This year I finally found a flexible and comfortable job. I work only 25 hours per week (more or less). The income does not make me super rich (like FAANG engineers) but I live comfortably with the money.
I consider this situation as my recent success because I have a lot of time to work on other things (research, moonshot projects, online businesses).
I just published a book about blockchain this year. Last week I released an opensource blockchain project. Later I want to build an online educational business (something like pyimagesearch.com, egghead.io) but this time it is not about blockchain anymore. :)
In the future (maybe 2 years later) I want to do some research on drone.
Sounds wholesome, I think if you have good self motivation you can always do interesting things in your own time. Sometimes I feel like you have to make it a bit of a routine, but it pays off.
Professionally, I won a poster award at a conference, mostly for my slick R ggplot visualizations analyzing delirium in elderly hospitalized patients. I've never won an award for my research or coding, so that was a joyful moment. Especially, given that 2 months earlier, I was crying under my desk on my 30th birthday due to work pressures and feeling totally lost trying to build huge datasets with SQL as a beginner.
Personally, I was asked to join two different folk bands, playing piano and singing. To any classically trained musicians, I'd recommend trying folk, there are great opportunities for your trained technical skills and playing with others (rather than solo) has been very uplifting to my musical happiness.
I recently published a paper (http://graphics.pixar.com/library/OrthogonalArraySampling201...). I had some serious doubts when I was starting out, and it was a pretty tough endeavor. In the end, we made it! I got to present at EGSR which was really exciting too.
It includes core things like sleeping for 8 hours, exercising, eating wholefood plant based diet, drinking water, tea, focusing on one task at a time and setting and following through goals.
As for goals, I am genuinely in love with my Focus board I made a while back. Makes navigating life so much easier when you know where you want to go and can deconstruct the goals into actions.
Aside from all that I feel like the time I spent optimizing my workflow by learning great tools immensely valuable. I am now at the stage where I build my own tools to solve my own problems. And it feels great.
There is still like 2 people out 7 billion that abuse Karabiner to the extent that I do. In some ways it's sad how so many people are missing out on its power. On the other it gives me great leverage. Just need to use it wisely.
Another success has been writing in my journal openly for the last 2 years, every month. Been a huge mind cleanser. Here is most recent entry.
Just a suggestion, but if you love creating your own tools and optimizing your workflow you might consider switching to linux with some tiling window manager and other improvements.
To be honest this might be one of the reasons not many people abuse Karabiner.
Cheers! Keep the good work but do not forget to rest as well!
Would be hard for me to move as I rely on some software that is mac only for my productivity. I use Linux as deployment environment. Trying to find time to learn Nix & NixOS. :)
At the risk of being a bit off topic, it cracked me up that "DMT Breakthrough" is listed as one of your monthly goals.
Since I'm already off topic, I've always found the binary "either I broke through or I didn't" notion to fall a bit flat. I've talked to friends who described a "breakthrough" experience that to me literally sounded like a very low strength DMT trip. And people have all these weird criteria like "oh if you saw beings it was a breakthrough".
Anyway, despite disliking the arbitrarity of the term, speaking personally out of 30-40 trips I would describe about 2 of those experiences as a breakthrough. For me the biggest recurring motif is watching a new type of space being created in my mind's eye, composed of twisting/interlocking hyperdimensional fabric of sorts. Everything is made of these fibers. On another trip, I was "tapped" on the head by a floating orb that proceeded to direct my attention to a hypercube in which it felt like I could see what felt like an infinite number of lower-order spaces (but still >= 4D if I had to put a number on it).
[/off topic rambling]
To bring it back on topic, I find your 12 daily habits really inspiring and much more "focused" and actionable (yet still flexible) than some of the more "standard" list of habits I've come across. Thanks for sharing :)
That's interesting. I'm fascinated by psychedelics ever since I tried salvia, I learned just how strange consciousness is or rather our perception of reality. Salvia is so bizarre that it's impossible to put to words, the experience. It's also interesting how unlike other psychedelics it is, like LSD & tryptamines, it doesn't target the serotonin receptors but opioid.
