I live in Galicia (Spain), near some of these villages. I've been to some of them personally and they are beautiful. Creating a tech community in one of them has crossed my mind several times.
Positive:
- Calm and beautiful places, surrounded by hills, forests, rivers... a good place to think and to develop new ideas.
- Affordable houses and terrains.
- Galician goverment gives money and help if you want to move in.
- Airports nearby, London is 3-4 hours away by plane.
Negative:
- Most of these buildings are in ruins.
- Poor infrastructure or none at all: you'll miss water, electricity and phone lines. No mobile communications, for sure. Phone companies don't help much either.
- Roads that lead there are often difficult and dangerous.
- No other villages or cities are close, so no hospitals, supermarkets or other services nearby.
The weather is rainy. Think of London or Ireland, something like that, but less cold. Insects are not a problem here, in northern Spain.
How far the beach is... it depends on the roads, maybe 2h on average but it can take much longer (5h maybe?). I live in Santiago de Compostela, there is a beach about 30 mins away.
There are hills almost everywhere, but not many mountains.
Galicia is a beautiful place and you'll have very pretty beaches but realize that you'll enjoy the coldest sea water in Spain in summer and the sea in winter is really wild.
It is very rainy and you can feel isolated and depressive, specially in winter and fall. Climate is better that in London or Berlin for sure; rural internet... well this a different question.
Some old people can be also very troublesome. Fire forests from cattle owners are a real treat (100 declared forest fires between the last saturday and monday only in Galicia).
You can have also problems with Hunters and poachers. It is forbidden for example to shoot towards a path or road or < 500m of a house, but a lot of hunters simply ignore the law all the time. People has been shooted whereas doing footing or over a bike, other have collected lost projectils falling in their garden or crashing against the windows, and three or four people are killed mistakenly by hunters each year. Is not common but can occur. If is hunting day better escape to the city or keep at the house.
Poison can be another big problem locally (dog owners be very afraid) so if you end with the wrong neighbour this can be a hell.
But this can be a heaven also. Food is fan-tas-tic, varied and cheap (specially if you do not have cultural problems with sea food). Galizian language can be confusing for non natives but is not a problem. Most people are really sweet by nature and will be glad to talk you in spanish anytime (please take in mind that this is not always guaranteed in isolated villages of the radicalized Catalunya or in the Basque Country at this moment).
Mosquitos are not a big problem normally, neither cockroaches. Wild boars and roe deers will be a problem for your garden and fruit trees (but the first is soo delicious and unavoidable, and the second is so preetty and easy to fix...). Badgers, Wolves and brown bears either avoid people at all cost unless harassed, or just ignore you and keep themselves at a safe distance. Is very uncommon (but supercool) to see them. The first is very common, the other two very rare.
Had some very rough times myself, including the death of a relative, work harassment during 2 years and a very hard divorce... all at the same time. We humans are made to keep on living, your own human nature will give you strength to keep going. Compare yourself with older folks, who survived wars, famine, nazi holocaust... do you think you can do better? I'm sure you can.
Developing a warehouse management system for one of the biggest companies in the textile industry, world-wide:
- project kick-off with a team of 10 junior developers
- working under pressure for 3 years in a row
- avoiding office politics
- without support from IT staff, my bosses, the client or any other one except our development team
- integrating factory hardware with our own multithreaded applications
The most important lesson I've learned: for software and tech development, people comes first. Always.
The most common feature I've found in successful tech products is ease of use. For this, a product should be intuitive. My definition of "intuitive product":
- Simple, but useful: it must possess not too many parts or features, just the most useful ones.
- Familiar, but innovative: the features it possess must look like other features from other well-known products, but have recognizable improvements also.
I've felt this way too many times, until I realized that it's better to be relaxed, fail and correct your own mistakes, than never fail.
If you try to never fail, you're trying to never be wrong and that's impossible because of human nature. After trying to never be wrong (and failing) for a long time, the result is depression. And a very depressed person starts to fail at almost everything.
Ironically, trying to never fail leads to failing more frequently.
Some advice:
1. Failing and correcting (iterate!) is better than never failing.
2. Problems are targets for your skills, and they are not always your fault.
3. Prioritize, always! Solving the most important problems first buys you time to solve the less important ones.
4. Too much pressure is an enemy of success. When under pressure, the brain switches to life-or-death mode, so it mostly shuts down rational reasoning... the exact same brain functions you need for solving problems and be successful!
Ok, here is mine: Prototyper.
- Create a webapp that allows the users to choose their phone model.
- Based on that, generate and allow downloading of a custom app (Android, iOS) for that model.
- The user should be able to customize the software modules for that app and interconnect them, IFTTT-like.
Many people with ADD/ADHD end up in the IT business. Drinking and drug problems, nicotine and caffeine addiction, high-risk behaviours and family issues are very common among ADD/ADHD people.
The reason behind this: low dopamine and norepinefrine levels in the ADD/ADHD brain. Those low levels create a very high reward threshold, so people with ADD/ADHD tend to unconsciously seek for strong or risky stimulus.
