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Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

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Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#41

Post by zikzak »

_huayra_ wrote: post #40
nnmg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree and had a very similar experience in graduate school. Writing about my experiences and things I had learned (technical and project management) had a huge impact on my ability to demonstrate my knowledge and is without a doubt why I quickly received two job offers before defending my phd (biology/neuroscience). I think papers are a really poor way to demonstrate the huge amounts of work you've done unl…

This is one thing I messed up during my grad school studies. Now that I have a "real job", getting the ball rolling on blogging about what I'm looking into / learning about is harder (although that is still a convenient excuse). Thank goodness I have been meticulously keeping track of what I've learned in Org mode for years. I've just gotta dredge that old database for some blog posts (starting with why folks who are…

I work on a well established, closed source, trade secrets style e-commerce site. I can never seem to think about anything I could write up that would not involve me reworking everything to be more general. I also think it would largely boil down to a Stack Overflow link. I am doing more management now, so that might make this problem a little easier to solve for me.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#42

Post by skrebbel »

christophergs wrote: post #31

Great read, as usual. One point rubbed me the wrong way: "And you stand an excellent chance of shipping a success -- people greatly overestimate how difficult this is." Do you? Analysis of projects on Indie Hackers [1] casts a bit of doubt. Not saying it's not possible, but "excellent chance" might be a stretch. [1] https://www.indiehackers.com/post/holy-heck-this-is-hard-8eb...

I think he means eg a viral blog post or a popular NPM package, not a billion dollar startup.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#43

Post by swyx »

i wrote a bit more about this recently which seemed to resonate with others: https://www.swyx.io/part-time-creator-manifesto/

basically, you want to create something you control on your own. the minimum viable version of which is a blog or newsletter, but it could easily extend to youtube or teaching on egghead.io or lynda, up to and including a full fledged side business.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#45

Post by sokoloff »

ljp_206 wrote: post #21
sokoloff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that Patrick is mistaken about his claim that he is a capitalist?

I'd guess the commenter means, that from a Marxist perspective, most workers are not 'capitalists,' i.e., they don't make their living from owning capital. These 'non-capitalist' workers get wages primarily from capitalists. Perhaps the author is moderately successful and does live off of investments now. That could technically make him a 'capitalist' - again, from a certain perspective. I'll readily admit this is mo…

Every online dictionary SERP on the first page lists something of the form “(noun)-a person favoring capitalism”, which is pretty clearly the use Patrick implied from context. About half of them list that first and half second to the usage you describe above.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#46

Post by rmason »

Another way to get noticed is to work on a civic project. Not only is it open source but if it gets used in your community more people know about it - and you. A way to get started is to see if there is a Code For America brigade in your community.

If there isn't maybe you can get together with a couple of friends and start one. Ever wanted to try some new technology or learn a new language but can't do it at work? Do it for a civic project and you have proof you know x because it's out there on GitHub.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#47

Post by pseudalopex »

acapybara wrote: post #22
miguelmota wrote: post #15

I agree with the post for the most part. It's important to feel that your work is acknowledged to feel worthy. I disagree with this statement however: > I prefer being upfront with people rather than doing the "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission" route a lot of folks suggest. Asking your employer if you can work on a side project is like asking them if you can play golf on the weekend. It's y…

> If you're not sure that your employer will screw you over then get something in writing. This might be a good indicator that you should leave your employer. If you don't trust that they won't screw you over... Granted, I know that's easier said than done. But we should all aim to put up with less of this kind of shit from employers.

Even family and friends can act in unexpected ways when money enters the picture.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#48

Post by milesvp »

acapybara wrote: post #22
miguelmota wrote: post #15

I agree with the post for the most part. It's important to feel that your work is acknowledged to feel worthy. I disagree with this statement however: > I prefer being upfront with people rather than doing the "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission" route a lot of folks suggest. Asking your employer if you can work on a side project is like asking them if you can play golf on the weekend. It's y…

> If you're not sure that your employer will screw you over then get something in writing. This might be a good indicator that you should leave your employer. If you don't trust that they won't screw you over... Granted, I know that's easier said than done. But we should all aim to put up with less of this kind of shit from employers.

Never forget that a company is a group of individuals. All it takes is for one of them some time in the infinite future to decide they own the IP you developed during the time you were employed at the company. Making sure that no one can easily make this claim is sort of basic hygiene at this point. Do this by making sure you have a copy of the employment contract, and that it either doesn’t have any crazy IP ownership clauses, or that you have explicit exceptions to said crazy ownership clauses.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#50

Post by currymj »

gwgundersen wrote: post #4

I like this framing. In graduate school, I worked for 2+ years before my first paper was published. In that time, I passed my PhD qualifying exam, took classes, wrote code, read papers, learned math, and so forth. Yet when I applied for internships, I received no interest from employers. I suspect this was because I had no concrete signal that I knew anything in my field. While working on my second paper, I started b…

your blog is very high quality and i've enjoyed it in the past (Metropolis-Hastings post especially).

however there's a problem if everybody is going to do this, if it becomes standard that you want to have a blog in order to promote yourself during a job hunt.

i think this is why search results are cluttered with a proliferation of largely useless "awesome X" GitHub repositories, repetitive bad Medium articles on basic ML topics, and so on.

I hope we don't end up in the world where everyone has to do this... there's certainly a diminishing social utility.

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