
You and Your Research - jaydub
http://www.chris-lott.org/misc/kaiser.html
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RiderOfGiraffes
A familiar friend - always worth re-reading.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=229067>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=852405>

<http://searchyc.com/you+and+your+research+hamming>

~~~
Mongoose
And for all the pg-lovers out there...
<http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html>

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camccann
Ah, Hamming. Definitely a role model for anyone who wants to get out there and
accomplish things. This is probably old hat to folks here, since it was
mentioned in one of pg's essays, but I remain fond of this part:

 _I went over and said, "Do you mind if I join you?" They can't say no, so I
started eating with them for a while. And I started asking, "What are the
important problems of your field?" And after a week or so, "What important
problems are you working on?" And after some more time I came in one day and
said, "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think it is
going to lead to something important, why are you at Bell Labs working on it?"
I wasn't welcomed after that; I had to find somebody else to eat with!_

This quote has taunted me from the back of my head off and on for years now,
but I don't listen to it as often as I should.

~~~
aharrison
I agree with you completely.

This whole weekend (including Halloween!) I have been stressing about a paper
I need to write on a topic I am not remotely interested in. This reminded me
that I need to both relax about the unimportant stuff and make sure that when
I am done I look for the most valuable next step.

Truly, an excellent quote, and an excellent article.

------
njoubert
Funny - there was a whole stack of these lying in the 3rd floor lounge of
Stanford's CS building last week. I just happened to pick one up, It's the
first time i've read it, and here it pops up on Hacker News!

