22 ms·

My Roommate's a Genius

697 points by FarhadG 13y ago

eitland 13y ago
(Say after me : ) Creativity isn't so much about making pink patterns on the wall as it is about solving the problem at hand using the available time, tools and materials. OTOH: If that means splashing pink paint on the wall, that will do as well.
jbrooksuk 13y ago
My brother is very much the same. He's about to turn 14 and can make anything, out of almost anything. Both of my Grandfathers shared the same aptitude for this. As a developer I feel I can apply these skills, but to code, whereas they're physically able to see an object or an end result. I wish I could!
logical42 13y ago
In my opinion, that guy is a true hacker.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  You should see what he's hacking these days.
  - srik 13y ago
    Now you got me curious. Can you share?
    - FarhadG 13y ago
      He's doesn't like the shape of the phone for playing games for an extended period of time, so he's hacking up a pretty sweet setup. I'll post up when it's finished...
      - logical42 13y ago
        I can't wait to see it :) thanks for sharing this with us!
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - fudged71 13y ago
        I'm genuinely curious what he could do with a 3D printer...
        FarhadG 13y ago
        In fact, I introduced him to 3D printers when I started reading Makers and he was absolutely blown away. He literally could not believe it it was real. He has sketches of many things he wants to build.
        fudged71 13y ago
        I bet he would really benefit from all of the different fasteners and replacement parts that you can make. There are lots of great inexpensive printers on the market right now! We're trying to make the software easier to use because it's one of the biggest barriers to entry right now. I'd love to get in touch with him tom@printtopeer.com
  - Cyph0n 13y ago
    Go on..
arjie 13y ago
Clicked it expecting some rubbish. Left in amazement at this guy's ingenuity. I always find it incredible when people can repurpose stuff like this because I usually need everything just right. This is great.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoy it even more living with him. Maybe I'll ask him to come on and explain what inspires him and how he thinks...
  - girvo 13y ago
    I loved the story, and I wish I was still living in my old apartment, where I'd done similar stuff (though not to the same extent!). So much fun to repurpose things!
  - krmmalik 13y ago
    I'd love to meet this guy (and you for noticing). Unfortunately I live in London, but honestly, I love this kind of resourcefulness.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - lizzard 13y ago
    I'd love to know what tools he used!
tempestn 13y ago
I was hoping he'd find some way to double-hinge the wardrobe door so it could function as both a door and a desk! Still obviously very cool and far more than I could do (or more importantly, as you say, even come up with).
- FarhadG 13y ago
  Good idea! I'll pass it onto him.
Cyph0n 13y ago
Hacking reality is the toughest type of hacking I think. Kudos to your roommate and I hope he achieves his dream.
- colechristensen 13y ago
  No it isn't. You aren't a very good hacker if you can hack in only a tiny subset of the world.
primitivesuave 13y ago
Really beautiful piece on the mind of a maker.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  I appreciate that!
hobs 13y ago
I always respect someone who can look at a block of marble, and see Venus underneath it all. Great article!
- bambax 13y ago
  Can't remember who said that sculpting is easy, you just need to remove all the excess marble. (Michelangelo?) Some other guy said design is editing: it's about removing all the ugliness so that only beauty remains.
morgante 13y ago
Wow, that's awesome. I only wish I had anywhere near that capacity. Unfortunately, I think my developer mindset actually makes physical hacking a lot harder due to 2 phenomena: 1. Code is cheap. Materials are not. I'm used to being able to churn out additional code with basically no cost to get things done, not to repurposing existing code (this is different from refactoring to abstractions). 2. Laziness is a quality in software development, but a major obstacle in physical development. I'll quickly abandon physical projects because I can't find an optimally efficient hack to finish things in minimal time.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- specialist 13y ago
  As a software dev remodeling my house, I agree. It's been very hard to accept that all these learning projects are going to be redone three times, just like how I treat software. I'm wasting wood! OMG! But I've made progress. Watching contractors has helped. I was astonished how much they waste, treat things as disposable. My father (a hardware guy) certainly would not have approved. I'm framing a new closet with bypass sliding doors. I really have no idea what I'm doing. I knocked apart the first two attempts and hope the third works better. And I'm now okay with it. It's been kinda fun.
  - dethstar 13y ago
    When i was taking my first programming related class, algorithms, the teacher told us we were like architechts, there shouldnt be errors/failures. Is it accepted for them to say: whoops building fell, guess i'll rebuild it? While software can't be perfect, it has to be as flawless as possible. Code isn't cheap, it takes time. Who knows what else you could've built/made/learnt instead of fixing something cuz it costs "nothing"
    - morgante 13y ago
      > When i was taking my first programming related class, algorithms, the teacher told us we were like architechts, there shouldnt be errors/failures. Is it accepted for them to say: whoops building fell, guess i'll rebuild it? That's an absolutely terrible approach to software development. You can test a program as many times as you want before releasing it, but there's no equivalent iterative process for making a house. If you develop with that attitude, you'll never get anything of real value done. After all, "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."
eyeareque 13y ago
