
Ask HN: What was your greatest accomplishment in 2016? - kernelv
...and what did you learn in the process?
======
cyanoacry
When I was a little kid, I rented out Apollo 13 almost religiously. Kept
watching it, admired the guys in mission control (and the astronauts too, of
course).

A little later, in April, I sat in mission control and helped launch a
spaceship to the ISS.

Along the way, I realized:

Engineering in the real world is maybe 30% calculations and typical "sciency"
work, the other 70% is documentation and communicating to people. The day-to-
day in the aerospace industry is way different than the way things are taught
at school (from an EE perspective). It's impressive to me how much design
happens in everyday back-and-forth conversations, versus the common image of
"one guy, hard at work, cranking out equations at his desk".

Being smart isn't enough sometimes -- you need to have discipline as well, and
even then, there is a considerable amount of luck in the mix. Getting the
timing for a presentation, or a forcing a decision at the right time, can make
a huge difference in the success of a program. You kind of have to check all
three boxes to max out your success counter: smarts, determination, and luck.

~~~
anotherevan
> the other 70% is documentation and communicating to people

I still remember my profound sense of shock when I realised software
development involved a great deal of communicating with other people and not
just cutting code. Fortunately I got over it.

~~~
jkchu
Yeah, I was definitely surprised when I realized that too. And then when you
think about it, almost any type of work involving a large number of people
working at the same time should have the same dependency of documentation and
communication. Being able to work well on a team is a skill that I feel often
gets overlooked (or maybe it is just hard to judge in interviews).

------
maneesh
After years of R&D, heartache, and rough decisions --- I finally turned my
hardware company ([http://pavlok.com](http://pavlok.com)) profitable! We make
technology to break bad habits, wake up earlier, and reduce cravings.

I decided to try to build a hardware company without raising VC --- which is
probably one of the hardest decisions you can make. And required about 30
people to make a reality.

But now that we have finally got our manufacturing and supply chain working,
I've been building our sales & marketing team --- and I can't wait to see how
2017 progresses :)

~~~
NicoJuicy
And quite a niche.

Just wondering, do you dropship or sell to webshops? Seems quite nice usage of
a watch. I also have another proposition which i would like to share / ask.

Is there an email where i can contact you?

~~~
maneesh
maneesh@pavlok.com, of course. I'm better at FB:
[http://facebook.com/msethi](http://facebook.com/msethi) .

We manufacture in Massachusetts and we sell on our own site, Amazon, and as of
last week in retail(!!!). We are certainly open to wholesale, whitelabeling,
and partnering --- we have a totally open API as well!
([http://pavlok.com/api](http://pavlok.com/api))

~~~
mistermann
Does this have sensors on it? Does it support variable power shocks? Does it
support "no shocks for 5 minutes"?

I could see something like this being useful for things like anger
management....detect rising heart rate (or some other physiological changes)
and give some small warning "calm down, be mindful" shocks.

Another thing I'd like to see on vendor websites like this: a "remind me in
<x> months" email signup - I'd like to buy a future version of this with more
features, but I don't want to get an annoying email every week advertising
other things I'm not interested in.

------
JshWright
2015 was a pretty rough year for our family. A miscarriage, several
relationships ending in painful ways, etc... Our motto coming in to 2016 was
"Well... it can't get any worse!". Our hubris was 'rewarded'...

In February, my wife was admitted to the hospital, 25 weeks pregnant with
twins, because one the babies was not getting enough blood flow through the
umbilical cord. The doctors were hoping to get another week or two before his
condition deteriorated to the point that delivery was necessary. Things did
not go downhill as quickly as expected, and we were able to put off delivery
by two months, to 33 weeks (technically one day shy...). While this was a huge
blessing, it still meant my wife was in the hospital for two months, leaving
my as a 'single parent' of our three year old, while still providing the
support my wife needed (spending two months in the hospital is pretty rough on
anyone, let alone someone coping with the stress of a high risk pregnancy).

Our sons were born 7 weeks early, weighing 3 lbs, 14 oz, and 1 lb, 13 oz. The
bigger one spent three weeks in the NICU, and the smaller one was there for
almost two months (coming home just before his original due date). So, at one
point, we had a three year old at home, a newborn at home, and a newborn at
the hospital (and my wife still recovering from a c-section).

Everyone is doing well now (the little one is lagging behind his 'little'
brother (younger by 1 minute), but still within the normal range, and on the
right trajectory).

So, my greatest accomplishment was managing to set aside more or less any
concern I had for myself and spending every waking minute, for four months,
either working or taking care of a family member. In the process I learned
just how fortunate I am that, generally speaking, I have a tremendous amount
of freedom in how I spend my time. Being in a position where every moment is
consumed in the care of others is exhausting, both physically and emotionally.

Our motto for 2017 is "It'll be what it is"... (why tempt fate again?)

~~~
FLGMwt
Very happy that you and your family made it through all that. Have a great
2017!

------
daeken
I finally admitted that it was time to start back on antidepressants, and also
discovered propranolol (anti-anxiety med); it's changed my life in the most
dramatic ways I can imagine.

As of today I weigh 319 lbs -- from a peak of over 400 -- and just a hair over
half way to my goal of being at 240 lbs. This is the biggest change I've ever
made in my life, and I couldn't be prouder to have come this far.

~~~
hkmurakami
That's awesome!

Btw I use your static site generator for my blog, so thanks for your OSS work!

~~~
daeken
Oh cool! Glad to hear you've had success with it. I wish there was a list
somewhere of Benjen-powered blogs; I often wonder how many folks are actually
using it.

------
ciscoriordan
I accepted a job at Rothenberg Ventures in 2016. After discovering numerous
breaches of fiduciary duties and wire fraud, I blew the whistle to the SEC.

Lesson learned: Even engineers have to face ethical dilemmas.

~~~
ndesaulniers
That's real courage. Thanks for standing up for what is right and showing that
engineers are honor bound to follow ethics.

~~~
mistermann
I discovered something similar this year and as a result my "contract wasn't
renewed"....so YMMV in these types of situations.

------
ikeboy
I started selling online, total sales so far over $300k. Multiple sources,
some retail, some wholesale.

What I've learned:

1\. Not all rules matter. A large part of my business is stretching certain
rules, either from the marketplace, or from the source (e.g. a store that
doesn't allow resale). That said, you can't get away with breaking rules
unless you have a very good understanding of why the rule exists, who's
motivated to uphold it, and generally what the risks are. Don't screw over
customers.

2\. There's a lot more to be made by taking risks than there is to be lost.
I've easily lost over $1k multiple times in various ways, but when I "win"
it's to the tune of 10 or 30 times that. Take smart risks, only where the
realistic upside justifies it.

3\. Be willing to pay for information. There are courses out there in almost
any topic. Personally I've largely carved my own path and paid very little ,
but I'd still recommend courses for others. Also read a lot of whatever free
information is out there, and network with people who have more experience.

4\. Don't do too many things at once. It will kill you. I've been full time in
college and it's extremely tough to balance everything. Delegate as soon as
you can afford to, anything others can do that doesn't take a lot of brains
pay people to do.

5\. Don't be afraid to scale, but do it slowly. My first purchase of over 10k
was 6 months after I started, iirc.

(Several of these are probably specific to this kind of business, may not be
generally applicable. Startups have a much different road where profitability
isn't the most important at first.)

~~~
brobrah
Do you private label any products?

~~~
ikeboy
No.

------
LaSombra
I landed my dream job 20 years after I decided what and where I wanted.

It took me a lot of time. Battling low self-esteem, giving it up for a while,
following the wrong path, surviving after being fired for the first and only
time.

I learned perseverance. Once I set my mind on it and worked around
distractions, people and my own mind, I got what I truly wanted and I'm loving
and learning every single day.

~~~
wrigby
I would love to hear more of this story. Would you care to share more details,
or maybe write a blog/medium post on it?

~~~
madmadjo
+1. Eager to hear the story :)

~~~
Treyno
+1 Spill the beans!

~~~
LaSombra
Spilled,
[https://hoffmann.cx/post/after-20-years/](https://hoffmann.cx/post/after-20-years/)
:-)

------
garymoon
It was an accomplishment for me but then it became a frustration. I always
hated mathematics but I always loved programming, making appls but cool things
like algorithms design, data structures are the base of real cool things e.g.
programming languages, RDBMS, artificial intelligence, etc. are all
mathematics So I enrolled to Mathematics on my local university just to see
how it was and I fell in love, I never saw so much perfection with just paper
and pencil. I loved calculus it was really funny solving problems, making
proofs, etc. I got good scores the first half of the year and I really wanted
to continue but then frustration began, the need of money, so I started
working and I couldn't go to lectures anymore. Of course I try to keep reading
books and solving some excercies but help from professors or extra tips they
used to gave us is what I really miss.

~~~
egonschiele
I've been reading more math books this year too, and it has been very
satisfying. Sometimes you just need a good teacher or enough time.

------
LouisSayers
I created a Neo4j (Graph Database) course on Udemy \-
[https://www.udemy.com/neo4j-foundations/?couponCode=HACKERNE...](https://www.udemy.com/neo4j-foundations/?couponCode=HACKERNEWS)
(Please enjoy the hackernews discount!)

The course has an average rating of 4.62 and over 200 students. To date (since
end of June), it has made $1182 for me.

This was quite a learning experience - aside from putting the course content
together, I found out a lot about recording audio. I tried doing this in
Thailand and quickly learnt that I was in a very noisy environment. First
there were the echoes of the room itself which I fixed by cramming my
microphone in the cupboard in-between blankets and pillows. Then there were
the scooters, neighbours, air-conditioning, airplanes! This was a very
frustrating experience.

If you ever make a course, make sure you have a nice, quiet recording
environment!

I've also learnt that you can make a bit of money from having Udemy promote
you, but if you want to make any decent money, you have to promote yourself.

I also believe from this experience that making one online course just isn't
worth doing. If you're going to do it, you have to keep doing it. There is a
learning curve at the start, and I believe the trick to being successful is to
really work on promotion, and do up-sells to other relevant courses from your
existing student base.

