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THIS. The older I get, the less willing I am to waste time on yak-shaving bullshit. Make it difficult or tedious, and I'll just dump your product and go do som

by beat 8y ago

THIS. The older I get, the less willing I am to waste time on yak-shaving bullshit. Make it difficult or tedious, and I'll just dump your product and go do something else with my precious time and attention.

copperx 8y ago
I do the same, but I do NOT think my patience has decreased. Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we were able to takle it easily.
- beat 8y ago
  I think of not wasting time on yak shaving as a sign of cognitive advancement, not cognitive decline! It's not that I can't shave yaks like I used to. It's that I realize that shaving yaks is a stupid waste of time that could be spent doing something productive or fun. Of course, if one enjoys shaving yaks, then by all means, shave away! But don't shave a yak just to prove that you can, and don't sneer at the people who don't - just because they don't shave your yak doesn't mean they can't. It means their priorities are different than yours.
- egypturnash 8y ago
  When you were a kid, you had more time to kill. Sure, I’ll recompile this kernel a couple of times to try out some tweaks! It’ll be a nice break from marathoning this fifteen-volume fantasy series. As an adult, you’ve got a job and maybe a family and a commute and you’re the one who has to deal with bureaucracy and... who has time for needless complexity any more?
- codetrotter 8y ago
  > Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we were able to takle it easily. My first computer ran Windows XP. I was 12 years old at the time and was curious about learning how it worked. I messed around, broke the install, fixed it by using the rescue floppy. From my mistakes I learned quite a bit, as one tends to do. About 6 years later, when I started using Linux and FreeBSD, once again I messed around a lot in order to learn about these operating systems and how things worked. And once again I learned from the mistakes that I made. I have now been running Linux and FreeBSD almost exclusively for the past 10 years, and I will keep using these OSes for as long into the future as I can imagine, but... When my systems break these days, it’s a chore. Because when something broke back when I was new to these things, it was an opportunity for learning. But if I render my system unbootable due to an oversight during system upgrade for example, there is really nothing new to learn from that anymore. And that is what it boils down to for me, and why certain things made sense to spend time on before, whereas now those same things don’t. I am willing to put in a lot of hours on something that will either earn me the right amount of money, teach me something new or better yet, both, but really it was always like that — I put in the time on certain things then that I won’t today because back then I still needed to learn about that thing.
- ridgeguy 8y ago
  I'm on the fence about the patience issue. Complexity is still fun for me, but my patience for gratuitous complexity has greatly diminished. When it takes three clicks to get to a menu item that used to take just one, that's gratuitous complexity to me. Got no patience for it. When it turns out that to design an isothermal substrate holder for diamond CVD, I need to learn some COMSOL tools, that's fun complexity. I worry about cognitive decline. I have a dear friend who is going through Alzheimer's and knows it. Formerly a superbly bright cognitive light, now struggles for minutes to find a word he needs. It's awful. So I do wonder if my (rationalized) impatience with gratuitous complexity is just a way of refusing to realize I'm no longer up to the task of yak shaving. I suppose time will tell, but I might not be able to receive the message. If you want to make a real difference in the world, work on dementia.
Aloha 8y ago
This is part of what informs the choices of the ecosystems that I live in

by beat 8y ago

copperx 8y ago

I do the same, but I do NOT think my patience has decreased. Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we were able to takle it easily.

beat 8y ago
I think of not wasting time on yak shaving as a sign of cognitive advancement, not cognitive decline! It's not that I can't shave yaks like I used to. It's that I realize that shaving yaks is a stupid waste of time that could be spent doing something productive or fun. Of course, if one enjoys shaving yaks, then by all means, shave away! But don't shave a yak just to prove that you can, and don't sneer at the people who don't - just because they don't shave your yak doesn't mean they can't. It means their priorities are different than yours.
egypturnash 8y ago
When you were a kid, you had more time to kill. Sure, I’ll recompile this kernel a couple of times to try out some tweaks! It’ll be a nice break from marathoning this fifteen-volume fantasy series. As an adult, you’ve got a job and maybe a family and a commute and you’re the one who has to deal with bureaucracy and... who has time for needless complexity any more?
codetrotter 8y ago
> Perhaps not being able to deal with "yak shaving" is a sign of cognitive decline, but because the truth hurts, we say we don't have time for such things (e.g., I have no time to recompile a kernel! I just want a computer that works, give me a Mac!). In our youth, complexity was fun because we were able to takle it easily. My first computer ran Windows XP. I was 12 years old at the time and was curious about learning how it worked. I messed around, broke the install, fixed it by using the rescue floppy. From my mistakes I learned quite a bit, as one tends to do. About 6 years later, when I started using Linux and FreeBSD, once again I messed around a lot in order to learn about these operating systems and how things worked. And once again I learned from the mistakes that I made. I have now been running Linux and FreeBSD almost exclusively for the past 10 years, and I will keep using these OSes for as long into the future as I can imagine, but... When my systems break these days, it’s a chore. Because when something broke back when I was new to these things, it was an opportunity for learning. But if I render my system unbootable due to an oversight during system upgrade for example, there is really nothing new to learn from that anymore. And that is what it boils down to for me, and why certain things made sense to spend time on before, whereas now those same things don’t. I am willing to put in a lot of hours on something that will either earn me the right amount of money, teach me something new or better yet, both, but really it was always like that — I put in the time on certain things then that I won’t today because back then I still needed to learn about that thing.
ridgeguy 8y ago
I'm on the fence about the patience issue. Complexity is still fun for me, but my patience for gratuitous complexity has greatly diminished. When it takes three clicks to get to a menu item that used to take just one, that's gratuitous complexity to me. Got no patience for it. When it turns out that to design an isothermal substrate holder for diamond CVD, I need to learn some COMSOL tools, that's fun complexity. I worry about cognitive decline. I have a dear friend who is going through Alzheimer's and knows it. Formerly a superbly bright cognitive light, now struggles for minutes to find a word he needs. It's awful. So I do wonder if my (rationalized) impatience with gratuitous complexity is just a way of refusing to realize I'm no longer up to the task of yak shaving. I suppose time will tell, but I might not be able to receive the message. If you want to make a real difference in the world, work on dementia.

Aloha 8y ago

This is part of what informs the choices of the ecosystems that I live in