20 ms·

99 bits of unsolicited advice

266 points by jcs87 5y ago

benzayb 5y ago
100. In a long list of advice, use numbers instead of bullet points. Makes it easier to share to others. :D Most of the advise are really good though.
mseepgood 5y ago
The porch one was oddly specific.
- blululu 5y ago
  It is, and it's also surprisingly true. Something that I really love about this list is how it blends theoretical/ethical advice about how to behave with practical advice like learning how to tie a bowline knot.
donquichotte 5y ago
> measure twice, cut once. Measure never, cut wherever!
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I measure thrice, then cut the wrong side off. I've done that countless times.
WalterBright 5y ago
> If you think you saw a mouse, you did. And, if there is one, there are more. There are 6. Source: experience
blululu 5y ago
I see a lot of people knit picking over some particular item on this list or another, and this strikes me as a very unfortunate response to philosophy. The advice is not given as a set of arguments or syllogisms, so if some piece doesn't agree with you it does little to contradict the broader work. There is a ton of good advice here that is worth repeating. Personally, I really appreciate how it blends practical advice with ethical advice, as well as how there are deeper implication for practical aphorisms ('If you think you saw a mouse, you did. And, if there is one, there are more.')
namenotrequired 5y ago
> • Bad things can happen fast, but almost all good things happen slowly. This one hit me. My last relationship came very suddenly. From day one, things seemed intensely good. Then one day, things became, well, intensely bad. The phrase is obvious now I see it but I didn't recognize while I lived it.
stelgard 5y ago
> • Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone. I think this is so wrong (at least for me). Be less strict with myself is what improved my mood (not only) the most.
- yetihehe 5y ago
  For every one of that aphorisms, you can have/do too much. That should also be on this list. In poland we have saying "Overzeal is worse than fascism".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
globular-toast 5y ago
> In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. This is good advice but you should definitely include love.
elric 5y ago
> When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities. This one struck me as being particularly random, even in a list of pretty random items. Can anyone with Monopoly mojo expand on this?
- compiler-guy 5y ago
  https://monopoly.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Color_Group_Properties https://monopoly.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Color_Group_Properti... Statistically, the Orange property set is one of the most frequented sets in the game due to the approximately 37% chance of landing on one upon the first turn after leaving jail; the most visited space on the board. In combination with a relatively cheap development cost, the Orange property set can be valuable to own.
  - dbcurtis 5y ago
    Way back when, my DiffEq prof did a Markov chain model to compute the probability of visiting each space on a Monopoly board. It shows exactly what you state. It's actually kind of a fun problem to think about. Sort of an early Markov-chain-101 homework-question-sized problem. The state transitions to Jail, and the resulting state transitions out of Jail, put a strong bias on visiting Orange. And then, yes, the development costs on that side of the board make the ROI attractive.
jeppesen-io 5y ago
> • Always cut away from yourself. I like this link but but I don't know what that means
- taejo 5y ago
  When using a knife, saw, axe, etc. or other cutting implement always make sure the blade is moving away from all parts of your body.
  - jeppesen-io 5y ago
    Ahhh - literal. I was thinking figuratively
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Both. Literal: move the blade / cutting edge away from you. Figurative: apply hazardous effort in a manner that it dissipates in the direction or mode of least harm.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    My father in law has one rule: Don't get any blood on it.
  - magicalhippo 5y ago
    My granddad being a woodworking teacher, I learned that lesson early on. However when redecorating my house there were several occasions where it simply was not possible to do that. I usually countered my cutting hand with my "free" hand, effectively pushing my cutting hand away from my body as I performed the cut. At least then I had pretty good control in the event my blade were to slip.
- notenoughbeans 5y ago
  I learned it as: "Never get yourself bloody. Always cut towards a buddy."
  - 5y ago
rednerrus 5y ago
> The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.
- BeetleB 5y ago
  This is a classical logical fallacy. To give an extreme example: The worse evils in history have always been committed by those who drink water. Beware of drinking water. It may be the case that those who commit evils believed they were combating evil. It doesn't at all mean that the majority of those who believe they are combating evil are committing evil.
  - dmichulke 5y ago
    My interpretation is: "... by those and only those who [...] combat evil" forall X: combats_evil(X) <=> does_evil(X) but not forall X: drinks_water(X) <=> does_evil(X)
  - dionidium 5y ago
    You'll note that the tyrants of world history have often said directly that their actions are justified by the need to fight evil. I don't recall any claiming that their actions were justified by drinking water or brushing their teeth or eating apples or enjoying the cinema of any of a million other random correlations we might imagine. But they have claimed explicitly that fighting evil was a direct cause of their actions (as have their supporters and adherents). That's why we have reason to believe the relationship might be causal. (Not every claim of causation demands a "correlation isn't causation" response.)
    - BeetleB 5y ago
      This doesn't address my comment at all, and you're not disagreeing with me.
      - dionidium 5y ago
        To address your comment another way, the majority of drunk drivers make it home safely, but drunk driving is a bad pattern that leads to bad outcomes. It does no good to point out that most drunk drivers actually make it home just fine (and it's certainly not fallacious to warn others that drunk driving leads to negative outcomes, even if it actually usually doesn't). The belief that one is fighting evil is a standard negative pattern in human behavior. One should watch out for it, even if it sometimes works out ok, because when it doesn't you just crossed the center line and killed a family of four on their way to grandma's.
standardUser 5y ago
I just learned how to tie a bowline knot. 5 stars
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Learning how to use knots is just so satisfying, I don't know what it is, I can't really put my finger on it.
  - globular-toast 5y ago
    It's something out of nothing. It's the same rope with the same properties. You haven't added any extra materials. But now you have a strong loop. I think it's a similar feeling to building programs. You combine small elements together in the right way and you get something more useful than the sum of its parts.
  - RaceWon 5y ago
    >> I can't really put my finger on it. Plus 1
    - mcswell 5y ago
      Nuts. I mean knots.
  - waynesonfire 5y ago
    I agree! I recall a time when I spent an hour in a home depot parking lot strapping down lumber to the roof of my car practicing the trucker's hitch. https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot
    - lnwlebjel 5y ago
      One of my favorites. You can really make things tight which is such an advantage when tying things down.
- swyx 5y ago
mym1990 5y ago
