I discovered Less Wrong from a post on Overcoming Bias. I discovered Overcoming Bias from a comment on Slashdot.
I have been promoting rationality for as long as I can remember, although I have improved much in the past few years and even more after discovering this forum. About the same time as “citation needed” exploded on Wikipedia, I started applying this standard rigorously to my conversations, and I look for outside sources in my discussions every day. This community has taught me to promote nothing less than the full truth, which I have been striving to do ever since. The latter doesn’t always work very well socially, but I apply it nevertheless, hoping to lead by example (which I have succeeded in doing several times before).
I have read a lot of “Internet self help”, including the various teachings of the seduction community, Tim Ferris, Paul Graham, Steve Pavlina. At age 18 I was planning on getting an master’s degree, then going in to a full-time job for life, and I had no idea about how to deal with women. The aforementioned sources led me to start working freelance instead, striving for financial freedom, and seeing the most attractive woman as equals with whom I can share experiences.
I am very good at my profession, programming, and make about as much per hour as expensive lawyers. Because of this, I only have to work a couple of months per year. My goal is to have automated income forever, so I can work exclusively on writing free software (as in Free Software Foundation) for the rest of my life. I am presently nowhere near this goal, and looking for how I can make it happen.
Several studies[1] have concluded that you need to spend at least 10,000 hours doing something to become a top expert. 10,000 hours is equivalent to 5 years of working full-time, but don’t think you can count each work hour as one hour towards this total, since you are much more likely to be forced to work on mundane tasks than when you’re doing this as a hobby. Enrolling in a university without mandatory attendance for 3-5 years without caring about your grades can give you enough spare time to accomplish this. If you don’t already have one, a university degree with poor grades can still be useful for visa purposes, when traveling or emigrating.
Regarding programming specifically, I would do a broad spectrum of “hard” stuff that most programmers avoid, as part of your learning. For example: writing video decoders (H.264 uses several delightfully complex algorithms), transactional databases, implementations of several Internet standards and software for embedded devices.
Finally, I find that it’s easiest to get paid your worth if you work as a freelancer for several companies that have prior experience with outsourcing programming tasks to freelancers.
You can find sources for this by googling “10 000 hours”.
Handle: MorganHouse
Age: 25
Education: Baccalaureate in natural sciences
Occupation: Freelance programmer
Location: West Europe
Hobbies: Programming, learning, traveling, dancing
I discovered Less Wrong from a post on Overcoming Bias. I discovered Overcoming Bias from a comment on Slashdot.
I have been promoting rationality for as long as I can remember, although I have improved much in the past few years and even more after discovering this forum. About the same time as “citation needed” exploded on Wikipedia, I started applying this standard rigorously to my conversations, and I look for outside sources in my discussions every day. This community has taught me to promote nothing less than the full truth, which I have been striving to do ever since. The latter doesn’t always work very well socially, but I apply it nevertheless, hoping to lead by example (which I have succeeded in doing several times before).
I have read a lot of “Internet self help”, including the various teachings of the seduction community, Tim Ferris, Paul Graham, Steve Pavlina. At age 18 I was planning on getting an master’s degree, then going in to a full-time job for life, and I had no idea about how to deal with women. The aforementioned sources led me to start working freelance instead, striving for financial freedom, and seeing the most attractive woman as equals with whom I can share experiences.
I am very good at my profession, programming, and make about as much per hour as expensive lawyers. Because of this, I only have to work a couple of months per year. My goal is to have automated income forever, so I can work exclusively on writing free software (as in Free Software Foundation) for the rest of my life. I am presently nowhere near this goal, and looking for how I can make it happen.
Any advice on how to become this good?
Several studies[1] have concluded that you need to spend at least 10,000 hours doing something to become a top expert. 10,000 hours is equivalent to 5 years of working full-time, but don’t think you can count each work hour as one hour towards this total, since you are much more likely to be forced to work on mundane tasks than when you’re doing this as a hobby. Enrolling in a university without mandatory attendance for 3-5 years without caring about your grades can give you enough spare time to accomplish this. If you don’t already have one, a university degree with poor grades can still be useful for visa purposes, when traveling or emigrating.
Regarding programming specifically, I would do a broad spectrum of “hard” stuff that most programmers avoid, as part of your learning. For example: writing video decoders (H.264 uses several delightfully complex algorithms), transactional databases, implementations of several Internet standards and software for embedded devices.
Finally, I find that it’s easiest to get paid your worth if you work as a freelancer for several companies that have prior experience with outsourcing programming tasks to freelancers.
You can find sources for this by googling “10 000 hours”.
If you’re literate in Python, we’ve got some free software programming tasks going here on Less Wrong...