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grobmeier

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www.kickstarter.com 10y ago

P22: The first additively manufactured, production titanium writing instrument

grobmeier
5pts0
www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

Three things I learned from a designer

grobmeier
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gistlog.co 10y ago

Finding Graham

grobmeier
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www.linkedin.com 10y ago

How I got phished

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www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

Bower: building a community is hard

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www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

Sorry, we are no Rock Stars

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www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

Everybody can talk

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www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

How to prepare for a (tech) talk

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www.grobmeier.de 10y ago

The developer comfort zone

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www.zenprogrammer.org 11y ago

Steve Jobs and the proof of enlightenment

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2pts1
www.zenprogrammer.org 11y ago

About Kôbun, Steve Jobs Zen Teacher

grobmeier
2pts0
www.zenprogrammer.org 11y ago

Why I self-published

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grobmeier.de 11y ago

How I failed three times

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blag.esotericsystems.at 11y ago

A friend died last night

grobmeier
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dirkloechel.deviantart.com 11y ago

Compare all spaceships in size

grobmeier
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help.rdio.com 12y ago

Rdio.com doesn't give you an invoice

grobmeier
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www.grobmeier.de 12y ago

...and after hacking, I design Geek shirts

grobmeier
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www.cvltwear.com 12y ago

Cvltwear | Apparel for Geeks

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www.unleashed.org.au 12y ago

Earthlings

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56pts81
www.grobmeier.de 12y ago

A horrible reminder

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www.grobmeier.de 12y ago

The CCC hacked the new Apple TouchID

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www.togetherjs.com 12y ago

Together.js

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stephan-uhrenbacher.com 12y ago

The Lost Art Of Selling

grobmeier
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www.grobmeier.de 12y ago

And the leading Java logging framework is...

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www.learn-cocos2d.com 12y ago

The Software Developer’s Guide to the Donation Button

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www.grobmeier.de 13y ago

We (Log4j) need your creative help

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www.grobmeier.de 13y ago

Log4j 2: Performance close to insane

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www.grobmeier.de 13y ago

Easy steps to protect your privacy

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www.sap.com 13y ago

SAP to Acquire hybris

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3pts1
blogs.hbr.org 13y ago

Stop Work Overload By Setting These Boundaries

grobmeier
2pts0

It's a shame. I live in Germany, and just heard of this for the first time at HN. I can't believe it... we are discussing stupid things in politics, the refugee "situation", Ukraine and Greece. I even heard of the recent earthquake.

But Indonesia burns? Not even worth a mention. Not a single word.

The only thing I know about the future is that nobody knows about it. If you would force me to respond to your question, I'd say it would take a long while until AI's can predict taste, feelings, emotions, "change of minds" and so on and so on. Maybe AI's will do the websites for us, but even then I would not worry. Instead, I would do something with a real meaning and a real purpose. Like maintaining a garden. As skill which might come handy when the AI wars begin.

I think 4:30 will be hard to market, as most people are stuck in the stone age. As you said, productivity is not a matter of hours, it's a mix of many things. But that's not what the majority believes. Many people still believe we work like ice-cream sellers, who need to be around, not matter what. My guess is most people want to pay only for the hours you work so it will be hard to explain why you want to be paid for 8 hours when you just work 4 hours (even with same productivity).

Personally I work every day. When I am tired and not productive, I work less. When I feel good, I work much. The minimum is usually 6 hours. Maximum is usually 12 -14 hours. At weekends, it happens it's just 2 hours a day.

I don't count in work time. I count in "fun". If I have fun, I automatically work more. If I am not having fun, I need to double-check if I am the right thing. If it's not, I go away. If it is temporary or something that needs to be done, I make sure I have some good relaxing part afterwards.

I am 35, soon 36. I have worked as project manager for 3 years when I was around 30, then quit the job because it bored me to death. This wasn't career for me. Now I am developing a lot. I have a team, but its so small that I write a lot of code myself.

I enjoy planning and developing systems. I have seen all aspects of working in small (~100 persons) and big companies (160.000 persons). Why should I switch to management when I am good with what I do? Being a developer is not only a step in career, its also passion. Being a manager is not the next step, its a completely different job. You plan deadlines and HR and speak with customers and their contracts. This is not the next level, its something different. You can do this also without being a software developer in a previous life.

There are not that many older devs I know. The people of whome I speak are between 40 and 50. These folks are truly experts in their domains. I learn a lot when speaking with them. In some cases 40+ devs act and work like 20+ devs: they learn. Imagine what you can do with a knowledge grown by 20 years? Age really doesn't matter, except you want to do a completely different job after your software development time.

I have not suffered any salary drops so far. I could have steadily increased my income. However I decided before around 3 years to stop this and work as a freelancer. My time is limited, my rate is pretty normal and so I know pretty much what is possible in a year and what not. You could say, I have limited myself to a certain income. On the other hand since then I only worked on projects I liked. I have never written a single line of code of something I didn't like (except that one time, but I fired the customer).

For me, being an "old" dev with 35 as you maybe would call it I have realized that I found my high in my career: the full freedom of what I do and what not.

I get a lot of offers because of my experiences and I have the choice. Please consider "earning this choice" as an important point in your career. Many can have more money; a few can have the freedom.