I feel like it's not really possible to be tested for ADD as an adult without just coming across as a person seeking amphetamines. Which is funny, considering how eager child psychiatrists are to hand out diagnoses.
Not at all. You can take Ritalin and Adderall, but that will give you the personality of an accountant and take away your creative problem solving skills.
It doesn't do that to everyone. If anything it makes me more creative. Pity that after a couple of weeks, they stop doing anything, and the withdrawal is so unpleasant.
When I did Amphetamines for the first time (and cocaine for that matter), I was like WOW. I couldn't believe the sheer mental clarity I experienced.
This was more like a team of accountants on a high-speed bullet train, filing Kim Dotcom's annual taxes while doing sudoku's in the background.
I managed to take a low dose of l-amp for exactly 2 consecutive days before I started abusing again.
Yes it worked, but I just want more and more.
You feel like a superhero compared to baseline.
I agree, amphetamine/methamphetamine really boost my creativity and productivity, however it was too much for me to handle. I have experienced some of the most intense mental breakthroughs and produced some of my most creative works with speed, but it takes it's toll in a heavy way, atleast if you go at it like I did. I am just now starting to feel normal again 6-months later after recovering from a 3-month speed fueled intellectual adventure that landed me in the mental hospital twice due to psychosis. I think there is a reason our minds are calibrated with particular dopamine and neurotransmitter levels, when we alter these levels we see the amazing potential of the human mind, but the brain hardware can't handle it unfortunately. Addiction is hard, now I am back to coding (sober) and I find myself thinking about having a bump whenever I feel unmotivated, which is often.
Hear hear. Don't give in. If you wanna talk to someone who's had a similar experience. be welcomed. Although it didn't land me in the hospital, I must say I'm thankful of the support of my girlfriend. Even when I was listening to the shadow-people plotting against me, she supported me and helped me pull through. Don't kid yourself when you think you can manage on your own. Even if you have a super strong will which seems you do. The cravings can be bad, and giving in could be in a blink of an eye.
Let me cosign this.
Tl;dr I'm a highly functional, auto-didactic freelance programmer and pothead.
I get highly stimulated by everything from porn to "dangerous" activity like skateboarding, bouldering, gambling, alcohol and drugs.
Yes. I've never been officially tested, think I slipped the early detection nets. I could read before I went to elementary. I surpassed everyone in basic calculus easily. Usually got bored, and started clowning around a lot.
It was a Montessori [1] school and this made me surpass my classmates by about 1,5 year in certain classes like math.
I have really poor eyesight, and had really big glasses, so yeah I got messed around with a lot, stood my ground, got into a lot of fights, switched school while skipping a year.
In our schools it is normal that you sit in smaller groups with your classmates, so yeah they did single me out when I got distracted all the time, but this never was sufficient and got kicked out of class a lot of time.
Then when my father died when I was 11 after about a year of fighting with cancer, they started attributing my behavior to that stress factor. (ugh, I told them to eat my shorts, and got strongly opinionated about pediatric workers:) ).
I did do a lot of petty things around that time that would give me thrills. I did manage to spur interest in computers from a very young age which kinda saved me I guess :-) (read on), and impressed my friends with "hacking" 3 digit bicycle code-locks. A lot of pranking, lighting fires.
I got into alcohol in my last year of elementary.
I went to a pretty elite high-school when I was just 12. My sister went to the same one, and was a couple years ahead (she finished. I never couldn't cut the two hour a day study requirements. The interpretation of my problematic behavior had already been passed along as info to my high-school teachers (which is usual here). Subsequently I don't think they ever considered ADD/ADHD. In the second year got kicked out of 9/10 classes. My reputation preceded me, and it usually worked to get the class to quiet down by kicking me out. So they started calling me literally a disturbance that was undermining my classmates education.
I went to homework class when I failed the second year for the first time. I ended up sitting around with a bunch of kids just like me: Most of us smoked pot, were all pretty intelligent. And we were great about lying about the amount of homework we had. Enjoyed the free tea and cookies.
One of the pediatrics by then said I had ADHD. But I was never hyperactive really. They wanted to put me on Ritalin. My mother was against it, but gave me the choice and I obliged.
After that I switched to a somewhat lower education system in high-school, which made me pass everything without doing anything other than smoke a lot of weed and singling myself out in the class, and just paid attention to the teachers, which worked fine if I was baked.
I've been experimenting with psychedelics since I was 15. First time I took MDMA was age 17. The list of drugs I have experimented with is impressive.
I am still a daily pot smoker, although I found Green Tea, L-Theanine [2] extract and even mild anti-anxiety or anti-depressants to work for me as well. I pick the first two since they are not physically addictive. HOWEVER, they all make me sleepy at some point, and I sometimes f up by power-napping for too long, then battle insomnia at night.
This sucks.
I did some Ephederine back in the days when it was still legal, but for lulz, not because I thought it would help my condition. Other than that, never did stimulants (except for MDMA @ party's) until I was around 23-24.
