Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don't. No one does. You shouldn't be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren't real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I'm following, and I'm not walking in anyone else's footsteps. I'm making it up as I go. - Charlie Hoehn
I love this quote thanks for sharing, only thing wrong is that it's framed as career advice and not just general advice. I've spent my life thus far following an explicit path checking the boxes I was 'supposed' to and it was making me deeply unhappy.
i.e. Hamming advised everyone to work on the most important problem(s) in their field, and precisely not to "Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy."
Maybe for him these two were the same. There is something cold about his recommendation, though. I'm not sure what motivated him. Impressing himself with important discoveries? I never in all his talking about missile trajectories and weapons-related work came across any evidence of ethical considerations. Godement's Algebra with its inspiring political and ethical conscience - its author was man as well as mathematician - made me vividly aware of how a work of mathematics/physics can either be ethical, or it can pretend that ethics are not its concern. Or rather, like a heartless child, act without ever even considering consequences. Maybe Hamming was just working on the important problems in his field, and disregarding all else, and thought that was enough.
It's interesting that a few people are relating this to team work. I think that is a misinterpretation. By 'others' I would infer something more like 'competitors', though I mean that relatively loosely. Essentially, ignore what other labs are working on and focus on your own (group's) works.
My own PhD supervisor had a similar attitude, though it runs against how many others approach a problem I feel. For example, I'm unconvinced that starting a project with a thorough literature review is necessarily the best plan. It can shroud your thoughts, make you miss the same things everyone else has and make you feel that all the work has already been done.
This is also critical for software engineering as well. Large organizations, especially older ones that sort of missed the software revolution will get bogged down in making sure they're software engineers don't recreate an existing project within the company. This thought process ruins creativity and motivation. It's more beneficial to recreate the same thing 4 times over, now you have a team of domain experts 4x the size and you can take that expertise and factor out the shared patterns into a service or a product. Trying to do it the other way around is a recipe for failure.
There are plenty of counter-examples to this. Just look at Google's messaging efforts (Gmail chat, Hangouts, Duo, Allo, etc.) as a great example of fragmentation without any obvious benefit.
Well if you refuse to learn from mistakes you’re going to keep missing. Gchat is still better than whatever half baked, whitespace filled crap is there now.
> recreate the same thing 4 times over, now you have a team of domain experts 4x the size [...] factor out the shared patterns
This is quite a helpful example. I have spent much of my career concerned about avoiding duplication of effort at all costs, and a significant counterweight just clicked with me.
Comparing parallel experiences for new insights is a core competency of our brains. It's true with many other animals as well.
I've heard Bob May say the thing to do is to start off thinking about the problem yourself to see how far you can get before doing the reading. But the reading has to be done.
This goes for everyone - not just geniuses. The burger flipper at your favorite fast food joint needs to concentrate on his own work, disregarding what the particular tasks of the counter-worker is. An office worker needs to concentrate on their own Excel workbook, disregarding the type or quality of other people's work.
One can't be at peak productivity or creativity while constantly comparing their work to others. A very basic trap that even Nobel Prize winners get stuck in apparently.
One thing I'm not very certain is that can we as software developers totally disregard others work? I think the analogy doesn't apply here.
We build on what other people build. Some many times I had to read other people code which I think made me a better engineer. If I work in isolation, not sure if I can improve the quality.
There is a strong culture of building on top of the work of others, and in some cases people build really neat stuff that they could never have done on their own by pulling in years of work in the form of libraries and datasets and etc, but that way of working isn't for everybody. You might end up spending more time trying to keep up with the latest and greatest everything instead of developing your own ideas.
I think of Minecraft as a pretty good example. While everyone else was focused on making photorealistic shooters on game engine X Notch was all like "what if everything was cubes that went on forever", and he ended up making something super unique (and extremely popular).
Or Chuck Moore with all his wacky Forths. Not the billionaire that Notch is, but he seems pretty happy.
Does this work for Feynman, because he is a genius? in the same way that lots of successful people offer tidbits of advice that wouldn't apply to someone in different circumstances, or perhaps with a different level of intellect.
It's just a story about a human being at a particular point in his life. These stories do not yield lessons that are applicable at all times and to all people. They are just insights that may help a particular person at a particular moment - just as he was helped by having that insight at that time. At another time in his career he might have had the opposite insight: I need to immerse myself in listening to others.
