Randall Degges

Heroku Dynos (in Depth)

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:06:00 -0800

NOTE: This article is all about Heroku. If you've never heard of them, you may want to skip this one >:)

So, I'd like to talk about dynos with you (not dinosaurs, although, I do love talking about dinosaurs). Ok, maybe I'll talk about dinosaurs a little bit, but mainly about Heroku dynos: containers that run user-defined processes on Heroku's cloud platform.

Dynos are really the 'core' of Heroku's platform. Dynos are what run your web processes, your one-off tasks, etc. If you're building a Rails website, for instance, a dyno would run your web process as well as any background tasks you've defined with rake: cleaning up user sessions, doing stuff every hour, whatever. Dynos also run worker processes (stuff like resque, etc.). I'm sure you get the idea.

So if dynos are just process containers (essentially), why are they cool? Well, other than the fact that their name reminds me of little dinosaurs (see picture below), there are a lot of reasons.

Dynos (like the rest of Heroku's platform) run on top of Amazon Web Services, one of the largest cloud providers in the world.
Dynos come with unlimited bandwidth (this can end up costing you a fortune with other providers).
Dynos run in their own isolated execution environment. This means no shared files, users, etc. Every time a dyno is created it is identical to the rest.
Dynos have 512MB of RAM reserved for them, enough to do *almost* anything you need to do. (Looking to render videos and stuff? Best to do that separately.)
Dynos can be instantly provisioned or removed, allowing you to easily 'scale up' your application's infrastructure.
Dynos are billed by the second, meaning you can easily handle 'burst' traffic and not pay a fortune to do so.
You get 750 hours of dyno time free each month, per Heroku application (a 30 day month is about 720 hours, for reference). PER APPLICATION! This means that if you've got 10 apps running on Heroku, you get 7,500 dyno hours free, each month!
If a dyno crashes for some reason (maybe the underlying Amazon server broke), it will be automatically moved to another server transparently, ensuring your application stays running (no maintenance needed!).
Web dynos (any dynos powering your website: Rails, Django, Node, whatever) have load balancing taken care of out of the box (Heroku's routing mesh automatically load balances incoming HTTP requests to however many web dynos you have active).

Not bad, right? In terms of cost alone, Heroku can cut your hosting bill significantly in the form of free bandwidth and free dyno hours.

The real kicker, however, (at least in my opinion) is the automatic load balancing Heroku provides. Heroku's routing mesh is incredibly awesome:

It randomly distributes incoming HTTP requests to your application across all available dynos. This means that if you have a single active dyno all requests will hit it. If you have 10 dynos, each of those 10 will get hit by incoming requests. This means you can easily scale your application without worrying about the routing logic.
It provides you with both HTTP and HTTPS load balancing. Each Heroku application automatically supports both HTTP and HTTPS out of the box, meaning you can use SSL easily with the domain name your application is assigned: appname.herokuapp.com.
The routing mesh gives your application 30 seconds to respond to incoming requests. If it takes longer the request is killed with a 503. This is GOOD because it forces you to write decent code that takes user experience into account. NOTE: If a request takes longer than 30 seconds to complete, while the Heroku routing mesh will return a 503, your application server will still continue to process the request--this way, valuable user information isn't lost.

And, in case you missed it above, since dynos are automatically maintained by Heroku's Dyno Manifold, you never have to worry about bad things happening. Even if your application crashes, an Amazon server crashes, an IT guy trips over a wire and shuts down 100 of your dynos--you don't need to worry because Heroku will automatically spin up all your dynos (instantly) on other Amazon cloud servers.

The Heroku Dyno Manifold's restorative powers, paired with the Heroku Routing Mesh means you get the best of everything: no maintenance web hosting, automatic load balancing, and happy users.

As a sidenote--if you're at all interested in this stuff, you may enjoy my book: The Heroku Hacker's Guide. I'm currently working on the second edition, which I promise you'll love >:)

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Productivity and Calmness

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 23:38:00 -0800

While there are certainly many productivity hacks available to you, I can think of none greater than calming yourself.

I can't tell you how frequently I find myself completely overwhelmed with things to do, schedules to meet, and customers to keep happy. Each time I find myself in this situation I always try to take a step back and reflect on the circumstances. More often than not, when I consciously analyze my situation, I realize that I'm overreacting to pressures.

I'm worrying too much, pushing too hard, and not spending enough time reflecting on what it is I'm doing as a whole.

The solution to all this, of course, is to take a step back, take a deep breath, and relax. And I don't mean relax as in "Just relax, man!". I mean relax as in literally relax.

Close your laptop, turn off your phone, and spend 15 minutes in a quiet room by yourself. If you don't have this luxury, I'd recommend putting on some headphones and listening to some calm music with your eyes closed.

Try not to think about anything. Clear your mind! The easiest way to do this is to focus on your breathing. Close your eyes, sit still, and take slow, deep breaths. In your mind, think the following two words to yourself as you breathe: in and out, in and out.

If another thought pops into your mind: "I don't have time for this! I've got to email that customer!", just remember what you're doing, and refocus on breathing. If you can manage to do this for about 15 minues, not only will you feel a lot more relaxed, but more importantly, you'll feel calm.

All those stresses yelling in your head will now only be whispering. You'll be the one in charge again. Instead of being a slave to your tasks, you'll be the master.

I find that working in a calm state is far more productive. I think clearer, feel happier, write better, and build better things. Maybe you will too.

NOTE: If you've never heard of mindfulness meditation, what I've described above is more-or-less a form of it. You may enjoy this book on the topic (highly recommended).

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Building postgression (an API Development Story)

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:39:00 -0800

Last week my friend Alven and I launched a new service for developers using PostgreSQL: postgression. postgression is a simple web service that allows you (a programmer) to instantly provision a free PostgreSQL database that automatically disappears after 30 minutes.

Why would you use this? Primarily for testing code: running unit tests, integration tests, etc. It's handy because using postgression means you don't need to configure (or even run) PostgreSQL server locally just so you can run some tests.

Since launch, postgression has gotten some decent usage. To date there have been:

1,167 total databases created.
229 unique users.

While these aren't huge numbers, we're seeing consistent usage, which means some developers (whoever you are, thanks!) are using the service to run their unit tests daily.

I'm not going to talk about why we created postgression in this article (if you're interested, you can read my last article), but instead, I'd like to talk about how we built postgression.

