mtodd

Great observation about starting with proofs.

This is especially true when you step outside of the code and look at the problems being solved: if you don't already have a proof of concept, and even before that, if you don't have a sound problem to solve, you will not be able to produce intelligible proofs and axioms will be difficult if not impossible.

Mechanically, I'll prove to myself something works the way I want or need to in a REPL and then implement the axiom from that... which is sorta in the right direction :)

GEB is a great experience. It's not a deeply technical book, though it is both deep and technical. It's more specifically an adventure of thought.

I hear there are hidden messages in the book itself. I'm not motivated to track them down and solve them, but this is certainly an indication of the kind of tone Hofstadter was after: playful.

I want my future children to read this.

We sure did! We had chef-client run continually throughout development so it continuously deployed as we pushed changes up.

For RailsRumble, in order to "complete" the competition, you have to tag a commit with "railsrumble" and make sure that was deployed. Once we had setup that tag, all we had to do was make a minor adjustment to our recipe and we knew that we'd have that tag deployed according to the rules.

This isn't the first time we've deployed with Chef which was great since we didn't have to fight with it at all.

Where's the option of "No, but plan to".

I always spell his name Djikstra the first time 'round. :(

I missed some of the other links for Game Mechanics as a service... could you list any you remember? Thanks!

Correct! The most recent version.

* if I have music playing in the background, the music should automatically start instead of requiring me to switch back to the screen and manually restart it * make the password field a password type input element * optionally allow anybody to switch password to a regular text input field

"Proofs" in Science is a misnomer, though, isn't it? You don't "prove" something with science, you simply construct a theory that matches closest to reality based on experimental data. Science doesn't prove, it provides a framework for inquiry.

There's Scott Chacon's interesting approach to presentations called ShowOff: http://github.com/schacon/showoff

Well, overall the goal is to burn more calories than you take in. I wouldn't recommended "skip exercise" to anybody, but tell them that it's not necessary if they can control their intake enough. But, if you don't change your intake and also add exercise, it'll certainly speed things up.

Congrats! Keep it up. I've lost about 60lbs, and it started the same way for me: cutting out bad foods and doing a bit of exercise. It was nice motivation to say "no, I'm taking the stairs" or "I'll walk" and know that I could do it and it was making a big improvement in my life.

Pick up cycling! So much more efficient use of your energy, meaning you can utilize it more often to hop around town!

You sound like a smart guy. Your failure thus far is an amazing and truly educational amount of experience that will benefit you short- and long-term. You really have a great deal more experience than many, and clearly you have drive and passion.

You're valuable and hardworking, so get the hell out of that shithole.

With your experience, you should be able to make some incredible contributions to any other startup that has a good product/service and actually cares about their employees.

$26,000 a year is ridiculously low... absurdly low. Hard-to-fathom low. If you feel like renegotiating would create hostility then that is far and away the biggest alarm that you need to get out of there.

As coffeemug said, "run, don't walk."

Seriously, who cares? So it's not what you're looking for... move on.

Winner!

I've found that I'm much more likely to complete and succeed at a given task by creating very specific goals for myself, and breaking down my goals into specific tasks. It's the same concept that I do in building software writing out stories for each feature, etc, but applied to myself.

For example, I have a specific goal to read 3 chapters in Godel, Escher, Bach every month until I finish the book. I'm also challenging myself in other areas of my life, like eating, running and biking, etc.

Most importantly, though, is that my goals are all very short-term: most of my goals are in 1 month chunks, but some are in 1 week chunks. Only very few are more, and they usually are broken up into sub-goals with 1 month chunks or less.

At my work, we like to create goals and tasks that are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.

There's no way you'll finish something if you don't know how to get to the end, how long it will take you, how much effort it will require, and how it will look when you get there.

Loren is always down for a party. :)

I can't help but recall Thomas Edison's arduous yet ultimately fruitful work to invent the light bulb.

He says, "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward."

I'm just discovering Go, and I am terrible! But, hey, I don't know what I'm doing and it's certainly not going to do me any harm to fail until I get it right!

Developers are great at figuring problems out, but there's no replacement for experience. I frequently create little "spikes" to figure out how to nail down a concept... and sometimes I just outright fail. I don't mind, it's a learning experience.

Take a step back from the game, mentally, and put your focus on the metagame; track your progress over many games (might be easier with some consistent opponents), tracking area and game length as well as your recognition of the various Go forms (Seki, Double Atari, etc).

If challenging yourself doesn't work in one aspect, try another way.

You're definitely an inspiration to me, so I hope something here inspires you to overcome your challenges!

Matt

Holy shit... _why is why I'm a Ruby developer to this day, especially the Poignant Guide.

So very sad.

Thanks for sharing, but I do definitely disagree on a few points. Primarily, and boiled down, it's a fundamental disagreement on the motivation of open source software. Where I totally agree with your sentiment of wanting compensation for your generally great karma, there's also no guarantee when you release your code that it will ever profit you in any way other than notoriety and useful code.

I think the way the open source model works is by creating a business (support or consultation) around your software, or by writing open source software from your own needs (often in support/consultation).

We often associate ourselves too closely with our software, both in its failure and its success. We should make sure to keep ourselves somewhat disconnected. We do this in part by releasing something as open source, but that's just the first step.

Hmmm, I don't think that's true at all. Zed may have played this card online, but in reality, he's very professional and friendly when it counts. I would've loved the opportunity to work with him, and enjoyed every time I chatted with him (mostly at conferences).

Good article. Their offices are right around the corner from ours, probably about a mile away.

Haha, nice.