87 karma · joined August 2, 2017
You can email me at name@surname.com Happy to talk shop about software, aerospace and startups :)
I make the AskHN Digest newsletter[1]
Currently Tech Lead at Koa Health[2]
Previously lead frontend engineer at ispace[3] in Tokyo, working to create the infrastructure of the cis-lunar economy. Built the mission control interface for the Hakuto rover of the Google Lunar XPrize.
[0] https://oriol.gasquez.com/ [1] https://askhndigest.com [2] https://koahealth.com [3] https://ispace-inc.com/
The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death's End.
I really liked this sci-fi trilogy, can't talk more about it without spoiling it. Enjoy your vacation!
However, I have experienced doing social projects purely for meaning during few months between opportunities. The most fulfilling one was setting up a mentoring program in high school, where I went through a set of sessions with a small group of ambitious young students. Not technical mentoring, more like practical general life advice delivered in a workshop manner, as if I was an older friend. They all enjoyed it a lot, and to this day, few years later, we still stay in touch and I'm very happy to see how much they have grown since then.
From my experience being born here, there is a strong pull from society to conform and stay mediocre. I want to change that, and help those ambitious to create their own path.
Unfortunately, working at a startup I don't have time for that currently. But I will definitely get back to something like this once I'm financially independent.
If you would like to discuss more, email is in my profile.
In your case, maybe as you mentioned just redirecting your users to your website? Unless your marketing strategy relies strongly on users first finding you through the app store. In that case, not being able to experience what your app does before creating an account will cause drop off - I would give some kind of free roaming around until they need to sign up, similar to what Down Dog does.
All said, no idea about if that is actually allowed in the stores ToS / not enforced, but as you said, it seems that large apps do it, but also smaller ones.
I am personally interested in US and western Europe, but I'm also curious about others' experiences with competent recruiters around the world.
If your goal is to play around with code, learn and have fun, I would say give Flutter a try.
It won't lock you out of publishing on F-Droid or anywhere else as far as I understand. And you if you just want to play around you can install your apps directly to your phone with no platform whatsoever.
Since you mention you don't have much programming experience, I would recommend doing some course at Udemy such as this[0], and decide by yourself if Flutter is fun enough - for me it is. But please, don't buy the course at the overpriced tag, don't pay more than 10-15$ for one of those.
The way I usually learn about interesting threads (which I mostly like to read after a while so they have enough comments) is the HackerNewsletter[0].
Also (shameless plug), I built AskHN Digest[1], a weekly recap of the top threads of AskHN with their top comments, to make sure I don't miss any good content from the section. Many times the comments there have been insightful and made it worth visiting the thread after a while, when most people had the chance to comment on it.
[0] https://hackernewsletter.com
Edit: formatting
I was part of the engineering team of the Japanese team Hakuto of the Google Lunar XPRIZE. I always wondered how it would feel to be in the control room at this time, but our launch deal fell through. I can understand what the SpaceIL engineers are going through right now.
Congratulations to all the SpaceIL team for reaching this far, your work has been impressive. Keep trying and you will make it!
I do the same thing, except that I recently made a simple editor UI that shows me the entries of the same day of previous years when I'm writing today's entry.
I've only been journaling this way for a couple of years, but for me this is a good way to review how were my life and thoughts in the past. Reading previous entries gives me more chances to reflect. Many times I feel I've grown, many other times I detect I still suffer from the same issues and this prompts me to take action to correct them.
You don't need a UI that does it, but I suggest reading back some of your previous entries from time to time.
They have a strong collaborative storytelling aspect (unless your group only likes to slay monsters), and it puts you in the shoes of a character with a life completely different than yours. A lot of problem solving and diplomacy situations are involved too. I recommend trying out a personality/background different than what you are used to.
Whenever I feel stagnated, I review my current habits, and do either:
A) Improve/optimize an existing habit for a more ambitious goal (ex: "going to the park and do a couple pullups before work" becomes "do a small strength training routine at the park before work")
B) Create a new habit (starting small) in an area of my life that I'm not taking enough care of - even without having a clear goal for it. I found that many times, creating a process first has ended up creating an exciting goal.
By following this approach, during last year I created and sustained the following habits:
- Review my Japanese flashcards daily (>1 year)
- Keep a budget (>8 months)
- Journal (>8 months)
- Body-weight strength training before work (>3 months)
- Working/studying in early morning before going to the office (>1 month)
The key is to start small. If a process no longer helps my goals, I kill it.
For keeping track, I use the Loop Habit Tracker for Android, which is open source (https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits).
EDIT: formatting