
My Roommate's a Genius - FarhadG
http://www.farhadg.com/post/33834177117/genius-roommate
======
tzs
That is far more impressive than my one attempt at modifying my bed, which no
one would attach the word "genius" to...the most likely word I would have
earned was "special".

I was living in a small rectangular room at Caltech, with the door on one of
the short sides and a window and radiator on the other short side. My bed was
a rectangular framework that the mattress sat on top of. The long sides of the
bed were parallel to the long sides of the room, said orientation being forced
by the narrowness of the room.

The pillow side of the bed was toward the window and radiator. I decided I'd
rather sleep with my feet on that side and my head on the other side.

One afternoon, I set about reorienting the bed to accomplish this. Because of
the narrowness of the room, both horizontally and vertically, it was quite a
challenge to flip the bed around, but after quite a struggle I accomplished
it. While I was doing this, a small crowd had gathered to watch (but not
help...the bastards).

After I finished, the spectators pointed out that the bed frame and mattress
were symmetrical, and the sleeping orientation was determined entirely by what
side you tucked the sheets under and where you put the pillow. Flipping the
sleeping orientation would have taken a normal person 10 seconds.

Doh!

~~~
kmfrk
My self-esteem is absolutely crushed, every time I encounter one of those
everyday puzzles, which includes fitting a very tight cover on my mattress.

I wish I could reduce it to some algorithmic problem, but by the end of the
day, I look like someone wrestling an alligator, as I struggle to put it on.

~~~
izendejas
Start on the far end and pull the sheets towards you. That is, if your bed is
next to a wall or two (as usual), start with the corners next to it, this way
you never have to kneel over the sheets. If possible you can also move the bed
and walk around.

This one took me a while to figure out, but was proud when I did. :)

------
uniclaude
Some responses in this thread surprise me, I thought the mindset exposed in
this article was something most _hackers_ shared. Therefore, after reading the
post, I expected a bunch of mildly negative comments of people who built a lot
of awesome things in their spare time. Well, I was wrong.

Anecdotal but surprising, my fellow musician friends are more prone to what I
believe to be the _hacker_ thinking than most of the software programmers I
work with. Maybe it is because of some unfortunate psychological barrier, or
the result of a strong focus on computer related things and discard for the
rest, I honestly don't know.

Anyways, what this roommate did is super cool, and I'd suggest everyone here
to start hacking outside of their comfort zone, it can be very rewarding for
some. Building things feels great, and being able to apply your hacker
thinking to various things is a very useful skill to have.

~~~
purringmeow
I had pretty serious musical training that lasted for a few years. Anyways, my
teachers were crazy imaginative. They would also build stuff from what looked
like scraps - insulated and strengthened jacks, book shelves, studio monitor
stands, etc, etc.

I wonder what makes them tick like this!

~~~
jwmc
I've never had serious musical training, but I've spent a lot of time picking
tunes with old folkies. A lot of those guys are absolutely the same when it
comes to this sort of creativity, and I picked up a lot of advice that I like
to think has stuck with me ever since. I remember I was nervous as hell when
I'd just started heading along to jams - here was me, having learned a bit
about scales and a few chords, yet wondering how I could ever contribute to
the wonderful sounds this group was creating. It was an old gentleman in his
70s who just turned around, saw me sat there overwhelmed, trying to figure out
what was going on, and said "We've got seven notes in a scale, and most of
these tunes'll barely use half of 'em!".

Music, at its heart, is the ultimate in making do with what you have - I just
think that folkies are more likely to admit it!

~~~
agumonkey
Completely agree with the last sentence.

------
morgante
Wow, that's awesome. I only wish I had anywhere near that capacity.

Unfortunately, I think my developer mindset actually makes physical hacking a
lot harder due to 2 phenomena:

1\. Code is cheap. Materials are not. I'm used to being able to churn out
additional code with basically no cost to get things done, not to repurposing
existing code (this is different from refactoring to abstractions).

2\. Laziness is a quality in software development, but a major obstacle in
physical development. I'll quickly abandon physical projects because I can't
find an optimally efficient hack to finish things in minimal time.

~~~
gbog
Disagree completely:

1\. Materials are cheap, how much did the roommate spend?

2\. Laziness in code and physical is exactly the same psychological fuel:
being bored doing always the same annoying task (eg remove the things to make
room for the pizzas) is a strong incentive to find a hack to avoid the bore
(add a contraption on the side of the table).

