[HN Gopher] An Unreasonable Amount of Time
___________________________________________________________________
An Unreasonable Amount of Time
Author : memalign
Score : 382 points
Date : 2024-12-31 07:20 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (allenpike.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (allenpike.com)
| treetalker wrote:
| This was a pleasant surprise and a pleasant read. Its message
| reminds me of the words of Shunryu Suzuki:
|
| > As to progress -- we don't know how much progress we made,
| actually, but if you practice it you will realize -- some day you
| will realize that our progress is not -- it is not possible to
| make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very
| hard, you cannot actually make progress. The progress you make is
| always little by little. It is like -- to go through fog. You
| don't know when you get wet, but if you just walk through fog you
| will be wet, little by little, even though you don't know -- it
| is not like a shower.
|
| > When you go out when it is showering you will feel, 'Oh, that's
| terrible!". It is not so bad but when you get wet by fog it is
| very difficult to dry yourself. This is how we make progress. So
| actually there is not need to worry about your progress. Just to
| do it is the way. It is, maybe, like to study language. Just
| repeating, you will master it. You cannot do it all of a sudden.
| This is how we practice, especially Soto way, is to do it little
| by little. To make progress little by little. Or we do not even
| mind, we do not expect to make progress, just to do it is our
| way. The point is to do it with sincerity in each moment. That is
| the point. There should not be Nirvana besides our practice.
|
| Source: https://www.shunryusuzuki.com/detail1?ID=80
| notnaut wrote:
| Practice now, realize later, feels deeply dualistic to me.
| bowsamic wrote:
| He's saying practise is realisation, which is a concept
| developed by Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen
| marmaduke wrote:
| that's not what the story says. in any case, the point is to
| explain, in terms of dualistic if-then logic, that the if
| (you practice now) and then (you will wake up) are a single
| non-dual thing. but to communicate in in terms which make
| sense to the dual, if-then mind, one needs to use dualistic
| language.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I imagine he would say to practice is to realize and to
| realize is to practice.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Isn't it just saying, a gain realized from compound interest
| over long-enough time is crazy yet short term gains is
| practically zero, yet total gain is anything but zero, and
| also there really isn't a magical zero effort quick and easy
| jackpot skill gain IRL
| velcrovan wrote:
| My favorite imagery of this idea comes from the last two
| stanzas of a poem: For while the tired waves,
| vainly breaking Seem here no painful inch to gain,
| Far back through creeks and inlets making, Comes
| silent, flooding in, the main. And not by eastern
| windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the
| light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
| But westward, look, the land is bright.
|
| -- Arthur Hugh Clough
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43959/say-not-the-str...
| danwills wrote:
| I have invested quite an unreasonable-amount-of-time rendering
| fractals, (just on 1 node so far) myself, mostly only at 2k
| (square) pixels but really quite a few at 16k (16384x16384
| pixels) and I'm also hoping to figure out how to do some magic
| with these images one day!
| arizen wrote:
| Mind sharing some of your results?
| rgovostes wrote:
| Along a similar theme, Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote an essay in 2021
| entitled "Embrace the Grind," also quoting Penn & Teller:
|
| > I often have people newer to the tech industry ask me for
| secrets to success. There aren't many, really, but this secret --
| being willing to do something so terrifically tedious that it
| appears to be magic -- works in tech too.
|
| https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/7/embrace-the-grind/ Discussed at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26747305
| zwendkos wrote:
| The magic lies not just in the effort itself but in how it is
| directed. Teller's months of work burying boxes weren't random.
| Sustaining long-term effort toward an uncertain payoff requires
| more than discipline--it demands resilience and a reimagining of
| gratification. The real magic, perhaps, lies not in the final
| trick, but in cultivating a mindset where the process itself
| becomes fulfilling, where the act of burying boxes is embraced as
| a craft, not just a means to an end.
| bennythomsson wrote:
| Though, would the burrying have any meaning without the reveal?
