About me - left a falling titan of the Internet and moved to Seattle to work for another tech company. Weather sucks here in winter.
Fallback - I wasn't able to get girlfriend or any woman interested me this year as well. I don't drink or smoke and lack of hobbies contributed to it. I am getting lonely a lot lately. May be because I am 31 now.
What about you?
Was able to serve in a friend’s wedding.
Made it to the out-of-state wedding of friends. (2 days)
Attended the funeral of a friend whose greatness as a person was matched by the reach of his work. (2 days)
Was able to visit my mentor before he moved back to Europe after 18 years in the US. (2 days)
That accounts for 9 of the 14 days off I’ll have this year, which makes me grateful my off days were well spent.
No friendships were lost—even the distant ones that can slip through the cracks of life—a number of new friends were gained. Can’t remember failing to come through for anyone when they reached out in need, whether for little things like a tech support question to the more notable existential issues we can face.
My company will have about 40% growth in sales volume, and comparable growth in revenue. Still, it’s a small company. Very small. But the lone employee I have has received multiple raises and a few thousand in bonuses.
Some things will remain on the to-do list, even if I’m pleased with the improvements made lately: read more, improve empathy and listening skills, get better control of my emotions, further my awareness of the breadth of my ignorance. That’s not an exhaustive list, but doing better with those will enhance specific areas, like my customer service, serving as an employer, benefiting friends, understanding how better to take care of myself, etc.
I've built my first mobile device architecture for running apps, data processing, behavior modeling, and synchronization for a user-first centric device. I've met some great people doing it.
I've also just started writing a small publication called "Bot Theory: A Concise Introduction" https://github.com/dpgailey/bot-theory-book
Released an open source version of an in-house bot utility called Wolfpack: https://github.com/dpgailey/wolfpack
Been invited and given a lecture to Ubiquitous Computing design students at CCA here in SF about Collaborative/Predictive/Adaptive Intelligent Autonomous Systems and the technologies and platforms necessary to realize a fully autonomous ambient intelligent future.
We have hired our first three employees, and I've met a wonderful mentor who is a seasoned influencer that basically shaped tech as we know it. (He certainly wrote the book on it)
I also have made a pretty good friend and partner.
I've had people from Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Linkedin want to join the projects we've started, which is exciting that big companies are taking notice. We've also made some great partnerships along the way.
I was also briefly worth ~42MM on paper as well.
I also have pissed off HN admins enough where my comments are weighed down so they sink to the bottom immediately, despite the points/karma. sad trombone
Other stuff that's happened: managed to move out of a big city for the first time in 15 years, spent almost no time arguing about bitcoin online which was a huge time sink for me, used selfcontrol to block reddit on my laptop for close to 9 months of the year(still use it on my phone), started a new company which is progressing well, gotten a lot better at money management, become more focused on my fitness with gym+running almost everyday now.
Made a plan for 2017.
Fallback - My job was outsourced to a team of Eastern European devs, because it was "taking too long" for me to build everything by myself. My girlfriend left me a few weeks later.
Fallback - Anxiety is hard. Not enough freelance work. Financial reserves are dwindling. I'm already looking out for jobs. Probably won't get remote work. Definitely not wanting to go back to an open floor office and all the huge pile of anxiety it brings.
I'm a bit in the same situation but now it looks like ill be remote or freelancing for years. I get stressed thinking about coming into an office somewhere, wasting a ton of time on commuting, or worse - having to listen and interact with people. I never realized how much time people waste at work doing nothing until I had to earn a living with billable hours. On any given day I can't seem to work more than 5 hours of ACTUAL work. Anyway, wish you a happier 2017!
I count myself lucky.
