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Ask HN: What is one unexpected positive thing that happened to you in 2020?

• codegeek 6y ago
  I can only think of one thing which is that I was lucky to hire a really great employee for our company who has made life so easy in many ways. For a small company, it makes a world of difference to find someone like that. Other than that, 2020 can go suck it I guess :)
• brundolf 6y ago
  Thanks in part to a dramatic cutdown in eating-out (because of quarantine), I've lost a ton of weight (in a healthy way). I also used some of my extra time to read Crafting Interpreters, and in doing so I discovered a passion for parsing/compilation and related projects.
  • dave_sid 6y ago
    How did you avoid filling the void with takeaways? I’m probably the least fit I’ve ever been.
    • brundolf 6y ago
      Well for about the first four months, I was too paranoid to order anything :) And after that point we were just in the habit of cooking most of the time and thinking of takeout as a treat, and also not eating restaurant portions (which it turns out are huge)
• kevsim 6y ago
  For me it'll forever be the year my startup [0] launched, we got our first users, our first _paying_ users, and got into the accelerator we wanted. In what was otherwise a totally crappy blur, I'll always have some fondness for 2020. But it can end now. That'd be fine. 0: https://kitemaker.co https://kitemaker.co, the super fast, hotkey-driven product management tool/issue tracker that has deep integrations to GitHub, Figma, Slack, etc.
  • pedalpete 6y ago
    We were just looking for product management tools last week, and decided to use notion (I guess it's the hotness atm), but definitely is not suiting our needs. I just signed up to Kitemaker (we're SoundMind.co) Keen to understand, in a market so laden with options, how do you plan to stand out? Monday and Assana seem to be spending a fortune on ads. A demo video or something that would show the functionality would be helpful. ATM, it feels similar to github project.
    • kevsim 6y ago
      Thanks for signing up! We're definitely going to be making a video for the landing page. We have a slightly different take on things we think (even though there's a certain amount of table stakes features you need to build to get people to use it at all, we've found). First off, unlike most of our competitors, we don't push people to break down initiatives into little bit sized tasks, giving each one an assignee. Instead we take a more collaborative attitude. We think work items should be the "right size" [0] which is much bigger than a single task - instead it's some value delivered end to end to your users. As a result, our work items are rich documents and they'll only get richer and more collaborative. We see that our users write a lot, hash out things together, upload designs, etc. And they're only getting more rich and more collaborative. Secondly, we have a lot of exciting things coming with our integrations. Our focus is really on cutting down the noise coming from a lot of the tools teams use and to link assets/activities in those tools directly to work items in Kitemaker, so you can get the info you need when you need it. Our users like to complain about tools like Figma being awful for discussions and tools like GitHub producing too many noisy emails. We want to fix that. The Slack, Discord, GitHub and Slack integrations are already pretty powerful. Thirdly, it's fast. Super super fast with hot keys for everything. We're really inspired by Superhuman and our goal is to match their 100ms response times. Lastly is who we're making it for. We want to enable product teams to succeed. Not in the generic sense of the term, but more in the Marty Cagan [1] sense. Teams that are autonomous, self-organizing, cross functional and totally focused on delivering value for their users. Teams that run top down, with managers doling out tasks to engineers and product managers deciding exactly what will be built in isolation probably won't find a home in Kitemaker. We'd love to chat with any teams struggling to find the tool that works best for them. My email is in my profile. 0: https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-work-23a1c3f239bd https://medium.com/kitemaker-blog/right-sizing-elements-of-w... 1: https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/ https://svpg.com/product-vs-feature-teams/
• whb07 6y ago
  How easy it is to normalize things like spying on your neighbors and have them reported to the authorities. I always wondered how things like these happened with the soviets and blackshirts decades ago.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • ojnabieoot 6y ago
    [sighs the deepest sigh I’ve sighed all year] this is about Twitter, isn’t it?
• akeck 6y ago
  Because I'm not burning time commuting in COVID WFH, I'm getting extra sleep. The extra sleep has made me healthier.
