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No knowledge is ever lost. You WILL learn a ton but the balance will likely tip towards soft skills. This is great! Do not become angry with yourself if you are not coding as much as you had hoped as long as you are coding consistently.

HOW TO PAY YOUR WAY If it were me today, I would look for work that offered some degree of physical control over my day and the ability to listen to high-level conversations undetected. Janitorial for interesting companies, non-profits and museums would be my ticket. When it was me, twenty years ago, I did quite a bit of restaurant work supplemented with targeted freelance and internships. Restaurants usually provide a free meal during your shift. (Get friendly with a cook and you can go home with sandwiches to cover your days off as well.) Freelance keeps you from being ground down by the physical exhaustion and constant ego blows of a "low skill" position- and if it makes you some money, well, Yahtzee for you.

LIVING TIPS Shared room situations and furnished sublets will keep you lease-free but be sure you have a way to lock up your stuff while you are at work. Pay your sub-let rent by check or money order to maintain a paper trail. Often the landlord will not know you are there and this covers your butt. Also, even friendly, straight-A student, drug users will "borrow" from you eventually.

HOW TO STAY SANE If not freelance, any structured learning will help buoy you psychologically but be sure to connect with someone who will hold you accountable for turning in something every week. Another option is http://www.straighterline.com/ or some other MOOC program. The added bonus is you can tell your grandparents you are in a distance, college program. Even if the university you eventually attend does not accept your MOOC credits, you can often "challenge" a course and, by proving you have mastered the material, be passed out of it.

TOTALLY DO-ABLE Resourceful people capable of teaching themselves can survive. A resourceful person who knows a portable skill like coding, is single, child free, 17-19 year old, willing to ask for help, and has a middle class background is well equipped for a gap year. You won't starve. Travel lightly and take photos.

Careful there- "mommy bloggers" are both your target market and a prime marketing channel. (Case Study: Purex Crystals, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/business/media/06adco.html)

People tend to stay close to family, friends, beloved hobbies, and work. Once a place feels like home, you are unlikely to leave unless compelled by love or money.

Your gap year might best be used as a scouting trip. Sometimes the place that most captures your imagination turns out to be exactly where you don't want to live. A place that you never had considered may fit so well you never want to leave. You won't know until you visit.

No problem with Firefox 20.0

North Korea, Potemkin villages

Nicely done.


Try "Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" by Ted Orland and David Bayles.


Pithy and written for those beginning their careers in fields traditionally considered "creative", the discussions within are relevant to both would-be programmers and entrepreneurs. Much of the book is about finding your work, ignoring distractions, recognizing failed attempts as essential to success, the intrinsic motivations of problem solving, cultivation of useful habits, and building a life of engagement with the ideas and materials that matter most to you.

Core vision and core value are two different things. For example, a marriage is anchored by shared values but the vision of who they are in the world and where they are going can change many times depending on circumstance. A marriage can survive many job changes and different addresses. If you have someone who is going a whole different place value-wise then the partnership is not going to work. If this is a vision thing, you are probably going to have a productive, if frustrating time of it. There is a successful, multi-decade corporation/partnership team I know made up of a detail-oriented, responsible pessimist and the big-picture, visionary optimist. The trick, I've been told, is that they are willing to force the other to justify their thinking. By the time they make a big decision, they have slugged it out behind closed doors and have a very honest understanding of all possible outcomes. They use "proof of concept" trials prior to a big leap because someone needs to actually prove the concept to the other prior to changing direction. Also, they keep enough cash on hand to survive a failed initiative, because neither wants to bring down the company after the other signs on to the new vision. The founders have driven each other crazy at times but both admit that there is no way either could have been even 25% as successful individually.

The niche you are trying to fill would probably be appreciated by religious communities, especially parishioners in mainline protestant denominations and "emergent" Christians primarily concerned with social justice and human need. If you create a way for groups to specify a push community (food banks, shelters, non-profits in X niche) that would periodically receive a list of the group's available items, it would automate part of their mission. Religious communities would also be likely to post a link to you on their website and encourage participation internally. Outside of cities, this demographic is older and would likely be those already afraid of Craigslist for security reasons but savvy enough to see the benefit in your system.

Yes.

Learn one language, any language, and build something with it. Self motivated autodidacts with even embryonic skill sets make excellent hires, particularly if they are open to mentoring. A mentor will point you in the direction of structures and resources to make your life of independent problem solving easier. Beware the guru. A good mentoring-training relationship renders the mentor obsolete within 12-18 months, though mutual affection may seed an enduring professional relationship.

The "work" is always consistent. Should I work less on a high paying gig I will fill the time with personal or less profitable projects of interest. Savings make the periodic transitions mostly seamless and life a through enjoyment.