A former colleague was a great hacker, and he also did his own rollerblades,
and built a part of his house.

I am some kind of software hacker too (daylong in python internals) and I did
fix a car with a stone, I did elevated bed on two shelves, and currently I'm
transforming a dead pot plant root into a nice piece of arte povera.

Another way for software and physical world hacking to be similar: in both
cases, many people believe it to be hard, are afraid or somewhat restrained,
but nearly all it takes is to just say to oneself "it's easy, let's try".
While there are a few people with a brain that is no fit for fiddling with
computers or screwdrivers, most of them who think they can't do it just never
tried.

~~~
berrypicker
Disagree completely:

1\. I've gone into hardware stores for small DIY tasks and parts/materials are
not stuff you can buy with spare change. Tools and equipment are even more
expensive.

2\. Getting up and doing something physical for some of us takes a lot more
effort than a mentally strenuous task.

~~~
gbog
Tools and equipment: It seems that the roommate did not use a lot of them. You
can buy the best electronic screwdriver but you can also very often achieve
the same result with a cheap screwdriver or even a kitchen knife.

For me digging deep into some code base, grepping the docs, reading some code
in language I am not familiar with or that I dislike is exhausting, mentally
and physically. I actually sweat a lot doing that, and it is the kind of sweat
that stinks. Doing some woodwork is often less tiring, and the sweat it
produces does not smell that bad.

~~~
morgante
> Tools and equipment: It seems that the roommate did not use a lot of them.
> You can buy the best electronic screwdriver but you can also very often
> achieve the same result with a cheap screwdriver or even a kitchen knife.

But the point is only that he only had _one_ door. No room for trying it,
breaking the door, and then trying again (your door is broken). Coding is the
opposite: you get infinite retries.

> For me digging deep into some code base, grepping the docs, reading some
> code in language I am not familiar with or that I dislike is exhausting,
> mentally and physically. I actually sweat a lot doing that, and it is the
> kind of sweat that stinks. Doing some woodwork is often less tiring, and the
> sweat it produces does not smell that bad.

I envy you. I love everything on a computer (and never exhausting). Doing
anything physical makes me completely miserable (possibly because I'm in
terrible shape).

~~~
gbog
One door: sure that's a difference but not that significant. You can measure
it and try in mentally in different positions. You have to think twice before
sawing but actually in code you also have steps where thinking twice I'd
required, eg choosing a framework, a data structure.

Shape: not sure it can be helpful but you could try to convince yourself that
it's only in your head. I have seen very fat people doing physical work and
enjoying it, maybe needed more frequent pauses, and but quite able to do
anything except crawling under the table.

------
arjie
Clicked it expecting some rubbish. Left in amazement at this guy's ingenuity.
I always find it incredible when people can repurpose stuff like this because
I usually need everything just right. This is great.

~~~
FarhadG
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoy it even more living with him. Maybe I'll ask
him to come on and explain what inspires him and how he thinks...

~~~
girvo
I loved the story, and I wish I was still living in my old apartment, where
I'd done similar stuff (though not to the same extent!). So much fun to
repurpose things!

------
pnathan
Respect.

You see some of this sort of thing from the blue collar part of society in the
US - "yankee ingenuity" is what it sometimes gets called here.

This is an essay by Tom Wolfe about Noyce and Intel that has similar
overtones:

[http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html](http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html)

~~~
FarhadG
Awesome! Thanks for the article!

------
dsirijus
I would not call his roomate genius in context the article infers.

But, noticing extreme lack of interest in modifying your enviroment in a
practical way (or lack of perception that your enviroment can be easily
improved) amongst the general populace, yeh. He's an outstanding dude. These
things tend to be uncommon.

It's not genius though. Far from it. Don't devalue genius.

~~~
acoyfellow
Curious, what or who do you consider to be genius?

~~~
dsirijus
People being able to create accurate and novel mental models of reality of a
large scope. And I'm already throwing up a defense stating that rearranging
furniture is not that. Added 'of a large scope' in edit to power up my
defense.

As a side note, I value even more geniuses that make models of the process of
modelling. Meta-geniuses, so to speak. Not many of those though. One needs
only to see into our progress concerning artificial intelligence to confirm
that.

EDIT:

I'm curious about something else... Sentences starting with "I'm curious"
usually present an attack in a form of preparation for the punchline upon the
expected answer. Not a general rule, but I'm usually right interpreting them
as such in both cyber and real world. Was yours one? What did you think I was
to answer? If 'yes', what was the presupposed killer line or were you to
improvise? Was it premeditated at all?

I _am_ genuinely curious. :)

~~~
uniclaude
Not that I dismiss your definition, but it requires me to stretch my mind a
lot to see Mozart as someone "able to create accurate and novel mental models
of reality of a large scope", so either I don't get it yet, or you wouldn't
consider him a genius.

