On doing things other people can't

212 点作者 nancyhua超过 9 年前

19 条评论

mswen超过 9 年前

One thing that the author focuses on is trying to predict what will be big in the medium to longer time horizon and preparing oneself to be competent in that while few others realize that "it" even exists.I am a bit older than the author and have had some experience with this strategy. One specific example is creating an approach to latent semantic analysis that worked really well back in 2000. My partner and I couldn't get people with money to pay attention. We ended up putting it on the shelf and moving on. Around 2007 semantic gets really hot with VCs but we are each engaged elsewhere.My point is that this strategy can suffer from being too early. You may eventually be shown to be right but you were too early or not persuasive enough to gain the benefit from the insight and work.Still, I find myself much more intrigued with creating something new, or exploring the leading edge of some field than just grinding out the next iteration of the same old thing.Maybe one day I will get the timing just right.

评论 #10137461 未加载

评论 #10137303 未加载

评论 #10137601 未加载

评论 #10137408 未加载

frisco超过 9 年前

This idea is usually called the "failed simulation effect" in evaluating high school/college/grad school applications: <a href="http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/28/the-art-of-activity-innovation-how-to-be-impressive-without-an-impressive-amount-of-work/" rel="nofollow">http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/05/28/the-art-of-activity-in...</a>The basic idea is that there are a lot of things that are actually a lot more reasonable than they appear because in reality they build from a simple beginning that compounds through practice and persistence, just like anything else, but the reviewer never sees that. It's very effective when you see it.

评论 #10137316 未加载

zkhalique超过 9 年前

A lot of these seem to be about getting accepted into some high-achieving organizations, which will open up further opportunities. This is clearly very important. I would suggest one strategy to do this which involves startups:MAKE A STARTUP THAT YOU ARE GOING TO FLIPOnce you have the mindset that you are going to exit in a few years instead of building the next google, you'll project many of the attitudes investors are looking for. Even if you have a huge idea that you're working on, don't bring it up when you talk about your smaller, flippable idea. Even better if technology or user base you developed in the "world changing" project can be used to give the flippable idea a big boost, making it seem to be making amazing leaps (which is actually true). Give away as much equity as you need to the most well-connected people who want to get involved. Network your way using the startup as the reason for everyone to cluster around. In short, build your own little organization, and attract people by selling to them exactly what they are looking for. Don't be greedy with the equity because your goal isn't to make huge amounts of money on the exit (even though you could every well exit with millions or a golden parachute) but to open doors and make connections.Many startups eschew this route because they feel they must focus only on their world-changing business, and as a result, they miss all the low hanging fruit they could be getting.

评论 #10137634 未加载

评论 #10138011 未加载

b_emery超过 9 年前

This is a good idea. Cal Newport has a similar suggestion, and often writes about thus under the heading "the psychology of impressiveness":<a href="http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanford-with-bs-on-your-transcript-failed-simulations-the-surprising-psychology-of-impressiveness/" rel="nofollow">http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/03/26/how-to-get-into-stanfo...</a>I'd be interesting in hearing about other people doing this sort of thing.

ChuckMcM超过 9 年前

I really like the insight in this article. It really boils down to being mindful of what you're trying to achieve versus established wisdom on how to achieve it. My grandfather used to say "There are many roads to your destination, try to pick one with a good view." Which, to be honest, I didn't appreciate until I watched the paths my kids chose to get to their destinations.That said, people who choose to take short cuts (cheating, plagiarizing, or other work avoidance strategies) always annoy me, especially when they are successful at it. So where do you draw the line? Do you try to get into Harvard on your merits or do you have your Dad's company endow a chair there? The latter is certainly something not everyone can do.Really like the outside activity ideas though, I had no idea that becoming a radio amateur in High School would have looked so favorable on my college applications. I just did it so that I could talk to people across the country for free (long distance telephone calls were expensive then :-)