  • dave_sid 6y ago
    Remember to go outside sometime tho.
    • akeck 6y ago
      Definitely trying to. It helps to have a dog.
• pedrogpimenta 6y ago
  I finally started to really learn JS/React by building a real webapp, one to help my girlfriend give her online spanish classes. She's been using it ever since, basing her entire classes on that tool. She prepares the classes, she makes exercises, and her students fill out the homework exercises. Now I'm preparing real time document editing and proper user management so I can open it for more teachers. I'm learning so much on a day to day basis. It has actually been great. In that sense. Only in that sense.
• ketanmaheshwari 6y ago
  I almost feel guilty that this year has been too positive for me so far: -- Spent more time with family; went out on daily walks with spouse. -- Got better sleep due to freed time from commute. -- Participated in a COVID-19 related research and got an award at work. -- Dabbled into financial markets and made little profit. More than profit, learned a lot about markets. -- Setup a 4-node Raspberry pi cluster at home and played with it. -- Taught my 15-yo python programming and Linux.
• awillen 6y ago
  I started a company selling make-at-home dog treat mix that has been going really well (I mean, relatively - sales aren't huge but they're going the right direction and feedback is great so far). Of course I started this after Covid killed my plan to open a dog boarding business (but not before I spent a whole bunch of money that I'll never get back), so I guess we'll call it a wash.
• chunkyks 6y ago
  I got curious about a lauded 65 year old paper my company (a nonprofit research shop) released and tried to reproduce the results. I failed (not by much, and not enough to change anything, but what should have been incredibly precise... Wasn't). I briefed my results internally, someone from media affairs got excited about it, and the culmination was that I ended up on the front page of the wsj. Everyone gets their fifteen minutes, I guess. But it was really a bright point for me in 2020.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• maxwin 6y ago
  Lost 22 pounds of weight. I was obese but now I am just slightly overweight.
• apineda 6y ago
  Started my longest running, most ambitious and most valuable side project to date
• cbanek 6y ago
  I got a kitty. She was very scared at first, and when I adopted her, she greeted me by drawing blood. But I knew she was scared, and we have built a genuine bond through the months stuck inside. I also grew three avocado plants from seed. I gave them names: Hope, Courage, and Strength. I hope both of these will last for many years after.
• quickthrower2 6y ago
  WFH naturally! Buying some cheap shares that went up. Tenant got into arrears, sublet, they trashed it, so we got reno money and rent from the insurance. New floors and painting done. Where I live is nicer than where I work (suburban with parks vs urban) so nice to do a lunchtime walk. Less aircraft noise.
• cableshaft 6y ago
  - So far me and my wife's family, friends, and myself have survived the pandemic knock on wood. There's some people with risk factors, including myself, so I'm pretty happy about that. I did have a coworker who died of it, though :(. Hopefully we can avoid it until at least getting the vaccine. - Wrote about 60,000 words in my journal/game design diary this year, although that's down from 123,000 last year, but at least it's better than nothing. Made sure to record observations about the pandemic periodically during it, for reflection on in later years. - One of my game designs was selected as a finalist for a prestigious board game design contest (this is the third year I tried), and then the same game was selected as a finalist for a sellsheet contest later that year, which allowed me to do a virtual pitch of the game to 20+ publishers. One publisher offered to brainstorm ideas with me for ways in which to add more to the game that it might find a publisher. - One of my earliest board game designs had been shelved for the past 3+ years and I suddenly realized how to add an interesting hook and make the game more thematic at the same time, which ended up fixing a major problem with the game. Had a productive playtest with other game designers a few weeks ago as well. Currently trying to get it polished up enough to enter into a game design contest in January. - Finally got over my hesitation to make 3D video games (instead of just 2D) and self-taught myself just enough Blender to make some functional 3D models to include in a game I'm working on, and started again from scratch in 3D, and I think that was a smart move. Looks about the same but nice 3D animations that are easier to get working than 2D (i.e. I don't have to draw them), and handling multiple resolutions is easier. - Got more into puzzle creation and design. Might have come up with a couple novel pen and paper logic puzzles. Still need to dig into it more. - Started using monte carlo simulations to help design board games. In particular I used it for one abstract game design to discover what combination of variables I needed so the game wouldn't have a first player advantage and was guaranteed not to have ties, which I wouldn't have been able to tell without a ton of manual playtests otherwise. Didn't even occur to me how I could use code to help me design until this year. - Came up with about 15 ideas for new game designs, as well as ideas on how to improve or fix the issues with four existing designs. - Wrote a short story I'm pretty happy with that's getting published in an anthology for a local writer's group, about a broker who protects and manages secrets from corporations (secrets being things like credit card numbers and maiden names and the like). - We explored a few State Parks we wouldn't have known existed in the area if it weren't for the pandemic. But we ended up cancelling our planned trip to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks this year, so it's a poor substitute. Other than that, just about everything else was shitty this year. And most of this stuff would have probably happened without the pandemic anyway.
