19 ms·

Prioritise the Highest Order Bit

33 points by rajlego 5y ago

dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 5y ago
This is gobbledygook. The title, in a software sense, implies a binary/Byte interpretation of the word ‘bit’. I clicked through and there’s an accompanying picture of drill bits. That’s illustrative of the overall level of coherence and clarity of argument this article provides.
- shoo 5y ago
  i disagree, it isn't gobbledygook. it's not necessarily a great analogy but the underlying idea that the analogy is trying to help you remember and communicate is a reasonable and useful one: > When evaluating past decisions or thinking about making new ones, a useful analogy to use is the flipping of the highest-order bit. > aim to identify and flip the highest order bit because if you don't, you're not going to be able to make up for it by flipping everything else. Other ways of trying to remember and communicate a similar idea could the "80 / 20 rule" -- e.g. small subset of effort/population/whatever often contributes disproportionately to some output. Theory of Constraints / Eli Goldratt's book "The Goal" is another bunch of related concepts. Decide on what your big picture objective is, investigate and analyse the system to discover what the main bottleneck is. Focus on removing that bottleneck.
- Nevermark 5y ago
  And scroll down an inch to see illustrations using actual binary bits. I think the drill bits are just a humorous pic. And I think the article makes sense. It discusses prioritizing coherently which often means de-prioritizing many important things.
greatgoat420 5y ago
I have tried prioritizing the highest-order bit, but regrettably I never know the endian-ness of my bits. Maybe I am flipping a high order bit, maybe a low order bit.
drewcoo 5y ago
> In the real world, it gets more complicated since bits are intimately linked to one another. Thus the analogy is completely invalid. I couldn't read further.
patrick451 5y ago
This really just seems like another way to state the Pareto principle.
nocman 5y ago
Seems to me it would be much more straightforward just to say "concentrate your efforts on the most important things". But I guess it doesn't sound as good to some people without an analogy. Meh.

33 points by rajlego 5y ago

This is gobbledygook. The title, in a software sense, implies a binary/Byte interpretation of the word ‘bit’. I clicked through and there’s an accompanying picture of drill bits. That’s illustrative of the overall level of coherence and clarity of argument this article provides.

shoo 5y ago
i disagree, it isn't gobbledygook. it's not necessarily a great analogy but the underlying idea that the analogy is trying to help you remember and communicate is a reasonable and useful one: > When evaluating past decisions or thinking about making new ones, a useful analogy to use is the flipping of the highest-order bit. > aim to identify and flip the highest order bit because if you don't, you're not going to be able to make up for it by flipping everything else. Other ways of trying to remember and communicate a similar idea could the "80 / 20 rule" -- e.g. small subset of effort/population/whatever often contributes disproportionately to some output. Theory of Constraints / Eli Goldratt's book "The Goal" is another bunch of related concepts. Decide on what your big picture objective is, investigate and analyse the system to discover what the main bottleneck is. Focus on removing that bottleneck.
Nevermark 5y ago
And scroll down an inch to see illustrations using actual binary bits. I think the drill bits are just a humorous pic. And I think the article makes sense. It discusses prioritizing coherently which often means de-prioritizing many important things.

greatgoat420 5y ago

I have tried prioritizing the highest-order bit, but regrettably I never know the endian-ness of my bits. Maybe I am flipping a high order bit, maybe a low order bit.

drewcoo 5y ago

> In the real world, it gets more complicated since bits are intimately linked to one another. Thus the analogy is completely invalid. I couldn't read further.

patrick451 5y ago

This really just seems like another way to state the Pareto principle.

nocman 5y ago

Seems to me it would be much more straightforward just to say "concentrate your efforts on the most important things". But I guess it doesn't sound as good to some people without an analogy. Meh.