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Ask HN: What are the changes you made in your life and never look back?
95 points by bearwithclaws on April 13, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 166 comments
I'm interested to hear what are the changes fellow HNers made in their life and never look back again. It could be anything.

For me:

* Inkjet Printer => LaserJet Printer

* PC => Mac

* Monthly Gym Membership => Home Gym

* Sitting all day => Standing Desk

* Shall-not-be-named-sucky-cloud-storage => DropBox




  English literature ----------> mathematics
  cook ------------------------> programmer
  newspaper -------------------> internet
  mall ------------------------> internet
  land line -------------------> cell phone
  phone -----------------------> email
  desktop ---------------------> laptop
  14" CRT ---------------------> 19" flat screen
  CDs -----> thumb drives -----> cloud
  radio -----> CD player ------> Ipod
  ie --------> Firefox --------> Chrome
  Yahoo mail ------------------> Gmail
  low level code --------------> applications
  building for myself ---------> building for my customers
  kissing customers' asses ----> properly serving customers
  suit & tie ------------------> jeans & shirt
  calling Mom -----------------> visiting Mom
  Pittsburgh Pirates ----------> Pittsburgh Steelers
  Simpsons --------------------> Family Guy
  USAir -----------------------> Southwest
  weight lifting --------------> bodyweight exercises
  eggs for breakfast ----------> fruit for breakfast
  McDonald's ------------------> Five Guys
  Reddit ----------------------> Hacker News
  lurking ---------------------> posting


Why "eggs ---------> fruits"

Isn't there more benefits of eating a protein rich breakfast ?


meta: now that only the poster can see his/her post's score, others can't tell if a post with a question interests many in the community or not. Previously, edw519 (or others) could gauge using the question's score the community's interest.

In a pragmatic sense, it's not far fetched to assume that a question that you can see interests many people (but only few can answer) will have more chance of being answered than a question that appears to interest only Joe User.

Now, if I want to show interest in the question, edw519 can't see my upvote(1) and thus it's useless in the "showing public support" sense. The only thing I can now do to show public interest is a "me too!" or a "yes, do tell!" post, which I guess all of us would like to avoid.

(1) maybe with enough karma you CAN see everybody's score, idk, but the point still stands


Here's mine:

scrambled eggs --> poached eggs --> raw eggs

jogging --> sprinting

sun cream --> no cream

metal pots --> ceramic pots

pasteurized dairy --> raw dairy

Australia --> Israel


does the ceramic make a difference in the taste? If so, I'm curious what foods specifically?


The food stays hot for longer in the pot and can be placed in the fridge, microwave, dishwasher. I think it cooks better due to infrared rays apparently, and there's no risk of metal contamination: that's my concern from hot acidic foods like tomato sauce, especially when kept for days in fridge, or scratched out with metal spoon. I think it tastes better and cooks better - the overall experience feels awesome. 3 brands I've come across are Neoflam (Korea), Piral (Italy) and Xtrema (USA.) Xtrema best but most expensive but all v good. Sudden heat changes and dropping are the enemy.


Excellent, I'm always looking out for new techniques & tools. I've always wondered if cooking in non-conductive would make a difference, your response validates. Thanks adrian


what differences / or benefits have you seen from sprinting instead of running/jogging ?


Sprinting gives a rush of endorphins and hgh. Sprinting is anaerobic exercise for the heart, and jogging is more aerobic. However, both are important. Sprinting not only involves power, but technique and arms, it yields a different physique by using faster twitch muscles and requires flexibility. Jogging is more harmful to the body when one gets addicted to constantly pushing and playing with the pain threshold, or ignoring it, which happens when schedules and distances are embraced by ego.

I am inclined to think we're built to go for a walk to a hunting ground, sprint and throw an arrow, and walk home with a carcass on our backs, sleep while the women cooks and disects its organs, then eat it. Jogging serves no purpose other than to save time. If we're jogging a lot, we haven't positioned our tribe properly. What animal would you pursue jogging? Would you take your army out jogging? Would you rather jog or ride a horse into war?


> What animal would you pursue jogging?

Any animal that sprints for short distances :)

Nearly all animals built for sprinting don't have the endurance for sustained evasion. If you've ever chased wildlife, you'll notice they quickly zip away, but stop some couple hundred meters away to turn around and look back at you. This is really to recharge their batteries and keep an eye on the threat (you).

I mentioned it in another comment, but persistence hunting was a well-known tactic across the world. It's particular effective on flat desolate land, but was also practiced in hilly woodlands, in combination with tracking skills.

Eventually the animal would keel over from exhaustion.

Don't fall too easily into this Paleo trend and the hunches people posit as "the way things were". They often have a narrow view of how things were.

Remember to keep your skepticism healthy. When someone tells you to use a standing desk, because cavemen used standing desks, remain skeptical. When someone says you should just do short sprints, because that's what cavemen did, be skeptical. I'm not saying standing desks and sprinting are bad, I do both, but question & verify what you're told, especially before spreading that (mis?)information.


We could be in for new fitness craze: persistence runting.