Since this was a fun project to build (it's been something I've wanted to make for a while now), I figured I'd share how we did it, as some of you may appreciate the technical aspects. From here on out things are going to get technical :)

Tools

To build postgression Alven and I used Flask, a popular Python web framework. We ended up using the following python libraries:

To host our project website, we used Github pages (it's just a simple static site).

To host our actual API service, as well as power the entire PostgreSQL database backend functionality, we used Heroku (the most awesome hosting platform ever built).

To keep track of our usage statistics and metrics, we used ducksboard, a really awesome company that gives you a dashboard you can customize to your liking (it displays stuff like Google Analytics, custom metrics, etc.). Also: ducksboard was nice enough to give us a free account, as postgression is a free service. If you're interested in a sexy dashboard for your company (or personal projects), you should check them out!

The Backbone of It All: Heroku

As you can probably imagine (after seeing the tools listed above), Heroku is really the core of postgression, and is what makes the service possible (and affordable!).

Heroku is a web application hosting platform, that allows you to easily deploy your applications (Python, Ruby, Java, Javascript, etc.). We're using Heroku several ways to make postgression work.

We're using Heroku to run our postgression API (http://api.postgression.com). Heroku runs our Flask application that powers the entire thing. When users make an HTTP request to postgression's API, it hits Heroku's servers and stuff happens.
We're using Heroku PostgreSQL (the largest hosted PostgreSQL service in the world, by the way) to instantly provision PostgreSQL databases for our users.
We're using Heroku's API to automatically provision and deprovision the PostgreSQL databases on Heroku.
We're using the Heroku Scheduler to run periodic tasks (like cron). Right now this includes: updating our metrics on our ducksboard dashboard, deprovisioning databases older than 30 minutes, etc.
We're using Redis To Go as our Redis host. We use Redis for preventing abuse of the system by throttling requests based on public IP address. Each public IP is allowed to provision no more than 100 databases per hour.

After we wrote the initial code for postgression, deploying the entire thing to Heroku (including setting up cron, Redis, and PostgreSQL) took only a few minutes. Big kudos to the Heroku team for rocking so hard.

And since I know many of you will ask, here's how much it is currently costing us to run postgression, along with a price breakdown:

1 domain name through DNSimple (the best registrar ever) $14 / year.
1 web dyno to power the postgression API: $0 / month.
1 Heroku basic database for powering our postgression PostgreSQL database (this is what we use to track our databases states): $9 / month.
1 Redis To Go database: $0 / month.
Heroku Scheduler usage (you pay by the minute for extra computing resources if you go beyond the free tier): $0 / month.
PostgreSQL backups on AWS powered by Heroku's pgbackups addon: $0 / month.

Total cost for running this service (per month)? ~11$

Flask and APIs

As I mentioned earlier, we wrote the code for postgression in python and Flask. Why did we choose these technologies? A few reasons:

I'm extremely familiar with python and Flask.
Alven had almost no experience with python, so it would be a fun learning experience for him.
Flask makes writing small web services extremely simple (there's very little you have to know to build a functioning service).

For instance, here's the 'core' of our Flask app. Note how simple this is, compared to the typically heavy amount of base framework code you'll find other places.

Our view code is equally straightforward, and our models aren't too bad either :)

Here's how the API logic works:

A user makes a request to the API (api.postgression.com).
We get the user's public IP, and increment their usage count in redis using Flask-Cache. If the user has gone above the 100 allowed requests per hour throttle, we return a HTTP 403 FORBIDDEN code.
We check (using Heroku's API) to see if we have any Heroku apps currently provisioned that are not using 100% of their allotted database slots (each Heroku app allows you to provision a maximum of 30 PostgreSQL databases).
If there is a Heroku app available, we use Heroku's Addon API (https://api-docs.heroku.com/addons) to provision a new Heroku PostgreSQL database.
If there is no Heroku app available, we create a new Heroku app using the Heroku App API (https://api-docs.heroku.com/apps), then provision a new Heroku PostgreSQL database inside the newly created app.
We then check the user's request to see if they want their database credentials back as a PostgreSQL connection string, or as a JSON dictionary, and return the credentials appropriately.

In the background, we have a cron job running every 10 minutes which deprovisions any Heroku PostgreSQL databases that were created 30 minutes ago (or more) using Heroku's API.

Simple, right? When it all comes together, we get the following behavior (screenshot below).

Database Layout

As I mentioned above, postgression uses PostgreSQL itself to keep track of all the Heroku resources it consumes. This makes it easy for us to keep track of things like:

Usage statistics.
How many active Heroku databases we have.
Which databases need to be deprovisioned (any database more than 30 minutes old).
How many Heroku applications we currently have (and if they're running at capacity or not).

Stuff like that.

To make all that work, we used Flask-SQLAlchemy to define two simple database models:

HerokuApp, which keeps track of all our Heroku applications.
HerokuDB, which keeps track of all our Heroku databases, who created them, which Herou app they belong to, when they were created, etc.

Here's how they ended up looking:

Management Commands and Monitoring

In order to automatically send statistics to our shiny new ducksboard dashboard (pictured below), we used Flask-Script to write some simple management commands that are ran automatically by the Heroku Scheduler every 10 minutes.

Writing the cron tasks using Flask-Script is really simple, and makes running automated tasks a breeeze. Below are a couple of the tasks (screenshot), which we can run with the python manage.py blah command.

Pretty easy, right?

Building our Website with Github Pages

The last thing we did was throw together a simple website using Github Pages. While Alven and I can both throw together a simple website, we figured we'd roll with the simplest option available.

Essentially what we did was put all our documentation (in Markdown format) into our project's README.md. Then, using the 'Automatic Page Generator' (available under your Github repository settings), we imported our README file, picked a theme, and published the site.

After it was published, I made some small tweaks, but nothing too big.

The end result? We got the public website going (http://www.postgression.com/) in about 10 minutes.

Takeaways

Building postgression has been really fun. While it's not a complex project by any means, it's been on my TODO list for a while, and throwing it online has been an interesting experience.

Both Alven and I are constantly amazed by:

How cheap it is to build a fully functional web service on Heroku.
How simple it is to deploy code to Heroku, and make updates.
How easy it is to build a REST API using Flask.
How fast you can throw together a decent looking web page on Github.

I'd also like to give one last shout out to all the Heroku guys (and gals). They've built an amazing service, and allowed me to build an entire Database-Testing-as-a-Service API on top of their platform for almost no cost.

If you're interested in postgression at all, be sure to give it a go and check out our website: http://www.postgression.com/

If you'd like to know more about postgression, feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email (rdegges@gmail.com).

