Spend more time away from the screen and meet real people - Coincidentally, this is a use case that I'm about to task OpenClaw with. I'm going to make a personal social events coordinator of sorts where I give it my interests, tell it where it can find local events related to those interests, then let it suggest them as they come up and add them to my calendar. Then I can just show up and do the fun stuff and automate the boring part of finding things to do.

Then spend less time on screens when you're not working. The post says "Go to meetups and events. Offer help. Offer introductions. Learn to be a connector." These are all outside of work activities. Also, these don't have to be tech events. They can be anything, just unplug, get out there, and meet people.

Telling someone they need to learn to be an extrovert to get ahead in a field that people tend to gravitate towards because they are introverts is psychologically quite unsound advice, because personality is quite fixed. I've beaten myself up over my not-get-ahead-able personality enough when I was at college, and have, paradoxically, gotten ahead quite a bit better than the people I knew back then, who did have those model extrovert personalities.

The second reason why I take issue with that line is, as I've said, the fact that few employers allow employees time "on the clock" to do anything at all that's away from screens, and saying "do it in your spare time, then" is adding insult to injury. I have a rich social life, hobbies, and am raising a family. What I'm observing is that this is not helping my career one bit, and that's perfectly fine. Not everything in life needs to be in service of one's career. But this is also the reason, why I do not have time, off the clock, to attend meetups and events.

The third thing I would notice is that it helps your career (again, speaking from a "code monkey" perspective here), less than you'd think. What is going to come out of the chance encounters at meetups and events? Maybe someone wants to hire you. Maybe someone wants to work with you more informally. If you sell your time in 40-hour-per-week blocks, none of this is a business opportunity you can capitalize on. If you're on a job, you've already sold your 40-hour-block, and have nothing left to transact with. If you're off a job, you need a new one, and you need it now, so you need to be more transactionally-minded than just investing time into chance encounters.

Now, there is a separate consideration that may enter into career planning, namely that one might try to evade the 40-hour-per-week payrolled-employee trap, and try to prioritize maximizing hourly rate over yearly compensation and do freelancing. But this sort of consideration, in my mind, is not properly the domain of career advice. Career advice is: "Here is some mistakes you should avoid. Avoiding them is always an option, no matter what your circumstances are, and by avoiding them, you will always have better outcomes." This is not that: It is simply not the case, that everyone can and should be a freelancer.

It's all about perspective and hence your personal experience weights heavily.

Are you in SF? If not, it would be hard to explain how much of an impact geography can have on your success in life.

> The third thing I would notice is that it helps your career (again, speaking from a "code monkey" perspective here), less than you'd think. What is going to come out of the chance encounters at meetups and events?

I'm unsure if you're being facetious - billionaires have been made of people who happened to be at the right place at the right time and you don't get there by staying at home. I mention the billionaires because you can look these up - I'm pretty sure there's a far larger volume of people who made far less.

If you discount the value of chance encounters, you've not yet had the opportunity to realize how random success is. You increase your chances by increasing your chances at random success. This is all probability theory and provable mathematically.

I normally know better than to respond to "career advice", particularly, coming at it from an angle of vulnerability. I think the primary reason I'm doing it is as a service to my younger self (and people in equivalent situations now), which could have been spared quite a bit of heartache, if it had had more people around ready to call bullshit on bad advice.

Moving to SF is only an option for the rich and privileged. Saying no to a solid paycheck that comes with a 40-hour workweek to make space for randomness is for the rich and privileged. Some of us are born rich and privileged, some are not. Some of us are born as extroverts, some as introverts. For some of us, putting off-hours to use for doing more work-related stuff ends up working out, for others it wreaks havoc on our ability to have hobbies, social lives, and families and is a surefire way to destroy happiness (and might still not help our careers).

"Everyone needs to move to SF and start prioritizing hustling over staring at their editors and compilers" is terrible advice. For a sizeable proportion of people it's not an option. For a sizeable proportion of people it's a surefire way to destroy their lives.

As a Netflix subscriber, that would be news to me.

I see it's only a limited selection. I have Band of Brothers, Ballers, and various other HBO shows in my Netflix account.

It’s a good day to be a DR software company or consultant

I believe the implication is that a lot of critical AWS engineers are of Indian descent and are off celebrating today.

junon's implication may be that AWS engineers of Indian descent would tend to be located on the West Coast.

North Virginia has a very large Indian community.

All the schools in the area have days off for Indian Holidays since so many would be out of school otherwise.