| Its only purpose was to be used in the end. I have a hard time
| seeing the meaning of the burrying itself.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Art gratis art.
|
| Some get their rocks off interfacing with the relationship
| between their art and those who engage with it. Others are
| entirely satisfied with the process of making art itself. The
| former is an externalized process, the latter is
| internalized.
|
| Different strokes for different folks, but you can put me in
| a box with no human interaction and a keyboard, and I will
| find no end of entertainment through self-exploration via the
| artistic process.
| bennythomsson wrote:
| Having burried a bunch of boxes with cards inside is art?
|
| I can see the artistic value of the full magic act, but
| does that make a tool used in the act to itself be art on
| its own?
|
| Is the bow used by a violin player in itself a piece of
| art? Perhaps it could be. But if it's burried?
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It's art if the artist decides it is. You don't have to
| agree with them, but art is not some objective form you
| can define, it's entirely subjective.
|
| > Is the bow used by a violin player in itself a piece of
| art
|
| A pencil is a work of art.
| nejsjsjsbsb wrote:
| It is like any goal attainment. Like when you call you
| broadband provider to connect you, which has little meaning
| until you get to work from home.
| Nevermark wrote:
| The end goal is still the organizing principle. The target to
| relentlessly pursue.
|
| But discovering the path to the goal also has meaning.
|
| Every little step down the path, the surprising things that
| are easy, the unexpected things that are hard, is worth
| celebrating. They are all taking us where we want to go! The
| ups and downs are the path.
|
| And the path is a teacher.
| camkego wrote:
| Steve Martin has said similar things about making creating and
| delivering his work his goal rather than getting laughs.
| Interesting to think about.
| arizen wrote:
| It's like being on the winning upward spiral is not hard. What
| is hard is turning around downward spiral into upward one in
| context of uncertain outcome.
| underlipton wrote:
| And also being able to eat, sleep, and socialize adequately in
| the meantime.
| romesmoke wrote:
| Great, useful article. Remember: the same principle holds in the
| world of the psyche. Those people walking around, seeming
| effortlessly happy? Unless if they're little children, a
| horrendous amount of effort has been invested to their inner
| peace. It took me years to realize that. Being envious is much
| easier than being humble and diligent with getting one's shit
| together.
|
| My wish for 2025 is for massive, decentralized, slow yet steady
| psychological magic. HNY, HN.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| A good and often useful generality, however it's important to
| recognize how vast the difference can be in the amount of
| energy needed to achieve inner peace from one person to the
| next.
|
| For example, I had absent drug addict parents, was instead
| raised by extremely abusive and restrictive guardians. I was
| homeless since 16 and I spent my 20's undertaking the self-
| actualization that I should have been doing in my teens but
| lacked the safety, stability, autonomy and financial
| requirements.
|
| Meanwhile, my typical peer has a functioning family unit, and
| has enjoyed a relatively struggle-free existence. I also had to
| overcome disabilities such as ADHD, which has had an enormous
| negative impact on my life and mental health.
|
| I'm not jealous of anyone, and I love and support my peers who
| were provided more opportunities and didn't waste them. But
| it's quite clear to me that the level of effort that I and the
| average US adult had to expend in order to achieve inner peace
| is off by magnitudes. Cognizance of this fact is important.
| romesmoke wrote:
| I see your point. I've had my fair share of trouble as well.
| Talking about this stuff on HN _after_ the storm has passed,
| from a financially stable place, is a luxury on its own.
|
| Nevertheless, I don't see any value on acknowledging the
| delta between me and peers that happened to be luckier. It'd
| be useful were I on the other side: for instance, if I hadn't
| seen my father sink into dementia, if he was still with me,
| I'd better keep reminding myself of the importance and
| blessing of growing alongside a functional, healthy dad.
|
| But now... Thoughts like "I have struggled _more_ than these
| guys " seem dangerous to me. Whenever I've taken them
| seriously I've ended up using them as justification for the
| next tiny act of self-destruction.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>...the next tiny act of self-destruction
|
| A world of truth in that phrase
|
| It all really comes down to the tiny acts of building one's
| self or wasting the time... Yes a (non-wasteful) strategy &
| goal is key, but it comes down to how we spend our
| seconds...