About your parent post, maybe the poster was simply trying to start a
constructive discussion. It is HN, after all.

~~~
dsirijus
While I'm familiar with Mozart's works, I'm not familiar with the spirit of
the age, so it's hard to judge.

From what I know, he was well trained from early childhood, had talent to
boot, and lucky enough to end up composing on the court. Being a workaholic
helped too.

I'm almost refraining from making a judgement, but if I had to force it - no,
he's no genius in my book. Once again, I really could be right as well as
wrong about that. That doesn't prevent me from having a pet hypothesis that
him, being labeled as prodigy right off the bat, got him into a situation
where he was allowed to compose tunes that would appeal to many, as opposed to
your generic court composer, who bows to kings wishes. Which is a sort of
little revolution right there - court approved pop music. For all I know, he's
the 18th century's Lady Gaga.

But not to stop your point right there, I can say that Frank Zappa would
qualify as genius for me. I can really follow his music and feel his firm
grasp of rhythmic patterns along different sections as well as his control of
general timbre. He even called his process of music composing/performing as
"sculpting the air". I can sense him creating a quite literal model of reality
right there. And, unlike for Mozart, I kind of have much more information
about the current state of the matter when Zappa came in.

Amongst other musicians I consider genius - Iannis Xenakis, Arnold Schoenberg,
John Cage, Edgard Varèse... You'll find them usually labeled as _experimental_
or _avant-garde_. Many quacks in that genre though.

~~~
hamai
Mozart's symphonic works alone are more complex than what Gaga does. Take the
40th, the harmonies, the transitions, the sheer beauty of it. Despite the huge
technical challenges of composing for a Symphony, still add that much beauty
to it. And then there are vocal works, Opera, chamber groups... He was a huge
influence on Beethoven, and a couple other cats... Mozart beats Gaga in
complexity and inspiration. I feel funny having actually typed this comment...

------
eyeareque
In third world countries I am always so amazed at what people come up with
when building things. When I set out to start a project it usually involves
making a list, and then going to Lowes or Home Depot (hardware stores). People
who don't have that luxury just repurpose other things, and usually always
does the job for them. My friends in another country actually seem to enjoy
their hack-together process very much.

~~~
kamaal
In my previous company there was a guy who used to run a tea stall. The entire
stall was a extreme model of furniture hacking.

Not sure where he got his ideas from. His front door could be turned into a
cash register + counter + door at the same time.

The store was full of furniture hacks.

------
logical42
In my opinion, that guy is a true hacker.

~~~
FarhadG
You should see what he's hacking these days.

~~~
srik
Now you got me curious. Can you share?

~~~
FarhadG
He's doesn't like the shape of the phone for playing games for an extended
period of time, so he's hacking up a pretty sweet setup. I'll post up when
it's finished...

~~~
fudged71
I'm genuinely curious what he could do with a 3D printer...

~~~
FarhadG
In fact, I introduced him to 3D printers when I started reading Makers and he
was absolutely blown away. He literally could not believe it it was real. He
has sketches of many things he wants to build.

~~~
fudged71
I bet he would really benefit from all of the different fasteners and
replacement parts that you can make. There are lots of great inexpensive
printers on the market right now! We're trying to make the software easier to
use because it's one of the biggest barriers to entry right now. I'd love to
get in touch with him tom@printtopeer.com

------
Cyph0n
Hacking reality is the toughest type of hacking I think. Kudos to your
roommate and I hope he achieves his dream.

~~~
colechristensen
No it isn't. You aren't a very good hacker if you can hack in only a tiny
subset of the world.

------
natmaster
Please fix your website so I can read your article. There is no scroll bar.

~~~
hrjet
I can see a scroll-bar but no text (javascript disabled here). What a naive
way to design a website! I wouldn't be so snarky if this was a one-off
instance. Sadly, this trend is catching up.

Edit: Cut down the snarkiness.

The OP's openness to criticism is appreciated.

