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• after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:5, Interesting)

  by hfb (74)

  I don't think there is a "Work Smarter" solution because the madness of ego and whatever else goes into making you work for free like that is likely an affliction that has no intelligence. Thankfully, the dog only occasionally got jealous of the laptops getting all the attention.

  There are times that I think that some day, in the not terribly distant future, we're going to look back and wonder what the hell we were smoking to have burnt the prime of our lives on something so unimportant in the grand scheme
  • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gnat (29)

    There are times that I think that some day, in the not terribly distant future, we're going to look back and wonder what the hell we were smoking to have burnt the prime of our lives on something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

    Well, yes! The whole reason your contributions (and those of other people like Jarkko and you) are noteworthy are because they're exceptional--disproportionate to the norm, the commonly-accepted right amount of effort for the benefits. When you move on in your lif
    • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hfb (74) on 2003.09.30 11:29 (#24582) Homepage Journal

      I think Twain was a bit more grounded in reality :)

      "Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion."

      Progress is getting past folly in your youth.

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      • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by jordan (120)

        • Progress is getting past folly in your youth.

        Since we're in the quoting mood, I think that these lines from a nice poem ("Berryman," by W.S. Merwin, from Flower & Hand (Copper Canyon Press).) featured today on Garrison Keillor's excellent Writer's Almanac [writersalmanac.org] are appropriate:

        don't lose your arrogance yet he said
        you can do that when you're older
        lose it too soon and you may
        merely replace it with vanity

        It may be arrogant to assume, in the great scheme of things, that any progress is being made, but pleas
        • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by hfb (74) on 2003.09.30 16:32 (#24587) Homepage Journal

          "There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it." -- Twain

          One must assume that progress is being made lest we be reminded that meaning and meaninfulness are vastly different things as we stand tired and alone holding an empty cup. I like Mr. Twain not only because he is a Missourian like myself and Give 'em Hell Harry, but also because he doesn't sugarcoat reality. I like W.S. Merwin but he's a bit too flowery for my taste and my pondering more than 3 years to the chipper for something that, in internet time, will be all but forgotten in the blink of an eye. Pity we aren't stone masons.

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          • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:2)

            by pudge (1)

            Twain is great, but he was not nearly as cynical as he liked people to think he was.
        • Re:after 3+ years of 12+ hour days... (Score:3, Interesting)

          by rafael (2125)

          Let the old chaps be wise, and the arrogant youth accomplish great things :)

          Quoting mood continued :

          Je n'ai pas besoin de m'occuper de ce que je ferai plus tard. Je devais faire ce que je fais. Je n'ai pas besoin de découvrir quelles choses je découvrirai plus tard. Dans la nouvelle science, chaque chose vient à son tour, telle est son excellence. -- Isidore Ducasse, comte de Lautréamont, Poésies II.

          (Free translation : I don't need to care about what I will do later. I