Warran Buffet is well known for his 'insulate yourself from public opinion' quote. It appears to me that disregarding the mainstream is necessary to be an outlier in any field. The rub might be though, that outliers lie on both sides of the bell curve.
I think it works for everybody but you need to be brave or crazy enough to apply it.
If you pay attention to what the others are doing, you are working inside what is socially acceptable in your group and usually you are not going to go against the stablished truth. Hence you will not be able to add any breakthrough to your area of expertise.
Feynman as the post says, experienced this social anxiety once he had the fame. He was able to recognice that you can not truly advance in new topics if you don't ignore social preasure, even if it's self inflicted.
Of course that means that you risk being called a crank, or not getting tenure, or grants for your proyects.
There is huge value in incremental knowledge, but to be Einstein, Watson or Feynman you first need to publish something new that most people will not recognice as valuable at first, if ever...
It depends on your social status and general situation a lot - some people get punished hard when they disregard others and are in no position to do it. Others can get away with that mostly. A lot depends on whether at least portion of people is willing to give you benefit of the doubt or whether someone criticizing you as always taken at a face value.
Most people is going to be criticized if they step out of the beaten path. Powerful people in any field is not keen to radical change that could make them superfluous rather fast. Then there all those who want to be seen as worthy by the powerful that will parrot their opinions.
I don't think I would dare to introduce radically new stuf (I'm no scientist so it's easy for me to make this statement), at least in the area that puts food on the table, and this is what most people do. It's natural.
You need to be antisocial or obsessed or have no need to public suport due to a special situation(rich, political suport, personal inconditional suport from the boss, being an outsider).
Most of them will be wrong just the same and considered cranks, made fun off and forgotten.
We still need this kind of people even if we wont be like them.
I agree with things you are talking about, but there is still more to that.
The exactly same suggestion from "our friend" is treated differently then suggestion from "that suspicious dude/girl". It may be difference between mild criticism and "it is ultimate proof he is dumbo". It makes big difference in practical results. It may be difference between "jesus, did you had to say that" and "you are not gonna get responsible position ever again or at least you are not gonna go to that meeting again".
When someone like Stephen Hawking says automation will, given current trends, lead to more inequality, that rightfully doesn't get disputed. When I ask questions on HN that would lead to similar conclusions, I don't even get answers. In person it's the opposite, me being slightly attractive (and actually liking people more than you'd know from my posts) means I can basically say just about anything to anyone. It may not get accepted, but I get away with it. But I often think, if an ugly person stuttered the same statement, they'd get an entirely different reaction. Then I think further of how my impressions of people might distort my interpretation of their words, and I'm completely blind to that by definition. In short, it's all kind of unfair and sucky. I don't think I even added anything to your comment, you put it better. But it's something that's on my mind a lot. We pay too much attention to our impressions of messengers.
> I think it works for everybody but you need to be brave or crazy enough to apply it.
Depends on what you think 'works' means. You get stuff done but chances are (and these chances are quite significant) no-one will care. If you are a genius (even if you don't recognize that yourself) this works because what you do will be recognized by others. Like writers doing their thing despite what others (including publishers) say; the talents become famous, the much larger group that are not so talented (or, unfortunately, for other reasons) are never read.
I think that's why evolution selects for a small proportion of insanity in humans - so that some of our geniuses are insane enough to ignore social pressure and make breakthroughs that would be recognised.
My point is insane geniuses become famous and have a good chance of passing down their genes, and their insanity and genius maybe separate genes, so some descendants may receive only the insane ones. Apologies for not expressing myself in proper academic nonmenclature.
I think there's a common lesson though. Geniuses seem Superman because the magic of compounding intelligence is just as astounding as the magic of compounding interest. Geniuses seem superhuman but only because we cannot conjure up the superhuman amount of will required to reach such levels of genius.
By following curiosity however, knowledge in a specific direction as set by your heart compounds. You can become superhuman at being you. (there is some luck involved in whether those skills can transfer into money/power/etc for the given time period)
This is why early success can kill genius because a false God is created, the regard of others. By desiring and aiming, the target is missed. Because genius isn't about hitting targets or any sort of finite game with a goal. It's about the continuous burning of compounding interest, discovering and expanding our knowledge of the universe and life.