Long distance running has it's place in human history. Check out "persistence hunting". The Tarahumara tribe, which is now pretty well-known among laymen, were practitioners of this. Their story has been covered in quite a few books, Born To Run being the most popular.

Applicable Wikipedia links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting


> I am inclined to think we're built to go for a walk to a hunting ground, sprint and throw an arrow.

The adaption to bipedalism actually reduced our sprinting capabilities and increased our endurance. It's likely that we used our superior endurance to chase down our prey over long distances far before we had arrows. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o


If it were me, I would've told my buddies to start building a fence for next time while I was out hunting it down. Also dogs and horses could have helped with the hunt. How is he meant to carry the carcass back? Does he light a fire to signal to the others to help him? What happens if tigers smell the blood or no one reaches him in time, or a pack of hyenas are following the hunter? Most of the time, a lot of the hunt was reconnaissance (endurance yes, jogging no.) Large groups of people jogging frequently for long groups of time doesn't seem right, perhaps in parts of Africa (eg Kenya) jogging has become part of society and remains fun. Bipedalism has other benefits besides endurance: vision, climbing, reach, sitting, freeing up hands, inducing fear. People going on a 10km run every weekend, on concrete, in a polluted city, with a hunched back is just wrong. Just because you can jog, doesn't mean you must.


> what animal would you pursue jogging?

Cheetahs


There are for me. Having eggs in my breakfast, instead of just foods like fruit or breads, easily adds 10 points to my IQ that day. Easily.


Curious about

weight lifting --------------> bodyweight exercises

Is there a specific reason or is it just tied to your switch to a home gym?


I had a chronic injury (rotator cuff) caused by years of weight lifting. It got so bad, sometimes I couldn't put my shirt on. The only "treatment" was laying off exercise. I thought I was doing something wrong until I realized that I had selected a "less than optimal" form of exercise.

I also had plantar faciitis, caused by years of improper running.

In 2005, I was recommended this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Yourself-Power-Ultimate-Transf...

which totally changed my thinking and led me to many other resources.

Now my exercises are:

  - Hindu squats
  - Hindu pushups
  - pushups & chinups
  - Heavyhands on stairs
  - moderate running barefoot or with minimal shoes
  - 5 rites
  - occasional superslow on machines in the gym
I am in the best shape of my life with NO injuries.

Even though some of my responses were a little tongue in cheek, this one probably best supported OP's theme of "never looking back".


I'm a runner who's just recovering from a injured Achilles tendon. Do you know what specifically caused your plantar faciitis? I want to avoid it, and I know someone who's suffering through it right now.


  Windows > Linux
  CD-R backups > Dropbox
  Two monitors > One 30" Dell Monitor (Best purchase ever btw)
  Pirating Music > Spotify (I even pay a subscription)
  TV > Youtube, BBC iPlayer, other steaming services (and now no TV licence fee)
  Crap diet > Learning to cook
  Paperwork > iPad
  IDE > gEdit
  Landline > Mobile
I'm sure there are others. One thing i'd love to do is live totally off the grid, reuse water, generate own electricity, grow own food, live in middle of no where. The only thing i cant figure out how to do is a decent net connection...


It looks like you're saying "Windows is greater [for me] than Linux" but I suspect you were miscopying the OP's use of "=>"?

    > => =>


While i believe the former statement to be true :P, my intention was the same as the OP's. I'd edit the > to be => but the edit link has expired. :(


I'm with you on the > gEdit (well, I use Scribes instead). You need an editor that gets out of your way.


Could you elaborate on IDE > gEdit? I'm really curious here, especially what PL's are you mainly using and what kind of projects are you working on. Also do you use and plugins with gEdit? As an emacs user and lisp programmer I can imagine ditching some of the features, but there are also some I couldn't live without (like paredit and repl integration).


I'm a web developer, i write php, html, css, js mainly. So IDE's are totally unnecessary. I have a development server i connect to via sftp and edit on that, i use dropbox as my source control since 99% of the time i'm a single developer and it stops me having to remember to check anything in. It also makes deployment to live pretty easy too.

I dont use any external plugins or anything, everything i use comes out the box with gEdit, the file browser side pane, highlighting, indenting and thats about it. I imagine its a lot easier from a web dev's perspective than from actual programmers.


>> and now no TV licence fee

Nope, if you're watching TV programs on your computers or smartphones (iPlayer) you still have to pay UK TV licence.


Like others have said, its only applicable to live streams. I very carefully read the terms before i stopped paying the license.


I believe a TV license is required to watch the live streams, not VOD content.


Nope, only if you're watching live (as it's being broadcast) TV.


My bad, didn't knew that.


I hit my singularity when I realized that you can take as much time off as you want if you are prepared to take it unpaid.

  1996: 3 weeks
  1998: 10 weeks
  1999: 4 weeks
  2000/1: 20 weeks
  2002: 6 weeks
  2003: 36 weeks
  2004: 32 weeks 
  2005-2010: ~36 weeks (9 months)/year
The work equation changed to: (how much do I need to travel for another 9 months) / (hourly rate) = (hours I need to work on this next contract)


I'm currently in the process of leaving work now to take 3-6 months off to learn Japanese and maybe work on some of my own project ideas if I feel like it. Although I still have a little doubt about the switch, it is reassuring to see someone who has taken long breaks as well.


