HN Explorer

Ask HN: What are the changes you made in your life and never look back?

95 points by bearwithclaws ↗ HN
I'm interested to hear what are the changes fellow HNers made in their life and never look back again. It could be anything.

For me:

* Inkjet Printer => LaserJet Printer

* PC => Mac

* Monthly Gym Membership => Home Gym

* Sitting all day => Standing Desk

* Shall-not-be-named-sucky-cloud-storage => DropBox

169 comments

[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 240 ms ] thread
Akuma99
easy! ...

* Cancer => No Cancer

* Corporate Jungle => Self Employed

(in that order)

astrofinch
I plan out every day the evening before.
hboon
PC -> Mac

Over-the-counter banking -> Internet banking

Feature phone -> Smartphone

Mouse with no wheel -> One with wheel (and currently Magic mouse)

Own hosted email/Yahoo -> Gmail (or Google Apps for Business)

Dock at the bottom (both Windows and Mac) -> Dock on the left

Unmanaged music collection -> iTunes

No specific editor -> MacVim

follower
> Dock at the bottom (both Windows and Mac) -> Dock on the left

Yeah, I did that quite a while ago and have found it great on my laptop but I've just started using a 1900x1200 monitor and am starting to think about switching back.

hboon
I hardly use the Dock since there are utilities like Spotlight/AlfredApp/LaunchBar/Quicksilver, so I auto-hide it. I'm using an external 1440x900 side-by-side with my built-in 1440x900, but if I even get a tall enough built-in LCD, I'd still leave the Dock on the left. There's never enough vertical space for code for most programming languages.

I guess laptop-only -> laptop + external mon counts too.

kolinko
When did you change to the standing desk? I heard people grow tired of it after a couple of months.

3G internet connection => Hardline

Living in suburbs => Living in the city center

bearwithclaws
I've changed to standing desk for more than 9 months. Couldn't live without it now.
missn
I'm curious, how do you handle long periods of standing? Just resting? I can't imagine standing for hours doing computer work.
bearwithclaws
I work in short burst -- maximum 2 hours at a time. After 2 hours, even if my legs weren't tired, I would starting to lose focus. I would then take 15 - 30 mins break to have a tea/walk my dog/yoga/weight lift/talk to spouse/jump rope/shoot hoops, and then continue back again.
dualogy
You should bring it to Starbucks for the next co-hacking session... ;)
Mz 

  Husband => No husband
  Affluenza => Spartanism
  Car => No car
Probably a whole lot of other things. Somewhere in there all that led to:

Chronically Ill => Not Chronically Ill. Definitely don't plan to go back.

ez77 

  Chronically Ill => Not Chronically Ill
How did you achieve that?
Mz
Got rid of the husband, everything I ever owned, and my car. And also took a boatload of supplements, did a lot of reading about my medical condition, changed my diet, and a whole lot of other stuff.

Some info on what I did is here: http://healthgazelle.com/

Not much info, mind you. I'm too busy getting my life back to spend much time on the site.

Peace.

krmmalik
Amazing website. I'm at the "plateau" bit that you mention, and i'd love to learn more.
Mz
You know, much of the site was written as much as 5 years ago and I have become a combination of bitter about the reception I get in the CF community and busy getting my life back together, so I hardly look at the main site anymore (I do sometimes post to the new-ish blog). So please refresh my memory, maybe with a quote and/or link to the piece you are referencing. That might help me sound like less of a fool.

And you can always email me sometime.

Thanks.

krmmalik
I really liked the CF sections explaining why lung infections are the "leaves" of the problem.

Im in the process of moving house and getting married, but at some point i'll email you for some advice, and would really appreciate any assistance. Thanks again, and nice meeting you ;-)

Mz
Since you are moving anyway, use this as an opportunity to pitch out as much stuff as you can.

Congrats on the marriage and good luck with the move.

Take care.

krmmalik
Thank you so much. I'll be in touch!
krmmalik
Would you mind elaborating on what was the chronic illness that you had and how you recovered?
artmageddon
I never knew of the word "Affluenza" till today! I like learning things like this :)

Glad to see you've made positive changes in your life, especially from feeling sick all the time. All that must have been a massive undertaking.