Some fun, interesting, true, and meh bits of wisdom here! These 2 stuck out as ironic being back to back: • I have never met a person I admired who did not read more books than I did. • The greatest teacher is called “doing”. Although without more context, its just a snap judgement. Admiring only people who are well read(assuming OP reads a lot) seems to leave a bit on the table.
- Igelau 5y ago
  I shall seek out this teacher, whose name I assume rhymes with "Boing".
- qsort 5y ago
  "Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another."
  - grey-area 5y ago
    I preferred this one: Un bon mot ne prouve rien.
    - kqr 5y ago
      Also available in English: a witty saying proves nothing.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  Reading books seems to be put on a pedestal here and in other places online. I don’t read many I prefer doing and online video courses
  - einpoklum 5y ago
    Uh... you probably want to complete that paragraph with a "and still I have achieved XYZ in life", otherwise you're just an anonymous commenter :-\
a3w 5y ago
• A problem that can be solved with money is not really a problem. I am broke and need X, which no one gives for free. Let's call X education, because that and time might solve everything. Is that not a problem worth calling so?
- v64 5y ago
  My takeaway from it is if the problem requires money to solve, at least you are aware of the solution: money. It may be difficult or impossible to achieve that end, but at least you know it's the direction to go and can possibly make progress toward solving. The worst kind of problem is one you can't see your way out of and no option seems to exist to escape it.
  - FalconSensei 5y ago
    If you need a life-saving medicine and you don't have the money, it's a problem. Or at least the people that are dying think that way.
- intergalplan 5y ago
  If we're being charitable, we could take "can" to include "you can (reasonably) afford it", as in "YOU can solve the problem with money", not "ONE could solve the problem with money, if one had money". Given the tone of the rest of the piece, I'm not sure being that charitable is warranted, though. I'm legitimately having a hard time telling whether this list is presented seriously, or as some kind of parody.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    > If we're being charitable Or, in the spirit of taking it as parody, that it's at least a 'solved' problem[0] in the sense of the mathematician who sees a fire, sees a fire extinguisher, says "Ah, a solution exists!", and moves on. 0: where a solved (note lack of scare quotes) problem isn't really a problem.
- scottlilly 5y ago
  The version of this I've always heard is, "Any problem that can be solved by writing a check you can afford to write, is not really a problem." So, if your car suddenly needs a $500 repair, and you have $2500 in emergency savings, that's not a "problem". It's a contingency you were prepared to handle.
phaemon 5y ago
No matter what use ECC RAM; you may have 99 bits but the problem is one.
- nwiswell 5y ago
  "I got 99 popcount but the parity ain't one"
oh_sigh 5y ago
> Jesus, Superman, and Mother Teresa never made art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken. Spoken like someone who has never done even a cursory glance into Mother Teresa.
bena 5y ago
The one I really don't like is "Always say less than necessary." I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information.
- vageli 5y ago
  > The one I really don't like is "Always say less than necessary." > I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information. Surely being selective with information is advantageous in negotiations?
  - DangitBobby 5y ago
    The use of the word "necessary" implies that anything less is insufficient.
shanecleveland 5y ago
• That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult — if you don’t lose it. I wish I could have grasped this as a kid, and I wish I could explain this to my kids now and have them understand/believe me. My kids each have their own unique personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. But they all have to funnel through the same general requirements of school and such. It is too easy to fall into the trap of getting them to "conform." But I want to be able to nurture the "weird" in them!
- globular-toast 5y ago
  What would you have done differently? Did you try to fit in? Did it make a difference in the long run? My personal take is don't try to fit in but, equally, don't try to stand out. I've never liked sports, for example, and I've never pretended to. But I've also never gone out of my way to advertise my dislike for sports or made fun of anyone who does.
  - shanecleveland 5y ago
    Well, that's hard to say. In order to have, say, made different choices as an adolescent, I would have had to have the insight I have now. Did I try to fit in, and do I still spend too much effort on worrying about others' perception of me? Yes! I think it is OK to look to "fit in," but don't do it at the expense of what makes you unique. That is what resonated with me about this particular bit of advice. I have seen in myself where I left some things on the table to have certain kinds of friends or to be seen (or avoid being seen) in a certain light. And I see where these conditions I have manufactured for myself don't have the staying power and are not as fulfilling as more natural relationships and experiences.
- bigthymer 5y ago
  I found Bezos' last letter inspiring in this regard. Especially one of the last sections titled "Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical". link here -> https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/jeff-bezos-releases-final-letter-to-amazon-shareholders.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/jeff-bezos-releases-final-le...
swyx 5y ago
this one really stuck with me: “The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.” heck. that's just true. really put into words something i've taken a while to learn (and am still learning).
- BeetleB 5y ago
  Heh - reminds me of one of the lessons I learned a little hard: Just because someone backs his position by faulty logic does not make his position any less correct. We often declare it the responsibility of the one asserting a claim to prove/convince us. However, if you seek to know the truth, the responsibility lies only in you.
Baeocystin 5y ago
Unsolicited advice? Fair enough. Unsolicited comment- the ones related to money are spoken like someone who has never actually been poor, and are, frankly, insulting. Even a cursory look at who has developed what over the years shows that people who actually had the resources to do whatever it was that interested them are the ones in the history books. Who knows how many others of equal or greater talent spent their whole lives scraping by instead.
- StandardFuture 5y ago
  > spoken like someone who has never actually been poor It's not even just that. It is spoken like someone who has not even been around poor people. Class segregation is a much more serious issue than simply class distinction. I wonder if it is a growing problem in society. Because if so, it will not end well as it never has historically. If you grew up upper middle class or wealthy and you have not had multiple friends on much lower financial tiers than you then you are absolutely out of touch. It is not possible to be aware of the (mostly minor but not insignificant) differences in people's lives by simply reading a book, watching a documentary, listening to a TED talk, or "being an activist".
  - Baeocystin 5y ago
    I fully agree.
- andi999 5y ago
  Wouldnt it have felt more offensive if the author would have written: next advice is not for poor people...
- Gatsky 5y ago
  Ok, fair enough. However, this type of comment is subject to the following problem: for any assignemnt of privilege, there is always someone poorer or more wretched than the person making this assignment, all the way down to a child born with no mind due to Zika virus who is cast aside by her family and dies alone in a ditch. Furthermore, the arc of privilege is logarithmic. So although I agree with you in some sense, I find I can't in good faith criticise someone for being privileged. Is it not inherently hypocritical, as the 'privilege gap' I perceive (either between me and the person, or between some societal band and the person) is minimal compared to the gap between me and everyone else less privileged than I?