Do you succeed doing that with sensible savings, health care, etc.?


Yes. During my heaviest years of contract/travel/contract/travel, I found I came out between $10k and $20k ahead in savings at the end of each year.

Contracting pays so well, and traveling in the 3rd world is so cheap that there's just no way you can burn through your savings before boredom sets in and you need to work again for the mental challenge.

Catastrophic coverage health care is $100/month if you're young and healthy. Travel Medical is on the order of $500/year to get you airlifted home when you get shot in the Congo. Those in combination will keep you alive for the duration.


* Gym in the evening => Gym during the day (extended lunch break)

* One monitor => Two monitors as an extended desktop

* Never checking my finances => Using Zetabee cashflow to manage my finances

* Reading blogs only => Reading books (on anything) and audiobooks (in the car)

* Hot showers => Occasional Cold Water dips

* Cow's Milk => Goat's Milk

* Microsoft Outlook => Gmail

* Wasting time on the internet => Writing a journal or creating a list of things to do when im bored in advance

* Irregular work pattern => Aiming to achieve a minimum of 5hrs of focused productivity a day with 3min breaks every 60mins

* Friends that are negative or with no ambition => Limiting contact with them

* Trying to spend time with successful people or ambitious people => Setup my own Mastermind Group

* Green Tea => White Tea

* Manual version control => Mercurial using TortoiseHG as the GUI

* No programming skills => Started learning Javascript

* Relationship issues with colleagues and friends => "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie plus being more direct without being confrontational

* 20hrs of TV a week => Choosing 1 or 2 shows and following them only

* Poor quality of air in the house => Air purifier

* Back pains => Got a very simple chair, improved posture and regular back exercises

Cant think of anything else. Hope the list didnt bore any of you. Its fun to share.


Out of curiosity, why'd you change from Cow's Milk to Goat's Milk?

I temporarily switched to Almond Milk because it doesn't have lactose (which doesn't promote estrogen production), has the same amount of protein, more vitamins, and at the time it was way cheaper than organic whole cow's milk. The biggest drawback was that it tasted kinda gross, which I remedied with a bit of cinnamon, but now that it's fairly expensive I switched back to cow milk.


I'm based in the UK and based on my own personal experience, Almond milk isnt easy to get hold of and would probably be very expensive.

I read a book by Larry Cook in which he explained that cow's milk in the way it is distributed and processed now isnt as good for humans as it once used to be, and that goat's milk is more harmonious for the immune system. It doesnt taste as good as cow's milk but its not that bad either. I find cow's milk very watery now.

It only costs a little bit more than cow's milk and since taking it, my immune system has been better.

As for the other alternatives, the only one that i could find was Soy milk, but personally i feel it tastes worse than goat's milk and i dont know whether this is true or not, but someone told me Soy messes with your hormones, and so i've been rather paranoid since then about it.


You could try soya milk, rice milk, or oat milk as well.

Personally I like soya milk, though only the unsweetened kind. For some reason most soya milks are sweetened and consequently taste like some kind of watery pudding.

(I gave up dairy a few years back when I discovered that I had a mild allergy to it.)


Not boring in my book. The more the better - I use Zetabee cash flow for money management, too!


If you have any personal finance tips, i'd love to hear them ;-)


Haha I doubt I'm the best person to ask since I try to be frugal with most things... but then go and spend a ton of money on running, flying, and skydiving in bursts :-/


Would've thought the green tea is better for you.


From what i understand White Tea and Green Tea are from the same leaf, but processed differently


Academia -> Real World

Drive to work -> Walk to work

Prepared food -> Cook from basic ingredients

Radio 1 -> Radio 4

Java -> Anything else

Expensive SUV -> Sensible economical car

Paper books only -> Kindle & Audible

Being a bigot about particular operating system and languages -> Not really caring anymore (apart from Java)

[Edit: The thing about Java is more today with my own, in retrospect, slightly embarrassing "advocacy" of the language in the period '95 to '00 - rather than the issues the language has as the new Cobol].


  Husband => No husband
  Affluenza => Spartanism
  Car => No car
Probably a whole lot of other things. Somewhere in there all that led to:

Chronically Ill => Not Chronically Ill. Definitely don't plan to go back.


I never knew of the word "Affluenza" till today! I like learning things like this :)

Glad to see you've made positive changes in your life, especially from feeling sick all the time. All that must have been a massive undertaking.


Ten years and counting and undoubtedly numerous other ways in which it could be measured as "massive". But well worth it. :-)


  Chronically Ill => Not Chronically Ill
How did you achieve that?


Got rid of the husband, everything I ever owned, and my car. And also took a boatload of supplements, did a lot of reading about my medical condition, changed my diet, and a whole lot of other stuff.

Some info on what I did is here: http://healthgazelle.com/

Not much info, mind you. I'm too busy getting my life back to spend much time on the site.

Peace.


Amazing website. I'm at the "plateau" bit that you mention, and i'd love to learn more.