Mz
Ten years and counting and undoubtedly numerous other ways in which it could be measured as "massive". But well worth it. :-)
jc123
1. Moving to USA

2. Moving to Silicon Valley

3. Building a startup (TBD)

missn
Mouse => Wacom Tablet

Saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome (I already had the early signs).

Inkjet Printer => LaserJet Printer

Didnt't realize how much I was missing. The time savings alone makes it worth it.

Design Major => Psychology Major

Sometimes it's true what they say, everything in moderation. Once I left art school, I found my passion for design again.

smhelp
what wacom tablet did you get, and are there any drawbacks of using it as a mouse ?
missn
I got the basic one (Bamboo) with the smallest possible size (I think it's the 4x6 one). If you're doing design and other complex tasks, it's probably better to have those large ones. For me though, since I only use it for general computing and the occasional design work, having a small one makes it portable (and it fits on my desk!).

Unfortunately though, after years of getting used to the mouse, I do find it hard doing detailed work in Photoshop (i.e. tracing something/colouring something). It probably has to do with me not being used to the tablet but in times like those, I (using the tablet) still don't have the dexterity to manipulate things as well as when using a mouse.

lukifer
Platter drive => SSD

9-to-5 => Gig with flexible scheduling

Strongly typed languages => Weakly typed languages

eru
Do you mean dynamically typed, or really weakly typed?

(K&R C is weakly typed for example.)

edanm
Random off the top of my head:

No backup/storage => Dropbox 50gb (paid) <--- !!!!! Probably the best computing upgrade I've ever made.

Same password on every site => Keepass (Also an incredible thing)

No serious exercise => Starting to exercise (gym, started playing a new sport I love, etc.)

Old phone => Smartphone (iPhone 4)

follower
> started playing a new sport I love

What was the sport?

edanm
Hockey. I've been playing basketball every week for years, but it's not a very high-intensity game (with my group, at least!).

But I haven't played Hockey since I was 15, mostly because I didn't know where (Hockey is not very popular in Israel). But I finally found a group that plays, and joined them and had a very draining, but amazingly fun time playing. I've missed it.

edanm
Could you talk about your conversion to a Home Gym? I'm perhaps interested in following your path, but I'm not sure where to start.
dualogy
Read "You are your own gym". All you need to get started for the first 1-2 years.
bearwithclaws
Inspiration: http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/cfjissue1_Sep02.pdf (PDF)

I've got myself (one at a time): a few dumb bells, a long bar, yoga mat, kettle bell, gym mat, fit ball. Plenty enough to do a lot of exercise right at my home (I'm working from home) -- instead of commuting to nearby gym. I could workout multiple times a day whenever I wanted.

dclaysmith
US => Ireland

.NET => php/python

1 monitor => 2 monitors

Car => No Car

simonswords82
As somebody who is in the UK, looking to spend some time in the US working/living and then grow old in Ireland your "upgrade" from US to Ireland interests me. What made you move?
daimyoyo
Flip phone => smartphone

Smartphone => iPhone

PC => Mac

Using public wifi => private Internet connection

The biggest one: bike => car.

mkramlich
landline => mobile

blah clamshell cellphone => iPhone

PC/Windows => Mac/OSX

Java => Python

The Man's corporate cubicle => home office => my business office

9-to-5 salary grind => my own schedule, ROWE, contracting/consulting

used cars => new 2010 Hyundai

backpack 4 laptop => padded laptop bag => hard shell reinforced briefcase

SVN => git

laptop's boot filesystem on magnetic platter hard drive => SSD

TV for visual vegging => the Web

living on the 70th floor => living on ground floor

sharing walls & ceilings with neighbors/drummers/blind-elephants => not

follower
> hard shell reinforced briefcase

Do you have a link to what you have? What were the benefits to the change (particularly from laptop backpack)?

maayank
living on the 70th floor => living on ground floor

why?