~~~
rwieruch
Thanks for sharing your story!

Maybe you can give some more insights. What would you say is the ratio on "How
much Udemy helps to promote your content" and "How do you have to do yourself
to promote the content"? Did or Do (maybe they came up in the same time as
your course) you have competitors in that topic?

~~~
LouisSayers
No worries :)

There are courses on the same topic for sure. What I did was I took all the
courses out there on Neo4j myself, learnt from all of them, and then created
my course based on everything I learnt, and the pitfalls that I personally had
come across that weren't detailed in other courses.

With Udemy your revenue breaks down as follows: * Your promotions * Udemy
organic * Ad program * Affiliate program * Corporate subscriptions (if your
course makes it into this bucket)

90% of my sales so far have come from Udemy's marketing - I have put very
little effort into doing promotion myself. With some affiliates (ones Udemy
has set up), I get as little as 25% of the revenue generated - and they'll be
at heavily discounted amounts anyway - so maybe $2.50 on a $10 sale, others I
might get up to 50% of the sale.

So basically, with me doing next to nothing (apart from the odd question -
which I get hardly any of), I'm getting about $200 a month on average.

This might seem pretty good, but keep in mind this course took me a seriously
long time to build out (like 6 months, with prob half of that working full-
time on it), and I can get the equivalent of about $400+ per day contracting.

------
johnfn
My plugin for Visual Studio Code is nearing 1000 followers and 200k downloads:
[https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim](https://github.com/VSCodeVim/Vim) (Last
year it was nearly nonexistent.)

I learned a lot about managing an open source project, but probably the
biggest thing was that I learned that even something as uncontentious as a Vim
plugin can get a ton of hate online, including from Hacker News. I would hate
to be working on a more contentious and visible project.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Ha! Awesome plugin, thanks for working on it.

And don't let the haters get to you! (I know it's hard sometimes), the people
enjoying your plugin likely vastly outnumber the haters, but they are usually
making stuff, so the haters is all you see, since they're the people that have
the time to troll you online.

~~~
johnfn
Thanks! Yeah, every now and then I go around the internet looking for positive
quotes about it in order to even the balance. :)

------
jacques_chester
I wrote this answer to a similar question a few months ago:

"I'm not dead" probably ranks highly. I am sometimes cast into a tournament
against a patient, relentless salesman for death. The problem is, he knows
everything about me. Everything. Every thought, every recollection, every
secret shame, every regret. Everyone I've ever hurt, how I hurt them, how I
let them down, how I failed them.

And he can, in a moment of pain, turn all of those into an impulse that I have
to remind myself is _just a feeling_ and even while I do that he's whispering
" _is it?_ ".

Most of the time I am OK. But I know that I my emotions can just overwhelm me
so suddenly and completely that it scares me. I am still learning how to live
with me.

He'll probably make his sale in the end.

But I'm alive.

~~~
jc4p
For what it's worth, I'm very glad you're alive and thinking about this stuff
friend :) I heavily relate to that overwhelming feeling stemming from meta-
emotions.

~~~
jacques_chester
Awww. When are you coming back to NYC, Kasra?

Also: your profile text is hilariously out of date.

~~~
jc4p
I think sometime in February, I'll definitely message you before I do :) I'll
see about updating that hah

~~~
jacques_chester
No worries. I'll be in Australia for most of Feb, but fingers crossed that we
cross paths.

------
TheOneTrueKyle
Created a beer bread recipe blog in the hopes that I get big enough that
breweries will send me beer. Last month, a brewery decided to send me beers to
"play around with". Mission accomplished.

~~~
goodJobWalrus
How much beer are we talking about here? ;)

~~~
TheOneTrueKyle
Small amounts, but it's a first step! This could be a bad thing. I might get
fat.

------
pasbesoin
Casual acquaintance became a friend and almost immediately turned to me for
help with 20+ years of drug and alcohol addiction (they were an often-
functioning addict, on whom it didn't physically show).

9+ months later, they are still sober.

Unfortunately, the friendship didn't survive. They really pushed my own
boundaries, early on, but I hung in there, hoping and waiting per advice for
their circumstances and perspective to settle down.

But, while they are no longer using substances, they are still, in my now more
informed perspective, using people. Once they had other means of support, they
didn't have time for me.

Still hope it all proves to be of benefit to their kids.

As for me, things I _really_ needed to do, this year, nonetheless got placed
on hold. This may even have contributed towards negative judgment towards me
-- despite my circumstances making all the time I committed to them possible,
in the first place.

Lesson learned: Take care of yourself, first. As also observed, ultimately, in
the activity and choices of the person I was helping. They certainly took care
of themselves -- sometimes at the expense of those around them who were
willing to help.

~~~
ccvannorman
I feel compassion for your situation because I've gone through something
similar with a past relationship, and IMO your takeaways are spot on. "Take
care of yourself" \-- reminds me of a quote from an old man to his wife. "You
take care of you for me, and I'll take care of me for you." The best gift we
can offer the world is a well-cared for self.

------
dv35z
Finally learning, playing, and enjoying a sport - Squash! I have successfully
gone from just about 0 activity (aside from walking everywhere - NYC), to
playing squash 3+ times a week.

Growing up, I had never had interest (or natural ability) playing sports. Like
many here, I'd prefer tooling around on computers, reading, etc. Likely, this
became a self-fulfilling prophesy about "not being a sports person".

Well last year, after some thinking of - "if not now, when? When I'm 40?" I
went to a gym, bit the bullet, signed up, bought 10 hours of private lessons
for squash (first racquetball, but I switched immediately after trying squash
once). It is probably some of the most fun I've had in years, maybe decades.
Met so many great people, actually feeling fantastic shape for thr first time
in my life.

I'm 34, and am actually a "sports person" now. Laughing even saying it in my
head. I've used this achievement/habit also to become more of a morning person
(by deliberately scheduling games with people at 7 or 8am), and also to do
different activities at the gym (e.g. high intensity interval training group
classes; running, and even some weight-lifting). It's even propelled me to
think more about the food I'm putting into my body, cook more, etc.

If you have never heard of squash, check it out. It's intense (1000+ kcal per
hour), easy to learn, low risk of injury compared to other sports, and is
often cited as one of the healthiest sports out there. It's tons of fun (even
if you're terrible), has a nice long and rewarding learning curve, is very
strategic (the chess-like aspect of it appeals to my technical brain), and
again - just tons of fun.

A trusted technology friend passed on the advice to try it to me, so I'm
passing it on to you all! Try some squashing!

~~~
gameshot911
Out of curiosity, why do you prefer squash to racquetball? Im a social rball
player myself, never tried squash.

~~~
FLGMwt
Would love an answer also. Playing racquetball, I love how long the ball lives
and I'm iffy about starting squash with the short volley time.

Keep it up!

~~~
dv35z
A couple thoughts here:

\- squash: more control over ball placement. Since the ball is fairly "dead",
there is more time to think, and there are so many potential "moves" on where
to place the ball. I found with rball, a lot of the hits were more instinctual
reactions, rather than deliberate placement. Obviously player skill levels on
both games vary, and there are some super sniper rball players

\- the "tin". Squash has a spot on the front wall which you cannot hit. This
is a bit of the secret sauce for squash, as it prevents some of the rball
instant kill shots.

\- moving towards the ball, rather than ball to you: in squash, you really
need to read where the ball is going, and get yourself there. Since the ball
is barely bouncy, its not coming back over to you easily. This requires you to
move a lot around the court - lots of soccer-like movements, quick sprints,
deep lunges & reaches, side movements, etc

\- volley-time: you'd be surprised how long they can go! But you're right, its
usually shorter. For evenly matched opponent, I generally have really good
long intense ralleys, where its feels like a fight to the end - tons of fun.

Other thoughts:

\- squash is pretty international (uk, india, france, egypt, colombia, etc)
whereas rball is fairly usa-centric

\- rball has been reducing in popularity, whereas squash has been increasing.
Shouldn't matter too much, but for example in NYC, I found it harder to find
rball players (most were older people; courts often un-used); meanwhile, the
squash courts were always popping - people of all ages (even kids). Also, I
found the rball courts were older and lesser maintained, whereas (many, not
all) of the squash courts seem to have been recently renovated. E.g Equinox in
NYC has 5 really nice glass squash courts.

I do think both of the sports are tons of fun. Each has their own personality.
The instructor I learned from teaches rball and squash. He started with rball
- competed nationally, and till plays it - but fell in love with squash as his
true love, and only does squash competitively now. Anecdata... give it a try,
and give it some time. Took me a few sessions before I really just got hooked,
then it was just magic. Best of luck!

------
afarrell
I wrote a step-by-step tutorial on SaltStack. In the process, I worked through
my psychological hang-ups with writing. For as long as I can remember, writing
has always made me feel just this terrible anxiety. It made me want to dig my
nails into my skin. Throughout high school and university, had come to view
writing as this mysterious process. From literary essays to hypothetical
military campaign net assessments to design documents to historical arguments,
it seemed that I was never able to write anything (other than internet
comments) without at least a minor emotional meltdown. As someone who deeply
cares about developer experience and good documentation, As someone who
believes in the power of well-written text to convey ideas that meaningfully
change people's lives--I was ashamed and frustrated and hated myself.