You know, much of the site was written as much as 5 years ago and I have become a combination of bitter about the reception I get in the CF community and busy getting my life back together, so I hardly look at the main site anymore (I do sometimes post to the new-ish blog). So please refresh my memory, maybe with a quote and/or link to the piece you are referencing. That might help me sound like less of a fool.

And you can always email me sometime.

Thanks.


I really liked the CF sections explaining why lung infections are the "leaves" of the problem.

Im in the process of moving house and getting married, but at some point i'll email you for some advice, and would really appreciate any assistance. Thanks again, and nice meeting you ;-)


Since you are moving anyway, use this as an opportunity to pitch out as much stuff as you can.

Congrats on the marriage and good luck with the move.

Take care.


Thank you so much. I'll be in touch!


Would you mind elaborating on what was the chronic illness that you had and how you recovered?


Video Games, Junk Reading => After work home development

Video Games, Junk Reading => Selfhero: sailing, diving, etc

Wishing/Wanting => Doing. Immediate scheduling

Unmotivated Friends => Adventurous Friends

That's hard/difficult => That's worthwhile

I'm over thirty, but like many of my friends, I still enjoyed video games way too much. Claiming they were a way to "relax" or "blow off steam" after a hard day at work, I finally admitted to myself that they had lost their original value and were now solely a time sink and addiction.

This nagging thought kept troubling me until I gave it my full attention, and dealt with the reality of the answer: "If I spent this many hours a week practicing <insert game heroic skill> instead of playing a character with it, how heroic could I become?"

I suddenly lost all desire to play video games, watch most TV, and read books (entertainment, not literature). Instead I have spent the last couple of years cultivating interesting and useful skills, and participating in my own adventures. I went from playing CoD and TotalWar to scuba diving with sharks, motorcycling, traveling and practicing/training my sailing skills with the goal of circumnavigating.

Never looked back.


New Zealand => Australia

Windows => Mac

Spinning rust => SSD

Of course, there are tons of technology changes that have been great. The things that have made a huge impact in my life are:

Pure techie => Learning sales

Employee => Business owner

Sales is all psychology. It totally changes your view of the world. It's not about how things should be, but about how things are regardless. A business degree didn't teach anything that mattered about that.


I'm really surprised by the number of people that have enjoyed the move to Mac. I went to Mac for about 6 months and then ended up coming back to Windows 7. Thats not to say one is better than the other, i just found it difficult to get used to the little differences.

Although, if i was programming more often the mac would probably have been more useful.


> New Zealand => Australia

From where in NZ did you leave and where in Oz did you end up? What were the improvements you found? Do you think you would've found them moving to some country other than Australia?

Curious. :)


I moved from Auckland to Brisbane. The weather and lifestyle are better, people are generally more upbeat and opportunities are better.

New Zealand has a major case of tall poppy syndrome. Australia doesn't have this so much. Most people generally want you to succeed, and help you out.


Drinking whenever => No drinking => Drinking two days per month

Drinking too much sucked. Drinking not at all sucked. Drinking two days a month lets me enjoy my wine/beer/sake and whacks me with the occasional hangover to remind why I opted for this damn policy in the first place. It is drinking in perfect balance.


Mouse => Wacom Tablet

Saved me from carpal tunnel syndrome (I already had the early signs).

Inkjet Printer => LaserJet Printer

Didnt't realize how much I was missing. The time savings alone makes it worth it.

Design Major => Psychology Major

Sometimes it's true what they say, everything in moderation. Once I left art school, I found my passion for design again.


what wacom tablet did you get, and are there any drawbacks of using it as a mouse ?


I got the basic one (Bamboo) with the smallest possible size (I think it's the 4x6 one). If you're doing design and other complex tasks, it's probably better to have those large ones. For me though, since I only use it for general computing and the occasional design work, having a small one makes it portable (and it fits on my desk!).

Unfortunately though, after years of getting used to the mouse, I do find it hard doing detailed work in Photoshop (i.e. tracing something/colouring something). It probably has to do with me not being used to the tablet but in times like those, I (using the tablet) still don't have the dexterity to manipulate things as well as when using a mouse.


Random off the top of my head:

No backup/storage => Dropbox 50gb (paid) <--- !!!!! Probably the best computing upgrade I've ever made.

Same password on every site => Keepass (Also an incredible thing)

No serious exercise => Starting to exercise (gym, started playing a new sport I love, etc.)

Old phone => Smartphone (iPhone 4)


> started playing a new sport I love

What was the sport?


Hockey. I've been playing basketball every week for years, but it's not a very high-intensity game (with my group, at least!).

But I haven't played Hockey since I was 15, mostly because I didn't know where (Hockey is not very popular in Israel). But I finally found a group that plays, and joined them and had a very draining, but amazingly fun time playing. I've missed it.


easy! ...

* Cancer => No Cancer

* Corporate Jungle => Self Employed

(in that order)


Federal Government Contracting => Startup/Commercial Freelancing (US Government couldn't care less about spending tax dollars well...)