If you move from the Bay Area, you will probably find the weather shit, true. But if you moved from say, Minneapolis, you're probably ecstatic :) So, it's all a matter of perspective. Don't expect the weather to be something that it's not. May through September here is amazing. October and April are so-so. For the other months, learn to ski and go spend time in the mountains. Rain in the city means lots of snow on the slopes =)
Now, let's look at this year alone. I worked with some really awesome people, learned a lot from them, but got bored out of my mind and went onto working on my own things again. Really loving what I am doing now (AsteroidIQ.com) and random YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAURFMkO9jo). Even though I am hassling every day to get customer and learn new things, that's exactly what I love; it's way more fun than working for some else, putting nuts on bolts all day long with not future.
So yeah, life is great, but it's all a matter of your focus and your priorities. Don't compare yourself to other folks. Even the most wealthiest/smartest/"successful" ones are miserable in some shape or form. Focus on you.
Oh, and that said. Don't "look for a girlfriend," just find a lot of interesting things to do, and perhaps you'll find someone along the way. Love doesn't work on a schedule man. Enjoy!
Fallback - got most of the pounds back. The house is taking most of my free time - no time to code. Office politics is killing me - thinking that a small startup might be more engaging, but mortgage is now an issue to think about. Some days I'm thinking that having a cozy job and learning some gamedev on the side is not too bad. Could be worse.
Recovered from a nervous breakdown while overworking and learned a powerful philosophy that changed how I viewed work, play; art and mission.
Finally found a startup who is doing work among the categories of things I have identified as making a real impact on the world ... and whose product is valued enough for me to actually get paid enough to support a family on it. Is there risk it will fail? You bet. And I'm having the time of my life doing something I feel is worthwhile with people that feel the same.
Helped my wife fight to regain custody of her daughter. In the meantime I learned more than I ever wanted to know about relationships. Dating is hard, relationships are much harder.
I used to live in northern Arizona for the past few years (where I loved it) and moved to Phoenix. I miss Seattle, the weather, the city, and the people :-)
2016 was an intense year for myself and a lot of people I know. It wasn't just the election. There were a great deal of uncertainty and suffering. It was a long journey, and there might be more -- but I don't regret it.
Rare for someone to appreciate the weather in Seattle. Can you tell us more about your perspective?
I only lived there for a year, and I got suckered in: the very first time I visited was in the summer. I had never been so far north before. There were friends I met up there who took me to the ferry to Bainbridge. It was beautiful. That day, the sky was clear. From sea-level, I could see the summit of Mt. Rainier looming over, floating above the horizon.
I had been living in Atlanta for five years (another city I missed). I traveled across country in a car to move to Seattle. When I got there, it was dark and dreary -- but not that much different from where I grew up. I found an apartment in the Capitol Hills neighborhood and walked everywhere -- something you couldn't really do in Atlanta unless you were living in Midtown. It was awesome. Although the weather is cooler, the humidity is so high and the temperature variability so low, that it doesn't feel cold. (Unlike the high desert of northern Arizona where you get much bigger extremes in temperature within a single day). There are all these hidden pedestrian pathways in between buildings, both in downtown and in Capitol Hill. There is a obstacle course built just for mountain bikes at a park underneath a highway.
And the people! I didn't realize how much I didn't fit into Atlanta until I showed up in Atlanta. First, there were a lot more Asians. Second, the subtle, subconscious racism that I blew off in Atlanta just wasn't present. But mostly, people wore a lot of the kinds of clothes I wear: outdoor gear, ready to go hiking somewhere.
Seattle has a lot of micro-cultures. The vibe in Capitol Hill is different from Queen Anne, Fremont, downtown -- at least, those are the places I visited the most. It shares a lot with San Francisco, but people feel a lot more welcoming. The food is as awesome as the places I've explored in Atlanta and San Francisco, as is the micro-brews.
I have talked to folks who say that Seattle people are standoffish, but that's never been my experience. Maybe it is because I was moving from Atlanta, or maybe because I moved to a city where I already knew people.
- Got 3rd in an AMIA data mining competition for a novel evolutionary mining strategy.
