@vgr

I’m about 100x more effective in the kitchen than in my workshop or on my computer doing anything other than writing. I wonder why? I don’t think it’s because I’m naturally better at cooking. Some possible factors: - LOTS of received tacit knowledge - Immediate payoff - Larger tolerance band around acceptable output (“edible”) - Default infrastructure is superior and more specialized (eg venting is standard for stoves but not for a typical soldering station) - lots of SKUs but across few categories - Very high visibility - Most mechanical operations are destructive not constructive (chop, grind…) - We typically work within established traditions (cuisines) not trying to invent new things - fewer, more controlled risks (deep frying is probably the most dangerous thing) - Lots of “kits” and semi-finished intermediates available - Very few ops need fine motor skills or craft (cake decoration is the main big one) - All output has the same function: to get eaten - Space has been suitably designed and optimized over millennia - Lack of huge long tails of small quantities of small things (my spice box and rack feature fewer skus than my electronics storage) - highly forgiving “APIs” of ingredients — you can’t use a random new chip without a pinout. You can generally cook most unfamiliar ingredients to tolerable edibility by guessing/tasting. This has only failed once for me (acorn squash)

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