
68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice - ericzawo
https://kk.org/thetechnium/68-bits-of-unsolicited-advice/
======
anthony_r
> Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that
> is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely
> likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things
> diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to
> losers.

While true on credit, I would like to point out that the statement "something
whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home" can only
be made by someone who doesn't know history beyond their lifespan and beyond
their country (or maybe even beyond their county). The long term value of
homes basically doesn't increase. People in their 60s are especially prone to
not knowing this, having lived through the greatest asset appreciation period
in the history of America, and perhaps in the history of the world.

Forced savings may be worth it, but it is forced at the expense of crazy
leverage and severe tail risks. 10% downpayment is 10x leverage, 20%
downpayment is 5x leverage - would you ever leverage stocks or any other
personal investment even by 3x?

~~~
CivBase
I did not buy a house because I expected it to appreciate in value. I bought a
house because the alternative was to pay rent.

Rent is a service. A renter does not get anything of inherent, transferable
value out of the exchange. A renter is also subject to the whims of his/her
landlord and, from my experience, a renter has to move regularly to avoid rent
increases and bad landlords.

The majority of my mortgage payment goes towards ownership of a _product_ \-
my house - which has inherent, transferable value. When I'm ready to move
again, I can sell my house and put that money towards acquiring a new one
using less debt. Meanwhile, I don't have to worry about landlord problems or
rent increases so I can wait to move until I am ready.

I'd say that's a perfectly good reason to take on some debt. After all, if
that money wasn't going to the bank, then it would just go to a landlord
instead.

EDIT: I'm not saying rent is _bad_. It is a perfectly reasonable option for
many people depending on their preferences and circumstances. I just wanted to
highlight the reasons why I chose to take on some debt to buy a house,
regardless of whether it will appreciate in value.

~~~
SloopJon
> The majority of my mortgage payment goes towards ownership of a product - my
> house

For many (most?) people that's not true. Even ignoring that mortgage payments
often include property taxes and/or private mortgage insurance, you can expect
to pay more interest than principal for the first fifteen years or more of a
thirty-year mortgage.

~~~
ashtonkem
I think we can put property taxes aside, you’ll have to pay your landlords
property taxes if you rent after all.

If you can afford the cost of a down payment (more on that later), then buying
a home does have some utility in wealth generation. You’re right that most of
the initial mortgage payments go towards interest, but even collecting 25% of
your monthly payment towards your own net worth is a big deal compared to
collecting 0%. Especially since there is a good chance that your landlord has
a mortgage too, either original or secondary to afford more property, so you
must pay their interest plus a portion of their living expenses. This is why
generally speaking home ownership is considered superior to renting _if you’re
not going to move anytime soon_.

I think the main argument against home ownership from a wealth standpoint is
that it ties up a large amount of money as collateral that you could otherwise
be using. Here in SoCal purchasing a home with a traditional 20% down would
involve locking up $200,000 that could be put into the market productively,
potentially making me even more money. This is why the counterintuitive rule
is that if you have enough money to buy a house with cash, you should get a
mortgage and invest the rest, as you’ll be better off that way in the long
run[0].

[0] Caveat here being your age. If you’re 30, you have another 30 years for
the difference to grow in the stock market, while if you’re 70 you’d probably
appreciate the lower cost of living and stability that this provides.

~~~
amiga_500
Incorrect. Property taxes are not part of the price setting.

You pay the max you are willing to pay for renting a place. You won because
everyone else was willing to pay less.

If your rent is 2000 and property taxes are 200, and they go up to 300, are
you willing/able to pay more?

Land taxes carry no dead weight.

[http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Not_Passed_On.html](http://wealthandwant.com/themes/Not_Passed_On.html)

In general prices are set by the ability to pay, not by the input costs + some
"fair profit".

Many landlords have no mortgage, and are clearing loads of profit every single
month. Are they charging lower rent because they only need "fair profit"? No,
they charge the market rate.

~~~
ashtonkem
Excellent point.

------
jstanley
> Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their
> mistakes.

This is very true.

Last year I saw a motorcycle stunt display in the Isle of Man. It was all very
impressive, and the chap had extremely good control of the bike, but the time
that his skill was most apparent was when he had the rear wheel of the bike on
a car bonnet and it started sliding off to one side. I thought he was for sure
going to crash because there's no possible way to save it when his feet are so
far from the ground. Somehow he managed to wriggle around and force the wheel
back to the centre. I still don't know how. But that was the bit that showed
me how skilled he was: not the amazing bike control that he wanted to display,
but the way he recovered from a seemingly-unrecoverable mistake.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
This is true in many fields, including IT. Anybody can install a piece of
software by repeatedly clicking OK, and most of the time it'll go fine, but
you'll need the expert when the install/upgrade goes horribly wrong with a
slew of incomprehensible error messages.

~~~
jimmydddd
Agreed. Reminds me of a friend in finance who oversees reconciling the
transactions at the end of the day. He says that most days he does almost
nothing, but every once in a while, at the end of the day, the department
can't track down where some $300 milion transaction ended up. That's when his
expertise comes into play.

