21 ms·
Anna Karenina Principle
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoOn a practical note, when I need to write code for a platform (I usually write for Apple platforms), there's usually a dozen ways to do something, but only one or two ways to do it right. I just went through this today, as I was selecting the best way to trap and pipe stdout.
- ken 7y agoMy experience is that with software there's very often no correct way to do it. It seems to me that most of engineering is simply deciding which compromises are acceptable to you today. Or picking something, and shoring up the leaks yourself.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoGreat point!
- inimino 7y agoThere's always at least one right way, but it may not be cost-effective to do it right.
- nostrademons 7y agoVarious impossibility theorems say otherwise, eg. the CAP theorem for distributed computing, the scalability trilemma for blockchains, Arrow's impossibility theorem for voting systems. Many times you have mutually incompatible constraints that are both desirable, and the best you can do is pick a point on the continuum that's satisfactory to the particular subset of users you wish to serve.
- inimino 7y ago> Various impossibility theorems say otherwise No, they say that the naïve "right thing" is actually not possible, and the right thing is something else, that is possible, but may be unknown.
- a1369209993 7y ago> the CAP theorem for distributed computing The (highly cost-ineffective) Right Thing is to invest enough in network infrastructure that there are no network partitions. I don't know about the other examples off the top of my head, but they're probably similar (and similarly impractical). Anyone can design a bridge that won't fall down; engineering is the process of figuring out which corners you can cut and still have the bridge just barely not fall down.
- heavenlyblue 7y ago>> The (highly cost-ineffective) Right Thing is to invest enough in network infrastructure that there are no network partitions. And... It’s no longer a distributed system.
- inimino 7y agoSomething can still be distributed in space without us having to assume that the network can fail.
- wolf550e 7y agoIt's still a distributed system if clients connect to the closest server, speed of light latency between servers exists, and the system deals with consensus between servers, even if the design assumes network partitions never happen.
- vvanders 7y agoMy favorite one of these is metastability[1]. Any time you have a crossing clock domain the fact that your ASIC works is based on statistics and not hard guarantee. [1] http://www.asic-world.com/tidbits/metastablity.html http://www.asic-world.com/tidbits/metastablity.html
- ken 7y agoThe issue I happen to be working on right now is: the operating system returns an incorrect value, for a particular function call, in many cases. I'm reminded of an article I once read about determining whether a large number is prime. There are probabilistic algorithms that are much faster than actually checking every possible factor, and surprisingly accurate. Also, if you run any algorithm long enough, it's susceptible to bit flips (due to a cosmic ray or bad RAM or whatever). Together, this means that beyond some point, you're more likely to get the right answer with the probabilistic test than a perfect algorithm. What's the "one right way" to deal with a bug in the OS? Sure, in the worst case, I could reimplement that entire subsystem, if I had infinite time and money ... but it's a large enough subsystem, odds are I'd introduce even more bugs in any replacement. That's the tricky side of engineering. Sometimes "not cost-effective" is so expensive it defeats the entire purpose of whatever you're building. You very quickly get into massless elephants and frictionless inclined planes, and that doesn't help anyone. I don't believe in "one right way" except in the simplest cases. As Harvey Pekar said, "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."
- inimino 7y ago> The issue I happen to be working on right now is: the operating system returns an incorrect value, for a particular function call, in many cases. Yes! Great example. So the right way is to fix the bug. The bug is not in your source code and fixing a bug in someone else's source code that you rely on is not cost effective because, in the words of Bob Dylan, "everything is broken."
- decasteve 7y agoEach misspelled submission is misspelled in its own way.
- jessaustin 7y agoUse the bookmarklet, people! javascript:window.location="http://news.ycombinator.com/ submitlink?u="+encodeURIComponent((document.location+'').replace(/.utm_.*$/,''))+"&t="+encodeURIComponent(document.title)
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- mikelyons 7y agoAll correctly spelled submissions are alike.
- dredmorbius 7y agoAs are all comments on incorrectly-spelled submissions.
