Comment by gbog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gbog | Hacker News Reader

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Disagree completely:

1. Materials are cheap, how much did the roommate spend?

2. Laziness in code and physical is exactly the same psychological fuel: being bored doing always the same annoying task (eg remove the things to make room for the pizzas) is a strong incentive to find a hack to avoid the bore (add a contraption on the side of the table).

A former colleague was a great hacker, and he also did his own rollerblades, and built a part of his house.

I am some kind of software hacker too (daylong in python internals) and I did fix a car with a stone, I did elevated bed on two shelves, and currently I'm transforming a dead pot plant root into a nice piece of arte povera.

Another way for software and physical world hacking to be similar: in both cases, many people believe it to be hard, are afraid or somewhat restrained, but nearly all it takes is to just say to oneself "it's easy, let's try". While there are a few people with a brain that is no fit for fiddling with computers or screwdrivers, most of them who think they can't do it just never tried.

Materials are cheap, how much did the roommate spend?

First of all, the materials were "free" because they were already bought & paid for. Second of all the more important observation is that even though that first closet door was "free", he didn't have an infinite number of doors to mess up, throw out, and start from scratch.

Disagree completely:

1. I've gone into hardware stores for small DIY tasks and parts/materials are not stuff you can buy with spare change. Tools and equipment are even more expensive.

2. Getting up and doing something physical for some of us takes a lot more effort than a mentally strenuous task.

Tools and equipment: It seems that the roommate did not use a lot of them. You can buy the best electronic screwdriver but you can also very often achieve the same result with a cheap screwdriver or even a kitchen knife.

For me digging deep into some code base, grepping the docs, reading some code in language I am not familiar with or that I dislike is exhausting, mentally and physically. I actually sweat a lot doing that, and it is the kind of sweat that stinks. Doing some woodwork is often less tiring, and the sweat it produces does not smell that bad.

> Tools and equipment: It seems that the roommate did not use a lot of them. You can buy the best electronic screwdriver but you can also very often achieve the same result with a cheap screwdriver or even a kitchen knife.

But the point is only that he only had one door. No room for trying it, breaking the door, and then trying again (your door is broken). Coding is the opposite: you get infinite retries.

> For me digging deep into some code base, grepping the docs, reading some code in language I am not familiar with or that I dislike is exhausting, mentally and physically. I actually sweat a lot doing that, and it is the kind of sweat that stinks. Doing some woodwork is often less tiring, and the sweat it produces does not smell that bad.

I envy you. I love everything on a computer (and never exhausting). Doing anything physical makes me completely miserable (possibly because I'm in terrible shape).

One door: sure that's a difference but not that significant. You can measure it and try in mentally in different positions. You have to think twice before sawing but actually in code you also have steps where thinking twice I'd required, eg choosing a framework, a data structure.

Shape: not sure it can be helpful but you could try to convince yourself that it's only in your head. I have seen very fat people doing physical work and enjoying it, maybe needed more frequent pauses, and but quite able to do anything except crawling under the table.

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