pachico 5y ago
Well, there's an interesting amount of proof that Mother Teresa could indeed make a lot of art, really tons of art, it seems...
abhinuvpitale 5y ago
Great advice. Looking at the headline, I thought this article was originally about bit-encoding, since it mentioned 99 bits.
shanecleveland 5y ago
• Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you. Such a hard thing to quantify – and attempting to quantify it misses the point – but I think this is such an under appreciated point. I know that I am quick to gossip or talk about other people's failings behind their back. Partly, I think it is easy for people to relate to each other based on a shared view of someone else. And, unfortunately, I think it is easier to come up with negative examples to talk about. Imagine if more of us found opportunities to say something good about someone just because.
- uoaei 5y ago
  Opportunities of this kind are not found, but made.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Of fasteners: know the reverse-threading exceptions as well. https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-reverse-threaded-bolt-281548 https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-reverse-threaded-bolt-28...
vlmutolo 5y ago
> Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone. I think this is generally good advice, but it's equally important to not be too hard on yourself. You have to learn to forgive yourself for mistakes.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
> Money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money. If that was so, billionaires would have a monopoly on inventing new things, and they don’t. Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation. Completely disagree. A lot of the great innovations actually came from people who were already wealthy enough that they could spend time contemplating instead of figuring out where their next meal was coming from.
dspillett 5y ago
> Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it. Not sure this one is generally applicable. When I'm out running are walking trails I always close gates unless there appears to be specific reason not to. Some people carelessly leave them open, some do so accidentally, some mistakenly think it should be left open because it was when they went through but there has been a steady flow if people leaving it for the next one and the first opened it.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  That seems... questionable. Some leave them open to signify that it's ok to go through them. Some leave them open because they don't want to have to reopen them when they come back on the tractor. You can either choose to assume other people did what they did on purpose, or assume that you always know better. This is espousing the former.
  - dspillett 5y ago
    The amount of "please close gates" signs you see, and complaints about people not doing so, leads me to believe that generally speaking the land owners want the gates closed. If I see a gate propped open on the other hand, then yes this is almost certainly deliberate, quite likely by someone working the area rather than by some random, and I'd leave it as is after passing through.
dheera 5y ago
Did anyone else also count them to make sure there were 99?
emrah 5y ago
I can't say I enjoy everything KK writes and I went in a bit biased thinking I probably wouldn't find the list particularly useful but turns out I agree with many of the bits from personal experience.
d_burfoot 5y ago
• When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities. Here's some better advice: don't play Monopoly! There are many, many new board games in the world that are incomparably better. One of the most grievous flaws of Monopoly is that it depends on the terrible mechanic of player elimination - the winner is the last player who hasn't been eliminated. That means if you have a game night with four people, then two people have to sit around bored, after they've been eliminated, while the remaining players fight it out.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  I don't care for Monopoly because there is little room for strategy. It's the roll of the dice, and in fact, the original point of the game was to illustrate that wealth is a roll of the dice.
- sensual_cabbage 5y ago
  Suggestion for a fun group based game where no-one is left out for the entirety of the rounds: Avalon. My friends and I have had so much fun playing this, especially with all of the tiny game modifiers you can introduce to spice it up when things get too easy.
- hinkley 5y ago
  Monopoly with six is even worse this way, because you can have the situation of one person sitting around with nothing to do happen multiple times. If everyone plays, the first loser sits around. #2 tries to start something new with #1, and then #3 or #4 finds themselves having missed out on whatever the other people started. If not everybody plays, then #2 may get everyone else to start something long. Now #4 and #5 are stuck playing something again with the winner, after that person has already monopolized their time for the entire evening. Because face it, the player who wins or comes in second usually is the same motherfucker to suggest Monopoly in the first place.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I think I read recently that Monopoly was (derived from) a board game that was designed to make a political/economic statement about Georgism and not to be fun.
miffy900 5y ago
> • If something fails where you thought it would fail, that is not a failure. Well, if you thought you'd get a negative result (or failure of something) and then a negative result occurs, the result is still negative, it's just that your expectations were not betrayed. You may have successfully predicted the negative result, but that doesn't change the result was still negative. Can someone explain this? It doesn't seem to really make much sense.
- mcswell 5y ago
  Imagine someone designing a bridge. They predict that the weakest point is X, and that the bridge could therefore best be strengthened by strengthening X. But the reasoning is complex, so someone builds a model (or a simulation, or...) and stresses it until it breaks. If it broke at X, then the design was a success. A different kind of example: I once owned (or my wife did...) a food processor, which if you weren't around back then, is cannister with a motorized blade. A part that connected the motor shaft to the blade broke. I took it to the place with the repair parts (this was before the internet), and was told this part frequently failed. I asked why they didn't make it stronger. The reply: if it was too strong to fail, then when you were chopping something that was too hard for the processor, either the motor would burn out, which would be expensive to fix, or the blades would snap, which could be dangerous. The engineer therefore included a relatively frail part to serve as the cheap and safe failure point.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ • The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.” The early Marxists were trying to create the übermensch and ended up sparking untold misery that killed a couple hundred million. I wonder what evil is being referenced here.
el_dev_hell 5y ago
Unsolicited comments: • Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you. Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it. • Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are. This has been my default for years. It also disarms cunty humans (even when drunk at a pub). • Always cut away from yourself. When you learn this lesson the hard way, it sticks forever. • In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. "except love" U WOT M8? Begin with the end in mind. You'll enjoy the experience more knowing the good times can end at any point. You also want to have your life in order to handle a massive emotional trainwreck.