- mikelyons 7y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5tWkG5SGcU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5tWkG5SGcU
- dredmorbius 7y agoThat's similarly different. Interesting, thanks.
- mikelyons 7y agoIt got downvoted, but I find the duality of sameness vs difference one of the most fascinating.
- mooreds 7y agoI wonder if this could be applied to success of frameworks or programming languages. (Of course, you'd have to define "success" as something relatively binary which might be hard to do.)
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoEach tool unsuited to a job is unsuited in a different way?
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y agoThey mentioned Guns, Germs and Steel, and how Jared Diamond gave concrete examples of this with domesticated animals. One of the most awesome books ever written. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel There's an entire generation that hasn't read it. Probably worth a shufti.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoIt's an interesting book but it's got a ton of glaring holes. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/what_are_some_of_the_main_anthropological/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...
- manfredo 7y agoBear in mind that anthropologists are not historians. Anthropologists are dedicated to the study of human culture, which is related to but no the same as the study of human history. Guns, Germs, and Steel chiefly argued that geography was a much stronger determining factor in the development of human societies than culture. Unsurprising that those dedicated to studying human culture weren't a fan of this framing. Contrary to the claims made in that subreddit, Diamond's high level points have been widely influential and positively received by historians. The claims made in that subreddit are not at all representative of the attitude my university history professors had towards Diamond's work. Furthermore the claims that the book promotes a racist outlook is absurd. Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of the most anti-racist explanations to the disparities in levels of development that there is. One of the chief points of the book is that these disparities are due to being in the right place at the right time rather than racial superiority.
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- noahlt 7y agoIncidentally, this is why UNIX uses zero for "success" and nonzero for errors.
- phkahler 7y agoZero is not an indicator of success. It is a lack of failure (NULL). That distinction is why some people think the "flag" is inverted.
- reallydude 7y agoAs per the principle, the lack of failure is how success can be measured. ie Consequently, a successful endeavor (subject to this principle) is one where every possible deficiency has been avoided.
- jacquesm 7y agoI always took this to be 'there is only one success, there are many failures', there is only one zero, but many values other than zero. It seemed kind of logical.
- TheRealSteel 7y agoThere is only one of any number.
- niftich 7y agoCompare and contrast with the Swiss cheese model [1]. There's not enough cross-domain awareness and discussion of such quips that approximate useful and widely-applicable mental models. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
- marcosdumay 7y agoThe Swiss cheese model applies for redundant checks, the Anna Karerina principle applies for cumulative checks. Or, if you get success if any of your components works, you get the Swiss cheese model, if you get success only if all your components work, you get the Anna Karerina principle.
- SiVal 7y agoIt's the same model if you are trying to get through the cheese.
- elcomet 7y agoAmazing book. I recommend it a lot.
- Deimorz 7y agoDid you read a particular translation? It's a book I've always intended to read and I started trying to read Constance Garnett's translation recently, but the writing felt awkward and it turned me off pretty quickly. It felt like I was reading poorly written fanfiction or a book intended for young adults with limited vocabularies. An example from one of the first few pages: "There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault."
- elcomet 7y agoI read a french translation so I cannot recommend an English one, sorry. But it definitely didn't read like fanfiction in my translation!
- norrius 7y agoI wonder if the French parts of the book were altered in the translation or kept as is. Or do you get excerpts of untranslated Russian instead, huh?
- elcomet 7y agoNo excerpts of untranslated Russian. What about the English version? But I read that Tolstoy participated in the french translation, since he spoke french fluently.
- js2 7y agoI can't make any recommendation, however this NYT article discusses various translations, including Garnett's: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/books/review/new-translations-of-tolstoys-anna-karenina.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/books/review/new-translat... The author seems to like the translation by Pevear and Volokhonsky, published in 2000. People get really worked up about translations: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translatio...
- warpech 7y agoMy friend has a kind of reverse saying: It is not possible to please everyone. But to piss everyone off, that's not a problem.
