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Ask HN: Plans for 2010

53 points by aitoehigie ↗ HN
For the year 2010, I plan to: 1. Learn Clojure and CLisp. 2. Learn Erlang 3. Learn to play the violin 4. Start exercising seriously again. 5. Take up photography 6. Become a better friend, brother, uncle, son and cousin.(despite the AS diagnosis) 7. try to find inner peace and purpose.

95 comments

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cperciva
I plan to end 2010 with 10x as many customers as I start it with.
frisco
The prototype of the perfect goal: simple, clear, measurable, achievable.
woid
... unless you start with zero customers :)
idlewords
Seems eminently more achievable in that case.
allantyoung
Or infinitely more achievable.
tokenadult
LESS achievable. Multiplication by zero still gives a product of zero in the real number system.
frisco
>> Multiplication by zero still gives a product of zero in the real number system.

Yeah which is why its more achievable:

  factor = final / initial

         = 3 customers / 0 customers = ZOMGx more customers
tokenadult
Ah, the usual division by zero error.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.divideby0.html

http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/0by0.html

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DivisionbyZero.html

Perhaps more to my original point is that cperciva replied to the thread-opening post

I plan to end 2010 with 10x as many customers as I start it with.

so the the comment by woid (grandchild comment to cperciva's comment) is CORRECT that such a goal is not achievable if

you start with zero customers

because there isn't any defined number of customers that is exactly ten times as many customers as zero customers.

It's funny that this isn't taught in all mathematics classes.

frisco
I understand the math; sure, 10*0=0. Looking lim a->0: x/a, though, which goes to infinity, I was implying it was easier to achieve because mathematically he'd be way past his target of 10x. But you're right that it's impossible to hit exactly 10x.
asb
I've opened an account and deposited $5 on a whim but haven't made any use of it. Would you count me as a customer?
cperciva
I have a few different metrics I look at; the big ones (in terms of the number of customers) are # of customers with positive balances, # of customers with data stored, # of customers with bandwidth usage in the past month.

Generally for each 100 accounts created, there are ~80 accounts with positive balances, ~75 with data stored, and ~50 with bandwidth usage in any given month.

_b8r0
Spend more time with my wife.
idlewords
That's my goal too! Your wife is awesome.
dejv
Stop slacking.
akl
Develop a non-work life, if only for balance. I'd like to expand my ruby skills, too.
kwamenum86
Eat healthier and become more active. I spend way too much time sitting on my ass.
asnyder
For the year 2010 I plan to finally release a constant stream of documentation, both text and videos, along with numerous screencasts.

There's no point in having cool technology if it's not easily accessible, easy to learn, and demonstrable. There's only so many times you can have one on one conversations to get the wow across.

I just wish writing documentation didn't take so long, and video shoots didn't eat up whole days. It's so much nicer to work on a new feature than to re-shoot a section of a code demonstration what often seems like 100 times.

jacoblyles
My "plan" for 2010 is to make a lot of ambitious goals, fail on most of them, but accomplish some good regardless.

Also, I am pretty sure that I will have my first amateur Muay Thai fight. I'm excited about that.

alexgartrell
1. Write an academic paper (getting one published would be cool, but let's start with things within my control).

2. Get my research project up to where I want it.

3. Sweet Internship in a sweet city *

* sweet city matters because I'm going to be 21. Work hard, play hard :)

jason_tko
My most important goal for 2010 is to create a partnership with a co-founder who is fun to work with, and who has the skills I lack, and begin working together.
vishaldpatel
Existing things: MobileFolk - my current project / startup. Swim, run, workout. Keep learning Spanish and practicing guitar. Read books.

New things: Learn basic Romanian. Meet more iPhone (and Android) developers in the Bay Area and in / around Toronto / GTAA - always looking to grab a beer or lunch :). Learn more about market research (you can never learn enough).

gabriel-coarna 

  Why in God's name would you want to learn Romanian?
  1. It's a silly, silly language -- I've been speaking it all of my life, and, most of the time, I still find I express myself better in English.
  2. It's only spoken in a small, god-forsaken country that'll probably never amount to much of anything.

  If you insist on learning another language -- it is my opinion that one should try to say something smart in one language, rather than something mediocre in a couple -- you should at least learn something that might actually prove useful -- like Chinese (if you're young and you foresee you'll still be around when they rule the world), or Russian (for more-or-less the same reason)
jacquesm
I'd replace Russian with Spanish in that list.

Romanian is very useful though, because of its reasonably strong ties to latin. If you know Romanian then Italian, Spanish and French are more accessible.

gabriel-coarna
Sure. Spanish is also a good choice. I could have went on and on enumerating interesting languages and interesting reasons to learn them (like reading history, philosophy, or great literature in their original form).

As for your second point, as far as I know, Romanian's ties to Latin aren't only reasonably strong; Romanian is actually the most like-Latin language that is still spoken -- however, Spanish and French still sound horrible to me (and I took French for 11 years, in school).

