29 ms·

Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

• yodsanklai 10y ago
  Working/studying abroad. I had many options when I was a student and right after graduation but for various reasons (esp. lack of confidence) I didn't seize the opportunity.
• atilaneves 10y ago
  Unit testing
• throw94 10y ago
  For me, it has been reading books. Although my reading speed is very slow right now (hopefully it will get better with time) but i still manage to read a book every month. So much to learn from them :)
  • kuhzaam 10y ago
    What kinds of books have you found yourself reading? Fiction? Non-fiction?
    • throw94 10y ago
      Mostly non-fiction right now as my reading speed is slow and any good fiction book will probably take a lot of time.
  • criddell 10y ago
    My reading speed is slow and my to-read list is long. I used to force myself to finish every book I started but now I'll happily give up on anything that doesn't grab me fairly quickly. I've also been working on only adding things to my list that I actually want to read and avoiding books that I add only because I want to have read them. Is there a title in particular that triggered your interest in reading?
    • throw94 10y ago
      I started by reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Reading it was such a wonderful experience that I have read 2 more books since then. (Started reading 3 months ago)
    • zos 10y ago
      100% agree that the point of reading is not anything to do with finishing books!
  • owensmartin 10y ago
    Learn to speed-read by learning from a couple of speed-reading books. I recommend the Evelyn Wood system to get you started.
• smt88 10y ago
  Functional programming Sleeping 8 hours a night, even when behind on work
  • kzisme 10y ago
    I've been struggling with the sleep as well.
    • smt88 10y ago
      Research sleep hygiene, for starters. Set yourself a "no screens" curfew every night. After that time, don't touch anything with a screen (or anything else that causes stress and mental stimulation). I set mine about 2 hours before I go to sleep. I use that time to clean, cook for the next day, read, and walk my dog. I often think about increasing it to 3 hours, since it boosts my quality of life so much.
  • acangiano 10y ago
    And the two go hand in hand. :)
• _RPM 10y ago
  Programming. Started at 19. Wish I would have started at 10.
  • imron 10y ago
    It quite possibly might have held you back.
    • corecoder 10y ago
      Why so?
      • imron 10y ago
        Language choices available at the time and/or locking in bad habits which made sense as a 10 year old, but not so much as a 19 year old.
        • adjwilli 10y ago
          Totally agree. I started "programming" at an early age which just made me feel like I didn't need to pay attention when I took actual CS classes. The results were that I missed out on learning a lot of lessons the easy way (in school) and had to learn them the hard way.
• ryanj20021 10y ago
  Getting past Excel and learning SQL and then Rails
• jugg1es 10y ago
  Running... outside... I didn't start until I was like 26. It feels great.
  • atemerev 10y ago
    Lucky people who felt the joy of running immediately. I tried to start running many times. I got myself to 5k. But I hate it, it is boring, and just about any other physical activity feels better than running for me.
    • RhodesianHunter 10y ago
      Have you tried bike riding, like with a good road bike? I find it a great deal more fun and exhilarating than running ever was.
      • atemerev 10y ago
        Yes — hated every minute of riding uphill. The greatest outdoor activity I ever had was skateboarding (I am 33, and started two years ago) — I really really loved it, could do it for hours, learning tricks and just moving through the city — right until I broke my ankle. :(
    • sosborn 10y ago
      > it is boring It might not work for you, but for me, the joy in running comes from using that time to let my mind wander. Sometimes I use it to think about work and sometimes I just daydream. It can be a great meditative conduit.
    • rtcoms 10y ago
      I would suggest you to try swimming. So much fun compared to running .
    • hellogoodbyeeee 10y ago
      You might try adjusting your pace some. If you are 100% spent after your runs you should slow down a lot and see if that helps. Alternatively, if you aren't dying at the end of your runs maybe try and run a little faster. A fun workout to do is to start slow and warm up for 1-2km then pick out a landmark that is relatively close like a telephone pole or a tree and then sprint to it. Once you get there show down to a recovery pace and pick out another landmark at which you begin sprinting again. This is called a "fartlek" it is characterized by sprints and recovery periods that are irregular distances. You are not sprinting for 400m every time.
• webkike 10y ago
  I wish I played street fighter earlier than college. Programming I've been doing since fifth grade. I think that's early enough
• patio11 10y ago
  Every time I start seriously exercising this hits in about week ~4. Sadly, I only generally keep it up for 6 months before falling back to old habits. Professionally: email lists. If you have any reason to have a blog, you should have an email list. It surfaces the identities of the people who are actually interested in what you have to say, and ties people to you much, much tighter than "Oh yeah, that thing you wrote in 2011 that I read, that was a cool thing." Businesswise: man, so many things could go here. How about "Put our sales process in a flowchart and execute from the flowchart, not from I'm-smart-and-can-extemporize-in-real-time. Adjust flowchart as required." Relatedly: answer common objections once, offline. Cache the answers. Repeat back from the cache, not from "best halfway decent thing you can remember to say in real time."
  • exceptione 10y ago
    « Relatedly: answer common objections once, offline. Cache the answers. Repeat back from the cache, not from "best halfway decent thing you can remember to say in real time."» Can you elaborate on that? I'm wondering to what situation you are referring to and what kind of objections you mean here?
    • moron4hire 10y ago
      Surely you've seen it here on HN. People will find a way to bitch about anything. Criticism is a signal that people care about the issue you're trying to address, but you've just failed to communicate your values correctly. Turn that criticism into an opportunity to correct that failing.
    • patio11 10y ago
      Sales objections. "Your software sounds good but $199 a month is high." "recite answer we have prepared for this thing we hear 3 times a day"
      • exceptione 10y ago
        Ah thx for the clarification. That makes sense indeed.
• jacobkranz 10y ago
  For me it was psychotherapy / dealing with both my physical & mental health. I now meditate 2x a day, run, and lift weights.
  • ninkendo 10y ago
    Any advice on how to seek it out? I'm at the point where I want to try it but I don't know exactly what to seek out. Should I talk to a general practitioner and get a referral? Just google some stuff and pick somebody close to me? Any kind of "yelp for therapists"?
    • RandomOpinion 10y ago
      Your insurance may or may not require a referral and may or may not restrict the available mental health professionals you can see, so check with them for their policies first. No need to be shy about it; they'll see the bill after your clinic visit anyway. Finding a mental health professional is kind of subjective, so recommendations are not necessarily helpful. (Do pay attention to negative ratings though.) Even the most qualified ones can't help you if you don't "click" with them, so you may have to shop around a little. Don't be shy about switching if a psychiatrist or therapist isn't working for you; they're used to it. Lastly, and this is my opinion only, if you have a teaching hospital nearby (e.g. at your nearest major university) with mental health services, you probably have a better chance of not getting a psychiatrist/therapist that's incompetent. No guarantees but a better chance. (Depending on your confidence in this thesis, it may even be worth paying out of pocket if they're not in your insurance network. After all, what is your sanity worth?) Good luck.
• akcreek 10y ago
  About a year ago I started moving towards not selling my time. It has taken a while to wind down all of those relationships, etc. but it has been the best and most lucrative decision I've made in my professional life. I now have just a single commitment where I sell my time and I've got it down to 2-3 hours per week. It will soon be zero as well. I definitely wish I would have started this sooner or actually never started selling my time at all. I worked only for myself for the first 5 years out of school then the last 5 mostly for others (as a contractor - never an employee).
  • japhyr 10y ago
    What do you sell now instead of your time?
  • trcollinson 10y ago
    This is an excellent point. Can you give any more detail on what you are doing instead of selling your time? I don't want specifics per say, just general ideas about what you have switched to and how it has been lucrative. I find the idea quite interesting.
    • akcreek 10y ago
      I bought a really small business in the translation industry late last year. Since purchase our monthly revenue has grown ~ 190% and we have solid plans to continue the growth. We have 4 people on our internal team, but everyone works remote and part time (approx. 20 hours/week) including me. Our main workforce is made up of freelance translators (about 45 of them at the moment). I handle development, marketing, strategy, etc. and the other internal staff handles operations and customer service. Our translations are mostly used for immigration purposes so it is a really gratifying business as many clients go out of their way to express their happiness with our service. We are dead serious about our business though... lots in our niche are not, but I won't bore you with the details.
      • pimlottc 10y ago
        So an LSP?
• willempienaar 10y ago
  Actually learning how JavaScript works.
  • bemmu 10y ago
    What finally got you to dive in?
    • willempienaar 10y ago
      I had a lot of "why doesn't this work" and "why does this work" moments. I knew there were gaps in my understanding, especially when I started developing NodeJS applications. After I read "You don't know JS" I was really kicking myself for going so long without having a fundamental understanding of the language.
      • GFischer 10y ago
        Thank you for your recommendation. Do you know if the github repo include the entire content? https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS
        • willempienaar 10y ago
          Yes, as far as I know the repo includes everything.
  • SparkyMcUnicorn 10y ago
    Do you have any recommended resources? I "know" javascript, but I feel like there's so much more to learn.
    • willempienaar 10y ago
      "You Don't Know JS" is a great resource to start off with.
    • kyrre 10y ago
• pbnjay 10y ago
  Freelancing. Had I started just 2 years earlier (when I started grad school) I would have been able to knock out my debt much faster by the time I graduated.
  • eldavido 10y ago
    Where do you live? In SF, it seems most freelancers are in it for the lifestyle benefits, rather than the pay. When you factor in the lack of vacation time, no benefits, often worse career development and networking vs. working at a proper tech company (one that hires good people, pays well, encourages learning/skill development) it seems a losing proposition. But then, this assumes you have the right kind of companies around, which most people don't.
    • renaudg 10y ago
      In London it's the reverse. Anybody who's any good at their job and has a few years of experience under their belt, would be crazy not to give contracting a try. You make almost twice as much as an employee doing the same job if you're full time, or you can choose to earn the same but take months-long breaks regularly instead. If you like variety or get bored quickly, it also allows you to justify switching jobs without anybody raising eyebrows on the short stints in your resume, because hey you're a consultant. The downside is worse career/skills development if you're not careful (you need to keep up and go to lots of meetups), you tend to get hired for the same jobs as an expert and not ever move up the management ladder, also some of the best companies and top positions won't be available to you as an outsider (big tech names, CTO roles, early stage startups offering equity over pay)
      • eldavido 10y ago
        I always find it instructive to look at how the economics of an employer/client align with the economics of the contractor. Example: at mass-market product development/distribution companies (Google, Apple, etc.), the big money will be made on a great product launch. In that kind of situation, you need to find a way to get some equity or some piece of the big launch. This -- big companies launching scaled platforms to lots of people -- is how the biggest fortunes are made in tech. I find these places aren't great for high-$ contracting because the economic incentives are so misaligned, all the way up to the CEO. If, on the other hand, the business is some sort of intermediary, like a realtor / ad agency / investment bank, or uses an agency model (lots of cash comp, little equity value, big cash bonuses but nobody's building anything with stock/ownership) that might be a better place for a contractor because they have the cash to pay, but, I have to question whether that's going to make for a satisfying career. Surprisingly, the older I get, the more I realize how much (1) the salary-optimization game (vs. being part of a big company/product/launch) is a sucker bet in tech and (2) so much of life is about relationships, network, and reputation. I guess it's different from person to person, but, still, I've done contracting and I'm not going back.
• jraines 10y ago
  Using source control, specifically git. Programmed for a couple years before I got on board.
• pp19dd 10y ago
  Using screen in daemon mode. screen -dmS myservice /blah/start.sh Fit that line somewhere in a properly constructed init.d file and you're good to go. And if you need to execute a safe stop from that program through some interactivity: screen -S myservice -X stuff "stop\n" And voila. It sends a line of text over followed by an enter key. Elegant, useful. You can reattach session to see what's happening at any time. Love me some screen. When the process exits in that screen session, screen session is closed so that you can rely on screen -list.
  • zzalpha 10y ago
    Not to start a flamewar, but have you looked at tmux for this kind of thing? "Daemon mode" is the mode for tmux, and the whole stack is designed to be extremely scriptable. "tmux send-keys" does what you're referring to, here, but essentially anything you can do interactively, you can do via the command-line. Not to say you shouldn't just keep doing what works for you! But figured I'd at least make mention of tmux as an alternative... I'm a fan. :)
    • atemerev 10y ago
      Ctrl-B is the _worst_ shortcut ever devised (which is why it is used rarely... except on tmux). Just _thinking_ about it gives me the pain. My hand hurts. And yet, this is a default shortcut for command mode in tmux. "But you can configure it!" — one might say. No, I won't be doing it on every system I manage, I have better things to do.