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:(

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 02:47:01 -0800

Yesterday I came across this post, written by a really great programmer, and it immediately struck a chord with me. If you haven't read it already, I'll sum it up for you here.

Heather Arthur published some code to her Github account, and was saddened to discover some really popular programmers were discussing her project on Twitter, with nothing nice to say about it. If you read her thoughts (http://harthur.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/771/), you'll get a better understanding.

Shortly after I read her story, I noticed that it ended up getting a lot of attention on Hacker News (a news site for tech folk). One of the most amazing things about Heather's story is that it appears to have really resonated with a lot of people (not just myself), seeing as how the story currently has over 1224 upvotes, and 742 user comments: enormous numbers for a Hacker News story. (The Hacker News discussion can be found here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106767.)

While there are certainly a lot of different opinions and feelings floating around Hacker News about the story, it seems to me that an overwhelming number of programmers felt similarly: being mean to other people (whether it's via Twitter or in person) is not acceptable.

Why did this story garnish so much attention and discussion in the tech community? I believe it's because we (tech people) have seen so much bullying and negativity that when someone brings up the topic in a raw way, it really gets to us.

It doesn't matter who you are: everyone has felt the way Heather has at one point or another. Whether you were bullied in school, dealt verbal abuse by friends or partners, or been the target of subtle attacks (online or offline), everyone can associate with the feeling of being bullied--and I believe we can all agree: it doesn't feel good.

In my line of work (I'm a programmer, writer, and entrepreneur), I've seen so many unnecessarily nasty comments made to people, so many mean (and condescending) tweets, and so many harsh words thrown around, that reading about Heather's experience seems 'all too common'.

This makes me feel sad.

It makes me feel sad because the tech community is focused around education and intelligence. People write programs, share their creations with others, teach, and generally try to make better technology. Most people in the tech community are constantly trying to learn new things, write better code, and solve problems. With so much emphasis on learning and education in the tech community, the very idea that other people would harshly criticize their peers (in public) seems almost laughable: but it happens.

The reason so many people are upset in the tech community, and the reason opinions and discussion get so heated, is that everyone can associate with Heather--but instead of pointing fingers of blame, we should all take a moment to do some self reflection.

Nobody is perfect. Everyone says and does things that contradict their lifelong purpose: it's human nature to make mistakes.

Is it natural to get angry? Ya.

Is it natural to say mean things from time to time? Certainly.

The best we can do (as people) is to accept our faults, and work to better ourselves. Whether this means apologizing to the people you've hurt, analyzing your thoughts and actions, or making an effort to be more positive and helpful as opposed to negative and hurtful--if everyone makes an effort to consciously improve their behavior, this world will be a kinder, nicer place.

I feel sad today, but tomorrow is a new day. A new chance to get out there, build awesome things, and help others do the same!

Be awesome to each other.

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postgression - A PostgreSQL Database for Every Test Case

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 23:36:00 -0800

The following are some facts about me:

I write a lot of software.
In order for me to write good software, I often write tests for my software. Code that makes sure my business logic works on data from my database. Code that makes sure my web requests return the right thing. You name it, I've probably tested it.
I do 100% of my development on a Linux laptop.
I usually run my tests on my laptop while I'm coding, as well as a remote Jenkins server (and sometimes Travis CI instance) that run all my tests to make sure I didn't forget to do so locally.
I hate running a database server on my laptop, I hate running a database server on my Jenkins instance, and I hate telling my test code how to run tests against my testing databases on all the different types of machines I use.

Over the past year or so, I've become really annoyed at having to configure my database in all my environments. I love PostgreSQL (it's an awesome database), but I can't stand the idea of running it locally on my laptop, just so I can make some tests work. I also can't stand the annoyance of having to SSH into my Jenkins server, configure PostgreSQL, and then write code which tells my tests to distinguish between my local PostgreSQL stuff and my Jenkins PostgreSQL stuff--and don't even get me started on configuring it to work in all 3 environments: locally, on Jenkins, and on Travis. Ugh.

I think what annoys me about this is that setting up a database isn't hard, I just think it's stupid to have to remember to do it for each new project. It feels like I'm repeating the same thing over and over again, and each time I do it, I become slightly more annoyed.

So this past week, my buddy Alven and I teamed up to solve this mini-problem for ourselves. The result is our new service, postgression.

postgression is a simple web service, built on top of Heroku's platform (Don't know about Heroku yet? Read my book.), that instantly provisions a new PostgreSQL server (PostgreSQL 9.1.6, to be precise) for you to use in your tests.

Here's how it works: you hit our public facing API (no account required), and we give you back a PostgreSQL database URL that you can use in your application. For example:

https://gist.github.com/4584371

Simple, right? So now that you've got the database, you have your tests run against this database (which is available in Amazon's US East region, in case you're curious), and that's it!

Finally, after 30 minutes, this database will magically disappear.

So, why is this useful? Well, using postgression to generate a database for your tests means that:

You can run your tests locally without needing to install PostgreSQL server.
You can run your tests locally, remotely (on Jenkins / Travis / etc.) using all the same configuration--no need to do any custom scripting or environment checking.
It costs you nothing.

Is this the most useful service in the world? Nope. But I love it, I've been using it, and it's made my testing quite a bit simpler.

Today I'm really happy to open postgression up to the public. Alven and I have created some handy tools on our Github page, which make using postgression easier, and we've written some basic documentation on the postgression website to help you get started.

If you've got any questions, comments, concerns, or otherwise, I'd absolutely love to hear them. I hope you'll give postgression a try!

Check out postgression here.

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Being Awesome

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:54:00 -0800

If you wan to be awesome, then go be awesome.

Code the stuff you want to code. Build the business you want to build. Lift the weights. Lose the weight. Go the extra mile.

Don't listen to anyone else, just get out there, do what you love, and fucking KICK ASS along the way.

Don't yield for anyone.

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Why You Might Enjoy Using DNSimple

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 19:01:00 -0800

Practically everyone I know involved in the tech industry has a preferred domain name registrar / DNS provider. I've used quite a few different companies myself over the years, and have come to really, really like DNSimple.

DNSimple is, in my experience, the simplest, most elegant, and best all around domain name registrar and DNS provider. Since I often get the "What registrar do you use?" question when talking with friends online, I figured I'd chronicle my experiences with DNSimple here.

If you're already a DNSimple customer, you may enjoy this article regardless. If you're not yet a DNSimple customer, but are already sold, you can sign up here and both you and I will get a free month of service.

