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Comment by nosefrog | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting essay. Reminds me of how Donald Knuth describes his job:

> Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

It's an aspiration for how I want my career to go, though I haven't been very effective at moving in that direction.

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It's really not an attainable career for almost anyone. Not even the vast majority of professors, who juggle the actual research with grant writing, mentoring students, lecturing, organizing and participating in conferences.

Worth noting it seems like didn't always used to be this way. My impression is researchers had much fewer distractions in the early 20th century. It's not surprising how much ground-breaking progress was made at the time when you see it this way.

Politics seems similar. Chasing money or coverage most of the time because that's the system now.

I have the theory that this is due to digitalisation. We are now at the stage where "everybody" needs to know Tech, and everybody now wants to work in the hip Tech companoes, regardless of own technical skills or mindset: Project managers, legal, accounting, etc. nowadays all want to have a say in Tech aspects, and this creates pressure on the actual tech departments of a corporation to create reports and documentation and explain themselves much more than it used to be.

It's a bad situation for tech people to have to deal with the FUD of all other departments because those departments want to present themselves as knowledgeable and contributing to the technical aspects, when they are not able to at all.

Indeed, I was literally saying this yesterday.

If you stay out of the “news stream” you can pursue your ideas deeply and even if someone else is working on something similar, you will have your own unique take on it.

Forgot to post link

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36324127

It seems rather naive to think that's the reason why there was so much progress then rather than say due to there being more low hanging fruit.

They stood on the shoulders of giants just like we do.

It seems naive to think that getting on those shoulders in this modern age won’t create a brand new batch of low hanging fruit to pick if you’re willing to put the effort in

Eventually the tree is picked clean, it doesn't matter how high you go. There's just very little left and all the pickers are trying to get the same fruit.

People thought the same one hundred years ago, and they will likely feel the same in the next hundred years when we all have our own AI assistants and probably stuff like ocular implants to replace monitors and other unfathomable discoveries

Everything we know about modern physics was being discovered at that time. Math formalism was really taking a foothold. Neither field has seen major advancements since roughly the 70s. Computer science is the same. Now we're computer plumbers, not scientists. I'm not suggesting there won't be advancements, but we solved most of the fundamentals in that time period

> we solved most of the fundamentals in that time period

Arguably this is just one interpretation, the other being "we haven't made fundamental progress since that time period".

In my limited understanding as a mathematician, there's definitely room for progress: settling the measurement problem, or formulating a theory of quantum gravity, say.

It just makes a lot of sense to me that if you give researchers several hours more deep focus time per day, they'll make more progress. I appreciate the low hanging fruit argument, but it depends on an assumption about what's left to solve.

Hell, even brain surgeons spend most of their time nowadays fighting some IT systems...

Grant funding has gotten more and more focused on direct applicability to publishable findings or patentable research over time. Metrics rule everything around us. Which means researchers have to spend ever more time "proving" the "value" of their work.

No, you're mistaken. It's not attainable to make MONEY doing it, as a rule.

I've been doing just that and still am, in my own field. It doesn't make money but it sure does eventually lead to influence and results. The money gradually creeps up (for instance Patreon, once you have enough influence to pull some patrons) but it never becomes comparable to normal work.

If you want to do this but also have some fancy resources, inherit money. That's literally what happened to me, and it's returning to baseline with a moderate boost from having invested what I inherited in tools and materials.

Your description is still covered 100% by GP's "not for everyone" remark.

If they actually said “not for everyone” then sure, but it was a useful rebuttal to: “not an attainable career for almost anyone.”

Many people can obtain financial independence fairly quickly, think FIRE, at which point less lucrative careers are quite reasonable options.

People can often take on more than they think. It just requires tradeoffs or sacrifices. Plenty of people that have kids, health issues, multiple jobs, still find the time to better themselves by going back to school or working out to improve health, or volunteering and or building a community program in some way. It just is rare to make that choice relative to our wealth of leisure options. It is easier (and very understandable) to just choose to find some enjoyment in your life by taking what joy you can. Which is why people that "go beyond" are celebrated in media. But it isn't unattainable in the same sense that, say, loosing weight isn't some magical thing that only the few can do. It instead is something hard, something that incentives conspire against, but nevertheless still accessible to most.

Researches used to have secretaries that helped with the extra work. Who, apart from very high level executives, have secretaries any more?

Lots of people. I know several wealthy people with 1-3 full time staff.

During exceptionally busy periods I frequently hire someone full time for a few weeks or a month to handle all of the things I can't.

It's super common.

It’s super common among high level or wealthy people. It’s much less common amongst lower ranks.

Yes, exactly. It's a rare thing and for people that have wealth and are involved in wealthy circles.

On the other side of things, I could never hire someone to help me. I have to spend my time worrying about trivial things like optimizing my food budget so I don't starve. I don't have the ability to pull away the distractions.

And yes, I am a tech worker in the USA. I still have to do this kind of thing.

> I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.

Then there are the next level of authors who digest The Art of Computer Programming into simpler books for people who don’t have time for such study. Then there are those who digest the books into blog posts. And finally there are those who digest the blog posts into HN comments.

…And finally ELI5 questions on Reddit. All of which are very important for different audiences.

It’s like the aristocrats joke but for learning.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats

Odd question but are you reading Algorithms to Live By? This quote & a related anecdote features in the book. Or maybe this is just a really famous Knuth quote.

I'm not reading it, though it sounds interesting. I found this quote when I was browsing through Donald Knuth's website 10 years ago for inspiration on where to take my life next.

what did you find, and what did you incorporate with what outcomes? I'm at that pivot and very curious to know

I am! It’s on my bedside table. I also made it through the parts of his opus that were published at least 10 years ago.

Between the art of computer programming and the art of electronics, man I’ve spent a prolific amount of money and time. I’m so impressed by the underlying talent.

Can you write the anecdote here for us. Reading the whole book for just the anecdote might be a daunting effort.

The anecdote might not be as rewarding unless having sat through the effort.

It’s really famous and has been discussed on HN in the past.

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=knuth+email

Did not know you could do that with algolia. Can you do that with other surfaces that use algolia as well (such as if Amazon used it)?

It's just the search box at the bottom of HN, and is probably provided in this way as a form of advertising (Algolia being a YC company). Some info: https://www.algolia.com/blog/customers/hacker-news-search-al...

It is indeed a very famous quote: Cal Newport (OP link) also quotes it in his book “Deep Work”

> I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study

I'm not sure about accessibility. Almost everyone I know who has the AOCP series, use it has a show piece. I've rifled through the pages myself, and I don't think it's not something I'd call accessible. But maybe I'm not his audience, and/or he and I have different definitions of accessibility.

It's written in the same vein of Stroustrup's C++ books. It's not a book to be read end to end, in my opinion. It's a tome of knowledge.

I tend to open it, find what I need, understand the concept, or dust-up my knowledge and go on with what I'm working with.

It's a concise, almost blunt, tome of knowledge, to be queried.

> though I haven't been very effective at moving in that direction

This sentence brings out my curiosity. Why do you think you haven't? What did you attempt, and why do you think it wasn't effective? I've worked for a non-profit scientific institute and now I work as a freelancer, so I guess I got to see both sides.

I am not under the impression that Don Knuth books are accessible, I am under the impression that they are exactly the opposite

His books are books you read them last and you add reading them in your CV as a lifetime achievement

Too bad the money always goes first to the people who are on the top, and then you have to hope some of it trickles down to the bottom.

Digesting for another's consumption is a little too "professor centipede" for me.

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