In third world countries I am always so amazed at what people come up with when building things. When I set out to start a project it usually involves making a list, and then going to Lowes or Home Depot (hardware stores). People who don't have that luxury just repurpose other things, and usually always does the job for them. My friends in another country actually seem to enjoy their hack-together process very much.
- kamaal 13y ago
  In my previous company there was a guy who used to run a tea stall. The entire stall was a extreme model of furniture hacking. Not sure where he got his ideas from. His front door could be turned into a cash register + counter + door at the same time. The store was full of furniture hacks.
- renang 13y ago
  While on topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5WuIUWlNvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5WuIUWlNvg
jroseattle 13y ago
My son is this way (I wouldn't call him genius, but his aptitude to seeing potential solutions is astounding.) It's being able to see a solution from existing pieces, requiring visualization and great spatial reasoning. I'm not sure it can be learned; there is something about it that's quite innate to a person.
- dshefchik 13y ago
  I think the problem is that it is unlearned too easily. Being forced to modify your thinking to succeed in school or the workforce is what stifles this kind of creativity. I feel like I used to have gifts like that, but somehow lost it along the way
  - jroseattle 13y ago
    Great point. We constantly challenge him to find solutions from things that aren't obvious, pushing him to be resourceful. You're right about the environment. Creativity often isn't well-aligned with traditional learning patterns.
- DigitalJack 13y ago
  I think it's more along the lines of imagining what it is you want, and then finding things around you that are close enough to work. At least that is how it works for me most of the time. Although I guess I do take direct inspiration from the things themselves sometimes.
- starky 13y ago
  I would say that some of the spacial reasoning ability is innate to a person, and will determine how easy it is for the person to learn to solve physical problems. Past this, a lot of the ability comes from having seen similar concepts before and being able to create an elegant solution from them. When I solve problems like this I typically get a vague sort of vision of what the final solution is going to look like in my head (possibly the innate part). Then I take all the little things I know about and slowly build up something that will perform the action I want. After which it becomes a task of optimization by combining and changing things until the final solution falls out (the experience part). When you have 2 or 3 people working on the same problem using this process some really special things often come out of it.
pnathan 13y ago
Respect. You see some of this sort of thing from the blue collar part of society in the US - "yankee ingenuity" is what it sometimes gets called here. This is an essay by Tom Wolfe about Noyce and Intel that has similar overtones: http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html
- lowkeykiwi 13y ago
  It's called 'Kiwi ingenuity' in New Zealand.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  Awesome! Thanks for the article!
- alaskamiller 13y ago
  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/rocket-city-rednecks/ http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/rocket-city-re...
dshefchik 13y ago
I want to hire this guy
ganzolo 13y ago
The guy creativity is good, but sleeping/eating/working in the bed is a terrible idea. Moreover he is using a projector, meaning the needs to be in the dark...
- MindTwister 13y ago
  Well, he is a student...
roozbeh18 13y ago
it's amazing how limited we get as we have more things at our disposal. I remember coding basic as a kid and for hours i could come up with cool ideas and functioning programs. now all i think about is how to optimize and make things run faster by following codes already written by someone else! kudos to him..
merkitt 13y ago
He's a MacGyver. I wonder what he'll build if he is unleashed on a large American junk yard.
creativityland 13y ago
Really enjoyed reading this. Really hope this type of posts make to the frontpage more often.
jianshen 13y ago
This is a refreshing reminder to dig deeper. I'm always waiting for the right tool to come around to do the job (cheap hi-res 3d printing for example) but sometimes a good enough solution just might be sitting in front of you. Thanks for this!
autarch 13y ago
What I'd really love is to hear some of the music he's written.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  You would be amazed! He held a concert at the Beijing University and we were all inspired.
ratsimihah 13y ago
It's well known music and math are intrinsically related. Apparently, music and engineering are as well.
natmaster 13y ago
Please fix your website so I can read your article. There is no scroll bar.
- hrjet 13y ago
  I can see a scroll-bar but no text (javascript disabled here). What a naive way to design a website! I wouldn't be so snarky if this was a one-off instance. Sadly, this trend is catching up. Edit: Cut down the snarkiness. The OP's openness to criticism is appreciated.
  - FarhadG 13y ago
    Will do... Thanks for the suggestion.
    - kaybe 13y ago
      HTTPSeverywhere (ff-plugin) killed it for me, no text but a scrollbar. After disabling - no scrollbar but text.
  - Hellenion 13y ago
    The page source is still readable if you need a quick fix, unlike most other "requires javascript" sites.
- Groxx 13y ago
  I don't see the connection between reading and scroll bars. Are you unable to scroll without a scroll bar (a possibility, but many keys work well too)?
  - tremendo 13y ago
    > but many keys work well too For me they don't, not the arrow keys, not PgDn or PgUp, not Vimium compatible (j,k,g,d,u), and since no scrollbar to click only the scroll-wheel allowed me to see the rest of the article. (Chromium 30.0.1599.114 on Ubuntu 13.04)
tzs 13y ago