      • zzalpha 10y ago
        Eh, fair enough. I just reconfigure it and move on, but I grant you that doesn't necessarily work for everyone. shrug
      • reedlaw 10y ago
        Have you ever tried using the alt/ctrl/shift keys on the other hand side? So for Ctrl-B you would use the right-hand pinky to hit ctrl and the left-hand index finger to hit B.
• CaRDiaK 10y ago
  Learning how to learn. Could have saved myself years..
  • kentt 10y ago
    Agreed. This was a wonderful course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
    • shenanigoat 10y ago
      Thanks! Signed up now.
• bemmu 10y ago
  Learning the Sublime Text keyboard shortcut for commenting out the current line and other timesavers.
• Sukotto 10y ago
  Declining to reveal my previous salary when negotiating a new job. I ended up with a significantly better salary than they originally offered and never even said a number. Just built a good rapport with the hiring HR rep and agreed that the offered amount would be totally reasonable for [someone else with good experience]. Then I pointed out that I also bring to the role [additional, relevant, and desired experience] and gently asked what they could do to make the number better?. (Then I kept my mouth shut and let them think out loud for a few minutes)
  • abraae 10y ago
    I reckon if you don't do negotiation on a regular basis, learning to keep your mouth shut, as this post says, is the single best and easiest thing you can do to improve your outcomes. When you ask your question (this one is great btw - what can you do to make that number better), the other side may, subconsciously or (for more experienced negotiators) consciously just say nothing for a while. They're waiting for you to crack - to immediately fear the silence and blurt out something like "if that's possible of course" or "it would really help me, I've got 3 kids to feed". Following up your own ask with an immediate mini-backdown like this - without even making them say their piece - will lose you $. Just wait. Silently. Lock eyes with them, not aggressively or weirdly, but patiently. After ten seconds (which may feel like 60), if the heat gets too much, raise an eyebrow slightly, clasp your hands, something. Nothing's guaranteed but if you can do this you'll get better outcomes more often. And that's especially true on larger deals with very elastic prices (like selling an expensive piece of software) than something like your salary which often has real and hard bounds around it.
    • Uhhrrr 10y ago
      Keeping one's mouth shut after asking a question is a great skill in general. When buying used cars, I will often just ask, "Is there anything else I should know about the car?" and then wait. It's also good for extracting confessions ("What can you tell me about this broken cookie jar, son? [long pause]").
  • desdiv 10y ago
    I'm not a dishonest person in general, but I have zero problem with lying about my previous salary in order to gain a negotiating advantage. I feel that it's simply none of their business how much I used to make, and that if they're presumptuous enough to ask then a made-up number is what they deserve.
• bencollier49 10y ago
  Hmmm, hate to admit this: Use a Mac for work rather than Linux. The unixness combined with availability of the likes of MS Office, together with the genuinely beautiful interface has really increased my throughput. Secondly: Doing 1.5 hrs exercise daily.
  • bryanlarsen 10y ago
    Coding on the same platform that I deploy to has increased my productivity.
  • grimoald 10y ago
    For me, it's using Linux instead of Windows for coding (at least back then when I was learning to coding). It was so much easier to start a quick C++ project using an editor and g++ than fiddling with VisualStudio. Not to mention Python.
    • btym 10y ago
      Even just for daily, non-project use, nuking my Windows install was the best thing I've ever done to my computer.
  • davelnewton 10y ago
    So... describe the moment.
    • nailer 10y ago
      Not OP, but for me it was purchasing a laptop where every single component had Open Source, in-mainline kernel modules, significantly losing out on performance, and then STILL compositing didn't work on an external monitor. That was 8 years ago, really enjoyed using Macs since. Now Apple quality is going down, and powershell is getting really good, slowly moving to Windows.
      • davelnewton 10y ago
        That's a moment I think a lot of us can relate to. I love Linux/Linux-like OSes. I also like stuff working without having to tinker with it--not that I dislike tinkering (it's great fun) but time is more of a factor now than it used to be.
• drinchev 10y ago
  Switching from employee to freelancing had the biggest impact in my professional life. It's not for everyone but definitely for me.
  • hm8 10y ago
    I have been thinking about doing this for a while now but don't quite know how and where to start. Do you have some pointers? I have seen this posted a bunch of time by various people but never really got up to asking them. Things I am uncertain about: * Organization/Admin set-up required to get going with me being the only person * Finding programming projects, clients * A good hourly rate to be charged A little about me: I have been working as a Software Engineer for a few years now with a very good understanding of python, java, C/C++, javascript (learning React these days), databases, bash scripts. Have some experience with elasticsearch, big data (hadooop/hive), scala.
    • drinchev 10y ago
      My steps were : 1. Save enough money for 3 months before I quit 2. Start looking for freelancing projects locally by asking companies that are looking for employees in my area to hire me as a freelancer instead of an employee 3. When you have 3 "yes, we can work with you on a freelance basis", I quit the company and approach the three of them until my first working day in that company. I'm pretty sure these depend on your location ( I'm living in Berlin ), so you can ask around in some freelancing meet-up how can you start.
    • palerdot 10y ago
      You can start with any number of popular freelancing websites. There are specific sites for programming jobs and other sites where you could do all kinds of contracting work. A good overview can be found in this quora link - https://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-best-freelancing-sites https://www.quora.com/Which-are-the-best-freelancing-sites
• acron0 10y ago
  Clojure (LISPs, more generally)
  • dr_win 10y ago
    me too
• zzalpha 10y ago
  After 12 years of coding professionally, move from development into product management/ownership. It's like playing an instrument versus playing the orchestra. It ain't for everyone, and I won't claim I'm particularly good at it, but it's a fascinating new kind of creativity.
  • WA 10y ago
    Who's doing the coding now? How does it feel to you if you have to "outsource" it and pay for every small bugfix? I'm asking because on the one hand, I enjoy coding. On the other hand, it might make sense to work ON the business, not IN the business in the future.
    • zzalpha 10y ago
      I'm a Product Manager inside a software company, which means I work with an internal development group to actually execute my ideas (certainly some POs/PMs work with outsourced staff, but that's not the case here, with the exception of one product where the outsourced staff are largely treated as direct team members, so the dynamic is largely the same as with our internal staff). That means my job turns into talking to customers, collecting requirements and authoring user stories, prioritizing the backlog, and generally giving the developers all the information and guidance they need to build (what I hope is) the best product we can, with the right feature set, executed with the right timing. Of course, I still enjoy coding, but what I enjoy about coding isn't the hammering of the nails, but rather building a finished product from which users gain benefit. In that respect, what I'm doing now is leveraging an entire staff of people to achieve a vision I couldn't possible deliver by myself, which is pretty damn cool! The role itself is multi-disciplinary. I have to understand the technology in order to adequately gauge cost and complexity, technical tradeoffs, and so forth. But I also have to understand the business impact of those decisions, and the way those decisions affect the customer. In my particular case, we're in a B2B environment where we do deep technical integrations as part of product deployment. So my customers are individual business owners and technical operations staff that I interact with directly on a very regular basis (as opposed to, say, a consumer product where you're dealing in aggregate customer behaviour).
• ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  Commuting by bicycle. Fresh air and exercise, all packed into the same amount of time it would have taken me to drive and park, even enjoyed the thrill and mental challenge of forcing myself out in the rain and snow. Took some shortcuts and explored areas I've never been to before.
  • yodsanklai 10y ago
    Same here. I was cycling a lot until I got my driving license. Then it was only 10-15 later that I got into the habit of using my bike again. The less I use my car, the happier I am. Now I really wonder what prevented me from doing it sooner!!
    • k__ 10y ago
      Same here. Living in a city with many hills it was a chore at first. But now it's pretty great.
    • rconti 10y ago
      I need to get back into it. I'll bike to work for a week or two, then fall off the wagon. That said, I LOVE cycling, have always loved it, and am glad I rediscovered it a decade or so after getting my driver's license. I still love cars, a huge hobby of mine, but I actually enjoy them more when I'm not driving every day.
  • pimlottc 10y ago
    The great thing about biking is that it opens up your route options. Almost any street is as good as any other - you'll make just about the same time on a residential street as a main street, so you have an almost infinite variety of options without much sacrifice in team. Contrast with a car, where taking side streets will slow you down significantly.
  • curiousgal 10y ago
    What about sweating?
    • 10y ago
• swalsh 10y ago
  Learning Python! I've been a C#/Windows developer for years. I then switched to Ruby, which for some reason inevitably means you switch to a shiny mac, and then your work paradigm changes revolving around the command line. One day a quick task came up, and I decided to hack it out. The only library I could find was a python library, so that's what I used... and it was so quick to get something. 10 lines later my boring task was done. Impressed, I started looking for other things to put this new super power of mine to work, and it's been spiraling out of control. I still use the other languages I know for the majority of my work, but things I might have just never done because I wouldn't have had time are now getting done. It's so great to get things done.
  • cableshaft 10y ago
    Python is so great for getting small tasks done in less than 30 lines of code that would take 5-10 times as much code in most other languages. I wish I had learned it earlier too. Still my favorite language to code without an IDE (C# is pretty great as long as you're in Visual Studio).
    • kzisme 10y ago
      I wish visual studio wasn't a requirement sometimes for writing C# - although it makes make it a decent experience.
      • raverbashing 10y ago
        Well, it isn't. But you need to have autocomplete for a better experience. There's Xamarin and other IDEs as well (I'm sure there's an Eclipse plugin but I wouldn't go there)
        • V-2 10y ago
          There's Project Rider in the making. Xamarin Studio - based on my experience from about 4 months ago - is beyond awful at the moment
      • 10y ago
• Fradow 10y ago
  1) using git (or source control, more generally). One day, I figured all the devs (most better than me) around me were using source control. I asked a few why, and why I should use it. Now I realize I was treading a dangerous path before using git. 2) using the command line freely (ie : not being an expert, but being able to use it a bit and automate some tasks). At some point, I maintained several apps at once, and it became too much of a burden to do the builds myself and install it one people devices several times a day, every day, so I decided to use a CI tool (Jenkins). To do the builds, I had to learn how to do everything in command line, and that's how I got started (now I am able to handle my own server and do some simple sysadmin). Since I have an IT degree, I blame my school for not teaching me both of them, which I picked up after graduating: not mandating source control is to my eyes a big failure, and while I had some Unix courses, they never taught me WHY I should take the time to learn the command-line (and thus, I didn't).
  • arcanus 10y ago
    For #1+#2-- I'm also a convert, which is sadly still not as prevalent in my field (computational science) as it should be. I always tell people: its a good 10% extra overhead you add to a project during design to be careful with regression testing and source control, and that is paid back many times the first time you avoid a dangerous bug or bad tarball that goes undetected for 3 months.
  • pkamb 10y ago
    The `git` thing is huge for me, too. It kills me thinking back to all those CS homework assignments where I had a build working, but then broke it adding the next feature. Spend the next 4 hours frantically Undo'ing and copy-and-pasting from "copied folder" backups. That's no way to work. Source Control should be taught on day 1 of any CS class.
  • mgkimsal 10y ago
    Goodness me... I've had discussions about this with local folks, and - it's all over the map. I've had people with CS degrees confidently tell me all this stuff is taught - it's part of their classes from day one, and they know all that like the back of their hand. But only a few seem to walk the walk - others blank out on basic questions. Others from local community college "web tech" programs mostly don't even know what I'm talking about. Documenting code, knowing how to document your regular activity in such a way that other team members and management have a clue what you're doing, beyond code comments. Decent commit messages, using an issue tracking system, ideally some project management tool, etc. While many dev problems do stem from actual technical issues, far too many I see stem from poor communication between the team members and the external clients/stakeholders. Few devs, especially younger ones, have any clue as to how important those skills are, over and above the raw dev skills.
• japhyr 10y ago
  Writing programs that people actually use. I was a hobbyist programmer for a long time. Then my father passed away, and I went through his computer and saw all these projects that would never see the light of day. That gave me the motivation to choose one project and see it through until it was good enough to have actual users. Programming is much more satisfying and meaningful now.
