Have had this happen to me. Horrid experience.
1,363 karma · joined March 21, 2021
Imagine if compiling/deploying involved teams on the daily hand writing assembly/machine code from code base?
Being part of the hundreds of thousands of people walking through Shinjuku at any point in time is something else you are merely a fish in a stream.
Japanese novels are sold in small, pocket sized volumes because this was the only way to properly read on the packed trains before the smartphone replaced them all. If you were on a train with a lot more students, you'd notice a lot of them studying with similarly small volumes.
>what struck me was that most people did not seem to have any awareness of what was going on around them.
Something about being in mind numbingly large crowds packed uncomfortably close (like, your face could potentially be in someone's armpit) makes you a bit numb to the crowds.
>I would observe people on the train and not once did anyone look up.
1) You could end up staring at other people. Big no-no. Rude to stare, rude to stare aimlessly, rude to just observe people. Especially because the seats face each other, so staring out at the window without also staring at a fellow passenger is rude. Ever see someone just kind of "sleeping" on the train the minute they get on? Yeah, that's most likely just to close their eyes so they don't end up staring at someone.
2) You could end up staring at something unpleasant. When the trains become packed, you will most likely just be staring at the back of someone's head. Or chest. Or armpit. Or if you're sitting down, you will most likely be staring at someone's pelvic area because the convention is to stand FACING the chair in front of you if you're standing in the middle of the car (I still find this so strange but oh well so goes convention).
3) Plenty of people who find spots at the doors do spend time looking out at the city. Because they can safely do so without inadvertently staring at someone.
4) At some point the entire experience becomes mundane. To you, a tourist, you are experiencing a unique moment. To commuters, it's another Tuesday on the Yamanote line -- they can probably sleepwalk their commute if need be.
Edit: I want to add one more thing, but people ARE aware. I dropped a 100-yen coin once on the way out of the train without realizing, and immediately someone ran up to me with the coin. I think a good way of thinking about the whole thing is that people are aware, but in a way that seems like they're not. But if you're ever on the train again, watch closely -- people are keeping close eyes on who gets up, who gets on, and who is leaving and accordingly makes room.
This, I believe, was originally set forth because the Senate was modeled as an “upper house” not subject to the whims of popular agitation (6 year terms vs 2 year terms. Appointment/selection by States vs direct election by district constituencies). The House, having more direct connections to the people is given the power to investigate and impeach a president, hopefully as a reflection of the public. The Senate, being composed of elder statesmen and slightly removed from the direct consequences of local constituents, is to be a check on potential rash impeachments.
So I’d dare say the impeachments were worth the paper the constitution was written on. The House impeached. The Senate tried, and acquitted him.
I say this because I got washed out during a critical development phase (I was 10 years old) due to some poorly timed family crises and an abusive teacher. I think I’ve done okay for myself and still play as a hobby but the what-ifs do enter my daydreams from time to time…
And then throughout this training journey you will be subjected to multiple wash-out/filter tests.
The mass of children get filtered out very quickly — genetic predisposition (aka Talent) is either there or it isn’t. Surviving this purge awards you with the words that will curse and haunt you forever: “You’re so talented!”
By the time you hit pro, you have survived multiple of these events. It is now your identity, your ego. And now in the open waters of competition, it just boils down to “train harder” and “do better”. Maybe next year is the year you finally breakout. What’s to stop you and why stop now? You don’t understand what it means to give up. Giving up is how all the others got washed out years ago. You didn’t wash out. You got the scholarships, the state championships, the mentions in local media. You deserve to be there and Glory is just within reach…
Besides. “You’re so talented!”
By the time you finally hit The Wall and the results show that there is a much bigger fish out in this pond, it’s too late. What are you supposed to do now? You skipped all regular education to get here. You sacrificed your whole life! Your parents paid a fortune.
Besides. It will be a massive waste of “talent.”
And so it goes. Maybe you can swallow enough ego to become a high school tennis coach. Maybe you will be able to be the one who picks the next Federer or Williams. Then you will vicariously finally get your glory and honor and fame.
Because you were talented. It’s what you deserved.
And you will spend your whole life chasing it.
But make no mistake D1 and Pro-Circuit players are, at the end of the day, still very good.
A notable example I remember are the United Nations’ live interpreters. They can only interpret a live conversation for only about 45 minutes before they have to switch off with a new interpreter because the error rate just exponentially goes up due to mental fatigue.
But I guess I'll just get flagged for being a GPT now.
I always have found stress to come from situations with high-variable, high-consequence outcomes. Examples include dangerous situations, performing arts, and one-way door decisions.
Reducing stress is then narrowing variability, reducing consequence severity, some combination of both, or taking temporary breaks from the situation.
What fascinates me then is that Bezos doesn’t think about stress in this way.