That is far more impressive than my one attempt at modifying my bed, which no one would attach the word "genius" to...the most likely word I would have earned was "special". I was living in a small rectangular room at Caltech, with the door on one of the short sides and a window and radiator on the other short side. My bed was a rectangular framework that the mattress sat on top of. The long sides of the bed were parallel to the long sides of the room, said orientation being forced by the narrowness of the room. The pillow side of the bed was toward the window and radiator. I decided I'd rather sleep with my feet on that side and my head on the other side. One afternoon, I set about reorienting the bed to accomplish this. Because of the narrowness of the room, both horizontally and vertically, it was quite a challenge to flip the bed around, but after quite a struggle I accomplished it. While I was doing this, a small crowd had gathered to watch (but not help...the bastards). After I finished, the spectators pointed out that the bed frame and mattress were symmetrical, and the sleeping orientation was determined entirely by what side you tucked the sheets under and where you put the pillow. Flipping the sleeping orientation would have taken a normal person 10 seconds. Doh!
- pestaa 13y ago
  I was looking forward to this very happy ending.
- gohrt 13y ago
  Your way didn't require you remove the sheets and remake the bed. Your way wins.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    Obligatory: http://assets.amuniversal.com/668fea605e0a012ee3bf00163e41dd5b http://assets.amuniversal.com/668fea605e0a012ee3bf00163e41dd...
- jasonkester 13y ago
  While we're on Dorm Room Modification stories... A buddy of mine lived in one of those extra cheap campus dorms where each room is a mirror image of itself with a bed and desk against each wall with a bookshelf bolted to the wall above. I was hanging out on the evening when he decided to take down one of the bookshelves. I never got a chance to ask quite why he was unbolting the thing from the wall, because no sooner had he removed the 3rd bolt than there was this enormulous crashing disaster in the room next door. Sure enough, glancing across at the opposite wall, the bookshelf on that side had a washer and a nut threaded onto the end of a bolt.
coenhyde 13y ago
Yeah the dude is smart and creative. But for all you HN fellows who find this so impressive, you must not have much creativity of your own. Or more likely I suspect you've never had the freedom to experiment like this.
uniclaude 13y ago
Some responses in this thread surprise me, I thought the mindset exposed in this article was something most hackers shared. Therefore, after reading the post, I expected a bunch of mildly negative comments of people who built a lot of awesome things in their spare time. Well, I was wrong. Anecdotal but surprising, my fellow musician friends are more prone to what I believe to be the hacker thinking than most of the software programmers I work with. Maybe it is because of some unfortunate psychological barrier, or the result of a strong focus on computer related things and discard for the rest, I honestly don't know. Anyways, what this roommate did is super cool, and I'd suggest everyone here to start hacking outside of their comfort zone, it can be very rewarding for some. Building things feels great, and being able to apply your hacker thinking to various things is a very useful skill to have.
- purringmeow 13y ago
  I had pretty serious musical training that lasted for a few years. Anyways, my teachers were crazy imaginative. They would also build stuff from what looked like scraps - insulated and strengthened jacks, book shelves, studio monitor stands, etc, etc. I wonder what makes them tick like this!
  - jwmc 13y ago
    I've never had serious musical training, but I've spent a lot of time picking tunes with old folkies. A lot of those guys are absolutely the same when it comes to this sort of creativity, and I picked up a lot of advice that I like to think has stuck with me ever since. I remember I was nervous as hell when I'd just started heading along to jams - here was me, having learned a bit about scales and a few chords, yet wondering how I could ever contribute to the wonderful sounds this group was creating. It was an old gentleman in his 70s who just turned around, saw me sat there overwhelmed, trying to figure out what was going on, and said "We've got seven notes in a scale, and most of these tunes'll barely use half of 'em!". Music, at its heart, is the ultimate in making do with what you have - I just think that folkies are more likely to admit it!
    - 13y ago
nzealand 13y ago
Very cool. But did he extend your bed to make you happy, or to score those free extra parts? I suppose I will have to go to my grave never knowing for sure. Although it looks like your bed is a little saggy, right in the lumbar...
robmcm 13y ago
Someone isn't getting their deposit back.
hanief 13y ago
jarang-jarang indonesian featured on HN.
- rilut 13y ago
  yoi sob gue juga kaget
- gusif 13y ago
  tapi namanya Zhang. Ga terlalu indonesia.
travoltaj 13y ago
Whatever happened to scrollbars?
Kliment 13y ago
Reminds me of a project I built this spring: http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF
aneeskA 13y ago
This is truly inspirational. You could have added the photo of the genius along with this post.
k4rthik 13y ago
This reminds me of an old video of a student's room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE
vinceguidry 13y ago
I used to have an apartment where the heat didn't really work. I could run it all day and it'd still be freezing inside. Rather than fight it I just shut the heat off and went to get a space heater. Well the room was open so even sitting right next to it didn't really cut it. So I went to Lowes and got a bunch of PVC pipe and angle couplings. I built a 5x5x6ft enclosure and threw a bunch of blankets/sheets on it to make a little room inside a room to hold my desk, me and my space heater. I was nice and comfy all winter. Another time I needed a desk for my computer and didn't have much money to work with. This was around the time that whole "FedEx box furniture" thing hit the Internet. I worked at a little pack-and-ship place and we had a bunch of extra UPS boxes so I nabbed them and some tape and went nuts. It took some tweaking before it would accept the weight of my CRT, but eventually it did.
- azatris 13y ago
  Thank you for the enclosure idea! Will implement your idea again if I happen to have a ridiculously huge and cold room like I did last year again.
mosselman 13y ago
So he built some stuff in the real world rather than digitally? Wow, that is very worthy of the word 'Genius'. Meanwhile: http://www.instructables.com/ http://www.instructables.com/