I am not a believer in external entities or anything of that kind as I believe all these psychedelics do is show how powerful our brains are in constructing and reconstructing the raw input of the world. It's just so bizarre though that's all even possible.
I started a very niche open source pet project to scratch an itch (I'm a musician that uses Linux, and I wanted a decent Linux native hall-style reverb plugin). Somebody from halfway around the world jumped in and built a GUI for it. Now a small handful of people from around the world rave about how much they love it.
1. Do you do your production in Linux? If so what hardware interfaces and DAW are you finding works for you?
2. Did you have audio programming experience before starting this project? I really want to learn more about audio signal processing but am not sure where to start.
1. I'm using a first-gen Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and Ardour.
2. I didn't have any experience with DSP programming before this project. I mostly just wrapped an existing library, but I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of delving more into the algorithms now.
If you're interested in trying something, a colleague and I are considering modernizing Rakarrack (an aging guitar effects bundle), you could jump in before we get started developing it. Here's our fledgling github repo:
Lots of past failures under the belt, but I just started tasting success today only! My simple word game "Word Hookup" is showing on the US app store's Today page, in the "5 New Games We Love" category. Until last week I had a handful of downloads, and the number is now increasing exponentially. Loving it :)
https://www.wordhookup.com
It's an alternative to YouTube/Patreon for animators. It has better monetization options for them, and will have easier sorting/filtering of animations + I am working on some tools like in-browser frame editor.
No advertising, all word of mouth and about 40k people are using it each month which is cool. Our Discord should hit 1,000 animators and fans soon too!
Are you in school or publishing while in the industry? Always wondered how to do the latter without a PhD and working with a Big N in their research org.
I'm in Georgia Tech's OMSCS program: in my Knowledge-Based AI course, my final project that created an agent to solve Raven's Progressive Matrices performed in the top 10 of all submissions and hence earned bonus points for my overall grade (the performance boost was a surprise).
Trying playing Moira -- she's broken right now. Highest I've ever been previously is just over 3k on tank and I'm sitting around 3300 right now just from playing Moira.
Right click orbs only and use your ult on cooldown. Good luck!
I just passed 100 consecutive days of workouts! At least a one mile run or 20 minute Peloton ride every day. Lower impact days allow for 'active rest'.
Was a tough start, too, with a calf sprain almost right away, on Day 5. Even managed to fit in workouts on international travel days!
Congratulations. This is no easy feat. I have started and failed several times trying to work out regularly. It’s not easy to break the cycle of excuses. Any tips would you like to share ?
I finally found a somewhat cure for my long-time shoulder pain which also helped to develop costochondritis. After several medical tests and lots of hours invested into researching the problem myself (as doctors just provided NSAIDs and PT didn't help much) I was able to be almost pain free after such long time.
Physical illnesses, even if only mildly disabling, do affect your day-to-day mood very negatively.
Dead hangs are great but unfortunately I can't have such setup at my current location. It didn't offer any lasting fix either. What worked for me best was:
- Myofascial release of pec minor/major with theracane (generic one bought in a well-known chinese webshop).
- Doorway stretches.
- A physical device that's rock-shaped on which you lay down and safely stretches the sternum/ribs area.
- I avoid smartphone use whenever possible, and try to use the mouse with the left hand (or no mouse at all if possible).
I might be forgetting something but that's more or less what helped me.
It's sometimes challenging to find where you need to work on since many times treating the location where the pain is originating may not be the real source. For example: pec minor may be totally tight, which causes pain when breathing in the shoulder blades/sternum/ribs, you go to the PT and PT massages for example the shoulder blades but in reality that'll do nothing since it's just the end of the chain.
But on a positive note, you get to learn a lot about anatomy :)
+100 for doorway stretches and the wisdom that what hurts in our lower extremities may be because of the start of the chain (shoulders, back). Thanks for sharing this with those who may not have yet come to this important realization.
