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The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#481

Post by rayascott »

So he's saying you have to have OCD to get anywhere, because that's what collecting bus tickets, or spotting trains is. It's a disorder. Calling it a theory is quite a stretch. And tacking on a bunch of "things" the theory says, is just stabbing at the dark.

"An obsessive interest will even bring you luck, to the extent anything can." - how I'd categorise the entire article. Ironically it's also an accurate categorisation of one's involvement in the Y Combinator Seed project: "to the extent anything can".

Let's encourage everyone to develop OCD for things that matter. Good luck with that.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#482

Post by jfengel »

grappler wrote: post #391
klik99 wrote: post #224

Before I read the article, I thought the “bus ticket” was referencing William Sidis, who in the early 20th century gave a mathematics lecture at MIT at 10, a Harvard student at 11, was expected to revolutionize math but then dropped out of the public eye to write strange books, one being an etymology of train and bus tickets across the US, collecting several thousand unique stubs. I bet that you could learn a lot abo…

I knew I'd heard recently about someone brilliant who had obsessed over bus tickets. Thanks for helping me recall it. A recent episode of Radiolab, dated August 27, 2019, introduced a large audience (including me) to another podcast, The Memory Palace: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/memor... With that strong endorsement I began going through the whole back-catalog of The Memory Palace, and Epi…

Glad to hear it. The Memory Palace is one of the most interesting podcasts on my (extensive) list. It's beautifully produced and wonderfully idiosyncratic in its choice of subjects.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#483

Post by klik99 »

grappler wrote: post #391
klik99 wrote: post #224

Before I read the article, I thought the “bus ticket” was referencing William Sidis, who in the early 20th century gave a mathematics lecture at MIT at 10, a Harvard student at 11, was expected to revolutionize math but then dropped out of the public eye to write strange books, one being an etymology of train and bus tickets across the US, collecting several thousand unique stubs. I bet that you could learn a lot abo…

I knew I'd heard recently about someone brilliant who had obsessed over bus tickets. Thanks for helping me recall it. A recent episode of Radiolab, dated August 27, 2019, introduced a large audience (including me) to another podcast, The Memory Palace: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/memor... With that strong endorsement I began going through the whole back-catalog of The Memory Palace, and Epi…

I've been fascinated by Sidis in the past, yet never really got his transfer ticket fascination. Maybe because I've been steeped in graph theory for the last couple of years but listening to that episode made me realize the beauty of what he saw.

If this written/possible (is it?) today, no doubt we'd have web pages and youtube channels devoted to "Transfer Surfing".

And I've got a new podcast to listen to!

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#484

Post by scruple »

peripitea wrote: post #480
scruple wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My twins are 6 months. I've maintained 3x a week, hour long full body training sessions the entire time (and I get out for 2-3 10k runs a week and occasionally get out for a mountain bike ride, depending on how good of a deal I can make with my wife). I'm fortunate to work from home full-time, which means that I can get my workout in over lunch hour. For people who aren't are so fortunate, I always recommend that the…

How do you handle progressive overload? Do you have a bunch of different kettlebells of various weights? Seems like that would defeat the space savings. Or do you cycle out the lower weights or put them in storage once you've progressed past them? Curious to see if I could make this work for me, as I also have time/space constraints.

This program "only" consists of 2 movements, the kettlebell swing and the turkish get-up. But it's deceptively challenging. Progressive overload with S&S is mainly in building up the swings and in perfecting the form of the TGU. Once you have mastery with a kettlebell of a certain size, you test yourself and move up to the next size. It used to have time requirements, in version 1, but that has been removed in the latest iteration.

Kettlebells, traditionally, jump in 4kg increments. So, on average, with this program, you start with a single 16kg kettlebell, and then move to a 20kg, on up to 32kg.

I have a lot of kettlebells... 2x12kg, 2x16kg, 2x20kg, 1x24kg, 1x28kg, 1x32kg, 1x36kg, 1x40kg. They have a small footprint. I leave them all in a corner in the garage and they take up very little space, maybe 3 square feet. I'm on a different (non-kettlebell) program right now. But, I am using the 32kg on days that are not my main training days for strength-endurance purposes (I like doing between 300 and 500 heavy swings a week).

