HN Explorer

Ask HN: What do you look forward to doing in 2018?

54 points by atsushin ↗ HN
I'm particularly looking forward to sitting down and strengthening my understanding of computer science topics, including networking and operating systems. I also want to delve more into mathematics and understand its rigor better.

66 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] thread
imrat
In 2018 i will learn how to program & write transactions for bitcoin.
protomok
I’ve also been learning about crypto currencies lately. One thing I found helpful was implementing the popular proof of work algorithms. I did a sha256 python implementation , it was quite fun.
[dead] corporateslave3
I'm looking to enjoy life and my youth, I'm seeking to overcome the shackles of striving for wealth and enjoy my time here
w0uld
I'm looking forward to contributing more code to open source projects. I haven't prioritized it as much as I feel I should in years past, and many of those projects play an integral role in my life.
0xcoffee
For 2017 I dropped all tech goals and focused 100% on relationships. I learned a lot about myself in the process, and for 2018 I hope to correct some of the social mistakes I keep making.

Also, starting my first real job.

hoodoof
I'd be interested to hear more about what's going on that has led to these life changes?
0xcoffee
The short version is that loneliness is crippling me, whereas in the past I used to find comfort in technology. For whatever reason this comfort is gone, and I long for human contact.

However by nature I am very introverted. Not socially anxious, just I get extremely tired around people, and in general can't hold a conversation about any non-tech topic. Also I am a cold/distant person with relative little emotions, not sure why. The couple of friends I had were similar to me, and we can be comfortably cold together. However I work with very warm and caring people from diverse backgrounds, and recognize that I love the qualities they posses. Rather then be happy with who I am, I figured it must be possible to 'train' emotions, so that I become an overall more positive person.

However as a result I now attend around at least 1 social event a week, which goes ok. But sometimes if there are multiple events planned close to each other, my sociability drops off a cliff, but I have trouble recognizing when it happens. Not sure if I should dial back and be happy with the progress I made, or keep going and try to focus on breaking this sociability wall I am hitting.

dhubris
Have you considered that you may fall into the ASD range of Asperger? I mention this because what you described ticks a couple of the common traits. Understanding yourself better can help with your goals. Best of luck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

codebolt
Speaking from personal experience, pushing yourself to socialize more is the way to go. At least it worked wonders from me. In my mid-twenties I changed from being a hermit to going out several times a week and continuously meeting a lot of new people. Now in my thirties I'm married with kids, and I don't think I would've ended up where I am now had it not been for me taking a much more proactive stance to my own personal development. It sounds cliche, but in my experience it is never too late to change your own psychology and behaviors, but it does take a lot of work and persistence.
pentium10
more speaking opportunities about coversational gui, bigquery etc...
ianleeclark
I'm starting a new job. Full-time remote, so I'm very excited (even ordered a Herman Miller, so my back is equally excited)! I'll also be working in Elixir + React, so both two technologies I'm very interested in.

I typically assign myself two large projects a year to delve deep into to topics I'm ignorant in, so I'm going to attempt to build two low-level networking services. One is a TOR router and the other is a userland TCP/IP stack--I'm crazy excited to send a successful request to google.

leetbulb
Have fun! If it's your first time full-time remote, please invest some time in to researching and optimizing your time management and work-life balance techniques and habits. Working remote for over six years now and the first couple of years were very rough for me because I let everything consume my life. If you need any advice, feel free to hit me up @gmail :)
jonnycoder
How did you get your remote job?
ianleeclark
Saw their post on weworkremotely or remoteok, applied, and interviewed :)

I have a few non-trivial open source projects (a torrent tracker and a distributed key-value store) and two small side-businesses (one of which is built in Elixir + Phoenix and the other went under a rewrite to that stack). Showing that I can ship products tends to get me in the door, but a combination of luck, personality, and technical know-how moves me forward in the interview process.

tomcooks
Start a few companies to fix what i don't like about my homecountry, starting from public healthcare and smuggling.
jstanley
What don't you like about smuggling?

Smuggling is just free trade without waiting for your government to negotiate free trade agreements.

tomcooks
Let's say it depends on the goods you smuggle.

