The pomodoro technique helped me enormously. I don't follow it strictly, I just set the timer and focused on one task until timer is done. I never worked the duration up, I still just do 25 minutes or less. I even put websurfing in a 25 min bucket, then stop.
I ended up learning how infrequent real emergencies pop up. Which in turn, got me to stop looking at my phone at red lights.
'Tango with Django' is by far the best tutorial on Django that I've found (http://www.tangowithdjango.com/). It is well written and goes much deeper than other tutorials. It's depth is similar to the Rails Tutorial in RoR world.
The NFL doesn't require a college degree - it's just that playing college football is by far the best way to learn how to play professional football and to get noticed by the NFL teams.
Most college players don't go on to be successful in the NFL, but for those who do, college was a very good investment.
College football is a huge institution and money maker. 100k attendees to college football games in the South Eastern US is a norm. It's like a minor league for the NFL. Most of the schools represented are excellent, but not necessarily academically better for general education or undergrad work.... Although being an alum in the region can be helpful in firming work.
Before 2001, I'd always ask the pilots to let me sit in the cockpit during takeoff. If they said no, they'd often offer a tour of the cockpit when cruising instead.
His articles and book don't suit my tastes, they're a bit too wordy for me and his "science" is more from experiments, less on the chemistry (proteins, salts, molecules etc).
For a more layman's chemistry view on food science, take a look at Harold McGee's book called "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen". It really gave me a good foundation to actually understand what is going on when I cook. When my cooking is a disaster, I don't need to experiment as much because now I can think through what went wrong.
> His articles and book don't suit my tastes, they're a bit too wordy for me and his "science" is more from experiments, less on the chemistry (proteins, salts, molecules etc).
Not sure I understand the scare quotes. Experimentation and hypothesis testing are the bedrocks of science. Okay, he didn't use chemstry theories to create his hypothesis, but that's not a crime. In particular, the fact that he figured out that the curling was caused by the density of the sausage is very interesting and wouldn't have been possible to figure out if you just used chemistry.
Is Bosnia considered Western? Genocide there in 1992-1995.
On a road trip, a Serbian in-law had us stop by this beautiful bridge in Bosnia. Built in the 1500s with Ottoman architecture, which is odd for that area. I took photos there, smiling and having fun like an idiot. Only after leaving and checking wikipedia on my phone did I see that the relative failed to tell me about the massacres that happened there by the Serbs. Women, children, rape, etc.
The fundraising page is depressing. They're only asking for US$200,000 and they only have 19% at half way through the year. In other news... Instagram hits half a billion monthly active users... but not on Django's fundraising page.
I'm not knowledgeable about open-source issues, pros/cons, etc., but man... only 19% of $200K. Doesn't seem right given Python is one of the major languages and I believe Django is the most popular web framework in Python.
That's the state of the entire Python community. To get money, you need to get hype, and Python is anti-hype. We are people prioritizing on robustness, clarity, documentation, etc. Proven useful things. But because it disregard what we consider superficial and frivolous, we cut ourself from the same enthousiam and energy you can see in other community like JS or Ruby. And from money.
Look at the PSF budget, it's so small it makes you cry.
You'd think that companies who profit from open source projects would support them financially. Considering how big django is there should be many other companies who profit from the projekt.
I've found that the engineers who build products on open source software very rarely have the authority to donate company money, and the businesspeople that do have the authority rarely understand the benefits of it.
I think a guide on how to get your company involved in donating to OSS projects would be beneficial. Has anyone come across any good advice, or have any experience in influencing your employer to donate?
Funding an open source project you use means funding the competitors.
A is a company, B is an individual with lots of spare time.
B feels that he can help the company by writing a tool for them. He also envisions that the tool could be used by other companies and so wants to open source it so he can provide services around the tool.
B says to A : see, I'm going to develop the tool for you for free, in exchange you test it.
Note the tool is the n-th implementation of common business practices, such as an ERP. The tool is not about something specific to A.
B thinks : I'm independent, I'm not hired by A, I write the code as free software as it pleases me.