- Had a successful summer of research culminating in one IEEE publication and a presentation at the SCCM Annual Congress (in Hawai'i!).
- Only had a weekend to study for the GRE but I was blessed with a great score.
- Applied to 8/10 CS PhD programs (2 more apps to submit!)
- Found an amazing boyfriend!
- Built a ton of programs. Added a crucial feature to my spaced repetition flashcard app that has been a lifesaver for studying.
- Beat a video game! (Inside)
## Setbacks
- Got pneumonia for a month, was miserable, did poorly on that block's exams.
- A bit overwhelmed/exhausted. Trying to balance med school and applying to grad school and running around to these conferences to present my work so that grad schools like me.
- Med school is hard, yo. The month of pneumonia did not help.
- Made the difficult decision to stop playing rugby. Not ready for a fifth surgery.
- I will be 100K in debt when loans disburse next week. O_O'
- Haven't read a damn book in forever.
- Haven't been in the weight room in forever.
Use the Magoosh app to learn all the vocab. It's not that hard, just drill vocab for a few minutes each day (I did this for longer than the weekend). Open the app while you're walking to class or waiting around for something.
Because I was pressed for time, I took a math GRE book and ONLY did the first ten questions in each subject section. This helped me triage what I was weak on so I could do more questions for those sections. Most of the math is stuff you already know. I would say that 1/10 math problems on the GRE requires some trick that you'll learn specifically for the GRE.
Other than drilling vocab, I didn't practice the verbal section at all. My reading comp is excellent, it's just a speed thing. Ideally I would have simply spent months ahead of time reading more literature, but that did not happen. Learning to read well is a very abstract skill, whereas you vocab is straightforward and you can get some guaranteed gains just by spending time with the Magoosh app. It is also easier to get a good verbal score because you're competing percentile-wise against a lot of foreign students. You can miss a ton of questions and still end up with a great score on verbal. In contrast, the quantitative section is unforgiving. Miss a couple problems and your score will tank.
The GRE website provides two practice tests. Take one before you start studying to get a baseline. Then take one after. It would be best to buy more of them, if possible (I didn't have time though). It's really important to get used to the pacing and to have the stamina to get through the test. Now, I take 8-hour exams for med school on the regular, so the GRE was a walk in the park in comparison. However, I have a smart friend that really struggled once she was a couple hours into it. My absolute weakness is reading speed and I had to force myself to read faster or skim in order to keep up.
Up and onward to 2017
[edit] actually in hindsight I've spent a lot more time with my 9yr old daughter than I have since the birth of our son. Pokemon Go turned out to be a pretty big player in us spending time together.
Learned my lesson, hopefully I will make them regret it, but probably not.
But if US picked Trump I guess I'm entitled to make big stupid mistakes as well.
[0] http://www.techendo.com/posts/what-venture-capital-companies...
Joined a new startup with a founder I have long admired and wanted to work with for the last decade and did my first real work in Python/Django and Node.js as well as being solely responsible for ops in AWS. Startup failed to gain traction and we just wound it down last week.
Now looking for a slightly larger company to deepen my technical chops, going through the whole SV hiring ringer for the first time in my life. Finding out how my past experience is simultaneously amazing and relevant or completely insignificant depending on whom I talk to and their agenda. In a sense my experience is reduced to few lines on a CV or at best a good story, but in job interviews there is really no way to communicate the color of what it was and the uniqueness of the experience.
I am melancholy over this, but also awakening with fresh eyes to future possibilities. SV for all its faults and ridiculous rents is still a place that fascinates me and I hope gives me a few more good stories for my grandkids. If I find a good job before New Years it will have been a successful 2016 indeed.
- Finished my first large and reasonably complex project at work (5k+ LOC, 95% coverage). Already in prod.
- Left my job to build my own startup. Created the website and then realized that the hard part had just begun.
- Read books on a lot of new technologies(Android, React, DRF, basic lisp). Also finished From AI to Zombies, wordly philosophers, men of mathematics etc.