- domnomnom 5y ago
  Do people respond to insults? Why not just walk away or engage in what is banter?
- mr-wendel 5y ago
  Unsolicited meta-comments: > Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it. Yah, talk about doing the right thing for the wrong reason but still beats many alternatives. Also way up on my list is spreading good rumors without sharing the source: "someone... I'll never say who... said this nice thing about you!" > It also disarms... I can't even say it. I'm not Australian. I'll try admitting guilt though (not that I'm a...). > "except love" U WOT M8 Anything can end at any point, including this precious life. Relationships ARE special though. Sometimes you get glimpses where you know it isn't gonna work out (and if you're red-flag aware... it won't take long). In that case, yah... look at those exits and appreciate what led you into this potential disaster while you can and learn. BUT. BIG BUT. If this relationship has a chance then you have to throw the exit strat thinking out the window. That doesn't mean go get joined at the hip, but self fulfilling prophecies are a thing. If its a good thing, your partner will absolutely see you have one foot outside and hedge bets accordingly. Have faith! Not that you won't have problems, but that they will be worth overcoming.
  - 5y ago
woopwoop 5y ago
"Recipe for success: under-promise and over-deliver." I have never seen evidence that this is true in general. The field I got my PhD in has breakthrough papers with titles like "The Euler Equations as Differential Inclusions" and "Bounded Gaps Between Primes". Would people in the field be worse off if breakthrough papers had titles like "Attention is all you need"? I'm unconvinced that they would be. Would politicians be more likely to win office if they made fewer promises on the campaign trail? I'm unconvinced. Are you more likely to get a job if you are meticulously fair in how you describe your background and experience, or if you puff yourself up? I think the world would be a better place if folks biased themselves in the direction of under-promising, but for any individual person I'm pretty skeptical that this is good advice.
- MrManatee 5y ago
  I've always interpreted "under-promise and over-deliver" as being about keeping your promises despite future unknowns. The simplest example I can think of: If you think some task will probably take 2 days, you say you'll do it in 3 days. If your original estimate was right, you'll be early, and others will just be pleasantly surprised (you over-delivered). If something unexpected comes up and your original estimate was too optimistic, you might still be able to do in the time you promised. Do this consistently, and you will get a reputation of delivering what you said you would. Research article titles are descriptions of work already done, so I see them as "promises" of a different kind, and that's why the advice wouldn't apply. But if you said that you're going to write an article called "The Riemann hypothesis is true" before you have found a proof, then you're probably over-promising. Campaign promises, on the other hand, are about future unknowns. I don't know much about campaigning, but I suspect politicians can get a way with over-promising better than most people, because the feedback cycle of elections is so slow.
- fergie 5y ago
  Theres nothing wrong with the idea of "advocacy". Often its right to make the best argument that you possibly can for a thing or a person. You just have to make sure that other people have the opportunity to advocate _their_ things or people. The rest of us make up our own minds about who we agree with the most, and in turn a healthy democracy emerges.
Sophistifunk 5y ago
This about as fun as the sunscreen song, and mostly as useful.
chasing 5y ago
> • Money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money. If that was so, billionaires would have a monopoly on inventing new things, and they don’t. Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation. Uh, no. Being poor is a huge waste of time and energy.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I think by being poor he means having enough money to live, but not so much that all your wants are immediately met by throwing your money at them.
- nine_k 5y ago
  You are missing the point, it seems. Being poor (but not debilitatingly starving) is an advantage for innovation. You have a lot of incentive to get the heck out of your miserable position, and you cannot fix the problem with just paying more, you have to incessantly invent and try new things. Of course this is not necessarily good for your well-being, longevity, mental and physical health, prospects of your children and even chances to have any, etc. I see this not as an advice to become poor, but as a solace to those who are already poor but whose mind is still inventive.
  - tgv 5y ago
    Now I understand why so much of the modern technology was invented in rural India.
  - modo_mario 5y ago
    Being restricted when it comes to money is what might make me look into building my own pick and place machine because i don't want to dish out so many thousands of euros on a hobby project. Who knows where that will lead me. When i was poor i wouldn't even think of it because i wouldn't be able to because it still costs money and lots of time. As someone else said a lot of inventors of the past were wealthy because they had both the time and money to spend on innovating. Innovation out of necessity is a thing but i'd say it's rarer nowadays.
throwanem 5y ago
With a really tight knot where you can't find a place to start, don't pull, push. Knead and squeeze at it long enough, and you'll find some looseness somewhere. That's usually all you need.
tomcam 5y ago
• Money is overrated. In my experience, never said by people who have been poor • If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep. Agree completely!
- qihqi 5y ago
  * Water is overrated. In my experience, never said by the thirsty in middle of desert. However, unlike water or most things, money seems to be the few things that people who have enough still want more.
- DistressedDrone 5y ago
  I grew up dirt poor and I think money is overrated. Not for the cases which the page describes though, that's total nonsense bordering on fetishization.
spacephysics 5y ago
What does “ Always cut away from yourself” mean?
- nsilvestri 5y ago
  when using a knife, make the direction of force and the blade be in a direction which does not include you (or others, for what it's worth)
  - spacephysics 5y ago
    Ohhh okay. I thought it was more metaphor than literal.
nocommentguy 5y ago
> You can reduce the annoyance of someone’s stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it. My favorite. “Write 2 essays, one defending each side” is the most valuable kind of assignment, in my opinion.
th0ma5 5y ago
"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." - Oscar Wilde
karaterobot 5y ago
I prefer a taut-line hitch, but generally very good advice here.
unnouinceput 5y ago
Quote: "Recipe for success: under-promise and over-deliver." I beg to differ. All I have to do is look at any, I mean ANY, country regardless of east/west culture/region and see that the politicians are always over-promise and under-deliver. You want a recipe for success? Become a politician, if you have the stomach for it (I, for one, don't).
mrwh 5y ago
Hmm. > When hitchhiking, look like the person you want to pick you up. Who has gone hitchhiking in the past 20 years, honestly? > almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation I mean, define "lack" here. Because actually poor people don't become inventors. It's a list of platitudes. Old platitudes too - was there a reference to Mother Teresa in there??
- poopchute 5y ago
  Really depends where you live for the hitchhiking thing. Its pretty common in small towns / small islands

