
Leonardo Da Vinci's to Do List (Circa 1490) - CraneWorm
http://www.openculture.com/2018/07/leonardo-da-vincis-list-circa-1490.html
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ddoran
Find the greatest subject matter expert available for a given discipline. Tap
their knowledge.

The greatest people I have worked with have taken the same approach. Experts
are incredibly willing to share. You may have to work around their schedule,
but they will share. Just ask.

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madeuptempacct
Give me an example. I have literally never had anyone show me anything unless
I demonstrated proficiency on par with their own and they felt the need to
impress me. That, or paying them lots and lots of money for personal lessons,
which generally tend to be crap anyway.

I am baffled by the amount of people who espouse mentorship like it's actually
a thing.

~~~
graeme
So, part of getting advice depends upon seeming to be the kind of person worth
sharing with.

This can be competency in a different discipline, or being young and full of
potential, or being personally interesting, etc.

In my experience experts will routinely and freely share their knowledge.
People love talking about themselves.

If this has basically never happened to you, it's worth some self-examination.
Do you make friends easily? Do you manage relationships well? Do you often
find yourself in arguments? Do you have some recognized expertise or
usefulness in some area?

There are many hints in your language. The "tend to be crap" anyways is a tell
that you might have a sour attitude on life that turns people away. The
"baffled by" indicates a lack of empathy and low ability to examine why your
situation may differ from theirs. "Give me an example" is demanding. "Felt the
need to impress me" views others' motives in a mercenary and petty way.

You're free to ignore this. But, consider that if you figure out why people
aren't mentoring you specifically, it may also solve a bunch of related issues
caused by a common thread.

(The thoughts above are based on little data, so don't take any of them
personally if they're off base. The one big data point is never receiving
advice - that is a sign of a problem. And, since you did want an example, when
I entered business I cold emailed someone in my field how they did online
work. They gave me a detailed and helpful answer, and we later became business
partners. I have many stories like that.)

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c4h8o3del
There's always the possibility that things are different in their country.

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loco5niner
It seems to me that is less likely. Certainly there would be some unusual
situations where people are unfairly oppressed to a point where they cannot
take advantage of this, BUT for the most part... people are people.

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mci
The list shows both Leonardo's dilettantism in Latin and mathematics, and how
printing changed the way we learn. Even in 1490, to learn "how to square a
triangle", you did not have to get the master of arithmetic to show you. You
could find a copy of Euclid's Elements and skim it up to Proposition II.14
[1]. The first printed edition of Elements (in Latin) was published in 1482
[2].

[1]
[https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/elements/bookII/propII14.h...](https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/elements/bookII/propII14.html)
[2]
[https://archive.org/details/preclarissimusli00eucl](https://archive.org/details/preclarissimusli00eucl)

~~~
sushid
I mean Leonardo himself knew he was horrible in both Latin and math. He had
access to various books in both subjects during his lifetime (thanks in part
to the printing press) but his lack of foundational knowledge made it hard for
him to learn geometry when he lacked skills in arithmetic and algebra.

Secondly, it's a bit funny that you say the book could have shown him how to
square a circle, seeing as it's an impossible problem.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle)

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kizer
He said “how to square a triangle”.

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blairbeckwith
If you're looking for more of Da Vinci, I can't recommend Walter Isaacson's
biography enough. I just wrapped it up, and it gave me huge respect for a
figure I knew only passingly before. Particularly the conclusion, which is one
of the better summaries on lessons learned from a text that I've seen.

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nyc111
>Really fascinating! Insatiable curiosity...

I see that several people commented on Leonardo's curiosity. When I was about
18 or therabouts I came across a book about Leonardo. That book made a big
deal about how curiosity was the driving force in Leonardo's life. I was so
impressed that I started to believe curiosity was the defining characteristic
of humans. And I became curious about everything around me. I chose the study
of how this world works as my mission in life. I chose not to make money. I
only worked to make enough money to pay the rent. The rest of the time I was
in the library. But there is a downsize to this. I now believe that it's
better not to be curious. It's better to concentrate on building a business
and make money. Because in this world money allows you to build new things and
make new discoveries. Bezos can build his own rocket and go to the moon if he
wants to. Google can and does change the world. They are not doing what they
are doing for curiosity's sake. So I would not advise a youngster who is
starting in life to be curious like Leonardo. I would advise to make lots of
money so that he/she can achieve big things. I think the era of curious and
solitary researcher is over.

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thegabez
Can you share more about this? How much time did you devote to study? Do you
regret it, what did you learn?

~~~
nyc111
Thanks for asking. Here's my reply [https://notlar11.wordpress.com/newton-the-
greatest-genius-of...](https://notlar11.wordpress.com/newton-the-greatest-
genius-of-all-times/)

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hguhghuff
He seems busy.

And each of his todo items, like mine, look like they could easily explode out
into 20 more.

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milansm
You might be interested in my newest (fake) product:
[https://stackboi.com](https://stackboi.com)

~~~
asdfToPayRespct
You might be interested in using height: 100vh instead of min-height.

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anarchyrucks
I'm curious about how you ended up inspecting the layout.

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splittingTimes
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13187316)

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jmartrican
Most items in his todo list seem to be Google searches in modern times.

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justaguyhere
_Draw Milan_

What does it mean? Is he drawing the entire city?!

Jeez, here I am, writing "do laundry" in my list :(

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markn951
And here I am, writing down “get milk” like a rube

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madeuptempacct
Plebs gonna pleb. Brb, going to go 'check tire pressure' and 'iron clothing'.

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culot
I wouldn't be surprised to see 'iron clothing' on Da Vinci's list either,
though perhaps less of a to-do than a to-make.

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rimher
Really fascinating! Insatiable curiosity, and a wider perception even as time
passed in his life, Leonardo is truly remarkable

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l5870uoo9y
And not at least the fact that he wrote his personal notes in mirror script:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing)

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aerique
I'm left-handed and years later I found I had written things on my grandma's
(outside, stone) wall with chalk in mirror script. This dated from when I just
started writing, so on an anecdotal level, this seems to be a natural way to
write if you're left handed.

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arminiusreturns
I started taking some of my whiteboard notes in mirror script after reading it
assisted in neuroplasticity, and it really didn't take long to get the hang
of. I haven't done it in a while though, can you still do it like muscle
memory?

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logix
Sounds like some sort of an ancient Google search.

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nikrim
The given picture looks mirrored to me.

~~~
loco5niner
As others have commented, Da Vinci actually wrote all his personal works
backwards

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onemoresoop
Maybe it was done for copyright reasons but the image from the notebook is
flipped horizontally. Anybody else noticed this?

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pmiri
Da Vinci actually wrote all his personal works backwards, for reasons unknown!

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n4r9
There's evidence that he was left-handed, or at least did a lot of his work
with the left hand. He may have found it more convenient to write in that
direction so as not to smudge the ink, especially if he wrote quickly.

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coldcode
People today are not as curious as Leonardo was. For him learning was an
everyday occupation. Most people today seek entertainment and distraction.
Maybe its the advent of so many cool technologies that did not exist back then
to capture our time. But I imagine Leonardo would have read Hacker News for
sure.

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cabalamat
> People today are not as curious as Leonardo was

Nor were they in 1490.

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PeOe
"Draw Milan"..pretty ambitious task. Obviously DaVinci didn't consider
breaking down the tasks into smaller pieces. The GTD method involves this
concept directly in its flow. In today's world, the breaking up of tasks is
especially valuable. Here's an article about GTD from our blog:
[https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-
thin...](https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-things-done/)