jnazario 13y ago
awesome, and great to see TR quoted.
mcherm 13y ago
Now THAT is "Hacker News"!
ArbitraryLimits 13y ago
If he's such a genius, ask him how to leave the scrollbar on your blog.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  Haha, ok, I'll do so next time :)
dsirijus 13y ago
I would not call his roomate genius in context the article infers. But, noticing extreme lack of interest in modifying your enviroment in a practical way (or lack of perception that your enviroment can be easily improved) amongst the general populace, yeh. He's an outstanding dude. These things tend to be uncommon. It's not genius though. Far from it. Don't devalue genius.
- acoyfellow 13y ago
  Curious, what or who do you consider to be genius?
  - dsirijus 13y ago
    People being able to create accurate and novel mental models of reality of a large scope. And I'm already throwing up a defense stating that rearranging furniture is not that. Added 'of a large scope' in edit to power up my defense. As a side note, I value even more geniuses that make models of the process of modelling. Meta-geniuses, so to speak. Not many of those though. One needs only to see into our progress concerning artificial intelligence to confirm that. EDIT: I'm curious about something else... Sentences starting with "I'm curious" usually present an attack in a form of preparation for the punchline upon the expected answer. Not a general rule, but I'm usually right interpreting them as such in both cyber and real world. Was yours one? What did you think I was to answer? If 'yes', what was the presupposed killer line or were you to improvise? Was it premeditated at all? I am genuinely curious. :)
    - acoyfellow 13y ago
      Sorry if how I wrote seemed like a jab, it was more like a quick thought. It was intended to stir discussion not to pick a fight :) I'm not sure if I even know what it means to be a genius, in literal terms. I use the word "genius" all the time, and your reply made me think about how generously I use it.
    - uniclaude 13y ago
      Not that I dismiss your definition, but it requires me to stretch my mind a lot to see Mozart as someone "able to create accurate and novel mental models of reality of a large scope", so either I don't get it yet, or you wouldn't consider him a genius. About your parent post, maybe the poster was simply trying to start a constructive discussion. It is HN, after all.
rthomas6 13y ago
This reminds me of a few people I knew in college. I think certain people just have a better spatial awareness that lets them hack their physical surroundings, and with my friends it tended to happen a lot with the mechanical engineers. One roommate I had would build custom furniture kind of like this guy, to make the most out of his small room. He had a large television, a couch, a computer desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and a dresser in the same space where I had trouble even having the last 4 things, and he could fit all that in there by his clever use of space aided by custom fixtures that he built out of 2x4s.
gwern 13y ago
I know I'm not a genius, but I've read the whole thing and I still have no idea how the bed was rearranged. Did I miss a diagram or something obvious like that?
- nollidge 13y ago
  Yeah I don't really get it either.
- delluminatus 13y ago
  It looks like the bed had spare wood (struts underneath or maybe a larger headboard), and he went ahead and cut (?) the sideboards in half, removed the excess wood from wherever, and added them in the middle of the cut sideboards (like a leaf in a table). I imagine that if the mattress were removed, the modification would become more apparent. Alternatively, a "before" picture would also probably make it more obvious. But, who takes a "before" picture of their bed?
FarhadG 13y ago
My apologies for the poor functionality of the site. I went ahead and threw up a quick theme to help with the disabled JS and no scrollbar issue. Thanks for pointing them out.
MrZongle2 13y ago
Makes me wonder what the roommate could build in a cave with a box of scraps.
mimog 13y ago
Lets stop watering down the genius label. It should require more than a modicum of ingenuity and intellect to be called a genius.
diminoten 13y ago
It's an iterative process, and the guy made a gamble. "Let's just do it the best way possible!" is a great place to start for any project. Only after you hit obstacles should compromise be made. That's all he did. It's awesome, though. Awesome things usually can be described in simple terms.
enthuzer 13y ago
I'm now reading about a systemized approach to this idea in a book called "Inside The Box". It details ways to innovate and create original products/services by narrowing or constraining ones options for solving a problem. I think we are all capable of this type of "genius" and the book's authors describe a simple process for achieving it. http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-Results/dp/1451659253 http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-Res...
zem 13y ago
the word "bricolage" fits nicely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage
AsymetricCom 13y ago
So, do you own your apartment or are you cool paying out your deposit for a wardrobe door?
stevewillows 13y ago
This reminds me of a time when Lifehacker was about hacking and not just 'use this software...'. In my family, we had this unspoken contest for the best ways to fix things. My Mom would use coat hangers, toothpicks and glue like they were going out of style. Doesn't help the argument that I have an autographed photo of MacGuyver.[1] [1] http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9 http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9
antidamage 13y ago
Students are very easily impressed.
jakejake 13y ago
I love this kind of ingenuity to modify things. I have to admit in my old age I'm getting a little out of touch and I don't relate very well with crafting your bedroom into living quarters. Though I remember the days of having roommates, no money, and your bedroom is your only personal space. It's cool to take a look at what you have and use it to your advantage.
tomphoolery 13y ago
You're right. That's fucking genius. Talk about a work-from-home desk...
antsam 13y ago
Pretty sure you're living with MacGyver.