Htsthbjig超过 9 年前

On Franklin not drinking beer: One interesting thing about drinking water is that it actually made you weak and sick in the past. Romans knew that and used wine for this reason. Sider or beer were alternatives.It was only after water infrastructure improved, specially filters in water, that people could drink water without issues.When you travel the world, the most important thing you need is water purification tablets. I have traveled lots of countries and never got sick, but I have seen friends almost die because of drinking what they should not.Things change over time.

unabst超过 9 年前

#1. There is also doing things other people won't. Entrepreneurs tend to be willing to do anything. They're willing to survive discomfort, risk, and long hours, and complete unfamiliar tasks even if it means googling it from scratch. Leading is something people often won't do also, even though anyone can do it. Practice begins with doing, and so whether it's a deadline or a dream, if you have something pushing you to do things (and nothing is beneath you) you've just become capable of accomplishing what other's can't.#2. This:> what you get are communities that collectively have and share the best ways of doing things. So the way to get good at something is to simply find the right community and join it.Take HN. If you can keep up with the conversations on here, you're pretty much guaranteed to be at the bleeding edge of IT. And the further away from SV the better probably... As HN literacy decreases per capita, you'll be further ahead of the local curve.The only minimum is English, an internet connection, and a burning desire to build/code.> The problem is the finding: every community wants to seem like them.My heart goes out to those still stranded on /. (or rather, what has become of it). Why HN? The sparsity of the comments was misleading at first (though I was quickly enlightened as to why), but I am still pleasantly surprised every single day at the rate of which the original authors comment here. Sure, maybe they see their logs and hop on for the first time, but when we're not talking about other people, we are the people, and I find that to be a breath of fresh air. Plus, no ads. HN, I salute you.

评论 #10138203 未加载

评论 #10137915 未加载

lotharbot超过 9 年前

We've roughly doubled the number of college degrees earned (of all types, from Associates to Masters) since 1980: <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_318.10.asp" rel="nofollow">http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_318.10.as...</a> (the population of the US has only grown by about 40% in that time period, which means there's also about a 40% increase in per-capita degrees earned.) Having a degree has become less and less of a "do something other people can't" prospect, and therefore less of a useful signal to employers.

评论 #10137437 未加载

mettamage超过 9 年前

I'll use this comment as a mental exercise for the sources of power that I found. Disclaimer: I'm no sources of power expert ;) Just a person who's intrigued.- Meditation: nowadays it seems a bit more mainstream, but I still think doing Vipassana or other body-scan related techniques is a source of power. The idea of emotional intelligence felt like a concept, but when I actually felt a tangible improvement, I understood the concept intuitively.- Mental simulation: this is more a generalization of meditation. But if psychology shows you can learn to play piano just by vividly imagining it, it has merit, since you can now learn it anywhere.- Specialized communities: Hacker News is a prime example. It's the first time I learned so much about tech (despite studying CS). Evaluating a community is a matter of its own though.- Interdisciplinarity: this is more domain specific but it works for me in uni. I learned my academic writing thanks to psychology classes and learned LaTeX from CS. Combining the two allowed me to improve my writing in ways I never imagined. A natural consequence is that I get higher grades during interdisciplinary courses (e.g. serious games).- Geo-arbitrage: we all know this one. Living in a cheap country (e.g. somewhere in Asia), while working for an expensive country such as the US.- Good peer to peer teaching: I owe all most of my dating skills to one person who taught me after years of small successes and reading a lot on the topic. Finding the right teacher is the hard part.- Six degrees to separation: I tried it once as an experiment. I didn't reach the person I wanted to reach, I was impatient as well. But I got a lot further than I thought. The hardest thing is that you don't know the full topology. So my best guestimate was to contact the hubs (people that know many people), and Facebook will show you who your hubs are :)While I've never done this type of thinking before, here it goes. My bets for new sources of power: - Machine learning: I think there are enough applications that haven't been explored yet. I mean small projects. For example, machine learning algorithms to write awesome music to MIDI and then you adapt it to your taste as a music producer.- Game development for the Rift: it's not massively adopted yet and game-design approaches need to be reinvented a bit.Anyone who wants to share or give feedback? :)

skybrian超过 9 年前

It's funny, based on the title, I was expecting to read an essay about remembering that other people don't have the same advantages you have and can't do what you do, even if it seems easy to you. It seems like the author hasn't had that insight yet?

