I'm curious if you've considered work that isn't 100% dev focused, but a combination of tech/people focused. e.g. systems/sales consultant? Do you like to travel? Can you talk to people? Do you desire to be deep in dev, or more surface level?
Funny you should ask. I come from a sales/marketing background and can talk to people. I do not need a 100% dev role but also do not really like sales however something that included consulting and really providing value I could be interested in.
You can be very technical and still involved in the sales process and add value! In fact, the combination of people skills and tech skills is very rare and commands a pretty good salary. If you're totally turned off by the sales process, you can go into professional services and be much more technically involved, but still work with people. Professional services requires almost 100% travel, and isn't for everyone. Let me know if you're interested in either of these and I'll reach out to you.
I will agree with you. I grew up way too fast, have a few kids of my own, and they are growing up way too fast for different reasons than I did. My reason? I worked from 13 on for wages. My kids? They're working much harder than I had to just to get a chance to go to a decent university.
The pressure on our kids is pretty significant. To the point they WILL NOT miss school when they are sick. Can't miss this, can't miss that. It's better to go to school and get everyone else sick. It's out of control.
6PM would be a nightmare. The amount of homework my kids have is astonishing. I never experienced anything like it when I went to school. They are ALREADY working on it most of the night trying to get it all done.
Yes, they are in AP classes - maybe it's a little different than the normal classes, but it's an option to those who desire it. Shall we keep them in school from early hours of the day until late hours at night?
When do most of you eat dinner? 7PM? 8PM? 9PM? Anyone recall that "family dinner" - or did we all forget because we work 10, 12 or 15 hours a day trying to "do something." I can see how this is especially difficult in the midwest, and other parts of the U.S., where it is dark very early in the day in the winter.
Maybe Steve imagined something like the European system. You go to school until 5/6pm but you do your whole homework in school and the afternoon is for that and other activities to broaden the mind.
Otherwise, that's a stupid idea. In Germany teachers are civil servants so they can't build unions, they can't get fired too, but they can pushed off their position when they are bad teachers.
"the European system"? The systems in individual European countries are about as different from each other as any of them are different from the US system.
One attempt to somewhat align the different European systems for higher education was the ECTS [1], but even that isn't quite perfect..
This was actually relatively painless! Got it installed in a matter of a few minutes, with the multi-boot option.
I downloaded a few apps and was happy to see Netflix work! Angry Birds too.
Facebook doesn't even show up from the market - not sure if other people are experiencing this or not. I assume the facebook app will not work on it, but strange that it doesn't even show up from market searches.
Would like to get swype on here somehow.
No problems with my wifi, at least not yet.
Very impressed!
EDIT: I see from a link lower down there is an update for the market apps not all showing. I'll install that later!
I'm willing to bet you've never tried any "mind-altering" drugs - alcohol included. Am I right? If I am right, don't ever try them!!!
My feeling is that you're addicted to something else - and I would suggest that "something else" is much better for you than the alternative.
Is this it? Yes it is! Well... yes and no! You might be able to conquer the world - wouldn't that be great? :-) Your challenge isn't in what you achieve, it's in what you get satisfaction from. When you conquer the world, when you make your first million, when you do x, y or z... - that "high" will eventually leave you void, much like the void you've already defined, both within yourself and within your family. Your challenge will be finding peace and pleasure in the normal moments of life. Do you relate to or understand what I'm saying?
I wish you the best! Not in your achievements, not in your work, not in your studies - but in your pursuit of happiness for the rest of the moments that sit in the vast space between your low points and your high points.
I have smoked weed, but all it did was make me think like a normal person (or at least how I think a normal person would think - no racing from subject to subject or building complete hypothetical decision trees in your head). I have and still partake in a few drinks, but with a focus on taste; Microbrewed beer and good wine is more of what I like.
I know exactly what you are saying and it is funny how you managed to sum up everything in my post to come to that answer. While I am not depressed, I do have points of being in a rut where I can't seem to find the happiness I would have thought to be associated with what I was working towards. Even when I do find the happiness in things, I tend to side with my mind in saying that it is not good enough. I can always be a couple seconds faster on the bike, always a bit smarter in how I structure my code, maybe find someone who is more of what I like, etc.
Last year I made the goal of accepting things for what they are and not what they could be. Reaching this will be a life long battle and one that tends to move much like changing myself and that is slow. This year was focusing more on my family and realizing that I need to accept that I can't change who they are. I can't make them better or worse, they are just themselves and I can now accept that. I imagine other parts of my life will fall in line the same way, but it requires a lot of effort.
I appreciate your kind words and your very accurate summary.