697 points by FarhadG 13y ago

(Say after me : ) Creativity isn't so much about making pink patterns on the wall as it is about solving the problem at hand using the available time, tools and materials. OTOH: If that means splashing pink paint on the wall, that will do as well.

jbrooksuk 13y ago

My brother is very much the same. He's about to turn 14 and can make anything, out of almost anything. Both of my Grandfathers shared the same aptitude for this. As a developer I feel I can apply these skills, but to code, whereas they're physically able to see an object or an end result. I wish I could!

logical42 13y ago

In my opinion, that guy is a true hacker.

FarhadG 13y ago
You should see what he's hacking these days.
- srik 13y ago
  Now you got me curious. Can you share?
  - FarhadG 13y ago
    He's doesn't like the shape of the phone for playing games for an extended period of time, so he's hacking up a pretty sweet setup. I'll post up when it's finished...
    - logical42 13y ago
      I can't wait to see it :) thanks for sharing this with us!
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - fudged71 13y ago
      I'm genuinely curious what he could do with a 3D printer...
      - FarhadG 13y ago
        In fact, I introduced him to 3D printers when I started reading Makers and he was absolutely blown away. He literally could not believe it it was real. He has sketches of many things he wants to build.
        fudged71 13y ago
        I bet he would really benefit from all of the different fasteners and replacement parts that you can make. There are lots of great inexpensive printers on the market right now! We're trying to make the software easier to use because it's one of the biggest barriers to entry right now. I'd love to get in touch with him tom@printtopeer.com
- Cyph0n 13y ago
  Go on..

arjie 13y ago

Clicked it expecting some rubbish. Left in amazement at this guy's ingenuity. I always find it incredible when people can repurpose stuff like this because I usually need everything just right. This is great.

FarhadG 13y ago
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoy it even more living with him. Maybe I'll ask him to come on and explain what inspires him and how he thinks...
- girvo 13y ago
  I loved the story, and I wish I was still living in my old apartment, where I'd done similar stuff (though not to the same extent!). So much fun to repurpose things!
- krmmalik 13y ago
  I'd love to meet this guy (and you for noticing). Unfortunately I live in London, but honestly, I love this kind of resourcefulness.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- lizzard 13y ago
  I'd love to know what tools he used!

tempestn 13y ago

I was hoping he'd find some way to double-hinge the wardrobe door so it could function as both a door and a desk! Still obviously very cool and far more than I could do (or more importantly, as you say, even come up with).

FarhadG 13y ago
Good idea! I'll pass it onto him.

Cyph0n 13y ago

Hacking reality is the toughest type of hacking I think. Kudos to your roommate and I hope he achieves his dream.

colechristensen 13y ago
No it isn't. You aren't a very good hacker if you can hack in only a tiny subset of the world.

primitivesuave 13y ago

Really beautiful piece on the mind of a maker.

FarhadG 13y ago
I appreciate that!

hobs 13y ago

I always respect someone who can look at a block of marble, and see Venus underneath it all. Great article!

bambax 13y ago
Can't remember who said that sculpting is easy, you just need to remove all the excess marble. (Michelangelo?) Some other guy said design is editing: it's about removing all the ugliness so that only beauty remains.

morgante 13y ago

Wow, that's awesome. I only wish I had anywhere near that capacity. Unfortunately, I think my developer mindset actually makes physical hacking a lot harder due to 2 phenomena: 1. Code is cheap. Materials are not. I'm used to being able to churn out additional code with basically no cost to get things done, not to repurposing existing code (this is different from refactoring to abstractions). 2. Laziness is a quality in software development, but a major obstacle in physical development. I'll quickly abandon physical projects because I can't find an optimally efficient hack to finish things in minimal time.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
specialist 13y ago
As a software dev remodeling my house, I agree. It's been very hard to accept that all these learning projects are going to be redone three times, just like how I treat software. I'm wasting wood! OMG! But I've made progress. Watching contractors has helped. I was astonished how much they waste, treat things as disposable. My father (a hardware guy) certainly would not have approved. I'm framing a new closet with bypass sliding doors. I really have no idea what I'm doing. I knocked apart the first two attempts and hope the third works better. And I'm now okay with it. It's been kinda fun.
- dethstar 13y ago
  When i was taking my first programming related class, algorithms, the teacher told us we were like architechts, there shouldnt be errors/failures. Is it accepted for them to say: whoops building fell, guess i'll rebuild it? While software can't be perfect, it has to be as flawless as possible. Code isn't cheap, it takes time. Who knows what else you could've built/made/learnt instead of fixing something cuz it costs "nothing"
  - morgante 13y ago
    > When i was taking my first programming related class, algorithms, the teacher told us we were like architechts, there shouldnt be errors/failures. Is it accepted for them to say: whoops building fell, guess i'll rebuild it? That's an absolutely terrible approach to software development. You can test a program as many times as you want before releasing it, but there's no equivalent iterative process for making a house. If you develop with that attitude, you'll never get anything of real value done. After all, "le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."

eyeareque 13y ago

In third world countries I am always so amazed at what people come up with when building things. When I set out to start a project it usually involves making a list, and then going to Lowes or Home Depot (hardware stores). People who don't have that luxury just repurpose other things, and usually always does the job for them. My friends in another country actually seem to enjoy their hack-together process very much.