  • moron4hire 10y ago
    Do not overlook this comment. Between a flood destroying all of my physical property, a minor health-scare, a few far-too-early deaths in my friends and family, and having a kid, the concept of my own mortality is now firmly established. I started thinking about the few things I did have, and who would take them. I realized the vast majority of my "stuff" is parts and code for nascent projects. There are a lot of them. And they will get thrown away. They are valueless to anyone else. So to me that means that I need to focus and do one thing at a time. We are a sum of our parts and I probably wouldn't have as great of an appreciation for the time I have left if I hadn't wasted so much time. I still get a lot of time to code, but damn, my single 20s were a whole different world.
  • cookiecaper 10y ago
    After supporting a side project that had hundreds of users, I was actually relieved to go back to projects that had at most only a handful of users. Support requests and demands for bug fixes can get tiring if you don't have an apparatus to help control and triage them.
    • neurostimulant 10y ago
      I can understand how you feel. I made a chrome extension for fun and one of the user claims my extension has malicious tracking code and ads injector out of the blue (perhaps he got the malware from other extension and blame it on mine). Way to kill motivation :/
  • davidsawyer 10y ago
    Did you finish that project yet? If so, would you mind sharing it?
• moron4hire 10y ago
  When a local company saw a talk I did and offered to sponsor the continued development of the open-source project I'm building. If I had started doing talks a year earlier, I probably could have picked up such a deal a year earlier. I missed out on a lot of great opportunities to get my name out just because I erroneously thought not being anywhere near finished meant I wasn't ready to show anything. It's a really, really hard decision to make, to sink your time into something, and I can't recommend for everyone by default. Most people start projects on nothing more than a whim and will give up on those projects when they hit the technical-debt weeds. I don't think of that time as a waste, I think it's incredibly important to the learning process and I encourage people to start as many projects as possible. You just need to be honest and understand about yourself whether or not you're in it to win or just having fun, before you jump into a project head-first. I've seen a lot of people do that, and I've done it more than a few times. This time is really different because this time I really have spent 2 years on the project and forced myself through multiple come-to-Jesus moments on my code. Everyone will have those sorts of moments as it's impossible to have such design foresight to predict all the ways you will want to use your software in the future, or that you won't change your mind on how you want to use it. And I think I needed to go through it to prove to myself that this was something I was going to be able to continue to work on. But I really wish I had known sooner.
• apricot13 10y ago
  a fade up daylight alarm clock best £130 I've ever spent
• franciscojgo 10y ago
  Joining a good Crossfit gym. I was usually skeptic to crossfit. Have been doing weightlifting and overall weight training for 2-3 years and was used to pushing myself at my own pace and setting goals myself. Was afraid to turn my training into a cookie-cutter group class and be forced to do movements that are outright dangerous. All the injury stories, the "cult" thing, etc. is all bullshit from my experience. No, you do not have to kip anything. At least on my "box" they frown upon kipping. To me that was amazing. If you have any sort of training experience or some moderate fitness level you will be OK and will probably push yourself to do things that will make you see really fast progress. Hang snatches, overhead barbell lunges, Wall Ball Shots, etc will make you stronger, bigger and more agile. Just being on a floor where it is normal to drop a heavy barbell from a missed snatch is worth it. You will push yourself more and try heavier weights. Can't do it? Just hop over and take out some weights and try again. You don't have to wait for the frigging squat rack to be empty. That hour on the gym is for your group only. No waiting around for that dumbass tweeting while resting on the rack. You will also have a coach (read good coach) that will sermon you and make sure you do things right. Last class I was doing some deadlifts and the coach started pushing me around and manipulating my torso and thighs to make sure I did it correctly. This went on about 3 different times in 2 minutes. It's good, when you are lifting and fatigue sets in you start faulting form. Only been 3 months now, but man, it's frigging good. And the girls are hot and strong too. It's good motivation. All in all, don't believe everything you read online. It's overdramatized. Then again, if you haven't done ANY excerise at all in your life, it's probably better to start slowly on a normal gym. But not because crossfit is dangerous, but rather because you need to get used to your body and understand how much you can push it. It's easy to get injured doing any type of physical activity if you don't have experience and push too much, too fats.
  • varikin 10y ago
    I very much agree with this. I have been doing crossfit for about 2 years now. I had never really lifted seriously or correctly before, but very on again, off again with gyms doing machines, running, cycling. None of that every fit me nor could I stay motivated. Having a group, all doing the same thing, all cheering you on, with a coach always helping you get better is amazing. It doesn't matter that I am slower or not as strong because at the end of the class, all of use are just as tired. As for beginners, I would recommend crossfit, but only if the gym has experience with complete beginners. Ours is great with it and go out of their way to scale everything and include everybody. If the coaches and other athletes are not inclusive, find a different gym. A good coach will teach proper form as best as someone can do it in their shape.
• phillc73 10y ago
  Leave London. I moved there when I was 26 and left when I was 40. I should have left at least 5 years earlier. It took a marriage and imminent birth of a child to finally push me into leaving. I now live in a small city (250k-300k people) in a great environment with plenty of outdoor space, mountains, rivers, lakes etc. I am not paid nearly as much as I was in London, and it took me a good 12 months to establish myself. However, I don't need London rates of pay to live here comfortably. I feel my quality of life has drastically improved in the last two years since leaving London.
  • jbb555 10y ago
    Move to London. I moved there when I was 44 and wish I'd done so earlier. much more to do, pay is better. I feel my quality of life has drastically improved in the last two years since moving to London. (But probably I'll want to move away some time too!)
    • sosborn 10y ago
      It is true that the grass is always greener on the other side.
• carlesfe 10y ago
  Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they say is "you know I think my computer has a virus...". Yeah, f* you. I guess not many people in HN do this anymore, probably because we're kinda old, however, if that's your case, learn to say no. It's fine. You can still oblige for some people. However, never do it for free. With close family and some friends, they probably have had more deferences towards you than you can ever repay. For others, just say "I do this for a living, it'll be $XX, at friend's price" Once I started charging, only a few people took me up on it, and they've always been happy with the result. Those who want tech support for free should give something in return besides a beer "for your inconveniences". I could expand but I'm afraid it would be an ugly rant. If anybody wants any help on how to say NO, just ask :)
  • knocte 10y ago
    As for me, I stopped giving tech support by saying "I don't use Windows anymore, probably I forgot how to do it; if you want to install Linux, I'm happy to help".
    • gwbas1c 10y ago
      It doesn't work. I've been playing that game with Mac for the last eight years, and now I get "and I use a Mac" in my tech support requests.
      • delinka 10y ago
        "It doesn't work." Mac != Linux
      • bjelkeman-again 10y ago
        Worked reasonably well for me. My realatives support requests went down to about 1/10. Now they are only the serious requests left, like my backup stopped working.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• IgorPartola 10y ago
  Here's my list: - Using Vim. Just do it. You'll be more productive than in most other editors, and you can use it over ssh on pretty much any machine. - Using Python. Batteries included means less work for you to do. - Using Django. Ditto - Stopped chasing the latest and greatest JS framework and just use what I know (jQuery and Angular lately). Not worth my time when I already feel very productive. - Use puppet for every server configuration, from my home NAS to every production server. - Learned 3D printing/joined a hackerspace. Working from home sucks for social life and for developing business connections. - Learned some basic UI/UX ideas. - Started sleeping more. This is huge for productivity and my happiness. - Realized that buying off-lease/gently used cars is much more economical than brand new. You can drive a 3 year old BMW for the same price as a 2 year old Honda Accord. - Listened to Roll Play, especially Swan Song. Better entertainment than most TV shows. - Stopped paying for cable and signed up for Prime, HBO Now, and Netflix. This isn't even to save money, but to not have to watch commercials. - Discovered polyamory. - Realized that I can build electronics on the cheap. - Hired a personal trainer to get in shape, instead of trying to go it alone. - Bought a double walled steel water bottle. Sorry if this is too long.
  • davelnewton 10y ago
    All interesting, but don't really seem to be "the moment".
    • IgorPartola 10y ago
      I didn't want to go into detail since that'd make this post huge, but each one of these had a definite moment of realization.
      • davelnewton 10y ago
        Cool, but... wasn't the question explicitly to describe the moment(s)?
    • barrkel 10y ago
      Where's your moment? Who appointed you guardian of the topic?
• nlawalker 10y ago
  Seeking goals and life satisfaction outside of work. I generally enjoy my development work at bigcorp, but I found my mood swinging hard based on whether or not I was intellectually engaged at the office. If I wasn't working on something interesting and making progress, I became very sluggish and unmotivated outside of work as well. I discovered indoor bouldering (rock climbing low to the ground over thick pads; no ropes/harnesses/training required) a couple years ago and it's been a revelation. I talked about it in an old HN thread about exercise [1]. It's a great source of goals, steady improvement, and overall "doing something besides work." I have since expanded to top-rope climbing (taller walls, ropes, harness), which is also ton of fun. Baking is fun too. I have never enjoyed cooking very much, but baking caters to the engineering mindset: very focused and rewards preparation and attention to detail. Baking, at least at the amateur "I want to make something tasty" level, has fewer "patterns" than cooking and more subtle variations on those patterns, which means you can bake lots of different things without having to find some new piece of equipment or exotic ingredient every time you try something. And baked treats are fun to give to friends. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9354393 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9354393
• criddell 10y ago
  Learning the very basics about typography. Matthew Butterick created an online book called "Practical Typography" [1] that's a pretty quick and easy read. I've found that what he says about people being more likely to read attractive documents is true. Duh. It's even made me think about making my source code more attractive. The added bonus is that he also talks about his publishing system Pollen and that lead to me learning about Racket. [1]: http://practicaltypography.com/ http://practicaltypography.com/
  • 33W 10y ago
    Great book - sent the typography for lawyers book as gifts after reading it.
• louprado 10y ago
  Reducing my carbohydrate intake, limiting workouts to 20 high intensity minutes, practicing better sleep hygiene, asking more questions and arguing less, taking vitamin D supplements, setting limits on gifts and travel, avoiding alcohol and limiting to 3 drinks maximum on any given night, cutting my own hair, buying rental property, realizing that absent mindedness is a symptom of poor planning, focusing on problems that matter, asking for help when I am guessing for solutions instead of working towards them, practicing empathy, abandoning black and white ideologies, setting clear limits with family, time-boxing HN and internet activities.
  • hndude 10y ago
    Could you please expand on "realizing that absent mindedness is a symptom of poor plannning"? Also limiting gifts and travel?
    • louprado 10y ago
      The problem with absent mindedness is that is it dismissed as just part of one's personality. Being an absent minded professor is almost a badge of honor. "It isn't my fault that I have such a brilliant mind that it is exclusively focused on important matters". I missed work meetings (people would just call me), I forgot final exams in college, I'd walk out of my house leaving the door wide open. When I forgot things that were important to others, it caused them pain and burden. But I dismissed it as "not my fault" because "I have a bad memory" or "I am always thinking about more important things and most people just can't relate". Having a bad memory is easily remedied using notes, day planner (look at it each morning), smart phone apps, habits, etc. Using these tools will declutter your mind and inherently make you less absent minded. I have a fantastic memory now. And when I find my old ways creeping up (usually because I am short on-time or moving too fast) I immediately remedy it with planning. Ultimately being absent minded implies "I don't care". I don't care enough to write things down or plan, or who I burden. If you think of it that way then you are more likely to improve. And if you are enabling someone who is absent minded, please stop. Tell them it isn't a symptom of brilliance or a genetic quirk. Every one has a smartphone. So it is a problem of not caring, lack of empathy, and irresponsibility. As for gifts and travel, these are the major reason people fail to save enough money. If you are going to help someone in need, set a limit before you start helping. I've seen people self-destruct their high-paying careers because they felt too guilty to set limits. But without the high-paying job they can finally say no, without guilt. Finally, you should travel because it makes you happy. Every year people joke that the holidays with the family involves getting the flu and intense family fights. If you are having this problem, explain that next year you won't travel if anyone in the house has a cold or until you personally establish habits that reduce your susceptibility to colds. When a fight gets out of control with your remote family explain that you might not visit next year until we can learn to be more civil. Establish a boundaries but also lower them once you as you build trust and respect. Hope this helped.