~~~
FarhadG
Will do... Thanks for the suggestion.

~~~
kaybe
HTTPSeverywhere (ff-plugin) killed it for me, no text but a scrollbar. After
disabling - no scrollbar but text.

------
jroseattle
My son is this way (I wouldn't call him genius, but his aptitude to seeing
potential solutions is astounding.) It's being able to see a solution from
existing pieces, requiring visualization and great spatial reasoning. I'm not
sure it can be learned; there is something about it that's quite innate to a
person.

~~~
dshefchik
I think the problem is that it is unlearned too easily. Being forced to modify
your thinking to succeed in school or the workforce is what stifles this kind
of creativity. I feel like I used to have gifts like that, but somehow lost it
along the way

~~~
jroseattle
Great point. We constantly challenge him to find solutions from things that
aren't obvious, pushing him to be resourceful.

You're right about the environment. Creativity often isn't well-aligned with
traditional learning patterns.

------
hobs
I always respect someone who can look at a block of marble, and see Venus
underneath it all. Great article!

~~~
bambax
Can't remember who said that sculpting is easy, you just need to remove all
the excess marble. (Michelangelo?)

Some other guy said design is editing: it's about removing all the ugliness so
that only beauty remains.

------
autarch
What I'd really love is to hear some of the music he's written.

~~~
FarhadG
You would be amazed! He held a concert at the Beijing University and we were
all inspired.

------
ganzolo
The guy creativity is good, but sleeping/eating/working in the bed is a
terrible idea. Moreover he is using a projector, meaning the needs to be in
the dark...

~~~
MindTwister
Well, he _is_ a student...

------
jianshen
This is a refreshing reminder to dig deeper. I'm always waiting for the right
tool to come around to do the job (cheap hi-res 3d printing for example) but
sometimes a good enough solution just might be sitting in front of you. Thanks
for this!

------
rthomas6
This reminds me of a few people I knew in college. I think certain people just
have a better spatial awareness that lets them hack their physical
surroundings, and with my friends it tended to happen a lot with the
mechanical engineers. One roommate I had would build custom furniture kind of
like this guy, to make the most out of his small room. He had a large
television, a couch, a computer desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and a dresser in the
same space where I had trouble even having the last 4 things, and he could fit
all that in there by his clever use of space aided by custom fixtures that he
built out of 2x4s.

------
Kliment
Reminds me of a project I built this spring:

[http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF](http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF)

------
ArbitraryLimits
If he's such a genius, ask him how to leave the scrollbar on your blog.

~~~
FarhadG
Haha, ok, I'll do so next time :)

------
enthuzer
I'm now reading about a systemized approach to this idea in a book called
"Inside The Box".

It details ways to innovate and create original products/services by narrowing
or constraining ones options for solving a problem.

I think we are all capable of this type of "genius" and the book's authors
describe a simple process for achieving it.

[http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-
Res...](http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-
Results/dp/1451659253)

------
nzealand
Very cool.

But did he extend your bed to make you happy, or to score those free extra
parts?

I suppose I will have to go to my grave never knowing for sure.

Although it looks like your bed is a little saggy, right in the lumbar...

------
primitivesuave
Really beautiful piece on the mind of a maker.

~~~
FarhadG
I appreciate that!

------
gwern
I know I'm not a genius, but I've read the whole thing and I still have no
idea how the bed was rearranged. Did I miss a diagram or something obvious
like that?

~~~
delluminatus
It looks like the bed had spare wood (struts underneath or maybe a larger
headboard), and he went ahead and cut (?) the sideboards in half, removed the
excess wood from wherever, and added them in the middle of the cut sideboards
(like a leaf in a table).

I imagine that if the mattress were removed, the modification would become
more apparent. Alternatively, a "before" picture would also probably make it
more obvious. But, who takes a "before" picture of their bed?

------
FarhadG
My apologies for the poor functionality of the site. I went ahead and threw up
a quick theme to help with the disabled JS and no scrollbar issue.

Thanks for pointing them out.

------
mimog
Lets stop watering down the genius label. It should require more than a
modicum of ingenuity and intellect to be called a genius.

------
vinceguidry
I used to have an apartment where the heat didn't really work. I could run it
all day and it'd still be freezing inside. Rather than fight it I just shut
the heat off and went to get a space heater. Well the room was open so even
sitting right next to it didn't really cut it.

So I went to Lowes and got a bunch of PVC pipe and angle couplings. I built a
5x5x6ft enclosure and threw a bunch of blankets/sheets on it to make a little
room inside a room to hold my desk, me and my space heater. I was nice and
comfy all winter.

Another time I needed a desk for my computer and didn't have much money to
work with. This was around the time that whole "FedEx box furniture" thing hit
the Internet. I worked at a little pack-and-ship place and we had a bunch of
extra UPS boxes so I nabbed them and some tape and went nuts. It took some
tweaking before it would accept the weight of my CRT, but eventually it did.