kamaal 13y ago
In my previous company there was a guy who used to run a tea stall. The entire stall was a extreme model of furniture hacking. Not sure where he got his ideas from. His front door could be turned into a cash register + counter + door at the same time. The store was full of furniture hacks.
renang 13y ago
While on topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5WuIUWlNvg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5WuIUWlNvg

jroseattle 13y ago

My son is this way (I wouldn't call him genius, but his aptitude to seeing potential solutions is astounding.) It's being able to see a solution from existing pieces, requiring visualization and great spatial reasoning. I'm not sure it can be learned; there is something about it that's quite innate to a person.

dshefchik 13y ago
I think the problem is that it is unlearned too easily. Being forced to modify your thinking to succeed in school or the workforce is what stifles this kind of creativity. I feel like I used to have gifts like that, but somehow lost it along the way
- jroseattle 13y ago
  Great point. We constantly challenge him to find solutions from things that aren't obvious, pushing him to be resourceful. You're right about the environment. Creativity often isn't well-aligned with traditional learning patterns.
DigitalJack 13y ago
I think it's more along the lines of imagining what it is you want, and then finding things around you that are close enough to work. At least that is how it works for me most of the time. Although I guess I do take direct inspiration from the things themselves sometimes.
starky 13y ago
I would say that some of the spacial reasoning ability is innate to a person, and will determine how easy it is for the person to learn to solve physical problems. Past this, a lot of the ability comes from having seen similar concepts before and being able to create an elegant solution from them. When I solve problems like this I typically get a vague sort of vision of what the final solution is going to look like in my head (possibly the innate part). Then I take all the little things I know about and slowly build up something that will perform the action I want. After which it becomes a task of optimization by combining and changing things until the final solution falls out (the experience part). When you have 2 or 3 people working on the same problem using this process some really special things often come out of it.

pnathan 13y ago

Respect. You see some of this sort of thing from the blue collar part of society in the US - "yankee ingenuity" is what it sometimes gets called here. This is an essay by Tom Wolfe about Noyce and Intel that has similar overtones: http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html http://www.stanford.edu/class/e140/e140a/content/noyce.html

lowkeykiwi 13y ago
It's called 'Kiwi ingenuity' in New Zealand.
FarhadG 13y ago
Awesome! Thanks for the article!
alaskamiller 13y ago
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/rocket-city-rednecks/ http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/rocket-city-re...

dshefchik 13y ago

I want to hire this guy

ganzolo 13y ago

The guy creativity is good, but sleeping/eating/working in the bed is a terrible idea. Moreover he is using a projector, meaning the needs to be in the dark...

MindTwister 13y ago
Well, he is a student...

roozbeh18 13y ago

it's amazing how limited we get as we have more things at our disposal. I remember coding basic as a kid and for hours i could come up with cool ideas and functioning programs. now all i think about is how to optimize and make things run faster by following codes already written by someone else! kudos to him..

merkitt 13y ago

He's a MacGyver. I wonder what he'll build if he is unleashed on a large American junk yard.

creativityland 13y ago

Really enjoyed reading this. Really hope this type of posts make to the frontpage more often.

jianshen 13y ago

This is a refreshing reminder to dig deeper. I'm always waiting for the right tool to come around to do the job (cheap hi-res 3d printing for example) but sometimes a good enough solution just might be sitting in front of you. Thanks for this!

autarch 13y ago

What I'd really love is to hear some of the music he's written.

FarhadG 13y ago
You would be amazed! He held a concert at the Beijing University and we were all inspired.

ratsimihah 13y ago

It's well known music and math are intrinsically related. Apparently, music and engineering are as well.

natmaster 13y ago

Please fix your website so I can read your article. There is no scroll bar.

hrjet 13y ago
I can see a scroll-bar but no text (javascript disabled here). What a naive way to design a website! I wouldn't be so snarky if this was a one-off instance. Sadly, this trend is catching up. Edit: Cut down the snarkiness. The OP's openness to criticism is appreciated.
- FarhadG 13y ago
  Will do... Thanks for the suggestion.
  - kaybe 13y ago
    HTTPSeverywhere (ff-plugin) killed it for me, no text but a scrollbar. After disabling - no scrollbar but text.
- Hellenion 13y ago
  The page source is still readable if you need a quick fix, unlike most other "requires javascript" sites.
Groxx 13y ago
I don't see the connection between reading and scroll bars. Are you unable to scroll without a scroll bar (a possibility, but many keys work well too)?
- tremendo 13y ago
  > but many keys work well too For me they don't, not the arrow keys, not PgDn or PgUp, not Vimium compatible (j,k,g,d,u), and since no scrollbar to click only the scroll-wheel allowed me to see the rest of the article. (Chromium 30.0.1599.114 on Ubuntu 13.04)

tzs 13y ago

That is far more impressive than my one attempt at modifying my bed, which no one would attach the word "genius" to...the most likely word I would have earned was "special". I was living in a small rectangular room at Caltech, with the door on one of the short sides and a window and radiator on the other short side. My bed was a rectangular framework that the mattress sat on top of. The long sides of the bed were parallel to the long sides of the room, said orientation being forced by the narrowness of the room. The pillow side of the bed was toward the window and radiator. I decided I'd rather sleep with my feet on that side and my head on the other side. One afternoon, I set about reorienting the bed to accomplish this. Because of the narrowness of the room, both horizontally and vertically, it was quite a challenge to flip the bed around, but after quite a struggle I accomplished it. While I was doing this, a small crowd had gathered to watch (but not help...the bastards). After I finished, the spectators pointed out that the bed frame and mattress were symmetrical, and the sleeping orientation was determined entirely by what side you tucked the sheets under and where you put the pillow. Flipping the sleeping orientation would have taken a normal person 10 seconds. Doh!