Living next door to the 'rents (for help with wife's health care) => Living 150 miles away

Java => Ruby (and almost any language, including JVM languages, other than Java)

PC => Mac (huge +1)

Friends who don't respect my life choices => Friends met through the Ruby community

HDD => SSD


vim => emacs layered window manager => tiled window manager mouse => no mouse no wife => wife music career => programming career inactive => active

Best thing I did for my health was to get a bike and get into sports. The first thing I got into was martial arts. Now I rock climb, run, and cycle. Nothing gets the brain going like a good work out. I never look back.

Emacs was a big paradigm shift that took many months too.

Update: thought of a couple other things...


PC -> Mac

Over-the-counter banking -> Internet banking

Feature phone -> Smartphone

Mouse with no wheel -> One with wheel (and currently Magic mouse)

Own hosted email/Yahoo -> Gmail (or Google Apps for Business)

Dock at the bottom (both Windows and Mac) -> Dock on the left

Unmanaged music collection -> iTunes

No specific editor -> MacVim


> Dock at the bottom (both Windows and Mac) -> Dock on the left

Yeah, I did that quite a while ago and have found it great on my laptop but I've just started using a 1900x1200 monitor and am starting to think about switching back.


I hardly use the Dock since there are utilities like Spotlight/AlfredApp/LaunchBar/Quicksilver, so I auto-hide it. I'm using an external 1440x900 side-by-side with my built-in 1440x900, but if I even get a tall enough built-in LCD, I'd still leave the Dock on the left. There's never enough vertical space for code for most programming languages.

I guess laptop-only -> laptop + external mon counts too.


Multiple big projects on the go at once -> Dedicated effort to finish one before getting too distracted by the next

Valuing money more than time -> Valuing time more than money

Trusting only logical reasoning -> Trusting my gut instinct as well

Thinking it's wrong to turn down opportunities -> Happy to turn down opportunities if they don't appeal much or I've got too much on my plate already

Running all email through my own mail-server -> fastmail.fm

Keeping my email client open all day -> Opening it only every hour or two so I can focus on real work

Cleaning teeth straight after food -> Waiting 30 minutes or more first, to reduce enamel erosion

White rice -> Brown rice (~5 times the fibre)

Cooking rice in a saucepan -> Using a rice cooker


Platter drive => SSD

9-to-5 => Gig with flexible scheduling

Strongly typed languages => Weakly typed languages


Do you mean dynamically typed, or really weakly typed?

(K&R C is weakly typed for example.)


Two best decisions I've ever made

1) working for a bigco -> startup

2) single -> married with a kid

It took me a while to come to these 2 points but I've never looked back.


* Working in a big R&D company in japan => Working for a small company in Japan => Working as a freelancer => Starting my own company (It's very exiting and a bit stressful, but working in japan is a good preparation for how to deal with stress and long hours)

* Windows => Debian => Gentoo => Mac at home, Gentoo on servers (I tried ubuntu on servers but I always end up having to compile and install from source too much stuff)

* HDD => SDD (Amazing the different it makes)

* Paperbooks => ereader (used to use a pocketbook 360 which was really great but it was stolen :-( currently looking for a new one)

* Backup on dvds => Tarsnap


Sitting => Standing Desk: The effect this has had on my productivity is surprisingly large.

Typical "Healthy" Diet => No Processed Foods or Sugar: It's hard to disambiguate placebo effects, but I generally feel pretty awesome.

Laptop Screen => Cinema Display: This has definitely enhanced my productivity.

Shoes => No Shoes: Of course I need to wear shoes occasionally, but when I do, they are "minimalist" and have flexible soles. On everything else I default to barefoot, including when I go for a run. This has been great for my posture, and it's made me seemingly immune to most common running injuries.


Which minimalist shoes are you using? I've been looking for good recommendations.


Not the original poster; but I am using Vibram Five-Fingers and they suits me quite well. (I do prefer barefoot running when possible.)


The big ones:

* Moving away at 18 to a new province. Best thing I ever did.

* Lost my job at 20, started a company. Never worried about money or looked back. This actually seemed incredibly natural.

* Shut down said company after 10 years, just to move on to more interesting things. No regrets. I'm working on way cooler stuff now in a variety of areas and I love all of it.

* Changed my eating/lifestyle, lost 35lbs. Keeping it off with no effort due to lifestyle changes.

I don't really pay attention to small stuff. I wouldn't say CD->iPod->iPhone was a deliberate change, more of a natural progression...


Care to elaborate on the eating/lifestyle issue?


Sure! When I started working long hours behind a desk and not eating properly (teenage or stereotypical coder eating habits + sedentary lifestyle), the combo crept up on me but really hit me hard. I ballooned up before I realized it from 145 to 185 at the worst point.

I started doing a variety of martial arts at that point, but didn't change my eating and couldn't lose a thing. After a while, I started looking at different things: buying fresh food as much as possible, portion control, walking, and less alcohol. The combo meant changing a lot of things over time, but if I didn't change a lot then one thing would negate the others.

Now it's been almost 2 years that I've been back to 145. I weigh myself daily to keep track and adjust accordingly. I buy almost entirely fresh food (helps that I love to cook :), use smaller plates to trick myself into recognizing portions more easily, and I generally walk if it takes less than an hour. Gives me some much-needed time to think :) And I still drink... I love dark beers and wine, but I keep the quantity and frequency down now, and probably have even more fun now that I feel good about myself too.


make this into a site, akin to threewords.me?


done, http://3changes.me/


Stable salaried jobs -> Contracting, business, chaos.

