

Ask HN: Plans for 2010 - aitoehigie

For the year 2010, I plan to:
1. Learn Clojure and CLisp.
2. Learn Erlang
3. Learn to play the violin
4. Start exercising seriously again.
5. Take up photography 
6. Become a better friend, brother, uncle, son and cousin.(despite the AS diagnosis)
7. try to find inner peace and purpose.
======
cubicle67
Well, they say confession is good for the soul...

I've got four great kids. They're bright, curious, fun and I love 'em to bits.
Thing is, I absolutely suck at being a Dad. I'm lazy, vague, inconsistent,
moody and I find it all to easy to go hide in the study and respond to
interruptions with "Go and play. Can't you see I'm busy".

I don't want to be like this, not one little bit, so my one goal for this year
is - no excuses, work at becoming a better Dad.

~~~
tptacek
Wasn't your dad like this sometimes? Mine was. I'm the same way sometimes too.
Not that I'm arguing with you. Spend more time with your kids. But don't beat
yourself up. Are your kids happy? Good on you.

2010 is my year of teaching my kids to play Go.

~~~
frisco
Teaching your kids to play Go or teaching them to code in Go?

~~~
tptacek
The game.

------
patio11
Quit the day job. Use the 70 hours freed up and 15 hours of negacommute
(weekly) to launch a new product, find a nice young lass, and do some
travelling.

~~~
nixme
I'm handing in my one month notice on the fourth, and I'm both excited and
apprehensive about the future. But yeah, 2010 will be an exciting year no
matter what happens. Good luck to you too!

------
cperciva
I plan to end 2010 with 10x as many customers as I start it with.

~~~
frisco
The prototype of the perfect goal: simple, clear, measurable, achievable.

~~~
woid
... unless you start with zero customers :)

~~~
idlewords
Seems eminently more achievable in that case.

~~~
allantyoung
Or infinitely more achievable.

~~~
tokenadult
LESS achievable. Multiplication by zero still gives a product of zero in the
real number system.

~~~
frisco
>> Multiplication by zero still gives a product of zero in the real number
system.

Yeah which is why its more achievable:

    
    
      factor = final / initial
    
             = 3 customers / 0 customers = ZOMGx more customers

~~~
tokenadult
Ah, the usual division by zero error.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_by_zero>

<http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.divideby0.html>

<http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/0by0.html>

<http://mathworld.wolfram.com/DivisionbyZero.html>

Perhaps more to my original point is that cperciva replied to the thread-
opening post

 _I plan to end 2010 with 10x as many customers as I start it with._

so the the comment by woid (grandchild comment to cperciva's comment) is
CORRECT that such a goal is not achievable if

 _you start with zero customers_

because there isn't any defined number of customers that is exactly ten times
as many customers as zero customers.

It's funny that this isn't taught in all mathematics classes.

~~~
frisco
I understand the math; sure, 10*0=0. Looking lim a->0: x/a, though, which goes
to infinity, I was implying it was easier to achieve because mathematically
he'd be way past his target of 10x. But you're right that it's impossible to
hit exactly 10x.

------
vishaldpatel
Existing things: MobileFolk - my current project / startup. Swim, run,
workout. Keep learning Spanish and practicing guitar. Read books.

New things: Learn basic Romanian. Meet more iPhone (and Android) developers in
the Bay Area and in / around Toronto / GTAA - always looking to grab a beer or
lunch :). Learn more about market research (you can never learn enough).

~~~
gabriel-coarna

      Why in God's name would you want to learn Romanian?
      1. It's a silly, silly language -- I've been speaking it all of my life, and, most of the time, I still find I express myself better in English.
      2. It's only spoken in a small, god-forsaken country that'll probably never amount to much of anything.
    
      If you insist on learning another language -- it is my opinion that one should try to say something smart in one language, rather than something mediocre in a couple -- you should at least learn something that might actually prove useful -- like Chinese (if you're young and you foresee you'll still be around when they rule the world), or Russian (for more-or-less the same reason)

~~~
jacquesm
I'd replace Russian with Spanish in that list.