Interface

DNSimple has an awesome interface. The company is built around the idea that DNS should be simple, and their interface reflects this.

Below are some screenshots of my personal DNSimple account.

See the full gallery on Posterous

I love their interface. Their UI is simple and elegant. You can easily register and transfer domains. You can easily update DNS records manually using their advanced editor (which is, by far, the simplest DNS editor I've ever used), and you can even use their pre-built DNS templates to instantly add DNS records to your domain (for stuff like Google Apps, Heroku, Cloudflare, etc.).

If you find yourself frequently applying similar DNS rules, you can even create your own custom DNS templates, which allows you to perform one-click DNS record additions to as many domains as you'd like.

Lastly, DNSimple doesn't try to upsell you additional services. Purchasing a domain name takes two clicks, and there are no spammy ads or any other junk preventing you from doing what you want to do: purchase your damn domain name!

URL Forwarding

What has quickly become one of my favorite lesser known DNSimple features is their URL forwarding service. This allows you to create a DNS 'URL' record which redirects users to your desired location.

This works great for instances where your site runs under the www subdomain, and you'd like to force all users who visit your naked domain (eg: mysite.com) to be redirected to your www subdomain (eg: www.mysite.com). If you're wondering why I use www instead of naked domains, see this article (it's worth your time).

Below is a screenshot from one of my domains--you can see my URL record and how it forwards.

SSL

Another great thing about DNSimple is their excellent SSL handling.

For some reason, every registrar I've ever used has made purchasing SSL certificates a confusing, frustrating, and slow experience. DNSimple is the only company I've worked with that actually makes purchasing and using SSL certificates simple and straightforward.

Below is what their SSL certificate purchasing page looks like. See how simple that is?

Once you've purchased a certificate, DNSimple adds a nice SSL certificate section to your domain page, which allows you to easily download or copy and paste your SSL details for usage with your provider. If you're using Heroku, there's a guide you can follow to get up and running with SSL and DNSimple.

API

Another thing that really bugs me about most registrars is that they have no easily accessible API. Since domain names are primarily managed by programmers, this has always felt completely unacceptable to me.

Luckily, DNSimple has a really great REST API, along with excellent API documentation and a bunch of client libraries.

There are even some great tools you can use, built on top of the DNSimple API--worth checking out if you'd like to see some real-world DNSimple API examples.

Price

DNSimple is very reasonably priced. They charge a small per-month membership fee depending on how many domains you have (see their plan page for details), and they support a long list of TLDs (see their TLD pricing page here).

Support

Among registrars I've used, DNSimple has, by far, the best support. I've sent them several support emails with questions over the past year or so, and each time I've received an email answer immediately (from a developer).

Each time I've talked with someone at the company, I've been extremely impressed by the speed (and accuracy) of service.

Final Thoughts

DNSimple is, without question, my favorite domain name registrar and DNS provider. They've been able to live up to their name and really make DNS--simple.

If you're shopping around for a new registrar, I'd highly recommend you give DNSimple a shot, I guarantee you'll like them.

The only gripe I have about DNSimple is only that they don't (yet) have an Android app! (They do have an Iphone app, if you're an IOS guy.)

Anyhow, if you'd like to give DNSimple a shot, create an account now: https://dnsimple.com/.

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A Year in Bakersfield

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:25:00 -0800

For the past year, I've been living in a relatively small city in central California: Bakersfield.

Last year (a week before Thanksgiving Day), my wife's employer gave her an immediate (urgent) promotion, and we quickly packed our bags in Los Angeles and moved ~2 hours north to Bakersfield.

I've been working at home the past few years, so my wife and I decided when we got married (almost 3 years ago!) that we'd move wherever was most advantageous for her work.

When we started the move, I had essentially no knowledge about Bakersfield. I pretty much assumed it was a small little city in the middle of nowhere, and that I'd be surrounded (more or less) by farmland.

Since people are always pretty shocked when I tell them I live in Bakersfield, I figured I'd take a few minutes to reflect on the past year of being here. Next time you hear about Bakersfield, you'll be able to relate :)

A Horrible Reputation

Throughout California (unbeknownst to me at the time), Bakersfield has a pretty bad reputation. When we got the news that we were moving to Bakersfield, my wife and I started talking with our friends to see what they knew. Among other things, we heard:

It was full of drug addicts.
It was really small.
There was nothing to do in the city.
It smelled nasty.
It was filled with rampant racism.
It was dangerous to live there.

After hearing all the horrible stories people told us, my wife and I basically made a pact to ourselves: we'll just tough things out and deal with it however crappy it may be. When we loaded up our Uhaul and headed to an extended stay in Bakersfield's downtown area, we expected the worst.

First Impressions

The place my wife's company put us up in when we moved was a really run-down extended stay hotel. This was my first time staying in an exteded stay hotel, and I learned what extended stay really means: a smaller than average hotel room with no room service.

Within the first few days we saw a drug deal go down in the hotel parking lot, the doorman smoking weed and other drugs outside the guest windows, and many loud arguments--it wasn't pretty.

In addition to the crappy hotel we were staying in, the weather was insane. My wife and I figured that since Bakersfield is only ~2 hours north of LA that the weather would likely be the same--we were totally wrong.

Through winter (November -> April) Bakersfield is freezing cold. Like 30F cold. There was routinely ice on the grass in the morning, and throughout the day the temperature was a cold 45F -> 55F.

I only own shorts and t-shirts (I live in California, don't judge me!), so I ended up making abundant use of the toe heater in my car.

Other than the hotel and weather--the city smelled like farmland. The smell you get when driving through a cow farm--that sort of thing. A mixture of manure and fog is the best way I can describe it. Luckily, this must have been a temporary thing (wind blowing the scent?), because we only experienced it for a few days, after which it seemed to go away (it comes back from time-to-time).

The people, however, were awesome. Everyone we met seemed really friendly and welcoming, which made us feel a lot better about the move. Coming from Los Angeles, having people say "hi" to you as you walk down the street is an odd feeling. Both my wife and I were really surprised that everyone was so nice.

Exploring

Once my wife got acclimated to her new work, we started apartment hunting and exploring the city. We looked at a ton of different apartment complexes in various parts of the city, and asked a lot of questions.

Bakersfield is broken into quadrants (for the most part). You've got north-west, north-east, south-west, and south-east. What we learned along the way is that east Bakersfield is a lot more run down and "ghost town-ish" than the rest of the city.