It suits me better.


I really like the "chaos" part. I think it's a very down to earth description to how it is in practice =)


related: when I worked for Cheaptickets (started as a smallco, turned into BigDumbCompany eventually) I was in a group called "Car, Hotel, Air and Other Stuff." You can see why I liked the acronym. I specialized in the Other Stuff (jvm, monitoring, troubleshooting, performance, thread issues, etc.)


Flip phone => smartphone

Smartphone => iPhone

PC => Mac

Using public wifi => private Internet connection

The biggest one: bike => car.


Interesting. I saw the title and my first thought was my experience of discarding religion from my life. Rejecting the backwards, totalitarian dogma of christianity was the most liberating experience of my life and I have never once looked back with anything other than joy at leaving it behind.


Boiling vegetables ----------------> Steaming vegetables

Ready meals -----------------------> Eating mostly simple food (chicken, prawns, veg, brown pasta)

Red meat --------------------------> Mostly white meat

Smoked fish -----------------------> Unsmoked fish, also prawns and mussels

Out of shape ----------------------> In shape (running, weights at home and weekly personal training)

Wonky teeth -----------------------> Straight teeth

No vitamins/cod liver oil ---------> Multivitamins (hoping for longer telemeres) and cod liver oil

Work goals -----------------------> Also have personal goals (run half marathon, travel to a particular destination etc.)

Dumb phone ------------------------> Smart phone

Hotmail ---------------------------> GMail

Paper to-do list ------------------> Online to-do list


US => Ireland

.NET => php/python

1 monitor => 2 monitors

Car => No Car


As somebody who is in the UK, looking to spend some time in the US working/living and then grow old in Ireland your "upgrade" from US to Ireland interests me. What made you move?


There are a bunch of things that really improved my life and they aren't all tech related.

    Java/.NET => PHP => Ruby
    Laundromat => Owning my own * single most amazing change
    Not caring about personal finances => Saving up
    Sit all day => Geekdesk (I stand about 1h30 every day)
    Pharmaceutical programming => Startup programming
    Restaurants => Cooking classes
    Playing WOW => Quitting cold turkey
    Windows/Linux on home built boxes => Mac
    Seeing my wife clean the house all the time => Paying for cleaning


normal american diet -> no meat, no dairy, no processed foods.

dumb phone -> dumber phone

4 hours TV nightly -> no tv

workaholic -> socialholic

self doubt -> awesomeness

technology lover and collector -> less is more

friendster -> nothing

Daily motto: "I'm the luckiest guy in the world, and it's a beautiful day"


how does one go from self-doubt to awesomeness or little or no self doubt ? thanks.


don't know what worked for cmos but for me it was recognizing that most of my self doubts stemmed from irrational fears such as being uncomfortable/scared around meeting new people. I'm a bit of a workout junkie so I decided to apply principles from working out to my psychology- I would take an irrational fear or something that made me uncomfortable and do incremental "mini-workouts" until I became comfortable and the fear disappeared. For example meeting new people- I started using every chance I had to start conversations with people I didn't know. Say you're standing in line at Starbucks and see someone wearing shoes that you like say "Hey, cool shoes, where did you get them?"


I plan out every day the evening before.


CDs/DVDs/BluRay/Consoles etc... => Spotify/HTPC + serious GFX

Parkour => taekwondo

Monitor(s) => Very large Samsung TV

Notepad++ => Sublime Text

Walking => running

TV => competitive gaming

No 3 item todo list => 3 item todo list

Single project focus => multiple open-ended projects

Books => Kindle


What is the best way for someone to get into parkour ?


If you can find a parkour gym like Primal Fitness [1] or Tempest Freerunning [2], that's the best option. They're not in a ton of areas, but if you can find a gymnastics gym to take a class, many moves and techniques will overlap. Otherwise, most of the moves aren't incredibly technical; they just need strength, balance, and coordination. You can find a lot of tutorials on Youtube, and just get out there and practice, but a gym will make it easier to build up the physical skills and also get over the mental fear.

1: http://www.primal-fitness.com

2: http://www.tempestfreerunning.com/the-academy


Agree with most of this. As Liuhenry correctly says, it's heavily dependent on two things:

1. Physical fitness 2. Mental control

With regards to the former, I'd suggest looking at things like callisthenics and gymnastics, in order to get stronger, combined with running (couch to 5k is a good way to get started) to work on stamina and running.

As to the latter, it's more about accepting that you're going to get hurt now and then, and being willing to start small. Don't go jump off a 20ft roof and break roll tomorrow, jump off a secure bench, and go from there.

Other than that, I'd say practice movements over and over, until you do them without thinking, and find someone (or better still, a group - there's a fair number around the world so you should be able to find one) locally who can help you learn, and teach you how to move.


Find a second-story window and jump out of it. If, in the next hour, you aren't in the hospital or morgue, CONGRATULATIONS!!! you're now into Parkour!.