| underlipton wrote:
| It's not about people who have already gone through it, or
| about yourself. It's about people who are still going
| through it, and how you treat them. For most people, the
| delta isn't (just) used to justify their own self-
| destruction, but to justify their cruelty to others. You
| never know what battles people are fighting. And while it's
| true that someone can do a lot of damage to themselves,
| that pales in comparison to what a group of others who
| don't understand their struggle can do to them.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Meanwhile, my typical peer has a functioning family unit,
| and has enjoyed a relatively struggle-free existence.
|
| Are you sure about this? I know that I enjoyed a relatively
| struggle-free existence, and assumed that most other people
| did. But, whenever I have taken the time to get to know
| someone really well, I have found that they had struggles
| beyond anything I had to handle, and that do not reveal
| themselves at all until you know them very well.
| punnerud wrote:
| Good quote from the article: "Eventually, years in, this will
| culminate in overnight success."
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That's a big reason that I spend so much time developing
| modules.
|
| Most of my published code consists of SPM modules.
|
| I test the bejeezus out of each one, and some, I never use, but
| it's worth it, to me, to have their functionality available,
| when I need it. It's not particularly practical or efficient.
| It's _very_ effective, though.
|
| But WFM. YMMV.
|
| I don't get paid for the work I do, and seldom have schedule
| pressure. This allows me to deliver really high-Quality
| results, fairly quickly. Also, since I'm usually working alone,
| it allows me to ship rather significant-scope deliverables.
| nejsjsjsbsb wrote:
| Except for software engineering where doing for 25 years doesn't
| make me feel like I am doing magic. It feels like the art keeps
| moving and I need to keep up. Like the card tricks I did back
| when are now obsolete so I need to learn human cannonball as
| table stakes.
| ema wrote:
| It's important to keep in mind that doing magic doesn't feel
| like doing magic from the inside. Our own competence becomes
| invisible to us. You know the details you didn't get right. You
| know the tradeoffs you've had to make. You know the decisions
| you've made based on incomplete information. It takes someone
| else to be in awe of you doing something they wouldn't even
| know how to begin learning to do. It takes someone else to know
| in their gut that what you're doing is great because they
| themselves have dedicated a lot of time to the craft.
| koiueo wrote:
| Another great person said something like: sometimes 5 years of
| experience is just 1 year repeated five times.
|
| I'd guess, less than 1% of engineers in the industry have an
| opportunity to learn something drastically new at least once a
| year. Most are doing the same in terms of engineering and just
| occasionally learn new (not better) tools (that's the only
| thing that pops in my mind in response to your observation
| about art moving forward).
|
| On the other hand, considering your 25 yrs of experience, I'd
| guess just you understanding networking or compilation/linking
| process will make you look like a magician to 99% of SW
| engineers outside of your bubble.
| chthonicdaemon wrote:
| I have the opposite experience all the time, perhaps because
| I've spent a lot of time with early-career programmers. I
| recognise a problem and say "oh, that's a maximum flow
| problem", then formulate and solve it in a few lines and they
| are amazed in similar ways as Penn describes. They're like "how
| do you know all these things"? And it's just like the buried
| cards. I've taken all this time to read books on algorithms and
| solve Advent of code and so on, so my whole mind is filled with
| these buried cards.
|
| Compare yourself to a person with no experience in software
| engineering at all and you will quickly understand how many you
| have, too.
| zarzavat wrote:
| > I am certain I've seen Penn & Teller describe this trick, but
| can't find a citation online. They wrote about a similar trick in
| their book How to Play In Traffic, but let me know if you know
| where they explain the "buried underground" version.
|
| I also remember watching Penn (I assume) explaining this concept
| and it's been living in my head ever since. Does anyone know the
| video?