• LizardLarry 10y ago
  Eating something similar to a keto diet (Mostly eggs, milk, coconut oil). Once you get past the adaptation phase, it's almost impossible to overeat. Starches (on their own) taste bland and the mix of fat and protein has such a saitation value that it's impossible to overeat to any near extent that a modern diet provokes. Weightlifting but focusing on the work my muscles are actually doing as opposed to seeing a high number go quick. Three warmup sets and a high intensity failure set, with the warmup sets just training you to do the exercise in the proper form before you do it. Because a lot of people cheat the work their muscles are trying to do by crutching on momentum instead of letting their muscles have control of the weight. That would be a thing I wish I could indoctrinate into every every beginner. (DON'T COAST ON MOMENTUM) Former smoker who has occassional cravings, liquid nicotine has been a life saver. Properly distributed, a giveaway of a three month supply would probably be the most cost-effective humanitarian mission for the homeless in the US. Ignore most news. A radical acceptance that there's no point in paying attention to the equivalent of amateur illusions. It's a lot of central nervous system parasitics.
• cozuya 10y ago
  control/command k, 1 in sublime (code folding level 1) instead of doing it manually. duh.
• thecolorblue 10y ago
  Learning to use my brain while I ran. I started out running for exercise. It would take a lot to convince myself to run, and then keep myself from wanting to quit. I got really good at tricking myself or rewarding myself after a run. At some point, I think it was that I got in better shape, I didn't need that much motivation. I could go for a run and not think about the physical work of it. I could think about whatever, either letting my mind wander, or think through an issue I had run into. It became much more enjoyable. I wish I had gotten to that point faster.
• chriswarbo 10y ago
  Automated testing. There's loads of stuff written about dos/don'ts, TDD, etc. but doing some testing is better than none. It's not a silver bullet, and it's possible to get too caught up in tests to the detriment of the system; but you can cross those bridges if/when you get to them.
  • adjwilli 10y ago
    I was looking for someone to write this answer. I admittedly don't write tests and have been seriously questioning this lately. Maybe it's a desire for confirmation bias, but I'm glad someone said this.
• maccard 10y ago
  I go through phases of no screens after 10pm. It mostly applies to Code/playing games, but I've found it also applies to HN and reddit. My quality and quantity of sleep improves drastically every time I do it, results visible from day 1.
• Grue3 10y ago
  Using Bitbucket's issue tracker to track bugs/features in my personal projects. Previously I just used a todo text file, but there are a lot of advantages to have it online. Riding a bike. Learning how to draw (I was trying to start several times, but always give up at some point).
• WA 10y ago
  Stopped playing computer games. I played Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone a lot. Like almost every evening when I had nothing else to do. I noticed over time two things: First, I can't play such games in a non-competitive way. While some seem to play Hearthstone for fun, I play to win and I want to figure out how to do so. This leads me to second: Ultimately, for an hour's worth of gaming time, I had a few feel-good moments and the rest was emotionally stressful. I hated the luck of Hearthstone, I hated random assholes in Heroes of the Storm who'd destroy the game. When I realized that my emotions were determined by a random number generator I had no control over (matches and card draws), I finally decided to quit playing games for 30 days. After this month, I didn't really miss anything, used the free time to do other things and removed the Windows Bootcamp partition of my Mac with all games and never looked back. A few weeks back, I played Hotline Miami 2. A single player game. It was okay, didn't waste endless hours of my time and had a definite end – not like multiplayer games where there is no end. But single player games won't cut it for me anyways and haven't for a long time already. I think they're mostly boring.
  • Slackwise 10y ago
    Just a heads-up, but if you ever take interest in card games again, I'd recommend giving Magic: The Gathering a try. Why? • There are no cards with the words "random" on them • Of the cards you draw, you can mulligan several times to get a better hand • Many cards let you search your deck and pull out what you need, or something similar, further reducing "chance" being a factor • You play a game of Best-of-3, and on your following turns you can choose any cards from a "sideboard" to slot into your deck to adapt to the current match, again, reducing chance, and reducing Rock/Paper/Scissors fights • You don't simply play your cards, push "Done", then go grab a drink. You can play cards DURING the other player's turn to manipulate and overcome their strategy. (This is the REAL reason I can't play Hearthstone. It lacks an entire other dimension of play.) • Magic has more resources to draw from (cards, life, graveyard, mana, tokens, creatures, artifacts, equipment, etc), and more resources to consider, making the strategies much more varied • The complexity of Magic cards is on the order of about 3-5x more than Hearthstone. The cards used in Hearthstone compare only to beginner decks designed for kids to learn MTG, whereas MTG cards can be incredibly complex in the strategies they afford you: http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m13/220.jpg http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m13/220.jpg The list goes on, but coming from MTG, Hearthstone felt like playing a very limited, aggro-focused, RNG-dependent game designed for quick matches with simple strategy and little thinking, versus Magic, which you can play on paper with your buddies, at a table, and have fun drinking and joking around. (At least that's how I play it.)
• k__ 10y ago
  Start working remote. But I think I couldn't have done it sooner. Times are changing if it comes to remote work, but not as fast as I want :\ Doing polyamory. I always was in love with multiple people, but most of the time I was bound to one. I never cheated, but I felt bad often. Should have done this earlier, but only with the rise of the Internet I was able to find enough people to share my thoughts with. Started lifting weight. This I really could have done sooner, but I always was kinda nerdy and weights were for buff cool dudes. It got me rid of back-pain and I generally felt better.
• HenryTheHorse 10y ago
  Many responses here about exercise. (Not surprising, because I suspect many of us here were NOT the most physically active types in school or college :)) But yes, I too discovered running rather late and realized it took me only about 3-4 weeks to overcome the initial discomfort, inertia and struggle. That was one of my "why didn't I start running sooner" moments. If any of you are waiting to start running, I'd say, start now. No reason to fear it. Same is true for having a regular meditation practice. It makes a world of difference. Don't wait to start it in your thirties or forties. That's another practice I wish I had started in my twenties.
  • asimuvPR 10y ago
    The couch to 5k program worked very well for me. Have kept running 5k and 10k events ever since. Recommend it to everyone.
    • HenryTheHorse 10y ago
      Absolutely. I'm training for a half-marathon and the Hal Higdon program has worked well. Same principle as C25K.
• maxime066 10y ago
  Start waking up at 5am. To see the sunlight all the day give me a lot more energy and time for my personal projects and physical training. I spend now less time on useless relaxing activities after the job because I go to sleep at 9pm. Sure, hanging out with friends during the week is barely impossible, but I have now so much more energy that I'm more pleasant during the weekend.
• freestockoption 10y ago
  Exercise often - keeps me sane, makes me look good Cooking from scratch - keeps me healthy, is delicious, rewarding, impresses others Not letting job define me - keeps me from getting disappointed when companies make decisions that doesn't align with what I want, removes emotion from decision making, my life on my terms (I'm moving forward whether or not the company is)
• baccredited 10y ago
  Saving for FI (Financial Independence) If I save at my current rate I will achieve FI in 2022. If I had started saving aggressively sooner I would already be FI (I'm in my mid forties). I hate answering to other people and would rather work on my own stuff. FI will get me there. Read the book The Simple Path to Wealth to understand the process. Or this blog post is a good start: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-... Another great resource (read the sidebar and FAQ on the right) https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
  • davelnewton 10y ago
    So... describe the moment you realized this.
    • baccredited 10y ago
      probably May 2014 when I plugged my spending and net worth numbers into https://lab.madfientist.com/ https://lab.madfientist.com/ and it came back with: 9 yrs until FI I had always been a guy who spends less than he makes but that kicked my ass into gear.
      • stevenmays 10y ago
        here's similar calculators without needing a sign-in: http://mustachecalc.com http://mustachecalc.com
        • cbowal 10y ago
          I like the default assumed 7% interest
          • durin42 10y ago
            That's pretty standard as the assumed interest rate for investing in index funds over a long period.
• davelnewton 10y ago
  Why are people listing random things they've done instead of what the moment was that led to whatever random thing is listed? Ugh. Edit I've asked a few people to describe their moments instead of just listing what the change was. YMMV, but for me, these are far far more interesting than random lists of things. I may have mis-interpreted the OP's intent, but it sure seems a lot more compelling when you know the catalyst as well as the reaction.
  • antisthenes 10y ago
    My grandfather passed away. It inspired me to take more control of my life and to start enjoying things I was afraid of. I didn't realize I should have been using him as a a role model until he passed away, but when it happened, it was very powerful. It is also the first death of a relative I've had to deal with in my life.
    • davelnewton 10y ago
      That is a moment. Thanks for sharing. Death often has that effect, for sure--it's painful, but can be inspirational at the same time.
    • Sachaniman 10y ago
      Honestly, the same experience verbatim.
  • Tenhundfeld 10y ago
    People are interpreting the question as generally "what's something you wish you started doing sooner", which is similar and more commonly asked. People in the reddit thread did this also. What you're really after is more like "what is a moment in your life that made you rethink things and change your behavior". I think they're both valid interpretations of the question. There's a common idiom, "an aha! moment", which can refer to either the source of the revelation or the revelation itself.
  • barrkel 10y ago
    Create a topic for your own question.
• ecliptik 10y ago
  Using GPG more. After all the recent email leaks and privacy breaches, encryption and verification of plaintext communications is more vital than ever. If only it didn't have such a steep learning curve.
  • cookiecaper 10y ago
    I spent about 2 years harping on everyone I know to use this, including clients, bosses, friends, colleagues, and everyone else I would send more than 2 or 3 emails. I was only able to get a couple of people using it (and that was probably mostly because they were worried I would be able to get them fired if they didn't keep me happy). I eventually gave up. Crypto is super important, but it's way too hard to get practically anyone, even technical people, to use it. This area is ripe for disruption I think, especially as more and more high-profile leaks get released. Someone could sell some great, easyish-to-use crypto software and get a lot of money.
    • KhalilK 10y ago
      I have some spare Keybase invites. Drop me an email if you want. Maybe it'll help.
• DougN7 10y ago
  Charging for (optional) yearly support for my B2B software, and giving away the first year for free to everyone. Given a decent retention rate, this makes a huge difference down the road.
• awt 10y ago
  Learning to read Ancient Greek. The insights into language and culture just keep coming...
  • arcanus 10y ago
    What have you been reading? I loved Anabasis (not too tough for a beginner like me), trying to read Ethics.
    • awt 10y ago
      I'm still mostly working through my textbook, but I've read part of an interlinear translation of the Anabasis. I'm reading through parts of Plato's Apology with a group. My goal is to be able to read at least one of Aristotle's books, and perhaps Herodotus and Homer. Regarding Anabasis, the scene in which the 10000 put on a show for the Queen of Kilikia (who is rumored to be sleeping with Cyrus), ending it with a fake charge scattering the onlookers struck me as profoundly humorous.
• nailer 10y ago
  Listening to other people more. I'm the youngest of six children, and it's hard for me to get a word in edgewise when I'm at home. Then one day I realised that women thought I was sexist and men thought I was an asshole because I dominated the conversation. I'm a grown man and don't need to take advantage of every opportunity to speak.
  • exolymph 10y ago
    Leaving aside the gender politics because that can be controversial on Hacker News, I heartily agree that listening more is beneficial. It can be extended as a philosophy. Reading more and publishing less — though not necessarily writing less. Feeling more and judging less. (Please don't be pedantic about this, anyone; you know what I mean.) Giving other people the space to teach you can be a wonderful experience.
• microDude 10y ago
  Using a daily planner (on paper, not a app). I figured this out about 2 months ago. Being able to write down the tasks and scan back through my backlog has helped me be more productive. For me, using a calendar service or task manager app just does not work as well... BTW, I am a millennial. edit: I am 10 years younger then everyone else at my company and get questioned all the time about "why I use a day runner" when everyone else is on a smartphone.
  • curiousgal 10y ago
    Silly question but what exact notebook are you using?
    • dotsamuelswan 10y ago
      Could not possibly agree with OP more. I'm using a Field Notes 56-Week planner.
    • Jtsummers 10y ago
      I'm, personally, a fan of the Staples Arc notebooks (similar to the Levenger Circa notebooks, but cheaper). Like a cross between a 3-ring binder and a spiral notebook. Makes it easy for me to start writing on the front sheet of the notebook, and move its proper section later.
