

Two Things - coupdegrace
http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/thetwothings.html

======
6ren
"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and
naming things" - Phil Karlton <http://people.famouswhy.com/phil_karlton/> (NB:
"hard" things)

While we're being flippant: Every problem in computer science can be solved by
adding another level of indirection - except for the problem of too many
levels of indirection

~~~
jasonkostempski
and off-by-one errors <http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.html>

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Tichy
Hate to break it to the HN crowd, but for most subjects there are really more
than two things you need to know. This article is nonsense.

~~~
kevinh
I don't think you read the article. It is only saying that there are two
things you need to know in jest. If you looked at the article, you'd see that
many fields, such as CS, have more than one set of "two things" that you need
to know.

~~~
sopooneo
I will not comment on whether most fields can really be boiled down to just
two notes, but you'll notice that the author states that one of the "things"
about his rule of two things, is that everyone you ask will give you a
different two. Since the multiple CS entries are all (I think) from different
people, they do not violate the author's assertion.

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dsr_
Startups:

Your product must be something people want.

Your product must be something you can make.

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philwelch
I like the concept, but some of the particular examples posted here are
questionable or just plain wrong.

~~~
ISeemToBeAVerb
Agreed, I like the concept but much of the responses are just flippant. There
are a couple useful gems in there though.

------
zdw
Two things about Hacker News:

1\. You will spend too much time here

2\. You will discover noprocrast

~~~
jpdoctor
1\. You will discover noprocrast 2\. It won't make a difference.

------
gfodor
Two Things involved in making life changes, like exercise or learning:

\- Do it today

\- Repeat

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gm
The answers in the article are pretty cool, except for the programming ones.
Just like in programming, people try to get cute with conciseness and end up
making pretty unfunny jokes. Once you have heard the word "idiot" in anything
having to do with programming, subsequent mentions are yawners.

But the whole idea of narrowing down everything to two core principles is
awesome; so +1 from me, certainly.

~~~
gmisra
I suspect that "the answers are pretty cool, except for <the ones regarding
the subject I know a lot about>" is itself the most common reaction.

~~~
gm
No, there were a few about topics such as economics (one each?), and a ton
about programming.

------
dreamyogi
On life (from the movie "How Do You Know"): 1\. Figure out what you really
want. 2\. Learn how to ask for it.

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cgs1019
Set Theory:

1\. ZF

2\. C

or

Set Theory:

1\. Everything is a set

2\. Not everything is a set

~~~
ZephyrP
Axiom of Choice has been on shaky ground for the past 50 years and really only
continues it's existence through inertia. The second one has some deep wisdom
in it though :)

------
Clanan
Worth reading for this:

The Two Things about Biology: 1\. Evolution is the process through which
genetic structures that are better equipped to reproduce viable copies will
tend to proliferate. 2\. Except for the Platypus.

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morsch
Obviously the premise of "two things" is fairly ridiculous, but I bet it's an
interesting thing to ask people at parties. I cannot stand party small talk,
and the most fun I've had socialising with strangers were when I ask them
straight questions like these.

Another thing I ask people, just out of curiosity since it's not insightful at
the same level, is to just go through their average day. Sort of like a
bottom-up description of their work/study/whatever live, instead of the top-
down answer you get when you ask "so, what do you do".

Some people may think it's weird, though.

------
zeynalov
Dentistry:

1\. Everybody hates Dentists.

2\. Dentists hate everybody.

~~~
AznHisoka
#1 is true until you have unbearable pain and he gets rid of it for u

------
ZephyrP
Mathematics:

1\. Everything you thought you knew about the fundamental structure of the
universe before will only make you ashamed.

2\. It's all just vanity

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pazimzadeh
For Biology, "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is wrong.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory>

Instead I would say: 1\. Some things can replicate better than others. 2\.
Things replicate imperfectly, causing change over time.

~~~
envane
When I got to that quote, I laughed and stopped reading. This list has clearly
not been fact checked.

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akazackfriedman
Wow, I've never seen an article both prove and disprove itself so well
simultaneously.

------
twopi
Two things about The Game:

1) You are playing The Game 2) You just lost The Game

~~~
alanfalcon
1) 391. 2) XKCD is your friend.

------
discipline
MIT graduate I met 30 years ago told me he had a professor tell him that there
are 3 things in life:

    
    
      1. things divisible by 3 
      2. things not divisible by 3
      3. other things

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twiceaday
Brevity is the soul of wit.

~~~
cwe
Brevity is... wit.

------
pjscott
Electrical engineering:

1\. Maxwell's equations

2\. Information theory

It's amazing how much you can derive from just these two things, if you're
willing to do a lot of math.

------
digitalboss
Wow - this is awesome and uber old, good find....adding to it.

Two things about Social Media:

1\. Content is King

2\. Everyone's an Social Media expert :P

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jaekwon
on Two Things:

1\. There are only two things you need to know for any subject

2\. When there appears to be more than two, divide the subject

~~~
jaekwon
on The Correctness of Two Things:

1\. There are only two things you need to know for any subject

2\. Sometimes there are exceptions

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sukuriant
Computer Science:

1\. Your code always does exactly what you tell it to and never anything more.

2\. You probably don't actually know what you're telling it to do.

~~~
dmm
An alternative 2. Solve big problems by breaking them into smaller problems.

~~~
sukuriant
I actually like that one a lot more.

Alternatively: 2\. Underneath, everything is a graphing problem

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tate
Programming:

1\. As it gets complicated add indirection/abstraction

2\. Its about talking to people not machines

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tikhonj
Two things about minimalistic programming:

1\. lambdas 2\. there is no second thing

------
mahmud
Statistics:

Central Limit Theorem

Law of Large Numbers.

~~~
larrydag
Statistics: 1\. Correlation does not lead to causation 2\. We like to think it
does

------
Mavyrk
Teaching:

1\. There are no safe assumptions.

2\. Relate.