But I had set out at the end of last year to write this tutorial. In starting
a task that wasn't assigned to me by someone else, I could control and
understand so much more about it: who the audience was, what its scope was,
and what even was its point? I had enough of an understanding of the subject
that I could grapple with and explain it. I was able to break it down and
start to approach it as just...

work.

It worked.

I got into the habit of approaching it like I approached writing code: just a
matter of structuring ideas and reflecting on whether they were understandable
to people. At the end, I had a working running product that someone could read
and follow and learn from.

~~~
jhanschoo
I used to have similar hang-ups about writing as well. I'm pretty sure that
that stemmed from inadequate instruction about genres of writing and the
purpose of writing in my education.

Where education teaches writing to pass a language exam, the purpose often
seems to be about showing that "i am very smart" by using obscure words to
communicate a pseudo-argument. What I didn't learn was that writing was about
conveying information to an audience, and that the audience and the topic
determined the primary requirements.

~~~
afarrell
Yea, I think part of my hangup came from not being able to pursuade folks to
answer me when I asked "why are we doing this? What is our goal?". It turns
out in real life, people appreciate that question a lot more because it keeps
FTE time from being ill-spent.

------
rsoto
After a rough first year when nobody wanted or saw potential on my product, my
SaaS ([http://boxfactura.com](http://boxfactura.com)) is profitable, healthy
and we have high hopes for 2017.

I learned the hard way to stop focusing on liking everybody, and making better
business decisions, especially regarding partners. I have a marketing
background, and I knew that saying that «code is easy, marketing is hard», but
I didn't know how hard. However, it has been a blast!

Also, this december we open sourced and launched a pull to refresh library[0],
which has been a great success!

0:
[https://github.com/BoxFactura/pulltorefresh.js](https://github.com/BoxFactura/pulltorefresh.js)

------
taxidriver2017
Screenwriting. Finally tried my hand, persevered and finished a spec pilot. I
thought it was passable. More crucially, that feeling of writing "Fade Out" at
the close of my first draft was indescribably joyous. Triumphal. "I can do
this" was my mantra. And with full confidence I submitted it to a review
process by industry professionals. Believing they would instantly go gaga over
it and I'd have an agent shopping it around Hollywood within days.

They massacred it. I don't think anyone got past page 9. The feeling was worse
than being told "Sorry, but I just don't love you in that way," after putting
all your heart and soul on the line.

But the remorse lasted only an instant. I put that piece of refuse in a drawer
for later re-working. Then immediately finished another longer pilot.
Incorporating a very obvious yet fundamental change in attitude from "they
just will never understand my genius" to "how can I effectively tell this
story in the most economical yet artful way so that anyone can relate to it?"
The response this time around was much more positive. "Awesome." "Would watch
this." The spark had started a flame.

And so in just over four weeks I committed myself without reservation and
finished my first full length feature (100pg). The result: through a small
cohort of fellow writers I met via stage32 I will now be collaborating on a
paid gig for a webseries that starts shooting soon!

What I learned: respect for the process and the craft. Telling a story well
(and especially visually) is so much harder than it appears. Heed the advice
of your elders and those with experience. And write. Every. Single. Day.
Without excuses ;)

I'd wager a sizeable portion of HN possess the desire or idea for a
screenplay. We need more accurate portrayals of the hacker ethos in media. As
well as sci-fi with some actual science in it. So I highly recommend facing
your fear of the blank page because if nothing else, the effort will make you
a better writer, and perhaps a better person.

To get inspired start by reading great scripts:

[https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/](https://gointothestory.blcklst.com/)

~~~
andrei_says_
The other day I picked up Ray Bradbury's The Zen of Writing from my bookcase
and opened it on a random page.

And happened upon a chapter where he shared how he would write 1000 words a
day no matter what.

------
chewxy
I bit the bullet and released Gorgonia
([https://github.com/chewxy/gorgonia](https://github.com/chewxy/gorgonia)) to
the wild. I braced for harsh critiques but it turns out releasing open source
software is like running a startup: 90% of the time, nobody cares. Nobody uses
it.

~~~
omnimus
Sounds so sad! Dont worry it takes time. You hit a break and you will have
more users than you will be able to manage.

~~~
chewxy
Nah I'm not fussed nobody uses my library. I'm a lot more worried about not
being able to find customers who are willng to pay.

------
gravypod
Helped teach the entry level class for CS at my university (again) with
majority of the students scoring in the top 10% of everyone taking the course.
My students were only beat out by the honors sections of which the margines
were slim.

I had a 26 student class. 9 studens got below a 90% on the final, I think 1 or
2 got below an 80.

I'm also going to stop being a TA this semester. I think I've been a big help
to the students but I got offered a position to do real software development
at the university. The pay is going to be crappy but it's ham-radio related so
it'll be fun.

Teaching students let me actually teach myself better. I found that after
breaking stuff down to explain it to my students I better understood it
myself.

~~~
enzanki_ars
Out of curiosity, and if you are allowed to, could you elaborate on this ham-
radio related project you are working on? I am genuinely curious about what a
university might be interested in coding for a ham-radio.

~~~
gravypod
It's going to involve RBN and then physics that go over my head.

I'm just a ham, the people who I'm working for are the more Marconi-esq people
doing something important. It is going to involve the total solar eclipse QSO
party so I'll see you on the air during that (if you're in the USA)!

------
sagivo
I gave away $2M. I know it doesn't sound like an accomplishment but i worked
at a place that I really didn't like. I decided to quit my job and not chasing
after my unvested shares. Still not sure what to do next but at least I know
that money doesn't worth my happiness.

~~~
taway_1212
Whoa. How many years would you need to work to unlock that money?

------
andersthue
Turning my consultancy (with 3 employees) from being on a slow ramp to
bankruptcy to making a nice profit in the last months of the year.

I the process I embraced the fact that I am much better at sales than at
programming, I even learned to love to do cold canvas calling!

~~~
wasd
Do you have any suggestions for resources for someone also looking to do cold
canvas calling?

~~~
andersthue
What I did was (not intended) becoming friends with a extremely proficient
meeting booker, and through a lot of talks and some coaching he learned me his
brilliant techniques.

That is half of it, the rest is understanding (yourself and) people,
psychology and being a balanced person.

Feel free to mail me for tips and tricks :)

------
matallo
I ran an ultramarathon (64 miles).

During this time of the year last year I was at a very stressful period at
work changing to a new leadership role. I started working out more seriously,
and signed up for a half-marathon, that I completed successfully (I had been
running occasionally on my own, previously).

As the rewards of physical exercise were kind of immediate and didn't depend
on external factors but myself it motivated me to put together a training
schedule, and set the goal of finishing an ultra, inspired by some friends. I
didn't communicate it to many people but just a few close friends. It was an
endurance challenge, and I am very happy to have it accomplished.

Also, my performance review improved.

~~~
farm_code
Great. Maybe I should take running seriously. I am trying to run half marathon
for the last year. Hope this year I'll do it.

------
tpae
Quitting cigarettes. Exactly 1 year ago, I decided to quit. Best decision I've
ever made.

~~~
tomashertus
Keep up with that man! On Jan 9 it will be 3 years since I stopped and I have
never felt better!

------
danielhooper
I landed a great job as an iOS developer at a great startup in Toronto.

I accomplished this by building a unique iOS game that uses animated gifs for
jigsaw puzzles. I wrote the app several times, and after giving it enough
time, I was able to incorporate functional and generic programming concepts to
reduce my code down to less than 1,000 lines.

I also ditched my resume because I didn't have substantial previous experience
developing software (just 3 months) nor a degree of any sort. I just took
videos of all my apps and put them up on a dead simple github pages site:
[https://danielhhooper.github.io](https://danielhhooper.github.io)

I interviewed and accepted an offer the following week.

~~~
frostbytes
Hey I really need some help I am in a similar situation and was wondering if I
can get some advice on getting a job. I just have questions regarding what to
put on my portfolio page like you did, and also what was the interview like?
What sort of questions did they ask.

~~~
danielhooper
Hey! Email me at danielhhooper @ gmail dot com I would be glad to help you.

------
msoloviev
I released a fairly major project (a research-oriented workbench for graph
manipulation) in a state of comparitive usability:
[https://github.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions](https://github.com/blackhole89/graphicdepictions)

The main takeaway for me was that, unless you can tap into a preexisting pool
of demand, grabbing people's attention is as hard and effort-consuming, if not
more so, than actually solving a problem. One-on-one, I always had an easy
time convincing people I knew that the program is useful for them, but simply
throwing it out there and hoping someone would notice it was unexpectedly
fruitless.

~~~
Noxchi
I am working on a networking algorithm and think this would be useful for
testing and visualizing algorithms. But I had to look into the source and then
the screenshots folder to figure out what this actually did.

You just have to develop some skills on how to better communicate your work to
people. Everyone has this problem unless they develop the skills. Here's some
things you should work on for promoting this project:

\- User brainstorming. What kinds of people would find this tool helpful. I'll
start off your list with 'anyone doing node algorithms, e.g. mesh networking,
video game AI'

\- Googlefu. Find these users across the web using Google's special operators.
Note what kind of sites and communities they are a part of.

\- Community reachout. Go to those communities and figure out how to
communicate. If it's a blog or content site, could be as simple as leaving
comments to more involved like writing posts.

~~~
msoloviev
Well, there's a README.md (that includes the screenshots) that Github displays
under the repository listing, but I suppose there are sufficiently many files
in the repository that not everyone would automatically be inclined to even
scroll far enough down...

Visualising algorithms is an interesting angle I have largely neglected so
far, since it's pretty different from the purpose I originally built the
program for. I could try adding some more examples in the spirit of the
sandpile model from the animated GIF, like pathfinding or selfish routing.
Thanks for the suggestion!

