olingern

I saw your comment, liked the idea / design of your site, and signed up since we're in need of designers.

Some feedback:

- There's no way to see full resolution designs. Looking through the blog where your portfolio links to, there are _some_ samples, but some are pixelated and low-res.

- After signing up there's only a link to the customer portal via email, but there's no way to submit a design order nor are there any instructions on how to do so.

- I've been billed for a subscription, but no services have been or began to be rendered. Since I haven't submitted any design requests or any services have started, this is disappointing.

- The billing invoice is really confusing. I signed up for one month, but see two line items and "MANYPIXELS SPECIAL OFFER (2 for 1)" and two invoice line items for "PAID" and "ATTEMPTING"

I assume that since this is still a young product and you're still building the business out; however, I would expect the main site, manypixels.co, to know I've registered, be able to show me some information about my design request, and to download completed assets from it.

Looking forward to using the product!

I would say that the number of permutations (while many) in chess and go are finite, while this has to adapt to anything "at hand."

addendum: there are most definitely a greater number of environmental factors (x, y, z axes) involved in solving such problems.

I never owned a model, but I think it was one of those pieces of tech where the UX and timing were poorly executed.

I have a Google Home, and there's some inherent privacy / trust issues in having a "gadget" that's always listening in your home; however, a couple of things to note with this:

1. It doesn't affect anyone else. The voyeurism issue that Google Glass presented / presents is still an unsolved issue. I wonder if the UK, where surveillance is more less ubiquitous, if Google Glass would had been more successful had it only launched there?

2. I think the idea of “tech” glasses is great, but a camera was necessary. All the horror stories centered around this ethical issue of, “am I being watched?” by the wearers.

Google kind of botched the entire market with the launch of this. I’d love to see someone do this without a camera and better design / UX.

Piggybacking off of top comment to send some UX feedback.

The content blocks that scroll left to right lack signifiers and weren't intuitive for me to scroll them left to right.

I would say having some low opacity arrows (or something similar) would help.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread.

I'd +1:

- Seeing a mental health professional. This has a stigma, but don't let it be that. It's just a safe space for you to air thoughts and process them. It's been invaluable to me. I've seen some recommendations for Tokyo Counseling [1] and plan to visit them myself.

- Grab a bilingual accountant / assistant. I only see a very small side of my company's business, but ( from banking to general business customs ) things are much different than anything I experienced in the US.

- When you're ready -- I would sit down and look at your monthly spend and realistically plan out the next x months. If possible, reach out to friends and family to develop a fallback plan so that it relieves some pressure. Even if your business doesn't pick up, you get to keep your experience and keep moving forward with life.

>I haven't really managed to do anything (the same problem I had when I was working for other companies)_

It sounds like you're either too tired or burnt out to actually put the energy into what you want to do. I have most of my energy at the beginning of the day. If I say, "I'll go work out" or "I'll skip studying X this morning and do it tonight" it will never happen. So, maybe looking at your most productive times of the day to see if you can put some more structure around getting things going.

Best of luck

1 - http://tokyocounseling.com/english/counselor/

I’ve only been in Tokyo for three months, and have already caught myself in this self-awareness paradox: you have to be extremely self aware that you don’t offend others around you, yet your own needs / wants come later.

I recognize that it could potentially have negative effects on one overtime, but I see this as a fair trade off for the abundant safety and civility in Japan.

> - Regardless of two-tone scheme chosen the icons look pretty awful

How is this helpful? It's probably high contrast to show you that you can configure the colors via config [1]. I'm sure you didn't look that far, though.

1 - https://webkul.github.io/vivid/docs.html#customization

> We wanted implementors of type systems for ruby to start collaborating, in particular on a repository of typed shims.

I see. Do you see this being a mono-repo of types that's under a Sorbet org or something Sorbet looks for in a gem if provided? Opening issues for a project's types with Typescript has been somewhat painful since many live in one repo [1].

1 - https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped

I was at RubyKaigi. This presentation was one of the best delivered, so kudos to the Stripe team for all the work put into it.

A question I didn't get to ask while there is -- will there be some sort of type sharing system introduced?

I've been a user of both Typescript and Flow (both great tools), but saw Typescript's popularity soar because of community written types.

I too felt this pain. UI feels "heavy" in comparison to Github.