Romanian is very useful though, because of its reasonably strong ties to
latin. If you know Romanian then Italian, Spanish and French are more
accessible.

~~~
gabriel-coarna
Sure. Spanish is also a good choice. I could have went on and on enumerating
interesting languages and interesting reasons to learn them (like reading
history, philosophy, or great literature in their original form).

As for your second point, as far as I know, Romanian's ties to Latin aren't
only reasonably strong; Romanian is actually the most like-Latin language that
is still spoken -- however, Spanish and French still sound horrible to me (and
I took French for 11 years, in school).

Also -- and I just couldn't resist making this point -- do you really think
that the French or the Italians are ever going to do something interesting
enough to warrant learning their language? -- please note that I'm not saying
anything bad about their past (that's awesome); but, if you're forward
thinking, I think you're pretty safe assuming that they're glory days are
(long) over.

~~~
jacquesm
I think _any_ language is worth learning.

Right now I'm at 5, Dutch (my mother tongue), Polish, German, English and
French (the latter poorly through inactivity).

I very much want to learn more languages and I find that with every language
added the next one becomes easier.

So there is no such thing as a language 'not worth learning', almost all of
the languages spoken on the European continent are related in some way or
other anyway (even Hungarian and Finnish).

Whether a language is 'ascending' or 'descending' in influence can certainly
guide your priorities but I'd definitely not rule them out simply on that
basis.

~~~
gabriel-coarna
That's actually a rather cool point of view.

However, I don't share it. I believe that one should spend most of one's time
trying to do something awesome in one language -- as opposed to wasting time
by learning 5.

Now, don't get me wrong, the fact that you now 5 languages is very cool;
however, I don't think I'll ever use up that much time to gain those
particular skills.

You see, I believe that if one were to draw a graph illustrating the
relationship between the "awesomeness" of what one has done and the effort one
has put in, the effort axis would be on an geometric scale, while the
"awesomeness" one would be on a linear one. In other words, one has to put in
a hell of a lot more effort to get something just a little more "awesome".

On the other hand, maybe learning languages is an integral part of what you
"do"; or, maybe, it helps you relax.

Either way, and as in most arguments between somewhat-intelligent people, I
think we're just going to have to agree to disagree -- please note that I'm
using the "somewhat" prefix as it pertains to me; I'm pretty sure that you're
just plain intelligent.

Oh, and: Merry Christmas. And a very happy New Year.

~~~
jacquesm
The idea of it being cool or awesome never crossed my mind, to me languages
are tools and knowing how to use more tools gives me more opportunities.

Dutch was unavoidable, English at 10 in grade school, working for a US based
bank (but in Europe), French and German you get in high school in NL and
Polish because I lived there and had a relationship with somone from Poland.

Currently Spanish is very high on the wish list because of spending some time
in Panama.

------
omnipath
My goals so far for the year 2010:

1) Relearn how to eat. Do not eat just to eat, but eat for a reason.

2) Actually write a useful application.

3) Perhaps most importantly, be a creator and not just be a consumer.

~~~
maximilian
>1) Relearn how to eat. Do not eat just to eat, but eat for a reason.

Is this, "God I'm starving after that trek through the woods, this pasta is
delicious!" Or, "Boy this braised rabbit with wine reduction turned out well."

~~~
omnipath
It's more of an, 'I'm feeling full. Why must I still eat the delicious cookie
right in front of me!?'

------
jacoblyles
My "plan" for 2010 is to make a lot of ambitious goals, fail on most of them,
but accomplish some good regardless.

Also, I am pretty sure that I will have my first amateur Muay Thai fight. I'm
excited about that.

------
martythemaniak
I wish they had derivatives with your plans as the underlying asset. I'd
leverage myself, go short and make a killing.