------
pjc50
> The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation.

This is very powerful. Reminds me of the "system 1 vs system 2" discussion,
and some descriptions of e.g. ADHD and depression causing what could be
described as "failure to terminate in self-negotiation".

~~~
TeMPOraL
Indeed. I've also been realizing recently that my #1 failure mode with
procrastination is this: by the time I stared a distracting activity (e.g.
reading HN, watching something on Netflix), the self-negotiation is already
lost. My mind will drag the argument ad infinitum while continuing to do the
thing it's currently doing, i.e. procrastinating.

~~~
tbugrara
Maybe I'm wrong but I think self-negotiation here means: when I put my dishes
away after dinner, I attempt to negotiate with myself if I have to do it right
now. A habit instead terminates this attempt at negotiating and gets you to
just do it without thinking if you should or shouldn't.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What you describe and "should I get back to work or view just one more comment
thread on HN" is the same mental process.

------
jonasvp
> Don’t say anything about someone in email you would not be comfortable
> saying to them directly, because eventually they will read it.

Absolutely - I've learned this the hard way and it's giving me new
appreciation for phone calls.

It's amazing how many people do _not_ remember that an email chain of several
hundred pages _will_ contain something incriminating or embassaring if
forwarded to someone outside the original circle of recipients.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Sometimes even that isn't enough. You have to read it twice. I was having a
text exchange with a manager on the road. Hard to come to a consensus that
way. So I wanted to talk when he got back to the shop.

I texted "We can talk some more when you get it."

One letter. The issues it caused lasted for years.

~~~
MauranKilom
Sorry, I don't see the one letter change that fixes the message. What did you
intend to say?

~~~
mattkrause
"Get in" -> arrive here (i.e., let's continue the discussion in person)

"Get it" \--> understand (i.e., you need to take some time to realize why I'm
right).

------
asar
My personal favorite

>Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are
passionate about. A better motto for most youth is “master something,
anything”. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of
that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually discover where your bliss
is.

~~~
m463
statements like that are very powerful.

He's teaching people how to teach people, which is like wisdom^2

------
helsinkiandrew
> Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment

I've found the lockdown great for trying this - a run, lunch then 15 minutes
on the sofa. It's like rebooting the day.

~~~
fergonco
Another unsolicited advice, from a 40yo this time: do not use alarm clocks to
wake up. The pressure shifts to the evening because you have to go to sleep
early if you want to wake up early.

And then it magically happens that you sleep as much as you need. Being a long
time supporter of naps I find myself not doing them at all.

Of course this applies only if you have flexible hours to work, don't have
appointments, etc.

~~~
eitland
40 y.o. here as well.

My life has improved after I started getting up extremely early (0400) four or
so years ago. And that doesn't happen without an alarm clock.

My point is not to say that you are wrong but that we might be better off
trying different solution for ourselves instead of believing in authorities
here or elsewhere.

(I'm not saying you shouldn't listen to normal advice like getting good sleep
etc, but don't think that getting up at 0400 will solve your problems because
eitland says so and don't think that waking up naturally will solve all your
problems. Instead try one, then the other if the first didn't work.)

~~~
vidarh
I think the most important point is not so much that you should never use an
alarm (I do regularly), but that if you're unsure of whether you actually get
enough sleep, it is worth finding out how much sleep you need, and ensure you
get it, whether by adjusting your bedtime or your alarm time, or ensuring you
compensate every few days.

Too many people don't know how much sleep their body would want if
unconstrained by alarms. Once you know, you can get decent results of
manipulating _when_ you get that sleep with alarms. But if you don't know it's
very easy to be near constantly sleep deprived.

~~~
saalweachter
The most interesting pattern I observed in my sleep is the integral patterns
associated with it -- it's nearly impossible for me to wake up after less than
3.5 hours of sleep[1], and then after about 4 hours of sleep it becomes
difficult again to wake up until after about 7.5 hours, when I usually wake up
on my own, and then after around 8 hours of sleep if I oversleep you're
probably not seeing me until I've finished a solid 11 hours.[0]

It's extraordinarily useful for planning when I am not getting much sleep. If
I _must_ be somewhere at X o'clock, and I can't get a full night's sleep for
some reason, I make sure I am going to sleep so that my alarm starts going off
when I am at around 3.5 hours of sleep or so. I've missed too many meetings
and flights trying to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep. And if I've just pulled an
all-nighter and need to be somewhere in 2 hours, I don't go to sleep unless I
have someone who can literally kick me awake at the appropriate time, 'cuz
nothing else is going to get it done.

[0] Yes, I've read enough about sleep to know most of the details behind such
sleep rhythms.

[1] Well, having children does change that a bit, but a beep-beep-beep isn't
going to get the job done.

------
JoeAltmaier
Here's one I heard elsewhere, and isn't in the list.

If you're searching for something important, search until you find one that
satisfies all your requirements. Then, don't stop, keep searching until you
find a better one. _Then_ stop.

This raises you maybe a whole standard deviation in quality, without taking
exponential time. Works for all sorts of things. A new pair of shoes; a
favorite dish in a restaurant; a spouse.