- peterwwillis 7y agoYou could call this the "maze principle": there is one way to get out of the maze, and all other routes are dead ends. (Actually, there's often more than one way to get out, just like not all "happy families" are the same; it's just much harder to find another correct route than it is to run into a dead end)
- jacquesm 7y agoSolving mazes is dead easy: put your hand against one wall and keep it there, now run.
- macoovacany 7y agoAssumes the exit is on the periphery and you're not stuck on a loop (a free standing wall in the interior).
- saalweachter 7y agoAlso, that there isn't a hungry Minotaur hunting in the maze.
- crdrost 7y agoThere is a wonderful corollary in basic statistics modeling that success tends to be a long-tailed distribution. Reason: the easiest framework that allows modeling "the resulting random variable R is zero if any of the incoming variables vₙ is zero" is the product formulation, R = Πₙ vₙ which by taking the logarithm of the individual variables becomes a standard central-limit-theorem prediction; as a result success in such contexts follows a log-normal distribution[1], which is long-tailed, even if the individual factors fₙ = log vₙ do not look very normal. This then leads to a growth pattern called Gibrat’s Law[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibrat%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibrat%27s_law
- mproud 7y agoThis post has a misspelling. Can you fix this? `s/Katerina/Karenina`
- Deimorz 7y agoPattern not found: Katerina
- scarejunba 7y agoMuphry's Law in action?
- mkl 7y agoTo be clear, the title's misspelling is "Karerina".
- quickthrower2 7y agoHe is clearly stating the substitution assuming time is reversed.
- mkl 7y agoThat can't be, as "Katerina" is neither the mistake nor the correct name.
- Alex3917 7y agoIn organizational behavior, success is also multiplicative: Success = ability * motivation * opportunity (So if any factor is zero, success is zero.)
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- ryanmarsh 7y agoI must use this quote at least once a month with various clients, in an attempt to awaken them to the source and solution for their delivery performance problems
- bitL 7y agoIt's difficult to verify Tolstoy's original statement: does anyone know a happy family?
- owl57 7y agoIf there aren't any, the statement is true (in a useless way). But verifying that something doesn't exist is indeed difficult.
- wwarner 7y agoIt's just a pithy quote that is obviously false and yet very difficult to unlearn. People with different values can be equally happy. There are tons of objectively crazy people who are happy, and even a few who are rich. There lots of miserable people with "perfect lives". There are many approaches to learning something. There are many ways to contribute to a successful team. There are lots of good programming languages, and lots of different ways to solve problems. I'm not suggesting that there is no such thing as happiness or that wrong can't be distinguished from right, I'm just pointing out that you'll probably go through life being very judgmental and probably unhappy if you really believe Tolstoy's quip.
- informativeguy 7y agoIs it Karerina or Karenina?
- _kst_ 7y agoIt's Karenina. There's a typo in the title.
- Pimpus 7y agoYeah, I've noticed this to be true in many different ways. As Jesus said, the path to heaven is narrow.
- jkhdigital 7y agoI just started reading Thomas Sowell's newest book Discrimination and Disparities and on the first page I encounter this passage: "When there is some endeavor with five prerequisites for success, then by definition the chances of success in that endeavor depend on the chances of having all five of those prerequisites simultaneously. Even if none of these prerequisites is rare—for example, if these prerequisites are all so common that chances are two out of three that any given person has any one of those five prerequisites—nevertheless the odds are against having all five of the prerequisites for success in that endeavor." Sounds like... the Anna Karenina Principle. He goes on to point out that this simple and reasonable model produces extremely skewed distributions for success in any particular endeavor.
- jkhdigital 7y agoAnd this: "One conclusion is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions or nations in endeavors with multiple prerequisites—which is to say, most meaningful endeavors. And if these are indeed prerequisites, then having four out of five prerequisites means nothing, as far as successful outcomes are concerned. In other words, people with most of the prerequisites for success may nevertheless be utter failures. Whether a prerequisite that is missing is complex or simple, its absence can negate the effect of all the other prerequisites that are present. If you are illiterate, for example, all the other good qualities that you may have in abundance count for nothing in many, if not most, careers today. As late as 1950, more than 40 percent of the world’s adult population were still illiterate. That included more than half the adults in Asia and Africa."
