

Ask HN: How HN improved your life? - paraseba

Maybe you quit your job, maybe you started your own business, or you're getting more sleep, or you're dieting, or you're practicing mindful meditation.<p>What life improving event or practices you started after reading a HN thread?
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JoshCole
It has made me more aware of my own ability. It is really easy to see yourself
as better than you are when your peers aren't expert, but on Hacker News I
don't have that problem as so many of you are above me. This helps me to keep
improving.

It has also exposed me to concepts that I wouldn't have been exposed to
otherwise. For example, I was introduced to Lisp through Clojure in part
through this site. This exposure to other ideas is pretty awesome, since it
helps me get a more nuanced picture of the tech world. In my C++ class I have
a teacher who preaches object oriented programming as the most revolutionary
idea since the wheel (which you can model with object oriented programming..)
while online I'm exposed to the many advocates of functional and even event
driven programming. I could give more examples.

I think some people might find these things to be inconsequential. I mean, it
isn't getting a job or a wife. However, these little things are constantly
adding up to more intelligent decisions which are leading to other wise
choices. I think it qualifies.

I think that I can safely say that Hacker News has made me a slightly wiser
person.

Oh, and god willing I'll be able to get an internship through contacts on
Hacker News. Wish me luck. =)

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JoeAltmaier
I discuss world-changing news with my son after dinner. NASA discoveries,
social phenomena, whatever. I get it all from HN.

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mindcrime
Hrrrm.... I don't know that I'd say HN has "changed my life" in any specific,
grand sense. But I've definitely learned a lot from hanging out here. If I had
to cite one thing in particular that I've gotten out of my time here, it would
probably be "being exposed to the Customer Development methodology." I'm
pretty sure it was a link or two from here that first got me reading about CD,
and led me to buying Steve's book, which I would cite as being "life changing"
(or at least on the verge of it.)

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znt
Thanks to HN, I found out that only my persistence and creativity is the limit
regarding my software development career. Being a corporate software drone is
not the only viable way of having a decent life.

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RiderOfGiraffes
You asked this 16 hours ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2176759>

Any particular reason for asking it again?

~~~
paraseba
I thought the question was not well formulated. Sorry about that

~~~
bigohms
Tough crowd

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Mz
So far, I wouldn't say it has "changed my life", at least not on the scale
that usually suggests. I would like it to. I have a project in mind that I
would like to get support for/feedback on. I completely suck at starting
discussions and the things I "submit" are generally largely ignored -- which
is a problem I have historically in other forums, it isn't particular to HN. I
hardly slept this week and then slept like 9 or so hours last night. Maybe
this weekend or some other weekend, I will figure out what to ask. :-/ Or
maybe not. Time will tell.

~~~
noahc
It sounds like you should be testing more.

What is different about the questions you ask and the ones that get responses?

How can you make your questions more like theirs?

Ultimately, just throw up a lot of crap and see what sticks. Then improve on
what sticks.

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Mz
Just throwing up a lot of crap and seeing what sticks doesn't generally work
for me. To me, that's the slowest, most painful way to figure out what works.
Studying the successes of others is my preferred route. This particular idea
is kind of newly born, so probably best to let it incubate a bit anyway. And,
as I said, I have not slept well this week. Posting with a clear head
generally gets better results.

~~~
noahc
Obviously, not sleeping isn't the greatest way to have your best thoughts. I
understand that.

However, I think you're missing out on a huge upside. You are judged by your
best works not your failures.

The problem with studying the success of others is that you're not doing
anything. I would know, I spent 2 years doing it and had nothing to show for
it.

When I say throw up a lot of crap, what I really mean is throw up good enough
stuff to validate the idea. Then go from there. It maybe painful, but it
works. It certainly isn't slow. I can throw up an outline of 5 blog posts and
say, "Which one do you want to read?" and then write the post everyone likes.
Or I can study how the best bloggers do it and start tomorrow(which never
comes).

~~~
Mz
Oh, I actually do plenty of that or I wouldn't still be posting here. I'm a
woman and very open about that. Women sometimes comment here that it's a tough
environment for a woman. And it can be. But it's also a growth experience. If
I get badly downvoted or something, I wonder why, I wonder what I can do
differently, rather than just feeling burned and going away to lick my wounds.

In this case, I really think my impetus to immediately post and start asking
questions is probably a bad one, a premature impetus. It will be better for me
to do some of the legwork before posting and requesting feedback. I'm not a
patient person. :-) So I don't really want to wait. But I think it is best,
not just because I am not in a good place mentally today but for other reasons
as well.

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rick_2047
[http://blog.lifeasparesh.in/2010/07/what-social-skills-i-
lea...](http://blog.lifeasparesh.in/2010/07/what-social-skills-i-learn-from-
hn.html)

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jpr
It didn't.