~~~
Etheryte
This is one piece of advice that sound true and insightful, but in my opinion
doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. An example of what I mean is the saying
"perfect is the enemy of good", which directly conflicts with the above.

Since I'm from the north, outdoor gear is a good example of this — there is no
hardshell jacket in the world that ticks every box in my checklist. I've been
through the lineup of both known and obscure companies item by item, from
cheap shells to the ones that command a ridiculous premium. Finding this out
has been a fun little hobby over a number of months, but realistically I don't
think I'd be worse off if I just got the first one that was "good enough".

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
a number of months? I'm 56 and have spent some fraction of my entire life
devoted to the hardshell question.

For me, my current Berghaus (bought while visiting the UK) ticks every box.
Just perfect. But that took 40+ years to get to, not a few months.

~~~
jk563
Please do share the shell you got to after 40 years!

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
Berghaus Rupal

[https://www.blacks.co.uk/mens/206840-mountain-equipment-
men-...](https://www.blacks.co.uk/mens/206840-mountain-equipment-men-s-rupal-
gore-tex-jacket-blue.html)

(of course, they don't make it anymore, I think. But the Extrem 5000 is very
similar. They added a pocket, moved the other two)

For years before this, I had been reasonably happy with an old North Face
goretex jacket. It last about 15 years, but had a lining and in the end the
exterior water shedding ability (not waterproofness) was shot.

The Berghaus is just what I always wanted: single layer, goretex, lightweight
but very heavy duty fabric, the perfect hood design.

I wore it to hike the 230 mile Cape Wrath Trail last year, and verified once
again that it was completely waterproof, very comfortable, perfect in every
way (for me, at least).

If you forced me to make one criticism, I'd like a slightly larger patch of
slightly softer material where the neck/hood comes up over my mouth/chin when
it's fully "on". But even 2 weeks of wearing it every day (sometimes all day)
in Scottish rain didn't really make that much of an issue.

------
tom-thistime
Stunningly accurate but greatly exceeds promised 68b limit.

~~~
CivBase
Shame. I was really looking forward to how he would achieve that last half-
byte. Maybe 8 ASCII characters and a 4-bit flag for formatting?

~~~
Torwald
that's the sort of thing you would expect from that URL

------
splatzone
This page really is a goldmine. In the spirit of not being afraid to ask
stupid questions, I don't understand a couple of them - anyone care to
explain?

> When you die you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.

Is this saying that your reputation dies with you? I don't get this, surely
people will remember how you acted when you were alive. I'm probably taking it
too literally.

> Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or a proposal on the phone. The urgency
> is a disguise.

A disguise for what? I'm not sure I get what they mean by this. I'm guessing
the author is advising that you don't let yourself be rushed into agreeing to
something over the phone, think about it and take your time, don't be
pressured

~~~
CaptArmchair
> When you die you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.

The opposite. When you die, you don't take anything material with you. No
money, no assets, nothing. Your own personal experience dies with you as well.

The only thing that doesn't die is how people will remember you.

It's also a hidden paradox. You might aim for widespread fame and acclaim, yet
totally forget about the people closest to you who might end up not having a
high opinion of how you acted towards your goals.

In a sense, a better way of approaching reputation is as a by-product or a
secondary goal to what you pursue. Your primary goal would be: how do I make a
positive impact on the world around me? First and foremost, my own community?

> A disguise for what?

It's a bait and switch: them trying to make their priorities, your priorities.
The urgency itself is the bait: it's an appeal towards your empathy as well as
your desire to act from your gut/instincts (we are bad at instinctively
guestimating opportunity cost) rather then sit back and figuring out the
bigger picture.

Context matters, and so this gets sometimes obscured by a lot of tangential
circumstances. For instance, it's easier to see this one through if the caller
is a stranger rather then a friend or acquaintance, or even someone who comes
at you from a point of authority such as a business partner, your boss or
someone who is either wealthy or owns an experience you desire yourself.

After all, it's a proposal. An invitation. Not an order or a command made from
a place of authority.

~~~
splatzone
Thank you for this explanation! I love that the internet makes it possible for
complete strangers to illuminate me like this - wonderful

------
projektfu
"Hire for aptitude, train for skills" is a very software development oriented
view. Training on its own is difficult and most available employees outside of
engineering don't have a habit of self teaching. I've done a lot better with
experienced people in my hires in my profession.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
I suspect you live in the US.

"Train for skills" is much more common in other countries, although less
common than it used to be. Those experienced hires didn't get to be
experienced at zero cost to anyone - other employers enabled them to become
experienced.

Be a good employer and do your part of the process: train for skills (so that
someone else can hire those people too)

~~~
projektfu
Sorry about the other response. It was flippant like yours was, but two wrongs
don't make a right.