I have found stimulants to be extremely addictive to me, so I really shouldn't be near them.
Although low dose amphetamines and Methylphenidate do make me a highly productive, I start abusing them really fast, which fast-tracks down into watching a lot of porn.
Also, it KILLS my appetite and I've been lean since forever, so it just makes me lose a lot of weight.
I don't wanna go to my doctor to get a script because of these reasons. But I still struggle a lot with finding a balance.
I have been working for companies since the age of 16. I have been self employed freelancer for a year now, and also got a house and mortgage at around the same time.
My motivation usually involves paying the bills now :(
When I have interesting new projects lined up (like now), I get highly motivated. But the 10 minute PHP hack I happily postpone until the last possible second.
So yes all in all, I also attribute dopamine. It is also really hard to explain to people why you don't "just do choir x" if you know it will make "choir y & z" easier, or just alleviates stress in general; my brain just obliges.
I really really struggle with this.
My saviors for being productive are THC and L-Theanine [2], and it kinda sucks. Amphetamines make me work for hours straight until I finish all the amps and hardly eat. And weed makes me eat a lot and sleep a lot..
Also I do not recommend smoking weed at all!!! You should be vaping it :P
My story is a bit similar to yours. I got diagnosed with ADD when i was 16 and was put on concerta during my high-school years.
I am interested on how you manage to get stuff done when smoking weed. I have tried to make weed a tool to manage my self, but its not just working for me. I get really confused in my head and do not manage to produce quality work when stoned. It also sometimes makes me super paranoid.
I have ADHD and no tolerance for weed -- it ruins my headspace and makes me paranoid. I also hate ritalin/etc, so I manage myself using tools like lists, alerts (if I've been using my web browser for too long), calendars, and lots of visual cues around my workspace and home (color-coded stickies).
I really, really wish drugs worked better for me, because it looks so much easier.
Yeah, routines sure help. I also TRY to put everything back in its own spot, but i always kid myself I can remember every location of everything, and do not need that.
Exercise routines are also helpful (again, if I do not get bored/distracted 5 mins into it... meaning I have to go somewhere where I can only do activity x. Like the climbing gym, or a martial arts class.
Drugs are not easier at all. Like I said, it's still walking a tight-rope. Also like is being pointed out, brains are differently.
I do not get the paranoia from 14+ years of Cannabis use, most people develop it after so much time, or have 0 tolerance and get it from occasional use.
And like I stated, it just puts me in a mode of "focus on one thing". It still doesn't want me to actually start doing something I have to, but I don't get distracted too much from what I'm doing.
So YMMV.. as always. I'd promote regular exercise and routines like you mentioned to start with.
You should really look into L-Theanine however. Exp if you drink coffee.
It takes off the edginess off caffeine (or any stimulant), while you still get the mental stimulus (focus). When I drink a whole pot of green tea, which contains a good amount of caffeine, my heart rate is even more relaxed than normal.
Maybe a bit off-topic here, but I think there is a cause-effect relationship between number of transistors and life expectancy. More transistors implies more computing power. More computing power leads to better/faster information processing, including medical information. This leads to faster patient diagnostics, better treatments (pharmaceutical innovations), earlier and more precise health warnings (lab tests an medical equipment), and so on.
Faster and better information processing leads also to higher food quality (food processing plants), higher life quality (environmental temperature and humidity control), etc.
Germany is a highly industrialized country, so information processing power causes a big social impact.
Maybe, but there is another, perhaps simpler hypothesis: Both the transistor count and life expectancy increase with time.
One way to verify one or the other is to look at a linear hypothesis:
States: LifeExp, Transistors, Time
Structural Equation Model [1]:
Model 1:
LifeExp ~ Time + Transistors + noise_exp_1
Transistors ~ Time + noise_trans_1
(The 2nd equation means that:
Transistors(t) = a * t + noise, and you try to estimate "a" from the data.)
vs
Model 2:
LifeExp ~ Time + noise_exp_2
Transistors ~ Time + noise_trans_2
If model 2 has more predictive power of LifeExp than model 2 (i.e., noise_exp_1 is lower than noise_exp_2), then according to _this_ model, Transistors causally affects LifeExp. However, this model is way too simplistic and doesn't incorporate other causal paths, such as the one you describe (Transistors -> Computing -> DiagnosticRate -> ...)
Math is not my field of expertise, but I think I get your point. My point was based on a social and economics perspective. I think these other causal paths are fundamental, because they are empirically verified (computing power vs health and life quality).
Positive:
- Calm and beautiful places, surrounded by hills, forests, rivers... a good place to think and to develop new ideas.
- Affordable houses and terrains.
- Galician goverment gives money and help if you want to move in.
- Airports nearby, London is 3-4 hours away by plane.
Negative:
- Most of these buildings are in ruins.
- Poor infrastructure or none at all: you'll miss water, electricity and phone lines. No mobile communications, for sure. Phone companies don't help much either.
- Roads that lead there are often difficult and dangerous.
- No other villages or cities are close, so no hospitals, supermarkets or other services nearby.
Hope this helps.