, if you are unlucky the person who wrote them won't be able to decode them either.

"Style" here isn't about "formatting"; it's about construction and technique.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#276

Post by CharlieDigital »

oasisbob wrote: post #148
throwawayffffas wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distinctive style is actually bad. You want your code to be uniform, readers should not be unable to tell who wrote what. Otherwise you run into the danger of having parts that are peculiar and or obscure to everyone except the one who wrote them. That's if you are lucky, if you are unlucky the person who wrote them won't be able to decode them either.

A drive to simplicity and elegance can be a distinctive style. I wouldn't get caught up in the word "distinctive" to the detriment of losing the larger point about creators being thoughtful and opinionated.

Simplicity is the most underrated attribute of a well-designed system.

There is a tendency for smart people to want to build complex solutions when often, the best solution is one that simple.

We had a dev recently write a whole source generation library to verify configuration at application startup. I pointed out that it would only save -- at most -- 14ms over a reflection based approach and that our application at startup is rolling over nodes in K8s and not a serverless function where cold starts matter.

It went from a 1600 line PR to a 60 line PR.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#277

Post by hilbert42 »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

Oh dear. Years ago I had the ‘misfortune’ to taste some of the greatest first and second growth Bordeaux wines—the 1945s, Margeaux, Lafite, etc. Now my palate lies in ruins, ordinary wine is essentially undrinkable, and even good wine only draws comparisons with those Greats, enjoyment for their own sake is thus reduced or lost.

To make matters worse, those great Bordeaux wines and Burgundy's Grand crus such as Romanée-Conti, Grands Échezeaux etc. have in resent years reached truly dizzying heights, only multimillionaires and lottery winners can now afford to drink them. Unless one’s in either of those categories, paying a $1,000, $10,000 and upward per bottle is even an outrageous notion to contemplate.

Lesson: getting spoiled on the very best—especially early on—depreciates one’s appreciation for not only the mundane but also things that by most other criteria are deemed very good.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#278

Post by gmays »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

Same. This is a surprisingly simple recipe for a happy life and helps prevent lifestyle inflation. It reminds me of PG's "Keep your identify small" (https://paulgraham.com/identity.html).

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#279

Post by alwa »

stavros wrote: post #74

Decades ago, an old friend told me "I became a coffee expert, I learned everything there is to learn about beans, the ways to prepare them, the chemistry that goes into it, and now I can only enjoy a cup of coffee prepared by the most expensive machines from the most expensive beans. The shit part is that I enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed my shitty supermarket coffee back when I didn't know anything about coffee."…

I don’t know if it’s a counterpoint or not, but I both know and appreciate a lot about coffee and enjoy instant or—especially—that black tarry sludge at the bottom of the gas station carafe, the sort that’s getting ever harder to find. One doesn’t diminish the other, they’re different things.

Similarly consider the people who build world-class systems in their day jobs, yet spend their weekends running Doom on potatoes or battling janky bots to the death.

Cultivating taste doesn’t have to be the same thing as developing snobbery or becoming jaded.

Re: Tinkering is a way to acquire good taste

#280

Post by somehnguy »

norome wrote: post #221
jorvi wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's a horrible way to enjoy life. By your reasoning, you should subsist on protein blocks and watch paint dry for entertainment. By lowering the bar to the absolute lowest threshold, you'll classify everything as enjoyable. The pareto principle holds strong. Just put 20% of the effort in and you reap 80% of the results.

I think it's a good starting point though. I like to try out the cheapest option and see how it really feels or tastes. For mattress shopping i always ask, "what's your second cheapest option?". For most consumer goods the diminishing returns kick in pretty quick

How often do you buy a mattress? I went high end and have only needed 1 in my adult life so far.
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