1) Those to whom memorization comes easily without much drilling, so such experiences in the classroom was an exercise in pain and drudgery.
2) Those to whom rote memorization is nigh impossible or only happens with herculean effort. Such experiences in the classroom was an exercise in pain and drudgery.
Both want to eliminate this pain for future generations. I will put forth that both camps are severely wrong.
I concur here, and it is (to me) terrifying how common this is. Just even basic first order cause-effect evaluation.
It isn’t popular to suggest this though, and I’ve learned to tread lightly with this observation of mine because 1) it gets me labeled as “fun at parties” or associated with worse 2) there are plenty of people with high paying jobs or powerful positions who are in this category who will not let it slide without some form of retribution.
It’s also really hard to explain without coming across as an arrogant jerk in normal company. But it’s there — like “head empty no thoughts” isn’t just a meme it’s a real thing. And you say some really basic, almost rudimentary critical thought in their company and you get met with “omg you’re so smart how did you think of that” and I’m like 1) that wasn’t worth any sort of praise 2) uhhh, I … did some thinking?
My friends in software startups balk at the sheer burn rate and funding rounds at mine. $100mm for a Series A is unheard of in software.
Thank you Thiel for setting the bar so high (the famous, "you need $1billion in total capital to successfully pull off hardware startups" quote).
Pre-Seed, Seed, and some really really early Series A employees got to cash out fairly significant chunks of equity. Not as much as a founders' 1-2 million, enough for downpayments on homes or slick new cars all cash. The founders apparently were incredibly generous to Seed stage employees.
Still doesn't compare to a Founders' equity, as this article implies.
also, combustion devices are always one more point of complex and catastrophic mihaps. better keep it as simple as possible and don't miss.
Although I guess there is nothing stopping Soteby's from setting the base price absurdly high to begin with . . .
And as the other comments mention, actors very often do alter the lines. Behind the scenes footage and interviews with actors reveal this often happens because they think the screenwriter/director got it wrong in that particular moment -- that their character wouldn't respond like that.
The Han Solo example is a good one. Hours of takes saying "I love you too" and then Harrison Ford has a flash of clarity and realizes Han would NEVER respond like that. Calls for a quick take, "becomes Han Solo", says "I know" and the rest is history.
FWIW, I mostly coach juniors at work who will brilliantly describe their current project to me at their desk but then fall apart in the conference room in front of peers and seniors. Mostly it's because they're trying to recite some prepared speech that doesn't sound like they normally talk (often desperately trying to impress the room). So I tell them their mastery of the material will impress the room and you sound plenty fine when explaining it to me at your desk. I don't have a full semester of instruction time to make them develop a style -- I have one hour the day before the meeting. So it doesn't produce great political orators. But it does help produce people who can walk through some deep technical work in front of their bosses.
>AND love the act of becoming a person you want to listen to.
And love that character too. That takes some self discovery, experimentation, and practice. Which is why I referred to it as a great effort.
Addendum: To give some credibility to my method, I often point out to them that they sound their best when speaking during data reviews. These are sessions where, following some kind of test, engineers gather to review sensor outputs. You have no time to prep a speech -- these are quickly assembled within hours of a test and are very much often just a loose collection of screenshots and quick annotations and the engineer in question usually spends that time copy pasting screenshots or driving back from a test site.
But once it's their turn to talk about some really obscure looking line graph, they will deliver some great, great public speaking. Why? They've spent the last 6 hours staring at this graph and know deeply how to interpret it.
By the way, this has given me reason to believe that Investment Banking decks largely are just to force junior associates to undergo the above process.
The more you read or watch the faster this becomes.
The neat part is when you can do a double or even triple reading near instantaneously. It’s a little trickier for films, but still possible. I believe this is how your friends who are really good at just breaking down meaning on first watch are doing it —- they have gained media literacy skills that let them take in scenes in a blink of an eye.
Practice your memory, and you can also hold past scenes in your head as new scenes come up. New connections made there too.
Once I get started on a piece of fiction, I don’t exactly see the text anymore either — my brain starts constructing a sort of movie/diorama in my head and every subsequent sentence builds it more and more. Makes reading fiction great and emotional/symbolic analysis great but funnily enough makes me a weak analyst of the language and craft itself. Made my years in undergrad ironically challenging.
As a frequent public speaker and coach of others in public speaking, the top priority is to just deeply understand the material. The second priority is to create the habit write like you publicly speak (i.e develop a style).
You put these together, and you have no choice but to explain it the way you’d have written it anyways. This enforces resilience against interruptions and allows for improvisation.
But this is hard. It requires two great efforts: to deeply understand the material, and to craft a speaking/writing habit that makes for powerful, public speaking.
It doesn’t surprise me then, that actors do the same.