Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Side projects

antirez.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 243 posts

Re: Side projects

#121

Post by nickstefan12 »

tegeek wrote: post #54
bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

I've been in this situation for as long as I can think of. But lately I've found something which is working for the time being. I don't use my car to commute to office. It takes 25 minutes via public transport (one way), so I use that time and build all the complex logic/data structure/algos in that time for my hobby project. Cooking doesn't break my mental loop. So I keep thinking & solving things regarding my hobby…

BART never has seats. So I waste about 2 hours a day standing and doing nothing of value :(. Very jealous you get to program then.

Re: Side projects

#122

Post by bkjelden »

xhrpost wrote: post #94
joshdotsmith wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of side projects and learning to cook, I'm working on a side project that helps people learn to cook. Happy to share if interested.

Does it happen to help with the attitude or process of cooking? It's probably the bachelor mentality in me but I honestly just hate cooking. The amount of time (purchase food, prep, cook, clean pots/pans) for a 5 minute meal when I could be, ya know, working on a side project, seems ridiculous. However, I do feel like I could eat a little more natural and better if I did cook more.

Some of those get easier with practice - after a while you have a fully stocked kitchen, and you will develop a set of favorite recipes that you can just pick up what ingredients you need from memory. In essence, "planning" will become less work.

Doing the dishes remains a huge PITA, though.

Re: Side projects

#123

Post by s73v3r »

sstradling wrote: post #113
bglazer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the project timeline is "work for 6-8 months, then show people" it's possible you built an amazing thing only you know how to use and nobody else really wants. This absolutely terrifies me. > The simplest hack here: wake up earlier and use your first (and best) 2-3 productive brain hours on your project then go to work. You'll use your best performance (refreshed, alert, not tired) for your project while still n…

> I really, really enjoy my sleep :). This is certainly very practical advice, but it requires that I'm disciplined enough to go to sleep earlier the preceding night. That's difficult but certainly possible. Then work late and sleep in :-) I can't do a lick of useful work before 10 (which isn't great, since my job starts at 8:30), but I can cram 2-3 hours of good stuff in after my kids go to bed every night. Try diff…

The idea with getting up earlier is that, assuming you're able to get up to do it, you'll get it in that day. If you leave it for the end of the day, or even after work, you might not. I know I've had many days where I've come home from work completely drained, and can't really get myself to do much more than reheat food for dinner. I'd be willing to wager I'm not alone on this.

Re: Side projects

#124

Post by eldavido »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #102
xhrpost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it happen to help with the attitude or process of cooking? It's probably the bachelor mentality in me but I honestly just hate cooking. The amount of time (purchase food, prep, cook, clean pots/pans) for a 5 minute meal when I could be, ya know, working on a side project, seems ridiculous. However, I do feel like I could eat a little more natural and better if I did cook more.

As someone who likes to cook but generally doesn't, I feel the problem is how this scales per mouths to feed. Cooking for 1 or cooking for 5 doesn't involve much increase in the total time (5 sets of eating dishes instead of 1 and slightly larger cookware to clean) and has a slight decrease in price per mouth (buying food items in bulk is cheaper). Now I could cook big meals for just myself to eat 5 times along with…

girlfriend and joke how despite being "modern" people we still have pretty traditional division of labor: she cooks, i manage money. it works for us. i agree that it's much better when you have a few people doing the scale-invariant tasks for each other.

Re: Side projects

#125

Post by contingencies »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #102
xhrpost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it happen to help with the attitude or process of cooking? It's probably the bachelor mentality in me but I honestly just hate cooking. The amount of time (purchase food, prep, cook, clean pots/pans) for a 5 minute meal when I could be, ya know, working on a side project, seems ridiculous. However, I do feel like I could eat a little more natural and better if I did cook more.

