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Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

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Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#231

Post by dolajide »

Thanks capturing this feeling about the early internet and hello from Nigeria. I am in the process of setting up my farm. Starting with 12 hectares with the plan to increase to 100 in the next 3 years. It’s totally different from tech but interesting. On the tech side, I am focused on leveling up my fundamental skills so, I finally summoned up the will to begin going through my Elements of computing systems book (on chapter 9 :) ). I must say that it’s been a refreshing experience.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#232

Post by surfsvammel »

I usually tell people that I am passionate about technology. I don’t know if that is true anymore. Ever since the pandemic hit, something has changed.

I used to be passionate about wave surfing. That was all that I could think of. Now, I have not been in the water since my first kid was born six years ago. I need to change that. I need to go surfing again.

Oh. And hello from Sweden, by the way. I’m very much a real person. I am one of those people you met in the early days of Quake, when you thought “there is a real person behind everyone of those!”

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#236

Post by stevage »

djur wrote: post #103

For the past five years or so, I've taken singing lessons. I really recommend it to anyone who has even the faintest interest, even if you feel like you can't carry a tune in a bucket. What I learned the first four to six lessons was enough to make a substantial difference both in my vocal quality and in my comfort in singing for long periods (one of the first things you learn, essentially, is how not to shred your v…

What makes you say that piano can't be taught over Zoom? I know a few music teachers that teach instruments remotely - though not piano, I'm not sure why that would be different?

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#237

Post by reesjones »

For the past ~5 years I’ve been pursuing distance running at a moderately high level. My original pipe dream was to qualify for the Olympic Trials Marathon - the slowest qualifying standard is 2:18 (5:16/mile), but lately I’ve discovered I’m more talented at the 800m/mile, so my goal is now to run under 4:10 in the mile, and maybe one day break the 4 minute barrier.

This process has taught me a lot about myself and about life - mindset, discipline, ambition, maintaining a good attitude, avoiding burnout (physical and mental), exercise physiology, how to coach and be coachable, be a supportive teammate, and how to sustainably pursue a ~10-year goal. I do think this journey comes at a time and energy cost to pursue tech things (side projects, new langs/tools/frameworks) but at the same time, I think the lessons from pursuing anything really ambitious cross-pollinates to other areas including career.

Would be interested to hear of any other stories of people pursuing other hobbies at a somewhat high level while simultaneously pursuing career ambitions! Thanks for the post.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#238

Post by M4v3R »

I’m from Poland. 20+ years ago as a teen I got to play Final Fantasy VII and even though my English vocabulary was pretty limited I felt in love with it. I was thinking about all the people who couldn’t play it because of the language barrier. So I got online and found some folks that were willing to help translate it to Polish.

The only problem was that the game files were proprietary and while the modding community did a very good job reversing them and writing tools, these tools were a bit incomplete and not very suited for such a project. This inspired me to learn how to program (I knew what was possible because when I was 10 a book about QBasic found its way in my hands and I loved it) so I could create tooling for the project, and then also to make a website for the project. Then together with my newly met friends we made a website about Final Fantasy in general. I had to learn PHP to create a simple CMS for the team members to update the site. Then I’ve learned JavaScript to add some interactivity and also to load content without refreshing the page (this was before AJAX was a thing).

Fast forward 18 years and I’m a lead front-end developer, a job that I completely owe to this passion for the game I had as a teen. I never forgot the joy of coding tools for FF7 though and so recently I joined a community that’s still active around this game, and in my spare time I’m working on tools that will be useful for speedrunners. I also recently joined Twitch and I’m streaming the creation process from time to time, which is super fun! To be honest while I do enjoy my day job my secret dream is to work in some kind of gaming related position, because that always was and will hold a very special place in my heart.

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