pestaa 13y ago
I was looking forward to this very happy ending.
gohrt 13y ago
Your way didn't require you remove the sheets and remake the bed. Your way wins.
- icebraining 13y ago
  Obligatory: http://assets.amuniversal.com/668fea605e0a012ee3bf00163e41dd5b http://assets.amuniversal.com/668fea605e0a012ee3bf00163e41dd...
jasonkester 13y ago
While we're on Dorm Room Modification stories... A buddy of mine lived in one of those extra cheap campus dorms where each room is a mirror image of itself with a bed and desk against each wall with a bookshelf bolted to the wall above. I was hanging out on the evening when he decided to take down one of the bookshelves. I never got a chance to ask quite why he was unbolting the thing from the wall, because no sooner had he removed the 3rd bolt than there was this enormulous crashing disaster in the room next door. Sure enough, glancing across at the opposite wall, the bookshelf on that side had a washer and a nut threaded onto the end of a bolt.

coenhyde 13y ago

Yeah the dude is smart and creative. But for all you HN fellows who find this so impressive, you must not have much creativity of your own. Or more likely I suspect you've never had the freedom to experiment like this.

uniclaude 13y ago

Some responses in this thread surprise me, I thought the mindset exposed in this article was something most hackers shared. Therefore, after reading the post, I expected a bunch of mildly negative comments of people who built a lot of awesome things in their spare time. Well, I was wrong. Anecdotal but surprising, my fellow musician friends are more prone to what I believe to be the hacker thinking than most of the software programmers I work with. Maybe it is because of some unfortunate psychological barrier, or the result of a strong focus on computer related things and discard for the rest, I honestly don't know. Anyways, what this roommate did is super cool, and I'd suggest everyone here to start hacking outside of their comfort zone, it can be very rewarding for some. Building things feels great, and being able to apply your hacker thinking to various things is a very useful skill to have.

purringmeow 13y ago
I had pretty serious musical training that lasted for a few years. Anyways, my teachers were crazy imaginative. They would also build stuff from what looked like scraps - insulated and strengthened jacks, book shelves, studio monitor stands, etc, etc. I wonder what makes them tick like this!
- jwmc 13y ago
  I've never had serious musical training, but I've spent a lot of time picking tunes with old folkies. A lot of those guys are absolutely the same when it comes to this sort of creativity, and I picked up a lot of advice that I like to think has stuck with me ever since. I remember I was nervous as hell when I'd just started heading along to jams - here was me, having learned a bit about scales and a few chords, yet wondering how I could ever contribute to the wonderful sounds this group was creating. It was an old gentleman in his 70s who just turned around, saw me sat there overwhelmed, trying to figure out what was going on, and said "We've got seven notes in a scale, and most of these tunes'll barely use half of 'em!". Music, at its heart, is the ultimate in making do with what you have - I just think that folkies are more likely to admit it!
  - 13y ago

nzealand 13y ago

Very cool. But did he extend your bed to make you happy, or to score those free extra parts? I suppose I will have to go to my grave never knowing for sure. Although it looks like your bed is a little saggy, right in the lumbar...

robmcm 13y ago

Someone isn't getting their deposit back.

hanief 13y ago

jarang-jarang indonesian featured on HN.

rilut 13y ago
yoi sob gue juga kaget
gusif 13y ago
tapi namanya Zhang. Ga terlalu indonesia.

travoltaj 13y ago

Whatever happened to scrollbars?

Kliment 13y ago

Reminds me of a project I built this spring: http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF http://imgur.com/a/HLbWF

aneeskA 13y ago

This is truly inspirational. You could have added the photo of the genius along with this post.

k4rthik 13y ago

This reminds me of an old video of a student's room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmuVD0X-fEE

vinceguidry 13y ago

I used to have an apartment where the heat didn't really work. I could run it all day and it'd still be freezing inside. Rather than fight it I just shut the heat off and went to get a space heater. Well the room was open so even sitting right next to it didn't really cut it. So I went to Lowes and got a bunch of PVC pipe and angle couplings. I built a 5x5x6ft enclosure and threw a bunch of blankets/sheets on it to make a little room inside a room to hold my desk, me and my space heater. I was nice and comfy all winter. Another time I needed a desk for my computer and didn't have much money to work with. This was around the time that whole "FedEx box furniture" thing hit the Internet. I worked at a little pack-and-ship place and we had a bunch of extra UPS boxes so I nabbed them and some tape and went nuts. It took some tweaking before it would accept the weight of my CRT, but eventually it did.

azatris 13y ago
Thank you for the enclosure idea! Will implement your idea again if I happen to have a ridiculously huge and cold room like I did last year again.

mosselman 13y ago

So he built some stuff in the real world rather than digitally? Wow, that is very worthy of the word 'Genius'. Meanwhile: http://www.instructables.com/ http://www.instructables.com/

jnazario 13y ago

awesome, and great to see TR quoted.

mcherm 13y ago

Now THAT is "Hacker News"!