A then says : wtf? you're going to publish that code on the web ? Therefore my competitor might get it so, no way. I'd be liable for giving away some value of the company to the competitor
So, instead of saying something like "hey, I use that program so let's fund it a little", A actually says "by helping B to develop the program, I may actually help my competitors, I'm in legal trouble".
B is somewhat screwed :-(
(I let you figure out if this actually happened to me :-))
I don't think that this applies to this very case though. Django was not made for Instagram, it was made available to the general public for free, as an open source framework. Instagram engineers only decided to use what was on the table.
I also believe that Instagram needs Django to be OSS, and the same goes for any other framework/language/library that other companies use, as OSS in itself is an extremely powerful label for a project. It brings together developers to form a community with lots of great minds and inputs. It helps feasible projects become production-ready and stable much faster than if it was closed source as its use-cases are far more wider than what a single company would provide.
Taking this from a competetive standpoint isn't very realistic in my opinion. I dare say that if either Django or Python weren't open source software, Instagram wouldn't be built on it in the first place.
I think it's absurd how Instagram can grow financially fat from the hard work of the Django Software Foundation without even contributing a dime to their fundraising or provide engineers exclusively to the DSF. IMHO Instagram should bring that fundraising up to at least 100%, considering Instagram revenue is estimated to hit $5.8 billion USD by 2020, $160,000 USD per year is a small price for the amount of value Django brings them.
It's a topic of morale though, Instagram does not owe the DSF anything, but I guess this shows where Instagrams appreciation lies.
>>> It's a topic of morale though, Instagram does not owe the DSF anything, but I guess this shows where Instagrams appreciation lies.
That's the point I was actually making. My experience that when you have people brainwashed with "competitive advantage", "profit maximization", and such, well, morale just doesn't exist anymore. In my case, I was surprised to see how quickly someone I trusted can actually switch to this brainwashed brain...
I think an easier strategy might be to work into your contract that if you happen to fix FOSS software on company time (to fix things your client notices), your patches go back upstream.
This, at least, is the implicit policy at the company I work for. It's used in the pitch ("we use and contribute to open source software, which we believe leads to a better internet" and so on) to the clients who appreciate such things.
That said, there might be too much legal tape to get that into a contract.
I tried to organize some OSS donations at the last big company I worked for. Everybody approved of the idea in theory but the red tape involved in making it happened killed it.
I think the problem in many cases is that the finance and legal people at companies big enough to make a sizable donation are so busy that stuff like this never makes it to the front of their priority queue.
* Let's stop talking about 'Donations' and start talking about 'Investment' - the conversation needs to be about the pay-off that businesses will get, not some altruistic "give-back"
* Make the case that collaborative investment has a great cost-reward, as the cost is spread over a bunch of companies.
* Make it clear that ecosystems that are well invested will be more competitive that those that are not. If your company has $$$ worth of engineers experienced in Django, you'd be daft not to ensure that Django remains competitive vs other frameworks.
It's an atypical pitch to make, and as with all investments it's difficult for folks to judge, because the pay-off is at a distance. I still believe it's still possible for us to change how collaboratively funded OSS is seen, once companies start to recognize well-invested ecosystems as a competitive advantage.
And yeah, this is pretty much the pitch I'm making for funding Django REST framework, where I'm currently 1/3 of the way towards being able to focus on it 100% of the time, with a full-time salary... https://fund.django-rest-framework.org/topics/funding/
This article and the book is exactly what's wrong with personal finance education. There is no special wisdom, clever tricks or golden rules in finance. Chicken soup for the soul won't help.
Personal finance should be taught as a math problem. Figure out the cost of the lifestyle you want, and work backwards from there. If your fancy house, car, and dinners out cost $100,000 then you can figure out if your choices make sense... does you career choice match up? does taking on school debt make sense? etc.
Or if you are older and made these life choices already and make $50,000, your math problem is a bit different. Does the honda or tesla fit? You can very easily see if credit card interest of 20% will help or hurt you achieve your goals/lifestyle if you do the math.
None of this generic "avoid debt" or "house are the best investment" (garbage) advice helps and only confuses the matter. I think the only area that has more confusion and bad advice than personal finance is nutrition. In the letter, grandma says "go for a fixed rate mortgage"... what!?