266 points by jcs87 5y ago

100. In a long list of advice, use numbers instead of bullet points. Makes it easier to share to others. :D Most of the advise are really good though.

mseepgood 5y ago

The porch one was oddly specific.

blululu 5y ago
It is, and it's also surprisingly true. Something that I really love about this list is how it blends theoretical/ethical advice about how to behave with practical advice like learning how to tie a bowline knot.

donquichotte 5y ago

> measure twice, cut once. Measure never, cut wherever!

WalterBright 5y ago
I measure thrice, then cut the wrong side off. I've done that countless times.

WalterBright 5y ago

> If you think you saw a mouse, you did. And, if there is one, there are more. There are 6. Source: experience

blululu 5y ago

I see a lot of people knit picking over some particular item on this list or another, and this strikes me as a very unfortunate response to philosophy. The advice is not given as a set of arguments or syllogisms, so if some piece doesn't agree with you it does little to contradict the broader work. There is a ton of good advice here that is worth repeating. Personally, I really appreciate how it blends practical advice with ethical advice, as well as how there are deeper implication for practical aphorisms ('If you think you saw a mouse, you did. And, if there is one, there are more.')

namenotrequired 5y ago

> • Bad things can happen fast, but almost all good things happen slowly. This one hit me. My last relationship came very suddenly. From day one, things seemed intensely good. Then one day, things became, well, intensely bad. The phrase is obvious now I see it but I didn't recognize while I lived it.

stelgard 5y ago

> • Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone. I think this is so wrong (at least for me). Be less strict with myself is what improved my mood (not only) the most.

yetihehe 5y ago
For every one of that aphorisms, you can have/do too much. That should also be on this list. In poland we have saying "Overzeal is worse than fascism".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

globular-toast 5y ago

> In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. This is good advice but you should definitely include love.

elric 5y ago

> When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities. This one struck me as being particularly random, even in a list of pretty random items. Can anyone with Monopoly mojo expand on this?

compiler-guy 5y ago
https://monopoly.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Color_Group_Properties https://monopoly.fandom.com/wiki/Orange_Color_Group_Properti... Statistically, the Orange property set is one of the most frequented sets in the game due to the approximately 37% chance of landing on one upon the first turn after leaving jail; the most visited space on the board. In combination with a relatively cheap development cost, the Orange property set can be valuable to own.
- dbcurtis 5y ago
  Way back when, my DiffEq prof did a Markov chain model to compute the probability of visiting each space on a Monopoly board. It shows exactly what you state. It's actually kind of a fun problem to think about. Sort of an early Markov-chain-101 homework-question-sized problem. The state transitions to Jail, and the resulting state transitions out of Jail, put a strong bias on visiting Orange. And then, yes, the development costs on that side of the board make the ROI attractive.

jeppesen-io 5y ago

> • Always cut away from yourself. I like this link but but I don't know what that means

taejo 5y ago
When using a knife, saw, axe, etc. or other cutting implement always make sure the blade is moving away from all parts of your body.
- jeppesen-io 5y ago
  Ahhh - literal. I was thinking figuratively
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Both. Literal: move the blade / cutting edge away from you. Figurative: apply hazardous effort in a manner that it dissipates in the direction or mode of least harm.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  My father in law has one rule: Don't get any blood on it.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  My granddad being a woodworking teacher, I learned that lesson early on. However when redecorating my house there were several occasions where it simply was not possible to do that. I usually countered my cutting hand with my "free" hand, effectively pushing my cutting hand away from my body as I performed the cut. At least then I had pretty good control in the event my blade were to slip.
notenoughbeans 5y ago
I learned it as: "Never get yourself bloody. Always cut towards a buddy."
- 5y ago

rednerrus 5y ago

> The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.

BeetleB 5y ago
This is a classical logical fallacy. To give an extreme example: The worse evils in history have always been committed by those who drink water. Beware of drinking water. It may be the case that those who commit evils believed they were combating evil. It doesn't at all mean that the majority of those who believe they are combating evil are committing evil.
- dmichulke 5y ago
  My interpretation is: "... by those and only those who [...] combat evil" forall X: combats_evil(X) <=> does_evil(X) but not forall X: drinks_water(X) <=> does_evil(X)
- dionidium 5y ago
  You'll note that the tyrants of world history have often said directly that their actions are justified by the need to fight evil. I don't recall any claiming that their actions were justified by drinking water or brushing their teeth or eating apples or enjoying the cinema of any of a million other random correlations we might imagine. But they have claimed explicitly that fighting evil was a direct cause of their actions (as have their supporters and adherents). That's why we have reason to believe the relationship might be causal. (Not every claim of causation demands a "correlation isn't causation" response.)
  - BeetleB 5y ago
    This doesn't address my comment at all, and you're not disagreeing with me.
    - dionidium 5y ago
      To address your comment another way, the majority of drunk drivers make it home safely, but drunk driving is a bad pattern that leads to bad outcomes. It does no good to point out that most drunk drivers actually make it home just fine (and it's certainly not fallacious to warn others that drunk driving leads to negative outcomes, even if it actually usually doesn't). The belief that one is fighting evil is a standard negative pattern in human behavior. One should watch out for it, even if it sometimes works out ok, because when it doesn't you just crossed the center line and killed a family of four on their way to grandma's.

standardUser 5y ago

I just learned how to tie a bowline knot. 5 stars

barbazoo 5y ago
Learning how to use knots is just so satisfying, I don't know what it is, I can't really put my finger on it.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  It's something out of nothing. It's the same rope with the same properties. You haven't added any extra materials. But now you have a strong loop. I think it's a similar feeling to building programs. You combine small elements together in the right way and you get something more useful than the sum of its parts.
- RaceWon 5y ago
  >> I can't really put my finger on it. Plus 1
  - mcswell 5y ago
    Nuts. I mean knots.
- waynesonfire 5y ago
  I agree! I recall a time when I spent an hour in a home depot parking lot strapping down lumber to the roof of my car practicing the trucker's hitch. https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot https://www.animatedknots.com/truckers-hitch-knot
  - lnwlebjel 5y ago
    One of my favorites. You can really make things tight which is such an advantage when tying things down.
swyx 5y ago

mym1990 5y ago

Some fun, interesting, true, and meh bits of wisdom here! These 2 stuck out as ironic being back to back: • I have never met a person I admired who did not read more books than I did. • The greatest teacher is called “doing”. Although without more context, its just a snap judgement. Admiring only people who are well read(assuming OP reads a lot) seems to leave a bit on the table.