Male => Female


my condolences


Well transitioning was something I wish I hadn't needed to do and has made my life more complicated but I'm happy now and the whole process has made me a more understanding 'better' person, so really you have nothing to be sorry about


  christian ----------------------------> atheist
  meat eater ---------------------------> vegetarian
  working for someone else -------------> working for me
  sitting in the chair -----------------> sitting on the ground
  reading eng. books translated --------> reading in english
  engaging in Win/Lin/Mac discussions --> I dont care anymore
  travelling with stuff ----------------> travelling light


Living far away from work => Living within biking distance (Best decision of 2010)

Desktop computer => Laptops

TV => No TV (Best decision of ~2003)

Studying human stuff => Studying IT stuff (Best decision of 2009)

In my studies: Focus on academia => Focus on real world problems

Taking myself seriously => Not taking myself seriously

Living in multiple countries => Living in Denmark (the country I grew up in)

gEdit => Vim

multiple folders, commented out code, etc => Git + github

Facebook => Github, Twitter, Hacker news, meetups, etc


When did you change to the standing desk? I heard people grow tired of it after a couple of months.

3G internet connection => Hardline

Living in suburbs => Living in the city center


I've changed to standing desk for more than 9 months. Couldn't live without it now.


I'm curious, how do you handle long periods of standing? Just resting? I can't imagine standing for hours doing computer work.


I work in short burst -- maximum 2 hours at a time. After 2 hours, even if my legs weren't tired, I would starting to lose focus. I would then take 15 - 30 mins break to have a tea/walk my dog/yoga/weight lift/talk to spouse/jump rope/shoot hoops, and then continue back again.


You should bring it to Starbucks for the next co-hacking session... ;)


  Whining ---------------------------> Fixing
  Asking for permission -------------> Asking for Forgiveness (Professionally)
  Gaming as a hobby -----------------> Learning as a hobby
  Working hard ----------------------> Working smart
  Speculation -----------------------> Communication
  Competition -----------------------> Cooperation


Could you talk about your conversion to a Home Gym? I'm perhaps interested in following your path, but I'm not sure where to start.


Inspiration: http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/cfjissue1_Sep02.pdf (PDF)

I've got myself (one at a time): a few dumb bells, a long bar, yoga mat, kettle bell, gym mat, fit ball. Plenty enough to do a lot of exercise right at my home (I'm working from home) -- instead of commuting to nearby gym. I could workout multiple times a day whenever I wanted.


Read "You are your own gym". All you need to get started for the first 1-2 years.


  HDD --------> SDD
  PHP --------> Ruby
  Chair ------> Standing desk
  All others -> MacVim
  MTB --------> Singlespeed racing bicycle
  No hobby ---> Kitesurfing. Nothing beats flying over the waves while the sun goes down.
  Car --------> Westfalia James Cook motor home (for kitesurfing)


An eclectic selection:

* "Real" job => Starting a company

* 24/7 working life => Switching off and becoming a published fiction writer

* Self-doubt and low self esteem => Finding formal help

* Teflon pans => Cast iron pans (seriously, look up how bad teflon is for you - and cast iron pans are way more fun to cook with)

* Building things => Building companies


* automatic => manual trans * Windows => Linux (1999) * Sysadmin => Developer (background is CS) * ignoring exercise since high school => treadmill, elliptical * iPhone => Android * bare metal => virtualization * most others => Python


Working 40+ hour weeks > permanent switch to part time work

Local email client > Gmail

Paper calendar > Google Calendar

iTunes purchases > full CDs (sometimes as MP3s) on Amazon

Leased servers > Amazon EC2s

Mostly paper books > Kindle

Stopped trying to do the Linux desktop thing > Mac laptops, SSHing to Linux servers

Mostly Lisp and Java > more Ruby


-PC ----------------------------> Mac -Regular workouts --------------> CrossFit -Regular diet ------------------> Paleo -finance > law school > dropout-> techie + entrepreneur -being afraid ------------------> learning to fight


Working at home --> working at cafes Video games --> hobby projects Following my natural social inclinations --> going out most days Developer --> Developer who can do sales & biz


Finance organization => Software organization

The Bat => Thunderbird => GMail

Free => Married

Black tea with sugar => Green Tea without sugar

TV => Internet

Meat food => Vegetables

Fixed work schedule => Free work schedule

Hard working, unhappy => Love to work

PC forever! Hello from Izhevsk.


Navy officer => Startup => Freelancing/Bootstrapping

PC => Mac

Paris => Small village

No kid => kid


Were you in the French Navy? My neighbors were the French exchange officers and their wives (two couples, serially), while I was on staff at Annapolis. If so, I'll dig up their last names (I can only remember first names right now).


Assign authority to expert opinions --> Suspect expert opinions until demonstrated to my satisfaction. Almost never accept anything as "proven".