alexvr超过 9 年前

It's really sad, but in one way kind of laughable, to see so many ostensibly bright students wasting their time cramming useless crap into their brains for AP history and calculus tests, and doing socially acceptable "extracurricular activities," all so they can get into socially acceptable or "impressive" universities where they can pay obscene tuitions and try to figure out what they want to do with life. Compulsory K-12 education is really bad for smart students who know what they love to do and what they're good at, because it's a massive, needlessly competitive distraction. Not all smart kids need to learn the details of calculus or chemistry or history, it turns out, because not all smart kids want to be math professors or biochemists or historians! Who woulda thought?!-----Oh, you're a talented young engineer? You can write a program in 3 minutes to approximate nearly any integral? Fuck you, we don't even teach programming in high school. In fact, such witchcraft is prohibited here. Instead, spend half a year of your life memorizing these integration tricks because we're definitely still in the 19th century. Speaking of which, don't forget that you have a big history project due tomorrow because you will no doubt be required to distinguish between Greek column types when you're in the real world!Oh, you have a natural gift for writing? Too bad you don't know what a gerund or past participle is! You must be dumb! Let me tell you: In the real world, it is imperative that you be capable of diagramming sentences. Yes, you deserve to fail grammar tests even if your grammar is impeccable in practice.Oh, you taught yourself conceptual aerospace engineering in elementary school? Fuck you and your creativity and advanced knowledge; you must follow directions to the point in engineering class to build this cardboard rocket! Engineering is all about following directions!-----Yeah, I've seen some nasty things in school.I hope I see the day when students don't feel pressured to learn things just to make the grade or "keep up" with the fierce competition. Maybe young people will increasingly realize that competing to be #1 in the Great Conformity Competition is really dumb because it actually makes them less competitive where GPAs don't matter.Imagine where you'd be if you were given the chance and encouragement to really focus on the things you loved while growing up. Young people should not be led to believe that there is one correct path for everyone.

评论 #10137775 未加载

评论 #10138425 未加载

评论 #10138162 未加载

评论 #10137801 未加载

kak9超过 9 年前

On the last point of passing it on. The key is to find secrets with network effects on awareness. Secrets that degrade in utility as more people know them are the weakest form. Stronger are those that get better as more know them. Even stronger are those that accrue even more value when you explain to people it gets stronger as it spreads.

vincentbarr超过 9 年前

Also, I enjoyed the author's previous – and first – post: Small-Batch Blogging [1].[1] <a href="http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-like-doing-things-right.html?view=classic" rel="nofollow">http://pathsensitive.blogspot.com/2015/05/i-like-doing-thing...</a>

peterwwillis超过 9 年前

So, privilege is great, and we need to capitalize on and discover new kinds of privilege so we (and our kids) can become captains of industry, Olympic medalists, and the smartest or most successful people in a particular field.This would sound great if it didn't also reveal the horrifying nature of only thinking about yourself (or, in the case of a parent, your child) and being the best. You completely disregard everyone else, and totally ignore what capitalizing ("exploiting" in his words) on that privilege does to others.But maybe I missed something.

xiaoma超过 9 年前

This is a very thoughtful essay. I particularly appreciate the insight that his own insights have a shelf-life just as his parents' did.

jxm262超过 9 年前

this is an awesome read, thanks for sharing. I wonder how this can be applied to my career in software development?

jayajay超过 9 年前

Gotta admit, the first two paragraphs of this post made me stop reading it. Then I scrolled to the bottom thinking "what a silly article" until I read the last sentence.:> everythings ok now

sawthat超过 9 年前

This is absolutely odious.

scythe超过 9 年前

This is an absurdly depressing outlook on life.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI</a>

评论 #10137428 未加载