This is also fascinating. I always assumed I was losing muscles, and perhaps I adjusted my exercise/fasting program to accomodate for this -- but I could have been deluded as I never focused on this point carefully.
2,448 karma · joined July 3, 2007
I'm very surprised by the lack of muscle fatigue though. I've done fasts of 4+ days 10+ times and I always get significant muscle fatigue around that point (esp. in the hamstrings).
I think you are missing something big. Lots of software is like infrastructure. It serves a function and needs to exist so that function can be fulfilled. To use a metaphor, a lot of software is like paving roads. To pave a road costs a certain amount of capital. The amount of benefit derived from a cost-benefit analysis may be marginal. But it is a project that needs to be done. Moreover, it needs to be done in large quantities, which requires a lot of people. The solution in such areas is A) not to have the best people working on these projects and B) create formulas so that these things can be done quickly and efficiently -- ultimately automating as much as possible.
Basically, I think there are many tasks in all sectors that are about creativity and a certain genius, and others that are necessary but simply about volume. "Genius" should be expansive enough to recognize the importance of these latter tasks, whether it is building roads, providing glue between different cloud APIs, or dropping seed money into startups.
I think this is a bit of a wait and see game, since this is experimental on a number of levels. On one hand, YC has started selling certain companies before they are ready on the basis of super-smarts and presumed future output. VC is willing to put in cash and see what happens. Everyone wants a piece of the next "Rails" and to create an ecosystem there, although probably no one is exactly certain what it will take to gel.
In short, I'd say that the red flags are justified, but also it is cool to see the potential ecosystem for an open source project go from zero to sixty in a few seconds because of YC and co. From the moment I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that the hype is for real. The world could use something better than rails and a slick Javascript MVCish framework would be very nice.
Traditional standpoint is that men go to places where women are (e.g. bars) and hit on them. This requires a combination of various skills on the part of men, including resource acquisition (to be able to buy drinks for women), social skills, and the ability to be aggressive in a non-threatening way (e.g. to approach an attractive woman and chat her up).
There are of course many variations on this, but the skills that men ostensibly need to succeed in them are, generally speaking, some rough combination of the above -- which, perhaps unsurprisingly -- are some combination of the same skills that many women would want for a male partner (i.e. assertive, successful, socially capable, attractive).
The presence of these so-called "feminist" threads on HN often take the form of hackers, who presumably do not have all of the aforementioned skills, attempting to get women to come to them. I think it is reasonably obvious that the motivations include the fact that people who do not have all of the aforementioned capabilities and who are limited to incredible hacking skills, want to be able to succeed with women (e.g. obtain sex and/or relationship) on their own terms.
Personally, I believe this is both selfish and a violation of evolutionary norms. Certainly, there is a place for certain types of affirmative action, but in this case (and many like it) it is pretty clear that the action is not made so that the end product is better (i.e. better computer programs built in less time), but that nerds get babes.
While there may be some success with respect to the unstated motivation, I think the fundamental dishonesty with respect to the approach vector means that you will never attract the type of woman that you would ideally want to couple with (yes, I'm speaking primarily to a male audience here).
There may be "good enough" couplings insofar as there clearly is some appeal here from the standpoint of women, given the relatively high salary of nerds (I saw some unusual couplings in silicon valley along these lines, particularly in the South Bay), but I don't think this is a very good strategy long term.
At the very least, I think the motivations need to be clear. Why do dudes in industries that are dominated by dudes want to have women around them in the work place so bad? Yes, we know why, and so do most women. There are other reasons of course, but we have to be honest about all of them when we are coming up with a supposed "solution."
https://github.com/fractastical/Hacker-News-Filter
Filters by domain, keyword, and karma points.
On the friends branch you can also create your groups of friends and the main page will show how many of your friends have commented on any given story.
That said, consulting fits my lifestyle well. I get on a project, complete it, and then am done and can pursue some of my other interests (music, poetry, human languages, travel) with a minimum of interference. As a long term solution I think I would kill myself if I had to keep doing this forever, but as a solution to make money for the last couple years it hasn't been terrible.
The problem is that the transition isn't particularly easy. Most of the skills I've acquired do transfer into other industry sectors, but I haven't stayed on top of the newest stuff in any of them (e.g. Rails magic, Javascript frameworks, etc.). I've thought about jumping ship once there is the crest of a new wave that becomes financially viable (e.g. Meteor) or even transitioning into a completely new line of work (e.g. management consulting/book writing) that kills less brain cells.
As of now, however, I am simply unhappy and seeking the next best thing. Creating my own company or joining a fledging startup has always been of interest, but my lifestyle doesn't allow a 60hr/week commitment as of right now.
So as nice as this is, it simply won't work here for the many people who would like to use near live data on HN.
Facebook is a tricky one, since it promotes addictive "stalking" behavior. I've attempted to use it primarily for messaging and to hide most people who aren't in my immediate vicinity, thinking that I probably don't need to know what they are doing. Still, I am a part of "liking" tribes where there is an implicit economy of trading likes on something and receiving likes back.
G+ I only use when I get annoying messages from Google that someone has asked me a question or added me to some circle. Other than that I avoid it like the plague -- this despite being an enthusiastic adopter in the early days.
LinkedIn I use probably once a month, except in the occasional moments where I am actively networking. I get very little value here since I am not usually looking for work and the technical folks I interact with are available on Twitter (or, at worse, email).
This is, among other reasons, why I like the YCombinator emphasis on co-founders and teams. Even if you are a superstar you need people around you to work at maximum efficiency (speaking for myself at least).
Also, I'd like to applaud the backstage people (accounts, etc.) that make other things possible. Even when I do reasonably well in all of the roles mentioned in this article, I absolutely fail in the paperwork department.
I live in Europe, but AFAIK none of the places where I've lived/am regular even have an HN meetup. I have no idea we would want a splintered HN.
Oh, and when you are writing you are almost always writing for an audience -- esp. when you tweet the result right afterwards and show up on Hacker News to discuss it.
That said, I'll be in Berlin this weekend to check out the scene.
That said, I completely agree that there are (apparently) higher barriers to entry to SAP and it mystifies me why this would be in their best interests -- I assume in some sense it is the security of the "gated community," where one knows that if one engages a SAP consultant he/she has already been vetted in some fashion.
This sort of approach (which I find typical of Germany) leads to a high average but a real handicap when it comes to innovation. But then again if you are doing something very well it is easy to make money hand over fist and then use that money to buy the latest greatest new sauce once it is ready (which is what SAP has done here with this acquisition).