lacerus
The next item on the list suggests he/she bought a house.
mkramlich
it's 2am, high wind, tower starts to sway back and forth and you can feel it

fire breaks out on 60th floor

both happened to me. not fun. never again. interesting experience to have at least once though. :)

TamDenholm 

  Windows > Linux
  CD-R backups > Dropbox
  Two monitors > One 30" Dell Monitor (Best purchase ever btw)
  Pirating Music > Spotify (I even pay a subscription)
  TV > Youtube, BBC iPlayer, other steaming services (and now no TV licence fee)
  Crap diet > Learning to cook
  Paperwork > iPad
  IDE > gEdit
  Landline > Mobile
I'm sure there are others. One thing i'd love to do is live totally off the grid, reuse water, generate own electricity, grow own food, live in middle of no where. The only thing i cant figure out how to do is a decent net connection...
mise
I'm with you on the > gEdit (well, I use Scribes instead). You need an editor that gets out of your way.
HelloBeautiful
>> and now no TV licence fee

Nope, if you're watching TV programs on your computers or smartphones (iPlayer) you still have to pay UK TV licence.

Khaki
Nope, only if you're watching live (as it's being broadcast) TV.
sjtgraham
I believe a TV license is required to watch the live streams, not VOD content.
TamDenholm
Like others have said, its only applicable to live streams. I very carefully read the terms before i stopped paying the license.
rednum
Could you elaborate on IDE > gEdit? I'm really curious here, especially what PL's are you mainly using and what kind of projects are you working on. Also do you use and plugins with gEdit? As an emacs user and lisp programmer I can imagine ditching some of the features, but there are also some I couldn't live without (like paredit and repl integration).
TamDenholm
I'm a web developer, i write php, html, css, js mainly. So IDE's are totally unnecessary. I have a development server i connect to via sftp and edit on that, i use dropbox as my source control since 99% of the time i'm a single developer and it stops me having to remember to check anything in. It also makes deployment to live pretty easy too.

I dont use any external plugins or anything, everything i use comes out the box with gEdit, the file browser side pane, highlighting, indenting and thats about it. I imagine its a lot easier from a web dev's perspective than from actual programmers.

pbhjpbhj
It looks like you're saying "Windows is greater [for me] than Linux" but I suspect you were miscopying the OP's use of "=>"?

    > => =>
TamDenholm
While i believe the former statement to be true :P, my intention was the same as the OP's. I'd edit the > to be => but the edit link has expired. :(
jbm
Montreal, Qc => Tokyo, Jp.

Never felt more liberated in my life. I can't describe in words how good it felt.

cubix
Can you elaborate as to why? I would have expected the exact opposite.
jbm
Wish you had an email :/ jbm @ ordisante.com if you want to continue this.

I feel like less of a foreigner in Japan than I did in Quebec. Does that blow your mind like it does mine?

The politics & lack of hope in Quebec is stifling. A lot of economic boom cycles were missed because of the squabbling and identity politics that plague the province. I can honestly say that I don't recall a single time where I felt like everything was going "OK" in MTL as a worker.

The positive things I have to say about Montreal is about the quality of cheap food, the quality of education I received, and the quality of the people I knew. Not insubstantial, but not enough to ever tempt me to come back.

Perception problem? Maybe. I'm not going to struggle against that when there are much better things to do with my time.

As per Tokyo; you can do whatever you want if you exist outside the salaryman system. I play the role of the "brilliant system engineer" (whether I am or not is another story). I work normal hours (10 hours a day on rare occasions) and get paid quite well. I have no major complaints. It does seem to be going down the same road of ruin, but I don't plan on being here forever either.

wladimir
DOS/Windows => Linux

CDs/DVDs => Downloading/Streaming

Perl/PHP => Python

Harddisk => SSD

SVN/CVS => GIT/Mercurial

Academia => Business

barrydahlberg
Stable salaried jobs -> Contracting, business, chaos.

It suits me better.