------
buf
I quit my job to spend more time with my family.

This was very difficult for me. I love working, but I'd been doing startups
for a little more than a decade, and startups require lots of attention. When
I had my first child 2 years ago, I thought I could do both. I was wrong.

My family and I moved to the wife's home country where it is very cheap and
I'm spending 6 months just being "dad." In my downtime, I'm working on some
residual income side projects (I've already got one going that brings in $2k a
month).

It's an inflection point in my life. Truly unknown future. When I go back to
the workforce, what lies ahead?

PS - I also lost 8kg. :)

~~~
daheza
Thinking about doing the same myself. I've realized I am just not happy in
this job with my current company.

Was it difficult to work on the side products without a set schedule like a
full time job provides?

~~~
buf
There was about a week of total chaos, but once I got my home office setup, it
was like I was back on the saddle.

Having a kid also provides a set schedule - nap time, play time, etc. Those
typically happen at the same time every day.

------
funkyy
Closing all my loose tights, burning all bridges, finishing my toxic
relationship, putting my startup into the grave, moving countries, finding my
second half, traveling around Europe, settling down finally to start a new
life and a new project in January.

~~~
nojvek
Sounds like a great reset. Congrats (wo)man

------
Lerc
Honestly, Making it to the end. 2016 had been a rough year all round for
people as well as for me personally.

Technically speaking I learned a few things, like Ray marching and distance
field stuff, but nothing much I can point to and say "I did that."

I'm still here though, I made a few friends, I made and drunk some cider.

If I am on a good enough footing to make 2017 better, I'll take that.

------
rwieruch
To learn and teach React and Redux were my greatest accomplishments in 2016.

Very late in 2015 I started to learn React. I did a lot of JavaScript before,
read a lot about React, but never used it before. Early in 2016 I wrote my
first application in React and Redux - a SoundCloud Client (source:
[https://github.com/rwieruch/favesound-
redux](https://github.com/rwieruch/favesound-redux) , live:
[http://www.favesound.de](http://www.favesound.de)).

I wanted to share the joy of learning, the joy of applying the learnings, the
joy of building an own application. That's why I started to write about it
([http://www.robinwieruch.de/the-soundcloud-client-in-react-
re...](http://www.robinwieruch.de/the-soundcloud-client-in-react-redux/)).

I didn't expect the enormous positive feedback. I continued to share my
learnings. Eventually I found myself in the position to teach a bit about
React and its ecosystem on my website.

Finally I wrote an eBook: The Road to learn React
([http://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-
react/](http://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-react/)). Again the
feedback of the community was overwhelming. In the end I very much hope that
it helps people to get started in React like I did. At this moment I improve
the material whenever I can.

Besides of programming, I learned a lot about writing and teaching itself
during the process. Still I try to improve my skills by reading books like "On
Writing Well" by William Zinsser.

~~~
acemarke
Yep, ditto. I went from learning about React and Redux myself, to trying to
share what I've learned, to actually being something of an expert on them.
(The fact that some people actually want to know what I have to say is still
_really_ amusing to me :) )

I've spent the last year+ hanging out in the Reactiflux chat rooms, and
apparently have consistently been the top contributor by message volume every
month - and not by small margins, either ([0]). At a conservative estimate of
3 people helped a night, that's somewhere over 1000 people I've helped there,
which is pretty cool.

In March-ish, I created a links list for tutorials, articles, and other
resources related to React and Redux ([1]). I've continued to add links on a
weekly basis, and that list recently hit 5500 stars. I've also maintained a
Redux addons catalog ([2]), which just hit 1500 stars.

I wrote two major sections for the Redux docs: the FAQ page ([3]), and the
"Structuring Reducers" how-to/recipe section ([4]). Those have been very well
received. As a result, Dan Abramov added me as a contributor to the Redux
repo, and eventually handed the keys to me and Tim Dorr as the official
maintainers. I also helped offer advice and critiques for Jim Bolla as he
built the new React-Redux v5 implementation ([5])

Finally, I started up a dev blog, where I've been writing about use of React
and Redux ([6]). In particular, I've been writing a tutorial series called
"Practical Redux" ([7]), which is intended to demonstrate some useful
techniques I've come up with in the context of a sample app that's _not_ yet
another TodoMVC clone :) I also wrote a recap of how I got involved in Redux
in the first place ([8]).

So yeah, it's been a pretty crazy last year, but I love being able to help
people learn how to use React and Redux.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/reactiflux/status/743880425576103936](https://twitter.com/reactiflux/status/743880425576103936)

[1] [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-
links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links)

[2] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-
links](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem-links)

[3] [http://redux.js.org/docs/FAQ.html](http://redux.js.org/docs/FAQ.html)

[4]
[http://redux.js.org/docs/recipes/StructuringReducers.html](http://redux.js.org/docs/recipes/StructuringReducers.html)

[5] [https://github.com/reactjs/react-
redux/pull/416](https://github.com/reactjs/react-redux/pull/416)

[6] [http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/](http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/)

[7] [http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/practical-
redux](http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/series/practical-redux)

[8] [http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2016/09/how-i-got-here-
my-j...](http://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2016/09/how-i-got-here-my-journey-
into-the-world-of-redux-and-open-source/)

------
soulchild37
Wrote a web scrapper backend and mobile app as frontend to scrap my university
online portal to check if any lecturer announced class replacement /
cancellation and send notification to the mobile app if there is any class
replacement/cancellation. The original goal is because of laziness to check
the online portal. I have learnt Ruby, Rails, Linux server setup, Nginx
configuration and iOS (Objective-C) from scratch during the development.

The app spread in the campus with word of mouth and gained 2000 monthly active
users in the first two months. University found out and sent me a cease and
desist letter and then later implement recaptcha on their online portal login
form.

Thanks to this app I managed to get a decent paying job as an iOS developer.
Kinda wild ride

~~~
ireadfaces
Haha.. same old story, every time you write a scraper, they hit back with
captcha. :)

------
nhorob67
Launched a bootstrapped farm management software product in June
([https://www.harvestprofit.com](https://www.harvestprofit.com)).

Recently eclipsed $100k in ARR as a solopreneur. Goal is $1 million in 2017
and to hire a full-time dev and a couple support staff.

My biggest lesson is that email marketing is the real deal.

~~~
JamesBarney
Did you have farming experience before launching this app? How'd you come up
with the idea?

------
elihu
I made an electronic musical instrument:

[http://jsnow.bootlegether.net/jik/keyboard.html](http://jsnow.bootlegether.net/jik/keyboard.html)

I've done a lot of regular programming and some basic electronics, but never a
project that involved getting a microcontroller to talk to a bunch of ICs. So,
I learned a lot about how electronic components don't necessarily behave the
way I expect them to. I also learned a lot about what can be done by using
MIDI in ways it wasn't meant to be used.

~~~
mutagen
That's an amazingly unique project that now has my wheels spinning for 2017!

~~~
elihu
Thanks; any details you want to share about what you'd like to build?

------
sufyanadam
I made service that allows anyone with a domain to create their own private
email server in less than 10 minutes:
[https://sealmail.net/](https://sealmail.net/)

Using Postfix, Dovecot and PostgreSQL, you can read your mail securely via
IMAPS on your phone and your desktop mail client. If your account gets hacked,
you can just SSH into the server and reset your password yourself. No more
getting locked out of your email account in an endless GMail password reset
loop
([https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/HjW2Pj5...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/HjW2Pj5Jqq4))

~~~
sufyanadam
Forgot the 'learn' part of it. Well here it is:

Where there's a will there's a way. I kept getting stuck at different points
trying to automate things. I kept persevering because I figure anything a
human can tell a machine to do, it should be able to do it by itself somehow.
I managed to jump over all the roadblocks and achieve a reliable way to
recreate a mail server (which is a real pain) altogether with SSL certificates
included.

~~~
sufyanadam
I see some people giving it a try; thank you!

If you have any trouble please email me with feedback at the email listed on
the homepage.

People don't seem to make it past the DNS records though. Don't know if it's
because they just looking around or they're having trouble. The DNS A record
at a minimum is needed for SSL certs to be installed correctly. Even google
hasn't been able to automate that part away :)

------
joshcanhelp
Sold a company.

I learned A LOT in the process, main one being that you should keep meticulous
and separate records for anything that has the chance of being spun off. The
company I sold grew out of my freelancing but was separate with a separate
name. Unwiring the financials as well as the logins and everything else was a
headache. It also looks better to your buyer if you can quickly produce
accurate records on sales. I had to back-track and re-calculate several times,
leading to more back-and-forth than was necessary.

~~~
coldshower
Similarly, I sold the IP of a game I developed: [http://tinyurl.com/sale-of-
ip](http://tinyurl.com/sale-of-ip)

It was hard to let go, but had to because of personal debt. A bit more
backstory here: [http://us2.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=bc7fdf29a4610b493fd5b278...](http://us2.campaign-
archive2.com/?u=bc7fdf29a4610b493fd5b2783&id=e78b9fe2c4)

------
agumonkey
\- Finally cracking the partition function (with a tiny bitsy hint tbh)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(number_theory)#Part...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_\(number_theory\)#Partition_function)

\- Understanding prolog/non determinism.

ps: I hope you all can enjoy prolog extreme beauty and concision one day if
not the case already. It's not at all perfect but so tiny yet so grand.

------
doh
Many great stories here already.

Mine biggest accomplishment (probably of my life) was turning our almost
bankrupted company into profit just in 4 short months [0].

I learned many great things, but the most important lesson is that if you
treat your employees with respect and you don't hide things from them, they
will stick around and help you to push through. Without them, I would have
nothing today.

[0] [https://medium.com/@synopsi/from-near-bankruptcy-to-
profitab...](https://medium.com/@synopsi/from-near-bankruptcy-to-
profitability-in-4-months-f1433cac92e6#.2yeag4yvv)

------
mrlyc
I learned that putting more pressure on myself wasn't working, that there
isn't a linear relationship between pressure and results. Instead, there is
what I call a sweet spot, beyond which more pressure decreases results instead
of increasing them.

