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Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

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Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#91
post #58

I live in São Paulo, Brazil. I would try to get to Ushuaia by car via Chile all the way down to the Tierra del Fuego.

Oh boy oh boy, you are one of mine! Roadtrippers for the win! Just do it! How many km do you estimate?

It's hard to estimate the KMs because you are always making small detours to visit places as you go. In terms of time/duration, the roundtrip takes a full month, so very much aligned with OP's question.

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#92
post #14

Ugh, regardless of what we say we wish to do on this post, what I'm sure many of us lack is external motivation to do it. One app to help solve that is called Spar, developed by a friend of a friend ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spar!-get-better-at-stuff/id... ). You set a goal with your friends, e.g. read a chapter every day, and put 20$ or so in the "pot". Whoever does the best at meeting the goal, gets the pot…

When the incentive to finish a goal shifts from the innate satisfaction of completion to a fear of financial penalty, is it possible that the goal itself will unintentionally change in subtle ways?

its called the Token Economy Problem. tl:dr; using tokens as an external motivation mechanism transfers away from buidling internal motivation. (e.g.,$5 for each book a kid reads gets a kid to read books for $5 bills and not for love of reading/imagination/thinking. $5 tokens run out? Kid stops reading.)

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#93
post #59

I would compete on some crazy competition like MIT's battlecode (which usually is a month long event) ! I have worked several years, but none has given me the challenge/satisfaction of programming an AI Bot and compete with similar folks

this sounds like a cool challenge. How does it work, like your code competes against others code I understand, but how?

Yeah. You build bots and it competes with other bots (software bots - just code). Check this out https://www.battlecode.org/

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#94

I would work on the job board site that I have been dreaming about for months. As soon as I'm done with the exams I will go to work on that site. Target : launching MVP by the end of first week of December.

I have one if you want to use.

jp.sapterc.com

contact me in my email in bio.

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#96
You can't do any of these examples in one month. Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month. Can't write a good book in one month (unless you've been preparing for it in the past year). Code a game yes. But that's assuming you have a fair amount of experience

My challenge would be to clean up diet. That's doable.

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#97
post #96

You can't do any of these examples in one month. Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month. Can't write a good book in one month (unless you've been preparing for it in the past year). Code a game yes. But that's assuming you have a fair amount of experience My challenge would be to clean up diet. That's doable.

> Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month.

I disagree - I think a lot of people could manage a slow marathon (~6-8h, basically walking pace) without more than a month of training.

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#98
post #96

You can't do any of these examples in one month. Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month. Can't write a good book in one month (unless you've been preparing for it in the past year). Code a game yes. But that's assuming you have a fair amount of experience My challenge would be to clean up diet. That's doable.

> Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month. I disagree - I think a lot of people could manage a slow marathon (~6-8h, basically walking pace) without more than a month of training.

It is not impossible. Yes, you can find people who can do it. By luck, you could have someone with very high determination and who has a good athletic base, even though they haven't trained recently.

Is it a challenge anyone can take? No. I don't know of any training plan made to make you run a marathon in one month. The most aggressive training plans are 12 weeks minimum (3 months), and that's for people who are already fit. For those who are not used to running, the most realistic is 26 weeks

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#99
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Impossible to train a marathon without injuries in one month. I disagree - I think a lot of people could manage a slow marathon (~6-8h, basically walking pace) without more than a month of training.

It is not impossible. Yes, you can find people who can do it. By luck, you could have someone with very high determination and who has a good athletic base, even though they haven't trained recently. Is it a challenge anyone can take? No. I don't know of any training plan made to make you run a marathon in one month. The most aggressive training plans are 12 weeks minimum (3 months), and that's for people who are alr…

Again, you'd have to define "run". Do you mean sub-4h? Sure, I'd agree it was wildly unlikely a normal person[1] could manage that in a month.

Personally I ran a 5h30 marathon (solo, carrying water+food, half-trail) without following a training plan at all - went from 1k to 13k to 21k to 42k in 15 weeks. By no stretch of any loose definition was I "already fit".

[1] people who don't already have a certain level of fitness.

[Edit: corrected 14 to 15 weeks after checking calendar]

Re: Ask HN: You've got one month, what's your challenge?

#100
post #60

I would work on the job board site that I have been dreaming about for months. As soon as I'm done with the exams I will go to work on that site. Target : launching MVP by the end of first week of December.

what will be special about your job board site? :)

I want it to be very simple to search jobs. and You should be able to find EXACTLY what you are looking for. I know ton of others exists but it would not be a problem to implement one as a side project and see if people like it :)
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