Willpower is powerful but myopic, like the electromagnetic force. Curiosity or self driven passion is like gravity, much weaker in small amounts but continuously compounding at all scales.
The bigger point is to avoid artificial constraint.
If you’re not doing things that you think are important and should be done because you are worried about the opinions of peers or sacred cows, you should dare to be bold. Keeping people happy isn’t always the right way. That’s what makes you a leader.
That said, jumping off a table is a risk that can be managed. Jumping off a cliff is not likely to end well!
This does work for you, if you're on to something, even though the fact applies that you cannot know if the thing you're on to isn't already discovered and/or correct, which are things that are mostly impossible to know: https://www.xkcd.com/1163/
Your point about working/collaborating/trusting in others is a twofold thing. Environments where everyone thrives to their max are very rare and hard to protect. Centrally here, being aware of what you need and how you can work with (or without) others is the crucial thing, and yes, reverse Dunning-Kruger happens to the best of us.
UPDATE: A bit of humility keeps every scientist's personality on the way towards self-improvement and breakthrough.
"“In conditions of uncertainty and risk,” the researchers explained, “some instances of optimism lead people to make better decisions by helping avoid more costly mistakes and contribute to survival and flourishing.” Even so, it’s true only to a point. “Excessive optimism,” they concluded, “can become problematic and lead to poor strategic planning, disillusionment and disappointment, and risky behaviours""
Trump also wrote, according to the article:
"“Someone asked me if I thought I was a genius,” he wrote in 2009 in Think Like a Champion. “I decided to say yes. Why not? Try it out. Tell yourself that you are a genius.”"
The researcher's thoughts:
"“For most people,” said Norem, who specializes in optimism, pessimism and personality psychology, “there’s a point at which, if that’s all they bring to the table, it breaks down.”
The question is where that point is for Trump. He is so clearly not most people. In the words of Mitch Horowitz: “He is a kind of Frankenstein monster of the philosophy” of positive thought.""
Please note the post to which I respond, specifically:
"Does this work for Feynman, because he is a genius? in the same way that lots of successful people offer tidbits of advice that wouldn't apply to someone in different circumstances, or perhaps with a different level of intellect."
My response post is answering to that part of the question by referring to the article, which is worth reading exactly because it discusses that problem: when and where can it be said that somebody is just delusional, even if he gets to be a president of the only remaining "superpower".
More globally, the attitude described in the article is a broad phenomenon, which is also worth considering. In short, please read the article linked, don't react based only on your initial emotion. I guess you'll understand the post differently. I thought my quotes were a good selection, still I think you really missed the point if you complain that I compare them as equal.
As you see in the article and my quotes, Trump operates under the assumption that he's a "genius." Reading the other news, even when somebody (to be precise, a Secretary of State!) calls him a "moron" he responds with the IQ challenge (sounds like a joke but it's not):
Watson's original account of the discovery of the double helix has been heavily criticized for downplaying the role of Rosalind Franklin's x-ray crystallography measurements of the structure of DNA in the discovery.
Might this criticism have been politically motivated?
For a while she actively campaigned against DNA being a double helix, see e.g. her 'obiturary' for the double helix [1] which preceeds Watson and Crick’s paper. Might her insistence that DNA is not a double helix have misled Wilkins and others?
This is complicated issue. Specifically, The Double Helix, cited in the original HN post, does mention Rosalind Franklin but in a rather demeaning way that slights her contributions -- which came to be highly criticized in subsequent years.