There are obvious, simple updates that could be made to the UI to fix significant pain points. This one [1] brought me much pain every time I installed a new package via yarn.

1 - https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/7086/add-the-abilit...

Last time I checked the yarnpkg registry is still a proxy to npm, unless they've started hosting. I haven't checked in some time.

Something more along the lines of:

> Thanks so much for the report. Currently, we are doing the best to resolve the issue. Please continue to check back on our status page to see our updates. https://status.npmjs.org/

Sounds more appropriate

Here's to hoping that all my yarn caches will continue to carry me through this.

Seriously, though. I'd love to get a look at their SLA and how they define "uptime" for their "org" and "enterprise" users. I don't think most teams are running out the door to throw their money at npm, and it's this type of instability that creates mistrust amongst developers.

> When I was younger I honestly thought there weren't many intelligent gay man, and that it was somehow a proof that I was never going to be really good. That was until I discovered Alan Turing was gay, and actively researched about intelligent gay people.

Indeed. Young people believing in themselves and feeling that the field will accept them is incredibly important. It reminds me of this quote from an article [1]:

> ...any healthy child—if taught early and intensively—can be brought up to be exceptionally successful in any field.

Children should be allowed to enjoy their childhood, but I think there is some ground to be covered in exposing more demographics to computer science early.

[1] - https://daily.jstor.org/chess-grandmastery-nature-gender-gen...

Since the thread is more akin to a trash fire than something of substance, perhaps, I can offer some insight into my comment.

My comment is merely a nod to the notion that I believe we're missing out on brilliant minds that could shape our future. Brilliance and genius aren't confined to a race or gender. This is nothing about being white, and it's not about diversity for diversity's sake. It's more about progress.

We've all benefitted from the aforementioned greats and their contributions. I do, however, think there are some rocks unturned and I'd like to see them given a chance.

Right. Sexist. Okay. I'll bite.

Since I'm clearly in the wrong here, I'll let you explain to minorities, women, and non-gendered people why there aren't any people in the engineering limelight that look like them.

While you're at it, please figure out how to break into their subconscious to make them believe that they're capable while the rest of the world shows no clues of that.

I'll be waiting.

> I never got this. The thing is, it seemed to me that the people who are waiting are totally "cool" with it. They are not bothered and will, in turn, take their time to pick. I think it is just a cultural thing. But yes, it is interesting given that Japanese are not annoying people, and they value time.

They are definitely cool with it. I think Americans and a lot of the world are consumers out of convenience, whereas (for coffee and other similar goods) people in Japan are consumers for the experience. I think the choosing portion is a part of this experience that they're there for. Just a hypothesis, though.

> The points you make are valid. I think people perceive Japan as a high tech country because they have a highly developed and efficient transit system. I mean when you go there as a tourist, that's practically what you are interacting with. Oh, and high speed Internet. That certainly will strike the average person as a high tech country.

Transit is amazing here. Except when it rains, it seems to cause the local trains some trouble, which is unexpected. My internet experience has been hit or miss, but work and cafe speeds are amazing here. Not Seoul[1] amazing, but solid.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_South_Korea

> I do disagree about restaurant lines, though

Restaurants ( especially soba / ramen ) are so efficient it's insane.

I should have clarified, I'm talking more about coffee shops / cafes ( 喫茶店 ).

> To me, there is less or no small talk- definitely in places like Lawson and 7/11, but even department stores, with local or foreigner customers.

Even though I'm pretty basic, there are a couple of cashiers I'm friendly with / make small talk. I think it's there if you initiate it. Albeit, I'm pretty friendly / jovial.

> I noticed things go slower in Kyoto and other small towns, but no slower than small towns anywhere else in the world.

I think it depends on where in Tokyo you are. Ginza feels slower than Shibuya and Shinjuku to me. I'd say Tokyo is most like LA in how many different "feeling" neighborhoods / micro-cities you have within one area.

Agreed. You can see my other comment, but I think it takes some time to wrap your head around and reconciling the differences.

I'm from the south in the US, specifically the Appalachia (`app-uh-lai-chuh` for us) region. The culture I grew up in and Japan aren't so dissimilar. That's partly why I live in Japan.

