49 replies
2d6h
The headline belies the scope of this task. If you click in to see what these are: - one is a full course in convolutional neural networks https://cs231n.github.io/ - one is a 500 page text book https://www.lirmm.fr/~ashen/kolmbook-eng-scan.pdf - another one is an 80 page text book (?) https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0406077
and so on.
I would guess it is possible to go through this list if you make it your full time job for a year or so. That might be worth it depending on your priorities. Regardless, it bears mentioning.
Reportedly, Carmack did it an a week by locking himself in an hotel room
Ah, the freedoms of not having any other responsibilities.
If you can't take a single week off of work during an entire year in order to advance your career, then you're satisfied with your current one.
There is no need to direct negativity toward others for making time to learn. Carmack is in this position today because of such work ethic, not in spite of it.
What a strangely narrow way of looking at this.
Work isn’t the only responsibility.
What is the correlation between taking a week away from responsibilities - work, family, etc. - and job satisfaction?
I assumed someone would retort with this angle, but I hoped people would interpret my comment charitably without me littering it with a dozen caveats.
Of course work isn't the only responsibility.
Of course some people have kids, pets, parents, medical conditions, etc.
It's one week away from work. It can still be done. You weren't going to be taking care of any other responsibilities during your normal 9-5 hours, so that should have no bearing on the week you take off; treat it as any other work week, except you're working for yourself.
I think you didn't read the parents carefully. The comment being replied to is not about 9-5 hours, it's about "locking yourself into a hotel for week", and if you have kids, this is not exactly a healthy thing to do in the face of other responsibilities. That's the point being made here, and you are changing the goal posts.
I'm not moving goalposts. The commenter tried to assert that only someone without "any other responsibilities" gets to spend a week learning something. It doesn't have to be in a hotel room. It doesn't have to be a week. It can be two, three, four weeks. Those are all implementation details.
The negative sentiment itself is what I addressed. Everyone fortunate enough to have internet access, a computer and a functional brain/body can make time, if they really want to, to learn new things that benefit their long term goals.
That's what I mean -- you didn't read the parents carefully. The commenter (me) made that reply to this:
Everyone can and should spend time learning, but the little point being made was that locking yourself in a hotel room is not something most people can do due to responsibilities. Somehow you changed this into your more general statement "spending a week learning something."
Because the hotel is an implementation detail.
Spoken like someone without common life responsibilities.
Spoken like someone who casts judgement and makes assumptions before considering that different people have different priorities.
It's downright silly to claim that I have no life responsibilities because I prioritize setting aside time for self-growth and encourage others to do the same.
Open your mind a little bit and ponder why you feel compelled to have such a negative and dismissive attitude about this.
You are getting this reaction from people because of the judgmental tone you took in your original comment:
It’s a pretentious remark, saturated in lofty assumptions about people, and you could learn from these reactions.
Edit: I just noticed your username, “soul of mischief“, and now it makes sense to me. Are you trolling?
I don't find that pretentious at all. What I'm conveying is that we have the Things We Think We Want and the Things We Actually Want. The former live in our minds, the latter are actually realized through our everyday actions and choices.
It's against the rules of Hacker News to assume bad faith. I certainly am not arguing in bad faith, nor do I intend to make anyone feel bad for the sake of it.
I purposefully wrote an abrasive comment in order to stoke the minds of others and make them think inwardly. There was one time in my life where I also needed to hear those exact words. That no matter what adversity I face, I must make times for the things I really care about.
I must constantly re-evaluate what drives me and check to make sure I'm not letting life pass by without achieving at least some of my goals. I must not make excuses, and I must not make excuses for others. I must not be negative toward those who are in a better station of life.
As for my username, it is derived from a popular hip hop group, Souls of Mischief, who are part of the larger Oakland set, Hieroglyphics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXJc2NYwHjw
"You weren't going to be taking care of any other responsibilities during your normal 9-5 hours, so that should have no bearing on the week you take off;"
Have you ever been married, had kids, etc? Pretty much any time I take off of work, it involves catching up on projects, chores, or parental responsibilities during the day. It seems the vast majority of people I've spoken to tell of similar situations.
Well, I have specifically avoided having kids at this stage in my life so that I may climb out of the poverty class first. I'm one abortion deep already. I was not as fortunate as 99% of the people in this little isolated corner of the internet.
I was homeless from 16 to my early 20s. I suffer from multiple traumas, both physical and mental. I have ADHD and bipolar disorder. I've had sciatica, degenerative disc disease, gout and other issues since my teens. Most days I can barely walk. When I do have kids, I'm not going to get to be the dad I want to be, running around and playing with them. My parents are abusive drug addicts who were not present in my life, so I was raised by other extremely abusive people instead, who kicked me out into the streets for being atheist. So malnourished as a child that my friends would make fun of being able to see the bones in my face and body. I spent years living homeless on scraps of food.
I have to advance my career. Every single thing is stacked against me, trying to make me fail. I don't get the luxury of deciding if I want to take a week off to do so. It's a matter of survival, and I have very purposefully structured my life in such a way that I have a shot in hell at one day raising a child above the poverty line.
Believe me, this is not a matter of me not empathizing with others or understanding the complexities of life. It's a matter of prioritization and commitment. If I can make time to learn, anyone can.
And on top of all of that, I do in fact have to provide for my sister and her four young, expensive children, because she doesn't have anyone either. I don't get much free time, man.
I'm sorry you had to go through all of this. I think your bias is your responsibility is 100% financial so is aligned with always spending more time for your career. For most people financial/career responsibility is only a part, ignoring the rest is as impossible as you putting your career aside.