This broke in the middle of the day IST did it not? Why would you start waking up people in VA if it’s 3 in the morning there if you don’t have to?

$2 bills aren’t rare at all. You can walk into your local bank and get a stack of them anytime, if you’d like.

Okay, awesome point.

Meanwhile, in my 25 years of living in the US (NJ, SoCal, and NorCal), I can count on one hand the number of times I've come across them "in the wild".

I started collecting them in 2004 by keeping every one I ran into in person and I now have: 3.

They’re mostly used by strip clubs so if that’s not your thing, you’ll rarely see them.

Strip clubs also commonly use 2 dollar bills.

The Venn diagram of things I learn on HN and things I expected to learn on HN has an ever decreasing intersection.

It’s actually pretty simple. Despite what you’re calling unhealthy foods (I’d argue kimchi has health benefits from the fermentation), they have a lower overall caloric intake and societal pressure to conform to a thin appearance. If you want to be skinny eat less calories. If you want to be healthy, eat highly nutritious foods and the right amount of calories for your lifestyle.

I don't think a large proportion of thin people are thin because of societal pressure. And conversely I don't think societal pressure makes many people thin, because I hear so much complaints about body shaming and unrealistic beauty expectations and discrimination against obesity etc, so it clearly isn't working any miracles.

I think most people who are thin just have a food intake regulation that is pretty well balanced so they don't over eat because they don't feel that hungry when they have had enough calories.

The reason why some groups of people have been increasingly prone to obesity is external factors interfering with that regulation. It's probably lots of things, food availability, ingredients, cost, culture, other mental health issues, medications, entertainment, work, availability of cars. One thing it is not is simple.

The calories in vs calories out mechanic is simple, the reasons why that's going out of kilter is not.

Asians dont consume the same amounts of sugars. its that simple. they also tend to exercise more.

Rice syrup + corn syrup are used in pretty much every savory dish, subway stations often have a bakery that sells sweet pastries (filled with bean paste), Starbucks style coffee drinks are also popular, people snack dried octopus (loaded with salt + sugar)...

I loved the food, but it was not at all what anyone would consider healthy.

(Instant Ramen are also extremely popular, industrially produced fried noodles with way too much saturated fats + sodium)

It's total calories, not just calories from sugar. And I already said that part of it was simple, remember? It's in the post you're replying to!

The question is why they have better balanced calorie intake. It's certainly not lack of sugar availability.

I am not sure there is a strong societal pressure to be thin. Last several years, sure. But older generations, nor so much (see deities in any buddist temple). And there was enough time after food became abundant for the older generations health to tank if that diet was very bad for them. My 2c.

I've used this system prompt with a fair amount of success:

You are Claude, an AI assistant optimized for analytical thinking and direct communication. Your responses should reflect the precision and clarity expected in [insert your] contexts.

Tone and Language: Avoid colloquialisms, exclamation points, and overly enthusiastic language Replace phrases like "Great question!" or "I'd be happy to help!" with direct engagement Communicate with the directness of a subject matter expert, not a service assistant

Analytical Approach: Lead with evidence-based reasoning rather than immediate agreement When you identify potential issues or better approaches in user requests, present them directly Structure responses around logical frameworks rather than conversational flow Challenge assumptions when you have substantive grounds to do so

Response Framework

For Requests and Proposals: Evaluate the underlying problem before accepting the proposed solution Identify constraints, trade-offs, and alternative approaches Present your analysis first, then address the specific request When you disagree with an approach, explain your reasoning and propose alternatives

What This Means in Practice

Instead of: "That's an interesting approach! Let me help you implement it." Use: "I see several potential issues with this approach. Here's my analysis of the trade-offs and an alternative that might better address your core requirements." Instead of: "Great idea! Here are some ways to make it even better!" Use: "This approach has merit in X context, but I'd recommend considering Y approach because it better addresses the scalability requirements you mentioned." Your goal is to be a trusted advisor who provides honest, analytical feedback rather than an accommodating assistant who simply executes requests.

You’re mistaking forefoot striking with toe walking. Having known someone that toe walks, it literally means they walk around on the balls of their feet, not just land on them first when they take a step. If you stand up, raise yourself on the the balls on your feet and then walk around without your heel ever touching the ground, that’s toe walking.

Incidentally(?) the only person I’ve ever seen do this was clearly neurodivergent.

YC is first and foremost a startup accelerator so it makes sense that entrepreneurship would be part of the discussion that people here are interested in.