1) After a string of tricky life events (death of a relative, breakup of a serious relationship), I moved out of my family home closer to work.
2) I managed to pay off my college debt to external services (I still owe money to my parents, but it's interest free)
3) I got promoted to a senior level at work, got rotated to a different team, and put on a high visibility project.
4) I started doing improv comedy on the side! It was something I'd flirted with in college but didn't really take `seriously`
Not everything is perfect, and I have some bad days, but my life between the start of this year and now has drastically changed and in a lot of ways for the better.
122 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 149 ms ] threadI consider this situation as my recent success because I have a lot of time to work on other things (research, moonshot projects, online businesses).
I just published a book about blockchain this year. Last week I released an opensource blockchain project. Later I want to build an online educational business (something like pyimagesearch.com, egghead.io) but this time it is not about blockchain anymore. :)
In the future (maybe 2 years later) I want to do some research on drone.
Edited: Add more details.
For the first time in my career I have a low stress job. I feel like a totally different person.
I big difference I've noticed is that I watch a lot less TV now. I used come home burned out and would just crash in front of the TV.
A recent success has been getting more video content out around my niche (developing a product): https://youtube.com/cleverbeagle
How about you OP?
Nice job on running :) Do you have a specific routine or goals you try to hit?
Personally, I was asked to join two different folk bands, playing piano and singing. To any classically trained musicians, I'd recommend trying folk, there are great opportunities for your trained technical skills and playing with others (rather than solo) has been very uplifting to my musical happiness.
Edit: Also, congrats!
I set this one month fitness goal because I thought it would be immediately achievable and healthy.
https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing/habits
It includes core things like sleeping for 8 hours, exercising, eating wholefood plant based diet, drinking water, tea, focusing on one task at a time and setting and following through goals.
As for goals, I am genuinely in love with my Focus board I made a while back. Makes navigating life so much easier when you know where you want to go and can deconstruct the goals into actions.
https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/focusing
Aside from all that I feel like the time I spent optimizing my workflow by learning great tools immensely valuable. I am now at the stage where I build my own tools to solve my own problems. And it feels great.
There is still like 2 people out 7 billion that abuse Karabiner to the extent that I do. In some ways it's sad how so many people are missing out on its power. On the other it gives me great leverage. Just need to use it wisely.
Another success has been writing in my journal openly for the last 2 years, every month. Been a huge mind cleanser. Here is most recent entry.
https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/looking-back/2019/2019-augus...
Just a suggestion, but if you love creating your own tools and optimizing your workflow you might consider switching to linux with some tiling window manager and other improvements.
To be honest this might be one of the reasons not many people abuse Karabiner.
Cheers! Keep the good work but do not forget to rest as well!
Since I'm already off topic, I've always found the binary "either I broke through or I didn't" notion to fall a bit flat. I've talked to friends who described a "breakthrough" experience that to me literally sounded like a very low strength DMT trip. And people have all these weird criteria like "oh if you saw beings it was a breakthrough".
Anyway, despite disliking the arbitrarity of the term, speaking personally out of 30-40 trips I would describe about 2 of those experiences as a breakthrough. For me the biggest recurring motif is watching a new type of space being created in my mind's eye, composed of twisting/interlocking hyperdimensional fabric of sorts. Everything is made of these fibers. On another trip, I was "tapped" on the head by a floating orb that proceeded to direct my attention to a hypercube in which it felt like I could see what felt like an infinite number of lower-order spaces (but still >= 4D if I had to put a number on it).
[/off topic rambling]
To bring it back on topic, I find your 12 daily habits really inspiring and much more "focused" and actionable (yet still flexible) than some of the more "standard" list of habits I've come across. Thanks for sharing :)
I am not a believer in external entities or anything of that kind as I believe all these psychedelics do is show how powerful our brains are in constructing and reconstructing the raw input of the world. It's just so bizarre though that's all even possible.