• stordoff 10y ago
  Switching from Python2 to Python3. I never had a strong preference for either (most of what I write are short, throwaway scripts), so just stuck with Python2 out of habit. After implementing a basic static site generator, seeing it explode when I put "naïve" in the database, and then discovering the awkwardness of using Unicode in Python2, I decided to port it over to Python3. Using Unicode by default was a huge advantage.
  • Lxr 10y ago
    Interesting, opposite experience here. My life became much easier when I decided to start new projects in python2 rather than starting under 3 and switching back in frustration after fighting with 2to3 for hours at a time. Even now I think there's enough libraries that just don't support 3 to make a case for using 2 as a rule (I do mostly machine learning/optimisation).
• ChuckMcM 10y ago
  How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtual world making vanity things. And it finally hit me how profoundly stupid that was. So I stopped playing WoW.
  • disantlor 10y ago
    hah I had the same experience with the same game and basically haven't played a video game again in like 6 years. Once they perfect VR though...
  • mason240 10y ago
    I had a similar epiphany when I started to learn programming (I was about 27 at the time). I realized I was spending all my time just incrementing numbers in a server. Since then I've dropped almost all gaming, reducing it to about 4 hours a week of phone games and shifted to doing outdoor activities like running, biking, ect. PokemonGo has been a way to meld the two.
    • llekn 10y ago
      Well... isn't everyone basically spending all their time (working) to just incrementing numbers in a server (bank account balance)?
      • redipiny 10y ago
        The difference is that you can accomplish meaningful things in reality with those numbers.
        • andrepd 10y ago
          I think it's very presumptuous to tell people what is meaningful and not. I have no interest in yachts or sports cars, something stereotypically bought by rich people. OTOH, I have great pride in my current DF save, and in being good at speedrunning some games, for instance. Neither of this things cost me a penny. What makes this less meaningful that something bought with money?
• knocte 10y ago
  Earn my salary in bitcoin.
  • andai 10y ago
    How has this benefited you?
    • knocte 10y ago
      I hate dealing with banks. Plus, my holdings grow in the long-term.
• chollida1 10y ago
  3 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think this is going to become more and more common as a way to head off cancer in the body. I'm not a doctor but my doctor friends believe that eating less is the secret to increasing life span and fasting is the secret to heading off cancer cells before they can really start to grow. Also after 3 days of fasting I find that the mind becomes sharper. Your millage may vary....
  • elmigranto 10y ago
    > Occasional Fasts There was a white paper on /r/science about how decreasing amount of sugar one consumes, lowers chances of developing some kinds of cancer (can't find an exact link, something along the lines "less sugar starves cancer"). Pretty interesting, thanks s for sharing!
    • rconti 10y ago
      There's a lot of research coming out about sugar being one of the most unhealthy things one can consume.
  • Tenoke 10y ago
    >1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. I wish this was true && that there was well compiled evidence that could convince me that this is the case.
    • paloaltokid 10y ago
      Why not just give it a try on your own? Do it for 21 days and don't let yourself have an opinion on it until that stretch of time is done. Then see how you feel and make a decision.
• maxaf 10y ago
  I've only recently started to check in my dotfiles.
• rayalez 10y ago
  1. Good diet, exercise, and generally taking care of my health. Seriously, this should be the top priority, if you know that you're being stupid about how you treat your body - fix it as soon as possible. 2. Writing regularly(fiction or nonfiction). I think it's one of the most awesome skills you can develop, and the younger you are when you start practicing - the easier it will be. Just create a blog, and try to regularly post something valuable there. It's truly awesome, in so many ways, and the longer you keep doing it - the more awesome it gets. 3. Reading and information diet. Trying to minimize inane internet browsing, news, social media, and maximize the healthy information that I consume. Audiobooks are the best thing ever. Enjoyable and satisfying to listen to, and incredibly valuable. Just get in a habit of reading/listening, and you will soon learn a massive amount of great information.
  • econner 10y ago
    Regarding #3 do you have designated times that you read, etc? I find that I end up spending a lot of little chunks on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and HN when something is compiling or deploying or starting to run. I keep saying I'm going to stop checking all of these inane things, but I always fall back into it with these 5 min chunks where it would be hard to do something else.
    • rayalez 10y ago
      HN has a fantastic no-procrastination mode(enabled in settings), it locks you out after 20 minutes of browsing, for the next 3 hours, it really helps. Since I don't feel like fb/twitter are adding anything to my life, I just blocked them in my router. I still end up there occassionally, but it's not an addiction. I still do spend too much time on reddit, but I'm trying avoid it as well. I'm getting better at it, but slowly. It's mostly a matter of my brain gradually comprehending that it's a pretty joyless activity that adds very little to my life. I don't have a designated time for reading, I'm just trying to avoid the "bad" kinds of information, and since my brain keeps craving it, audiobooks end up being the best way to satisfy it.
      • econner 10y ago
• Another223 10y ago
  Podcasts! I was considering jobs on the buy-side and a friend recommended a couple of financial podcasts. Knowing that part of the interview would be about my financial style and what industry leaders I followed / read I had a strong incentive to give them a try. I quickly became hooked. More convenient during my (on-transit) commute than a book and there's such a vast range of topics available to keep you interested.
  • crypto5 10y ago
    Names of podcasts are very welcomed :-)
  • dyim 10y ago
    Would you mind sharing some of these podcasts? I work in software and I'm very interested in eventually making the switch into PE :) .
  • martin_bech 10y ago
    Could you list the financial podcasts?
  • 33W 10y ago
    I got started with podcasts about a year ago. Great while I'm working on things I don't need to really focus on, walking the dog, driving, etc. Listing my financial ones: Marketplace Marketplace weekend Radical Personal Finance Slate Money Freakonomics Planet Money Non-financial ones: Parent Savers Intelligence Squared Intelligence Squared US HBR Ideacast Happier Serial Common Sense with Dan Carlin Dan Carlin's Hardcore History NPR Politics The Economist Radio Stuff You should Know 99% Invisible
    • Another223 10y ago
      In addition to these, Value Investing Podcast (John Mihaljevic) would be my top pick. The host can be slow so I tend to listen on 1.5x speed but the interviews are often fascinating. InvestTalk I find more mixed but generally pretty solid round-up, usually gives me ideas for follow-up reading Similar with The Investors Podcast, good introduction to some interesting people LSE has some public lectures, also fairly broad range of topics (http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/publicLecturesAndEvents/Home.aspx http://www.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/videoAndAudio/channels/pub...)
• cjbprime 10y ago
  GNU screen.
• chrisabrams 10y ago
  Leave Texas and go to a real tech hub.
  • ScaryRacoon 10y ago
    Where did you end up going?
• pvaldes 10y ago
  Each time I plant a fruit tree.
• spdustin 10y ago
  Seeing a psychiatrist to be diagnosed with AD/HD and, later due to life circumstances, depression and anxiety. Seeing a developmental pediatrician for my son when he was younger to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Seeing a rheumatologist to discuss ramifications of the HLA-B27 gene and the family history of spondylarthropathies. What's the common thread? See a doctor when you have any health concerns, physical or mental, no matter what others may tell you about it being a waste of time. And not Dr. Google, M.D., but a doctor that you trust. Google their credentials, sure, but don't google a diagnosis.
  • orblivion 10y ago
    How do you find a doctor who you trust?
• aphextron 10y ago
  Definitely learning to program. I now separate my life into before and after learning to program. It really is like becoming literate in a world of people that can't read. It's the most powerful knowledge in existence.
• squozzer 10y ago
  1) Playing guitar. 2) Moving to a nicer part of town, closer to my work. 3) Re-connecting with old school chums thru FB.
• hatsunearu 10y ago
  Learning new things that I didn't care about previously: machine learning, game dev, web dev, and high level programming. Lots of fun!
• ankit_m 10y ago
  Taking a 10 min break from everything and being quiet.
• prokilogram 10y ago
  reading hacker news.
• viggity 10y ago
  Platform as a Service. (specifically I use Azure App Services, but AWS Lambda has got to be similar). Not having to worry about managing a VM is such a delight. I had that nitty gritty bullshit. Now I just deploy my code and I can focus on features.
• Harelin 10y ago
  When I am working on something and need to break for the day, I try to stop at a point where I am enthusiastic about continuing (i.e. not experiencing writer's block or confused as to how to proceed). This means I will be able to pick up the next day write where I left off, immediately get back into the flow of things, and I will look forward to doing it.
  • chris11 10y ago
    I've also heard that it's a good idea to stop at a point where there are some very easy things that you need to do, even if you might need to introduce some errors to get to that point. For instance if you were writing a paper, and hadn't ran spelling/grammar check for awhile leaving that as the first thing you need to do the next time you start work would be a good idea. That's an easy fix that doesn't require much thought, but gives you the immediate feedback of getting something done.
• endlessvoid94 10y ago
  - Exercise regularly - Introduce more technical leadership roles to my engineering team
• BatFastard 10y ago
  Getting regular deep tissue massages. It does a reset on all the little aches and pains I build up during long work sessions. I stopped for a few years and I started again and it was a "Wow, I forgot how much I need these" moment. Daily exercise, forgot about this for years. I think more clearly, feel better during the day, sleep better at night. Home cooking, so easy to lose this joy when busy. Swimming in the water when ever you go on vacation, whether is a pool, or stream, or ocean.
  • ovatsug25 10y ago
    Seconding this one. Focusing on stretching and mobility is the BIG one for me.
• edmack 10y ago
  Starting a company
• curiousgal 10y ago
  Good diet. I've been underweight for years! Thought it had to do with genes or fast metabolism but turns out I was just a lazy person. Started cooking meals and stopped skipping them, it was hard at first because it's easier to skip dinner than to go out shop for groceries and make something. The effort has been worth it! I've been studying for the CCNA and I've been having that moment ever since I started, there's so much to cover and so little time.
• Rannath 10y ago
  1) TDD, I get SOO much more done, & with a greater level of confidence. 2) Exercise, I'm not tired all the time anymore. I'm losing weight. I'm happier. I no longer have an all comsuming need to feast on human flesh.
  • andai 10y ago
    Do you mean that exercising led to you becoming vegetarian or cutting down meat? Edit: lol looks like I should get some sleep
• ovatsug25 10y ago
  Focusing on stretching and mobility instead of strength when working out. My #1 priority right now is becoming a breakdancer. Flexibility is such a huge component—you end up feeling lighter on your feet and incredibly alive. Changing my workouts to flexibity first almost make them philosophical. The easiest way to do it is with Yoga—but it might get old quickly because there are many poor teachers. Want to start doing it and feel like you always have so much to learn? Look up Ido Portal. OMG. :)
  • jjzieve 10y ago
    I've been a bboy off and on for almost a decade, good to see more people getting into it lately, dancing is the healthiest thing I do by far. Some unsolicited advice, there is more to it than just the moves, you'll enjoy it more/longer if you develop a deep appreciation of the music and culture as well.
    • ovatsug25 10y ago
      Any literature / movies you would recommend for a deeper dive into that? BTW, what do you mean by bboy?
      • noctuid 10y ago
        A b-boy is a term for a male breaker. Wikipedia does a pretty good job explaining "breakdancing" and "b-boying": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-boying#Terminology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-boying#Terminology
• pavlov 10y ago
  Started wearing expensive perfume that I really like. (I'm a man.) It's stupid how much of an effect that can have on my mood, and I never thought about it before, since guys aren't supposed to.
• corywright 10y ago
  Using an electric toothbrush. (It's the little things)
• chrisdbaldwin 10y ago
  Leaving negative people and environments behind and moving on with life.
• elorant 10y ago
  Reading Hacker News. Seriously, this place from an intellectual point of view is the most important aspect in my life. It has opened my mind to so many viewpoints. It's one of the few healthy places on the Internet where you can have a decent conversation without things getting out of hand, while in the same time learn something new.
  • oriel 10y ago
    I'd clarify this as reading Hacker News comments, something I've only started doing recently. Its turned an adventure in increasing my browser tab density (shiny articles), to a deep discussion on the finer points of an important knowledge item (Implications of Oracle buying NetSuite). i.e. Depth of knowledge rather than breadth of shallow knowledge (reading the headlines only).
    • kaybe 10y ago
      Looking up the keywords in one headline I don't understand every few days alone is incredibly helpful.