The real issue is that in many industries you don't just walk into a top job
with no experience. If I'm hiring a technician, it's going to be someone with
experience because in this profession they will have started as a kennel
keeper, then moved up to assistant, then started doing more technical work,
usually as they are in technician school, and then they will be able to work
as a registered technician. Sometimes experience can be almost equivalent to
having school, although there are a few things that an unlicensed/unregistered
technician cannot legally do.

All that experience is much more valuable than just the book learning, and you
can't make up for it with a few months training.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
I certainly wasn't trying to be flippant.

The approach you previously (something like "I need to get people who've
already acquired the experience") is very common in the USA today, but less so
in e.g. northern European countries.

The approach you explicity describe here (the existence of a
training/experience pathway) is something that you currently _require_ to
exist, but seem less willing to be the provider of.

I understand that there are going to be employment situations where providing
those training pathways is impossible (or almost impossible). But particularly
in the USA, we've gone too far in the other direction: offloading the
generation of "experienced" to other, unnamed and unidentified people and
organizations, and then expecting to be able to reap what others have sown.

~~~
projektfu
I see what you're saying. But let's put it a different way. Let's say I need a
technician. If I have an existing employee who can move into that role, great,
but I'm a small organization, like many others. Otherwise I have to hire one.
Some technicians will have no experience as a tech, others will have 1 year
experience, others will have more. If I can hire one with more, it's likely a
better hire, even at a higher rate. Otherwise I have to hire the inexperienced
one. This is where I disagree that aptitude is more important. The experienced
tech has probably already demonstrated aptitude. The new grad/career riser's
aptitude I'd have to guess based on references and interview. The
inexperienced person would not be able to hit the ground running.

In order to have that person ready for the moment they were needed, I would
have to have a lot of slack in a very small organization. It'd be a lot
different if I were a manager at Siemens needing a new mechanical engineer.

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
That makes sense as far as it goes. But it also means that you are implicitly
relying on the existence of other organizations to train people to a level
where you feel you can hire them. That's OK, as long as you don't try to deny
this. Why do I think that's important? Because those other organizations are
carrying the costs of training for you. Should they want some sort of social
payback (of any kind) to reflect this, it seems wise to me that you'd
recognize the benefit that you accrue from this sort of thing, and be
supportive of it.

------
londons_explore
I can confirm that one shouldn't trust all-purpose glue.

Bought a tube of it a year ago, and out of about 10 times I've tried to use
it, I don't remember a single one not needing re-gluing with something else
later.

All except your fingers of course - glue them, and they're sticky for weeks.

~~~
GuB-42
Cyanoacrylate (super glue) works best on fingers.

So well in fact that it can be used as an alternative to stitches. Medical
grade cyanoacrylate is a bit different (less irritant) but in an emergency,
the regular household kind can be used.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, I added one to my first-aid kit just for really emergency emergencies.

I also love cyanoacrylate because it stops sticking when you apply water to
it. I don't worry about my fingers, because whenever I work with this family
of glues, I just keep a glass of water on my workbench, into which I dip the
fingers if I notice I spilled some glue on them. The glue immediately
polymerizes, and you can pull/scratch it off.

~~~
ValentineC
> _The glue immediately polymerizes, and you can pull /scratch it off._

Doesn't this also pull a chunk of your skin off?

~~~
BenjiWiebe
No. Even fully cured cyanoacrylate can be picked off without taking skin off.
It's actually kind of fun, like picking a scab. It doesn't come off easily
though.

------
ggm
There is a lot to be said for "never get involved in a land war in Asia"

~~~
delaaxe
Like what? This is one of the few bits that I honestly didn't understand
because it felt so specific and without further explanation. Can you
elaborate?

~~~
dcminter
It's a quotation from "The Princess Bride" so mostly a joke. The land war the
movie is referring to is Vietnam, not generally considered an American success
story.

In the movie the humour comes from the incongruity of the fantasy setting with
the knowing political aside.

~~~
fnord123
>The land war the movie is referring to is Vietnam

From Hansard: [https://bit.ly/2V7BgbK](https://bit.ly/2V7BgbK)

> The next war on land will be very different from the last one, in that we
> shall have to fight it in a different way. In reaching a decision on that
> matter, we must first be clear about certain rules of war. Rule 1, on page I
> of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried
> it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not
> know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go
> fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no
> clearly defined objectives, and an army fighting there would be engulfed by
> what is known as the Ming Bing, the people's insurgents.

~~~
TeMPOraL
And then the next paragraph goes:

> The more I study the problem of future war, which I do a good deal, the more
> I reach the conclusion that air power and sea power will provide the main
> offensive punch in an unlimited nuclear war of the future. Their offensive
> power must be mobile. Land power will be essential as a direct "stop" on the
> ground, in order to protect vital territories and peoples. But the strategy
> of those who fight on land will be defensive, since any considerable
> movement will not be possible owing to the terrific destruction caused to
> communications by nuclear bombardment, as well as by the movement of
> refugees. This latter is a terrific problem, and during the ten years in
> which I served in Supreme Headquarters in Europe, we never could get the
> refugee problem seriously tackled. The sea must be exploited increasingly to
> give surface strategical mobility, and to provide mobile launching sites for
> nuclear weapons.

