Explain it to me like I'm ten (timharford.com)
37 points by bookofjoe 3 hours ago
FinnLobsien 2 hours ago
I think constraints essentially force you to reevaluate the thing from base principles because you add a condition that’s incompatible with the default way of doing things.
I think this is also why hackathons work: You can’t afford the bikeshedding we often do to avoid the hard work because you need to ship something by a deadline 1/500th of most of your normal deadlines, so all of your effort is concentrated into what moves the core work forward.
What gets proven in hackathons often become features, products, or companies later - even if they’re things that would be ruled out in any planning meeting because they seem too hard/laborious.
hny6epwg93 2 hours ago
I disagree but respect the reasoning
01284a7e 2 hours ago
"fusillades of acronyms"...
Fusillades? No ten year old knows that word.
rpdillon 2 hours ago
The blog post isn't directed at 10-year-olds. In fact, you're pulling a phrase from a paragraph that's describing exactly how you should not speak when talking to a 10-year-old.
> The simplest constraint for anyone trying to explain a complex topic is to accept the request to “explain it to me like I’m 10 years old”. What’s packed into that request is, vividly exaggerated, the reminder that what seems obvious to an expert is often incomprehensible to the listener. Technical jargon and fusillades of acronyms are often used to convey an explanation that has been denuded of all the foundations and context that might allow it to make sense.
01284a7e 2 hours ago
My point stands. The author can't explain explaining it like I'm ten like I'm ten.
nemosaltat 2 hours ago
AnimalMuppet 2 hours ago
atoav 2 hours ago
Chris2048 an hour ago
rzzzt 2 hours ago
It's when multiple soldiers are ordered to fire their guns very quickly, either everyone at once or one after another.
thaumasiotes 33 minutes ago
> No ten year old knows that word.
Why would you think that?
esikich 14 minutes ago
Because they pretty much just learned to read?
vova_hn2 an hour ago
I think that the author is doing it deliberately, to put the reader in the shoes of someone who has a hard time understanding some of the words, and reinforce his point.
As a non-native English speaker there are 4 words in this article that I had to look up, which is significantly higher than a typical article from HN frontpage (usually it's 0, occasionally 1).
If anyone curious, the words are: pellucid, fusillades, pram (idk, why I never heard it. I knew the word "stroller", of course, but I never thought about different kinds of strollers), octogenarian (this one I could have guessed from Latin roots and context, was lazy).
hn_go_brrrrr an hour ago
Pram is common in British English. I'm guessing you learned US English, which doesn't use it.
pm215 10 minutes ago
KineticLensman an hour ago
thaumasiotes 32 minutes ago
nemosaltat 2 hours ago
Indeed, TFA isn’t exactly pellucid
ranger_danger 2 hours ago
I don't think the article itself was intended to be written for a 10-year-old to understand it.
nemosaltat 2 hours ago
Neither did the author
> If you are reading this column you definitely aren’t a typical 10-year-old, but the image of the bewildered 10-year-old gives the expert an anchor to help them slow down and simplify [0]
[0] TFA