In other words OP, you'll fail and it'll happen because of your ridiculously
ambitious goals. Let me break it down:

1 and 2: If by "learn a language" you mean gain some proficiency in it and not
just run through the introductory tutorial, then you're gonna have to spend a
fair amount of time writing a reasonably big project. I would say, spread out,
about 1hr a day every single day for each language, so that makes it about
2-3hrs/day.

3\. Unless you're already proficient in some instrument (preferably stringed),
you're gonna need several hundred hours of solid practice to learn, so plan
for about 2hrs a day,every single day.

4\. That would mean a serious workout, 3-4 times a week, so average that out
to 0.5hrs a day, every single day.

5\. That's pretty vague, but I'll put you down for 0.5hrs a day averaged as
well.

6\. that's too vague

7\. If you're speaking in the sense that Mathieu Ricard talks about, again
you're looking at at least 1hr day.

So in order to achieve your goals, you're looking at a commitment of about
8hrs/day. And that's 8hrs of hard work where you are pushing yourself, so
unless you have nothing going on in your life and have amazing power of will,
you will fail.

You should instead pick 1 or 2 of those goals and follow up. Start working out
and learn Clojure. You can manage that and a year from now you'll have 2 solid
achievements behind your back, rather than 7 failures.

------
kwamenum86
Eat healthier and become more active. I spend way too much time sitting on my
ass.

------
alexgartrell
1\. Write an academic paper (getting one published would be cool, but let's
start with things within my control).

2\. Get my research project up to where I want it.

3\. Sweet Internship in a sweet city *

* sweet city matters because I'm going to be 21. Work hard, play hard :)

------
GeneralMaximus
Last year, my goals were: (1) learn to program Mac OS X (2) get better at
maths, basic data structures and algorithms (3) write more stuff on my blog.

I accomplished: (1) learned to program the Haiku OS (2) got better at C++ and
OO design (3) met a bunch of awesome people in the FOSS community (4) learned
version control (5) gained enough confidence to start a small FOSS project
with some friends.

I still suck at programming Mac OS X (even though I've made some progress),
still suck at maths and my blog is updated about once a month. I learned a
little something about data structures and algorithms, but only because I took
that class at college.

Moral of the story: you usually end up accomplishing something completely
different from what you initially plan. The trick is to just go with it and
let good stuff happen.

That said, I still have some plans for 2010: (1) learn Haskell and x86_64
assembly (2) release the FOSS project I've been working on (3) contribute more
code to Haiku (4) get better at socializing (5) write a lot of stuff on my
blog (for real this time).

I know I'll end up accomplishing a completely different set of goals, but it's
still nice to have a roadmap :)

------
dejv
Stop slacking.

------
SingAlong
My new year begins with one month of semester holidays.

Plan:

 _Release one app every 15 days and spend 1hr a day iterating the app I
created in the previous 15-day session._

That'll make 2 apps in one month of holidays. while the rest of the year I
release one app every month to manage college and freelance work (to support
the side projects).

At the end of the year I should have close to 10 apps (or maybe only 5 if i
take regular breaks). And atleast one of them I hope succeeds. I took this
lesson from the 2D BOY studio guys who developed World of Goo. They prototyped
a new idea every week until they found a nice prototyped idea.

~~~
robfitz
May I ask if these are going to be game projects? I'm very interested in
people's experiences doing rapid game development.

~~~
SingAlong
No. All web apps. But sometime one of them might be a game. Coz I've always
wanted to get into game dev. SInce I dont have a Mac or iphone and I'm not a
pro, I won't try the PC game market. I'll start off with the Android market.
Small Android games seems like my piece of cake :)

------
tptacek
Let's see. 356 days ago here, I said "The math behind signal processing;
curing and drying ham and salami.".

This year, let's call it "The math behind signal processing; write a book."

------
jacquesm
You can _begin_ to learn to play the violin in a year, but it is a dedication
of a lifetime to really learn to play the violin.