Aside from people being on time and getting food to you -- "things" (for lack of better term) move slow here. Some examples:

- It took me three weeks to get a debit card from one of the national banks here. They have a web login and send me an email every time I swipe my card; however, there's no way to check my balance online.

- At restaurants / coffee shops you'll stand in line for an exceptional amount of time. In NYC, if a line gets "out of hand" baristas / servers shorten the amount of attention they give to each customer. It's expected when you get to the counter, you know what you want. Not in Japan (or at least all the places I've visited). Many times people will get to the counter, after standing in line, and debate with their friends what to purchase. It's always great that you know the person behind the counter is giving you their full attention, but it's frustrating when you're behind 2 - 3 people who are taking their time with their purchase. It's especially ironic in a culture that is fixated on not inconveniencing others.

- Swiping a credit card is weirdly complicated. In most places in the USA / the rest of the world -- it's a 'swipe and go' sort of deal. In Japan many systems are geared more toward physical money and transit cards (Passmo / Suica). In many cases, using your bank card requires closing the transaction on the register, printing a receipt, keying this in on another machine, waiting, and signing (in some cases). The efficiency that transactions happen with in the USA is definitely something I took for granted.

- In terms of it being traditional here, I liken current Japanese culture to the US in the 1930s - 40s. A majority of people who work in Tokyo will be in suits (sometimes known as 'salary men' depending on their position), and the gestures of bowing and greeting are much like America's pre-WWII culture of tipping hats / more formal language. I've always been fascinated with more humble, traditional culture(s). I think it attributes to better humans.

Though it seems like I'm giving Japan a hard time in some ways -- it's just "different," but I wanted to highlight some of the ways that (as a foreigner) your predispositions affect your expectations of a culture. I largely attribute my own to media coverage of Japan in the U.S.

Tangent to all of this. One of my favorite things that was unexpected, but obvious once I knew about it was the Japanese concept of "monozukuri"[1]. Many things are so well crafted here, because of a cultural emphasis on producing things with quality. I also think this is a part of why things move slow here. Americans are so focused on immediacy that there's a line of books exploiting that, Sam's "Learn X in 24HRs." I respect Japan for not being the "face paced" culture SF / NYC have turned into. Tokyo feels so tame in comparison, and (for me at least) that's a good thing.

1 - http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsi...

I just moved to Japan, and it's fascinating that connotations (including my previous) with Japan are "High tech, futuristic, efficient" when in reality it is, "slow moving, traditional, and (frequently) inefficient." I can comment more as to why / how.

This woman is not only fighting cultural norms of the _world_, but also Japan. Software engineering, in general, lags so far behind the rest of the world, save robotics. It's starting to change, and I'm glad that people like Wakamiya-san are preventing the creation of a 'conventional software engineer'. Seriously, the field needs more role models like Grace Hopper to idolize rather than our current trend of Jobs, Gates, Woz, Knuth, etc.

> If a bottom-down approach was remotely effective, no one would bother teaching the basics.

This is a purist approach.

Sometimes, you sacrifice the details to broaden the audience. This has the result of getting more people interested.

I think the way developers tend to think about front-end is misguided. Front-end development can be just as complex as backend, and IMO is analogous to iOS / Android, but interacting with a different environment.

Having started in ASP.NET web forms, I wholly welcome React & Redux / etc., because those were painful years.

Also, in many cases, developers are paid quite well ( a doctor like salary in some cases). I don't see problems with the notion of "having to keep up with the industry" since we're paid so well to do so.

I hope that it's obvious that you shouldn't expose part of your implementation to your end users a la auto incrementing primary keys.

Obfuscation of how data is queried and stored is pretty low hanging fruit, security-wise.

I think the minimalist approach could be a companion to this style behavior augmentation.

Rather than adding things that could be done, I only add tasks that have to be done. Overtime, my "bandwidth" for tasks I don't like doing become much greater and, in some cases, I begin to enjoy them.

Adding accountability around the tasks helps a lot (in my experience) as well. I frequently use my guilt as a way to motivate me.

Ex:

  - If you don't write these tests, your co-worker will assume you don't know how.

  - If you don't clean your room, your guests will think you're a slob.

Admittedly, it leads to sort of a masochist style of thinking; however, that's my brain by nature.

There's an amazing interview with Gabor Mate on Tim Ferriss's podcast [1] where he frames early trauma and its effect on people in later life in a really succinct way.