That said, the 30+ or 40+ devs I know are not shy to switch jobs. I know a few who think like that, but well: I was 32 when I quit my job. Now I am 35 I don't need "safety". With 33 my son was born, I still didn't feel like that.

If you would ask me: don't worry about your career. Spend your time with the things you like. Life is to short to waste it with people who tell you what a "great career" is.

The Zen Programmer 13 years ago

I understand you - I own a lot of books myself. Personally I am not sure if I would buy Zen related e-books. However I am preparing the book to work with CreateSpace. If you would like to get notified join the mailing list at zenprogrammer.org or follow @zenprog. Thanks anyway for you comment. It motivates me to push the physical issue :-)

The Zen Programmer 13 years ago

This book is containing my own story with Zen. How did it change me personally and how does my daily work life looks like. What have I understood from it. And so on. Actually the book contains the result of my practice. Inside the book you'll find many references to the actual original texts where you can read more about it.

You wrote "may contain" and "it does not". You simply don't know whats inside the book if you haven't read it.

Instead of assuming what the book is about or not, I invite you to just read it. If you are not happy with it I will refund you. Or if you buy it on Leanpub they will refund you according to their 100% happiness guarantee (on Leanpub you have even a bit more time to read the book).

Here is the book on Leanpub: https://leanpub.com/thezenprogrammer

Here is the happiness guarantee: https://leanpub.com/thezenprogrammer#happiness_guarantee

There is no risk for you. When you have read it I am happy about your email if you liked it or not and if you actually see any harm in it.

The Zen Programmer 13 years ago

Currently it is digital only. I am preparing a physical copy via Createspace (Amazon). I am planning to give vouchers for the physical copy to the buyers of the ebook but I haven't figured out if this is supported by Createspace or not. The ebook comes as PDF which you should be able to print on your own at Lulu.com too, if you like.

The Zen Programmer 13 years ago

Thank you for your constructive feedback.

I will add a few paragraphs with more information when I find a few minutes.

Please note, if you would buy the book and if you are not happy with it I will fully refund you (see terms). This is also the case when you purchase at Leanpub.

Germany is difficult, but not impossible. As an alternative you could try not to get asylum, but a blue card (EU). Unfortunately you'll need a university degree + yearly incoming in 2013 of 46.400 OR uni degree + special demand in germany (IT is such an area) + yearly income of 36.192.

The good thing is, according to my research the income requirement is floating. In other terms, you just need an income which is "usual for your region".

Of course, you would need a visa too.

What I am trying to suggest is you search an potential employer first and ask him to deal with the visa/eu card details. That way you wouldn't get the german citizenship in first glance; not sure if you really aim at that or if you would like to return after the war.

Anyway you can reach citizenship after living 8 years in germany (please note there are some restrictions, like no criminal acts, accepting liberal and democratic orders and so on).

I believe with your skills you might have a good chance to find a position in the Berlin or even Munich scene. Just prepare a CV and try to contact as many startups as you can. Look out for guides like this: http://www.berlinstartup.de/startup-guide.php http://berlinstartupjobs.com/

Good luck and take care mate.

Links: http://www.arbeitsagentur.de/nn_566780/Dienststellen/besonde...

http://www.arbeitsagentur.de/nn_616850/Navigation/Dienststel...

(german, despite they aim for migrants. Send them to potential employers).

2013, it's the post-snowden era. We don't have a cold war any more, but the level of spying is unbelievable. I am currently moving out my emails from GMail and installed PGP. At the moment I am using OSX since I do for years. But in the end the only "safe" way to protect your business and privacy is to use Linux/Unix. The FSF said it for years; the german CCC told us for years. I admit, I didn't believe it's so bad. I always thought: good there are a few of us paranoid, they take care there is a balance.

Now we see, there is no balance. Good we have had these paranoid people because they are now providing us a chance to opt-out.

Good there were these programmers who worked for years and often in their prime time in free and open solutions like GNU/Linux. Snort, the intrusion detection system. GPG. And so on.

For me it is a hard job to opt-out of being spied. But I will move on, step for step. Email privacy is the first; no GMail, no Apple Mail. Old friend Thunderbird/Enigmail it is. I also installed TrueCrypt.

The biggest move will be to change the OS (again). Guess it takes me months or longer as I have a lot of great OSX software. But on the other hand, I can simply set up a new machine for private tasks - or dual boot my macbook with Linux.

I hope my government will take this warning serious and support more "Linux @ City" projects (Munich runs on Linux and Open- or LibreOffice).

Wow, long comment. I just needed to say. I am worried.

This is fantastic.

I love (classical) music and as a music hobbyist I try to dig more into sheet music for a while. I would also pay for some kind of premium service (maybe great content or listening the sheet music in combination with a famous record).

Anyway, I subscribed to your mailing list, please just keep on rocking.

PS: And yes, I own Logic and could play sheet music in that way. But I do think you folks will prepare something more which a hobbyist can enjoy!

Funny to see my own blog post as a reference here, thank you.

On topic, it actually took me a while to figure out how it works. But now I understood it and similar problems later were solved in no time.

That said I think you need a while to really learn AngularJS before you should use it in your product. If you don't have the time then you might have a problem. You don't need to learn about the internals, which is good, but you definitely need to learn the core concepts.