191–200 of 230 posts
Life: starting to read again and reading broadly: psychology, architecture, software, theatre, business, anthropology, great literature, philosophy, linguistics. Work: realising that I am not stupid and that I can make a difference, I began to apply a three-word philosophy to life: "Belief, Thought, Action." All beliefs that withstand scrutiny must be acted upon.
You should write and if you do I want to know where you put your writing.
Life: Doing my MBA - hear me out before you guys go all nuts. I have a BA in Computer Science and I wanted to learn more about business, so I chose to do an MBA in Finance. Best. Decision. Ever. The reason being is that I now see the world through a different lens. For instance, when everybody blames bond markets for trashing the bonds of Greece or Argentina - I understand why it is the fault of the government and th…
Life: Doing my MBA - hear me out before you guys go all nuts. I have a BA in Computer Science and I wanted to learn more about business, so I chose to do an MBA in Finance. Best. Decision. Ever. The reason being is that I now see the world through a different lens. For instance, when everybody blames bond markets for trashing the bonds of Greece or Argentina - I understand why it is the fault of the government and th…
I share the same feelings as marcamillion regarding having the "veil" lifted on world affairs. I have a BEng in Aerospace Avionics (Electrical Engineering for air and space craft) but have always worked as a Software Engineer / Developer. After a few years of working full time (big multinational then small ~20 person company) I was wondering "there has to be more to life than this."
While reading online I came across recommendations to read this weekly magazine called "The Economist". It was super hard to get through at first: I didn't know the people, some of the countries, or the financial jargon. But I persisted and each week I'd go and buy it at the newsagent. I'd systematically read each issue from cover to cover. Those first ~15 issues looked like a rainbow; multicoloured post-it notes fanning out from three sides. Whenever I came across a person, word, country, concept I didn't recognize I'd write it on a post-it and affix it to the page. Later, I'd systematically revisit the notes and resolve my ignorance using Google + Wikipedia.
A lot of the time I didn't want to read the whole thing, only the Business, Finance, and Technology sections. However, I forced myself to read about issues in Sudan, or Kyrgyzstan, or politics in South America. I am now so much more aware of the way the world works, what's happening in world politics, financial markets, business, literature. As marcamillion mentions, acquiring this knowledge was liberating.
Programming: Persisting with Haskell until it "clicked".
Over the past 5 years I've revisited Haskell a number of times. Reading tutorials and books; watching videos. I "got" Monads as a mathematical concept, but didn't have a strong grasp of how and why they should be used.
On about 6th crack at it I just sat down and read code. Thousands and thousands of lines of code. Once I'd "groked" a concept from seeing how it was used in real world code I'd go and implement it from scratch. I'd recreate Maybe, then build the Monad typeclass, and finally implement the Monad typeclass for Maybe. I'd do this for Monad transformers, Monoids, Applicative, etc. This was really hard for me. Looking back I realise I was optimizing my learning by always pushing the edge of what I could do.
Over time I gradually became competent at writing Haskell as well as reading and understanding other people code. This additional understanding of functional programming has dramatically change my programming style. I now create a lot more immutable data types. In C++ I'll liberally use const, in Python namedtuples. I get frustrated when a language prevents me from easily mapping and composing functions. I really really value algebraic data types and use them wherever I can.
tl;dr Read The Economist and went to grad school. Learned Haskell and now use immutability and pure functions much more often.
Life: forgiving my wife after she had an affair. It was hard, but a single mistake doesn't negate the fact that she is a great mom, we are good together and our son deserves a shot at having his dad in the house. Programming: learning by doing instead of by reading. I started learning Rails when I wanted to build PicDigest and the mistakes I've made have helped me learn faster on a broader foundation.