    • WA 10y ago
      Nowadays, I almost never click the links in HN and only read the comments. Most of the time, they give a good summary and additional insight. Only if I find the comments interesting, I click on the original link. But it helps to live in a different time zone (Germany) than most HN users.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• egypturnash 10y ago
  Starting to do burlesque dance. I had to go downtown for a doctor's appointment, and on a whim, I scheduled it so that I could go check out a school whose calendar I'd subscribed to a month or so earlier. I had fun, I kept going back. Got myself in great shape, got incredible amounts of confidence and charisma. These days I don't do it any more; the school moved to a less convenient location, and I ended up doing pole dance instead. Getting in shape is great but it's boring; doing it with the context of learning something on top of it works amazingly well for me. And as a bonus, now i have no fear of looking stupid on a dance floor - I know a lot of interesting things to do to a beat.
  • caconym_ 10y ago
    > Getting in shape is great but it's boring; doing it with the context of learning something on top of it works amazingly well for me. Bouldering worked the same way for me. I don't do it anymore for stupid reasons and I should get back into it, but for a while I was in amazing shape from doing something not only physically but also mentally stimulating (and fun!).
    • egypturnash 10y ago
      Bouldering looks both awesome and scary to me. If I didn't mind the thought of probably breaking all my nails I'd be tempted to try it. Get back on those rocks!
• tehchromic 10y ago
  Beekeeping. I go to sleep thinking about the little bugs, and wake up with them on my mind. When I'm bothered by work or life I think about the colony doing it's thing and feel better. They're awesome.
• filoeleven 10y ago
  Walking alone in the woods. I only started doing this regularly a few years ago, and although I do not regret how I spent my time previously, I instantly realized that I had been missing out on something wonderful. Whenever I take a walk, even if it is a place I have been to dozens of times, I always find something interesting that I hadn't seen, heard, or noticed before. I have literally never gone on a walk and later wished I hadn't. I spend a lot of time alone anyway but there is a huge difference between being surrounded by a static, simple rectilinear enclosure and being surrounded by a living, breathing dynamic ecosystem. It is incredibly soothing. I do not regularly meditate, but I will often find myself sitting quietly in one spot outside and letting the sights and sounds wash over me along with the thoughts and feelings they evoke.
• personlurking 10y ago
  Two current answers: - Learning to say "no" easily - Leaving a bad/so-so situation sooner rather than later _______ Two future answers: - planning for the future (I'm an "in the moment" type) - moving out of the city (and into the countryside)
• calanya 10y ago
  The moment my girl was born. I now regret waiting so long to be a parent.
  • kylemuir 10y ago
    If you dont mind me asking: how old were you when she was born?
    • calanya 10y ago
      33.
• zos 10y ago
  Reading "Moby Dick".
• dotsamuelswan 10y ago
  After a single week of using a physical daily planner, I realized I'd accomplished more in the previous week than I had in the past 6 months. No looking back. Every Sunday I write down a single thing to accomplish for each day of the next week: Read a chapter of a book, Write a post about a specific topic, etc. Procrastination is super dangerous when there isn't a deadline. Way too easy for "tomorrow" to turn into never. Professional/Personal development stuff seems to fall into that trap pretty frequently. I tried tracking things with all sorts of different software, but nothing clicked for me like pen and paper. (Field Notes 56-Week planner pairs well with a uni-ball 307 Gel Pen.)
  • rconti 10y ago
    My biggest problem with planners and to-do lists is I don't consult them. I've tried evernote, I've tried google notes, I used a Palm Pilot 20 years ago. I think technology is better for me because it's always available, but simply having a todo list doesn't cause me to remember to check it. I never think "hey, I'm bored, I wonder what's on the list!" Any advice?
    • argc 10y ago
      Same problem, I never check any notes I write on a computer or phone. A physical planner for me is the way to go, I'm not sure why I tend to check it more often but I do. I also enjoy writing in it quite a bit more, I can draw diagrams or doodle if I feel like it. I bought a notebook with a dot grid for this reason.
      • jaynos 10y ago
        Same here. Digital lists are never reviewed. I carry one or two scrap envelopes in my back pocket (or a skinny notebook) at all times with a list of things to do. In the morning, when I transfer my wallet, keys, and envelopes to the pants that I'll be wearing, I check my list and see what needs doing.
    • vborovikov 10y ago
      I use a calendar app instead of a to-do list. I just put notes to my future self.
• overcast 10y ago
  1. Getting more sleep. 2. Spending more time with family. 3. Finishing projects I start. 4. Solo traveling. I'm done waiting for others to get off their ass.
  • deanstag 10y ago
    +1 for solo traveling. done waiting for others and done not being concerned about making other people wait
    • rrecuero 10y ago
      +1. Great for self awareness and discovery.
• walrus01 10y ago
  Running all of my own authoritative and recursive DNS on my own hardware I own/control.
• leroy_masochist 10y ago
  Learning how to say no and not feel guilty about it. I think there's a weird superstition that many of us have where we feel as if we don't deserve and won't achieve success unless we do everything we possibly can, across every vector of life, all the time. And this causes us to have "yes" as our default response, sometimes to our own detriment. And it often takes a big cold bowl of reality (death in family, getting fired, relationship breakup, physical injury, etc) for us to realize that it's OK to say no sometimes. Will I write a glowing intro email for a passing acquaintance's friend who wants to work at company where I used to work and still have strong relationships? No, sorry. Will I miss a scheduled workout so I can sit in on a conference call that got scheduled at the last minute? No, sorry. Can you borrow my phone charger? No, sorry. Writing these out, I get the visceral feeling that it will come off as selfish. It is selfish, I guess. But learning to say no to things I don't want to do has been a big step for me.
• bitwize 10y ago
  When I started lifting weights.
• samblr 10y ago
  Cooking: a life skill which I regretfully learnt very late but its something which I completely immerse-and-enjoy myself now.
• byandyphillips 10y ago
  Getting all the junk out of my apartment. Simplifying. Getting a housekeeper to save time and do all the things I didn't want to. Although it failed, letskudos.com was born.
• LukeB_UK 10y ago
  Switched jobs. I was living and working in a town that's somewhat boring and not the most inspiring. I came to the decision I needed to leave when there was a restructure going on and I realised that I wasn't learning anything and didn't really have anyone to learn from as well as the fact that the company wasn't really investing in learning and progression. I've been at my new job for just over a month now and have been learning loads. The company actively invests in learning and personal development, with one of the benefits being a fund to spend on that as well as them providing training needed for my role. We've also recently been allocated some time to spend on personal learning/development. I now work in a city so it also got me to move out of that town and closer to the city which has been good for my social life.
• stevenkovar 10y ago
  Saying "No" and giving back. Constantly remind yourself that "this is entirely optional," whether it's a lunch meeting, a product feature, or your entire career. It helps you be more present—in the moment. If it doesn't excite you enough to be in the moment, say no next time. Eventually, your schedule will be more and more interesting and engaging to you. We become a slave to "yes" without realizing it. Derek Sivers has a good piece about this: https://sivers.org/hellyeah https://sivers.org/hellyeah Give back; or even better, practice preemptive giving. Not to be manipulative or trying to find some sort of karmic success; just because giving itself feels good and it causes you to start thinking from a more empathetic, gratitude-focused state of mind. I think the world needs more of this, and hell... it's easier to handle stress when you default to finding the positive in a situation than actively looking for something to be critical of.
  • pjlegato 10y ago
    That all sounds great, if you're independently wealthy or at least have a well-padded bank account. What if the "option" you have is turning your entire family out onto the street if you decline? The "give back" mantra is a bourgeois affectation.
    • zachsnow 10y ago
      There's a lot of things one can give that don't require buckets of cash, perhaps they meant something along the lines of: * time (contribute to a project, help a neighbor paint their living room, teach a friend to weave baskets or something) * kindness (listen to a friend's troubles over a beer, or assume the best in someone else's efforts, as opposed to criticizing) I agree that when I practice those things I am happier for it, anyway.
• brightball 10y ago
  Elixir.
• elmarschraml 10y ago
  Listening to podcasts. Perfect for when both your eyes and hands are occoupied, but your brain is bored. To put in in less nerdy terms, cleaning, ironing and other housework, exercise and walking will never be boring again.
• thegigaraptor 10y ago
  Testing code. I was completely against the idea of writing more code for my code that "worked". But as releases came out validating everything was in order became a pain.
• lem93 10y ago
  Learning vim commands
• tdicola 10y ago
  Exercise, even simple stuff that doesn't require going to a gym or expensive equipment like pushups and squats. I started doing those every day since the start of this year and I can't believe how much it has improved my fitness and health. Squats in particular gave me a lot more stamina with running, climbing stairs, etc. It takes less than 10 minutes a day to do a few of each (I worked up to doing 50 of each) too.
• pizza 10y ago
  ADHD medication, 1000%!!
• Borkdude 10y ago
  1) quit smoking 2) quit drinking alcohol (as a daily habit, I still drink an occasional beer with friends) 3) a whole foods plant based diet (https://medium.com/@borkdude/tl-dr-of-my-long-term-weight-loss-and-maintenance-success-49cb43f62a1a https://medium.com/@borkdude/tl-dr-of-my-long-term-weight-lo...) 4) meditation 5) regular exercise
• cperciva 10y ago
  Becoming a cyborg. (Yes, seriously. But not relevant to 99% of the people here.)
  • jbpetersen 10y ago
    Cochlear implant or something more exotic?
    • cperciva 10y ago
      Insulin pump.
• rdegges 10y ago
  For me, it was 100% weight lifting and dieting (aka: exercise). Pretty much everyone here has mentioned this, but I don't think anyone has really explained just how incredibly life-changing it can really be. I've been programming since I was a kid. Spending most of my time at a desk eating Doritos and fast food wasn't really the best choice. I spent most of my 'good years' as a young guy being really overweight and hating myself. Being overweight led me to really not like myself, be afraid of going out in public, etc. I spent a ton of time in my best years feeling lonely, hiding away in my room hacking on code, and generally not enjoying my life 100%. After years of this, when I turned 25, I realized that if I ever wanted to look good and feel confident, I should probably just get started. I did some research online: * Read the fitness subreddit. * Read some books about weight lifting and nutrition. And... I just got started. It took a while to learn how to actually do things right, but over the course of the first year I lost almost exactly 100lbs not knowing what I was doing. The amount of self confidence that gave me was the single best gift I've ever had. I didn't feel afraid to go out in public anymore, talk to people, give tech talks, or just generally interact with people anymore. After that, I realized that if I could lose weight, why not take it up a notch? I've always liked the way professional bodbuilders looked -- they look like real life superheros. So, I figured that if I can lose weight, why not take it a bit further and try to get closer to what I'd really like to look like? So, I started reading about bodybuilding, etc. I realized that it isn't that hard! So over the last 2 years, I've been doing a lot more weightlifting, eating better, etc., and things have been awesome! I feel way more confident, feel happier, have a better private life, etc. Overall, getting in shape has been, without question, the best time investment of my life. Here's me a few years back when I got married: http://i.imgur.com/NQ5dskZ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/NQ5dskZ.jpg Here's me from a few weeks ago: http://i.imgur.com/k6OzJoS.jpg http://i.imgur.com/k6OzJoS.jpg
  • LA_Banker 10y ago
    Holy hell, that's quite a transformation. Congrats to you. Yes, that's the biggest thing that's under-stressed about exercise: the benefits are not just physical/health related. Like you, exercise has made me far less averse to interacting with people, and resulted in me being more outgoing, more open meeting new people, and just living a better life as a result. There's a book called Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain that relates that if exercise came in pill form, it would be plastered across the front page, hailed as the blockbuster drug of the century – purely on cognitive/psychological benefits alone. That really drove it home for me. Don't just workout for health reasons. Workout for life reasons.
• rocqua 10y ago
  Stop working at home (where my PC / funbox is a massive abstraction). Start reading slashdot and later hackernews. I am still a CS student, these news sites allow me insight into the world after college, allowing me to plan and visualize my future better.
• dylanz 10y ago
  Squat, Deadlift, Press and Bench a lot of heavy weight. OLY lifts as well. It's the only thing that's helped deal with stress.
• tatobug 10y ago
  Taking a sabbatical. I was burnt out from working, and I was getting that "unfulfilled" feeling, feeling a little lost. I took a 2 month "trial" sabbatical, then quit my job for good after coming back for a few months. That was a few years ago and I'm now on my second sabbatical. I'm poorer financially of course, but much richer personally, having a more positive outlook on life, and most importantly much, much happier.
