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

If you're not failing you're not trying.

dshipper.posterous.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 50 posts

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#41

Post by nicpottier »

jasonkester wrote: post #20

Real world example: Rock Climbing There are two basic approaches to route climbing with ropes: "Traditional Climbing" with removable gear placed as the rock allows and the potential for injury if you were to fall, and "Sport Climbing", with closely spaced fixed gear, where falling is a matter of course. "Trad" climbers will often go years, decades, entire careers without ever falling off the rock. "Sport" climbers wi…

I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but I'll go with it, and expand upon it even more.

Those climbers who primarily boulder, that's climbing without a rope, fairly close to the ground, are better still. Because they work on insanely difficult problems and fall all the time.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#42

Post by mkr-hn »

ecaradec wrote: post #39
mkr-hn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was agreeing by offering a real example of frequent failure leading to success.

Actually he failed, we could say that he crashed the plane into the Hudson River. It's a matter of measure. If he ever do it again, he might do even better ;). I think that we improve continuously from failure into something that looks more and more like success. Success is very relative to what you are able to accomplish at a time. If failing teach you something, might be it's a success ?

It's safer to think of success as a step in a potentially endless process. Microsoft (as an example) treated IE6 as an end, and it cost them substantial market share while they tried to catch up to the new entrant.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#43

Post by kahawe »

jasonkester wrote: post #35
kahawe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfair comparison - falling as a 14 year old is a whole different thing than falling at age 30 or 40, not just from body size and weight.

Fair comparison. 40 year climbers with 5 years experience and a willingness to push themselves to failure routinely climb harder than 40 year old climbers with 25 years experience gained climbing without falling. Falling onto a dynamic rope is not in any way traumatic, even to an old guy like myself. The equipment really is that good. A 10 foot lead fall into space is nowhere near as demanding on the body as, say, a…

Don't you first fall into the rope and then slam against the mountain side?

Oh, and, out of curiosity - how old are you, how long have you been climbing and what were your failures and worst injuries?

I'm asking because I am turning 30 and feel like my chance for a young and silly, careless life is slowly over.. no chance to even think about learning climbing or snowboarding or any other exciting sports.

On top of that I am an aspiring musician to I am kinda worried about my fingers and arms.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#44

Post by mgkimsal »

dshipper wrote: post #6
scrrr wrote: post #2

I find the notion of failing as something that should be aspired to worrisome. Often the cost of failure is too high. You don't want an airliner-pilot to seek failure. If banks make a big mistake and we slide into recession, people loose jobs, should we pat them on the shoulder for trying? What about the judge that sends an innocent man to prison? What about the solider that accidentally shoots an unarmed man? Can we…

Thanks for your comment scrrr, and while I see where you're coming from I don't agree. You brought up airline pilots and how they shouldn't seek failure. Obviously you don't want them to seek failure while they are in the sky. But in fact they seek failure ALL THE TIME while being trained. They simulate systems malfunctions and bad weather conditions and they mess up. In the simulator. But when they face those obstac…

They seek simulated failure of the equipment to test themselves. They do not set out intending to fail in their reactions to the simulated failure. But, if they do, it's a simulator and they can start over with new lessons learned.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#45

Post by reemrevnivek »

nicpottier wrote: post #41
jasonkester wrote: post #20

Real world example: Rock Climbing There are two basic approaches to route climbing with ropes: "Traditional Climbing" with removable gear placed as the rock allows and the potential for injury if you were to fall, and "Sport Climbing", with closely spaced fixed gear, where falling is a matter of course. "Trad" climbers will often go years, decades, entire careers without ever falling off the rock. "Sport" climbers wi…

I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but I'll go with it, and expand upon it even more. Those climbers who primarily boulder, that's climbing without a rope, fairly close to the ground, are better still. Because they work on insanely difficult problems and fall all the time.

You're missing one of the points of the article: When you fail, it has to be cheap (i.e, a rope attached so you fall a few feet).

