biren34

6 ms·

1.
by biren34 3y ago
I say that the need to start your own thing is a bug not feature. It IS a hard life, with tons of risk, change, and uncertainty. My wife hates the instability of it all. I've missed or worked through many vacations, concerts, and other
2.
by biren34 4y ago
Huh. Didn't realize I had those two words mixed up. Thanks!
3.
by biren34 4y ago
If you haven't heard of it, you've just stated the weak anthropomorphic principle.
4.
by biren34 4y ago
I don't understand why so many people who care about greenhouse gases (and so love renewable energy sources) refuse to acknowledge that producing the equipment that generates "renewable" energy required massive energy investm
5.
by biren34 4y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with the spirit of your comment. I'd add, though, that the entire complex of metrics we use to define "productivity" were invented to quantify and guide the improvement of things that were a problem 10
6.
by biren34 4y ago
This doesn't have to be true, though it is for many. If you can find a version of your dreams that pays the rent and puts food on the table, you can still chase them. Your financial metabolism does go up though, and the total universe
7.
by biren34 5y ago
Okay at the risk of being offensive, all the comments before mine are made by overly intellectual fools. I'm not usually so insulting--but as a father of two, if my 3 year old and 1.5 year old could only read one book, it would have to
8.
by biren34 5y ago
I see a lot of comments about firing and chaos, but the single most important point to me is "you manage processes and lead people". So many managers get this wrong that just fixing this one thing probably gets most startups 60% o
9.
by biren34 5y ago
So...this is the kind of spider that bit Peter Parker, right?
10.
by biren34 5y ago
I have no idea of what's in this bill or not, but the very concept of "cost" in this case seems misleading. What's the "cost" of not investing in our nation's infrastructure?
11.
by biren34 5y ago
Back in high school (pre-internet), we'd sign up a particular friend every time we saw one of the information collection boxes for 24 hour fitness. He could never figure out why they just wouldn't stop calling him
12.
by biren34 5y ago
I have no idea what's allowed in HN recruiting terms, but I'm working at a company that is very much worried about making sure we deliver value, and we have several positions open.
13.
by biren34 5y ago
I think one of the most profound intellectual insights I've had is that the myth of Prometheus was in a sense true, but described events so old--that we wouldn't event consider the "people" in the myth (the ones who rece
14.
by biren34 5y ago
I work with data a lot, and my main issue with hedonic adjustment is that anytime I've ever made any such adjustment to "improve" a metric that wasn't purely mechanical (like a moving average or a ratio to another number
15.
by biren34 5y ago
I think this is just an obvious example of a much larger phenomenon. The trend over the past 40 years has been to put efficiency above all--but that means there is no excess capacity left to ensure robustness. Even "normal" variat
16.
by biren34 5y ago
Fair enough.
17.
by biren34 5y ago
So...you get to arbitrate my parents' experience of poverty? I'll let my mom know that she wasn't poor when my parents spent an entire year eating nothing but cabbage, and they weren't poor when they had to leave me with
18.
by biren34 5y ago
The comment was that the points about money "are, frankly, insulting". I'd call yours a radical interpretation of the text.
19.
by biren34 5y ago
I have no particular beef with you, so please don't take it that way--but "the absolute reality that is the importance of money to survival" is a subjective assessment that does not have to be (and is not) shared by 100% of t
20.
by biren34 5y ago
Many poor people have totally different experiences. My mother, for example, was only able to continue past 4th grade in India because one of her uncles supported her while making her create a budget for the entire school year down to the l
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by biren34 5y ago
In most every discussion I've come across that touches on money advice, I've see a variant of this comment "This world view doesn't incorporate (my) reality of the poorest of the Western world and is so in invalid and of
22.
by biren34 5y ago
First, ambitious people will find ways to figure out if they're succeeding. There are good ways and bad ways. Second, objective rank ordering does exist. You can deny it or dismiss it, but it's there: - Who's fitter? - Who&#
23.
by biren34 5y ago
This is super interesting to me. Several comments to this thread show that the poster is mixing up the will to power with a specific value system. The will to power--and the skills to go with it--are a pure good in my mind. It's the
24.
by biren34 5y ago
How I wish I could link to another comment. Here's my answer to that, with some of it repeated from a comment posted to another comment above: I 100% believe in "success" and the will to power--and I want my kids to succeed,
25.
by biren34 5y ago
I 100% believe in "success" and the will to power--and I want my kids to succeed, full stop. I make no excuses. It's part of my value system, and I don't hide from it. I'm a second generation immigrant, and on my vi
26.
by biren34 5y ago
There's a very subtle distinction here, and you're right, I didn't articulate it well. I'm not advocating ignoring the leaderboards (especially for things like chess where they're essential to determining skill). Bu
27.
by biren34 5y ago
First, I'm not looking for excuses for poor performance, and I don't want my kids doing that either. You screw up then own it. It's okay. You don't have to be perfect, no one is. But don't be a coward and hide from
28.
by biren34 5y ago
Okay, this brings up a really pivotal point that took me way too long to learn: ALL advice MUST be tailored to the individual. This entire discussion is moot for some fraction of the population whether due to internal traits or external cir
29.
by biren34 5y ago
The example you give is true. However, it's a toy example that doesn't usually relate to real world data sets. In most cases, with the amount of data you have, the rounding washes out any real impact of the effect, and you often h
30.
by biren34 5y ago
In video games--and life--the only rewards for success are a transient celebration and a harder level.

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