I've listened to it 3 - 4 times, because he has a really interesting frame of mind that depression is an adaptation to trauma we've experienced at some point when emotions where too much to digest. The psychedelic bit is interesting, but I would say less say than the content before.

> I don't want to pay attention because that just hurts.

~5 years of cognitive behavioral therapy really helped me and I cannot say enough about it. It provided me with all the tools to make emotions and life manageable.

> I have random jolts of anxiety and adrenaline that get triggered by thoughts, many of them repetitive

I think a lot of people have these. It's even been linked to lack of sleep [2]. I think with mindfulness / meditation you begin to observe the thoughts and question where did they come from, and why here and now.

> I feel insecure about my technical skills, and the idea about ML is mostly about proving something to myself, dispelling the self doubt. My interviewing skills are...well, abysmal. I'm basically not employable through a standard hiring process ...

I have multiple friends who feel the same way. Of the past 7 or 8 interviews I've had for front-end and backend work, there's only been 2 or 3 where a difficult "Google style of problem" was involved. They're out there and solvable, but do take some practice. Before I 'studied' for interviews years ago, I thought the solutions people came up with were these magical, on-the-spot sort of things. Mostly, it's just practice and pattern recognition.

I began working my way through leetcode easy problems, and worked up to solving medium. I would solve the way I was acquainted with, and then go see if there was a solution with a better optimization. If there was -- I would re-do the problem and log everywhere to understand the better solution.

What I did to get better at interviews:

- Practiced my "2-3 minute spill" ... the intro where you tell the interviewer your entire career in not enough time

- Took interviews for jobs I had no interest in (Be careful though! I took one of those because I ended up liking the team / place)

- Worked on mastering the language / environment I work in

- Did 1 - 2 leetcode problems a day, often repeating one that I just barely grasped.

I hope this helps. I feel like I was in your exact shoes just a few years ago, and still don the same shoe strings and soles now.

1 - https://tim.blog/2018/02/20/gabor-mate/

2 - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180104152947.h...

3 - https://leetcode.com/problems/two-sum/

> Elm would have 5-10 people in its core team, with at least a few of those tasked with triaging issues and PRs

That would be amazing, but I see this being very similar to Node in its infancy. It took a fork (io.js), and a lot of strong opinions to get Joyent to relinquish its grip on the ecosystem.

I think what the developers who forked Node into io.js showed was competency and care with regards to progress. I'm not sure that could ever happen in the elm ecosystem due to it being somewhat small and niche.

I've suffered and still suffer from a lot same in the past. I hope sharing what's helped me can help someone else who feels like theirs so much to do / learn, but starting never happens.

For me, it's often been a result of procrastination but, just in the past couple of years, have I began to understand the source of the procrastination. My issue was fear. Fear that I would fail learning [_whatever new thing_], or not reach a deep enough state of meditation. So, my fear was compounded with some judgement of my ability.

At the moment, I'm practicing what I call "lowering the barrier to entry" and shelving perfectionism. I used to dream of progress as the grandiose "a-ha" moments; however, the reality is that progress is made up of many small moments over time.

As much as it pains me to suggest "agile for your life," I have found some success in having a personal backlog and trying to determine what matters to me most. It's the kind of thing life coaches charge you a lot of money to tackle, but most engineers / tech workers are accustomed to:

- Decide the project's top 10 priorities

- Place a value on each

- Determine their effort

- Break each down into subtasks

- Plan a chunk of work

- Start

I would also ask yourself where your motivation lies. Is it extrinsic or intrinsic. What inspires you to learn ML or React? I struggled with learning music for a long time because it always felt like something I was "supposed" to do. I still want to, but I have to come to terms with the source of that motivation.

Living is as easy as being "here," yet that's paradoxically hard for our stimulus driven brains. I've found slowing down, tasting things, feeling textures, and listening more have made me more aware and present. If you ever feel dead inside, deploy on Friday at 5.

Finally, I'll add all of this is easier to type and intellectualize than it is to live. To me, it often feels like a constant fight of putting time into the things I value to grow as I envision myself X months / years into the future.

The React team seems that they put a lot of forethought into keeping the API and core stable. I was super impressed at the core rewrite that integrated the fiber architecture. The console warnings are a nice nod to good developer ergonomics.