ArbitraryLimits 13y ago

If he's such a genius, ask him how to leave the scrollbar on your blog.

FarhadG 13y ago
Haha, ok, I'll do so next time :)

dsirijus 13y ago

I would not call his roomate genius in context the article infers. But, noticing extreme lack of interest in modifying your enviroment in a practical way (or lack of perception that your enviroment can be easily improved) amongst the general populace, yeh. He's an outstanding dude. These things tend to be uncommon. It's not genius though. Far from it. Don't devalue genius.

acoyfellow 13y ago
Curious, what or who do you consider to be genius?
- dsirijus 13y ago
  People being able to create accurate and novel mental models of reality of a large scope. And I'm already throwing up a defense stating that rearranging furniture is not that. Added 'of a large scope' in edit to power up my defense. As a side note, I value even more geniuses that make models of the process of modelling. Meta-geniuses, so to speak. Not many of those though. One needs only to see into our progress concerning artificial intelligence to confirm that. EDIT: I'm curious about something else... Sentences starting with "I'm curious" usually present an attack in a form of preparation for the punchline upon the expected answer. Not a general rule, but I'm usually right interpreting them as such in both cyber and real world. Was yours one? What did you think I was to answer? If 'yes', what was the presupposed killer line or were you to improvise? Was it premeditated at all? I am genuinely curious. :)
  - acoyfellow 13y ago
    Sorry if how I wrote seemed like a jab, it was more like a quick thought. It was intended to stir discussion not to pick a fight :) I'm not sure if I even know what it means to be a genius, in literal terms. I use the word "genius" all the time, and your reply made me think about how generously I use it.
  - uniclaude 13y ago
    Not that I dismiss your definition, but it requires me to stretch my mind a lot to see Mozart as someone "able to create accurate and novel mental models of reality of a large scope", so either I don't get it yet, or you wouldn't consider him a genius. About your parent post, maybe the poster was simply trying to start a constructive discussion. It is HN, after all.

rthomas6 13y ago

This reminds me of a few people I knew in college. I think certain people just have a better spatial awareness that lets them hack their physical surroundings, and with my friends it tended to happen a lot with the mechanical engineers. One roommate I had would build custom furniture kind of like this guy, to make the most out of his small room. He had a large television, a couch, a computer desk, a bed, a wardrobe, and a dresser in the same space where I had trouble even having the last 4 things, and he could fit all that in there by his clever use of space aided by custom fixtures that he built out of 2x4s.

gwern 13y ago

I know I'm not a genius, but I've read the whole thing and I still have no idea how the bed was rearranged. Did I miss a diagram or something obvious like that?

nollidge 13y ago
Yeah I don't really get it either.
delluminatus 13y ago
It looks like the bed had spare wood (struts underneath or maybe a larger headboard), and he went ahead and cut (?) the sideboards in half, removed the excess wood from wherever, and added them in the middle of the cut sideboards (like a leaf in a table). I imagine that if the mattress were removed, the modification would become more apparent. Alternatively, a "before" picture would also probably make it more obvious. But, who takes a "before" picture of their bed?

FarhadG 13y ago

My apologies for the poor functionality of the site. I went ahead and threw up a quick theme to help with the disabled JS and no scrollbar issue. Thanks for pointing them out.

MrZongle2 13y ago

Makes me wonder what the roommate could build in a cave with a box of scraps.

mimog 13y ago

Lets stop watering down the genius label. It should require more than a modicum of ingenuity and intellect to be called a genius.

diminoten 13y ago

It's an iterative process, and the guy made a gamble. "Let's just do it the best way possible!" is a great place to start for any project. Only after you hit obstacles should compromise be made. That's all he did. It's awesome, though. Awesome things usually can be described in simple terms.

enthuzer 13y ago

I'm now reading about a systemized approach to this idea in a book called "Inside The Box". It details ways to innovate and create original products/services by narrowing or constraining ones options for solving a problem. I think we are all capable of this type of "genius" and the book's authors describe a simple process for achieving it. http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-Results/dp/1451659253 http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Box-Creativity-Breakthrough-Res...

zem 13y ago

the word "bricolage" fits nicely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage

AsymetricCom 13y ago

So, do you own your apartment or are you cool paying out your deposit for a wardrobe door?

stevewillows 13y ago

This reminds me of a time when Lifehacker was about hacking and not just 'use this software...'. In my family, we had this unspoken contest for the best ways to fix things. My Mom would use coat hangers, toothpicks and glue like they were going out of style. Doesn't help the argument that I have an autographed photo of MacGuyver.[1] [1] http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9 http://imgur.com/1wMDJy9

antidamage 13y ago

Students are very easily impressed.

jakejake 13y ago

I love this kind of ingenuity to modify things. I have to admit in my old age I'm getting a little out of touch and I don't relate very well with crafting your bedroom into living quarters. Though I remember the days of having roommates, no money, and your bedroom is your only personal space. It's cool to take a look at what you have and use it to your advantage.

tomphoolery 13y ago

You're right. That's fucking genius. Talk about a work-from-home desk...

antsam 13y ago

Pretty sure you're living with MacGyver.