Some interesting threads:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Salvia/comments/avc7yc/i_cannot_str...
https://www.reddit.com/r/DMT/comments/ctwh0r/how_has_dmt_aff...
And this GIF is quite accurate in how salvia feels like if you can even describe it.
https://i.imgur.com/KbedrL4.gifv
https://github.com/michaelwillis/dragonfly-reverb
1. Do you do your production in Linux? If so what hardware interfaces and DAW are you finding works for you?
2. Did you have audio programming experience before starting this project? I really want to learn more about audio signal processing but am not sure where to start.
Thanks!
Most USB interfaces can do class compliant audio, you can thank the popularity of the ipad for that one.
>DAW
Libre: LMMS, Ardour
Proprietary: Bitwig Studio, Harrison Mixbus
2. I didn't have any experience with DSP programming before this project. I mostly just wrapped an existing library, but I'm getting more comfortable with the idea of delving more into the algorithms now.
If you're interested in trying something, a colleague and I are considering modernizing Rakarrack (an aging guitar effects bundle), you could jump in before we get started developing it. Here's our fledgling github repo:
https://github.com/rkrv2/rkrv2
Edit: Also check out the forum at https://linuxmusicians.com if you want to discuss Linux audio/music production.
It's an alternative to YouTube/Patreon for animators. It has better monetization options for them, and will have easier sorting/filtering of animations + I am working on some tools like in-browser frame editor.
No advertising, all word of mouth and about 40k people are using it each month which is cool. Our Discord should hit 1,000 animators and fans soon too!
Pushed out an app today that makes it significantly easier to do a part of my job.
Two academic papers in the pipeline.
> Coures Page: http://lucylabs.gatech.edu/kbai/summer-2019/
> Project Overview: http://lucylabs.gatech.edu/kbai/summer-2019/project-overview...
> RPMs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
Couple of them for me
1. Professionally: Moving to an awesome core tech team (chance to work with internals of a database)
2. Personally: Wrote a blog post which received very high attention here on HN... shameless plug (sorry):
https://littleblah.com/post/2019-09-01-senior-engineer-check...
3. Health wise: Successfully used internmittent fasting to lose 8KG, and then maintain it for 9 months straight.
4. Finally, if all goes well, a baby on the way in our family!
I'm still down around 1900 on support, though.
Right click orbs only and use your ult on cooldown. Good luck!
Was a tough start, too, with a calf sprain almost right away, on Day 5. Even managed to fit in workouts on international travel days!
Physical illnesses, even if only mildly disabling, do affect your day-to-day mood very negatively.
- Myofascial release of pec minor/major with theracane (generic one bought in a well-known chinese webshop).
- Doorway stretches.
- A physical device that's rock-shaped on which you lay down and safely stretches the sternum/ribs area.
- I avoid smartphone use whenever possible, and try to use the mouse with the left hand (or no mouse at all if possible).
I might be forgetting something but that's more or less what helped me.
It's sometimes challenging to find where you need to work on since many times treating the location where the pain is originating may not be the real source. For example: pec minor may be totally tight, which causes pain when breathing in the shoulder blades/sternum/ribs, you go to the PT and PT massages for example the shoulder blades but in reality that'll do nothing since it's just the end of the chain.
But on a positive note, you get to learn a lot about anatomy :)
Made Support Lead of an important assignment, leading a team of 7 Engineers.
If anyone would like to advise me on how to be a good Support Lead, I am eager to hear and act.
PS - Support Lead is also Operations Lead
https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/16/confessions-of-an-unreal-e...
2) I managed to pay off my college debt to external services (I still owe money to my parents, but it's interest free)
3) I got promoted to a senior level at work, got rotated to a different team, and put on a high visibility project.
4) I started doing improv comedy on the side! It was something I'd flirted with in college but didn't really take `seriously`
Not everything is perfect, and I have some bad days, but my life between the start of this year and now has drastically changed and in a lot of ways for the better.
Day: Got our static map server (mapnik-based) to generate x/y/z tiles properly so we can use it with leaflet.js for interactive maps.