~~~
ccvannorman
This. Elon Musk is quoted (?) as saying "If you work 100 hours while others
work 40 per week, you can do in 3 months what they do in a year." But the
truth is that overwork leads to unproductive work, burnout, and loss of
passion.

I'm definitely most effective when I'm _happy_. If I overwork myself, I
quickly get into a negative feedback loop of "never being caught up and
satisfied with work."

I learned to internalize the idea of keeping myself happy (stable work/life)
first, as in the long run this is the most effective situation.

------
jefflinwood
Finished a multiple-year quest to complete a marathon or longer distance in
all 50 US states by finishing in Hawaii in January.

Oddly enough, what I learned is that the type of shape I was in to run/walk a
marathon slowly on back-to-back weekends (or even back-to-back days) was
actually not all that great.

I switched my exercise focus to building up muscle mass, and getting faster at
shorter running distances, and started running with some free running groups
in Austin. Much faster now, and in much better shape. I was able to drop 55
pounds (210->155) and keep it off.

------
KittiHawk
I finally went on the round-the-world backpacking trip I've been dreaming
about since I was a kid watching National Geographic. It was surreal, hard,
beautiful, smelly, and everything I ever hoped it would be.

Growing up poor and growing into a lot of family responsibility made me think
it was never going to happen for me, but I made it happen, and now I feel
freer even in my day-to-day life.

~~~
young_man
welcome to china

------
atarian
Creating a budget and sticking to it.

Although it sounds like a burden, it actually freed me from a lot of stress. I
broke out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, allowing me to invest and even
set up emergency funds that helped pay off an auto accident I got into.

Most importantly though, I've gained a lot of self-confidence. If I got fired
or laid off today, the last thing I'd have to worry about is paying my bills
because I'm prepared to handle this scenario. So I've started making more bold
decisions at work like saying "no" to overtime or responsibilities I don't
want to take on, which has further improved my quality of life.

I can't recommend budgeting enough.

~~~
afarrell
I've tried to do this for years but never been able to figure out how it works
in practice. My wife and I have settled on just looking at our accounts every
week and seeing that we have enough buffer, but I really feel like there is
some skill that is missing.

~~~
nikkisnow
It wasn't until I really grokked YNAB's methodology[1] that I got out of the
paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, saved up for an emergency fund, and begun
seriously paying off school loans. Their 4 rules and their app have changed my
financial life. Like atarian said, having a budget really does free you.

[1]:
[https://www.youneedabudget.com/method/](https://www.youneedabudget.com/method/)

~~~
afarrell
I don't know if I have ever really lived paycheque to paycheque though. I've
pretty much always been in the situation where I was able to cover a surprise
$500 expense. My level of spare cash has fluctuated pretty wildly from $500 to
$3,000 though and my long-term savings should be higher.

------
underyx
Pretty small fish compared to everyone else in the thread, but outside of
work, I'm pretty happy I published my first actually useful open source
project: [https://github.com/underyx/structlog-
pretty](https://github.com/underyx/structlog-pretty)

~~~
nojvek
Congrats mate. My first github.com project made me very proud

------
faitswulff
Built a (Rails) platform for discussing research with my cofounder:
[https://www.projectcredo.com](https://www.projectcredo.com)

Example: [https://www.projectcredo.com/wsf246/the-best-research-on-
ant...](https://www.projectcredo.com/wsf246/the-best-research-on-
anthropogenic-climate-change)

Source:
[https://github.com/projectcredo/projectcredo/](https://github.com/projectcredo/projectcredo/)

To be honest, it's the first notable project that I've shipped.

I learned that I have a lot to learn, even if I'm comfortable with the stack.
It's interesting balancing the migration between what we know _right now_ and
where we want to be. For instance, jQuery -> Vue -> SPA (?) + API.

We're also learning Docker, testing (frontend and backend, and CI /
deployment. We've got a long ways to go, but I think if we're patient, we can
figure out a solid foundation.

------
mkoryak
I built Webpack:

[https://files.slack.com/files-
pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K6MSVEW/burst_...](https://files.slack.com/files-
pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K6MSVEW/burst_cover_gif_action_20161223173920.gif)

[https://files.slack.com/files-
pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K4N0W3V/burst_...](https://files.slack.com/files-
pri/T02U0A0AE-F3K4N0W3V/burst_cover_gif_action_20161221182007.gif)

(not to be confused with build tool with similar spelling)

~~~
samtho
Those files you linked to are not public.

------
kelsyde
I climbed Kilimanjaro and got selected to JavaOne as speaker!

The climbing experience was richer than I thought:

\- Full trust and obey my guide, Alex is a great guide.

\- Planning and equipment are the key for success.

JavaOne experience:

\- Presentation skills

\- Great network of contacts

\- Tons of knowledge

------
kapv89
\- Built and released an ORM
[https://github.com/fractaltech/tabel](https://github.com/fractaltech/tabel)

\- Became an expert at node.js, postgres, react, and react-native

\- One of my open source libs hit 1500+ monthly downloads on npm

\- Built a product
[http://flowapp.fractaltech.in/](http://flowapp.fractaltech.in/)

\- Managed to score 2 customers for the product

\- Developed basic understanding of machine-learning

------
NicoJuicy
Had the 2nd largest Pokémon Go group in Belgium and did paid events with it in
theme parks ( we were the first ones that did it)

Launched my first webshop ( which is actually quite fun) in a niche ( 500 € /
month profits), which is nice.

Otherwhise, work overload made me quite agitated on the end of the year. But
i'll get through it.

------
gcatalfamo
Getting married and getting my PhD in the span of 30 days!

~~~
jeffwass
Hear hear! Congratulations and well done!

I also did the same thing several years ago (defended my PhD thesis and got
married within the same month), and it was insanely harder than it looks. I
don't recommend anybody go through the dual stresses of writing their
dissertation while simultaneously planning a wedding.

------
marcofloriano
Running a small online business with profit at Brazil in the middle of our
worst economic crisis ever

------
jboggan
Started my "dream job" at Google in January and fought through a very steep
learning curve towards being a fullstack engineer there. I learned our team's
frontend in AngularJS (despite no frontend experience nor any idea how
_different_ JS is written inside of Google), webserver in Java, backend in C++
and data pipeline in Go (with tangential previous experience in JS & Java and
none in the other two). Add on that the myriad configuration languages and
SQL-ish dialects and tools and it has been a pretty heavy year all around, I'm
glad I'm still standing.

~~~
jensvdh
As someone applying for a front-end position and made it all the way to the
on-site, doing the on-site interview soon. Can you explain to me what you mean
with js being "so different" inside of Google?

Also that sounds like you learned A LOT. How does that affect your work/life
balance?

~~~
jboggan
None of this will show up in your interview, but:

\- Strongly typed everything. I get it now, I really do, but I was resistant
to compiled and strongly typed Javascript at first and didn't like writing
JSDOCs all the time, I'd say 30-40% of my development / code review time came
from those issues. \- goog.struct.* instead of <normal JS way on
StackOverflow>. There are a ton of internal libraries that improve on basic JS
objects and have different APIs than the standard library. So you get used to
using the internal version of Map/Array/Set etc., plus a lot of binding, etc.
Basically the whole "Stack Overflow the question and adapt the answer"
strategy doesn't work quite as well inside here. There's also a fragmentation
of front end frameworks, so there isn't a lot of deep documentation or
examples in any given framework. \- Readability. Once you've gotten code
review from your team members someone with "readability" has to approve your
code as conforming to the Google style guide. If no one on your team has
readability in the language you are working in (which happens) then you get
bogged down in lengthy back and forths which can be stressful when you're
under shipping deadlines. Definitely one of my least favorite parts since I
prefer to hack a solution together and refine it afterwards.

The interview process is really bad at getting front end engineers, in my
opinion. I think the best way to get hired as a front end engineer is to be
really good at algorithms and data structures. I was essentially a data
engineer on my last 3 jobs and picked all of the front end stuff up on the
fly. It would have been much easier if I had known any framework before I came
here and hit the ground running.

I think it was a lot to learn but it seems to be expected around here.
Work/life balance has been a big struggle with me this year, the perks are
insane and it makes it really easy to stay late. I think if you really want to
get ahead and climb the ladder at Google you'd better be young, single, and
unattached.

Best of luck on your interview, it's a wonderful and strange place.

~~~
jensvdh
Thanks for your answers! My recruiter told me the front-end engineering
interview is a bit different and would also focus on HTML/CSS. I guess it's
still going to be algorithm heavy hm?

But yes, focusing really heavily on algorithms. I still have a couple of weeks
to work my way through "Cracking the Code interview". Practicing a few hours a
day on my whiteboard! :)

------
egonschiele
I published a book, and I've read 171 books so far this year. I think all the
reading has made me more confident in daily life. A nice side effect of the
confidence is I'm more okay with making mistakes.

~~~
costcopizza
Any book (or 3!) in particular out of the 171 that had the most impact?

