lastbookworm

North Idaho; Remote | Relocation; Contract | Full Time | Part Time

In SF until Sat.

Stack: Ruby, CoffeeScript (backbone.js, spine.js and their ilk)

Github: https://github.com/k2052 Book I wrote on CoffeeScript Frameworks: https://leanpub.com/building-coffeescript-frameworks

Contact: k@2052.me

I know MV* js/coffeescript frameworks like the back of my hand. I can code clean API-first ruby apps that are fully tested and easily deployed. I'm most productive with Sinatra/Padrino/Grape/Scorched/Other Minimal frameworks but can easily tackle Rails to. I'm a polyglot that has played with everything from Clojure to Nimrod; could easily dive into anything and get up to speed quickly.

I can see this being useful for writing tutorials or even a book. So many ideas for educational material swirling around in my head.

Did a quick check and nothing is hacked. It's just a static page served up by a rack app on heroku so it's unlikely it would ever be hacked. One other comment mentions the site being flagged so I imagine there is something that certain filters don't like. IIRC Site Advisor uses bots to flag sites. In the essay I cuss a lot, mention Las Vegas and mention drugs so I imagine it's a combination of 1. bots not liking the things I mentioned and 2. it's a recently registered domain.

That seems like a very interesting book. Thanks for sharing! I have added it my list of things to read.

I think this would definitely be helpful. Definitely something I will think about starting. You can really only get a handle on your emotions when you've someone that understands you and to do that you need to be able to express yourself without fear of rejection; a group of us would definitely help with that.

All the resources for the socially isolated tend to be directed at;

1. Those that are depressed or insane. As I mentioned (albeit in a very hyperbolic manner) people tend to assume you're depressed and the only help I have ever been offered was to help cure my non-existent depression. I think it's because most people cant imagine cutting themselves off from the world. They'd only do it if they had a serious mental breakdown, so they assume we must have had one.

or

2. Autistic people that are severely socially disabled.

I'm neither depressed nor severely social disabled. I imagine most shut-ins aren't.

The judgment and inaccurate labeling that comes with seeking help severely deters people like us from seeking it. The very reason I withdrew from society is because I couldn't take the labeling and social judgment.

I'd encourage you to read up on Hikikomori. Japan has a culture that causes a great deal more shut-ins than we do and there is a significant body of work on the phenomenon. Shutting Out the Sun http://www.amazon.com/Shutting-Out-Sun-Generation-Departures... is a pretty good book. There is a good introductory article here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/magazine/15japanese.html?p...

Simply reading about others like me was enough to give me the courage to share with a few online friends and from there I got the courage to publish my story. There are lots of people like us, you're not alone. Feel free to email me anytime "k@20252.me". We can chat about whatever.

Normally I wouldn't detract from someone's opinion of something I wrote by responding to summaries. I believe people should be allowed to judge for themselves whether opinions are accurate and when authors jump in defensively it's a slipper slope to derailing the conversation. However, your summary is factually misleading. You imply I was physically abused which I was not. Hopefully my article doesn't give that impression, I didn't mean to do so. I don't have foot wounds. They're bible cysts, basically fluid that leak from my joints into my feet. Here is a quick wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganglion_cyst. I'll leave it up to others to judge the rest of your summary.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. It's been an immense problem for me and it's destroyed almost all my side projects.

The problem is that you're interested in the wrong aspects of your side project. You're interested in learning and solving the code problems that come with your project. You have to shift your perspective to the human side of your project. You have to learn to see the user's issues as the problem to be solved.

Let's use an "reviews" site as an example. Your users cant find reviews, that annoy them. What you're solving is not a programming problem; your problem is "make it easy for users to find reviews". That is your problem. Your problems is not what the best algorithm for ratings. None of the code stuff matters. These users do not care about code.

When you've shifted your perspective to the human side you'll start to see hacky solutions differently. A crappy algorithm for ratings isn't a poor solution, it's a perfect solution. You've solved the reviews problem. You have a perfect solution.

The problem is that most of aren't actually excited about the human side of our side projects. This is because we get excited about things that interest us, and what interests a programmer is usually programming. It's not surprising we choose projects with interesting code problems.

Start reflecting on the human/sociological side of things before you choose a project. You might be surprised at what you find. Projects that seemed interesting may suddenly become dull and the one's you thought were dull might suddenly become interesting. A human perspective doesn't exclude building stuff with a code focus, just make sure coders are your audience. You and your users just need to be excited about the same things.

There is this classic saying about "building something for yourself" resulting in the best products. As with most sayings, they left out some important information. They forgot to tell to you to make sure that what you're building for yourself is the same thing you're building for your users.

Make your goals align with your users. Otherwise, you'll find yourself trapped down the rabbit hole.

Some extra thoughts

Don't forget that all your tricks to solve programming problems work on human problems. For example, for a reviews site it's easy to phrase the problem as "make it easy for users to find the best reviews in the most efficient and enjoyable way possible while allowing them to simultaneously book and view and and and....". Break it down into it's simplest elements first, just like you would a programming problem. The simplest element of the problem is "make it easy for users to find reviews"; best reviews are a separate problem.

You're probably good at solving programming problems, breaking them down and being productive. You know all the 37signals posts, all the design patterns, and can quote re-work by heart. Use those principles you have learned and apply them to the human side. Everything your learned about productive programming applies to productive life.

In my scholastic chess days I used to play a lot of suicide chess between rounds. What continually amazed me is how very few players could grasp the basics of how to play suicide. The nature of suicide chess strategy was too conter-intuitive I guess. I'd be capturing be after piece after piece and they'd get their hopes up only to have them crushed near the end when my superior force proved decisive. To lose at chess, one must first win.