- Really understood things such as opportunity cost, ROI, market size etc. Rip-offs and doing copy pasted work doesn't seem like an easy road anymore. Slava's post[1] helped me understand this.
Cons:
- Reading about all the new technologies wasn't too useful because I haven't implemented anything in them yet. Have plans to create small apps/websites to cement my understanding but keep procastinating on that
- Was briefly fascinated by stock market investing. Spent a month reading books on them and bought some stocks. While none of them has tanked, I later realized the returns would've been higher just focusing on my work.
I have given up my bschool admit to learn more and do startups/freelancing. Also have resolved to stop getting distracted by stuff so easily. Let's see how it all turns out.
Fallback is design for which I also went to art school but never finished that either. Also have lots of friends and family support and a small savings to keep me focused.
https://medium.com/@kefsco/i-finally-updated-pooplog-for-and...
Went from no network and no experience consulting / selling to being able to support myself in Tokyo without needing savings.
Changed my image and gained a lot of confidence and soft skills.
Met many people I otherwise would not have.
Grew my view of the world, myself and life in general.
Not legislation, this would not get past the Republicans. The Obama administration updated a rule increasing the salary requirements for exempt employees. This update has now been blocked by a Federal court and the Trump administration is expected to reverse it.
Tech-wise, I made pretty significant progress on a hobby project, and revamped my personal website.
I convinced a few people to draw me dinosaurs.
Achievements: - moved to Switzerland to work at an awesome company with great colleagues (on an awesome codebase <3 )
- maintained the healthy relationship with my gf without blowing it as I used to
- learned advanced algorithms in my free time which gave me a hole new set of tools (which I probably might never need In my current job)
- quit many bad habits regarding food and drinks
Fallbacks: - failed to improve my polish language skills
- the move was quite expensive and I failed to rebuild my savings completely
I had a New Year Resolution that I would make any software, on any platform, using whatever stack, that someone who never interacted with me personally would pay at least $1 for. This resolution meant a lot to me.
It's December 18, and I'm failing it miserably.
The reason? I've been thinking about what to make, almost every day of the passing year, and I still have zero ideas. Yes I've Googled for things. I've asked people things. Everything seemed either too complex for a lone full-time employed programmer with a family and a kid, or was simple but didn't seem like anyone would pay money for it.
In the meantime, I got a promotion where I work for successfully shipping projects.
What gives?
At my last job, I felt like I was at my growth limit with little left to learn. At my new job, I am currently overwhelmed with a new stack, new tools, and a new culture. Going to put in a little extra time this weekend and coming week to hopefully catch myself up and end the year on a more relaxing note.
I managed to launch my side project, Postways [1], as public beta a few days ago. It was a major birth and I'm proud I made it this far. I'm ready for the next battle, getting users.. :)
Fallback: I moved back to Paris, where it is poluted and rainy. One can't have everything at the same time ;).
Lived alone for the first time.
Experimented a lot and found a magic diet.
33% bump in pay.
Learned a bunch of important shit.
Fallback: Need to be more consistent with sleep. Biggest goal next year is to finish everything on the first try, without falling in and out of interest/commitment. No more half-finished books or projects.
* Worked on more interesting projects
* Had a lot of (intentional, not working) free time
* Earned more
* Developed other hobbies / spent extra time with the existing ones
* Saw more of the world
Travelled around some places - Los Angeles, San jose , Yellow Stone.
Successfully delivered a project besides the regular job.
Got placed in a client-facing role , which helped enhance my communication and consulting skills.
Workout on and off - happy with the gains i have so far.
Went to see Metallica and EITS \m/
Started investing in stocks
Cons :
Wanted to go back home - Nepal for a few months, but didn't happen.
Reading more books and regularly meditating , didnt happen. I'll have to accomplish this in 2017 !!
