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How to Do Great Work

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Do Great Work

#291

Post by [deleted] »

mortenjorck wrote: post #269
jacobolus wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory. In practice, depends what judge you pull, and you'd better have deep pockets for legal fights. My friends made a Tetris-like game (under a different name, with unrelated art, just broadly similar rules) and were sued out of existence by The Tetris Company. Even though they were legally in the clear according to theoretical analysis, the judge took a brief look and decided "this seems like it should be a vi…

An interesting discussion from 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19533219 Tetris Holdings, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc. held that the tetrominoes are "expression; they are not part of the ideas, rules, or functions of the game," which certainly seems open to dispute, but I could just as easily imagine the same standard being applied to letter tiles with a score value in the corner. So yeah, unless you have a…

[deleted]

Re: How to Do Great Work

#292

Post by spoonfeeder006 »

klabb3 wrote: post #271
spoonfeeder006 wrote: post #259

> When you're young you don't know what you're good at or what different kinds of work are like. Some kinds of work you end up doing may not even exist yet. So while some people know what they want to do at 14, most have to figure it out. That just gave me an idea for a phone app: Something that helps teenagers explore their interests and aptitudes (but not skills of course) Thoughts?

I had a thought a while back about how education systems are somewhat bad proxies for the type of work you want to do. There are many factors aside from just pure method that determine good fit, such as degrees of freedom, number of collaborators, market saturation and maturity, and feedback cycle lengths, etc. These vary greatly in “real life” but are almost always restricted in education systems. For instance, simp…

> education systems are somewhat bad proxies for the type of work you want to do

Is that because that doing the actual relevant work is the way to find out? If so, maybe making the app more like a game where it tries to simulate things like that

> higher level features

Yeah, thats kind of along the lines I was thinking. Not specific roles but types of thought process, and now that you mention it, types of impact

The whole idea is about uncovering what unique gems a teenager (or adult even) has, rather conforming them to a predetermined framework

Re: How to Do Great Work

#293

Post by jacobolus »

Aeolun wrote: post #273
mortenjorck wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting discussion from 2019: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19533219 Tetris Holdings, LLC v. Xio Interactive, Inc. held that the tetrominoes are "expression; they are not part of the ideas, rules, or functions of the game," which certainly seems open to dispute, but I could just as easily imagine the same standard being applied to letter tiles with a score value in the corner. So yeah, unless you have a…

Wait what? That’s not expression. Without the blocks being the shapes they are there wouldn’t be a (viable) game, so it’s clearly part of the rules. Whether the blocks look like jelly or concrete is expression. Or even the exact graphics they use in Tetris. But the fact there’s blocks in preconfigured shapes (and what those shapes are) is game rules. There’s only so many ways you can stick four blocks together…

Yeah, the judge's gut-feel decision that using tetrominoes is not part of the functional rules of the game seemed absurd to me. But hey, when you are the judge you can more or less decide however you want, and the only one who can say otherwise is the next appellate court.

Disclaimer: I made the "art" for Xio's game (i.e. I picked the colors and drew all the tiles and menu buttons etc. on my laptop in photoshop) as a favor to my friends, so am not an unbiased reporter. As a reward I got to sit through a long deposition. :-)

Re: How to Do Great Work

#294

Post by pcurve »

I liked these two snippets at the end.

"Many more people could try to do great work than do. What holds them back is a combination of modesty and fear. "

"Do you want to do great work, or not? Now you have to decide consciously. "

Re: How to Do Great Work

#296

Post by neilv »

> There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you're trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people's wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you'll be proof against all of them. If you're interested, you're not astray.

Money is an insurmountable objective barrier for most people, and seems it's just slipped into the middle of a list of things that are more likely overcome by merely strengthening one's character.

So this sounds like wealthy person saying "don't concern yourself with money; just follow your heart".

Re: How to Do Great Work

#297

Post by IAmGraydon »

spoonfeeder006 wrote: post #266
IAmGraydon wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea, but it’s quite broad. It’s essentially what school is supposed to do.

Yeah true. I don't know the scene in the schools but I have read a lot about how math education is pretty dismal, at least in the USA, depending on the teacher Maybe theres a way for an app to help someone who does have a math aptitude to realize that they do and that math is fun and not a bunch of rote memorization of formulas And repeat for like.... a bunch of other types of thought But you're right, it is pretty b…

Maybe you could devise a test that, when completed, can detect where their natural strengths lie. I imagine such a test would be somewhat lengthy. That could easily be turned into an app and marketed.

Re: How to Do Great Work

#298

Post by thimkerbell »

lewisjoe wrote: post #50

"Follow your interest/passion" - is such an easy advice. However in some societies / economies, it's simply not possible. Where I'm from (India), where a majority of my generation has to lift their families from money problems, there's no option of following passion. There's only "learn/do what makes money". It's not entirely a bad thing though. For example people here just jump into doing something and then eventual…

So lewisjoe, maybe one way to address this problem would be a fellowship that came with an extra stipend that would keep your family afloat? How much extra would that have to be, in India for a year, or would the required amount be far too variable to estimate?

(Also, the essay did indicate that if you're taking care of someone then his standard advice needs adjustment.)

Re: How to Do Great Work

#300

Post by thimkerbell »

neilv wrote: post #296

> There are a lot of forces that will lead you astray when you're trying to figure out what to work on. Pretentiousness, fashion, fear, money, politics, other people's wishes, eminent frauds. But if you stick to what you find genuinely interesting, you'll be proof against all of them. If you're interested, you're not astray. Money is an insurmountable objective barrier for most people, and seems it's just slipped int…

No, he addresses that. Get a day job. Then do your project on nights and weekends, or else manage your manager into making it part of your job.
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