I still can barely believe I got out of Russia. Outside of that... My magazine about New York got over 100 subscribers on social media during its first year, which is nuts, considering I've only...
I still can barely believe I got out of Russia.
Outside of that... My magazine about New York got over 100 subscribers on social media during its first year, which is nuts, considering I've only posted six issues in total and don't advertise it actively. (Other creators with large audiences kindly offered to promote my material to their subscribers. That's how I got from 10+ to 100+ within two weeks or so.)
And... That's about it. And it sounds like I've wasted a year, but the reality of it is that this may have been the best year of my life so far: I moved to a place with much higher quality of life and I got a passion project off the ground.
I think we're brainwashed by social media and the internet at large to expect and demand incredibly unrealistic achievements. I'd be damn happy and proud to have achieved either of those. In...
I think we're brainwashed by social media and the internet at large to expect and demand incredibly unrealistic achievements.
I'd be damn happy and proud to have achieved either of those. In particular the first given the circumstances.
As a first step toward shifting over to a completely different career, I started off the year by cramming for and passing the sec+ exam. (I come from doing construction and various freelance/gig...
As a first step toward shifting over to a completely different career, I started off the year by cramming for and passing the sec+ exam. (I come from doing construction and various freelance/gig based work, but I've been into computers perpetually.)
I helped my mom prep for and recover from difficult health stuff. Basically, keeping up on medical studies, helping her with physical therapy stuff, and doing lots of cooking. Sometimes ya just gotta throw some brioche croissants at life for things to start looking up.
I learned a bunch of networking stuff and completely revamped my home network with pfSense, Mikrotiks, and Ubiquitis running VLANs. (Just wanna mention how huge of a difference good documentation can make, and how mind bogglingly frustrating lack of documentation can be... AHEMMikrotikAHEM)
Learned how to set up a website served off an AWS EC2 instance using Ghost on Ubuntu Server, got myself a .dev domain, and populated my site with a bunch of of the stuff I've been doing and learning about.
Learned a bit of Python. Never really programmed much before. During my networking adventures, I stumbled across a vulnerability in a piece of network hardware. And despite having never even touched any Java before, and barely knowing Python, I managed to crank out an exploit for the vulnerability in both languages. I then reported the vulnerability to the company and filed for a CVE. The company has been working on a patch, which I tested out for them.
Put together my resume (it's a from scratch kinda deal, as I've never needed one before) and have been getting ready to finally start putting in some applications.
Oh and I've had some pretty fantastic times playing some games with friends this year too. It's been nice.
I still kinda wish that I had been able to get a bit more done. But having written all that out (knowing that there are plenty of little things that are more noteworthy to just me personally), I think I'm pretty cool with this year. Have much much worse, that's for sure.
I got married and I'm very happy with it. which means something, because I don't believe in marriage :-) but circumstances made it necessary and it feels amazing. I started studying again and It...
I got married and I'm very happy with it. which means something, because I don't believe in marriage :-) but circumstances made it necessary and it feels amazing.
I started studying again and It works a lot better then when I first tried ten years ago. I chose the right school and subject and I'm having a lot of fun learning.
And I (had to) took over a lot more responsability in a community project and had to lead about 30 people for ten days and it went really, really well. I'm very proud of what we achieved.
You don't need to believe in marriage, you only need to believe in your marriage ;) I mean I don't believe in gnomes, but if a gnome talks to me, I'll answer!
Exemplary
I don't believe in marriage :-)
You don't need to believe in marriage, you only need to believe in your marriage ;)
I mean I don't believe in gnomes, but if a gnome talks to me, I'll answer!
Finding someone you click with enough to want to spend your entire life with (and take time to work out problems instead of bail) is amazing. Doubly so if it's mutual. Everything else is just...
Finding someone you click with enough to want to spend your entire life with (and take time to work out problems instead of bail) is amazing. Doubly so if it's mutual.
After 7 grueling years, I obtained my PhD. With that PhD, I moved to Germany for a job. For lack of a girlfriend visa, my partner and I are now happily (finally!) married.
After 7 grueling years, I obtained my PhD.
With that PhD, I moved to Germany for a job.
For lack of a girlfriend visa, my partner and I are now happily (finally!) married.
Got my 4th promotion at work in 5 years. I'm Mr. Manager now Almost completed my pilot's license Ended my relationship of 5 years with a woman Started learning Ukrainian and have studied and...
