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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?

#101

Post by msoloviev »

Noxchi wrote: post #82
msoloviev wrote: post #49

I released a fairly major project (a research-oriented workbench for graph manipulation) in a state of comparitive usability: https://github.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions The main takeaway for me was that, unless you can tap into a preexisting pool of demand, grabbing people's attention is as hard and effort-consuming, if not more so, than actually solving a problem. One-on-one, I always had an easy time convinci…

I am working on a networking algorithm and think this would be useful for testing and visualizing algorithms. But I had to look into the source and then the screenshots folder to figure out what this actually did. You just have to develop some skills on how to better communicate your work to people. Everyone has this problem unless they develop the skills. Here's some things you should work on for promoting this proj…

Well, there's a README.md (that includes the screenshots) that Github displays under the repository listing, but I suppose there are sufficiently many files in the repository that not everyone would automatically be inclined to even scroll far enough down...

Visualising algorithms is an interesting angle I have largely neglected so far, since it's pretty different from the purpose I originally built the program for. I could try adding some more examples in the spirit of the sandpile model from the animated GIF, like pathfinding or selfish routing. Thanks for the suggestion!

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

#102

Post by matallo »

I ran an ultramarathon (64 miles).

During this time of the year last year I was at a very stressful period at work changing to a new leadership role. I started working out more seriously, and signed up for a half-marathon, that I completed successfully (I had been running occasionally on my own, previously).

As the rewards of physical exercise were kind of immediate and didn't depend on external factors but myself it motivated me to put together a training schedule, and set the goal of finishing an ultra, inspired by some friends. I didn't communicate it to many people but just a few close friends. It was an endurance challenge, and I am very happy to have it accomplished.

Also, my performance review improved.

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

#103

Post by samtho »

mkoryak wrote: post #68

I built Webpack: https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K6MSVEW/burst_... https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K4N0W3V/burst_... (not to be confused with build tool with similar spelling)

Those files you linked to are not public.

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

#104

Post by elihu »

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't meant to be used.

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

#106

Post by gravypod »

Helped teach the entry level class for CS at my university (again) with majority of the students scoring in the top 10% of everyone taking the course. My students were only beat out by the honors sections of which the margines were slim.

I had a 26 student class. 9 studens got below a 90% on the final, I think 1 or 2 got below an 80.

I'm also going to stop being a TA this semester. I think I've been a big help to the students but I got offered a position to do real software development at the university. The pay is going to be crappy but it's ham-radio related so it'll be fun.

Teaching students let me actually teach myself better. I found that after breaking stuff down to explain it to my students I better understood it myself.

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

#107

Post by jboggan »

Started my "dream job" at Google in January and fought through a very steep learning curve towards being a fullstack engineer there. I learned our team's frontend in AngularJS (despite no frontend experience nor any idea how different JS is written inside of Google), webserver in Java, backend in C++ and data pipeline in Go (with tangential previous experience in JS & Java and none in the other two). Add on that the myriad configuration languages and SQL-ish dialects and tools and it has been a pretty heavy year all around, I'm glad I'm still standing.

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

#109

Post by comatose_kid »

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! Keep it up :)

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

#110

Post by maneesh »

dang wrote: post #87
maneesh wrote: post #3

After years of R&D, heartache, and rough decisions --- I finally turned my hardware company ( http://pavlok.com ) profitable! We make technology to break bad habits, wake up earlier, and reduce cravings. I decided to try to build a hardware company without raising VC --- which is probably one of the hardest decisions you can make. And required about 30 people to make a reality. But now that we have finally got our ma…

That's interesting! Since https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615687 didn't get attention, we emailed you a repost invite for it.

This is awesome! Can I use this repost link tomorrow? Or does it expire tonight?
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