Igelau 5y ago
I shall seek out this teacher, whose name I assume rhymes with "Boing".
qsort 5y ago
"Advice like these are not laws. They are like hats. If one doesn’t fit, try another."
- grey-area 5y ago
  I preferred this one: Un bon mot ne prouve rien.
  - kqr 5y ago
    Also available in English: a witty saying proves nothing.
quickthrower2 5y ago
Reading books seems to be put on a pedestal here and in other places online. I don’t read many I prefer doing and online video courses
- einpoklum 5y ago
  Uh... you probably want to complete that paragraph with a "and still I have achieved XYZ in life", otherwise you're just an anonymous commenter :-\

a3w 5y ago

• A problem that can be solved with money is not really a problem. I am broke and need X, which no one gives for free. Let's call X education, because that and time might solve everything. Is that not a problem worth calling so?

v64 5y ago
My takeaway from it is if the problem requires money to solve, at least you are aware of the solution: money. It may be difficult or impossible to achieve that end, but at least you know it's the direction to go and can possibly make progress toward solving. The worst kind of problem is one you can't see your way out of and no option seems to exist to escape it.
- FalconSensei 5y ago
  If you need a life-saving medicine and you don't have the money, it's a problem. Or at least the people that are dying think that way.
intergalplan 5y ago
If we're being charitable, we could take "can" to include "you can (reasonably) afford it", as in "YOU can solve the problem with money", not "ONE could solve the problem with money, if one had money". Given the tone of the rest of the piece, I'm not sure being that charitable is warranted, though. I'm legitimately having a hard time telling whether this list is presented seriously, or as some kind of parody.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  > If we're being charitable Or, in the spirit of taking it as parody, that it's at least a 'solved' problem[0] in the sense of the mathematician who sees a fire, sees a fire extinguisher, says "Ah, a solution exists!", and moves on. 0: where a solved (note lack of scare quotes) problem isn't really a problem.
scottlilly 5y ago
The version of this I've always heard is, "Any problem that can be solved by writing a check you can afford to write, is not really a problem." So, if your car suddenly needs a $500 repair, and you have $2500 in emergency savings, that's not a "problem". It's a contingency you were prepared to handle.

phaemon 5y ago

No matter what use ECC RAM; you may have 99 bits but the problem is one.

nwiswell 5y ago
"I got 99 popcount but the parity ain't one"

oh_sigh 5y ago

> Jesus, Superman, and Mother Teresa never made art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken. Spoken like someone who has never done even a cursory glance into Mother Teresa.

bena 5y ago

The one I really don't like is "Always say less than necessary." I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information.

vageli 5y ago
> The one I really don't like is "Always say less than necessary." > I've never seen any good come from withholding necessary information. Surely being selective with information is advantageous in negotiations?
- DangitBobby 5y ago
  The use of the word "necessary" implies that anything less is insufficient.

shanecleveland 5y ago

• That thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult — if you don’t lose it. I wish I could have grasped this as a kid, and I wish I could explain this to my kids now and have them understand/believe me. My kids each have their own unique personalities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. But they all have to funnel through the same general requirements of school and such. It is too easy to fall into the trap of getting them to "conform." But I want to be able to nurture the "weird" in them!

globular-toast 5y ago
What would you have done differently? Did you try to fit in? Did it make a difference in the long run? My personal take is don't try to fit in but, equally, don't try to stand out. I've never liked sports, for example, and I've never pretended to. But I've also never gone out of my way to advertise my dislike for sports or made fun of anyone who does.
- shanecleveland 5y ago
  Well, that's hard to say. In order to have, say, made different choices as an adolescent, I would have had to have the insight I have now. Did I try to fit in, and do I still spend too much effort on worrying about others' perception of me? Yes! I think it is OK to look to "fit in," but don't do it at the expense of what makes you unique. That is what resonated with me about this particular bit of advice. I have seen in myself where I left some things on the table to have certain kinds of friends or to be seen (or avoid being seen) in a certain light. And I see where these conditions I have manufactured for myself don't have the staying power and are not as fulfilling as more natural relationships and experiences.
bigthymer 5y ago
I found Bezos' last letter inspiring in this regard. Especially one of the last sections titled "Differentiation is Survival and the Universe Wants You to be Typical". link here -> https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/jeff-bezos-releases-final-letter-to-amazon-shareholders.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/15/jeff-bezos-releases-final-le...

swyx 5y ago

this one really stuck with me: “The foundation of maturity: Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.” heck. that's just true. really put into words something i've taken a while to learn (and am still learning).

BeetleB 5y ago
Heh - reminds me of one of the lessons I learned a little hard: Just because someone backs his position by faulty logic does not make his position any less correct. We often declare it the responsibility of the one asserting a claim to prove/convince us. However, if you seek to know the truth, the responsibility lies only in you.

Baeocystin 5y ago

Unsolicited advice? Fair enough. Unsolicited comment- the ones related to money are spoken like someone who has never actually been poor, and are, frankly, insulting. Even a cursory look at who has developed what over the years shows that people who actually had the resources to do whatever it was that interested them are the ones in the history books. Who knows how many others of equal or greater talent spent their whole lives scraping by instead.

StandardFuture 5y ago
> spoken like someone who has never actually been poor It's not even just that. It is spoken like someone who has not even been around poor people. Class segregation is a much more serious issue than simply class distinction. I wonder if it is a growing problem in society. Because if so, it will not end well as it never has historically. If you grew up upper middle class or wealthy and you have not had multiple friends on much lower financial tiers than you then you are absolutely out of touch. It is not possible to be aware of the (mostly minor but not insignificant) differences in people's lives by simply reading a book, watching a documentary, listening to a TED talk, or "being an activist".
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  I fully agree.
andi999 5y ago
Wouldnt it have felt more offensive if the author would have written: next advice is not for poor people...
Gatsky 5y ago
Ok, fair enough. However, this type of comment is subject to the following problem: for any assignemnt of privilege, there is always someone poorer or more wretched than the person making this assignment, all the way down to a child born with no mind due to Zika virus who is cast aside by her family and dies alone in a ditch. Furthermore, the arc of privilege is logarithmic. So although I agree with you in some sense, I find I can't in good faith criticise someone for being privileged. Is it not inherently hypocritical, as the 'privilege gap' I perceive (either between me and the person, or between some societal band and the person) is minimal compared to the gap between me and everyone else less privileged than I?