Noble causes though, I wish you much good luck!

~~~
alaithea
Depending on the OP's expectations and attitude, saying that it will take a
lifetime could be a bit discouraging. Some say that seven years of dedication
is all that is really needed to reach "mastery" in most subjects ("mastery" is
of course subjective), and I tend to agree. Hardly a lifetime!

Seven years was roughly how long I took lessons on the piano, and later on the
violin, and that, along with a knack for music, was enough to reach an
advanced level and be able to play most of the standard classical repertoire.

Hooray for learning the violin! It is one of the most difficult instruments,
but also one of the most rewarding.

------
iuguy
Spend more time with my wife.

~~~
idlewords
That's my goal too! Your wife is awesome.

------
brlewis
Go full-time.

------
jarsj
Launch my startup no matter what.

------
asnyder
For the year 2010 I plan to finally release a constant stream of
documentation, both text and videos, along with numerous screencasts.

There's no point in having cool technology if it's not easily accessible, easy
to learn, and demonstrable. There's only so many times you can have one on one
conversations to get the wow across.

I just wish writing documentation didn't take so long, and video shoots didn't
eat up whole days. It's so much nicer to work on a new feature than to re-
shoot a section of a code demonstration what often seems like 100 times.

------
bbb
"Complete" my key research goals and write a draft of my dissertation.

------
spencerfry
Plans: (1) Add a few more members to the team. (2) Lease our own office
instead of sublease. (3) Release the new version of our app. (4) Expand two
more verticals. (5) Get more mainstream press. (6) Finish moving our core team
to New York City. We're currently 2 of 4 in NYC. (7) Start our newsletter. (8)
Do more charity work. (9) Start a meetup. (10) Get involved in local NYC
art/design scene more than I already am.

------
zavulon
Not to self-promote, since I pretty much abandoned that site more than a year
ago, but back in a day I wrote an article on this topic that was somewhat
popular, and I think will be useful to a lot of HN'ers.

[http://www.alexanderkharlamov.com/2006/12/24/how-to-make-
and...](http://www.alexanderkharlamov.com/2006/12/24/how-to-make-and-keep-new-
years-resolutions/)

------
jodrellblank
Anyone want to read through these replies and place some bets on how many
goals will have markedly progressed by this time next year?

[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/08/how-to-set-goals-
yo...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/08/how-to-set-goals-you-will-
actually-achieve/)

"work at becoming a better Dad" - Unspecific. Should being a better dad have
the same negative connotations as work?

"Release one app every 15 days and spend 1hr a day..." - Specific, determined.
I'd bet on this.

"Stop slacking" - Vague, phrased in the negative, no chance.

"Launch my startup no matter what" - Also vague, low chance.

"I plan to end 2010 with 10x as many customers as I start it with." - Great. I
bet he will progress this.

"Go full-time", "Eat healthier and become more active", no and no, bet against
these.

"Start eating a proper breakfast" - What, when will you prepare it, how will
you stick to it?

------
jasonkester
Launch this and get it paying the bills:

<http://www.fairtutor.com/>

------
Quarrelsome
Hell yes, I finish my contract this year so I am going to regain my mind,
catch up with .NET, sleep a lot, finish reading my LISP booky and I must code
one thing this year that I would naturally be uncomfortable with, be it LISP,
C or Ruby/Python.

Maybe start a business (if certain conditions evaluate to true)! :)

------
btilly
Go to work for Google. Learn at least one new computer language. (These plans
are pretty concrete at this point.)