~~~
azatris
Thank you for the enclosure idea! Will implement your idea again if I happen
to have a ridiculously huge and cold room like I did last year again.

------
diminoten
It's an iterative process, and the guy made a gamble. "Let's just do it the
best way possible!" is a great place to start for any project. Only after you
hit obstacles should compromise be made.

That's all he did. It's awesome, though. Awesome things usually can be
described in simple terms.

------
tempestn
I was hoping he'd find some way to double-hinge the wardrobe door so it could
function as both a door and a desk! Still obviously very cool and far more
than I could do (or more importantly, as you say, even come up with).

~~~
FarhadG
Good idea! I'll pass it onto him.

------
coenhyde
Yeah the dude is smart and creative. But for all you HN fellows who find this
so impressive, you must not have much creativity of your own. Or more likely I
suspect you've never had the freedom to experiment like this.

------
robmcm
Someone isn't getting their deposit back.

------
mosselman
So he built some stuff in the real world rather than digitally? Wow, that is
very worthy of the word 'Genius'.

Meanwhile: [http://www.instructables.com/](http://www.instructables.com/)

------
k4rthik
This reminds me of an old video of a student's room
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE)

------
stevewillows
This reminds me of a time when Lifehacker was about hacking and not just 'use
this software...'.

In my family, we had this unspoken contest for the best ways to fix things. My
Mom would use coat hangers, toothpicks and glue like they were going out of
style.

Doesn't help the argument that I have an autographed photo of MacGuyver.[1]

[1] [http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9](http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9)

------
jakejake
I love this kind of ingenuity to modify things. I have to admit in my old age
I'm getting a little out of touch and I don't relate very well with crafting
your bedroom into living quarters. Though I remember the days of having
roommates, no money, and your bedroom is your only personal space. It's cool
to take a look at what you have and use it to your advantage.

------
roozbeh18
it's amazing how limited we get as we have more things at our disposal. I
remember coding basic as a kid and for hours i could come up with cool ideas
and functioning programs. now all i think about is how to optimize and make
things run faster by following codes already written by someone else! kudos to
him..

------
jbrooksuk
My brother is very much the same. He's about to turn 14 and can make anything,
out of almost anything. Both of my Grandfathers shared the same aptitude for
this.

As a developer I feel I can apply these skills, but to code, whereas they're
physically able to see an object or an end result.

I wish I could!

------
antidamage
Students are very easily impressed.

------
eitland
(Say after me : )

Creativity isn't so much about making pink patterns on the wall as it is about
solving the problem at hand using the available time, tools and materials.

OTOH: If that means splashing pink paint on the wall, that will do as well.

------
MrZongle2
Makes me wonder what the roommate could build in a cave with a box of scraps.

------
dshefchik
I want to hire this guy

------
ratsimihah
It's well known music and math are intrinsically related. Apparently, music
and engineering are as well.

------
merkitt
He's a MacGyver. I wonder what he'll build if he is unleashed on a large
American junk yard.

------
mcherm
Now THAT is "Hacker News"!

------
aneeskA
This is truly inspirational. You could have added the photo of the genius
along with this post.

------
creativityland
Really enjoyed reading this. Really hope this type of posts make to the
frontpage more often.

------
travoltaj
Whatever happened to scrollbars?

------
tomphoolery
You're right. That's fucking genius.

Talk about a work-from-home desk...

------
zem
the word "bricolage" fits nicely:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage)

------
antsam
Pretty sure you're living with MacGyver.

------
hanief
jarang-jarang indonesian featured on HN.

~~~
gusif
tapi namanya Zhang. Ga terlalu indonesia.

------
jnazario
awesome, and great to see TR quoted.

------
AsymetricCom
So, do you own your apartment or are you cool paying out your deposit for a
wardrobe door?