This is the relevant section from the Wikipedia article, which like most Wikipedia articles on contentious topics should be taken with a grain of salt and not substituted for original sources:
Recognition of her contribution to the model of DNA
Upon the completion of their model, Crick and Watson had invited Wilkins to be a co-author of their paper describing the structure.[186] Wilkins turned down this offer, as he had taken no part in building the model.[187] He later expressed regret that greater discussion of co-authorship had not taken place as this might have helped to clarify the contribution the work at King's had made to the discovery.[188] There is no doubt that Franklin's experimental data were used by Crick and Watson to build their model of DNA in 1953. Some, including Maddox, have explained this citation omission by suggesting that it may be a question of circumstance, because it would have been very difficult to cite the unpublished work from the MRC report they had seen.[78]
Indeed, a clear timely acknowledgment would have been awkward, given the unorthodox manner in which data were transferred from King's to Cambridge. However, methods were available. Watson and Crick could have cited the MRC report as a personal communication or else cited the Acta articles in press, or most easily, the third Nature paper that they knew was in press. One of the most important accomplishments of Maddox's widely acclaimed biography is that Maddox made a well-received case for inadequate acknowledgement. "Such acknowledgement as they gave her was very muted and always coupled with the name of Wilkins".[189]
Twenty five years after the fact, the first clear recitation of Franklin's contribution appeared as it permeated Watson's account, The Double Helix, although it was buried under descriptions of Watson's (often quite negative) regard towards Franklin during the period of their work on DNA. This attitude is epitomized in the confrontation between Watson and Franklin over a preprint of Pauling's mistaken DNA manuscript.[190] Watson's words impelled Sayre to write her rebuttal, in which the entire chapter nine, "Winner Take All" has the structure of a legal brief dissecting and analyzing the topic of acknowledgement.[191]
Sayre's early analysis was often ignored because of perceived feminist overtones in her book. Watson and Crick did not cite the X-ray diffraction work of Wilkins and Franklin in their original paper, though they admit having "been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King's College, London".[81] In fact, Watson and Crick cited no experimental data at all in support of their model. Franklin and Gosling's publication of the DNA X-ray image, in the same issue of Nature, served as the principal evidence:
Thus our general ideas are not inconsistent with the model proposed by Watson and Crick in the preceding communication.[192]
The section you cite does not mention that F. explicitly
campaigned against the helix model for a while. Why? If we exclude the
option that she deliberately lied about it and publically spoke
against the helix model so as to mislead others (which would be a
major breach of scientic ethics) -- and we should: "de mortuis nil nisi
bonum dicendum est" -- then she failed to see what others did see.
To use the vernacular:
The issue with Watson's original account is here in the Johnson's text:
After negotiations between both labs, papers by Wilkins and by Franklin and Gosling appeared in the same issue of Nature along with the one by Watson and Crick. (They can all be found on a website at Nature, and an annotated version of the Watson-Crick paper is at the Exploratorium’s site.) Toward the end of their paper, they flatly state that “We were not aware of the details of the results presented [by the King’s scientists] when we devised our structure, which rests mainly though not entirely on published experimental data and stereochemical arguments.” Yet they go on to write in an acknowledgment, three paragraphs later: “We have also been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King’s College, London.”
The sentences seem to contradict each other, and in any case Watson made a point, in his book The Double Helix, to describe the pivotal moment when he saw Photo 51.
So the controversy continues. Was it ethical for Wilkins to show Watson his colleague’s work without asking her first? Should she have been invited to be a coauthor on the historic paper? Watson hardly helped his case with his belittling comments about Franklin in The Double Helix.
The bigger issue from the original Hacker News post is Watson and also Feynman's portrayal of their work as highly independent of their colleagues: "disregarding" others.
You keep ignoring the elephant in the room: that she was wrong (in the charitable interpretation). Why?
I'd appreciate it if you could state clearly whether you think
- F. got it wrong, or
- she knew/assumed early on that it was a helix, but lied about it?
Thank you.
As to whether the X-rays should have been seen by Crick/Watson, The research was publically
funded. Publically funded research should be open and transparent. Or do you disagree with transparency of taxpayer money?
Would it have
even been legally possible for F. to refuse the communication of her
tax-payer funded results?
This was addressed in the appropriate chapter in The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee[1]. It was the first I had heard of Rosalind Franklin and I was very grateful for this account which gave appropriate recognition. (Side note: the entire book is also highly recommended)
It was a pleasure to read, but of course it should be taken with a grain of salt and not applied to every field :-)
Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing? Screw the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore the parts that are already working well!
You might end up with a good solution to the problem, but you'll also manage to piss off a lot of people ^^
A more valuable 'quote' from Feynman would be to "Test everything yourself". Don't just take for granted the results of others but verify it yourself. That (in the field of software) can be quite valuable :-)
> A more valuable 'quote' from Feynman would be to "Test everything yourself". Don't just take for granted the results of others but verify it yourself.