I'm mixed on your views, I agree with your math problem analogy, but I think there is general advice - just as there are general properties of numbers - that can always lead to better financial outcomes if people abide by it.
For instance, what I've always done and it has worked very well for me is the following:
1. Maintain constant revenue stream, even if work is part-time or all you have is just an investment paying dividends.
2. Never purchase anything you can't pay for in cash at that moment.
3. Try to save 10% of your income every month - even in low income months.
4. Don't be wasteful and don't blow money on "small crap" you don't need. i.e. junk food, fast food, trinkets, taking unnecessary trips or riding first class, leaving devices/lights on in your house, gym/any memberships or monthly recurring fees you don't absolutely need.
5. Finally, don't purchase things on a whim.
I've tried to live by these rules my whole life, learned them from my Dad, and they've worked very well for me. I spend money, but usually only for high quality things I research into for a long time before purchasing, like a piano, a plot of land, tools, etc.
I have zero knowledge of actual research into personal or home finance so this example is just my gut intuition based on personal experience, so just view it as a biased anecdotal opinion :)
Anecdotal opinions don't bother me :), but in the case of personal finance, the rules can easily be followed up with math.
Your general rules are fine and make sense, but sometimes when you do break them, it becomes difficult to see the effect or know when to stop. If you didn't save 10% this month, without the math you don't get any immediate negative feedback. So then maybe a 2nd month with no saving is OK. In fact, with credit cards the feedback will be positive!
I've had a corporate finance career for 10+ years and here's my "math". I take the amount in my accounts today, then add and subtract my expected income and expenses out daily until I'm 80. Tada! Addition and subtraction. Nothing a basic spreadsheet can't handle. I know what my balance will be when I'm 40, 50 or on June 19, 2017. Anybody's well intention advice can be inputted and evaluated.
It's not a budget per se because I don't restrict myself like a budget. It's also a longer term look in detail, instead of just monthly numbers out a few years. I see what my daily overpriced coffee will do to me and I can decide if it's OK. (The daily walk to the coffee shop with the cute baristas is well worth it haha.)
"Dad or Mom advice" does have its spot, but I think it should stay values-based. Many years ago I got a lot of criticism when I bought my expensive new car. Everyone threw out these general rules to me, but I knew it was fine and I really enjoy driving it. I've had it for 9 years now. When it hits 10 years I planned to hand over the keys to my nephew (free). The "Dad advice" kicked in appropriately here when my brother said no way to giving my 16 year old nephew the car with its horse power and tinted windows etc.
So I understand family should teach you the appropriate values and such, but with all the mis-information in the personal finance industry, I wish people would do the math instead of following rules.
It's also more than just math, there's the psychological side of money & investing. When even taxi drivers start giving out stock tips, how obvious it is that it's time to sell? ;)
Some of the other examples from those letters gave advice (paraphrasing here) like:
- If you can't understand what you're investing in, don't.
- If Alan Greenspan or other experts are not explaining economic concepts clearly, there's probably an ulterior motive.
One bit of advice that I think is pretty critical, that most people are missing is:
Don't live beyond or even at your means. For each dollar you make, you don't need to spend that dollar. Consider a 50% savings rate, or if you can't do that, then 20%.
> You can very easily see if credit card interest of 20% will help or hurt you achieve your goals/lifestyle if you do the math.
Is there any scenario where paying 20% interest on credit card debt (or, rather, getting into a scenario that requires that) would help you achieve your financial goals?
Don't know about "financial goals", but goals: If your utility gain from the 20% interest is lower than the utility gain from the instant availability of that money.
I can think of various situations where, if there were no better products available, this might end up making sense.
I remember this being one of the things that caught Blackberry by surprise. BB had better battery life and functionality etc, so BB co-CEOs never thought the iPhone would catch on.
Then again, the iPhone had years of iPod install base to bootstrap from. People in part bought it because it was an iPod with a mobile radio attached. The tech press had been hammering Apple for years to get into the phone market, as Nokia etc was eating their lunch with MP3 playing featurephones (at least in Europe).
And i seem to recall the stated surprise for BB was how much of the iPhone was battery.
I ended up learning how infrequent real emergencies pop up. Which in turn, got me to stop looking at my phone at red lights.