We also went on our honeymoon (Turks and Caicos, highly recommended) and vacations in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Florida.
- Dropped out of college and accepted a full time offer
- Became the new lead for the security interest group at work
- Attended AWS re:Invent for the first time
- Moved into my own place for the first time
- Started playing around with the stock market
- Visited Abu Dhabi, London, and Iceland for the first time
- Turned 21 years old a few weeks ago, I can finally go to bars and clubs now
- Finally finished and pushed my re-designed personal website (an endeavor that I started last Fall)
- Entered into my first relationship
- Sub-achievement: 2 Chainz has a song called 100 Joints with the line
> You need your passport for our second date
I decided to beat him at his own game and for our first date I flew us to Montréal for the weekend which I'd also consider an achievement
- Last year I vowed to read more this year - I picked up and finished a book in the Spring, but haven't read much more since that
- I used to constantly work on new side projects, I just haven't had a lot of time for them recently
- After living with friends from college for the last ~3 years, living alone is a little lonely. I do enjoy the time alone, but I've also moved to a new city where I don't have much of a social network
Edit:
- Achievements:
-- I love to fly. Last year I did something like 39 flights. This year I'll do 41 flights. A new record for me, if not a significant one. Note that these are flights, not reservations. So if my trip includes a layover, it counts as two. I love flying to the extent that given a direct trip and a trip with a < 1 hr layover, I'll pick the latter. I love each flight. Taking off. Landing. Cruising at 35,000 ft. Turbulence, the more the better. I want more cumulative time in the air.
- Fallbacks
-- From August to December (and extending into January 2017), I've only been at home 1-2 weeks a month which has caused a bit of strain on my relationship.
Edit:
To whoever left and then deleted a comment asking if I considered the date an achievement because of the cost and suggested that I may have missed that's needed to form a relationship:
I'm not entirely sure why I consider it an achievemnt. It's most likely related to the cost yes. I think it's because whereas previously (as a student) I would need to think about finances, I now have the money where I can do things like this and not worry about going hungry for the next month.
As far as the relationship aspect, prior to the date we spent 10 days traveling in Iceland as friends after meeting in person a total of three times. The purpose of the date wasn't specifically to build on the relationship, but more to do something ridiculous and romantic.
First date is "I don't even know you yet" territory, I would be a little hesitant to go international.
Edit:
And nah, one room. I'd have been happy to get another one, but we'd also split hotel rooms while traveling in Iceland, so she was fine with it.
Flights, hotel and Airbnb reservations, renting an SUV for 7 days, tickets for the ferry to Westfjords, etc. it was about $3500 for two people. That doesn't include food, tickets for local attractions, etc.
> Did you pay the travel ticket for her? If no, how much money she spent on you and how much money you spent on her?
Nope. We pretty much split Iceland evenly, we just went there as friends.
I fully covered Montréal because it was my idea and I didn't expect her to contribute. That ran me about $1200 for air fare and a night in the hotel for the two of us. I fully covered that along with cab rides, food, tickets for local attractions, etc. The only thing she paid for was a coffee while we were waiting to board our flight.
As far as it being a Win-Win, I'd consider it a Win-Win for myself as well. If it works out, it was a great weekend and we'll remember it fondly. If it doesn't work out, it was a great weekend and I have an awesome story.
Either way, I have no ragrets[0].
Edit:
I just realized that when you said
> Ok that concludes $1200 for just a Coffee!
you probably meant that I paid $1200 in exchange for the coffee (which she bought me?) so my dinner comment doesn't really make sense. However, she only bought herself a coffee - she didn't pay for any of my stuff.
Edit:
Speaking of awesome stories, have you seen the metro trains in Montreal? Those things are ridiculous, they honestly look more like subway cars attached to the bottom of a bus.[1]
[0]: http://i.imgur.com/OG2hHwW.jpg [1]: https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/28/50546136_b729b4c9ca_b.jpg
-: Didn't write any Rust.