Bouldering and falling all the time does not mean that you're failing cheaply. Falling hurts!

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#46

Post by metachris »

kahawe wrote: post #43
jasonkester wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair comparison. 40 year climbers with 5 years experience and a willingness to push themselves to failure routinely climb harder than 40 year old climbers with 25 years experience gained climbing without falling. Falling onto a dynamic rope is not in any way traumatic, even to an old guy like myself. The equipment really is that good. A 10 foot lead fall into space is nowhere near as demanding on the body as, say, a…

Don't you first fall into the rope and then slam against the mountain side? Oh, and, out of curiosity - how old are you, how long have you been climbing and what were your failures and worst injuries? I'm asking because I am turning 30 and feel like my chance for a young and silly, careless life is slowly over.. no chance to even think about learning climbing or snowboarding or any other exciting sports. On top of th…

It's never too late to start climbing! The goal doesn't need to be to climb extremely hard routes, but rather the ones you enjoy.

Rock climbing is a great way to get your head free (being a developer myself, I find myself thinking about project related topics all the time, and climbing and sex are the best ways for me to get my head free).

Re: crashing against the wall: that usually does not happen because you fall mostly downward and only a small bit towards the wall, which you can absorb with your feet.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#48

Post by jasonkester »

kahawe wrote: post #43
jasonkester wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair comparison. 40 year climbers with 5 years experience and a willingness to push themselves to failure routinely climb harder than 40 year old climbers with 25 years experience gained climbing without falling. Falling onto a dynamic rope is not in any way traumatic, even to an old guy like myself. The equipment really is that good. A 10 foot lead fall into space is nowhere near as demanding on the body as, say, a…

Don't you first fall into the rope and then slam against the mountain side? Oh, and, out of curiosity - how old are you, how long have you been climbing and what were your failures and worst injuries? I'm asking because I am turning 30 and feel like my chance for a young and silly, careless life is slowly over.. no chance to even think about learning climbing or snowboarding or any other exciting sports. On top of th…

Two of the strongest climbers I know started in their late 30s. I'm 39, and I suspect my hardest routes are still ahead of me. You'll get out of it what you put in, regardless of when you start. I'd recommend taking off from work tonight and heading straight for the nearest climbing gym to give it a shot.

Oh, and one nice thing about climbing is that the better you get at it the less it hurts to fall. So sure if you fell off a beginner route with lots of ledges to hit it would certainly hurt. Fortunately you don't do that too often. Once you get past the beginner stage, routes tend to get steeper and less featured. As in, less stuff to run into when you come off.

I spent the better part of October pitching off routes on the Greek island of Kalymnos and never hit anything but air. The routes there overhang up to 45 degrees, so there's simply not anything to hit, and therefore hardly any real consequence to a fall.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#49

Post by jasonkester »

reemrevnivek wrote: post #45
nicpottier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I totally agree with this, but I'll go with it, and expand upon it even more. Those climbers who primarily boulder, that's climbing without a rope, fairly close to the ground, are better still. Because they work on insanely difficult problems and fall all the time.

You're missing one of the points of the article: When you fail, it has to be cheap (i.e, a rope attached so you fall a few feet). Bouldering and falling all the time does not mean that you're failing cheaply. Falling hurts!

No, he's right. Boulder falls are nearly always soft, and certainly aren't painful. Usually they're only a foot or so onto a pad. It's actually pretty rare to come off from high up and miss a pad.

Granted, you can still break things. But it still works out safer on a per-hour basis than Volleyball.

Re: If you're not failing you're not trying.

#50

Post by svdad »

tuhin wrote: post #3

I wrote about this in detail some time back: http://tuhinkumar.com/journal/screw-up/ Think-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Iterate-Succeed (very similar to Feynman algorithm)

I think you mean

Think-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Iterate-Screw-Succeed-Screw

If you're getting it that often, why stop?

Post reply on HN