~~~
egonschiele
The best book hands down was "Evicted", and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I actually wrote a blog post about my favorite books, I feel like HN folks
would like the "math" and "relevant today" sections:

[http://adit.io/posts/2016-12-10-The-Best-Books-I-Read-
In-201...](http://adit.io/posts/2016-12-10-The-Best-Books-I-Read-In-2016.html)

------
nickthemagicman
Finally followed my dreams of leaving my home state. So I quit my corporate
job that I hated, left Louisiana and moved to California taking a epic road
trip across country in the process, then arrived and got more or less the job
of my dreams a couple months later. Been a pretty interesting ride so far out
here.

~~~
ireadfaces
How were the months in between you reached California and got a job. I am in
one same phase except changing the state. How did you pau for expenses?

~~~
nickthemagicman
Depends on your need for creature comforts. I am ok with alternative living
situations like crashing on couches, tents, and in the back of my car. I have
kind of a no debt policy and my bills were almost zero without rent so my
savings went a really long way. :) Get a gym for showers. No one ever said
adventures were supposed to be comfortable! Life is too short to be trapped by
materialism!

------
euyyn
Professionally speaking, the 1.0 release of gRPC for ObjC. I think I learnt to
be less conservative to offer public API surface. The porcelain / plumbing
approach of Git looks like a good architecture to try.

Personally, I became a homeowner. Some learning! But I don't want to spoil the
fun for anybody.

------
escapecharacter
Realizing that I couldn't have a day job + a real passionate side project.
Quit that day job, realized while contracting that I was probably
undercharging for compensation, and currently bootstrapping that side project
into a startup. Wish me luck, etc.

------
csbartus
One of my websites was featured in brutalistwebsites.com Quite a big surprise
since I'm a self taught designer.

What I've learnt is to avoid the hype and trust your gut. Don't go with the
flow, the 99%, you'll get nowhere.

The content of that website is something very meta and I'm writing it since
2006. I thought only robots will read it. This makes me think secondary values
are more important than the day job you do and think is the most important.

~~~
omnimus
Never thought there are real designers on hn. What was the site?

------
jonnycoder
I went from an 11 to 6 handicap in golf, which took a lot of practice,
patience, research and self improvement. Golf is one of those games that you
cannot easily double your improvement without the strong will to improve. It
also requires focus and improvement is several areas at once to post good
score. Having a good fundamental full swing is necessary for hitting tee and
approach shots in regulation (36 total shots), but putting makes up 50% of for
remaining shots in regulation (2 putts per hole = 36 total). Putting
improvement is the easiest for high handicap players who 3 and 4 putt a lot,
but obviously shows diminishing returns for better players. Therefore short
game was critical for improving given I don't hit all greens in regulation and
must make "up and down" with a 1-putt to make a lot more pars. For 2017, I
look to better track my strokes gained statistics which will tell me specific
areas to practice on. The HN crowd may find strokes gained stats interesting.
[http://www.pgatour.com/stats/academicdata/shotlink.html](http://www.pgatour.com/stats/academicdata/shotlink.html)

------
pyromine
I regained my intellectual curiosity.

Since then I've taken up personal projects again (like a set of interactive
economic model solvers for students), and really gotten to love the process of
learning again.

I've also finally truly figured out what field I want to get in to, while it
won't be easy to break in to quantitative in finance it at least gives me a
direction to take my studies and an end goal of where I'm aiming to be soon.

------
ccvannorman
I turned mathbreakers.com (a download game) into supermathworld.com (an online
game), with the added bonus of making our internal game building tools a part
of the software.

I learned that it's difficult to sail across the pacific in a rowboat.
Meaning, even though your startup aspirations may be wild, it's important to
have the right timing and right team to move forwards -- going with blind
energy leads to waste and burnout.

------
garysieling
I've tinkered with side projects for a long time, but I finally finished one
to the point where people can use it.

This is a search engine for lectures; one of the great things is this is
something my family can understand and use.

[http://www.findlectures.com](http://www.findlectures.com)

I've been really happy with the response so far (The Next Web & Lifehacker
wrote nice articles about this)

------
elkos
Being part of a team that built the 1st open hardware satellite that also
happens to be the 1st satellite made in Greece
([https://upsat.gr](https://upsat.gr))

I learned that through hard and passionate work we managed to create something
that seemed impossible to do in a country like Greece. Seems like it's not.

Now with a March 16th launch date we will be launching on ISS.

------
Donmario
A big one for me was to finally put a product out that I've created
[http://www.curie.me/](http://www.curie.me/).

I never was able to finish anything. With Curie it's also an important one for
me, and probably because of that I was so determinated do finish it. One of
the biggest reasons was that I knew that the product could help other prevent
having the same back problems as I had.

I worked on Curie with 3 other co-founders for nearly 1,5 years now after
hours, but we never had the energy or time to get it done. Because I was
feeling that my teammates didn't put so much effort in it I finally decided
after a couple of month trying to motivate them to let them go. As you can
imagine it was really hard to do that, and I felt in a kind of depression
about that I knew I needed to be make Curie happen.

Now it's in open beta and soon we'll be launching a chrome extension.

------
ge96
I don't know about greatest accomplishment.

I'm still alive and I think this year I would have made $1,000.00 at most as a
freelance web developer. I should add I was working full time as a factory
worker for a bit(for the most part till I became unemployed again).

I was working at a factory. Maybe if I'm lucky I get hired at a tech position.

------
zazpowered
I launched a site which I think I will work on for at least a few years:
[https://senzu.io/](https://senzu.io/)

~~~
laxd
Looks like a great project. With best of intentions, I just want to say that I
liked the style (maybe just the fonts) better before enabling javascript.
Seemed cleaner and more professional/credible.

~~~
zazpowered
That's good feedback. Are you just not a fan of the font? What do you think is
wrong with it

~~~
laxd
I think it's the ratio of font to non-font on my screen becoming too high,
looking messy. Or too much text looking too important. Anyway, the effect is
exaggerated on my rather big screen with rather low resolution (22"
1680x1050). Looking again on a 15" 1920x1080 ... I actually prefer the
webfont. Consider my criticism withdrawn.

------
techbubble
Launched the public beta for WhenHub
[https://www.whenhub.com](https://www.whenhub.com) and mobile app. It's a SAAS
app that lets you tell stories with time. You create a rich-media schedule of
events and then embed it as a visualization on web or FB where it can be
viewed, then optionally time-shifted and added to calendar. The mobile app
uses geostreaming to answer the question "when will each person arrive" for
any scenario where multiple people are meeting up.

It has been an interesting journey grappling with creating a responsive,
embeddable, interactive JS player on front-end while dealing with the
idiosyncracies of iCal and Google calendar synch on the backend.

I learned how to work well with a distributed remote team and get a product
released.

------
zeveb
I honestly don't know, which means I need to journal more.

… I started to keep a paper journal this year. Maybe _that_ is my greatest
accomplishment?

------
contingencies
Started a company from concept stage on a minimal budget, achieved functional
UX walkthrough, team build-out, office space acquisition and fit-out, lots of
research, multiple hardware iterations, multiple hardware prototype
iterations, acquired multiple interested investors willing to commit funds
exceeding total capital investment to date.

Learned mostly in the areas of mechanical engineering, robotics,
manufacturing, materials science, product design, Solidworks. Refreshed
electronics knowledge.

Oh yeah, and quit smoking a couple of times ;)

~~~
nojvek
That sounds very interesting. Care to share what you're working on?

~~~
contingencies
[http://8-food.com/](http://8-food.com/) \- network of wholly owned, automated
food preparation and retail service locations. Basically, robot chefs inside
vending machines initially targeted at mainland China that produce custom food
from fresh ingredients, the logistical system behind it and customer
experience in front.

PS. I really liked your "VR Meditation app" idea, maybe a little ahead of its
time but I am sure that it would work well with those brainwave sensor things
that keep almost coming out...

~~~
nojvek
This awesome. I've always wanted smarter vending machines. I would really love
to stay in china for a couple of months and work on a hardware startup.

------
mcjiggerlog
I built my first major side project / application -
[https://www.artpip.com/](https://www.artpip.com/). It's a free app for
setting fine art as your desktop background.

It was a real culmination of what I've leart over the last few years and it
was satisfying to actually produce and ship a finished product. I also leart A
LOT about the world of art during the process which has been amazing. The
feedback I've had from users has made it all worth it.

~~~
wonderwonder
Really nice concept

------
jventura
After quitting a job with a lot of commute time in it, and having failed to
monetize a side project, I finally landed a teaching position on a local
technical university.

I always loved learning and teaching, and a side effect of this is that now
I've regained the curiosity I always had about the fundamentals of our
industry (I've a CS PhD). So now I'm back reading about the fundamentals of
electricity and building 8-bit digital adders with basic AND/OR/XOR logic
gates [0].

There's still lots of fundamental things that I want to re-learn, and for 2017
I'm thinking on writing a book about learning programming from exercises (with
just enough theoretical concepts) starting from flow-charts and pseudocode,
up-to some basic algorithms / abstract data structures/types (probably using
Python). My idea is that there are lots of students out there that could
benefit of learning how to program by solving focused exercises and learn
enough about algorithms and structures to feel capable of doing more complex
things (i.e, not feel the "impostor" syndrome).

[0] - [https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-
Softw...](https://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-
Software/dp/0735611319)

------
boyter
I realised searchcode server
[https://searchcode.com/product/](https://searchcode.com/product/) and started
to make some sales.

What did I learn? You would not believe what people commit to their source
control. Gigabyte text files, millions of files in a single directory, files
with the immutable bit set etc... Some of the most bizarre things I would have
never encountered.

My defensive programming skills when file processing have improved greatly as
a result.

------
qwertyuiop924
I wrote some code that solved a problem I had.

