321–330 of 438 posts
Completing my CompSci degree and Financial Independence within 12 months. Roadblocks: Psychological. Bottlenecks: A boring regular job (partial financial independence) is an easier option.
What year in college are you now? Is 12-months on track to graduate with a CS degree?
I'm working on becoming a beekeeper. Learning about bee cycles and getting involved in a beekeeping group is easy enough. The biggest roadblock is finding a place to keep them in LA.
ROADBLOCK: honing in on a subject. I can only submit one proposal (which is due tomorrow), or, hope to get picked for someone else's panel. Here are potential panel ideas:
- Website Optimization Basics: I wrote a post a few months back that was popular on HN, about how I reduced page load time by 75% (http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/wordpress-optimization-drea...). I would boil down the technical jargon to simple language. It would be a dual presentation with the engineer that gave me most of the advice I used.
- Reverse-Engineering Visual Design: I would explain some of the classic principles and methods that designers use to make the decisions they do when designing for the web. I presented on this at BarCamp Chicago a couple of years ago (http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/design-for-the-coders-mind-...), so I have something to start with, but it still needs more juice.
- Everything You Already Know About SEO: the basics of SEO are stupidly simple, and widely known, but there are many misconceptions and unknowns. I would condense and explain all of the best practices and things that we do know about SEO, and how to use them to grow your business.
- How to Get a Date Online: I have an alter-ego through which I give online dating tips (http://onlinedatingmatchmaker.com). I would talk about how to best represent the interesting aspects about yourself, present communication techniques for opening with matches and securing dates, and present data from studies that suggest provocative things, such as why you should lie on your online dating profile (http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/lie-online-dating-prof...). I actually got a personal message from Hugh Forrest only minutes after submitting this presentation idea last year - about how much he liked the idea - but I guess it didn't make it through the selection process.
Another ROADBLOCK is my relative lack of speaking experience. I find it hard to get motivated about smaller speaking opportunities like BarCamp or Peca Kucha, so I'm not sure where to find mid-level speaking opps to hone my chops.
A BOTTLENECK is my relative lack of notoriety, or having a "thing." As you can see a variety of topics interest me, but I can't yet be thought of as "the four-hour workweek guy" or "the personal finance guy"
Any advice, or opinions on which panel I should propose, would be appreciated! Thanks - I love this thread!
I'm trying to figure out: (1) how much time a newborn will actually demand from me and my wife, and (2) how we will fit in all the things we have decided must continue to happen (e.g. me still having a fulltime job, both of us getting regular exercise and a bit of downtime, etc).
Here's a good article you might want to read I just discovered on the Parenting Reddit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/family/familyadvice/3355719/Idle-... Of course, a new born obviously requires a lot of attention (I have a 3 month old), but let them breath as they get older.
I'm trying to figure out: (1) how much time a newborn will actually demand from me and my wife, and (2) how we will fit in all the things we have decided must continue to happen (e.g. me still having a fulltime job, both of us getting regular exercise and a bit of downtime, etc).
If your answer to number 1 is not 100%, you are going to be letting them down in some way. (Or at least feel that way) Trust me, they will own you, being your #1 priority for the next 5 years at least.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
carry my child If they're a woman, they're a lesbian. I'm pretty sure men can't bear children.
As common wisdom goes, children are created through an act by one male and one female human, and subsequently carry about 50% of each partner's core DNA and 100% of the female partner's mitochondrial DNA. As a result, neither egocentrical males nor lesbians can bear children by themselves, even though artificial insemination and foster mothers may make it easy to live in the illusion that it's a possibility. (Or were…
It would be difficult to find one who would agree to this arrangement, though.
Roadblock: There are no job opportunities for a software developer in that area.
To be a racecar driver--professionally or not. Sounds crazy, but something about watching Formula 1 for the last few years has driven (haha) me to really want to get involved some kind of way. Saving up for lessons at the Skip Barber Racing School for next summer. Current bottleneck: no time right now to dedicate to it. I just satisfy race longings now thru occasionally karting and flying around the backroads here in…
Solo II autocross is a really good (and super cheap) way to improve your driving skills.
Look to SCCA (http://www.scca.org/) and NASA (http://www.nasaproracing.com/) for events in your area (both autox and road racing). Also, be sure to look into local model-specific clubs (like BMWCCA, or Mini and Miata clubs); they often hold their own events, as their membership is large enough to sustain it, and are usually quite welcoming of folks of all makes and models at events (although you may find yourself in an "other" class of some kind).
Best of luck to you, but be warned: this is an expensive hobby. :)
Publish a book (like on dead trees). The biggest roadblock for me so far is just having time to execute on it. I have friends who have published books through ORA, so I'm not too concerned about getting proper introductions to people in the tech publishing world; I just don't know if I have the time to sit down and bang out 200 pages of quality material.
My general plan goes like this:
2010: Write a book.
2011: Write a good book.
That way I hope to develop the habits required to write huge chunks of material before solving the much harder problem of writing material that doesn't suck.
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Congrats! Here's the advice of a father of two: 1) Less and more than you think. Bank on at least one to two hours out of every four (that's about their sleep-wake cycle for the first couple months). Very little of it is hard if they're not sick, but the cycle is relentless. 2) Babies are very portable for the first 6 months or so b/c they're so oblivious to the world. Wake-up, change them, feed them, interact for a…
Huh. My answer (as a father of 3) to how much time they'll consume would, only slightly facetiously, be "all of it." Your math about sleep cycles is way wrong, and the idea that you'll still have half the free time you used to is laughable. Assuming a more or less 'normal' work schedule, most of the time they're sleeping, this guy will either be at work or will be sleeping himself. My advice is to assume that for a f…