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Time to figure out the 13 core insights: decades. Time to flesh them out in an essay: 15 minutes. Thanks for sharing. Idea: animated documents. It starts with

Time to figure out the 13 core insights: decades. Time to flesh them out in an essay: 15 minutes. Thanks for sharing. Idea: animated documents. It starts with the core points. and if you have more reading time you move the slider and more detail appears, highlighted.

stavros 4y ago
I made something like what you describe, except you click on topics rather than use a slider: https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/ https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/
- jboynyc 4y ago
  Nicky Case's Nutshell works similarly -- and can even be recursive! https://ncase.me/nutshell/ https://ncase.me/nutshell/
perihelions 4y ago
- "It starts with the core points. and if you have more reading time you move the slider and more detail appears," That sounds like visibility cycling in org-mode (?)
atoav 4y ago
This is one of those things when freelancing in creative professions. There is a particular (business) type of customer who will always be like: "Why should I pay you so much? It only took you 4 hours!" The thing is in certain fields it takes dekades to be able to do it in just 4 hours — or it takes dekades to do it at all. If you don't like that, go to your nephew and let him do it as an exercise. It is worse the more people think "they could do it themselves" — e.g. graphic design is one of those fields where customer interaction can become absolutely exhausting if you have the bad luck of gaining the wrong customer base.
- silvestrov 4y ago
  Database schema design is the same: the best design often looks very obvious when presenting it, but the road to it can be long and difficult. Except that in this case your clients are other developers.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    Same with well factored code. The longer I work on a piece of code, the simpler, more easy to read, and less error prone it becomes. None of that work is visible in the end product. It probably looked more impressive and complex half way through.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Well, they can. But that means we’d still be on geocities, or everyone is using the same Wordpress theme
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  There's the old story I've heard about the retired engineer (apocryphal, I'm sure): This engineer worked for a corporation for 40 years, and retired. A few months into his retirement, his old company frantically calls him, begging him to come in, and help fix an issue with the system he worked on. Apparently, the new team had managed to hose it, and couldn't figure out how to fix it. He comes in, sits down at a terminal, looks at it for five minutes, and says "Here's the issue. If you do this, it should be fixed..." He then presents an invoice for $10,000. The beancounters go "There's no way we can pay $10,000 for five minutes work! Itemize it!" He sits down, scribbles a bit, and presents an invoice that says: Time to fix bug: 5 minutes. $20 Six years of college, and forty years of experience, so I can fix a bug in five minutes: $9,980
  - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    Totally apocryphal since there are variants for everything from automotive engineers to plumbers. But it’s fantastic if that’s the point you need to make after someone can’t believe you did something so quickly and refuses to pay.
  - tempodox 4y ago
    If anything, the 6 years of college and 40 years of experience are way underpriced at $9,980 :)
- cosmodisk 4y ago
  I did something for my ceo a few months ago. He was surprised I managed to do it so fast. I did tell him it's rather easy...with 7 years of experience.

stavros 4y ago

I made something like what you describe, except you click on topics rather than use a slider: https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/ https://skorokithakis.github.io/expounder/

jboynyc 4y ago
Nicky Case's Nutshell works similarly -- and can even be recursive! https://ncase.me/nutshell/ https://ncase.me/nutshell/

perihelions 4y ago

- "It starts with the core points. and if you have more reading time you move the slider and more detail appears," That sounds like visibility cycling in org-mode (?)

atoav 4y ago

This is one of those things when freelancing in creative professions. There is a particular (business) type of customer who will always be like: "Why should I pay you so much? It only took you 4 hours!" The thing is in certain fields it takes dekades to be able to do it in just 4 hours — or it takes dekades to do it at all. If you don't like that, go to your nephew and let him do it as an exercise. It is worse the more people think "they could do it themselves" — e.g. graphic design is one of those fields where customer interaction can become absolutely exhausting if you have the bad luck of gaining the wrong customer base.

silvestrov 4y ago
Database schema design is the same: the best design often looks very obvious when presenting it, but the road to it can be long and difficult. Except that in this case your clients are other developers.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  Same with well factored code. The longer I work on a piece of code, the simpler, more easy to read, and less error prone it becomes. None of that work is visible in the end product. It probably looked more impressive and complex half way through.
jbverschoor 4y ago
Well, they can. But that means we’d still be on geocities, or everyone is using the same Wordpress theme
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
There's the old story I've heard about the retired engineer (apocryphal, I'm sure): This engineer worked for a corporation for 40 years, and retired. A few months into his retirement, his old company frantically calls him, begging him to come in, and help fix an issue with the system he worked on. Apparently, the new team had managed to hose it, and couldn't figure out how to fix it. He comes in, sits down at a terminal, looks at it for five minutes, and says "Here's the issue. If you do this, it should be fixed..." He then presents an invoice for $10,000. The beancounters go "There's no way we can pay $10,000 for five minutes work! Itemize it!" He sits down, scribbles a bit, and presents an invoice that says: Time to fix bug: 5 minutes. $20 Six years of college, and forty years of experience, so I can fix a bug in five minutes: $9,980
- loloquwowndueo 4y ago
  Totally apocryphal since there are variants for everything from automotive engineers to plumbers. But it’s fantastic if that’s the point you need to make after someone can’t believe you did something so quickly and refuses to pay.
- tempodox 4y ago
  If anything, the 6 years of college and 40 years of experience are way underpriced at $9,980 :)
cosmodisk 4y ago
I did something for my ceo a few months ago. He was surprised I managed to do it so fast. I did tell him it's rather easy...with 7 years of experience.