• rossnoel 6y ago
  I've read dozens of books and started writing about them. If you'd like you could check out some reviews here: https://productive.fish/blog/mindfulness-books/ https://productive.fish/blog/mindfulness-books/
• anmolparashar 6y ago
  Podcasting blew up this year and since I run a podcast editing startup[1], our MRR grew better than it was growing the year before. [1] https://useCastup.com https://useCastup.com
• brailsafe 6y ago
  I've spent the last 7 months doing fuck all except skateboarding, playing videogames, and hiking, so that's been nice. Now that I'm re-entering the stupid gauntlet of interviewing, I'm starting to get sad and dissauded from trying to succeed in a software role again.
• giantg2 6y ago
  Nothing really lucky has happened to me this year. There has been a ton of bad luck for me this year, which is mostly unrelated to covid. Including health issues, multiple legal issues, roof leak, car repairs, work performance seems lower, and a bad year for all of my hobbies (bees, garden, etc didn't do well). The luckiest thing that happened was finding a couple pounds of grifola fondosa. It's pretty common around here, so it's not even that lucky.
• csomar 6y ago
  This year was an absolute train wreck. MacBook failure, car issues, lots of dental re-work, multiple flights cancelled and the airlines are yet to issue a refund, plans had to be postponed and then changed completely, and then a family serious health issue. On hindsight, I think this year was a huge net positive as it let me re-evalute lots of stuff in my life. Now to the good parts. - This was the best year financially. This is also the year I made 0 income but financial assets and trades made me over six-figures in profit. Despite lots of unexpected expenses and losses; I'm wealthier than ever even adjusting for real inflation. - I setup my own custom-built desktop and got to learn a lot about Linux. I have a fully customizable OS now, and albeit I do miss a few things about OS X; productivity wise, I'm way more productive. (now planning to buy the new Zen 3 and setting a new powerful desktop). - There is lots of nature around you to discover. When travel was open, you are tempted to try new countries. But my guess is that any country of medium size has lots of places where you can find mind-blowing views. I did lots of biking/discovering this year (100-200km near me). - I did significant progress in Rust. I finally got around to modern web development: Github action, CI/CD, Terraform/Consul, React, Static Sites, etc... I also made significant progress in some projects I'm working on despite the multiple breakdowns I had this year. Somehow some stuff got done. - I did some writing to my blog, and lots of writing that is yet to get published. I relatively succeeded in having a routine for health, learning and work. Looking for 2021.
• cafard 6y ago
  Working from my dining room table in tee shirts and shorts led me to hook my toes over the bottom rung of the chair a fair bit of the time. This caused stretching the got rid of the mild plantar fasciitis that had troubled me for most of a year.
• tmaly 6y ago
  I did not have a 2 hour commute each day. Work from home has been great in that respect. I saved miles on my car and put less pollution into the air.
• commonturtle 6y ago
  I've been working from a different city every month for the last few months. It's a good way to do slow travel.