At which point I'm starting to feel sick in my stomach and decide to abandon
reading whatever it is that I was just reading. I'm already in a bad head
space thanks to COVID-19, I don't want to contemplate the realities of a world
in the middle of a war in which nuclear weapons are used as actual weapons.

------
11235813213455
> When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you
> can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny
> room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way
> any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the
> worst case scenario.

Done it around my 24, I lived 2 years without spending any money, except for
my room rent (I was paying by cheques, since you don't really need a credit-
card anymore in my case). I ate from student restaurants bread leftovers,
markets ends (lots of fruits/vegs), and sometimes supermarket bins with other
persons

You change dramatically after that, it's like a new life, with new values,
minimalism, endurance, you know much more yourself. Why I did so? I don't
know, I started for a few days, a week, then I didn't stop, there was some
intent to save money, but the benefit was of course different, you actually
risk to lose money, by losing your job, luckily it didn't happen, but I wasn't
very productive

------
nunorbatista
> Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving
> too much away.

Not sure if I agree completely. I've seen people regret giving their life to
the service of others and not noticing they were not living their own life
until too late.

~~~
goodcanadian
The key word is "optimize." Note that the author didn't say "maximize."

~~~
nunorbatista
Agree, but my comment is more on the second part of the phrase: "No one on
their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away." \- I'm not sure this
is completely true.

------
globular-toast
> Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from,
> people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will
> disagree with you.

I've often struggled with this one. It might sound arrogant, but I am 90% of
the time the smartest person in the room. This is a frequent cause of
unhappiness as I just feel I'm carrying others and I'm not able to learn
anything myself. I've changed jobs many times to try to combat it but before
long I find that I am, once again, the smartest person in the room.

The only time I never felt like this was with my PhD supervisor who was
definitely always the smartest person in the room.

~~~
wenc
Try moving to a different field, especially a high-value one where raw
intelligence is less important than "street smarts"/intuition/flair. There are
many fields where the smartest person in the room doesn't have a Ph.D. or
impressive academic/technical credentials.

I often try to reinvent myself every couple of years. Moving from technical
fields that I'm comfortable with into less technical fields where I'm forced
to be a beginner has helped remind me what it's like to ramp up from an
ignorant state. It's uncomfortable but worth it.

The analytical mindset (which cerebral people tend toward) is
disproportionately powerful for tackling various problems, but there are many
open-domain problems--laden with tons of uncertainty--that only yield to
heuristic approaches and trial-and-error. It's useful to learn what it
actually feels like to be engaged with problem domains where analytical
approaches aren't as effective.

Here's something to consider: take a sampling of large multinational U.S.
companies and look at the biographies of their executives. You'll likely find
that most of them only have a bachelor's degree and often from middling
schools, yet they are at the helm of these large corporations. It's tempting
to think all of them got to where they were because they knew how to play the
politics game in their orgs -- which is true in part -- but having worked with
folks of this ilk, I would submit that there are some non-technical skills
that these folks have that we tech folks don't often recognize.

~~~
thomk
Like?

~~~
wenc
The business-side of things.

Verticals like retail or part of the business that center on customer
interaction. Marketing. Understanding funnels etc. Business development.
Understanding the metagame that is being played.

The people side of things. Organizing and managing workforces or fleets.
Understanding carrots and sticks. Understanding how things can fail in the
field and how to quickly organize and execute workarounds. Physical world ops
instead of devops.

------
sametmax
> Don't trust all purpose glue

I'm a Python dev, damn it.

------
zvrba
> Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen.
> Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will
> remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

Or visit a graveyard and read the tombstones.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Where I live, most tombstones have one of the few popular sayings or Bible
verses on them. I'm sure the choice of a particular one was deeply meaningful
to the person making that choice, but it gives zero information (above
"probably wasn't an atheist") to an outside observer.

------
luord
> Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go
> deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s
> answer is close to the truth.

This is one where I see how it can be very helpful, but I don't have the first
clue on how to go about it. Simply asking to "go deeper" is often met with a
"what?"

> Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen.
> Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will
> remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

This one might be true for funerals, but definitely not for obituaries.

> Art is in what you leave out.

As an aspiring writer of fiction, this was the only one I could not understand
at all, yet really, really wish I did.

> You really don’t want to be famous. Read the biography of any famous person.

True, but I believe there's a difference between "fame" and "distinction".
Striving for the latter might not be all that bad.

~~~
prawn
I think "go deeper" is replaced with a contextual question that shows you
understand so far and invite the person to speak further.

On simplifying your art, I assume they're getting at leaving readers to fill
in parts with their imagination. There is some notorious shredding of Dan
Brown writing I've seen which might help convey it.

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-
of-r...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-
dan-brown/)

i.e., describe rough hands to infer a life of manual labour or a deliberate
pace to imply age, rather than just tell people the age, job title and so on.