| DavidPiper wrote:
| I've definitely heard it too - the only place I can think of is
| an interview Penn did with Tim Ferriss
| (https://tim.blog/2020/01/09/penn-jillette/) but my scratchings
| from that episode don't include this particular anecdote so
| maybe it wasn't that.
|
| The way I heard him describe it was "To any normal person this
| would seem like a totally unreasonable amount of time, EXCEPT
| to a magician [because that's their job]", or something like
| that.
|
| EDIT: Maybe it was actually an anecdote from his movie Tim's
| Vermeer? Been a long time since I saw it...
| empath75 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=bqbMx34WORfLWxac&t=143
|
| There's a version of that trick in this video.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4022D0C2D4AB65BC
|
| "Derren Brown, a British illusionist and mentalist, showcased a
| horse racing betting experiment called "The System" in a 2008
| Channel 4 special. In this program, he demonstrated a method that
| appeared to guarantee winning bets on horse races. The process
| began with Brown anonymously sending a woman named Khadisha a
| series of correct predictions for five consecutive races, leading
| her to believe in the infallibility of his system. Subsequently,
| she was encouraged to stake a substantial sum on a sixth race.
|
| The underlying mechanism of "The System" involved initially
| contacting 7,776 individuals, dividing them into six groups, and
| assigning each group a different horse in a six-horse race. After
| each race, only the group with the winning horse progressed,
| while the others were eliminated. This process was repeated
| through successive races, reducing the number of participants
| exponentially, until only Khadisha remained, having experienced
| an unbroken series of wins."
| zeeed wrote:
| it bugs me to an unreasonable extent that he finished one
| person short of 7777.
|
| The system and the fact that he executed it though is genius.
| selendym wrote:
| > it bugs me to an unreasonable extent that he finished one
| person short of 7777
|
| Perhaps (likely?) he himself should be counted too, so 7777
| in total.
| rsanek wrote:
| 7776 is 6^5, that's the amount he needed to find a single
| correct 'winner' since each race would only have 1/6 chance.
| munch117 wrote:
| 7776 is 6^5. The exactly right number for the trick to work.
| munch117 wrote:
| This is based on an old scam, the core idea isn't Derren
| Brown's.
|
| But what a nice execution. I really liked how be complimented
| the core idea with a bit of sleight of hand in the last
| episode, turning the mark from a victim into a winner.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| That's a version of a classic financial-advisor scam.
|
| It operates on a similar mechanism: a set of predictions is
| sent to large number of marks. Roughly half the predictions are
| in the money, the set of marks is reduced with each successive
| round to those who's previous "predictions" were accurate. At
| the end of the cycle, there are only a small number of marks
| left, but they're given the option to subscribe to future
| predictions for a handsome sum. Of course there are no further
| predictions....
|
| There's also the apocryphal physician's trick of predicting a
| baby's gender (back when this wasn't trivially determinable in
| advance). The doctor would verbally give their prediction, and
| write it down in an envelope. Occasionally the parents would
| recall a different answer, but opening the envelope would
| confirm the gender of the infant.
|
| The trick of course was that was was written was the opposite
| of what was said. When what was said matched the delivery the
| envelope wasn't opened, so the secret was safe.
| mkrd wrote:
| That thought keeps me motivated to continuously work on a project
| of mine. That one day, maybe years from now, it will reach that
| point where it is good enough to get the ball rolling. Only a
| few, which where there from the beginning, will be able to
| imagine the efforts that had to go into it.
| chii wrote:
| If you knew the total amount of effort required, you'd never
| get started. By going in blind, and just keep doing it, you
| will find that you'd accomplish something you thought you
| couldn't.
| 8490109481 wrote:
| I don't know, having spent a third of of my life on a single
| project almost daily, not all that time deliberate and most of it
| ADD-driven problem avoidance, I ended up inflicting upon myself a
| personal hell I have only begun to comprehend the depths of. When
| the interest finally waned I didn't feel I had enough to show for
| it and every other aspect of my life suffered in ways that will
| take years to make up for.