North West Bakersfield (in particular) is a very nice area--filled with lots of new buildings and residental areas (shopping strips, restaurants, etc.). With such a low cost of living in the area, you can get an amazing apartment in North West Bakersfield for almost nothing.

My wife and I eventually landed a really nice 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment (enormous square footage) in a beautiful complex next to a very nice public park for only 1225$ per month.

Other than driving around throughout the city looking for places to live, we also went hunting for nice places to hang out. After lots of exploration, we fould some beautiful city parks: Hart Park and The Park and Riverwalk, nice jogging (and biking) trails, and a few great restaurants (Salty's BBQ is amazing).

We also joined the local gym which, despite its horrible online reviews, has been really nice.

After a couple of months, we felt right at home.

The City

What a lot of people don't seem to realize about Bakersfield is that it isn't all that different from Los Angeles. It wasn't obvious to me at first, but shortly after moving here I realized some of the similarities:

There are a lot of people. Bakersfield has over 400k people living here, so it isn't exactly a small city.
There is traffic congestion (especially during your standard work hours). While it isn't as bad as LA, it's still frustraing and slow.
There's a lot of pollution. Bakersfield is a big oil company town, and the air quality here is notoriously bad.
There are tons of different stores, shopping outlets, bars, and pletny of things to do.
You need a car to get around, as there is no suitable public transportation to get you around the city.

The differences between Bakersfield and Los Angeles were immediately apparent:

Cost of living is a lot lower. You can get an amazing apartment and have a very high standard of living for a lot less than is possible in LA.
Bakersfield is a lot less diverse than Los Angeles. While there are a lot of different people here, it seems that there is a majority of older white people (from what I've seen).
There is no technical community here at all. There's not a single tech meetup. There are no programmers with active github accounts (other than mine). There are no tech companies (that I've seen).

A majority of the people living here work for the big oil companies, so there are a ton of huge SUVs and trucks everywhere, and most people work in the oil fields all day.

Location

Bakersfield is in central California. It's 1 -> 2 hours away from Los Angeles (depending on traffic), and 4 -> 5 hours away from the Bay Area (depending on traffic).

Since the city is relatively close to both Southern and Northern California, my wife and I have had a pretty good time driving around to go to events. We tend to head to either Los Angeles or the Bay Area once or twice a month, which forces us to get out of the house and go do something interesting with our friends in tech.

With only a 2 hour or 5 hour drive to go to either LA or SF, getting on a plane isn't even worth it. Unfortunately, however, after you've made several multi-hour drives, it tends to wear you out quite a bit--and each time I decide to go to an event, I have to take commute into heavy consideration, as it will be an all day affair.

Isolation

One of the things I've enjoyed most about my time in Bakersfield has been the isolation. Since moving here last year, I've been more or less isolated from all my typical duties: events, celebrations, etc. (with several exceptions). I've tried to make the most of this isolation, and use it as a productivity tool.

In the past year I've spent a ton of time learning new technical things, writing a book, launching a company, building lots of open source libraries, and working on personal development.

I've also pushed myself harder than I have in the past, and have experimented with various motivation and productivity strategies to help stay focused and continue building cool things.

Overall, I've gotten a lot done, and have had a lot of fun doing it.

While living in Bakersfield is certainly not for everyone, I've really enjoyed my time here. For me, Bakersfield has been a nice cozy cabin, where I've been able to focus on my work and myself without distraction--while being close enough to larger cities to visit semi-frequently.

At the moment, both my wife and I are currently looking for a new adventure. We're currently debating between heading up north (Portland or the Bay Area), heading south to LA again, or possibly going overseas. In the next several months we'll choose a destination and head out.

If you happen to be driving through Bakersfield in the near future, or want to chat about the city, feel free to shoot me an email: rdegges@gmail.com

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Time Off

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 12:03:00 -0800

This year for Thanksgiving, I did something I don't normally do: I took some time away from the computer.

Since both my work and hobby involve programming, it is rare that a day passes for me in which I don't do at least a little bit of coding. If I had to guess, I'd say that for the better part of the last 5 years I've gone at most a dozen days without programming overall.

Since I've been putting in a lot of effort lately working on my various projects, I decided that this year I'd actually remove myself from the computer as much as possible around the holidays so I could spend more time with my family, and attempt to loosen up a bit.

From Wednesday through Saturday night, I didn't touch a computer (with a single exception, to correct an important issue). While this may sound hilariously simple: I feel great!

The first day was pretty hard to make it through--I had no idea what to do with myself. The second day was much easier--I accepted that I wasn't going to be doing any coding, and just went with the flow. Had a lot of fun with my family, ate a lot of turkey, and most of all, got to really relax for the first time in a while.

On the third day, my brain kicked into creative mode, and since then I've had a ton of great ideas (for work, personal projects, and personal development things) which I'm excited to implement over the coming months.

Although it is common knowledge, I now see exactly how effective taking a break can be. I'll definitely be doing this more frequently.

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Improvement and Perfection

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 02:29:18 -0800

I just finished watching a truly excellent movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. If you haven't seen it, I'd highly recommend you watch it (it's available on Netflix if you're a subscriber).

I'm all about motivational media, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi happens to be one of the most motivating and happy films I've ever watched. This article contains my thoughts on improvement and perfection (the central theme of the movie), since they are still fresh in my mind.

Everyone starts their lives with no skill. As a child you know almost nothing. Your parents and those around you gradually teach you how to live, how to act, how to work, etc., but these skills are gained over time and with practice.

Nobody is born knowing how to write computer software, and nobody is born with the ability to play guitar. Every skill you posess is learned and acquired over time, with lots of practice. If you'd like to become better at playing the guitar, you must deliberately practice playing the guitar--learning to read music, learning the finger positions, learning how things are supposed to sound, etc. No matter how much you like guitar or how much you read about guitar--the only way to get better at your craft is to deliberately practice it.

The more you practice a cetain skill, the better you'll become. If you continuously spend 10 hours a day making sushi, you will undoubtedly become better at making sushi.

In addition to practicing your craft, you can also improve your skill by striving for perfection in your craft, and holding yourself to a high standard. For instance--if you make sushi each day for 10 hours, this alone is not enough to push you past a certain point of success.

To continue improving your sushi, you also need to strive for perfection. You need to pay close attention to each detail of the process. You must perfect the art of cooking the rice, slicing the fish, marinating the meats, and a number of other things.

As you make sushi each day, you need to be strict with yourself. You must taste your sushi as it is being prepared to ensure it is up to your standards. You must continue to experiment with your dishes and flavors to ensure they are not only great, but as close to perfection as possible.