A landscape photographer I know advises looking at the scene and finding a way
to simplify it. Then again. And again. So, recomposing the scene to avoid an
extra tree, or more rocks or something else distracting. When editing a
digital image, it can involve spot-removing rocks from sand or blemishes that
only distract the eye.

Found this on Reddit: _As Dr Seuss said: "A man with two heads must have two
hats and two toothbrushes. Don't give him hair of purple seaweed and live
fireflies for eyes."_

------
fraktl
I've no words to express how strongly these resonated with me, this is the
only article I re-read 5 times in a row and read it slowly. Thank you for your
wisdom.

------
quickthrower2
I love the advice, there is some I'd tell as an 'old man' to younger people.
and there is some there I'm thinking "Oh shit... yes!"

------
hyperpallium
> When an object is lost, 95% of the time it is hiding within arm’s reach of
> where it was last seen. Search in all possible locations in that radius and
> you’ll find it.

Yup, look closely in the place you expected it to be. Something may be on top
of it, or it may have fallen off.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
And pull an image of it into your mind. Then glance around. Your brain's
mighty correlation/association engine may find it for you! It will seem to pop
out of the clutter.

~~~
thomk
That's a good way to look for a person in a crowd too. Think of what, exactly
they were wearing and look for that, not their face.

------
isoprophlex
These are amazing, and worthy of being deliberated upon often. I'm going to
add these to the message-of-the-day thing I keep.

------
newswasboring
Just a question, and I know it is completely dependent on culture, do people
really believe

> Trust me: There is no “them”.

I feel like there is constantly a them. The way I interpret it is that you
should not modify your behavior based on other people's opinion. Or is it
about people who don't matter? How do you know people who don't matter? I have
never known from the beginning of a relationship that this person will end up
mattering.

~~~
9wzYQbTYsAIc
> In sociology and social psychology, an in-group is a social group to which a
> person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-
> group is a social group with which an individual does not identify

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-
group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_and_out-group)

~~~
newswasboring
Are you implying that the out group is them? But that will mean that there is
no out group, everyone is in the in group and thus we should listen to
everyone's opinion and give it credence.

~~~
9wzYQbTYsAIc
Correct, “them” is always an out-group. “Us” is always an in-group.

Everyone is human, we all bleed red, death is a part of life, and all that.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that we should attribute everyone with
credibility, however. But we should certainly attribute everyone with
humanity.

Unless “them” identify as non-human, I guess.

------
PTOB
I honestly thought he was just going to write "STOP IT!" I know it's only
64bits, but I was hoping for something interesting at the end.

------
heavenlyblue
This is what happens when you reach a certain age when you need to deliver on
your said “experience”. All of what was said is true, but it is also
comparable to saying “be what you want to be” to your child, forgetting that
the hard part is in actually following this advice, rather than giving it.

------
MaxBarraclough
> Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can
> improve what we start with.

That's just not true. I will never be an Alan Turing or a John von Neumann,
and I dare say neither will you, dear reader. The reason isn't that we're just
too lazy.

See also the legend (myth?) of Antonio Salieri's jealousy of Mozart's natural
talent:

 _When confronted with the limitations of his own mediocre talent, Antonio
Salieri, Mozart 's nemesis, believes God has cheated him, while a vulgar,
undeserving brat seems to possess divinely inspired musical gifts._

(Taken from [https://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/2-17-2009/Mozart-
vs.-S...](https://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/2-17-2009/Mozart-
vs.-Salieri:-Genius-vs.-jealousy/) )

~~~
gspr
> > Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how much we can
> improve what we start with.

> That's just not true. I will never be an Alan Turing or a John von Neumann,
> and I dare say neither will you, dear reader.

The author doesn't claim this either. I believe he means that you shouldn't
discount how much you can improve yourself.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
Which would be solid advice, but he put _there is no limit_. That's the part
I'm questioning.

You'll never get anywhere without self-improvement, of course, but there's no
sense pretending we can all be a prodigy like von Neumann - whose natural
intelligence was shocking even to the top professors of his day - if we just
work hard enough.

There very much _is_ a limit, but one need not be deluded to be motivated or
successful.

 _edit_ Perhaps the point is meant to be read as 'you can always improve
yourself further', rather than 'there is no ceiling on your abilities'. Which
seems far more reasonable.

~~~
Aeolun
There is no limit on your ability to improve yourself, but the effect can be
described as a log function.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
A sublinear function seems like the way to model it, but even log(x) will
eventually reach a very high value. Even if I could live forever, I'd never
reach von Neumann's intelligence.

Better to use a function that tends toward an asymptote, such as _1 - 1
/(x+1)_

~~~
shadowfox
> Even if I could live forever, I'd never reach von Neumann's intelligence

Forever is a long time ...

~~~
MaxBarraclough
I mean, things rather fall down in the extreme case. If my brain is spared the
ravages of time, we could say I'm guaranteed to continue to close the gap as
time passes, but I don't think this is a helpful way to look at things.

In reality, there are limits to what you can do with a trained ape. An usually
long-lived ape doesn't much help you. I suspect the same applies here.