------
ptn
1\. Become better at programming. 2\. Write a killer webapp with Django. 3\.
Learn very well one of these: JavaScript, Clojure, Ruby. (Current level for
all: 0) 4\. Graduate. 5\. Start contributing to an open-source project,
probably only casually. 6\. Be insanely curious. 7\. Read at least 5 SF books.

~~~
davis
Are you me? =]

------
andrewcooke
i doubt anyone's that interested in my personal plans, but this is perhaps a
useful exercise anyway :o)

\- improve lepl: simplify configuration; better logging showing how values are
bound; possibly automate tokenisation; possibly improve speed.

\- return to an idea i worked on years ago to generate synthetic rhythms. at
the time i didn't have enough cpu power; now i think i can use a gpu.

\- long shot: develop a small language that targets the llvm and opencl (gpus)
in a simple way.

\- improve my web site (already 90% done). motivated by people laughing at it
on reddit a couple of days ago :o(

looks like i will be spending 4 months in the usa, on a tourist visa (partner
has a sabbatical), so i should have time for some of this. i also plan to
visit icfp for the first time.

------
yan
\- move back to NY or bay area

\- climb regular northwest face of half dome (currently planned for august)

\- finish my data visualization project/start a new one depending on feed back

\- implement an idea i've been carrying for over two years

\- decide what makes me happy.

------
mantas
Try again and again to launch something that would be useful and popular.
Failed twice this year...

~~~
Freebytes
Well, if you can learn from your mistakes, it will not have been a waste of
time. You can use the experience of failure... or so I have heard. I have been
failing as well.

------
SandB0x
Start eating a proper breakfast.

------
akl
Develop a non-work life, if only for balance. I'd like to expand my ruby
skills, too.

------
aitoehigie
8\. I plan on being happy as much as I can and maintain a positive demeanor.

------
sjs382
I plan to launch a project related to URL shorteners early in the year and
continue work on my startup into the first quarter.

My resolution though is to ship/launch more code. "Real artists ship" :)

------
Tawheed
Stop "waiting" and start "living." Help people have meaningful online
conversations with Ask My BrainTrust (<http://AskMyBrainTrust.com>)

------
tokenadult
Build a spin-off line of business from my existing business that is SCALABLE,
so that I move from the sole-proprietorship personal service business world
into the true start-up world.

------
jpv
1\. Improve my piano, harmonica, and musical ear. 2. Release my social
networking app that I've been slacking on for a year. 3. Quit smoking. 4.
Finish college (not graduate, finish).

------
ra
Close some of the prospects we have; lock-in our angel round (we've been
talking to them for months) and get well down the path towards series a.

Now that would be a good year.

------
jason_tko
My most important goal for 2010 is to create a partnership with a co-founder
who is fun to work with, and who has the skills I lack, and begin working
together.

------
zppx
Being very close to graduate in the end of the year, run a half-marathon, try
to not be a complete slacker and play with my recently purchased VPS.

------
huangm
Graduate school and start working on startup fulltime.

------
roundsquare
1\. Get into and go to law school.

2\. Get into shape (again).

3\. Eat better.

4\. Learn economics.

5\. Learn more about algorithms.

------
ErrantX
1\. Try and actually write my fiction book (finally)

2\. Sell a company

3\. Work less and spend more time doing "fun" :)

------
aitoehigie
9\. Finally launch 2 projects that I have been working on. 10\. Chronicle each
day of the year 2010 on my blog.

------
spudlyo
Finally crack the 100k a year barrier. This means either get that raise that I
totally deserve or move on.

~~~
vishaldpatel
Don't wait until next year.

------
ardit33
get laid a bit more often. Two girls a year is not enough. Seriously, all work
and no play make no fun life.

While I probably want something good for the long term, I have given up on
finding it. Unfortunately SV/SF area is horrible place to find quality girls.

------
jorkos
\- continue to get customer feedback \- launch trial service \- start charging
early customer base

------
jyothi
Get married. (the most ignored part while hacking away with work & startup
alone)

~~~
rphlx
Getting married is the easy part. The challenge is in staying.

------
klaut
i have just one, the same i set for 2009 but failed to do so: to live here and
now, in the moment. without past or future worries. i hope i make it this
time.

~~~
buddyboy2006
You've probably seen this video, but I found watching it has helped me become
better at living in the here and now:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNVPalNZD_I>

------
JustJ
Graduate from College, Make money and Achieve.

------
gommm
grow my company from 1 to 6 employees and have 10 times more profit.

------
sree_nair
7\. try to find inner peace and purpose. - SHOULDN'T THAT BE NO:1, and
probably the only one ?. Just joking :)

