Stepping back to understand deeper context and underlying motivation is important because people are notoriously bad at predicting what they want.
Author: Nitesh Gautam
On Learning Chess as an Adult – From 650 to 1750 in Two Years
On making right decisions
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
Source: Quote by Terry Pratchett: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes re…”
Talking, Typing, Thinking: Software Is Not a Desk Job
Developers over-optimise for the ergonomics of typing and not enough for the ergonomics of thinking.
Source: Talking, Typing, Thinking: Software Is Not a Desk Job – Daniel Fone
On winning battles
People are willing to pay to stand out, even when there is no obvious benefit. This is universal.
Source: How Discord Won – Ian Vanagas