alecbenzer

My N is low, they were both non-Bay (NYC) startups, maybe some startups are fun, maybe I'm really bad at picking startups, but I think a startup's culture is often as much or more of a crapshoot than the startup's business.

Was at Google before, and it was fun for only a bit as well, but definitely not as actively non-fun as my last 3 years has been.

> Once he asked me "Father, what is this thing in the list of things I can order?" ... "This is atomic bomb" .. "Oh, I want to order it" .. "No, we don't even have it researched" .. "But, why is it in the list then, it doesn't make sense" ... "Hmm, you are right, it doesn't, I might actually fix that." So I opened Factorio source code after a long time, and made the change, that the filter and logistic request selections didn't contain things yet to be researched (unless you force-unlock it in the settings). I made a change to Factorio, and it felt good, and I started to want more, this is how I got from the lowest point.

He didn't get back into it because the problem was particularly meaty or interesting to work on. It was a small piece of work that nonetheless allowed him to feel like he had impact. Because he was connecting with someone who was actually engaging with and getting joy from what he was building (and it might have helped that the person was his son).

I guess it's possible that what initially put him into the burnout was working on tedious things that felt like they had no substantial impact (though nothing in the post really indicates that IMO). But, that doesn't mean that this isn't burnout. Burnout is exactly caused by a felt loss of control and/or impact.

I haven't thought about this too deeply, but I think "simple" is overstating it. Being able to turn on versioning for any table by basically just pushing a button seems really powerful.

There's application-layer stuff like paper_trail for rails that can do this for you, but you're stuck if your language doesn't have a good one.

Building it into the db also means that any out-of-band direct edits to the DB also get tracked.

Can you expand more on this? I think this is where the author would disagree.

E.g., how is the code easier to reason about or refactor having introduced a location service interface that has only one one implementation?

I guess it's possible to suggest that, given the lack of diversity in training sets, different training techniques should be adopted to account for it. Is that actually a viable approach that people are suggesting, and LeCun is ignoring/downplaying?

But ditto, I've lost 50lbs twice in my life and both times were basically just via calorie counting.

Moving around elements doesn't seem like a fair thing to compare to navigating around the app... that's more like looking at how smooth text editing feels in Hey.

I think it does take time, though, like between 1 week and 1 month of daily practice, to start noticing the effects.

> These might sound like reasonable claims, but they imply a dichotomy between emotions and reason, and the superiority of ‘rational’ responses to distress. This idea derives not from traditional mindfulness but from liberal Western ideals. Historically, these ideals have served to undermine oppressed groups, as anger and resistance is perceived as irrational.

The article's commentary here seems out-of-touch with most mindfulness instruction I've experienced. It's usually emphasized to notice things in as non-judgmental a way as possible; you're definitely not encouraged to label anger or any other emotion as "irrational".

Mindfulness does give you the freedom to choose. It wouldn't be freedom to choose if the choice was always to ignore anger: sometimes anger is useful, other times it isn't; mindfulness helps you notice that and act accordingly.

I'm not sure I buy this. I suppose it's true that being better able to tolerate unpleasant situations does mean you might put up with them for longer. And while meditating, yes, the goal is to not react to things you're feeling.

But for me, a big benefit of mindfulness is more clarity on where my emotions are coming from. I'd sometimes feel tense, or upset, or nervous, but couldn't even really notice I was feeling that way, let alone why I was feeling that way.

I think clarity there generally helps people change their conditions more than it urges them to just accept them.

Some people like to very carefully craft an experience on their own and some people are happy to have someone else do that.

But what's weird is this sense of anger at products that aren't as flexible. It's like being upset that a new restaurant opened up because they have a set menu and don't let you make your own food. If you like cooking your own meals, great! Keep doing that. This restaurant is for people that want someone else to make a meal for them.

With slack I understand the frustration a little more, since it's something an entire company is going to be using and asking you to use.

But I still think it's a cool product and luckily I won't have to hear Jason Fried talk while using it.