• rdtsc 10y ago
  Switch jobs. Was in the same company for 8 years. Learned everything they had there, liked everyone. But decided try to interview a few places, due to my buddy nagging me, so gets some credit. But once I started, got some good offers, a good raise and now like the new position. Thinking back, I should have done in maybe 3 or so years back. It is just that there is so much stuff happening in technology that it is almost a disservice to yourself (if your goal is to explore and learn new things) to always just stay in one place. It also happens to be one of the best way to get a good salary bump.
• Raphmedia 10y ago
  Eating in the morning. Started at 25 years old. Never did before.
  • CroCroCro 10y ago
    Same here. I was never hungry. Now, for some reason, I really like breakfast :O
• stuffedBelly 10y ago
  reading The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. The book was published in 2008 and I just finished reading the book a couple of months ago. It was a wild journey into the land of science fiction. Highly recommend if you are a fan of Asimov or Phillip K Dick.
• ForrestN 10y ago
  Describing myself as gay. After so much self-torture it's one of my favorite parts of my identity now.
• lopatin 10y ago
  Thinking about hard problems in terms of lambda calculus. I took a day to read about all that stuff and at some point so many things fell into place. I learned CS theory in school, learned ML, but it's not the same as being confronted by a seemingly monstrous software project and then realizing ... omg, everything is relational and I can just write an interpreter. No longer asking "how do I write this in ruby/java/js ..." but how do all of these things relate to each other and if which language would be best for encoding my invariants. All kinds of ML and AI fields go from "data science, math stuff ... disregard" to a fascinating universe of answers to questions that you already have in your head for how to solve your real world software problems. The usefulness of macros became obvious and custom monads are rewarding achievements. Closures, instead of being occasional conveniences, became a swiss army knife for eliminating explicit data structures. Not for all projects of course, but when building something enterprisey, simulated, or creative where users can model their own domain I believe that at least being familiar with the theory is not optional. I'm also somewhat convinced now that most "10x programmers" are maybe ~2x programmers who have simply encoded their expertise into a private DSL using JetBrains MPS or something. Allowing themselves to spend more time snowballing their skills and knowledgebase, and less time doing repetitive tasks and managing incidental complexity. Oh also, I started using linear constraint solvers for automatically solving small to medium sized problems. You'll usually see them used for UI layout constraints, but that's just the beginning! For example, say you're building a small scheduling system, or a lightweight recommendation system that lies somewhere in between an if-statement and a full blown classifier, or you're writing some arbitrary last-minute business rule for a client where several things depend on each other with varying levels of weights/importance. If you know some things are linear, and the problem is unlikely outgrow the solver, then save yourself hours or work and just solve it at runtime!
  • mulcahey 10y ago
    You should write some blog posts or something about this. As someone just finishing up their undergrad I'd love to hear about these applications and detailed examples.
  • rocqua 10y ago
    Do you have any good sources for reading up on lambda calculus?
• simbalion 10y ago
  Starting my own business in I.T. I spent years struggling with unemployment and job hunting after a decade and a half of solid real-world experience. Starting my own company was the best thing I've ever done and I wish I'd done it sooner.
• mrspeaker 10y ago
  Mine was making sourdough bread. I had no idea you could catch wild yeast in your house and use it to make amazing loaves of leavened bread with just flour, water, salt and captured yeast. I haven't had store-bought bread for 6 months, and each loaf I wonder why I didn't know about this earlier! (Here's a good starter on making a starter! http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/01/sourdough-bread-a-beginners-guide/ http://www.theclevercarrot.com/2014/01/sourdough-bread-a-beg...)
• onecooldev24 10y ago
  I wish I bought a ton loads of bitcoin just a few years ago.
• teddyc 10y ago
  Listening to podcasts while I work. I used to be a music only person, but I have enjoyed mixing it up lately and listening to topics/people that interest me.
  • RealityVoid 10y ago
    Can you really listen while working? i'm having difficulty listening to anything with words and working, I can't focus on both and I find I don't want to miss anything.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• tyc2021 10y ago
  Stopped watching TV. Can't even think how much time I spent on TV before. I can see within a few years from now I would have similar moments for stopping to use facebook and twitter
• ScaryRacoon 10y ago
  OP asks for moments, gets things people started doing with no description of the moment. For me it is taking extensive notes. Over the past year I started pay attention to the mannerisms, behavior, and personalities of the people whose position I wanted to take in the near future. One commonality among almost all of them: they take notes during almost every conversation and write notes throughout the day as they think of things.
• geoffreyhale 10y ago
  TL;DR: Stop working out. Blasphemy, I know. Summary: A decade long love-obsession with "health and fitness" has taught me that 99% of what our health industry says is nearly-useless or unhealthy. Half the battle of "health" is to stop self-destruction: drug-abuse (obvious), working out "hard" (less obvious). Replace gym and repetitive activity with natural exploratory movement. If you are "supposed to stretch" after, the workout wasn't healthy. The other half is basic. In gentle regular moderation: sleep, eat decently and drink water, go for a walk outside, have some friends and some activities you enjoy. Everything else is minutia and can be left to bodybuilders, professional athletes and fighters, and military personnel.
  • mrfusion 10y ago
    Can you share some examples of what to replace exercise with?
    • carlesfe 10y ago
      I guess he means "functional workouts". These workouts exercise your natural movements: standing up, sitting, laying down and getting up quickly, push, pull, etc. All done with your own body, no extra weights. I've done them for some time and you quickly notice the difference. Instead of inflated biceps which hurt when you stretch them to grab a jar on the top shelf, you'll squat without hassle, jump, get up from bed, and have better core strength. This is the program I've followed and I'm happy with it: https://mhunters.com https://mhunters.com. Check out their videos on youtube and decide for yourself!
• ewindisch 10y ago
  I wish I engaged in Silicon Valley and venture-backed startup culture sooner. If I had, my first startup might've had a better chance of success. Instead, I bootstrapped and ended up with a lifestyle business. I also started it at age 19, just as the '99/2k bubble burst, so I can't take it too hard... I did finally begin integrating into the larger tech scene around '07 with the introduction of Twitter. This and other factors led me to deciding to exit the business and join startups (Cloudscaling, then Docker). I had, however, passed up on offers to join early-stage at a couple companies that had mega-exits... so there's certainly a bit of, "what-if?". That said, perhaps if I had more early success, I wouldn't now be founding my current company (IOpipe, Techstars'16: www.iopipe.com)
• cmod 10y ago
  Taking writing more seriously and approaching it with more rigor. Everything and everyone interesting in my life from the past six years can be traced directly back to writing. Jobs I've gotten, deeper relationships with people whose work I love and respect — all tied together by words. In my life, I can't think of a single thing that has a better return on time in to value out. (Outside of family / children.)
• busterc 10y ago
  Saving money by using Ebates, Cardpool and Raise. Not using Ebates for 15 years has certainly cost me several thousands of dollars.
• aldanor 10y ago
  Taking musicianship seriously. I started playing piano and taking classes when I was 15 but didn't pay enough attention to it. 15 years later, I'm angry at my past self at being so lazy and wasting time on things that are now utterly irrelevant.
• sebastianconcpt 10y ago
  1) Programming in Smalltalk in 1998 2) Having beard 3) Freelancing with multiple tech 4) Understanding Conspicuous Signalling Theory (read Spent from Geoffrey Miller) 5) Since I've got meditation early I'd add trying to master lucid OBEs younger, they are uber cool. Neo mastering The Matrix kind of cool.
• pbjorklund 10y ago
  I wonder how many of these answers are real and how many is something people want/value but don't actually do in reality. But then again, a fake story from one person that makes two people change in a good direction is better than truth, no?
• spacemanmatt 10y ago
  Yoga. I sit at a desk all day. I've been in a couple car wrecks. I had to do something about my back. Now I have a regular practice and I regret not picking it up MUCH earlier in my life.
• ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Blues dancing. It's a partnered social dance that focuses on musicality, improvisation, connection, and quality of movement. It's done wonders for my confidence and my sense of being "embodied". Like, I know I used to walk around without ever noticing where my hips are, and that just seems really really weird now.
• callesgg 10y ago
  Thinking about and trying to fix my posture. Sitting in a chair to much causes something called "anterior pelvic tilt", almost everyone in the modern world suffers from it more or less. Writing a diary with the stuff that i have on my mind, it is easy to forget who you where before, and why you changed.
  • gobengo 10y ago
    I noticed this in myself but never knew the name for it! Thanks
• songzme 10y ago
  switching from emacs to vim.
  • andai 10y ago
    could you post a bit about your experience?
• geff82 10y ago
  For me, it was getting into IT when I was 30 (4 years ago) and for the first time in my life, I loved my work. I did not do it when I was 20, when was deeply into programming. Instead, I feared math in computer science studies, which led me to work as a car salesman (one that read HN all the time). When I was really broke and unhappy, I met a guy who introduced me into IT contracting for big companies. I just did what he said and instantly landed a long term gig that quadrupled my income. This, in return, made me read, read, read to learn as much as possible. Besides work, I now do Computer Science courses at university. Boy, had I known I could do all this, I would have started a decade sooner...
  • asenna 10y ago
    > I met a guy who introduced me into IT contracting for big companies. I just did what he said and instantly landed a long term gig that quadrupled my income. Would you mind sharing some of the tips the guy gave you? I'd be really interested. I'm doing small-time IT contracting but looking to grow the business.
    • geff82 10y ago
      He told me: for your first gig, fake or optimize your CV as much as needed(I know this was not ethical but it was better than robbing a bank or being broke). Then, go to Xing (the German Linkedin, which is a gold mine if you know where the Freelancer group is). Then if someone picks you, learn and study as if the devil was behind you. So I did, applied for a lot of Linux administrator jobs, had interviews and it took me about 7 days to get hired by the first company for a long term admin-contract (I already knew my way around Linux, but had no enterprise experience). After a few months, this guy started his own contracting company and instantly got me a job. Nowadays, I am best friends with the guy who introduced me and even the poor guy who recruited me for the first job (I told him my lies later, which did not change his opinion that I had been a good pick for the customer). Nowadays, I keep it all real. My experience and field of work is good enough to be able to tell I had been a car salesman before. But to get good jobs in Germany or Switzerland, use Xing, freelancermap or to a lesser extend, use Linkedin. And know exactly what you want to offer.
  • 10y ago
• jonbarker 10y ago
  Managing energy instead of time produces huge gains when done right.
  • tra3 10y ago
    Can you expand on this?
• Nicholas_C 10y ago
  Golf. It's a great way to be outside and get to know people. It can also be played well into old age.
• iaci 10y ago
  Observing the world: Before I just wanted to apply models to the world and morale. Now, I just want to observe, if l like something, I continue else I try to stop If possible. Journaling/writing: Writing is really usefull. It helps: remembering (the brain just distord) taking things out of your head to take some distance. Don't believing in truth: There is no such thing as that. And posting on HM! :)
• hartator 10y ago
  Are they bad side effects to meditation? I've read a study that found out that can trigger depression in 7% of the people.
• kylestlb 10y ago
  1) Yoga (or just breathing better). If you're a shallow breather your entire life this will change so much. 2) Stronger-typed javascript. I can't imagine not using Typescript at this point. I would lose so much productivity without the proper intellisense, among other things.
• aayala 10y ago
  emacs org mode
• kevindeasis 10y ago
  Most of these haven't become second nature yet, but I'm getting there. The hard part is having momentum and flow. But, generally, my day works out great if I can do all of this in a day. 1) Meditation 2) IFTTT that syncs trello and google calendar 3) Eating Healthier 4) Running 5) ABC: Always be coding 6) Talking to people who are really good at their domain 7) Sleeping: Flux helps 8) App that tracks how much time I spend on websites and apps 9) Pomodoro 10) Reading fiction from a good writer 11) Reading good blog posts 12) Having a lunch with different people 13) Finding people who just started programming who I can help out 14) Not having decision fatigue I have more, but these are the main one
  • oriel 10y ago
    Can you elaborate more on 14 (decision fatigue)? It sounds like something I've encountered recently (as autonomy increases) but never pinned as a concept that I can talk about.