|
| At this point all I learned was to fear the next thing,
| obliterating most of my hyperspecific interests if I'm just going
| to lead myself down the path of a hermit again another N years. I
| get out instead but it doesn't make me feel much better anymore.
| It took too much out of me.
| guitheengineer wrote:
| Imagine if the magic trick was:
|
| 1. They pour a large bowl of rice onto a table
|
| 2. They reveal the exact number of grains
|
| Would this feel exciting as a card buried under the ground? No
|
| Does this still require a lot of effort to count every grain?
| Yes
|
| Applying a huge amount of effort doesn't equal achieving the
| desired result (in this case the suspense, surprise and magical
| element)
|
| The direction one is going is often even more important than
| the effort applied
| randallsquared wrote:
| The problem is that it requires the same effort to verify
| that the magician isn't just lying, and if there's some way
| to effortlessly verify the number, then that same method
| could have been used by the magician ahead of time. To
| capture the sense of something magical, the reveal has to be
| immediately obvious, but in a way that (seems like it) can't
| have been used by the magician to set things up.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| A good example (in my twisted mind) is the folks that set up
| concerts and sports games.
|
| I have a friend, who runs setup of major venues. Like, stadiums
| and conference centers, for big-time events (thousands of
| people).
|
| The deal is, that a _whole lot_ of moving parts, need to come
| together, for one event, and there can be no screwups[0].
|
| Takes a _lot_ of planning, prep work, validation, and, most
| importantly, _experience_ (my friend is in his sixties), as there
| are bound to be curveballs, and newbies aren 't very good at
| handling out-of-band events.
|
| Not many people can actually do it, but almost everyone _thinks_
| they can do it.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOSDrT_eDhk
| jerf wrote:
| A lot of what people think of as "technology" is actually this
| knowledge. Your friend has lots of experience. There's people
| they know and trust to do certain tasks. Those people know
| other people who know how to solve this or that problem. They
| know their gear and are constantly experimenting with new gear
| and getting to know it.
|
| You could gather all the "technology", all the equipment, all
| the cables and boxes and speakers and ropes and everything
| else, and hand it off to a smart, motivated young crew of
| complete newbies, and the "techology" wouldn't work. The show
| would not make it, and it's possible people would even get
| badly hurt or killed trying.
|
| This is the real catastrophe when a team gets nuked and the
| jobs sent somewhere else, anywhere else, doesn't even matter.
| You can transfer the code, you can transfer the infrastructure,
| but you can't transfer the lived experience. Our so-called
| elite managers understand that this is why _they_ can 't be
| replaced but lack the courtesy to extend that understanding to
| the people who work for them, that everyone everywhere who does
| anything non-trivial ends up building these same networks of
| lived experience that are the real ability to achieve.
|
| Putting on a show isn't about knowing that steel is made of
| carbon-infused iron; it's all the networks of lived experience
| that have developed to the level that they can achieve
| something like a major stadium show, safely.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yup.
|
| The term "tribal knowledge," is used as a pejorative, in tech
| architecture, but I have found it to be the "magic
| ingredient" to really successful endeavors.
|
| I worked for a corporation that is over a hundred years old,
| and is absolutely _dripping_ with "tribal knowledge." They
| regularly accomplish stuff that is considered nearly
| impossible.
|
| But "tribal knowledge" basically means that you need to keep
| employees around for a while, and also, stay at a job for a
| while, which is sort of anathema, in today's tech culture.
| dkarl wrote:
| I see this misunderstanding all the time. A manager (people
| manager or project manager) gets bent out of shape because
| person X can do something and person Y with the same job
| title can't do it. Sometimes this is for bad reasons: poor
| documentation practices, or person X protecting their turf
| or their job security by hoarding information. But just as
| often it's because person X has a ton of relevant knowledge
| and experience that is a great asset to the company, and
| person Y maybe has less experience, or their experience and
| knowledge are concentrated in a different area. Often the
| fault is with the people or project manager, who is failing
| in their responsibility to understand and manage the
| company's talent effectively.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Yup. The wrong people do idiotic things like buy the wrong
| type of UV bulbs and fry people's retinas making them blind.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| The footnotes request a lead on P&T explaining this trick.