Sure, it was small, and far from the biggest thing I've written, but it was
really and legitimately useful, and actually helped me with a real problem
that I had. Most of my code is just oddball projects and weird experiments. It
felt good to make something and see the effect right away.

It taught me that in the future I'd need to make my projects more immidiately
applicable to Real Life. It makes them more interesting, even if the actual
code is fairly banal.

------
baccheion
Nothing.

2016 was another miserable year filled with 24/7
intrusive/harassing/distressing thoughts and physical pain/discomfort that
left me unable to do anything but sit around being harassed.

I'll be 31 soon, and thus far have spent the last 6+ years sitting around in
this state unable to do anything, work, think, etc.

Others say it's some sort of mental illness, but I say I'm a Targeted
Individual (ie, someone did/is-doing this to me).

~~~
omnimus
You are targeted.

~~~
baccheion
To whom it may concern: you're not very good at it.

------
gargarplex
I finally wrote a book. This book is about how to break into consulting, and
it's addressed specifically to programmers. I feel like people were always
asking me about how to break into consulting so I just sat down and knocked
out a book over the course of four to six weeks. Details and an exclusive
discount for the HN community is available in my profile.

Also, I learned conversational Swedish and traveled to Stockholm twice. Fun
times!

~~~
lobe
Just picked up the book. A friend and I are looking to start our own software
dev agency in 2017, which will probably be closer to consulting work in the
beginning. I look forward to giving your book a read.

~~~
gargarplex
Thank you for your business! Let me know if you have any questions and send me
an email if you want to hang in the Slack channel.

Giving talks at meetups is a great way to build credibility (and attract
clients) for a software agency or consultant. In the book, I give a step-by-
step formula for building a pipeline of scheduled talks.

------
lukaszkups
1\. During 2nd half of the year I've finally started to work with two open
source projects from scratch (I've planned one, but 2nd has come to my mind
couple weeks ago).

2\. Yesterday I've finally managed to restart my blog.

3\. I've learnt my little kid couple nice stuff.

4\. Despite the fact I was overworked in December and started to work on side
projects mentioned above, I've managed to spend more time with my family.

Looking forward what next year will look like :)

------
ivm
Launched my time tracker, Qbserve[0] and learned that even a huge boost from
being in HN top posts doesn't help to reach press or bloggers "automatically".

Gaining visibility even in a relatively small market like Mac apps is a huge
effort and nobody cares about you and your product on its own.

[0]: [https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/](https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/)

------
joeclark77
Published my first e-book -- [https://leanpub.com/data-engineers-
manual](https://leanpub.com/data-engineers-manual) \-- and made my first
sales. 37 paying customers so far, and I just got my first "review" (an
encouraging tweet) the other day. Not bad for doing zero marketing and
promotion. It has encouraged me to do more of the same.

------
Ftuuky
2016 was awful, just awful. My parent's home burned down (luckily they had
good insurance), my startup failed (no VC investment in sight, no bank would
give us a loan, my co-founders went separate ways, etc) and now with 27 years
I had to find a "real job" (was in academia before the startup) in another
city where I have to pay a huge rent for a shitty apartment. Then, two days
ago, the consulting firm where I working just gave me notice that they can't
pay salaries to everyone in January so the last two guys getting in have to
go. Nice xmas gift...

Now I don't know what to do, it's so hard to find a job in this country. I'm
taking MOOCs about data science and python because there are so many job
listings for such positions but who will hire a forensic anthropologist? I was
lucky enough to get into this job and now there's nothing for me in the
horizon.

------
xj9
i decided to face the fact that i'm trans, which threw a huge wrench in my
startup plans, but it turned out to be for the best. i'm learning a lot about
self-care that i'm hoping will help me be a more effective entrepreneur in the
long run (i.e. less prone to burnout). my quality of life has skyrocketed.

------
forgottenacc57
Survived another year of struggle to stay on top of ordinary life.

~~~
bbcbasic
I feel you! I've been struggling with fatigue so to me getting through some
days is an achievement. In bed at 7pm is awesome.

------
bostik
Started the year by "flipping the final switch" on our months-long migration
from colo-hosted system to EC2. The final operation was to promote our
secondary in EC2 to primary, and point all read-write systems there before
restarting the entire stack. (It was bit of an anti-climax.)

Then proceeded to work on and push through any pending changes that allowed us
to pass three separate audits.

Towards end of the year, finally hosted the first meetup at our office.

As to what I learned:

1) Implicit couplings are incredibly easy to introduce, even with designs that
were explicitly set to avoid them.

2) Auditors mean well but rarely have a wider technical background. In
gambling industry they are also terrified of running production systems in the
cloud. Architectural decisions must be paired with what amounts to a PR effort
aimed at third parties.

3) Organising even a casual event is a _lot_ of invisible work.

------
cryptozeus
Ran sf half marathon after having bad knee pain for kast 2 years. I clocked in
at 2hr 40 min...very proud moment.

------
echelon
I wrote a concatenative Donald Trump text to speech engine [1]. It kind of
sounds like garbage right now since I rushed to complete it before the
election--I had no idea he'd win. I read lots of literature on speech and
linguistics, synthesis algorithms, and more. I also had to curate a large
sample of Trump speech.

I wrote the backend in Rust, so I was able to learn quite a bit more about
Rust in the process.

Since Trump won the election, I'll devote some time in Q1 2017 to improving
the voice quality. I'm especially interested in applying deep learning
techniques to generating a larger n-phone data set.

My second largest accomplishment will be what I'm going to pull off for New
Year's, but that's a surprise. It involves multiple watts of lasers, though.
:)

[1] [http://jungle.horse](http://jungle.horse)

~~~
VLM
"It involves multiple watts of lasers, though."

It never fails to amaze me that if you can prove you gave the FAA the legally
required minimum 30 days warning you can do anything up to death star
experiments and they can't say boo about it, but skipping the paperwork and
trying to beg forgiveness after the fact is like a dozen separate felonies, so
be careful. Assuming you're doing what I'd do with many watts of lasers, LOL.

------
andrei_says_
Learning Tango. Or should I say, starting to learn it -- it takes a couple of
years of sucking at it to become bearable for a leader.

It is an incredibly deep and rich discipline which invites me to multi-
dimensional mastery: kinesthetic, emotional, sexuality/boundaries, musicality,
finding place in a complex multilayered society and communities, relationship
to learning/failure/frustration, intimacy, discipline... and more. It is
incredibly beautiful and complex, difficult and rewarding.

Mastery with infinite possibilities and thus no ceiling. No graduation :)

I'm fortunate to have found a school that approaches it in a profoundly deep
and felt way, and has redefined teaching in the process.

I feel extremely grateful. It's changed my attitude toward leadership,
relationships, music and community. What a gift.

~~~
solutionyogi
Awesome. May I ask which school is this? I am trying to find a great
school/tutor for Salsa in NYC.

~~~
andrei_says_
Oxygentango in Los Angeles. Www.oxygentqngo.com

Can't recommend them enough, they know what they're doing.

~~~
andrei_says_
Www.oxygentango.com

The URL in my previous post had a typo.

------
FLGMwt
I finally got the company engineering blog off the ground!
([http://engineering.rallyhealth.com](http://engineering.rallyhealth.com))

It's nothing special and there's not a lot of content, but I hope to learn a
lot and make more connections as the editor.

I definitely learned to share my accountability with other people. I had
enough to launch in Feb of this year but I didn't launch until December when
there started to be external pressure.

Additionally, I learned that for things outside of typical teamwork, it's
necessary to put hard deadlines on things. When someone signs up to write a
blog post I can't expect them to work on it in preference to sprint work
unless there's a deadline or incentive.

------
kevan
I achieved one of my long-term career goals, getting a job at a Big 4 tech
company. In the process I learned that a growth mindset is one of the most
powerful assets you can have. I also handed off my pet open source project
after taking it from 30k to 7 million downloads.

------
robbiep
I rediscovered happiness, the art of living in the moment, closed a round on
my side project so I can go full time next year, spent 3 months collectively
travelling the world, and realised that things are actually pretty bloody good
and I should stop worrying about anything

------
atsaloli
I've partnered with GitLab and developed courses on Git and on GitLab CI. In
successfully developing the CI course on short notice, I've learned I'm
usually operating way below my potential. I need to push myself more. Don't
get comfortable.

------
IWillScoop
All these accomplishments and I'm just happy I got 40 followers on Twitch over
the year.

------
dpeck
Launched a product that is on the shelf in stores across the US.

Things I learned:

Be extremely careful with your demo apps, people will see the demo work and
think its most of the way there and just needs polish where reality is very
different.

Grasping new technology stacks is harder for many people than I anticipated. I
chose Erlang/Elixir/BEAM and I wouldn't change that, but onboarding has been a
challenge. What I see as mostly syntax and just learning what philosophies
work best on a new VM others see as a sea change that takes much longer than
anticipated to understand.

------
timfinnegan
I've been using Blogger to annotate James Joyce's Ulysses, with an emphasis on
linking all the many freely-available online resources. But there's so many
that pagesize becomes problematic-- not load time, just requiring readers to
scroll through many screens of information that may or may not interest them.
So my new plan is to classify and summarize individual notes, and only
gradually reveal them by request:
[http://ulyssespages.blogspot.com/2016/12/button-
test.html](http://ulyssespages.blogspot.com/2016/12/button-test.html)

------
ireadfaces
I was a mobile developer and always wanted to step up my game. So I left my
that job and joined a start-up with just an idea. Now I am CTO of a data
capability company, And in process I learned two new languages, frameworks,
exposed myself to new technologies such as mongo, data scrapping, API writing,
handling whole product development. Last few months were great from work
perspective, though not from money perspective. Now we are on to raise some
money, and hopefully i will be alloted a good amount of equity. That's it for
this year.

------
hn_lurker45
Cleared technical interviews and joined Microsoft as a Software Engineer
working on Azure. Having been around 3.5 yrs in the field, it lifted my self
esteem and made me realize I'm not so bad.

------
eli_gottlieb
I ran experiments and wrote a paper aimed at providing an information-
theoretic explanation for why deep learning and hierarchical Bayes modelling
work. It's under review right now.

I put two PhD applications in to top departments.

I got married.

In the process I mostly learned the same lesson from my MSc: research is
mostly a lot of background knowledge to acquire and legwork to do, but if
you've done it right, you can address a big, difficult question by wearing it
down until it's small enough to work with.

------
mhuangw
Was offered a position as a technology summer analyst at Goldman Sachs next
year. Maybe not too impressive for some people here, but it was my first big
offer and I felt proud of it.

------
ruairidhwm
I took risks:

I licenced software I made to my current employer and turned that into a mini-
SaaS business.

I negotiated my own job role in a specialised area but turned it down in
favour of moving countries with my girlfriend.

I gave a TEDx talk on legal technology.

2016 has been a rough year globally but a pretty good one personally. Whilst
it has had its challenges, overall I've learned to take more risks and to say
no to more people.

Next year, I want to create more SaaS businesses - though right now I've got a
bit of creative block around it.

------
tdaltonc
I finished my PhD in neuroEconomics. I learned that I don't want to spend the
rest of my life writing (most rejected) grant applications, so I left academia
and founded a startup.

------
costcopizza
Recognizing the exorbitant amount of self-doubt and limiting beliefs going on
in the background of my brain.

Now changing them is a whole 'nother story and I still am looking for answers
on that.

------
waspleg
It's not over yet. I want to say surviving but given the spate of celebrity
and personal friend deaths and my own health problems there's not enough wood
on Earth to knock.

------
zeta_
Not so great like the others, but I think I'm finally overcoming my
procrastination problems.

I've being constantly working on my personal projects and reading lots o
technical books.

------
Hamatti
I started a local meetup with a few friends and ended up finishing the first
year with 9 meetups, a hackathon and 250-ish people in the community - and the
first 3 months of next year already booked with hosting companies. I had never
done anything similar so it was a huge thing for me.

I learned a lot about developer communities and what makes 'em tick.

------
ioda
We landed on our first paying customer on a product that we had been working
for more than a year and half. And many more sign ups later turned profitable
too. And about to release a major upgrade in the first weeks of 2017.

The down side was that I hardly had any holidays in 2016 and was consistently
clocking 12 hour work days. So exhausted to the core as well.

For the curious, we are working on
[http://www.reportdash.com](http://www.reportdash.com)