Windows XP on Dell -> Mac OSX on Macbook Pro Nokia -> iPhone Noise (Techcrunch, GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb) -> Signals (37svn, AVC, Seth Godin)


Land Line => Mobile

TiVo => WMC7 (with Ceton 4 stream cablecard)

Briefs => Boxers (like 25 years ago but still)

Thinning hair => shaved head

Klonopin => nothing

Working for the man => Being the man


Working for a company -> Working for myself

doing my own taxes -> tax lady

designer -> entrepreneur

saying yes to everything -> saying no

trying to do everything -> focus


Windows - > Linux , Large Company -> startup , somemail -> gmail , orkut -> facebook :)


government contracting => engineer at university

running => biking => bike racing

pc => mac

php => python (django)

complaining about tools => writing my own or patching others

no source control => github

learning projects => practical development and products

reading tech books => memoirs only

bottled water => filtered pitcher => bottled water

desktop => laptop

local documents => google docs

virtualbox => vmware

individual => LLC


1. Moving to USA

2. Moving to Silicon Valley

3. Building a startup (TBD)


Comfy + working a typical 9-to-5 => More Stresses + Running own company + more personal time


Montreal, Qc => Tokyo, Jp.

Never felt more liberated in my life. I can't describe in words how good it felt.


Can you elaborate as to why? I would have expected the exact opposite.


Wish you had an email :/ jbm @ ordisante.com if you want to continue this.

I feel like less of a foreigner in Japan than I did in Quebec. Does that blow your mind like it does mine?

The politics & lack of hope in Quebec is stifling. A lot of economic boom cycles were missed because of the squabbling and identity politics that plague the province. I can honestly say that I don't recall a single time where I felt like everything was going "OK" in MTL as a worker.

The positive things I have to say about Montreal is about the quality of cheap food, the quality of education I received, and the quality of the people I knew. Not insubstantial, but not enough to ever tempt me to come back.

Perception problem? Maybe. I'm not going to struggle against that when there are much better things to do with my time.

As per Tokyo; you can do whatever you want if you exist outside the salaryman system. I play the role of the "brilliant system engineer" (whether I am or not is another story). I work normal hours (10 hours a day on rare occasions) and get paid quite well. I have no major complaints. It does seem to be going down the same road of ruin, but I don't plan on being here forever either.


Landline -> Mobile Phone

Standard flip phone -> Symbian smartphone

Symbian -> Android

Windows -> Ubuntu

Stuck on the ground -> Pilot license


Car => motorcycle + AutoShare (shared car service)

Work at office => Work from home


DOS/Windows => Linux

CDs/DVDs => Downloading/Streaming

Perl/PHP => Python

Harddisk => SSD

SVN/CVS => GIT/Mercurial

Academia => Business


Working for someone else => doing a startup


Listening to others => Believing in me


Not programming => Programming


PHP > Ruby

Prototype > Jquery

SVN/CVS > Mercurial

Eclipse > Netbeans


listening podcasts and audiobooks on normal speed => listening at 2x speed


Drinking sugar => Water


cold fusion -> .NET -> php -> python -> ruby/rails


salesman => college student => software engineer


QWERY => Colemak


default bad mood => default good mood

pessimistic => optimistic


How did you manage that? I think graduate school has given me a permanent scowl.


I am struggling to give a good answer to this since some minutes...

There is no special trick. I just realized that it makes no sense to worry about stuff I can not influence. And that if I have bad mood without obvious reason.. I could have good mood without obvious reason as well.

I have no step by step instruction. It is just a decision you have to make for yourself.

Focus on the good things instead on the bad. No matter how big you fuck up, chances are very high that you are still better off than most people on this planet.


C++ > Erlang


marijuana joints => vaporizer


landline => mobile

blah clamshell cellphone => iPhone

PC/Windows => Mac/OSX

Java => Python

The Man's corporate cubicle => home office => my business office

9-to-5 salary grind => my own schedule, ROWE, contracting/consulting

used cars => new 2010 Hyundai

backpack 4 laptop => padded laptop bag => hard shell reinforced briefcase

SVN => git

laptop's boot filesystem on magnetic platter hard drive => SSD

TV for visual vegging => the Web

living on the 70th floor => living on ground floor

sharing walls & ceilings with neighbors/drummers/blind-elephants => not


> hard shell reinforced briefcase

Do you have a link to what you have? What were the benefits to the change (particularly from laptop backpack)?


living on the 70th floor => living on ground floor

why?


The next item on the list suggests he/she bought a house.


yeah that was part of it


it's 2am, high wind, tower starts to sway back and forth and you can feel it

fire breaks out on 60th floor

both happened to me. not fun. never again. interesting experience to have at least once though. :)


The City I was staying with my family ==> The city with software industry (2007)

[Financially Secure But Unhappy Two Years]

The city with software industry ==> A Village With A Physics School (2009)

The village with physics school ==> The city with software industry (2010)

The City With Software Industry ==> San Francisco (Left everything in my country to just be here, attend Google IO) (2011)


Windows to Linux Book to Kindle gEdit to gVim Word to LaTeX


studying my native language -> studying CS

Windows -> Linux

blub -> learning Lisp and Haskell

not knowing C -> knowing C

dial-up internet -> broadband

random editors -> emacs

19" and smaller monitors -> 24" monitor


* Car => Bicycle

* Management Consultant => Startup


Virtualization -> Hardware




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