pachico 5y ago

Well, there's an interesting amount of proof that Mother Teresa could indeed make a lot of art, really tons of art, it seems...

abhinuvpitale 5y ago

Great advice. Looking at the headline, I thought this article was originally about bit-encoding, since it mentioned 99 bits.

shanecleveland 5y ago

• Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you. Such a hard thing to quantify – and attempting to quantify it misses the point – but I think this is such an under appreciated point. I know that I am quick to gossip or talk about other people's failings behind their back. Partly, I think it is easy for people to relate to each other based on a shared view of someone else. And, unfortunately, I think it is easier to come up with negative examples to talk about. Imagine if more of us found opportunities to say something good about someone just because.

uoaei 5y ago
Opportunities of this kind are not found, but made.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Of fasteners: know the reverse-threading exceptions as well. https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-reverse-threaded-bolt-281548 https://www.liveabout.com/what-is-a-reverse-threaded-bolt-28...

vlmutolo 5y ago

> Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. The reverse is hell for everyone. I think this is generally good advice, but it's equally important to not be too hard on yourself. You have to learn to forgive yourself for mistakes.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

> Money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money. If that was so, billionaires would have a monopoly on inventing new things, and they don’t. Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation. Completely disagree. A lot of the great innovations actually came from people who were already wealthy enough that they could spend time contemplating instead of figuring out where their next meal was coming from.

dspillett 5y ago

> Leave a gate behind you the way you first found it. Not sure this one is generally applicable. When I'm out running are walking trails I always close gates unless there appears to be specific reason not to. Some people carelessly leave them open, some do so accidentally, some mistakenly think it should be left open because it was when they went through but there has been a steady flow if people leaving it for the next one and the first opened it.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
That seems... questionable. Some leave them open to signify that it's ok to go through them. Some leave them open because they don't want to have to reopen them when they come back on the tractor. You can either choose to assume other people did what they did on purpose, or assume that you always know better. This is espousing the former.
- dspillett 5y ago
  The amount of "please close gates" signs you see, and complaints about people not doing so, leads me to believe that generally speaking the land owners want the gates closed. If I see a gate propped open on the other hand, then yes this is almost certainly deliberate, quite likely by someone working the area rather than by some random, and I'd leave it as is after passing through.

dheera 5y ago

Did anyone else also count them to make sure there were 99?

emrah 5y ago

I can't say I enjoy everything KK writes and I went in a bit biased thinking I probably wouldn't find the list particularly useful but turns out I agree with many of the bits from personal experience.

d_burfoot 5y ago

• When playing Monopoly, spend all you have to buy, barter, or trade for the Orange properties. Don’t bother with Utilities. Here's some better advice: don't play Monopoly! There are many, many new board games in the world that are incomparably better. One of the most grievous flaws of Monopoly is that it depends on the terrible mechanic of player elimination - the winner is the last player who hasn't been eliminated. That means if you have a game night with four people, then two people have to sit around bored, after they've been eliminated, while the remaining players fight it out.

WalterBright 5y ago
I don't care for Monopoly because there is little room for strategy. It's the roll of the dice, and in fact, the original point of the game was to illustrate that wealth is a roll of the dice.
sensual_cabbage 5y ago
Suggestion for a fun group based game where no-one is left out for the entirety of the rounds: Avalon. My friends and I have had so much fun playing this, especially with all of the tiny game modifiers you can introduce to spice it up when things get too easy.
hinkley 5y ago
Monopoly with six is even worse this way, because you can have the situation of one person sitting around with nothing to do happen multiple times. If everyone plays, the first loser sits around. #2 tries to start something new with #1, and then #3 or #4 finds themselves having missed out on whatever the other people started. If not everybody plays, then #2 may get everyone else to start something long. Now #4 and #5 are stuck playing something again with the winner, after that person has already monopolized their time for the entire evening. Because face it, the player who wins or comes in second usually is the same motherfucker to suggest Monopoly in the first place.
nerdponx 5y ago
I think I read recently that Monopoly was (derived from) a board game that was designed to make a political/economic statement about Georgism and not to be fun.

miffy900 5y ago

> • If something fails where you thought it would fail, that is not a failure. Well, if you thought you'd get a negative result (or failure of something) and then a negative result occurs, the result is still negative, it's just that your expectations were not betrayed. You may have successfully predicted the negative result, but that doesn't change the result was still negative. Can someone explain this? It doesn't seem to really make much sense.

mcswell 5y ago
Imagine someone designing a bridge. They predict that the weakest point is X, and that the bridge could therefore best be strengthened by strengthening X. But the reasoning is complex, so someone builds a model (or a simulation, or...) and stresses it until it breaks. If it broke at X, then the design was a success. A different kind of example: I once owned (or my wife did...) a food processor, which if you weren't around back then, is cannister with a motorized blade. A part that connected the motor shaft to the blade broke. I took it to the place with the repair parts (this was before the internet), and was told this part frequently failed. I asked why they didn't make it stronger. The reply: if it was too strong to fail, then when you were chopping something that was too hard for the processor, either the motor would burn out, which would be expensive to fix, or the blades would snap, which could be dangerous. The engineer therefore included a relatively frail part to serve as the cheap and safe failure point.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“ • The worst evils in history have always been committed by those who truly believed they were combating evil. Beware of combating evil.” The early Marxists were trying to create the übermensch and ended up sparking untold misery that killed a couple hundred million. I wonder what evil is being referenced here.

el_dev_hell 5y ago

Unsolicited comments: • Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you. Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it. • Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are. This has been my default for years. It also disarms cunty humans (even when drunk at a pub). • Always cut away from yourself. When you learn this lesson the hard way, it sticks forever. • In all things — except love — start with the exit strategy. Prepare for the ending. Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. "except love" U WOT M8? Begin with the end in mind. You'll enjoy the experience more knowing the good times can end at any point. You also want to have your life in order to handle a massive emotional trainwreck.