Life: Doing my MBA - hear me out before you guys go all nuts. I have a BA in Computer Science and I wanted to learn more about business, so I chose to do an MBA in Finance. Best. Decision. Ever. The reason being is that I now see the world through a different lens. For instance, when everybody blames bond markets for trashing the bonds of Greece or Argentina - I understand why it is the fault of the government and th…
Life: Quitting a stable software job to do a PhD in Finance. The additional technical skills (Writing, Mathematics, Finance, Law, Accounting) and interpersonal skills (Networking, Explaining complex topics) I've gained have been invaluable. I now look at the world in an entirely different way. I share the same feelings as marcamillion regarding having the "veil" lifted on world affairs. I have a BEng in Aerospace Avi…
One tip is, I actually find the magazines hard to read. Something about the typeface and spacing just screams "dense" to me.
But...what I have done is get the audio version. They are hella long, like 3.5 hours total, but so well produced and VERY nice to consume. Each "article" is about 4 - 7 mins on average, then there are a handful that are 20 minute special reports.
When I think of product/market fit, I think of my addiction to The Economist. I don't think there is a price they could raise it to, that I wouldn't buy it at. And...if I couldn't afford it, I would definitely pirate it :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans are capable of incredible self-deception a la Robert Trivers: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/books/review/the-folly-of-... You're most likely fighting your genes (or perhaps you're a mutant): maybe you'll win and maybe you won't. Here the _you_ I refer to here is that part which believes it has free will and can override the other (genetic) part.
I don't understand what you're saying.
Apparently some other people think that they do understand what I'm saying but they don't like it and have consequently downgraded my post!
It's the old "nature vs nurture" thing: those who don't like my posting are "nurturists" and believe that we're born as tabulae rasae, empty slates that learn all behavior; I'm seen as the "naturist" who believes that we're totally gene-controlled.
Work: To work towards the 'Life' goal. To work smart, and make clever savings and investment moves.
I've read enough of the 'money is not everything' quotes. Its almost a given and keeps coming back to me from my own experiences and from what others tell, Money is definitely the most important thing in your life. Having lots of it means most of your needs, wants and requirements taken care of. You realize this more as you age, having lots of money to never work puts you in a far more better situation than getting up every day and running to work regardless sun, rain and cold. No matter what your work is, no matter how passionate it is.
Having financial security will alone change you life so drastically, you will never worry about having to take risks, failing and putting pieces together after that. You will never have to worry about getting fired, reporting to office despite your highest dislike on a day. You will never worry about 'What if' scenarios. You will never have to worry about paying your bills, sending your kids to school etc.
So the most important thing to realize in the early part of your life is to get to financial security.
And yes tool religion, micro optimization craze, technical pedantry isn't much of value while the other part of the world is building stuff and making millions with duct tape.
As a programmer your job is to worry about solving problems which people need solutions to, and then monetize it.
Also, like the OP, taking good care of my body which means quitting cigarettes, 2-mile runs every day and watching what I eat.
Programming: I'm lucky enough at this point of my life to be able to choose the projects that I take on. These few years have thought me never again will I compromise on my promise to deliver quality projects to people. It really stresses me out when bosses change deadlines on a whim and expect you to meet it. Now that I'm older, I would tell them respectfully to get someone else if they really need to meet that target that bad.
In my experience, 90% of the time, nothing good ever came out of imposing stupid/unrealistic deadline. All you get are burnt out programmers, code which resembles a travesty rather than a working application and a mountain of technical debt.
At the end of the day, some people measure themselves from the car they drive, the houses they live in, how much money they make and to me, that's perfectly fine(whatever motivates you, man).
For me, just being able to help people with projects that are meaningful to me, and not having to stay at a job because I needed the money is to me, the best thing in the world right now.
Life: To get a early realization, that money is the most important thing in life. Work: To work towards the 'Life' goal. To work smart, and make clever savings and investment moves. I've read enough of the 'money is not everything' quotes. Its almost a given and keeps coming back to me from my own experiences and from what others tell, Money is definitely the most important thing in your life. Having lots of it means…