IMO it's more about "don't follow the path others take, where it's easy to make the same assumptions they did. work through things from first principles yourself".
I wonder, how many people could actually work through things from first principles, if they were taught how? I don't know, but I suspect a lot more than currently can/do. The education system doesn't currently make any attempt to teach these kinds of skills (AFAIK).
I also wonder how much working through stuff like that might actually contribute to making people smart. It would be a valuable thing to find out.
When I was in high school I had a teacher who taught us to consider lateral thinking when approaching a problem, it was valuable and something that's come in useful ever since.
You are right, schools don't encourage it enough imo.
>Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing?
I think there's an extent to which this is actually healthy. If we're to build modular code, we shouldn't concern ourselves with the internal workings of modules built by others. We do need to agree on how the modules will interact, but if we need to concern ourselves with how their parts work then we're insufficiently modular.
This maps to the social interpretation of this advice as well. You need a healthy interpersonal interface to accept useful input while ignoring useless input.
> Imagine being in a software team and disregarding what others are doing? Screw the rest of the team, I'll work on my own better solution and ignore the parts that are already working well!
If you are competent, have a realistic estimate of your competence, this might not be a bad idea if what you need is a purely technical solution. In many big organizations (lets leave them nameless) most of your time might be going in navigating the politics, guess-estimating different people's internal incentives and how to steer with or around them, not enough time might remain for thinking about the actual technical problem. In these organizations its necessary to take care of these things, because even if you figured out a great solution that ticked all the technical boxes, including technical compatibility with others, all that will come to nought if it is not in alignment with the social and political aspects.
> If you are competent, have a realistic estimate of your competence, this might not be a bad idea if what you need is a purely technical solution.
This.
Just _yesterday_ some xls-to-json library that has been used in the past was choking on an innocent-looking file. After fiddling with the thing for over an hour, including using LibreOffice to change the file format, I still could not get the library to read the file.
In five minutes I had a Python script which read the CSV version of the file and converted it to the necessary format. I chanced writing the script because that I knew that I could. In other situations, gambling company time on "I _might_ be able to help" usually leads to wasting company time.
Unfortunately, for every one who is that person in that situation, there are several who merely think they are, at least in my experience (the most common form seems to be the covert rewriter whose work is more 'pure', 'object-oriented | functional', 'general', 'flexible', 'performant', 'reusable', or my favorite, 'simple' (for some definition of 'simple') than will ever be needed, at the cost of considerable additional (and undocumented) complexity.)
More to the point, consider being the person who decides what that team builds. If you are constantly looking around you, worried about the competition and not trusting your own instinct, you may never build that singular wonderful thing that helps define your career (and gives you energy to pursue difficult things).
This applies to scientists, not to software engineers working in a team. (This can also apply to software company founders and side projects but that's a special case.)
Scientists and researchers are primarily working to build their own brand and to make a contribution which can be tied
To them.
A team of s/w emgineers is working to build a cohesive whole. Much different goals and incentives.
Multiple software engineers working to solve the same problem in isolation will arrive at different solutions. Some may work better than others, but that's irrelevant; what's important is that these different engineers will have all achieved a complete understanding of the problem and its solution, and when they collaborate on a new, more complex problem that builds on what they've already done, they each bring their own unique perspective to the table.
This is why side projects are so absolutely crucial to a software engineer's mastery of his or her craft; by working through a problem alone, the engineer not only gets a better understanding of the problem, but is also able to apply diversity of thought to a team's problem set.
I eventually started thinking of side projects as the software equivalent of "practicing my chops" as a musician. It doesn't actually matter that much whether all those free-time experiments ever become shippable products - and most of them not only don't, but couldn't - so long as the process of working on them helps me stretch my knowledge and keep my skills sharp.
>This applies to scientists, not to software engineers working in a team.
And that'w why no software engineers working on teams will ever win a nobel prize.
I don't mean to be disingenuous, but did you ever stop to think why team work is so drummed into us?
It's not because teamwork produces better results, it's so corporations can treat us as interchangeable cogs. They want knowledge spread across a whole team to 'de-risk' their projects in case someone leaves.