That's a good point. I do experience the boundaries, I spent the majority of the last 8 years alone and was solely focused on work and hobbies. It was a very productive time for me. Now that I'm in a longer-term relationship again, my productivity has seen a major reduction. It's exacerbated by the fact that I am extremely productivity-focused, but my significant other wants to relax in her free time.
I'm still learning where I should set boundaries on both sides of the field, and this will probably be something I continue to struggle with for some time.
If one cannot disappear for a week to think or study he is putting himself at some serious life disadvantage. My 2c.
I do not mean telling family that I am disappearing for a week starting tomorrow, but that I want to disappear for a week in a couple of months and the family would cover responsibilities for me (I should be willing to reciprocate).
Realistically most people just don't have the resources for this sort of thing. It's not necessarily a matter of want but a limitation of needs. Assuming one has a family that could cover, they would still have a job with responsibilities. Not everyone can afford to risk termination or go without a paycheck for a week even if it's the most intelligent option.
Most people in the field have PTO. Some people take PTO and travel, others play video games, Carmac has locked himself in a hotel room to work on projects pretty regularly since he was younger.
Many people have a lot more flexibility than they let on. They just make excuses instead of acknowledging their own priorities and commitments or lack of actual interest in change and work.
I agree. We travel for work and disappear for a week. I've disappeared for 4-5 days to party with friends and my wife and kids have been fine with it. Obviously the work travel I don't control much. The party part - I'd be getting some serious conversations if it was happening every month. However, if it was to improve my career prospects I don't think anyone will hit much resistance. I mean provided you use the time well and don't get into a space of watching youtube clips of Dune 2.
So far, my 2 years of retirement are an experiment in discretionary time. I'm married but no children or pets in the house. So I have lots of leeway in what I do every day. Maybe I average 1-2 hours of responsible time. And there are constraints - health, energy, lack of ambition, family travel, Internet distractions etc.
But in general I can do what I want. This month, it's been relearning awk to do financial data analysis and reading the books of a British author, Diana Athill.
I'll say that my personal project satisfaction level is medium. Life satisfication has a major social component that provides meaning, though. Optimizing for both isn't necessarily easy even in retirement.
Sometimes it's nice to take a week off to do things like going outside.
Disappearing into a hotel for a week and locking yourself in is quite a bit different than "taking a week off."
I'm going to guess you don't have kids.
you think john carmack has fewer responsibilites than you? while you’ve wasted enough time on here to rack up 15k karma?
Yes. His kid is an adult now and he is reportedly single now too so that makes it a lot easier to do this. The daily life of a family is a large time-consuming responsibility and many can’t lock themselves into a hotel for a week for that simple reason.
If you're feeling unable to learn, have an honest conversation with your family about your career and your interests. They may be more willing to support you than you think. Just as you'd do the same for them so they could achieve something important to them.
Tony Stark was able to do it in a cave with a box of scraps.
Maria Hill: When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?
Tony Stark: Last night.
The Avengers (2012)
That is nothing..Sam Altman did it, on his way to this podcast... https://youtu.be/4gASfaRWe7s
On Hackernews some people don’t even do it at all, they just know.
We do it by reading a thread of such insightful comments that our third eyes are instantly opened.
If he could've done it in a week then he didn't really need to do it at all.
Sometimes you have pretty much all the prerequisite knowledge but are still missing a crucial piece that would help you "piece it together" and make a significant advance.
Yup, prerequisites is all you need. I can go through any course of study in a week as long as I'd mastered it before.
I don't think that's true, thinking back to university, if I 'locked myself in a hotel room' and did nothing but study a given topic, I reckon you could get a decent grasp of more than one lecture course.
Of course not being able to ask someone any questions would be disadvantage (but is that even a 'rule' of this scenario? Surely at least the internet is allowed, i.e. a person to ask who's available to anyone), and it would have been a lot easier while at university than with X years' rust on the background maths etc. - but still, seven full days is a lot of time if you choose to completely dedicate it to some particular thing, we just generally don't do that, so it doesn't sound it.
If he really did it in a week, why hasn't anything come out of his AGI startup yet, two years later? Maybe it wasn't as easy as he seemed to imply, despite his towering intellect.
Anyone can read an absurd amount of text in a week. To absorb and understand it all is a different matter entirely.
Seems more likely to me that Carmack simply convinced himself he'd understood it all. He does seem to think very highly of himself.
I would generally agree. Another point could be that even if you understand something, executing on something can still be hard, especially when trying to push beyond existing limits or implementing something complex.
The guy did pioneer 3D gaming, improve linux networking in the process (to support his games), build vertically landing, reusable rockets years before SpaceX's and play a pivotal role in modern VR.
I would not bet against his understanding on technical topics where he's done a serious deep dive. Also it was more than a year, not just a week.
How hard can it be? It's only 30 papers.
Maybe someone should ask Chuck Norris how long it took him. Who wants to go first?
Chuck Norris ghostwrote those papers while on a motorcycle tour of Brazil.
Must be a hell of a hotel room, I should visit.
Did he say that? It’s not in the original interview: https://dallasinnovates.com/exclusive-qa-john-carmacks-diffe...
Almost forgot about how Carmack is the one that will give the world AGI...Easy to take the eyes of the ball with all these OpenAI and Google distractions...
Carmack says the darndest things.
I wasn't aware of the Kolmogorov complexity book; it seems great, I'll be devouring this soon!
I will also. I heard a lecture on Kolmogorov complexity at an AI conference (perhaps AAAI IN Austin in 1984?) and it forever changed my view on complexity and patterns in data.
Sounds like a good MSc program
FWIW, Ilya's recommendation for Kolmogorov book in the Arc viewer is "PAGE 434 onward", which lands on the last chapter "Algorithmic Statistics" (p.425 in the book). Appendix 1 starts on p.455 ...