3 ms·

> Not to be morbid, but…in 6 months you’ll also have 6 months less of your life left to do those things. The time passes anyway.

troad 2y ago
> The time passes anyway. All the more reason to spend it on things that matter to you. The opportunity cost of six months spent deep in abstract CS papers is six months not spent teaching your daughter to play guitar, visiting that place you always dreamt of seeing, finally finishing that book on your nightstand, etc.
- jpc0 2y ago
  These things are not mutually exclusive...
  - troad 2y ago
    Oh, but they are. We get fewer of those six month periods than we like to think we will.
    - Falimonda 2y ago
      Not if you teach your daughter quantum computing instead of guitar
      - aeonik 2y ago
        You can definitely teach your daughter both.
        dayjah 2y ago
        At the same time, in different multiverses..
  - backlogman 2y ago
    My bucket list says otherwise.
  - SirHound 2y ago
    Must be nice living a life free from the constraints of time.
    - jpc0 2y ago
      You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week... I guarantee thats more time than most people will spend teaching their kids any musical instrument. Just spend a week mapping out what you do ans how long it takes you every week and I'm pretty sure you can find double digit hours spent somewhere, maybe even right here on HN
      - asoneth 2y ago
        > you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? For me, four hours a week is sufficient to stay up-to-date on an active research area but making forward progress requires at least twice that. > You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week... Using awake hours as the denominator is misleading because most people have other non-discretionary time commitments besides sleep. For me I'd estimate ~60h/wk sleep, ~50h/wk work/commute, ~30h/wk non-discretionary upkeep of children/relationships/home/body. Assuming 8+h/wk to make progress out of the remaining ~28h/wk of discretionary time means I can handle about three non-discretionary priorities. (Pre-kids I could handle about five.) Therefore, when someone with a job says "I don't have time" to pick up a hobby, skill, language, outside research area, instrument, volunteer position, etc I don't interpret their statement as meaning it is physically impossible for them to rearrange their schedule to accommodate it. I (and I suspect most people) interpret the statement as them admitting that it's not one of their ~3-5 non-discretionary priorities.
        jpc0 2y ago
        I don't disagree with you. But I have also opened screentime on some of those people with "no time" and it has 15+ hours on ticktok this week... There are legitimately busy people and then there are people who wish they could achieve X if only they had time but don't put any effort into making time for that. HINT: if research is directly related to your job, allocate time to it during working hours, those aren't 40-45 hours of time a company gets to take from you and also get benefits from your out of work time. I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee and if they don't, well... The internet has their usual answer to that even though I don't always agree.
- samus 2y ago
  Then you by definition don't care enough about quantum computing. The same could be said about learning programming or any other deep skill.
  - _zoltan_ 2y ago
    If it has nothing to do in with your life, ambitions and goals - why should you care about it? Just like I don't know how to build a solar panel or how to do organic chemistry.
    - samus 2y ago
      That's fine - but then it's no surprise if deep skills stay out of reach. Skills that take more than a few hours of watching a YouTube video or reading a book or two to acquire. Skills that one arguably should care about if one wants a career in that field.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  Absolutely, it's fair to say there's a cost to dedicating huge amounts of time to anything, including work and school. I'd argue that people waste more time than they appreciate with inane things like scrolling Instagram/Tiktok, commuting. Everyone need to be somewhat aware of the microeconomy of their life, and there's some sweet spot where you're making decent money, not spending too much time working, not spending too much time getting to work, spending as much time as reasonable with your kid(s) when they're young if you have them and with your partner if you have one, engaging your own interests, and ideally taking care of yourself physically. It's all quite a lot. When it comes to that category of your own interests, I don't really think one can afford not to spend time on them, lest you hollow yourself out. Whether any one thing is worth the time over another, like grinding papers vs travel, they're not always mutually exclusive; although trying to do both in parallel might be silly, I personally like to shift my attention periodically. I'll go and spend a few months learning, and then go adventure. I don't that much, but I'm happy to meet up with friends and do that too, and it means taking time away from video games or learning, and that's important too.