|
| I'm a bit of a P&T fan, and I'm pleased to be able to share a
| fairly obscure old video where they do indeed explain this trick.
| I'm glad I remembered it, and managed to find it again.
|
| https://youtu.be/gnEGedfTrzc?si=ci7omkG-4zCUmIPc
| mandmandam wrote:
| Cool, thanks for that.
|
| Derren Brown also used a similar idea in his TV special 'The
| System' [0], though with a darker twist. I'm sure the idea goes
| way back.
|
| 0 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_APYUcwINQo
| ghusbands wrote:
| That's not the same trick, though it has similarities.
| Tor3 wrote:
| I admit to not understand how the trick was done when I read the
| beginning of the article. I of course realized it was a trick,
| it's just that it didn't occur to me how it was done. Then I
| continued reading and of course the resolution was obvious, but
| only after I had read it. Now, of course, I can't unlearn it. And
| the reason I didn't get it was exactly the point put forward in
| the article: The title of this thread.
| darepublic wrote:
| This idea is presented in The Prestige as well. Magic just being
| the ability to sacrifice, and then guard the secret
| nadam wrote:
| Hmm, I think 'fail fast' and 'embrace the grind' are popular and
| somewhat contradictory advices. Which is better? I think 'fail
| fast' is (or was?) a bit overhyped so I tend to err on the side
| of 'embrace the grind'. But obviously the art is in deciding
| which one to follow in a case by case basis. Working on your
| dream game for years only to find absolutely no traction is not a
| good place to be in, but constantly chasing low-effort ideas
| without any 'moat' can be also fruitless. Moat usually comes with
| time, effort, and resources invested.
| grayhatter wrote:
| fail fast is about making money as a startup, embrace the grind
| is about improving something hard to improve. Startups rarely
| care about deeper aspects of quality.
|
| Fail fast is a pretty trash idea, if you exclusively mean don't
| be afraid to do new things, then I'm all for it. If you're
| careless with the idea, as most of the people who embrace it
| seem to be. It means do something bad to your users.
|
| I'm gonna steal (badly) a quote from superfastmatt here (before
| I go find the video and correct the quote)
|
| > The motto of hech companies is "fail fast", the motto of
| companies like NASA might be "never fail", the motto of Boeing
| is just "fail"
|
| I think it perfectly highlights the dichotomy between good
| engineering, and bad.
|
| edit: yeah, his delivery is so much better than my atrocious
| attempt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ867EDWcls it's the
| very start of the video, and his entire channel is amazing and
| hilarious.
|
| the real quote: Tech companies have a mantra of "fail fast,
| fail often", This is in contrast to an organization like NASA
| who could have the phrase "try not to fail", or Boeing who
| prefers the simpler "fail". While NASA would prefer to do
| things methodically making sure to check all the boxes along
| the way; SpaceX would rather just take an educated guess build
| something strap a bunch of sensors to it and see what happens.
| You can learn a lot very quickly the second way, I also do
| things this way but not because I'm trying to disrupt any
| paradigms it's because it's just more fun to do it that way
| [...]
| baxtr wrote:
| I wonder if this isn't the same as explore vs. exploit.
|
| Fail fast = use it when in exploration mode. Dig here, dig
| there until you find something of worth
|
| Embrace the grind = once you have found something worthwhile,
| speed a lot of time
| gradus_ad wrote:
| The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Regarding Teller's trick, I'm waiting for the revelation that a
| letter from long ago from the late, great Amazing Kreskin had
| given the exact date and time of his demise.
| twifkak wrote:
| Reminds me of: https://jacobian.org/2021/apr/7/embrace-the-grind/
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-01 23:00 UTC)