As someone who likes to cook but generally doesn't, I feel the problem is how this scales per mouths to feed. Cooking for 1 or cooking for 5 doesn't involve much increase in the total time (5 sets of eating dishes instead of 1 and slightly larger cookware to clean) and has a slight decrease in price per mouth (buying food items in bulk is cheaper). Now I could cook big meals for just myself to eat 5 times along with…

This is how I look at it too. The shopping and transport overhead for ingredients, plus the overhead of time paying bills and stocking a kitchen in the first place is nontrivial also. Basically you need 2 people to make it work nicely, unless you're a foodie or are so used to cooking that you enjoy the shop/cart/unpack/retrieve/prepare/cook/clean cycle as meditation. Three or more is better.

Re: Side projects

#126

Post by register »

bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

I believe that the solution could be to try to find collaboration in a liquid organization like ttps://assembly.com. I think that it's a good model exchanging labour ( instead of funding ) for shares. I haven't joined any of these projects yet for two reasons: I am not excited by the one already available and was focused until 1 month ago on my new app for iPhone which unluckily is not going well from a sales perspective even if the little feedback from users is positive. Good luck with your venture.

Re: Side projects

#127

Post by djabatt »

IMHO if you are not hacking on a few side projects you are missing out on learning new things. I love side projects they keep my work and personal life super fresh.

Re: Side projects

#128

Post by [deleted] »

bglazer wrote: post #42

I'm working on a side project now that will eventually be an open source project. I think it could benefit a lot of people. My problem is that I have a full time job. When I come home at night I want to cook dinner, run, socialize, drink a beer with a friend, or work on an art project. I don't particularly want to configure Ansible or read the OpenVPN docs. At most I can get 3-5 hours of productive work per week on t…

[deleted]

Re: Side projects

#129

Post by freebs »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #107
el_benhameen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps me to avoid recipes and instead come up with ideas based on my tastes and the things I have available. Going to the grocery store is then less about "shit, they're out of $ingredient" and more about "wow, the salmon looks really fresh this week". The actual act of cooking is the same--instead of focusing on following and mucking up someone else's recipe, I get to feel creative as I build something based on w…

That approach sounds like something coming out of experience. I hope to reach that level one day; right now my mind just blocks when it starts thinking about composing ingredients, and I revert back to the two or three recipes I know. I wish I started cooking as a kid, I was less anxious to experiment then.

You can start by putting together a list of ingredients you like. Many of these will be common ingredients for multiple recipes and go together in different ways. Nearly every time I go grocery shopping I get these things because my SO and I like them.

EG: chicken, beef, tomato, onion, peppers, mushroom, cheese, rice, quinoa, pasta, potato, carrot, broccoli, spinach, asparagus, corn, sauce, etc.

Make sure you have a good stock of different spices, salt, and pepper.

Start with something simple like just chicken pasta and each meal add in something from above suited towards your taste. As you run out of ingredients you'll realize you can still make good dishes. If you run out of pasta you can skip it completely or sub it out with quiona.

I often play the "lets see what I can make with what is still in the fridge" game :D

Re: Side projects

#130

Post by aros »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #111
xhrpost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it happen to help with the attitude or process of cooking? It's probably the bachelor mentality in me but I honestly just hate cooking. The amount of time (purchase food, prep, cook, clean pots/pans) for a 5 minute meal when I could be, ya know, working on a side project, seems ridiculous. However, I do feel like I could eat a little more natural and better if I did cook more.

> The amount of time (purchase food, prep, cook, clean pots/pans) for a 5 minute meal when I could be, ya know, working on a side project, seems ridiculous. This. That's the primary reason I keep eating unhealthy. Since I started working, I naturally gravitated toward few dishes that basically make themselves - e.g. french fries, boiled/fried sausage, etc. - basically anything I can drop on the stove and leave unatte…

That's a really poor excuse. Healthy meals can be just as hands off as TV dinners and french fries.

1. chicken breast 2. broccoli 3. noodles 4. some sort of oil 5. salt

Put all of the above in a pan, stir it around, cook (covered or uncovered, play with it) for about 7-13 minutes.

Try different mixtures. Try different lengths of time. You don't even have to watch it unless you're concerned that your range might explode or something.

Post reply on HN