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Comment by saeranv | Hacker News Reader

Why not integrate new things to learn with a fun side project?

coming up with side projects is difficult.

Yeah, this is my problem as well. I have a really hard time coming up with ideas for a good side project, and then when I do, half the time I find out someone already implemented something like that and it feels like I'm just pointlessly reinventing the wheel.

I think I need to do a better job of reminding myself that it's not pointless as long as I learn something.

Another reason it's not pointless is that diversity breeds resilience. Perhaps your implementation will sidestep some issue the pre-existing ones have or perhaps it will just appeal more to some people's workflow (likely yours at the very least!)

What worked for me was finding a civic problem that was annoying just enough to want to fix, no matter how large it is. You learn a lot from it, but it also gives you a chance to get more involved in civics, particularly from the projects that stem off. Since the motivation is in helping your community out, it gives a little extra motivation and joy. The projects kind of build on themselves since the rabbit holes go so deep.

For example, I'm working on plotting parking tickets in Chicago. Tons of FOIA, lots of data analysis, sanitizing, python, GIS, government induced hair pullings, gnu cli tools, civic meetups, web scraping, etc. Finished this[0] last night using 730k parking tickets after a LOT of cleanup with python. There's no way in hell I would've been able to do this a year ago without stepping into something so deep.

[0] https://plot.ly/~red-bin/6.embed (just

Are you located in Chicago? If so, sounds like your project would fit in perfectly at ChiHackNight: http://chihacknight.org/ I'm guessing that you are already familiar with ChiHackNight, but if not I recommend checking it out.

edit: sorry for the rant!

Yep, I've been there a few times. Meant to go there today, actually. Cool crowd, but I have some general criticisms of the way they do things. I'm almost to the point of thinking that their work is an overall detriment to the city, since there's a strong tendency towards group thought rather than individual exploration. Their workshops also get nothing done since the barrier for entry is so low that they're so busy answering pretty basic questions.

They actually brought in a hired gun political data scientist who does research on his employer's opposition to help paint a bad picture of opposition. It was seriously presented in a positive light and everything! Hell, when I asked him his thoughts on FOIA, he basically completely shrugged me off and called it useless, despite things like that graph, which was created through FOIA data.

Chicago's head data guy is there almost every time, working on workshops, which is pretty neat. Incredibly interesting guy. But, I have a hard time finding legitimacy in his presence when Chicago's only analysis of parking ticket data (something ChiHackNight would love to work with) is this [0]. Received through FOIA after specifically asking for any analysis they've done on parking tickets... You'd think the head of data would have addressed that.

It all just feels very Feel Good.

Once I get this project to a certain point, I'll probably head back there and show it off and ask if someone else wants to take it over. Eventually, starting one of my own group would be nice, but I'd like to have something under my belt beforehand to help with legitimacy.

[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3A6c_C6BZZuYWwwRmJQTXhnZnV...

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