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Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#211

Post by postscapes1 »

JshWright wrote: post #166

2015 was a pretty rough year for our family. A miscarriage, several relationships ending in painful ways, etc... Our motto coming in to 2016 was "Well... it can't get any worse!". Our hubris was 'rewarded'... In February, my wife was admitted to the hospital, 25 weeks pregnant with twins, because one the babies was not getting enough blood flow through the umbilical cord. The doctors were hoping to get another week o…

Wow, as a Father of a 1.5 year old and hoping to have another this hit me hard. So glad things are are on the up and up for you and the crew

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#212

Post by danielhooper »

I landed a great job as an iOS developer at a great startup in Toronto.

I accomplished this by building a unique iOS game that uses animated gifs for jigsaw puzzles. I wrote the app several times, and after giving it enough time, I was able to incorporate functional and generic programming concepts to reduce my code down to less than 1,000 lines.

I also ditched my resume because I didn't have substantial previous experience developing software (just 3 months) nor a degree of any sort. I just took videos of all my apps and put them up on a dead simple github pages site: https://danielhhooper.github.io

I interviewed and accepted an offer the following week.

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#213

Post by joeclark77 »

Published my first e-book -- https://leanpub.com/data-engineers-manual -- and made my first sales. 37 paying customers so far, and I just got my first "review" (an encouraging tweet) the other day. Not bad for doing zero marketing and promotion. It has encouraged me to do more of the same.

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#214

Post by ikeboy »

sjg007 wrote: post #207
ikeboy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. I very rarely create product pages or change them. For the most part, I'm listing against existing, popular listings. I have created on occasion (when the last raspberry pi came out, I bought 10 from England and made a listing and sold quickly before others got stock and the price went down. Something I wouldn't do now, not worth the money for the time, did it to learn. I might buy a couple hundred when the next o…

So you bet on people who will pay a premium to not go to costco, target, walmart....?

1. Not everything is sourced from a store that people can go to. I've gotten a lot of inventory from other countries (think amazon.co.uk selling the same ASIN for half the price), which people won't do and also shipping would raise the price if bought individually.

2. Some stuff is bought on sale, which may be over by the time the item sells

3. Yes, people absolutely pay a premium for not having to go in store. Even stuff I can buy online people often pay more on Amazon. I do a lot of drop shipping from retailers directly to customers.

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#216

Post by zazpowered »

laxd wrote: post #183
zazpowered wrote: post #156

I launched a site which I think I will work on for at least a few years: https://senzu.io/

Looks like a great project. With best of intentions, I just want to say that I liked the style (maybe just the fonts) better before enabling javascript. Seemed cleaner and more professional/credible.

That's good feedback. Are you just not a fan of the font? What do you think is wrong with it

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#217

Post by young_man »

KittiHawk wrote: post #200

I finally went on the round-the-world backpacking trip I've been dreaming about since I was a kid watching National Geographic. It was surreal, hard, beautiful, smelly, and everything I ever hoped it would be. Growing up poor and growing into a lot of family responsibility made me think it was never going to happen for me, but I made it happen, and now I feel freer even in my day-to-day life.

welcome to china

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#218

Post by daeken »

hkmurakami wrote: post #161
daeken wrote: post #88

I finally admitted that it was time to start back on antidepressants, and also discovered propranolol (anti-anxiety med); it's changed my life in the most dramatic ways I can imagine. As of today I weigh 319 lbs -- from a peak of over 400 -- and just a hair over half way to my goal of being at 240 lbs. This is the biggest change I've ever made in my life, and I couldn't be prouder to have come this far.

That's awesome! Btw I use your static site generator for my blog, so thanks for your OSS work!

Oh cool! Glad to hear you've had success with it. I wish there was a list somewhere of Benjen-powered blogs; I often wonder how many folks are actually using it.

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#219

Post by elihu »

mutagen wrote: post #113
elihu wrote: post #104

I made an electronic musical instrument: http://jsnow.bootlegether.net/jik/keyboard.html I've done a lot of regular programming and some basic electronics, but never a project that involved getting a microcontroller to talk to a bunch of ICs. So, I learned a lot about how electronic components don't necessarily behave the way I expect them to. I also learned a lot about what can be done by using MIDI in ways it wasn'…

That's an amazingly unique project that now has my wheels spinning for 2017!

Thanks; any details you want to share about what you'd like to build?

Re: Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016?

#220

Post by pryelluw »

ikeboy wrote: post #126
pryelluw wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should blog about this.

I agree, but see #4 A lot of the people I follow in the industry have blogs and alternate income streams outside Amazon/eBay. (Paid lists, software, coaching, paid groups, etc.) Definitely something I want to do but I need to get my business onto maintenance mode first and definitely not happening anytime soon. My short term goal is consistently 100k/sales a month, and my long term (6-12 months) goal is 250-500k/mont…

Thanks. Ill follow up through email after the new year. :)
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