~~~
thepredestrian
How did you market your product? Im always very curious about how startups
approach companies when they are developing a prototype

------
haidrali
Started a part time product [http://www.barber.pk](http://www.barber.pk)
(Online barber booking service) and its going very well, though not yet able
to generate money but have positive feedback and able to won FBStart services
grant, this is best thing happen to me in 2016 along side some bad ;( looking
forward to 2017 now with lots of positivity

------
lightbendover
I was the lead engineer on a new financial exchange that we launched just this
month. Honestly, it involved some of the lowest lows of my career to date and
while it is assuredly my greatest accomplishment of the year, it in no way
felt triumphant -- just flat and empty, which I'm sure is either a symptom of
burnout or a sign to move on with a decent notch on the resume. I am so very
tired of 2016.

------
kovacs
I was in my very first performing arts role, a musical parody of bay area
tech, and lauched a webapp during the show
([http://birthdaymob.com/](http://birthdaymob.com/)) and integrated audience
participation to introduce people to it.

It's the very first app to ever launch as part of a musical and yes I realize
how ridiculously "Silicon Valley" this is :-)

------
gsylvie
I wrote a Bitbucket add-on that puts a rebase button and a squash button on
the pull-request screen. At this time it only works for the on-premises
version of Bitbucket, aka Stash aka "Bitbucket Server".

Here's a screenshot of the Squash button in action: [http://bit-
booster.com/bb/squash.png](http://bit-booster.com/bb/squash.png)

------
bharani_m
Started learning (amateur) boxing.

I participated in my first boxing tournament last month and won the bronze
medal. I think this was my greatest achievement of 2016.

It wasn't such a big tournament as it only had 15-16 boxers in my weight
category and I only had 3 fights.

I was really scared before getting into the ring for the first time, but
completing three rounds of my first match was a rewarding experience.

------
aakriti1215
I graduated college and learnt how to code for my job! I've loved it so far,
and am always fascinated by the tech community, YC and all of the resources
out there that help me learn more everyday! I think my biggest learning was
that even veteran coders forget commas and semicolons sometimes, so I
shouldn't be so hard on myself.

------
hoju
Campaigning for Brexit - learnt that no one is objective, everyone interprets
information through their preconceptions.

Also finished my Masters and got a remote job at an awesome startup. Learnt to
be less afraid of failure - better to apply to as many universities/jobs as
practical and then accept the best offer. Wish I realized this a few years
back.

------
CiPHPerCoder
Everything I've done this year pales in comparison to what I did last year:
[https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/12/year-2015-in-
review](https://paragonie.com/blog/2015/12/year-2015-in-review)

I'm looking to improve the security of potentially ~82% of websites in early
2017.

------
jurgenwerk
Sold an app, wrote an e-book, 15 poems, a blogpost featured on HackerNews
frontpage and took a 40 year old lady on a dinner date.

------
morsmodr
Worked on a 3 month rapid product development with a team of 4 using Scrum
methodology. Technologies used: React-Redux-TypeScript

Learning: Was in product development first time. Scrum is tiring in nature but
good when used for rapid development. React-Redux-TypeScript is a great combo.
Still not sure on using inline styles for react components

~~~
spinlock
Check out the webpack style loader if you don't want to go full inline with
the styles. We had to monkey patch Module.prototype.require to get mocha happy
with "requiring" sass files but it was only half a days work. Now, styles
don't leak outside of the component we want them in. Stylesheets are
absolutely my least favorite part of development and having one stylesheet per
component actually makes it tractable for me.

------
niftylettuce
Getting CrocodileJS going, I learned ES6/ES7/Babel/Async/Await and so much
about React and React Native too (building some RN apps at the moment). I
still need to ship V1, but I am looking for help.
[https://crocodilejs.com](https://crocodilejs.com)

------
billforsternz
I finally got my general purpose chess program (Tarrasch Chess GUI, see
[http://triplehappy.com](http://triplehappy.com) ) to a point where I am happy
with it. After about seven years off and on.

I think what I learned was, don't spend seven years on the next project :- )

------
Bdiem
Made an agreement with my employer to work less and I really enjoy my new
found spare time / day.

------
iliicit
Built Bitcoin trading algo that pays me as well as my day job. Learned machine
learning in the process.

------
alexbilbie
Christmas Day 2015 I decided to go freelance, 4th January I handed in my
notice, 25th March I set up my own company.

Haven't looked back since; I'm happier, less stressed, earning more and I've
had more holidays this past year than I ever have done in a single year.

~~~
Treyno
Can I ask - freelance what? And what does your company offer?

~~~
alexbilbie
Devops and AWS consulting and training

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d1ffuz0r
* learned how to play piano

* sold side project

* started another side project and with more users than all previous projects together

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NetOpWibby
I've actually written about this earlier today!
[https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2016/what-ive-achieved-this-
ye...](https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2016/what-ive-achieved-this-year)

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mcs_
Survive 12 more months, paying 2 schools, house, bills, helping mom... all
with javascript.

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fabianfabian
Surviving javascript fatigue

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sebringj
accomplishment: building my own social app from scratch and putting on app
store learned: you literally have to treat your goals as gods and worship your
ideas daily. i made enough branded t-shirts and wore them everyday so my
friends would see me wearing the same logo everyday and then ask me "is your
app done yet?" and I would be embarrassed if it wasn't done yet and work on it
after work. but now I got a ton of feedback and know what i need to do to make
it great, so working on the 2.0 version.

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sbov
Finally launching the software I/we were building for one of our businesses
for the last 1.5 years... only to have said business shut down a few weeks
later for unrelated reasons.

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buf
I stopped drinking coffee after 14 years of drinking it every day.

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nojvek
I built my rasberry pi robot. Never did any hardware work before. Had a ton of
fun. Also did a three.js earth visualization.

Want to now build a VR robot for telepresence.

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marksteve
Got my weight down to its lowest since my adulthood.

Climbing helped a lot with this. In the process of getting more fit, I
realized more what I want in life.

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Rebelgecko
Some code I wrote went to space and ran without breaking anything. That might
be cheating though, since most of it was written in 2015

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jps359
working the same job for the entirety of the year

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austincheney
Extending my JavaScript parser and beautifier (written in JavaScript) to also
support TypeScript, C#, and Java.

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SN76477
A lot of failures! Its been a ride!

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jrs235
I didn't quit my job.

~~~
spinlock
My biggest accomplishment is that I did quit mine :)

I had to take a vacation to interview full time. That finally did the trick
and got me the offer that let me jump ship. Also, practice not shitting on
your current company. It's really hard to dial in the story about why your
leaving without making yourself sound disgruntled.

~~~
jrs235
Congratulations!

>practice not shitting on your current company

Will do.

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cdvonstinkpot
Quit smoking- something like 6 months by now...

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SnowingXIV
Getting married. Definitely.

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pramit
Created an online book cms, launched a series of career and self improvement
guides, a food calorie burn calculator with a twist, a multipurpose heath
stats calculator, and am currently finishing a small ecommerce platform as
well as a small community for sharing polls etc.

