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Comment by modeless | Hacker News Reader

Many of the highest impact decisions in my life, I made because of things I learned reading HN and reddit. And I've even been able to promote my own projects and other projects I like with some success. It's hard to tell whether I'm wasting this time or whether I'm learning about the next Tesla or Bitcoin or deep learning before it's big. Or learning the skills to communicate effectively and promote my work to a big community. I can't separate those things. If I amortize the benefits over the time spent, I think the ROI is pretty good even though the time is large.

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Many of those I made were on weird dilletante times: I learned English because I wanted to read mangas earlier than their French translations, I learned CS because I just found it so fun I failed every other subjects in my first year of engineering school, I moved to Hong Kong because I fell in love with a girl here when in vacations, I joined an investment bank paying a lot because I had too much fun watching bloomberg and I wanted to understand the whole thing, etc.

None of this was planned or even rational, yet they are the few transformative milestones in my life. So I don't know if there's really an argument we should use time wisely: we should just jump around and do what drags us naturally and as long as we're happy, we'll find a way.

One could look at my progression from random nobody in Normandy to somewhat rich Hong Kong bank employee and think there s a story but in fact it's a disjointed set of irrational opportunities ... which I think is what life should be seen as.

This rings true to me. Most of the best things in my life are the same. No big plan and then engineering the small pieces to build it. I've mostly followed the small pieces that drew me at the time. I'm aware that this approach could just as likely lead you to wasting your life on whimsy and end up with nothing, but I have to say I'm surprised with how well all the parts fit together for a pleasing whole. Looking back it's amazing to see how many decisions were "just in time," even though I never had any kind of prediction about the future. Signal is baked into everything and making localized decisions doesn't have to paint you into a corner in life as it can in engineering.

I got into CS completely by accident because of my fascination with computers as a pre-teen. I would spend most of my free time tinkering with HTML, exploring IRC networks, chatting with strangers on AIM. All of it was idle, wasted time. I never even considered that it was a job option until my twenties. I spent my would-be-college years alternating between working crummy hourly jobs and traveling. Instead of going to school, I went hitchhiking around Europe, backpacking in South America, waiting tables, washing cars, working in a carpet factory, you name it. Again, because I was following some whims. I loved learning languages and exploring foreign cultures. At 23, broke, and desperate to get out of the pizza delivery business for good, I dusted off my old teenage hobby and got a job doing web dev around the same time that other people my age were graduating and doing the same. A few years later the gig economy arrived, and I am glad I exited delivery before that happened.

Sometimes I briefly have anxiety about the future. Am I learning the right skills to remain employable as I get older? What about agism in tech? Did it make any sense for me to move out of the US where career development is best? Is some black swan going to come along and completely obviate my profession? The confident side of me shows up and says "you didn't make a plan to get where you are right now either. Keep following what you enjoy and the future will turn out alright. You've only got a few more decades to avoid disaster anyway."

> No big plan and then engineering the small pieces to build it. I've mostly followed the small pieces that drew me at the time. I'm aware that this approach could just as likely lead you to wasting your life on whimsy and end up with nothing, but I have to say I'm surprised with how well all the parts fit together for a pleasing whole.

In a way you’ve to be lucky that your interests are valued by the time and culture you’re living in, because you can’t control them. That might be the only difference of wasting your time or making it.

IMO a little bit the same and in my case I ended up here because it pays well. I had other hobbies before that could not monetize no matter what.

Or as Hamming says in his famous essay: He who works with a closed door is more productive today and tomorrow, but over time works on just slightly the wrong things to make an impact. But those with an open door are full of flitting and scattering and keep getting distracted, yet over time stay aligned with the field and are much more likely to do important work

Is there a link to this essay? I'm curious now. Edit: found it https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

Hey, thanks for sharing this post. I find this as an interesting one.

An HN perennial:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Most recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28322153

At least 10 instances with some discussion.

The lecture is part of a series of lectures by Richard W. Hamming and is collected into a book The art of doing science and engineering : learning to learn

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30

https://www.worldcat.org/title/art-of-doing-science-and-engi...

It's a matter of balance. Too much "open door" mentality, and you'll never achieve anything that distinguishes you from the rest. You won't create a new trend if you're always chasing the latest trends.

I honestly think it's quite far fetched to connect the two - open door; and trendseeker.

But that's what open door means in this metaphor: "staying aligned with the field", i.e., following the mainstream trends.

But for me finding that holy balance is in itself is tiring. some times the contents are no engaging and so it feels easier to skip through the slacking and get some work done. But in other times it is hard. The balance of this mechanism seems so dynamics.

You have to keen an open mind, when it comes to the next big thing. The first Bitcoin post of HN didn't get much discussion and, of the few comments that were present, they were neutral to negative. If you really want to find that next thing, you best be reading the 'new' tab above.

What's been tough for me was I had fantastic stock picks (but no capital, I was in high school) in the mid-naughts. Anybody who's bought-and-held blue chip tech stocks since then would tell you. Today I do diversified index funds with the fear that it's "too late" to have a tech-skewed portfolio. As we all know, the public perception of tech has waned, though that realization is a separate discussion from potential future values, but the bad public perception biases me too much (fear of buying "the peak").

Yeah, I frequently disagree with the prevailing sentiment on HN. But I find that even stuff HN hates, like Bitcoin, gets enough airtime that I can judge it for myself, even if I don't read new.

I had fantastic stock picks a few years ago as well, but didn't act on them (though I've heard from a friend that they made good money on my recommendation of Nvidia). I don't feel like I have any today, everything seems overvalued and I don't feel that I have insights others don't. Which worries me a bit. Maybe there are other forums I should be reading now instead of HN to get those insights in different fields. I kind of feel like we've reached peak HN and the most exciting future stuff may be elsewhere.

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