Got my 4th promotion at work in 5 years. I'm Mr. Manager now
Almost completed my pilot's license
Ended my relationship of 5 years with a woman
Started learning Ukrainian and have studied and practiced everyday for nearly 6 months.
Went to Ukraine and visited Lviv and Ternopil
Met an amazing woman there
Spent an amazing two weeks in Madrid together
Moved out of the suburbs in California to downtown Nashville. Now I am a lot closer to family and friends.
Lost a lot of weight and built a ton of muscle over the summer
Now have planned to bring the woman from Ukraine to stay with me in the US for a few months while we explore our relationship together. She will be here in two weeks!
Ended a step goal streak of 10,000 steps a day at a bit over 500 days
Overall a good year that looks continue to 2023. I never have a hard, specific resolution each year, only "Be Better". It runs counter-productive to the typical SMART goals that you see all over the place, but genuinely, each day I try to live my best and do my best. Some days are better than others but if I can end the day satisfied, that is all I need. And I would say I ended 99% of my days satisfied last year.
I'm a programmer and I wrote up a little brag post of what I did with my side projects this year, trying to come up with a more sustainable style of programming that works for individuals rather...
I'm a programmer and I wrote up a little brag post of what I did with my side projects this year, trying to come up with a more sustainable style of programming that works for individuals rather than the companies most software is geared towards. Doesn't compare with surviving a war, though.
I'd be curious to know your thoughts on sustainable individual style. For me personally, that means lots of inline comments and only abstracting when I find myself rewriting the same block 3 times.
I'd be curious to know your thoughts on sustainable individual style.
For me personally, that means lots of inline comments and only abstracting when I find myself rewriting the same block 3 times.
I like that, particularly the bit about being restrained with abstractions. Here's my toolkit for making code accessible to others. Make it easy to run in lots of different ways. Tests are good...
I like that, particularly the bit about being restrained with abstractions. Here's my toolkit for making code accessible to others.
Make it easy to run in lots of different ways. Tests are good for this, and so are REPLs and live-coding setups. I also have a way to organize programs that allows me to run subsets of an app and reassure myself that everything compiles and is internally consistent. All these are ways of triangulating understanding, and they add something to when all you can do is run a program one way. The larger the box, the greater the temptation to treat it as a black box.
Minimize moving parts. This is particularly hard because everyone will insist they're doing it, and their standards are really low. "Our program is simple, but requires 1GB to install and a QA team to sign off on every release." Individuals don't have those resources. We should behave differently. That's why I like LÖVE. It's not as performant or capable as other game engines, but it's sized for an individual.
I got my bachelor's degree, got a salaried job, got my own apartment, got a wonderful cat, made some good friends and deepened my connections with old ones. I'm still struggling with my mental...
I got my bachelor's degree, got a salaried job, got my own apartment, got a wonderful cat, made some good friends and deepened my connections with old ones. I'm still struggling with my mental health, but now that I've successfully gotten out of school I at least don't feel the sword of Damocles resting on my throat at the same time.
Well, it's my second year living with my significant other and I can report that we not only managed to stay sane, but also enjoyed each other's company quite a bit. That may seem like a small...
Well, it's my second year living with my significant other and I can report that we not only managed to stay sane, but also enjoyed each other's company quite a bit.
That may seem like a small thing, but for me it's huge. I'm not exactly young, and my previous record was like two weeks. I never thought I was "living together" material, with the mental issues and all that comes with it. It took a very special lady ;)
EDIT: also, now that I think of it, I can't remember the last time I had an actual full-blown night terror. It is possible that I didn't have a single one (or maybe just one) for the entire year. They were pretty bad and scary. That alone is a reason to celebrate.
My dog and I earned two agility titles this year, which means we are out of novice courses for good! I got a big raise at work (nearly 10%). I started a successful bike camping meetup, and I went...
My dog and I earned two agility titles this year, which means we are out of novice courses for good!
I got a big raise at work (nearly 10%).
I started a successful bike camping meetup, and I went on four bike camping trips.
I got back into crocheting.
I redid our guest room into a hobby/craft room.
Edit:
My partner and I threw a commitment ceremony/party, and it was a blast! Not sure how I forgot this one, lol.