They know full well that the best work is done by expert individuals, but they choose to promote teamwork anyway.
Teams can certainly achieve things that are too large for an individual. And yes, what you said do exist (and on some projects it is even a good thing).
I don't think there are easy general answers, except that all the energy promoting team working is there because nobody likes it. If it's a good or a bad thing, that will probably change every time.
Scientists are also trying to build a cohesive whole: their research needs to be relevant to the rest of the scientific discussion or people won't bother with it.
Likewise, software engineers have incentives to carve out fiefdoms within their company as a path towards recognition and promotion; building one's own team/department within a company begins with these kinds of contributions.
It depends on who you're disregarding. Disregarding your team members makes you difficult to work with. Disregarding your competitors may lead to a different approach that catapults you to the forefront of your industry.
> This applies to scientists, not to software engineers working in a team.
It applies to anyone attempting to do something new, which does exclude most software engineers. Goals and incentives matter, of course, but are secondary here, I think.
The truly great ideas in physics are actually quite simply stated. They are subsequently mathematically elaborated, to the point where it can be hard to separate out the core idea. Even a Feynman can’t track all the work going on, and elaboration doesn’t win Nobel prizes. Most physicists don’t have the ability to rise above elaboration and application - it takes an Einstein or a Feynman to grasp and extend the core with big ideas, while not being distracted by the fog of elaborative papers.
My favorite is, Wheeler: “Feynman, I know why all electrons are exactly alike!” Feynman: “Why?” Wheeler: “There is only one electron!” [looping through space-time, we see the cross sections]. Ahh....
I believe Feynman is saying stay focused on your work, don't get too caught up changing things or keeping up because of other shiny things, you may miss important innovative ideas on your own work. It doesn't mean ignore others work but sometimes it is better to work it through yourself for understanding and then compare. Put all the energy into your work first and foremost.
Same could go with starting a company or product - competition needs to be paid attention to, but if you do it too much it will lead you astray. The product may end up chasing or copycatting while missing out on some innovation that is entirely new and possibly important.
It can also be the opinion of others. A lot of people, especially when you're doing something that goes out of the ordinary, will judge you for not researching more conventional things. You end up trimming your research so that it pleases people more.
This was fun and all but it doesn't apply to modern academics. Now, if you 'disregard' you won't get grants and you won't be in academics long enough to make a contribute. Fun but irrelevant today.
I think this is not the spirit it was meant in. It is more self help advice for the struggling researcher. I read it more as, despite your doubt, disregard others in your mind, and do your work. You won't get anywhere if you have convinced yourself you won't get anywhere, so why start/try?
Feynman's breakthrough seems more to be a full package. I don't think any one thing he did would work for someone else, but collectively he was very effective.
My favorite practice of his was keeping toy problems in your head at all times. Whenever you see a new problem or technique, thing how it relates to a set you already know.
My favorite behavior of his was uniform respect for everyone. He never assumed that someone else couldn't understand. If anything, he felt he couldn't explain. Subtle but important difference.
I have always encouraged colleagues to read less scientific articles, especially if it is incremental science. It encourages you to think inside the box and you will come up with the same solutions everyone else is.
Of course there is more to it, work methodically, formulate problems before solving them, etc. But I'm glad Feynmann agrees with me on this one.
In general it is high risk and high reward. You need to have sufficient confidence in yourself that what you're doing is valuable to a community that is hostile to you. If your work ends up not being recognised as important, then your losses are much larger than if you followed the crowd and did incremental research. There is probably analogous stories with start up scene, incremental start ups get funded, those considered too radical are not given money.
In science it is not obvious whether or not your work will be important or recognised as important until much later.
From the point of view from the entire community it makes sense for individuals to go big risk, but for individuals sometimes you also need to manage your risk differently
Good point. I'd add that the expected payback from doing incremental work is also a variable that can go through extreme changes over the medium term, which can lead to changes in whether it's rational to play it safe or attempt to blaze a trail.
That makes me wonder whether changes in rates of entrepreneurialism lead or lag economic downturns...
Very nice little story and good advice, but I think most of us feel that completely disregarding others is not always the best solution. It really is a exploration vs exploitation problem.