If it's food, like my grandmother smuggling cheese and rice across borders to feed her family, i'm 101% happy to support free markets.

If it's corporation money and weapons whom do you think gets a bribe? Spoiler: the government officials you despise.

allenliuzihao
1. reading books across all areas (humanities; science) 2. getting to know myself better 3. continue journey in theoretical CS 4. achieve good impact at work
swlkr
Less code time and more outdoors time
drivingmenuts
Getting a job. 6 months of interviewing and nothing.

I'm starting to feel like I've been blackballed.

hailk
Same boat. Nearly 3 months now. You are not alone :)
soperj
What are you interviewing for?
alexnewman
I have sold two companies and am not super rich, but now I can live off my investments. I have dedicated my life to helping the world with OSS. This year I intend on releasing a project which will enable academics to have access to labeled image datasets more than 100x
cottonseed
How did you decide to work on image datasets? What else did you consider?
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danielecook
I’m finishing grad school. Looking forward to having a little more time to do whatever I want. I’ve got a bunch of projects I want to work on and a long list of books I’d like to read.
neeleshs
Move back home from US to India. Build a small ginger beer plant, build a company around a half-ass data product, build a house!

There is a never-ending supply of things I'm looking forward to do on any given day :)

ahussain
Sounds like you're living the life - I would love to build my own house one day
protomok
I’m hoping to keep learning more about parallel computing and Deep Learning both from day job and some side projects. Planning to take a stab at a crypto currency algo implementation like Equihash as a fun side project.
wcarron
I've been wondering if adopting an agile framework for my life will help me accomplish my goals. So I have. Starting a little early for resolutions but in this sprint I hope to establish stronger flossing and exercise habits.

Larger goals for the year include establishing a stronger financial base, learning to weld (and perhaps getting my certification), to cook the vast majority of my meals at home, and finally breaking the habit of biting my fingernails, which has plagued me since I could talk.

Oh, and go to Yosemite again. I've wanted to go back for years, ever since I went there as a child on a family vacation.

cpeterso
Getting Things Done (GTD) is probably the most popular personal agile-like process. I highly recommend reading the first book. It was a real eye opener for me, but beware: it is easy for people to get too focused on optimizing their "perfect" GTD system and tools. Just keep it simple. :)
SirLJ
To go spent the summer vacationing in Europe with the family and meet with some old friends... Usually it's a blast!
igotsideas
Start a side hustle and learn Golang
danieldk
1. Do fun things with my wife and daughter.

2. I switched to from Linux to macOS on the desktop in ~2007. I am now back to Linux on my home machine. I decided to stop complaining about bugs/problems and instead try to report every bug/problem that I encounter, when possible with a minimal test case, and a patch. So far, I have reported a small number of GNOME bugs and I hope to complain less and report/fix more in 2018. I am looking forward to this, because it benefits me and may help other people.

3. I work in a computational linguistics department and have teaching duties. Next semester, I will be teaching a 'low-level natural language processing' course using Rust. I have been using (and like) Rust for NLP-related projects, so the course will be fun. Also, I am looking forward to see to see how much students will like Rust.

4. Meditating more. I used to meditate a lot, including doing retreats. With a young child, it will be difficult to do full retreats, but it would be great to sit 10-15 minutes per day again.

5. Recently, an indoor climbing center opened close to us. My wife is planning to do a course, so that we can climb together as a family. (I used to climb ~twice a week for 5 years.)

gallerdude
Damn, computational linguistics sounds amazing.
mandliya
Rust NLP course sounds super interesting. I am dabbling in Rust. Could you share details/course links when it is available. Thanks
[dead] hockeybias
Fishing. Lots of it. With Tenkara rods recommended by Chris at TenkaraBum.com
ryanmarsh
Launching a few very small software products to begin replacing my consulting income so I can quit being an agile coach which I have grown to dislike greatly.
spicymaki
Doing more recreational math.
dev1n
Love this one. I picked up euclid's elements over the summer and it has been awesome to just pick up a proof when I have minimal down time. great way to redirect my mind.