Each day you should practice your craft and strive for perfection, regardless of whether you're preparing sushi or writing software.

I think this lesson holds true for all of life. You should constantly push yourself to be better than the day before. Strive for perfection in every act you perform.

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Sometimes You've Got To Kill It

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 23:22:31 -0800

I've noticed that sometimes, doing the things you enjoy just isn't enough. Sometimes you need to do more.

I often get that feeling deep down that I'm not being the best I can be--I'm not pushing myself hard enough. I'm not getting out there, doing the stuff I love to do, and completely destroying it. Sometimes I feel weak, tired, and beaten--and the only thing I can think about or focus on is absolute victory.

I find that when I'm in this mindset, there's only one way to satisfy my craving: to put 100% of my effort into what I'm doing, and absolutely crush it. If I'm working on one of my companies, I'll do whatever needs to be done to take it to the next level: 4 hour hackathon, 8 hour hackathon, 24 hour hackathon--whatever it takes.

If I'm working on a writing project when I get this urge--I'll lock myself up in a quiet room and I won't allow myself to leave until I've completely finished what I need to do.

No matter how difficult the task, no matter how much energy or effort it takes, I'll not only do it--but I'll do it as best as it can possibly be done.

This is the only way to satisfy the craving.

Sometimes you've got to listen to the voice in your head that tells you to just keep going. When you're feeling down, and there are a million voices telling you to give up--sometimes you need to listen to the one voice that's telling you to get out there, and kick some ass.

You know that deep down, even though you're tired, you're capable of a lot more. Give yourself some credit. Push your limits. If you're not struggling to advance, you're falling into the abyss.

Get out there, and kill it.

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Ambitions

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:20:09 -0800

It's about 1am right now, and instead of sleeping I'm thinking about all the things I want to accomplish, and what I need to do to get there.

While I'm currently really happy with my day-to-day life: I enjoy the things I'm working on each day, I'm constantly learning new skills, I'm pushing myself past my comfort barrier--I'm always craving more.

More skills, more connections, more victories, more struggles, more achievements--more everything. Unfortunately, when I think about these things (which I do quite often), I can't help but feel a bit guilty.

Internally, there's always a debate that takes place. One side of me says "You're happy with what you're currently doing. Don't constantly focus on always doing bigger, better things! Be content with yourself now!" While the other side says "Go big! Don't settle for your current situation. Be happy with yourself, but push yourself outside your limits, and don't yield!"

It's a struggle.

On one hand, I can see myself easily "going with the flow" and learning to be content with myself. On the other hand--I don't want to give up my huge ambitions without a fight.

Is this normal? Does everyone feel this way?

While both sides of the spectrum appeal to me, I must admit I'm quite a bit more fond of the all-or-nothing approach. The idea of struggling through the pain, sacrifice, and discipline of working towards my ambitions seems somewhat romantic.

It's a fork in the road--but I suppose everyone has to choose at one point or another.

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Too Short

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:28:00 -0700

Some quick thoughts about how life is just too short to do stuff you hate.

If you're an engineer working on a product you can't stand, it really isn't worth it to stick around and keep working on the same thing. If you can code things, you have the power (quite literally) to build your own wealth, however you choose.

Whether you want to work at a big company on a big product (with lots of other engineers), whether you want to work at a tech startup on a product you love (with a few amazing people), whether you want to build a company you're passionate about, or whether you want to build technology for clients--you have the ability to choose what you work on, and get paid along the way.

Since work is such a large part of life, slaving away on products you hate is probably the fastest way to build stress, burn yourself out, and lower your morale.

If you're stuck in a position you don't want to be in, call in sick for a day or two and really think about what you want to do with your time:

Is there something amazing you want to build?
Is there something you really enjoy doing that you're not doing now?
Can you use your skills in a better way than you are now?

Once you've thought it through, don't go easy on yourself. Make a decision. Hold your ground. Things always seems crazy at first (until you do them), so don't let your fear make your decisions for you.

There's just not enough time in life to do things you hate, so instead of wasting your time away, just do the things you love to do.

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Hack Things at the LA Hackathon

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 16:07:00 -0700

I know several things about you right now:

You are more than likely a programmer. I know this because most of my writing here on this site is dedicated to programming, and I doubt you'd be here unless you're interested in the topic.
You like doing awesome things. I know this because everyone likes doing awesome things.
You want to be better at coding stuff. I know this because if you're reading blogs about programming, you're probably interested in becoming a better programmer. Everyone wants to improve at the things they love.

Given those assumptions, I'm here to tell you that if you live in California, you should really be going to the LA Hackathon on November 4, 2012. It doesn't matter whether you're in Eureka, SF, Los Gatos, or San Diego--if you live in California, code stuff, and like being awesome, you should make plans (right now!) to go to this event.

Here's why:

This event is all about working on open source software, and contributing to the community. It doesn't matter how great of a coder you are--if you're passionate about building fucking amazing software, hacking on open source projects is an excellent way to get better. As an added benefit, your work will be helping other people, and that's always a good thing.

NOTE: Don't have an open source project to work on? Don't fucking sweat it! There are going to be lots of people to collaborate with--you can get involved on someone else's project, join one of the groups, or start something completely new.

You're going to meet amazing people. This event is filled with awesome programmers. The people hosting it are incredibly well known kickass programmers, and the people coming are equally badass. Regardless of whether you're an intro or extrovert, you'll be making some awesome friends, guaranteed.

BREAKFAST. LUNCH. DINNER. Need I say more? The food is always good (I know from experience), and you will have some awesome jet fuel in your tummy to help you rock your software all day long.

"Idea Guy Security". Know those idea guys that are always going to tech meetups and bothering you? Those dudes who "just need a programmer for 5 hours" to implement the next Facebook? Those same dudes who heckle you all night trying to get you to work for free on their Instagram clone? Those guys are getting kicked out at the door. This event is famous for kicking recruiters, idea guys, and non-programmers out before they get in. This means you'll be surrounded by awesome programmers all day, and won't have to worry about business people bothering you.

You're going to have fun. If you've never been in a room full of programmers, all hacking away on awesome stuff and chatting--it's a beautiful thing. This is the 5th LA Hackathon, and each time they seem to get better and better. I always end up writing amazing code, meeting really awesome people, and having a blast.

In conclusion, you should really be going to this thing. It's a fucking TON of fun, filled with amazing guys (and gals), and worth a long drive and the 10$ ticket price.