After over a year after the move, have finally unpacked enough that only the garage has some archival pack boxes, and not the whole home. Got about half the house painted. Spent lots of time with...
After over a year after the move, have finally unpacked enough that only the garage has some archival pack boxes, and not the whole home.
Got about half the house painted.
Spent lots of time with kids.
Been working through a massive backlog of those tiny little nuisances you ignore till one day you snap. Did you know that hammering in all your door pins and added a slab of petroleum jelly means no more squeeky doors? I mean, my bathroom door still doesn't latch but my younguns don't care about my privacy anyway so why bother.
Got the garden up and running and grew waaaay too many tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach and beans. Next year striving for better balance.
Just a smidge of multi-purpose oil should do the trick. And you don't want to hammer the door pins all they way. It makes them harder to remove. I don't know if it helps, but I like to pull the...
Did you know that hammering in all your door pins and added a slab of petroleum jelly means no more squeeky doors?
Just a smidge of multi-purpose oil should do the trick. And you don't want to hammer the door pins all they way. It makes them harder to remove. I don't know if it helps, but I like to pull the little buggers out and wipe them down before slathering them with oil and bunging them back in.
Assuming you checked all the hinge screws are still in tight, rehanging a door is one of those tricky little jobs, which involves intricate use of chisels and planes. You have to remove the door by taking out the pins, plane off the back of the door where the hinges attach until you think it might sit square, and then rechisel spots for the hinges. Then put the door back on and figure out you didn't get it quite right so you have to do it all again. I've been putting off fixing one of my back doors which doesn't close as easily as it should, because it's normally a PITA and because the painters actually painted all over my hinges, to the point where I am kind of a little irate about the whole thing.
Or you could just pay someone who knows what they are doing, and spend more time with the kids. :)
The main reason I used the jelly was that it works its way into the hinge as you work the door, filling in the gaps to prevent dirt long term. Plus had it lying around. Oh yea next medium-large...
The main reason I used the jelly was that it works its way into the hinge as you work the door, filling in the gaps to prevent dirt long term. Plus had it lying around.
Oh yea next medium-large project is ripping out the entire doorframe to put in a whole new door and stormdoor. I currently only have an interior door going to the garage. Not exactly well insulated.
I still can barely believe I got out of Russia.
Outside of that... My magazine about New York got over 100 subscribers on social media during its first year, which is nuts, considering I've only posted six issues in total and don't advertise it actively. (Other creators with large audiences kindly offered to promote my material to their subscribers. That's how I got from 10+ to 100+ within two weeks or so.)
And... That's about it. And it sounds like I've wasted a year, but the reality of it is that this may have been the best year of my life so far: I moved to a place with much higher quality of life and I got a passion project off the ground.
I think we're brainwashed by social media and the internet at large to expect and demand incredibly unrealistic achievements.
I'd be damn happy and proud to have achieved either of those. In particular the first given the circumstances.
I can do more. 2023 might just be the showcase of that.
I sure damn hope you won't ever have to.
As a first step toward shifting over to a completely different career, I started off the year by cramming for and passing the sec+ exam. (I come from doing construction and various freelance/gig based work, but I've been into computers perpetually.)
I helped my mom prep for and recover from difficult health stuff. Basically, keeping up on medical studies, helping her with physical therapy stuff, and doing lots of cooking. Sometimes ya just gotta throw some brioche croissants at life for things to start looking up.
I learned a bunch of networking stuff and completely revamped my home network with pfSense, Mikrotiks, and Ubiquitis running VLANs. (Just wanna mention how huge of a difference good documentation can make, and how mind bogglingly frustrating lack of documentation can be... AHEMMikrotikAHEM)
Learned how to set up a website served off an AWS EC2 instance using Ghost on Ubuntu Server, got myself a .dev domain, and populated my site with a bunch of of the stuff I've been doing and learning about.
Learned a bit of Python. Never really programmed much before. During my networking adventures, I stumbled across a vulnerability in a piece of network hardware. And despite having never even touched any Java before, and barely knowing Python, I managed to crank out an exploit for the vulnerability in both languages. I then reported the vulnerability to the company and filed for a CVE. The company has been working on a patch, which I tested out for them.
Put together my resume (it's a from scratch kinda deal, as I've never needed one before) and have been getting ready to finally start putting in some applications.
Oh and I've had some pretty fantastic times playing some games with friends this year too. It's been nice.
