sockgrant

What? Did we read the same article? The one I read didn't say "exercise is good for you".

It distinguished between 3 forms of exercise and the interesting results they had on young and old people.

That's hardly a dead horse.

Whaaaat? Maybe you're not that into video games. Valve helped define a generation of gaming. You can't tell the history of video games without devoting some time to them.

Box is a great company but I don't think it's as impactful.

True, but this isn't unique to Traveling. Doing anything in long unbalanced timeframes becomes monotonous.

Some people live to travel and to constantly have exciting new experiences and care more about that than having enough money to buy the latest iphone, enjoy artesian bread for breakfast, or have a nice apartment with a view and plush furniture.

There's nothing wrong or right with either way of life, it's just different personalities.

Travelers may call your lifestyle fake or meaningless, you may call their lifestyle fake or meaningless, but the lifestyles are as real and valid as the person wants them to be.

It's ok to not want what other people want :)

Can you elaborate?

Agreed. Checkout RxJS to hold you over while you're in Javascript land.

That's one of the few examples that hasn't burned developer trust. But it's still not a shining example -- there were times of price changes and rate limit changes.

Absolutely. I have categorically declined all recruitment e-mails from Comcast. There's no way I would work for them unless I was starving. I hope the rest of you feel the same...

Criticism of all of the people offering advice on how to find a mentor but missing the fact that OP really wants them to offer to mentor.

ITT: No one offering to mentor.

Turn it off?

Paul -- I'm sorry there's so much hate in the comments. Thanks for posting this and thanks for sharing what you've learned :)

Congrats! That's awesome :)

Similar to this, at Google they do "snippets". Every week they write a short e-mail blurb about what they accomplished last week and what they plan to complete this week.

I gave this method a try and it's been great. It helps me stay on task, have goals, and feel good about what I've accomplished. It helps me minimize the "swamped" feeling because I'm actively prioritizing and then knocking those things off the list.

I'm currently trying to do a weekly snippet e-mail to myself, and additionally every morning I make a mini, unofficial snippets of what I'd like to accomplish for the day (generally taking items from the weekly snippets).

Yeah. I agree with you. Just saying each side has a valid point. As employee 10+ with 0.5% equity, there's no chance I'm going to work as much as a founder.

But as a founder or a very early employee, I'm going to try to hire people that work as hard/efficiently as I do.

I'm strongly in your camp. However, to play devils advocate, a founder has to make the company the focus of their life. They're gonna be working long hours, 6-7 days a week, with little to no vacation. There's diminishing returns on that time, but the pressure is on and the clock is ticking.

Naturally, founders want to hire people who also make the startup their life. If you're working all day, don't you want to build your company with people who do the same?

But besides founders fervor to work round the clock, some people are just addicted to work. They can't stop thinking about it and no matter what they're doing, if it's not work, they're not satisfied. These people want to work with other people with the same mentality.

They announced the end of archiving of videos a few months ago. So there's nothing really to get off of your account.

Sure. But they also have the right to hangup (which is what the rep said he'd do). I believe the law is that you have to notify the other party that you are recording, otherwise it can't be used in court.

Yeah, exactly :|

I had asked him to send the contract over, he said he'd send the contract but that they don't put the plan (e.g. "unlimited data") in the contract.

Sure sounds shady and worthy of better business bureau.

I have tethering. I'm a remote employee and I work from coffee shops, other cities, etc. so I use my tethering connection for work (software) when I can't get wifi.

Thanks for the info about 2 and 3. For 4, he "promised" me multiple times that they would keep unlimited data in my new contract. He said they just wanted me moved to the new network. Messed up, if they're actually trying to trick me. I asked if I could record the call and he said no, he'd have to hangup if I did.

My take was that the author was talking about situations where people say "I _need_ to take a holiday" with the implication that work is too much for them right now. E.g. a holiday for the sake of getting away from a burnout work situation as opposed to a holiday for the sake of experiencing different cultures, seeing new things etc. The former is good and healthy, but in the former you are running away from something.

