My advice is to do the exact opposite of what this article recommends you to do. You will not look back fondly and proudly on all the half-assed things you did to just to have fun, whatever that means. Writing a blog post to rationalize it will not help either.
Stop Acting Like You're Famous
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Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#232Author is probably a firstborn. If you’re 3rd in birth order, you don’t need that reminder.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#233It’s true you’re not famous. But the rest of this is pretty bad advice. If you’re an indie app developer and you don’t care about design, nobody will use your app—not just the people who care about design. If you’re a blogger and you don’t care about grammar, some people will be turned off by your terrible writing. I assume anything you do you want to do well. If that’s not the case then definitely take the advice in…
It's pretty bad career advice. If you're an indie app developer trying to make a living developing indie apps, then you need to care about design. If it's not your career, then it's great advice.
A few years ago I had a need for an app which would allow an android tablet to play media when power was connected and pause when power was disconnected. Nothing like that existed (at least open source) at the time, so I dug up some ancient school project someone made for an android app back in 2010, updated it to allow media controls, and used it. I published it on fdroid, but I put zero effort into updating the already-then-outdated UI and never updated it again unless I had another need for it.
I wasn't getting paid for app development and design. I am not trying to get paid for app development and design. To the extent that having done this impacts my career, I think "bothered to create a custom android app for his personal project" says a lot more about me than "does not have a state of the art UI for his custom personal project app".
If people are turned off from that app by the outdated UI, I could not care less.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#234>I am a software engineer based in San Francisco
It's a decent blog post but smells like rich person (compared to majority of the world) privilege. Always easier to talk from above.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#235>I am a software engineer based in San Francisco It's a decent blog post but smells like rich person (compared to majority of the world) privilege. Always easier to talk from above.
We're shit talking people on HN now because they're software engineers from silicon valley?
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#236>I am a software engineer based in San Francisco It's a decent blog post but smells like rich person (compared to majority of the world) privilege. Always easier to talk from above.
> Advice for myself around leisure activities.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#237> Anything you do or create will probably receive little to no attention, so stop optimizing for a non-existent audience [...] The most egregious thing you can do with any activity is daydream about how you can make money off of it [...] In the end, find something you enjoy doing and just do it because you enjoy it. I don't understand the equivalence the author is ultimately making in suggesting that creating somethi…
Very true, to take his advice further would be no audience at all. A blog post is a journal entry, a photograph goes into a binder/ folder. What is the benefit of the audience if it’s for personal growth?
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#238>I am a software engineer based in San Francisco It's a decent blog post but smells like rich person (compared to majority of the world) privilege. Always easier to talk from above.
We're shit talking people on HN now because they're software engineers from silicon valley?
Personally I don't find any amusement in the pseudo intellectual wisdom of software engineers, especially from SV.
And sure why not it was shared here. I’d rather listen to the people on the streets in Africa and how they see life and the future.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#239I appreciate the author's perspective, but my approach in life has been based largely on two biblical verses that I memorized in childhood. Those are 1) "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" (Colossians 3:23) and 2) "Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank" (Proverbs 22:29).
These two verses come to my mind often and have formed the basis of how I approach nearly everything in life both work and hobby. I feel the pursuit of excellence is a thing both for work and life in general.
On the Internet, everything is my work. I do not have some benefactor job outside of what I do.
For my hobbies and sports, I approach everything with diligence and care.
I hope to raise my children to do likewise.
Re: Stop Acting Like You're Famous
#240The subhead to this article is:
> Advice for myself around leisure activities.
Which I think is worth restating here.
It’s one thing to, say, buy Azure AD Premium so you can obtain auth logs and put them someplace/analyze them for your startup. That’s just taking your work seriously.
But unless you’re learning or practicing, or perhaps building out demo or educational content, you might want to consider whether your personal AAD tenant needs that at home.
(I’m not staking a claim on that. Just an illustrative example.)