troad 2y ago

> The time passes anyway. All the more reason to spend it on things that matter to you. The opportunity cost of six months spent deep in abstract CS papers is six months not spent teaching your daughter to play guitar, visiting that place you always dreamt of seeing, finally finishing that book on your nightstand, etc.

jpc0 2y ago
These things are not mutually exclusive...
- troad 2y ago
  Oh, but they are. We get fewer of those six month periods than we like to think we will.
  - Falimonda 2y ago
    Not if you teach your daughter quantum computing instead of guitar
    - aeonik 2y ago
      You can definitely teach your daughter both.
      - dayjah 2y ago
        At the same time, in different multiverses..
- backlogman 2y ago
  My bucket list says otherwise.
- SirHound 2y ago
  Must be nice living a life free from the constraints of time.
  - jpc0 2y ago
    You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week... I guarantee thats more time than most people will spend teaching their kids any musical instrument. Just spend a week mapping out what you do ans how long it takes you every week and I'm pretty sure you can find double digit hours spent somewhere, maybe even right here on HN
    - asoneth 2y ago
      > you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? For me, four hours a week is sufficient to stay up-to-date on an active research area but making forward progress requires at least twice that. > You are awake for at least 16 hours of the day, you telling me you cant find 4 hours a week to read a paper? So 4/112 hours or around 3.5% of your week... Using awake hours as the denominator is misleading because most people have other non-discretionary time commitments besides sleep. For me I'd estimate ~60h/wk sleep, ~50h/wk work/commute, ~30h/wk non-discretionary upkeep of children/relationships/home/body. Assuming 8+h/wk to make progress out of the remaining ~28h/wk of discretionary time means I can handle about three non-discretionary priorities. (Pre-kids I could handle about five.) Therefore, when someone with a job says "I don't have time" to pick up a hobby, skill, language, outside research area, instrument, volunteer position, etc I don't interpret their statement as meaning it is physically impossible for them to rearrange their schedule to accommodate it. I (and I suspect most people) interpret the statement as them admitting that it's not one of their ~3-5 non-discretionary priorities.
      - jpc0 2y ago
        I don't disagree with you. But I have also opened screentime on some of those people with "no time" and it has 15+ hours on ticktok this week... There are legitimately busy people and then there are people who wish they could achieve X if only they had time but don't put any effort into making time for that. HINT: if research is directly related to your job, allocate time to it during working hours, those aren't 40-45 hours of time a company gets to take from you and also get benefits from your out of work time. I'm reasonably sure your boss would happily let you allocate an hour every now and then to improving yourself as an employee and if they don't, well... The internet has their usual answer to that even though I don't always agree.
samus 2y ago
Then you by definition don't care enough about quantum computing. The same could be said about learning programming or any other deep skill.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago
  If it has nothing to do in with your life, ambitions and goals - why should you care about it? Just like I don't know how to build a solar panel or how to do organic chemistry.
  - samus 2y ago
    That's fine - but then it's no surprise if deep skills stay out of reach. Skills that take more than a few hours of watching a YouTube video or reading a book or two to acquire. Skills that one arguably should care about if one wants a career in that field.
brailsafe 2y ago
Absolutely, it's fair to say there's a cost to dedicating huge amounts of time to anything, including work and school. I'd argue that people waste more time than they appreciate with inane things like scrolling Instagram/Tiktok, commuting. Everyone need to be somewhat aware of the microeconomy of their life, and there's some sweet spot where you're making decent money, not spending too much time working, not spending too much time getting to work, spending as much time as reasonable with your kid(s) when they're young if you have them and with your partner if you have one, engaging your own interests, and ideally taking care of yourself physically. It's all quite a lot. When it comes to that category of your own interests, I don't really think one can afford not to spend time on them, lest you hollow yourself out. Whether any one thing is worth the time over another, like grinding papers vs travel, they're not always mutually exclusive; although trying to do both in parallel might be silly, I personally like to shift my attention periodically. I'll go and spend a few months learning, and then go adventure. I don't that much, but I'm happy to meet up with friends and do that too, and it means taking time away from video games or learning, and that's important too.