    • kevindeasis 10y ago
      Most of us have to make multiple decisions in our day-to-day lives. Decisions that varies from a range of very important decisions to less important decisions. From what I can recall we have a limited energy pool to make and execute decisions. Decisions that fall under different categories of importance. I've recently had to set up my day wherein, I don't have to make many non-important decisions and have them instead set-up for me automatically. This way I'll have more energy in my decision-making energy pool. This energy can then be used to do more important stuff that I care about. I hope this helps.
      • oriel 10y ago
        That helps immensely. It also follows the implied definition I had conjured when reading your initial term. Thanks :)
  • samblr 10y ago
    10) Reading fiction from a good writer anything you can recommend ?
• rockwotj 10y ago
  Using Vim, it's really allowed me to be more efficient as a coder.
• dorfsmay 10y ago
  Using vim, and learning it in depth. I'm an old AIX/HP-UX hand, and stuck to vi and clones because I was afraid I'd start using a vim-only command that wouldn't work on vi. Then Unicode became more and more prevalent and vi and it's clones didn't support it well + I started doing mainly Linux, so I switched to vim. Then finally I started learning all the vim-specific extras... Yeah totally wish I started earlier!
• isuckatcoding 10y ago
  Be faithful or at least try to have an intellectual discourse on religion without devolving into bigotry. Even just learning about another religion can be so enlightening.
• projektir 10y ago
  I'm a little bummed by how much everyone here was helped by exercise, while for me it does little more than nothing.
  • tra3 10y ago
    What kind of regiment are you following? There's technically no "wrong" way to exercise (if you're not getting injured) but certainly some approaches are better at making you "fitter".
• YZF 10y ago
  Learn to play the Guitar or I guess any musical instrument. I've been playing for the last 1.5 years and it's a great way to relax, clear you mind, prove to yourself that you're capable of taking on new things. It's a lot of fun too! EDIT: The actual "why didn't I do this sooner" moment comes after a month or so where you get fast enough with chord changes that you can actually play something :)
• jondubois 10y ago
  I don't think I've ever had such a moment. I've never had anything in my life work out so unexpectedly well that this thought would have entered my mind. I am rarely surprised by the consequences of my decisions... When I am surprised it's usually not in a good way. I guess that makes me an optimist? I'm a cynical optimist.
• nkantar 10y ago
  Shameless plug: I feel like I have those pretty often, with the most recent being yesterday: https://github.com/nkantar/GHT.vim https://github.com/nkantar/GHT.vim
• verdverm 10y ago
  Conquest of Mind (book), squatty potty, body bar (blue S), vim, Vimium, code generation, quit smoking
• tammer 10y ago
  Becoming "paleo" (I prefer the term 'evidence-based diet'). Transformed my body composition, energy levels, and overall health. Introduced to it through the wonderful nomnompaleo app.
• kovek 10y ago
  Cold showers! My inspiration to start was Wim Hof
• flatroze 10y ago
  1. Ditching people who were emotionally abusing me pretending they were my friends to take advantage of me (financial and/or emotional) 2. Switching away from Windows to GNU/Linux 3. Investing in stock market 4. Eating organic and vegan only 5. Drinking only bottled water 6. Working out and learning martial arts 7. Working on my self-esteem 8. Believing in myself 9. Keeping small paper notes for everything I do and have to do 10. Avoiding crazy girls/women like every other good boy/man should 11. Being honest with myself 12. Taking care of the future me (then thanking the past me) 13. Fixing my teeth 14. Attempting to leave my country of birth 15. Realizing that being either depressed or happy are choices every human has to make for themselves
  • _Q3 10y ago
    Is 5 and 14 related. Does your local area have terrible water? If your local water is okay I don't really understand the benefit of bottled water only.
  • banterfoil 10y ago
    Why the switch to exclusive bottled water? It might be worth looking into getting a high quality aluminum water bottle. You could still purchase purified water or water in larger containers. Personally after the sun touches plastic water bottles, I think it tastes funky. Plus, reusable water bottles can be better for the environment.
• Dowwie 10y ago
  I buy refurb/secondhand high quality items. None of them have failed me. When you don't buy retail you can often negotiate, especially when you're not dealing with commercial/institutional sellers. Frugal living without compromising quality is art and science. I love it!
• Axsuul 10y ago
  1) Fixing my worsening health symptoms which started almost 3 years ago. It had gotten to a point where I could no longer think or be productive for the past 6 months. After spending every waking moment researching every ailment that matched my symptoms, I eventually discovered I had Hashimoto's and had been hypothyroid for a really long time. This was after making the rounds with several specialists who had no idea what was wrong with me. My recommendation is to take charge of your health and be the best expert of your body. Being healthy is extremely important not just for the obvious reasons, but because everything stems from it. Don't take your health for granted, ever. 2) Learning German which taught me important memorization techniques to carry over to other areas of my life. 3) Stretching & flexibility exercises. I've been a heavy weightlifter ever since college but only began to realize recently that lifting weights can have detrimental effects on your body if that's the only thing you do. You'll become less flexible and more rigid which makes you more prone to injury. Especially with our profession where we're propped on a chair for most of the day, it's important to make sure our bodies can achieve a full range of motion to prevent any skeletal or joint issues down the road. 4) Cooking and eating a ketogenic diet. I'm much more satiated and rarely go hungry throughout the day. Cooking was extremely daunting at first but not so much when you really start doing it. It's an essential skill to have, ensures you're eating whole foods and putting nothing processed in your body, and gets you invites to more potlucks. 5) Writing everything down. My Evernote has exploded within the last year. I keep everything there and it's saved my ass countless times. You'll thank yourself later when you get into the habit of writing everything down. That's all I can think of right now. What's exciting to me after having wrote this is that all these things were realized only within the last year or so. It's fascinating how much we can improve in such a short amount of time as long as we are consistent with always trying to grow and learn.
• andai 10y ago
  Vertical tabs for web browsing. It lets me keep everything in one window, and reveals the true nature of internet browsing (an ever expanding tree, rather than a randomly edited list). You can see which page spawned which ones, which is a blessing for keeping the structure organized. Plus the vertical list is much more readable than microscopic tabs or ones hidden with horizontal scrolling. Also, horizontal screen space is cheaper! I use the Tree Style Tab add-on with FireFox, it's the most solid one I've tried.
  • nextos 10y ago
    I would add tiling window managers. My computer feels different. Tech literate people even ask what OS am I using.
• TACIXAT 10y ago
  1. Elimination diet to find out which foods make me feel horrible (quite a few). I feel great now after a lifetime of sinus headaches and poor digestion. 2. Programming. It's been 7 years now, but when I first started it felt like an instant fit. 3. Currently, Unity 3d. I've tried to write games before and always gotten caught up doing graphics by hand. I'm doing a Udemy course on it and omg can't believe how easy / powerful it is. 4. Using my tax advantaged savings accounts. Why haven't I been maxing out my 401k every year? Not sure, but I am this year!
• pramit 10y ago
  Just sitting still, doing nothing for a few minutes. And observing where the mind wanders. Call it meditation, mindfulness, whatever...but it is...different.
• eager_noob 10y ago
  About six months back I started at my first job after being unemployed for the last six years and weirdly enough did not experience any “why didn't I start doing this sooner” feeling. Guess a really supportive family and the knowledge that i would be inevitably starting at a job some day made the transition almost a non event.
• maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Reading Atlas Shrugged. I never felt any pleasure in helping others or making a personal sacrifice for someone else. Traditional morality of course taught me that this is bad and so I did it anyway even though it hurt me. Worst, other people would shame me using this to their advantage. After I read Atlas Shrugged I realized that there is nothing wrong in how I feel and it's perfectly okay to be selfish. Not being a doormat does wonders for one's self-esteem.
• olegp 10y ago
  Tracking the amount of time I spend on various tasks at work. Here's a blog post I helped edit which explains the benefits in detail: https://blog.toughbyte.com/how-to-boost-productivity-with-time-tracking-eea346df29db https://blog.toughbyte.com/how-to-boost-productivity-with-ti... Another one is tracking personal expenses. I was looking for a solution for a while and even built something of my own, but in the end ended up using YNAB (https://www.youneedabudget.com/ https://www.youneedabudget.com/) which I found out about in an HN comment.
• Anand_S 10y ago
  1. Reading Good Books (One of the best habits that keeps on adding value ) 2. Meditation 3. Exercise & Good Nutrition (Health is your greatest wealth) 4. Sleep (Turning Off Blue light 3-4 hours before has had a very positive impact on sleep quality and general wellness / productivity during day )
• palakz 10y ago
  UI/UX Design. I started designing as a hobby. Just started making designs focused on superheroes, comics, etc. A year later, one of cousin's said he is starting a new project, for which he needs some designs. I randomly started designing it. The UI/UX of that app ended up so well that he's still using the same design concept for the app, and since then I have been learning more and more about UI/UX and I have completed more than 7-8 UI/UX design projects till now. :)
• inbetween 10y ago
  Getting out of a relationship with an abusive (and stunningly good looking) woman...
• patatino 10y ago
  Reading a book about willpower and how it works in the brain. Two years ago I started running once a week, I hated it! But I knew it's a good form of exercise. Now I'm running 3 times a week and I love it! I'd like to run 5 times a week. I could just push myself to do it for a time period but I know right now this would eat away to much of my willpower and I'm ok with that. I know I'm gonna run 5 times a week in a year or two. I learned how I can increase my willpower but it takes time.
• wilburlikesmith 10y ago
  Mmm, charging more for my intelectual, creative and logical skills in graphic and web design... Now I'm losing all the way by just doing anything for any price :/
• wilburlikesmith 10y ago
  Mmm, charging more for my intelectual, creative and logical skills in graphic and web design... Now I'm losing all the way by just doing anything for any price :/
• LilyV219 10y ago
  Lost my job in technical recruiting.... I've always wanted to travel and live and work round the world... Seemed a pipe dream with costs, family obligations, financial obligations holding me home.... My daughter said to me, "Mom, you can look for a job and network from anywhere in the world... Where do youngest to be? Just go there and work from there!" Holy cow, could I actually do that?! I began to change my limiting thinking, and tweaked the way and with whom I was networking with.... I began telling people what I desired in the way of working and living abroad... Low and behold I am recruited for a position abroad! The company sponsors my visa and I leave in 2 weeks!! My aha moment came with the encouragement from a lived in line to follow my dream, my desire, with the thought that it all was actually possible... And it is!!
• obs3rve 10y ago
  DMT
• baccheion 10y ago
  I've never had one of these moments. It's just been shit my entire life, then when it seemed as though things were about to get better, the sea of idiots descended again and shit even more, leaving me here 6+ years later constantly getting harassed, as I'm living with my mother, while being unemployed and low functioning, because the harassment and torture makes it impossible for me to think, progress, or move on.
• iLemming 10y ago
  - Clojure/Clojurescript and other Lisps - Emacs and org-mode
• danm07 10y ago
  Having a much needed conversation with my cofounder. There wasn't a fit, and this was in the back of my mind very early on, but didn't bring it up. When circumstance brought pressure on the company, I had to ask his resignation and take over his job when I wasn't ready. He was a very good friend of mine, but my negligence definitely took its toll.
• mouzogu 10y ago
  1) Stopped reading and watching the news. I found myself growing angrier, frustrated and confused by world events and world events as they are portrayed by the media. I realised so much of it simply did not concern me or was just outside my sphere of influence. So I tuned out completely. I have no idea what is happening around the world. I know that wilful ignorance has it's drawbacks but I have never had as much peace of mind. 2) Setting several alarms every night. I usually have 3-4 alarms that go off between 1h 30m - 2h intervals every night. By breaking up my awareness of sleep into segments I find it so much easier to get up in the morning feeling that I've slept for a long time. I hated that feeling of waking up after 7hrs sleep feeling as if I've been sleeping for no more than 10 minutes. 3) Brush my teeth whilst taking a 5 minute power walk in my bedroom. Nice burst of exercise before going to bed and my teeth have never been whiter :) This falls under a host of other habit stacking things I do to combine tedious everyday activities.
• gadders 10y ago
  Lifting heavy weights on 5/3/1 or Starting Strength or similar. I'd be a BEAST by now.
• rachkovsky 10y ago
  Listening to non fiction audio books. Since I've started half a year ago I have "read" over 16 books while commuting or exercising.