Sorry for the brevity, but I wanted to respond. Hope it helps.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#485

Post by peripitea »

scruple wrote: post #484
peripitea wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle progressive overload? Do you have a bunch of different kettlebells of various weights? Seems like that would defeat the space savings. Or do you cycle out the lower weights or put them in storage once you've progressed past them? Curious to see if I could make this work for me, as I also have time/space constraints.

This program "only" consists of 2 movements, the kettlebell swing and the turkish get-up. But it's deceptively challenging. Progressive overload with S&S is mainly in building up the swings and in perfecting the form of the TGU. Once you have mastery with a kettlebell of a certain size, you test yourself and move up to the next size. It used to have time requirements, in version 1, but that has been removed in the la…

That's very helpful. Thanks!

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#486

Post by [deleted] »

robocat wrote: post #295
glofish wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to sound overly critical of your explanations but you seem to ignore the most important difference: We play soccer with our entire bodies, muscles, heart, legs, lungs get a workout. Not to insult the players but mind and thought processes are somewhat secondary, it is about the "lizard brain": attack and defend with instincts and reflexes. When you play checkers it is your mind that gets a workout. It is…

> It is the intellect that gets a workout. The exact opposite of the soccer. I think you deeply underestimate how much thought and intellect go into playing soccer. It is a game, and applying intelligence to it is necessary to be good at it. Disclaimer: I don't like football (US: soccer), but I know very smart people that play.

[deleted]

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#487

Post by retromario »

galkk wrote: post #459
isodude wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read about and in depth how to raise kids. There is a lot of good books how you can let kids become strong individuals instead of good at following instructions. You will never be bored :p

Any advice?

This was a godsend: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40873423-no-drama-discip...

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#488

Post by viklove »

icelancer wrote: post #260
galfarragem wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society deify successful people when in reality they are nothing more than serial lottery winners. For every "Ronaldo" there are a myriad of people trying to get there that will end their life as losers because they made an high-stakes bet and lost. The truth in unconfortable and nobody wants to listen about it.

>> Society deify successful people when in reality they are nothing more than serial lottery winners This is absolutely false and a terrible thing to perpetuate. Work ethic has the highest controllable coefficient to success as an output. Luck exists and the universe is probabilistic, yes, but it is not non-deterministic. This self-lashing of our community and amongst the populist movement that is growing in populari…

> reducing the sum total of human achievement into lucky chance

Not the sum total of achievement, just a single individual's achievement. An individual's achievement can indeed be attributed ~100% to luck. For every Einstein there are hundreds of equally brilliant geniuses who died picking cotton in a field.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#489

Post by VladimirIvanov »

taurath wrote: post #188
vsareto wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And the thing that I couldn't help thinking is: was it? I'm not sure that any rational person would make that decision. You have to weigh your current abilities and their earning potential vs. the costs of venturing into a new field. Being at the top of Dota is easier than being at the top of Math or Chess or Go, since Dota is a newer field. They aren't really comparable, but you still compare them if you are trying…

> Being at the top of Dota is easier than being at the top of Math or Chess or Go I slightly disagree - neither Chess nor Go have nearly the millions of new players playing it obsessively as they come of age. Math is a bit different, but often times “good at math” isn’t very rewarding except as it pertains to an ancillary job, or if you’re one of the relative few who become a math major. There’s also a major drop off…

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Being a top chess or go player in modern times necessitates being a child prodigy. The skill gap in chess and go is enormous. I don't think the number of players is the primary indicator of how difficult it is to be at the "top" of an activity.

Re: The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius

#490

Post by VladimirIvanov »

anovikov wrote: post #283
ramphastidae wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced that this idea of people who are just too smart for society is way overblown and quite damaging. I see it so often in tech — the “10x” engineer who is just too smart for social norms like polite communication or hygiene. They are not held to them same social standards as others because they are “just different.” In reality, these folks just use the fact that no one else knows how their code works as an…

10x engineers thing is a lot lot simpler than that. In vast majority of cases, it's just one normal engineer surrounded by a crowd of people who should have been flipping burgers, but ended up working as 0.1x engineers because of "talent shortage" which is in fact just some bosses being too greedy to pay normal wages. Over time, abysmal productivity and quality of their work becomes the norm, and one normal guy who r…

Yes, and it's often enabled by the manager and the rest of the team who allow the 10xer to work from home several days in a row on a sprint until he's changed the code so drastically that only he can understand it
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