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A comment on The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-driving car. Parent comment

Re:The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-dr... by kbenson on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @11:59AM (#10745549)
There have been people in my past that wanted to start a project that I didn't think they were capable of finishing, because either it was too large, they didn't have the skills/smarts (not that I thought they were stupid, just that I thought it would take exceptional intelligence), or both. A few of them succeeded, either in the original task, or the effort and journey was well worth the price paid.

Part of this was hubris. The thought of someone I considered less capable than myself accomplishing something I felt I could not damaged my ego. This was humbling.

Part of this was experience. The experience to know that attempting the hard or impossible is sometimes worth the effort, whether you succeed or not. This was educational.

Part of this was ambition. Ambition to do something new, to ignore the naysayers and noways when needed, and forge your own path, which I've always felt short on, but have steadily worked on over time. This is ongoing.

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Re:The first person to hack the iPhone is building a self-dr... by webjprgm on Wednesday December 16, 2015 @12:55PM (#10745933)
Another part of my problem is that I have too many projects I want to do. Learning about AI is one example, but I've instead done a series of web and mobile apps which are much closer to success. It would take a lot of time to read all the AI research and become good enough to tackle a problem like self-driving cars, and I've only got my spare time at home, with which I must also make sure my wife remains happy (ignoring her seems to make her unhappy for some reason) and keep my sanity (read fiction or play a video game some times) and take care of my house (the lawn just won't stay mowed).

I do remember being about 19 and thinking I was the best programmer in the world. By about 22 I had rewritten as much of my old code as I possibly could because it was so horrible. Somewhere between there and now I've gotten a cynical bit of humility to tamper my ego. I think the cynical part is that my ambition has not lessened, just my belief that I can succeed.

One Steve Jobs philosophy is focus and say no. I'm guessing I could do better if I said no to all but a single project.

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