You mean 'looking at' versus 'using'. But it should be 'and' not 'versus' i.e., always taking the wider view by looking at what effects the 'using' has on its environment of which we are all part.
I find it is a hard balance to strike, because on the one hand I think you certainly need input, inspiration or feedback from other people and people smarter or more accomplished than you, but on the other hand you it's not good to get self-conscious about your ideas or achievements relative to theirs.
In principle those to things could be unrelated, but in practice it can be hard to separate those two aspects.
Just based on some of the comments here - I think this loosely translates not as to literally disregard what others are doing, but more to disregard how you _think_ others are interpreting the work that you yourself are doing.
In other words, believe in yourself and everything seems a little easier.
I don't think that's the case at all. It explicitly says "You have to worry about your own work and ignore what everyone else is doing", not "ignore how everyone else is interpreting the work you yourself are doing".
Of course this advice isn't good for those who work in a team.
Shannon also had a care free attitude regarding his ways. Following his intuition is important. Not being blind too. Accept the others, just don't dismiss yours.
I've used it and loved it. For me it greatly enhanced readability as they had put a lot of care into the aesthetic and typography.
I'm not a fan of the way it takes over the default WikiPedia URLs, however. And the Firefox plugin hasn't been updated since 2016 and isn't compatible with newer versions of Firefox so I don't use it on a regular basis anymore.
Yup. That works. Just don't forget the follow-up, where external feedback is crucial.
Shameless plug: I've written my own crypto library¹. Not just for the lulz, I fully intend to use it in production. To do that, I had to disregard the crypto community, that basically says anyone who does that deserves to burn in Crypto Hell the time it takes them to count to 2^256. (I might exaggerate a tad).
They say that for a reason however. I had to seek and listen to external advice eventually. Which, judging by the holes they poked through my library, was invaluable.
I think there are two phases. The "I'll show them" phase where you hide under your cave doing your thing, and the phase where you actually show some results and confirm whether this was a worthwhile endeavour.
I think the point is that you don’t need approval from anyone to find value in your own work. Who cares if crypto “experts” condone the use of your library? All that matters is that it provides you value in your endeavors. “Showing them” is not necessary for that.
Showing "them" would be pure social validation and, according to your parent, not recommended. Showing "that" would be sanity protection, just as you understand it.
I would make a distinction between 1) working on some project ignoring what others are working on or what they would say about the potential value of the work until you have reached some milestone and are ready to present it to the world and receive critical feedback, and 2) working on something without concern for anyone else ever finding value in it.
Feynman is clearly saying disregard others while you are doing the work, not disregard others when you present it for feedback and criticism. That is the spirit with which I responded.
As a developer, there is a third option where your work is simply ignored. If it is functional for you and you are satisfied with your own work, then sure, feel free to disregard others lack of interest, like an artist who values their own work but meets a deafening silence. But please don't disregard serious criticism.
It seems like your view of “valuing your own work” is narrower than mine. I never said disregard criticism, I said approval is not necessary to find value.
I am just curious, how much effort went into side channel mitigation, etc? There are a lot of things libsodium does to mitigate side channels that aren't obvious or documented.
> how much effort went into side channel mitigation, etc?
Very little. The chosen primitives are naturally resistant to timing attacks, thanks to the utter absence of secret dependent branches and secret dependent indices. I did have doubts about constant time comparison (code generated under -O3 was crazy), which I solved by changing the API.
Locking the memory is not implemented, only discussed in the manual (Monocypher wants to stay portable).
Zeroing out memory is neither implemented nor discussed. I'm not sure what to make of it, actually. If it is useful, then wiping the contexts is not enough, you likely also have to wipe temporary buffers above the top of the stack (I don't think anybody does this). In any case, if the attacker can read your memory, you're probably screwed anyway.
Now if some attacker can read your memory only after you've processed your secret stuff, a `crypto_wipe()` function would have its uses. But if you've processed secret stuff once, you're likely to do it again, and then crypto_wipe won't save you.
I'm also afraid zeroing out memory gives a false sense of security. I'm more in favour of segregating the sensitive stuff in a separate process, like Qmail.
It's not particularly imposter syndrome. He might still acknowledge that he's brilliant and has made some great discoveries, but feel he may not be able to make any more. Someone with imposter syndrome may never acknowledge their own achievements.