If you'd like to sign up, you can do so here: http://www.meetup.com/LA-Hackathons/events/85658952/

Be sure to get your ticket quick though, this event ALWAYS SELLS OUT, and is incredibly popular. There are only 150 open slots this time, so get yours now!

Hope to see you there >:)

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Freeing Up Your Time

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 14:48:00 -0700

I'm a huge proponent of being lazy. And of course, by being lazy, I mean being smart.

In my line of work (building tech companies), there are constantly a million separate things to do, worry about, and focus on at any given time. One day you'll be reaching out to customers all day long, and another day you'll be furiously fixing bugs and adding features. No matter what happens, there is never a shortage of things that just have to get done.

When you're completely swamped with things to do, all of high importance, it seems like every little thing you worry about adds fifty pounds to your shoulders. It's really easy to get overwhelmed by all the little things: remembering to pay your rent, buy toothpaste, generate the billing reports for your company, etc. Every single tiny little thing you have to do, each day / week / month / year adds up.

While it may not look like it takes an enormous amount of time to pay you rent each month, the mental cost is a lot higher. When you're at the gym half-way through the month and your brain alerts you and says "Oh yea! I have to pay the rent again in two weeks, better not forget about it." and then keeps reminding you every day or so until you do it--you've accumulated minutes worth of stress, worry, and unnecessary distraction. When you think about all the things you have to remember to do each month, it all adds up, inch by inch.

If you'd like to free up your time, be able to keep a clear mind, and focus on the things you want to focus on (not things you are forced to focus on), you'll need to automate. All those little things you have to do each month? Automate them. Be as lazy as you can possibly be.

Can you have toothpaste shipped to your house automatically each month? Do it.
Can you have toilet paper shipped to your house each month? Do it.
Can you write a script to automate those billing reports at the end of the month? Do it.
Can you have your bank automatically pay your rent for you? Do it.

Automation is an incredibly useful tool, one that way too many people don't take advantage of. It is one of the best ways to cut back on worry, stress, and unnecessary distractions in the short and long term. If you can completely automate even some of your basic monthly needs, you'll immediately reap the benefits.

For any of your basic product needs (toilet paper, toothpaste, razors, etc.), you can most likely have Amazon auto-ship them to your house each month.

Need to generate business reports each month? Why not use a service like Ducksboard and plug your data into a single, fancy dashboard that you can look at whenever you need to.

Need to pay your rent on the 1st of the month? I can almost guarantee your bank will let you do it automatically.

I started ruthlessly automating my personal nuisances last year, and it's made an enormous difference in how I spend my time. Instead of worrying about trivial matters constantly, running to the grocery store at 11pm to grab toothpaste, or exchanging 20 emails back and fourth at the start of each month about business analytics--I can instead focus on the things that I'd actually like to work on, as opposed to being pulled in all directions.

If you're looking for a quick way to cut back on your stress, free up some time, and clear your mind--spend a day automating all your basic needs--I guarantee you won't regret it.

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Some Constants

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:20:00 -0700

Everyone has their constants--a spouse, a ritual, parents, friends, whatever. Even with shit gets crazy in your life and you've got a million things going on, your constants are the things you can always count on.

Having things you can rely on day after day makes you feel comfortable. No matter how tough things get, no matter what craziness is currently going on, you can always count on your constants.

A few months ago I really changed my daily schedule around. I started making some habit changes that I've really enjoyed. What follows are my constants. These are the things that make me feel awesome every day, regardless of whether or not I'm feeling my best.

Lifting Weights

PICK STUFF UP, AND PUT IT DOWN AGAIN. I know that everyone has their preferred form of exercise, but for me, it is lifting weights. The first thing I do when I wake up (6 days a week) is head over to my local gym and do the day's workout.

It feels nice knowing that even if the rest of my day sucks--even if I break production, write crappy code, get overwhelmed with the TODO list--at least I got a good workout in.

Getting a win early in the day feels good, keeps me motivated, and generally makes me feel more awesome.

Reading

I read a lot of books. I'm really into software best practices, programming, and theory books. (As a sidenote, basically every book The Pragmatic Bookshelf publishes is fucking amazing.)

I don't really understand how other people can go several days (or more!) without sitting down, and reading some sort of book. Out of all the things I've done in my life, reading has probably been the most important.

If you aren't reading books, learning new things, and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone (knowledge wise)--you're going to stagnate. In my opinion, reading books is the single greatest way to always be expanding your knowledge base.

Get a Kindle, download some ebooks, visit your library--whatever. Just read stuff. More.

Eating Meat

MEEEAAAATTTT! Meat tastes good, it's filled with protein, makes you feel full, and is low on calories. What could be better?

I don't really have much to elaborate on for this one. Eating meat makes me feel awesome, helps repair muscle tissue, and tastes amazing. Some of my favorite dishes at the moment are almond chicken, meatballs with sauteed onions, and everyone's favorite: bacon.

Writing

Writing is very therapeutic. The act of analyzing your thoughts, figuring out what they mean, and then translating that meaning into groupings of words that other people can understand is a great way to improve your:

Thinking skills.
Thoughtfulness.
Knowledge of whatever subject you're writing about.

In addition to the obvious benefits, I find that writing every day helps me relax. It feels good to pick a topic, think about it, and spend some time writing about it. It's a soothing process.

Writing is also a pretty good way to get to know other people. I've made tons of really awesome friends through my blog that I never would have met otherwise. There are so many interesting people out there, and what better way to meet them than through writing about topics they care about?

If you end up writing about a lot of technical stuff, you'll probably meet some really awesome technical people. If you write a lot about business stuff, I'm sure you'll meet awesome business people.

Writing a little bit every day keeps me sane, helps me relax, and generally makes me feel awesome.

These are the my constants. They change from time to time, but are always there for me to fall back on. What are yours?

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My Bane - Multiple Projects

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 02:30:40 -0700

This topic is something that's been floating around in the back of my mind for the past several years. My weakness, fatal flaw, bane, whatever you want to call it... is that I'm awful at doing multiple things. Really awful.

Whew, just saying it makes me feel a little bit better.

Every single day I open up my laptop, turn it on, and stare at the screen for a good 10 seconds or so before diving into whatever it is I'm doing: working on my startup, working on GitHub projects I've created, reviewing pull requests, reviewing feedback for my book, working on one of the other 50+ projects I've got going on at any given time... UGH.