I still kinda wish that I had been able to get a bit more done. But having written all that out (knowing that there are plenty of little things that are more noteworthy to just me personally), I think I'm pretty cool with this year. Have much much worse, that's for sure.
I got married and I'm very happy with it. which means something, because I don't believe in marriage :-) but circumstances made it necessary and it feels amazing.
I started studying again and It works a lot better then when I first tried ten years ago. I chose the right school and subject and I'm having a lot of fun learning.
And I (had to) took over a lot more responsability in a community project and had to lead about 30 people for ten days and it went really, really well. I'm very proud of what we achieved.
You don't need to believe in marriage, you only need to believe in your marriage ;)
I mean I don't believe in gnomes, but if a gnome talks to me, I'll answer!
Finding someone you click with enough to want to spend your entire life with (and take time to work out problems instead of bail) is amazing. Doubly so if it's mutual.
Everything else is just paperwork.
Congrats, wishing you the best!
I fucking love this part. :D
Overall a good year that looks continue to 2023. I never have a hard, specific resolution each year, only "Be Better". It runs counter-productive to the typical SMART goals that you see all over the place, but genuinely, each day I try to live my best and do my best. Some days are better than others but if I can end the day satisfied, that is all I need. And I would say I ended 99% of my days satisfied last year.
I'm a programmer and I wrote up a little brag post of what I did with my side projects this year, trying to come up with a more sustainable style of programming that works for individuals rather than the companies most software is geared towards. Doesn't compare with surviving a war, though.
I'd be curious to know your thoughts on sustainable individual style.
For me personally, that means lots of inline comments and only abstracting when I find myself rewriting the same block 3 times.
I like that, particularly the bit about being restrained with abstractions. Here's my toolkit for making code accessible to others.
Make it easy to run in lots of different ways. Tests are good for this, and so are REPLs and live-coding setups. I also have a way to organize programs that allows me to run subsets of an app and reassure myself that everything compiles and is internally consistent. All these are ways of triangulating understanding, and they add something to when all you can do is run a program one way. The larger the box, the greater the temptation to treat it as a black box.
Minimize moving parts. This is particularly hard because everyone will insist they're doing it, and their standards are really low. "Our program is simple, but requires 1GB to install and a QA team to sign off on every release." Individuals don't have those resources. We should behave differently. That's why I like LÖVE. It's not as performant or capable as other game engines, but it's sized for an individual.
I got my bachelor's degree, got a salaried job, got my own apartment, got a wonderful cat, made some good friends and deepened my connections with old ones. I'm still struggling with my mental health, but now that I've successfully gotten out of school I at least don't feel the sword of Damocles resting on my throat at the same time.
Well, it's my second year living with my significant other and I can report that we not only managed to stay sane, but also enjoyed each other's company quite a bit.
That may seem like a small thing, but for me it's huge. I'm not exactly young, and my previous record was like two weeks. I never thought I was "living together" material, with the mental issues and all that comes with it. It took a very special lady ;)
EDIT: also, now that I think of it, I can't remember the last time I had an actual full-blown night terror. It is possible that I didn't have a single one (or maybe just one) for the entire year. They were pretty bad and scary. That alone is a reason to celebrate.
Edit:
Just a smidge of multi-purpose oil should do the trick. And you don't want to hammer the door pins all they way. It makes them harder to remove. I don't know if it helps, but I like to pull the little buggers out and wipe them down before slathering them with oil and bunging them back in.
Assuming you checked all the hinge screws are still in tight, rehanging a door is one of those tricky little jobs, which involves intricate use of chisels and planes. You have to remove the door by taking out the pins, plane off the back of the door where the hinges attach until you think it might sit square, and then rechisel spots for the hinges. Then put the door back on and figure out you didn't get it quite right so you have to do it all again. I've been putting off fixing one of my back doors which doesn't close as easily as it should, because it's normally a PITA and because the painters actually painted all over my hinges, to the point where I am kind of a little irate about the whole thing.
Or you could just pay someone who knows what they are doing, and spend more time with the kids. :)
The main reason I used the jelly was that it works its way into the hinge as you work the door, filling in the gaps to prevent dirt long term. Plus had it lying around.
Oh yea next medium-large project is ripping out the entire doorframe to put in a whole new door and stormdoor. I currently only have an interior door going to the garage. Not exactly well insulated.