domnomnom 5y ago
Do people respond to insults? Why not just walk away or engage in what is banter?
mr-wendel 5y ago
Unsolicited meta-comments: > Super pragmatic. A tad selfish (complementing people in the hope it comes back around), but I still like it. Yah, talk about doing the right thing for the wrong reason but still beats many alternatives. Also way up on my list is spreading good rumors without sharing the source: "someone... I'll never say who... said this nice thing about you!" > It also disarms... I can't even say it. I'm not Australian. I'll try admitting guilt though (not that I'm a...). > "except love" U WOT M8 Anything can end at any point, including this precious life. Relationships ARE special though. Sometimes you get glimpses where you know it isn't gonna work out (and if you're red-flag aware... it won't take long). In that case, yah... look at those exits and appreciate what led you into this potential disaster while you can and learn. BUT. BIG BUT. If this relationship has a chance then you have to throw the exit strat thinking out the window. That doesn't mean go get joined at the hip, but self fulfilling prophecies are a thing. If its a good thing, your partner will absolutely see you have one foot outside and hedge bets accordingly. Have faith! Not that you won't have problems, but that they will be worth overcoming.
- 5y ago

woopwoop 5y ago

"Recipe for success: under-promise and over-deliver." I have never seen evidence that this is true in general. The field I got my PhD in has breakthrough papers with titles like "The Euler Equations as Differential Inclusions" and "Bounded Gaps Between Primes". Would people in the field be worse off if breakthrough papers had titles like "Attention is all you need"? I'm unconvinced that they would be. Would politicians be more likely to win office if they made fewer promises on the campaign trail? I'm unconvinced. Are you more likely to get a job if you are meticulously fair in how you describe your background and experience, or if you puff yourself up? I think the world would be a better place if folks biased themselves in the direction of under-promising, but for any individual person I'm pretty skeptical that this is good advice.

MrManatee 5y ago
I've always interpreted "under-promise and over-deliver" as being about keeping your promises despite future unknowns. The simplest example I can think of: If you think some task will probably take 2 days, you say you'll do it in 3 days. If your original estimate was right, you'll be early, and others will just be pleasantly surprised (you over-delivered). If something unexpected comes up and your original estimate was too optimistic, you might still be able to do in the time you promised. Do this consistently, and you will get a reputation of delivering what you said you would. Research article titles are descriptions of work already done, so I see them as "promises" of a different kind, and that's why the advice wouldn't apply. But if you said that you're going to write an article called "The Riemann hypothesis is true" before you have found a proof, then you're probably over-promising. Campaign promises, on the other hand, are about future unknowns. I don't know much about campaigning, but I suspect politicians can get a way with over-promising better than most people, because the feedback cycle of elections is so slow.
fergie 5y ago
Theres nothing wrong with the idea of "advocacy". Often its right to make the best argument that you possibly can for a thing or a person. You just have to make sure that other people have the opportunity to advocate _their_ things or people. The rest of us make up our own minds about who we agree with the most, and in turn a healthy democracy emerges.

Sophistifunk 5y ago

This about as fun as the sunscreen song, and mostly as useful.

chasing 5y ago

> • Money is overrated. Truly new things rarely need an abundance of money. If that was so, billionaires would have a monopoly on inventing new things, and they don’t. Instead almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation. Uh, no. Being poor is a huge waste of time and energy.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I think by being poor he means having enough money to live, but not so much that all your wants are immediately met by throwing your money at them.
nine_k 5y ago
You are missing the point, it seems. Being poor (but not debilitatingly starving) is an advantage for innovation. You have a lot of incentive to get the heck out of your miserable position, and you cannot fix the problem with just paying more, you have to incessantly invent and try new things. Of course this is not necessarily good for your well-being, longevity, mental and physical health, prospects of your children and even chances to have any, etc. I see this not as an advice to become poor, but as a solace to those who are already poor but whose mind is still inventive.
- tgv 5y ago
  Now I understand why so much of the modern technology was invented in rural India.
- modo_mario 5y ago
  Being restricted when it comes to money is what might make me look into building my own pick and place machine because i don't want to dish out so many thousands of euros on a hobby project. Who knows where that will lead me. When i was poor i wouldn't even think of it because i wouldn't be able to because it still costs money and lots of time. As someone else said a lot of inventors of the past were wealthy because they had both the time and money to spend on innovating. Innovation out of necessity is a thing but i'd say it's rarer nowadays.

throwanem 5y ago

With a really tight knot where you can't find a place to start, don't pull, push. Knead and squeeze at it long enough, and you'll find some looseness somewhere. That's usually all you need.

tomcam 5y ago

• Money is overrated. In my experience, never said by people who have been poor • If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep. Agree completely!

qihqi 5y ago
* Water is overrated. In my experience, never said by the thirsty in middle of desert. However, unlike water or most things, money seems to be the few things that people who have enough still want more.
DistressedDrone 5y ago
I grew up dirt poor and I think money is overrated. Not for the cases which the page describes though, that's total nonsense bordering on fetishization.

spacephysics 5y ago

What does “ Always cut away from yourself” mean?

nsilvestri 5y ago
when using a knife, make the direction of force and the blade be in a direction which does not include you (or others, for what it's worth)
- spacephysics 5y ago
  Ohhh okay. I thought it was more metaphor than literal.

nocommentguy 5y ago

> You can reduce the annoyance of someone’s stupid belief by increasing your understanding of why they believe it. My favorite. “Write 2 essays, one defending each side” is the most valuable kind of assignment, in my opinion.

th0ma5 5y ago

"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself." - Oscar Wilde

karaterobot 5y ago

I prefer a taut-line hitch, but generally very good advice here.

unnouinceput 5y ago

Quote: "Recipe for success: under-promise and over-deliver." I beg to differ. All I have to do is look at any, I mean ANY, country regardless of east/west culture/region and see that the politicians are always over-promise and under-deliver. You want a recipe for success? Become a politician, if you have the stomach for it (I, for one, don't).

mrwh 5y ago

Hmm. > When hitchhiking, look like the person you want to pick you up. Who has gone hitchhiking in the past 20 years, honestly? > almost all breakthroughs are made by those who lack money, because they are forced to rely on their passion, persistence and ingenuity to figure out new ways. Being poor is an advantage in innovation I mean, define "lack" here. Because actually poor people don't become inventors. It's a list of platitudes. Old platitudes too - was there a reference to Mother Teresa in there??

poopchute 5y ago
Really depends where you live for the hitchhiking thing. Its pretty common in small towns / small islands