------
ibiza
> Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find.
> Upgrade...

Strong "no" on this one. Always buy quality tools. These are priced at a
premium, but unlike "inexpensive" tools will:

• Do the job expected of them w/o creating a new problem

• Be enjoyable to use

• Last a long time (often, a lifetime)

~~~
steveklabnik
You cut out the meat of the advice. The point is that you may not need the
tools to last a lifetime; you buy a cheap set first, and then replace the ones
you actually use with the quality ones, for the reasons you explain. This
prevents you from spending excess money on tools you don't use.

~~~
wpietri
Exactly. Buying pro-grade anything before you have proven need is a giant
waste.

A while back I was thinking I wanted a standing desk. My first urge was, "Find
the best and buy it!" Instead I prototyped something out of an ironing board
and a highly adjustable laptop stand. That's been adequate for months, and
it's taught me a lot about what will work for me, and what "best" actually
means. Eventually I'll get around to buying something professional. But it
won't be the thing novice me thought was the right one. And it could have
easily turned out that I didn't need one at all.

~~~
caseysoftware
Sounds like you "shipped" an MVP, figured out what did/didn't work, and
iterated. Amazing how this works, huh? ;)

I wonder if people arguing against the "cheapest thing that will work, then
learn" also argue in favor of over engineering systems to address requirements
that _may_ come months or years from now.

~~~
m463
"cheapest thing that will work, then learn"

ah, that addresses it. Your mind is the best tool and you can upgrade it.

------
glangdale
Shakespeare knew what to do with people who proffer great quantities of
unsolicited advice; look what happened to Polonius.

A bunch of these are good, a bunch are just... OK, and some are questionable
or just a matter of simple opinion. A lot just reek of "truthiness"; a sort of
middle-brow confidence about art/business/doing stuff that's manages to
frequently just pass off made-up bullshit as authoritative. The "rule of 7 in
research", "Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from
their mistakes", "Talent is distributed unfairly, but there is no limit on how
much we can improve what we start with" \- a lot of these don't make a lick of
sense on sober examination.

~~~
wpietri
Those make sense to me. Like all maxims, they're overcompressed; they imply a
context that the reader has to be able to fill in. But I think they're useful
in context.

E.g., the phrase "It is what it is" is on the surface tautological and
useless. But in context, it's a valuable reminder about coping with some of
the flaws in human consciousness.

~~~
glangdale
They "make sense", but they aren't really _true_. They are not such much
"overcompressed" as subject to whatever interpretation makes them sensible,
but as such, they are dependent more on the good sense of the person unpacking
them than on their inherent virtue.

So, for example, the "Rule of 7" is a ludicrous exaggeration (by the time you
actually go through a chain of 7 people you're talking to a random stranger
and weeks have passed), but someone who had done some research might mentally
fix this to a rule of 3 (which would be a pretty reasonable thing). However, a
maxim that's on the face of it pretty dumb until you fix it up is Not Good.

Similarly, the one about "pros" vs "amateurs" is Just Plain Made Up - it's
easy to conjure up situations where it seems clever, but in general it doesn't
make a lick of sense.

I suppose I'm perennially annoyed - one might even say "triggered" \- by these
kind of wildly variable mixes of folksy wisdom, mild common sense and Just
Plain Opinion. No-one has any business mixing fairly reasonable ideas about
how to find a missing object or get a cable while traveling with Deep Wisdom
About How To Live Your Life; the net effect is to anesthetize our critical
facilities through sheer volume.

Putting your advice as to what constitutes a meaningful life on the same level
as advice on how not to get into credit card debt is a serious category error;
at worst it's banal, at best it's a way of smuggling a bunch of unexamined
values in as universals.

~~~
wpietri
I am fascinated that you are sure you know more about journalistic research
than Wired's founding executive editor, a guy who has written a half-dozen
successful books.

But I think we get a little closer to the truth about what's going on when you
admit that you just really don't like this kind of thing. Which is fine!
Nothing's for everybody. But your problem here isn't the article, it's your
expectations. Reading this, all I expect is what it's clearly signaled as:
things he in his life has found to be true. Personal insights, not carefully
researched scientific fact. The opening paragraph makes it clear what he's up
to.

That you take your irritation with something not being what you want and
universalize it into Evil Mistruth Worth of Death is exactly the same sort of
value-smuggling that you're complaining about.

~~~
glangdale
You have a point about "journalistic research" (very likely what he means by
"research" for obvious reasons) - I am applying my value-smuggling and reading
"research" (which is all it said) as either academic or "post-academic" (i.e.
the sort of research you might do as a working practitioner with a PhD). A
generalist writing for Wired might well be more reasonably expected to take 7
steps (give or take) than someone already practicing in an area.

That being said, you're histrionically exaggerating for no apparent reason.
When did I call these "evil" or call for the death of the promulgator? I have
never wished death on anyone from Wired, not even for those responsible for
the very worst color schemes in the earliest days.