Also -- and I just couldn't resist making this point -- do you really think that the French or the Italians are ever going to do something interesting enough to warrant learning their language? -- please note that I'm not saying anything bad about their past (that's awesome); but, if you're forward thinking, I think you're pretty safe assuming that they're glory days are (long) over.

jacquesm
I think any language is worth learning.

Right now I'm at 5, Dutch (my mother tongue), Polish, German, English and French (the latter poorly through inactivity).

I very much want to learn more languages and I find that with every language added the next one becomes easier.

So there is no such thing as a language 'not worth learning', almost all of the languages spoken on the European continent are related in some way or other anyway (even Hungarian and Finnish).

Whether a language is 'ascending' or 'descending' in influence can certainly guide your priorities but I'd definitely not rule them out simply on that basis.

gabriel-coarna
That's actually a rather cool point of view.

However, I don't share it. I believe that one should spend most of one's time trying to do something awesome in one language -- as opposed to wasting time by learning 5.

Now, don't get me wrong, the fact that you now 5 languages is very cool; however, I don't think I'll ever use up that much time to gain those particular skills.

You see, I believe that if one were to draw a graph illustrating the relationship between the "awesomeness" of what one has done and the effort one has put in, the effort axis would be on an geometric scale, while the "awesomeness" one would be on a linear one. In other words, one has to put in a hell of a lot more effort to get something just a little more "awesome".

On the other hand, maybe learning languages is an integral part of what you "do"; or, maybe, it helps you relax.

Either way, and as in most arguments between somewhat-intelligent people, I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree -- please note that I'm using the "somewhat" prefix as it pertains to me; I'm pretty sure that you're just plain intelligent.

Oh, and: Merry Christmas. And a very happy New Year.

jacquesm
The idea of it being cool or awesome never crossed my mind, to me languages are tools and knowing how to use more tools gives me more opportunities.

Dutch was unavoidable, English at 10 in grade school, working for a US based bank (but in Europe), French and German you get in high school in NL and Polish because I lived there and had a relationship with somone from Poland.

Currently Spanish is very high on the wish list because of spending some time in Panama.

gcheong
My reason for wanting to learn more Romanian is that it is a natural side effect of having Romanian friends. It always gets a good laugh anyway.
gabriel-coarna
Yeah, that pretty much makes sense.

However, if they're already your friends, you probably communicate just fine in (most likely) English.

My (unsolicited) advice: keep it that way, and spend the time you were going to spend learning Romanian by doing something way cooler.

Anyway, ... Merry Christmas. And a very happy New Year.

vishaldpatel
I like Romanians. Always gotten along with em'. Never met one I didn't like (seriously). So I figured, why not ;)
gabriel-coarna
Because you could use that time to do something way more awesome.

That's pretty much the summary of what I said below, but in a lot fewer words.

Anyway, ... Merry Christmas. And a very happy New Year.

equity08
you know what its right wt you were saying but i have my reason i don't wanna be stupid in a gathering of Romanian husbands friends and i would be like an outsider you know how it feels its horrible that's why i need this language even if i don't like it at all .
sree_nair
7. try to find inner peace and purpose. - SHOULDN'T THAT BE NO:1, and probably the only one ?. Just joking :)
jpv
1. Improve my piano, harmonica, and musical ear. 2. Release my social networking app that I've been slacking on for a year. 3. Quit smoking. 4. Finish college (not graduate, finish).
btilly
Go to work for Google. Learn at least one new computer language. (These plans are pretty concrete at this point.)
JustJ
Graduate from College, Make money and Achieve.
gommm
grow my company from 1 to 6 employees and have 10 times more profit.
mantas
Try again and again to launch something that would be useful and popular. Failed twice this year...
Freebytes
Well, if you can learn from your mistakes, it will not have been a waste of time. You can use the experience of failure... or so I have heard. I have been failing as well.
bbb
"Complete" my key research goals and write a draft of my dissertation.
zppx
Being very close to graduate in the end of the year, run a half-marathon, try to not be a complete slacker and play with my recently purchased VPS.
jacquesm
You can begin to learn to play the violin in a year, but it is a dedication of a lifetime to really learn to play the violin.

Noble causes though, I wish you much good luck!

alaithea
Depending on the OP's expectations and attitude, saying that it will take a lifetime could be a bit discouraging. Some say that seven years of dedication is all that is really needed to reach "mastery" in most subjects ("mastery" is of course subjective), and I tend to agree. Hardly a lifetime!

Seven years was roughly how long I took lessons on the piano, and later on the violin, and that, along with a knack for music, was enough to reach an advanced level and be able to play most of the standard classical repertoire.

Hooray for learning the violin! It is one of the most difficult instruments, but also one of the most rewarding.

Quarrelsome
Hell yes, I finish my contract this year so I am going to regain my mind, catch up with .NET, sleep a lot, finish reading my LISP booky and I must code one thing this year that I would naturally be uncomfortable with, be it LISP, C or Ruby/Python.

Maybe start a business (if certain conditions evaluate to true)! :)

klaut
i have just one, the same i set for 2009 but failed to do so: to live here and now, in the moment. without past or future worries. i hope i make it this time.
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