Holy fucking pedantics, It's too bad people are focusing on REST.

This API makes me want to have a Tesla. There are so many interesting apps/utilities that can be made with this!

You will feel like that and it's a good thing. There's plenty of life outside of an 8hr/day desk job.

Don't be afraid :) Your desk job will always be there.

It sounds like OP just wanted to play video games. I've been there in my life, so I can relate. However, it's a tragic use of time that could be spent exploring the world.

I did 3 months backpacking in America's best national parks. There were so many amazing experiences I'll never forget. But most of all, the feeling of freedom.

My life will never be the same after doing that. Of course, it's changed for the better.

You absolutely should backpack the rockies! In Colorado alone, you could spend 3 months. Flat tops, ouray, sand dunes, rocky mountain nat'l park, Aspen, San Juans etc. etc. But don't forget that Canada has Rockies, too. Jasper national park is high on my bucket list this summer.

I did funemployment for 3 months, too (11 months, if you consider part time work). This is a great post on it.

OP really hit the nail on the head -- one of the hardest parts of the time off is not having work-related goals and being OK with it. When you're employed it's easy to spend time imagining what you'd do with your time off. When you have this long stretch of time off, it's hard not to think about work. I was ashamed anytime my mind would drift to worrying about "what work will I do next?". In the end I think this is natural and OK, but it's important to fight the urges.

However, I don't agree that you should have 0 goals. You should have personal goals, just not work/career related goals (and OP kind of means this).

All of those non-work things you told yourself you want to do? Now is the time to do them. Travel the world, go backpacking for weeks in the woods, live out of your car, read too many books, appreciate art, volunteer. Take chances and explore.

The single biggest question you come to terms with in your time off will be "Who am I?".

You'll realize that since childhood you've always been working towards career/life goals. Get good grades in K-12, do well on SATs, get into a good college, choose a good major in school and work hard to learn, get internships, get that perfect job, work your way up the ladder in that job, get married, buy a house, have kids, make more money so your kids can repeat this cycle.

When you take the time off without goals in the typical "life flow" you'll have moments of existential crisis because you're not doing what you're "supposed" to be doing. These are important times. Learn to embrace the feeling. Smile and remind yourself that you're not doing what you're "supposed" to be doing because you're doing whatever the hell you want to do.

Just don't squander your unhinged time. Spend it wisely exploring the world and yourself.

When you get back to the "real world" you'll never see it the same again :)

He's didn't mean obligatory was the wrong word. He's saying we could have done without the xkcd.

> I don't think culture has anything to do with it.

Yah, I guess this is where we're missing each other. See, I believe that if you put 2 west coast americans in a room, their morals, likes/dislikes, and goals are more likely to naturally align than by putting in some odd mix of countries with clashing cultures.

I think this is the hardest part about doing this. But I try to find other productive things to do while things are compiling.

- Write code comments

- Write tests

- Have a separate code checkout where you can work on another feature.

- Research the next thing you're working on.

- Work on improving the build time, while it's building :)

It's hard to always be doing something, but if you consciously make an effort to do it then it can have a large impact.

A lot of software engineers don't realize that it's not about how much you work, but how strong you work when you work. It's about efficiency, good decisions, and total concentration.

- Turn off e-mail.

- Turn off chat.

- Don't check hacker news. Or any website that is not for your current task.

- Don't let coworkers interrupt you.

- Get noise canceling headphones.

- Have a goal to get through, and apply yourself to it completely.

- Get very good at evaluating 3rd party code, then before you write code, see if there's a library/native code that will do the work for you.

- When you write code, if you _know_ the right way to do something, do it right the first time.

- If you're not _sure_ you know the right way to do something, then just get the code out into the editor. After it's functional, take a look at the code later and decide how it can be refactored. Refactor it immediately.

- Don't write any tough code when you're not at your best mental capacity. When you feel yourself mentally drifting on a hard task, put the code away and go work on easy features. Work on your hardest problems during your best hours.