I have a four year old, and a five year old. My four year old is getting to be a master at Angry Birds, my five year old has no interest. I would be VERY interested in a write-up on how you went about this with your child. Step by step...starting at the piece of paper that had the drawings, to how you turned it into this end result. I don't care if the game has bugs or not...the concepts would be fascinating to know and I would love to see if my four year old could do it. I would even be willing to pay a small price for a guide like this.
Wouldn't take anything quite so extensive - I'll do it here!
I accidentally let my son play through all of Shadow of the Colossus with me, much to my wife's chagrin. He loved it.
This past weekend he said, "Dad, let's play Shadow of the Colossus!" I said, "No." He paused for a moment and said, "Dad... how do video games work?" I paused for a moment and said, "You know what? Let's make one!"
So we sat down at the computer together, did some quick research on available simple JS game engines (I was hoping for something easy and HTML5 but nothing surfaced...) and decided on the type of game to make. After that we had some conversations about gameplay mechanics and characters. We talked around characters for a bit and he sketched out some ideas. Mr. Muscle and Crocodilehead were born.
I picked apart the (horrible compressed JS) code a little bit to figure out how the game worked and then we looked through sprites together. After identifying the various sprites he set to work, drawing base sprites (about 10 of them for Mr. Muscles and four for Crocodilehead) and a background image.
While he slept that night, I scanned in all of his sprites and started resizing/animating them.
He critiqued my work in the morning suggesting the Crocodilehead should not puke blood on people when attacking (you can still see a bit of the residue in the game now) and that Mr. Muscles should not shoot fire out of his hands when doing the megapunch.
After that it was mostly just tweaking and farting around in photoshop.
He got a good look at the code this time around and has a pretty solid base understanding of the relationship between files, images, servers and browsers thanks to a web page we built together a few months ago: http://audenneedham.com/volcanoes/ (he wireframed that one, wrote the content, selected and helped to resize the images, did the Wikipedia searches for pages to link to and helped to edit the HTML...)
Nothing too hairy for a 4-y-o:
1) identify interest (which it sounds like you have)
Thanks for the response. re: "...wrote the content, ...., did the wikipedia searches...." --> my 4YO can't read or write! Damn HN, I always feel inadequate!
No reason to feel inadequate. All kids are different, and they are not extensions of our egos. As a first-time parent, I am still trying to convince myself of this, but I am slowly beginning to believe it.
I was a very articulate 3 year old (I spent most of my time with much older children), but I turned out to be somewhat average when I started school (in the case of motor skills far below average), to the surprise of my parents, who thought I was a "genius" because I could parrot off huge amounts of random trivia, and tell engaging stories. My parents even had my IQ tested, and it wasn't particularly high overall. I still retain my trivia talent, but in the era of Google, whatever little value it once had is rapidly becoming worthless.
My 2.5 year old son is fairly quiet (but doesn't have any language issues - he says plenty, he is just cautious). My in-laws have the nasty habit of comparing him to his cousin who is the same age and is a great talker (her father is a used-car salesman, so that's not much of a surprise). I used to get very defensive, and point out the stuff he knows, and can do. Now I just let it wash over me.
A lot also has to do with environment. My son didn't know colors, shapes, alphabets, numbers and puzzles. I got an iPad, and he managed to learn these very quickly. My wife is a bit detached and unmotivated, so this was a stroke of luck. Would waiting a year or two till he started school have made a difference to him learning that stuff? I doubt it.
If your 9 year old can't read, I guess that's a problem. If your 4 year old can't read, who cares?
Not all four-year-olds are interested in reading and writing. That has nothing to do with your personal adequacy. Furthermore, it only has a minimal amount to do with their ultimate adequacy at reading and writing. Different kids learn things at different times.
Shit, sorry! Wasn't my intent at all. Kids learn different things at different times and we've played to Auden's strengths in these areas. We push hard when there's obvious interest in anything specific.
Don't want to give the impression that he's spelling well or writing quickly :)
Our 2-y-o is an entirely different person with much much different development patterns.
re: Cutting out refined sugar: Anyone have any good links for a balanced and nutritional daily food intake that is reasonably cost effective and doesn't take long to prepare?
You may have heard of Ray Kurzweil, who's very involved with the singularity theory of technology. I read a book of his that is co-authored with Dr. Terry Grossman called "Fantastic Voyage." If you take the time to read this book, it gives many eating choices along with supplement suggestions for excellent mental and physical health. It's definitely worth the read.
What about the countless people that likely suffer from some form of problem like that described, that will never go see a psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other doctor about the problem because of whatever reason? Or, how about the people that have tried, and found the experience to be less than satisfying? How about the people that simply suffer, maybe cognizant of the fact that they aren't completely normal, but have lost hope? Maybe, for these people, the article will provide some hope. Maybe not, but certainly worth considering.
This applies to so many different areas of life that it should just be made a rule, if it isn't already.