a blog about nothing
Because most of us say yes to too…
““Because most of us say yes to too much stuff, and then, we let these little, mediocre things fill our lives. . . . The problem is, when that occasional, ‘Oh my God, hell yeah!’ thing comes along, you don’t have enough time to give it the attention that you should, because you’ve said yes to too much other little, half-ass stuff, right? Once I started applying this, my life just opened up.””
…
Well I meet a lot of 30…
“DEREK: “Well, I meet a lot of 30-year-olds who are trying to pursue many different directions at once, but not making progress in any, right? They get frustrated that the world wants them to pick one thing, because they want to do them all: ‘Why do I have to choose? I don’t know what to choose!’ But the problem is, if you’re thinking short-term, then [you act as though] if you don’t do them all this week, they won’t happen. The solution is to think long-term. To realize that you can do one of these things for a few years, and then do another one for a few years, and then another.”
…
Ask HN: Parents of HN, what are your best sources for evidence-based parenting?
Here is a list of parenting books recommended by members of Hacker’s News community. All links are affiliate links to purchase these books from Amazon:
How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen, and How to Listen So Your Kids Will Talk
One of a few books that are recommended multiple times in this thread. 4.5 stars with 1000+ reviews.
Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster swp-block-image}
Another book that was recommended by multiple people.
…More research on choosing dev stack for game dev
Last week, I had decided to use Swift/Apple’s ecosystem for initial gamedev. But I wasn’t feeling 100% okay with getting locked into Apple’s ecosystem.
So I spent last week doing more research on developing simple apps using Swift, Xamarin, Flutter, and React Native.
Since I use JavaScript at work, React Native would be the easiest way for me to get started but it feels too much like work and I am kind of tired of js/npm dependencies and build tools. One nice thing about staying in Apple’s ecosystem is that everything has really good documentation and feels more polished.
…Baby vs Dog
It is amazing how having your own kids changes everything.
I love my my dog and because of him I love almost all dogs. I hated leaving him home, so much, that I would not go to restaurants that don’t let dogs in patio. (With Whiskey Cake being notable exception). Every grocery trip, I would buy him a new toy, many times had arguments with wife because he had too many toys. Every vacation we would have huge argument because I wanted dog friendly vacation where we can take our dog.
…Real Estate vs Startup
For years, I was working towards my own startup. I always had various side-projects and learned a lot from these side-projects. But at the same time, all these projects were failures.
I never paid much attention to real estate investing. I had some friends who bought rental properties or got into flipping houses. It seemed so much more work and riskier. I can create a new startup for just a few dollars and a few weeks of my time, so why pay attention to real estate.
…Developer Hegemony by Erik Dietrich
I am not sure how I found this book by Erik Dietrich. Maybe Google or Amazon recommended it. But I found it very inspiring. There are so many things in it that I agree with and so many new things that I am still having hard time believing.
As a developer, who is having a hard time figuring out his career, this book provided an interest perspective. The basic idea in it is that in any big corporation, developers are unlikely to find fulfilment. They may truly believe in their employer’s mission and try to climb corporate ladder. When they do that they will get stuck in middle management. They will keep working hard, hoping to move on to executive roles but very few would do by believing and hard work alone.
…What is this blog about anyways?
I have had this domain since 2003. Originally, I wanted to make video games and Chaosplay was supposed to be a video games studio.
But then it was mostly a blog. I blogged about video games and programming. A bit about personal life. Eventually my focus was on photography, so I blogged about photography.
When we became parents, I was blogging about parenting.
I wasn’t a consistent blogger. I stopped blogging many times. Also several times I wiped old posts and restarted blog with clean slate.
…Git Simplified
One of most common technology that new professional developers struggle with is git.
Many junior developers are eager to start using all of the powerful commands of git and usually end up getting more confused.
Here are a few commands that I recommend to anyone learning git for the first time:
clone
This downloads entire git repo from a remote server, usually. You will get all revision history and branches.
…My Photography Workflow with Lightroom, SmugMug, and iPad Pro
Ever since I bought iPad, I have tried to make it my main computing device. I love the form factor. I love many apps on it. I am have really started to enjoy many photography apps on it. Touch screen makes a lot of sense for photo editing. Snapseed, Apple Photos, Affinity Photo are my favorite photo apps on the iPad. But it has been hard to incorporate it in my photography workflow.
…