I think it's reasonable to read my response at the same level: "OK, so here
are some things you found to be true? Well, fine, here are some things you
wrote that _I_ find to be a load of bollocks".

~~~
wpietri
What exactly do you think happened to Polonius?

------
Autowired
> Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to
> them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for
> you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

Maybe take this one with a grain of salt.

~~~
ardit33
Yeah, the author is projecting here. Assuming others feel/think the same as he
does or did at some point.

~~~
mbrameld
It doesn't say ALL other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to
them. I think the point is more that you miss 100% shots you don't take so
don't let your fear of rejection prevent you from trying.

------
ValentineC
Would anyone mind sharing their take on this?

> _• Trust me: There is no “them”._

~~~
Communitivity
It is both the hardest bit of advice on the list to follow, and the most
profound. Many religions have some version of a holy man/woman going to a
mountain/cave/ocean/forest and coming back with divine/enlightened wisdom.
What they all have in common is some version of 'Unity: we are one'. It makes
violence much harder, among other things. What left hand wants to shoot the
matching right hand?

Pragmatically, this means whenever you are thinking with the us vs them
mentality you can try to realize that there is some value of us which includes
you and the ones you consider 'them', a common ground. A possible first rule
is that this is the key step in any negotiation. A possible second rule is
that everything is a negotiation.

~~~
Aeolun
Ultimately, you can say everyone is human.

But some humans are more human than others, at least in my system of ethics.

I don’t necessarily blame the bad apples, but in the same way that I don’t
blame my infected finger. It’s still going to require a strong dose of
antibiotics.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's already shifting the way you look at things. You'll still have to deal
with the infection, but you aren't hating your finger.

------
GuB-42
> Don’t be the best. Be the only.

No, if you are "the only" you are going to do that for the rest of your life.

Also, it is at odds with the second previous point "Hangout with, and learn
from, people smarter than yourself". You can't have people smarter than
yourself if you are the only.

And it is at odds with all the other points promoting sharing and generosity
too. If you are the only, it means you didn't share your knowledge.

~~~
keiferski
What is the purpose of a pedantic comment like this? The meaning is clearly
supposed to be something like, “don’t directly compete with other people, but
be the best as something new/different.”

Scott Adams and Peter Thiel have echoed similar sentiments.

~~~
hyperpallium
But if it works, soon you're not the only, just have a headstart.

------
perilunar
"Old men are fond of giving good advice, to console themselves for being no
longer in a position to give bad examples." — La Rochefoucauld

------
nimbius
>Don’t be the best. Be the only.

Speaking from experience in an automotive repair shop, Thats a great way to
make sure you're the only guy who does lube jobs and rotor turns, and the most
hated guy on the team.

Branch out and learn new things. you dont need to be perfect, but if youre
just one thing to one shop then you get missed (and replaced) about as quickly
as a lug nut.

------
9wzYQbTYsAIc
> The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You
> no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it.

Pure gold.

------
gdy
"Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do, friends can do
better. In so many ways a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat."

But if everyone of your friends follows this advice, you'll be a bunch of poor
people without a boat unable to help each other when a boat is needed.

------
Err_Eek
This reminds me a lot of that "wear sunscreen" chain mail

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

These folksy wisdom thingies, especially from accomplished people, come off as
patronizing to me.

~~~
_Microft
Advice #1: "• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend
you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe."

~~~
Err_Eek
I will make sure never to get myself in a land war in Asia

~~~
AlwaysForward
Why? Are you American? The European powers have won many land wars in Asia
over the centuries.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Nothing in recent history; you're probably thinking of the colonizers, there
was a much bigger power and technology skew back then. And I'm mainly thinking
of India there; they only really managed to colonize Hong Kong in China for
example.

disclaimer: not a history buff

~~~
AlwaysForward
In China you have Macau, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tianjin and Kunming were all
either explicitly or implicitly under the control of European Powers and those
are just the one's off the top of my head, then you have Indonesia,
Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Borneo, Myanmar, Singapore (the list
goes on and we are only in East Asia) that were all under Western control
until the 20th century

------
KuriousCat
Many happy returns of the day, thanks for sharing this.

------
jmgpeeters
I was expecting 62 bits of advice in the information theory interpretation. :/

------
yamrzou
Could someone elaborate on "Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points" ?

~~~
GCA10
Cheerful people regroup faster and are still going strong on the 3rd/4th
attempt to solve a problem.

The higher-IQ person is more likely to get it right the first time. But there
won't be much conviction on try No. 2, and after that, his/her position will
be: "It doesn't work. Can't be done. Dumb idea."

In a lot of work that I see, the IQ adjustment might be more like 10-15
points. For gnarly problems, we might still get better results with the really
smart guy who's not 100% invested. And even grouchy geniuses can get enthused
once they see that their ideas might work in a problem that has most other
people stumped.

Still, for problems that just require a lot of different attempts until
something clicks, well-aimed enthusiasm can work wonders.

------
iancmceachern
Ha, "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"

------
TopHand
The mark of a true champion is to come back from behind!

------
iobug
Now this, is GOLD

------
drudru11
Who wrote this?