During those 10 seconds, I'm completely destroyed by a tidal wave of thoughts:

Oh no! I didn't review that pull request from that library I wrote.
Oh no! I need to finish up the new billing stuff on the website before our user emails go out!
Oh no! I need to rewrite this chapter of my book after getting some really awesome feedback.
Oh no! I've got a big talk coming up that I have to work on in the next several weeks.
...

As soon as those 10 seconds are over, however, I regain my composure, remember the most important thing I need to be working on, and start attacking it.

What really bothers me, however, is that day after day, month after month, year after year--I still think about all the things I need to do, should be doing, could have done, and want to do--constantly. It's as if somewhere inside I'm paralyzed by my options, ambitions, thoughts, and goals.

I know that I want to do all of the things I've got on my mind. These are all things I've thought about, started, worked on, and set goals for. These are all things that I really love, and want to see become successful, kickass, and enviable projects.

And even though I'm able to maintain focus--working on the most important things every day--it still bothers me to no end that I'm unable to dedicate as much time, commitment, and energy as I want to each of these projects that I love so much.

I'm beginning to think that at some point, importance just doesn't matter anymore. If I feel really excited about working on my book, then I'm going to work on my book. If I feel really motivated to write that sexy new billing interface for my users, I'll do that. If I feel like pushing the new product launch back two days so I have time to clean up, isolate, and publish that awesome python library which allows me to remove duplicate code from the codebase, then I'm going to do it!

From now on, I'm going to make a conscious effort to stop letting importance dictate my life, and instead let my passion and motivation drive my daily work.

Instead of suppressing my urge to hack on my favorite projects, I'd instead like to use my passion to get shit done, feel happy with myself, and build awesome stuff.

NOTE: Just to clarify, I'm not the type of person to work on a million separate ideas at a time. I have a relatively small list of projects that are really meaningful to me, which is what I'm talking about in this article.

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No Regrets

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:35:21 -0700

I've always been an extreme person. My internal motto has always been to either do something all the way, or not do it at all.

When I was getting to know my wife (back when she was just my girlfriend), I think this scared her a bit. Always putting everything you have into everything you do is really draining (on yourself, and the people around you).

If you're on a strict diet, your friends may not like it when you can't go out to certain restaurants with them. If you're on a strict time schedule, your friends may not like it when you can't hang out on the weekends. If you're building a company, your friends may not like the fact that you're always talking about your work. If you're lifting heavy weights six times a week, your friends may not like the fact that you're always completely exhausted.

No matter what the situation, giving 100% of your effort to any one task is hard. It requires dedication, commitment, and pain.

When my wife first told me how extreme I was from her point of view, I had to take a step back and think it over--was I really that extreme? Do I need to slow down? Should I pace myself more? So I did what anyone would do: I tried it. I slowed down, paced myself, and tried to relax more.

After going through a few phases of being not-so-extreme, I realized that it just wasn't for me. If I'm not giving what I'm doing 100% of my effort, I tend to feel bad about myself--I tend to have regrets.

There's nothing worse than looking back at:

What you've done.
What you've accomplished.
What you want to accomplish.

And thinking about all the ways you've could've done better: "I should have done this", or "I could have done that", or "I can't believe I didn't do ...".

To me, that is by far the worst feeling--knowing that you didn't give it your all, and feeling the regret sink in, day after day.

Even though busting your ass every day and working as hard as you possibly can is painful, it is a lot less painful than not living up to your potential, and taking the easy way out.

No matter how much you try to justify your actions to yourself: if you aren't always fighting yourself to be as good as you can be, struggling to get better, and ripping through obstacles on the way to the finish line--you will certainly have regrets.

Don't settle for that.

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Don't Panic! Frustration is an Anti-Pattern

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:12:12 -0700

Frustration and programming seem to go hand in hand. When solving problems with code, there are an unlimited amount of things that can go wrong, and very few things that can go right:

The third party library you're using to implement a piece of functionality doesn't work as stated in the documentation.
Your co-worker unknowingly reverted a bugfix you made the previous week.
You accidentally deployed code that corrupted user data.

Unfortunately, this means that if you write a lot of code, you'll be spending quite a lot of time frustrated on a day-to-day basis.

What I've noticed, however, is that lots of people tend to embrace their frustration instead of doing the opposite and letting it go.

When you bump into problems, if you tell yourself that it is difficult, and convince yourself that you are a victim of issues you can't control--your frustration will simply keep building and building, and your work will quickly dwindle in quality.

The more you embrace your frustration, the more frustrated you become.

Through my own experience, I know that some individuals (and companies!) actually thrive off frustration. Instead of acknowledging the issues at hand, some people simply press each other harder, and make each other feel worse. In the workplace, this manifests as a boss pressuring his subordinates when they're in a tight spot, adding to the frustration and intensity of the whole organization--and delivery subpar results.

There is no way to stop yourself from being frustated. Instead, however, you can consciously make a decision to acknowledge your frustration (that broken third party library, your reverted bugfix, whatever), realize that your frustration isn't helping you make progress, and let it go.

With a clear head, you can now tackle the next most important problem (fixing that broken library) without compromising your sanity.

Just let it go.

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Dangerous People

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:58:51 -0700

There are lots of people on earth--some big, some small, some famous, some unrecognizable, and some dangerous.

Out of all the people I can think of, the most dangerous ones are the pragmatic ones. That guy (or gal) you know through IRC who's always working on his side projects well past 2am each night--these are the most dangerous people. They posess skill sets and personality traits that aren't commonly seen: they're reasonable, thoughtful, passionate about what they do, and not afraid to do it (even if it takes a lot of work).

Almost everything is done virtually today. Each day the physical world seems to slip a bit further into history, and the virtual world seems to replace the crumbling buildings it leaves behind. We've all seen how incredibly fast technology has replaced century-old businesses, and there is no question in my mind that within the next 20 years the trend will continue.

If you're a computer programmer, engineer, graphic designer, or any combination of the above, you're in an incredibly unique position right now: you have the ability, tools, and power to build immense wealth, influence, and fame--much moreso than at any previous time in history.

With a laptop, an internet connection, and 50$ you can bootstrap even the most abitious technical projects by yourself, decimating even the most highly established, well-funded and successful businesses in an incredibly small amount of time.

It's time to take your skills, and use them to your advantage. Instead of putting in 60 hour weeks at a company you hate, it's time to bust out of your shell and unleash your power and ability. Don't hesitate, and don't hold back. The timing couldn't be more perfect, so don't let this opportunity go to waste.

If you've got the skills, ambition, and motivation to build something great, get out there and do it. Be dangerous, now is the time.

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