Maro
I really like the "chaos" part. I think it's a very down to earth description to how it is in practice =)
mkramlich
related: when I worked for Cheaptickets (started as a smallco, turned into BigDumbCompany eventually) I was in a group called "Car, Hotel, Air and Other Stuff." You can see why I liked the acronym. I specialized in the Other Stuff (jvm, monitoring, troubleshooting, performance, thread issues, etc.)
base
PHP > Ruby

Prototype > Jquery

SVN/CVS > Mercurial

Eclipse > Netbeans

arethuza
Academia -> Real World

Drive to work -> Walk to work

Prepared food -> Cook from basic ingredients

Radio 1 -> Radio 4

Java -> Anything else

Expensive SUV -> Sensible economical car

Paper books only -> Kindle & Audible

Being a bigot about particular operating system and languages -> Not really caring anymore (apart from Java)

[Edit: The thing about Java is more today with my own, in retrospect, slightly embarrassing "advocacy" of the language in the period '95 to '00 - rather than the issues the language has as the new Cobol].

jkahn
New Zealand => Australia

Windows => Mac

Spinning rust => SSD

Of course, there are tons of technology changes that have been great. The things that have made a huge impact in my life are:

Pure techie => Learning sales

Employee => Business owner

Sales is all psychology. It totally changes your view of the world. It's not about how things should be, but about how things are regardless. A business degree didn't teach anything that mattered about that.

follower
> New Zealand => Australia

From where in NZ did you leave and where in Oz did you end up? What were the improvements you found? Do you think you would've found them moving to some country other than Australia?

Curious. :)

jkahn
I moved from Auckland to Brisbane. The weather and lifestyle are better, people are generally more upbeat and opportunities are better.

New Zealand has a major case of tall poppy syndrome. Australia doesn't have this so much. Most people generally want you to succeed, and help you out.

krmmalik
I'm really surprised by the number of people that have enjoyed the move to Mac. I went to Mac for about 6 months and then ended up coming back to Windows 7. Thats not to say one is better than the other, i just found it difficult to get used to the little differences.

Although, if i was programming more often the mac would probably have been more useful.

kaka189
Windows - > Linux , Large Company -> startup , somemail -> gmail , orkut -> facebook :)
robfitz
Working at home --> working at cafes Video games --> hobby projects Following my natural social inclinations --> going out most days Developer --> Developer who can do sales & biz
petewailes
CDs/DVDs/BluRay/Consoles etc... => Spotify/HTPC + serious GFX

Parkour => taekwondo

Monitor(s) => Very large Samsung TV

Notepad++ => Sublime Text

Walking => running

TV => competitive gaming

No 3 item todo list => 3 item todo list

Single project focus => multiple open-ended projects

Books => Kindle

sharadgopal
What is the best way for someone to get into parkour ?
D0rkvsMaximvs
Find a second-story window and jump out of it. If, in the next hour, you aren't in the hospital or morgue, CONGRATULATIONS!!! you're now into Parkour!.
liuhenry
If you can find a parkour gym like Primal Fitness [1] or Tempest Freerunning [2], that's the best option. They're not in a ton of areas, but if you can find a gymnastics gym to take a class, many moves and techniques will overlap. Otherwise, most of the moves aren't incredibly technical; they just need strength, balance, and coordination. You can find a lot of tutorials on Youtube, and just get out there and practice, but a gym will make it easier to build up the physical skills and also get over the mental fear.

1: http://www.primal-fitness.com

2: http://www.tempestfreerunning.com/the-academy

petewailes
Agree with most of this. As Liuhenry correctly says, it's heavily dependent on two things:

1. Physical fitness 2. Mental control

With regards to the former, I'd suggest looking at things like callisthenics and gymnastics, in order to get stronger, combined with running (couch to 5k is a good way to get started) to work on stamina and running.

As to the latter, it's more about accepting that you're going to get hurt now and then, and being willing to start small. Don't go jump off a 20ft roof and break roll tomorrow, jump off a secure bench, and go from there.

Other than that, I'd say practice movements over and over, until you do them without thinking, and find someone (or better still, a group - there's a fair number around the world so you should be able to find one) locally who can help you learn, and teach you how to move.

cubix
Car => motorcycle + AutoShare (shared car service)

Work at office => Work from home