- egdod 7y agoWhen I worked in a research lab with some finicky bespoke equipment, I remember the boss making a related point. If our experimental device is made up of N components that are each 95% reliable, that sounds pretty good... until you start thinking about how big N is, and how the overall reliability is only 0.95^N. It doesn’t take long before you’re only getting data one day a week or whatever.
- quickthrower2 7y agoSounds like the old p=0.05 problem!
- roel_v 7y agoOK so I undown'ed you to ask - how?
- quickthrower2 7y agoImagine you have 20 experiments, each with a 5% chance that the null hypothesis shows a positive result, then there is a good chance that one of them will be positive even if null is true for all of them. That experiment is bunk but you say p=0.05 so all is good!
- zwkrt 7y agoThis is a point to think about when combining 20 services with “5 9s” of uptime in your favorite cloud provider.
- ranprieur 7y agoNone of these examples are about being good, exactly. They're about being a good fit for another thing.
- breck 7y agoThe "Perfect Principle" would be a much better name.
- bmmayer1 7y agoThere is a crime version along the lines of, a criminal needs to be lucky 100% of the time, the police only need to be lucky once.
- james_s_tayler 7y agoThere is a security version which is the inverse of that! Security is fundamentally asymmetric as you have to make 0 mistakes and the attacker only has to find one.
- BurningFrog 7y agoOh, the "weakest link" syndrome!
- deepsun 7y agoFamily psychologists say it's false -- there's only a handful of problems that families are unhappy about. But there are millions surprising ways happy families are happy.
- lifeisstillgood 7y agooh - that would be interesting - any references ?
- Eli_P 7y agoIt's hard to understand how family as an abstract entity can be happy. If we don't have some metric of happiness for one, how can we add it up? If abstract happiness existed it would be incomprehensible, like consciousness in China brain[1] thought experiment. Or such happiness would be observable for all but this particular family, i.e. show-off happiness. The latter is a punchline in Dostoevsky books. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_brain
- carapace 7y agoI'm not sure what you're saying, but I would point out that there is no such thing as an abstract family. Families are real living organisms.
- Eli_P 7y agoI mean family is a structure built on top of real human beings. Social structures are real while everybody trusts in them, same as how any belief system works, money, etc. Even the definitions of family are different in various cultures. What it means in real life, the happiness of family is not a sum of everyone's, but some sort of compromise.
- carapace 7y agoIt's complex and unquantifiable, I agree.
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- hyperpallium 7y agoaka the weakest link: because a chain breaks if any link breaks. (Being more mechanically-minded, I prefer this less literate metaphor.) I haven't read AK; from context, is that really what Tolstoy meant? Without context, the well-known quote could be read as happy families are alike in that they are happy, since, in practice, happy families are not identical.
- robot 7y agoCan you fix the typo anna KARERINA please?
- lifeisstillgood 7y agoSo, how do I raise a happy family? Or rather, I have a idea of starting a MOOP company - Massive Open Online Psychology. By monitoring a household, listening to conversations (interruptions, time to respond, aggression etc) and even vision (physical contact etc) it should be possible to see where we all are on some scale of "good interpersonal relations" And presumably guide us to be better Let's say a SatNav for your life
- carapace 7y agoBuried the lede I think: "Correlations, Risk and Crisis: From Physiology to Finance" Abstract > We study the dynamics of correlation and variance in systems under the load of environmental factors. A universal effect in ensembles of similar systems under the load of similar factors is described: in crisis, typically, even before obvious symptoms of crisis appear, correlation increases, and, at the same time, variance (and volatility) increases too. This effect is supported by many experiments and observations of groups of humans, mice, trees, grassy plants, and on financial time series. A general approach to the explanation of the effect through dynamics of individual adaptation of similar non-interactive individuals to a similar system of external factors is developed. Qualitatively, this approach follows Selye’s idea about adaptation energy. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222687003_Correlations_Risk_and_Crisis_From_Physiology_to_Finance https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222687003_Correlati...