May Monthly Bragging Thread

I started at my first full-time job as a software engineer in the Bay Area after following Alexei's advice.

I got engaged to an awesome person as a result of this post.

I got the two top scientists in my field to both agree to be my advisers. One of them, not an effusively friendly person, said my research proposal was extremely interesting, new, and important. I cried a little, but luckily I don't think he saw.

Passed my first programming course (Java). Came up with two arduino products for a farm that could be very profitable if successful. Learned something new every day. Went a whole month without feeling depressed.

In the film industry, when we want to guess how much money a film is going to make, we think of similar films to compare it to and see how much money those made. Six months ago, I started a project to think of similar films for you. We rolled it out to our users a couple of weeks ago, and they love it. Quite apart from the films it recommends, my boss says that the way it displays the comparisons is by far the best that he's ever seen. The database it draws from only goes back a few years, so we managed to get budgeting approval to hire a team of interns for a few weeks to fill in the history. My company is probably paying about £10,000 to collect data for a system that I wrote, by myself, in six months while working on other projects. (That's not actually a lot of money, but my system one still thinks it is.)

Relatedly, I solved this bug while working on it, by delving deeper into the network stack than I ever have before.

Successfully acted in my first theater production where I had actual lines I was saying to an audience. I have a mild form of dyslexia, and I have a problem where I often paraphrase things, so being able to comfortably deliver a series of lines exactly while under stress from having an audience is a big deal for me.

I've moved to the place in the planet where after years of deliberation, I decided suits me best (and guess what Dan Gilbert, I still think that! My prospectoscope did not fail!)... , In less than four weeks here, I 1) Solved half my income problem by finding a hack in the writing for money system and being paid aprox 200 dollars per hour of writing/re-writing, for about 5 hours per month. That is, I can pay rent with one day of work. 2) I solved the Visa problem, you don't understand how valuable solving the Visa problem is if you are not a willing immigrant like a million people per year. 3) I got a scholarship, which can pay my life from 2015 to 2019 while giving me a prestigious PHD degree and save me loads of time to work saving the world on the side. 4) I'm living in a rationalist house with people, which was a dream of mine. I've met more and better some people in the rationalist community in the area, I've danced for 6 or more hours a week into trancendent bliss and merged with the universe.
And, to cherry top it all, I was just invited to be a TED fellow.
If life is a game, I basically won.

I bought a pedometer to track my steps, so I could achieve my goal of taking 10000 steps everyday, and have a motivation to go outside, and do some light exercise. This is from before I bought the pedometer when I was doing no regular exercise. I've met my goal of 10000 steps everyday for the last week since I bought the pedometer, so I've increased my goal to 12000 steps everyday.

Reproduced.

I gave a short, semi-technical speech at work, on an important — but, alas, confidential — topic. The audience in the room numbered a few hundred. Including viewers over videoconference and recording, probably a few thousand.

The speech was well received; and the experience was, while stressful, also surprisingly pleasant.

I finished learn python the hard way. This was a project in itself and also a jumping off point for my next project, which is to learn web scraping and the automated collection of data to help me build data sets about a number of subjects that interest me.

I completed my statistics internship, and got strong all-around compliments from the audience on my presentation, and my adviser on my report.

I succeeded in being selected for a consulting job after a long interview/testing process, and taught myself how to do competitor research, to good feedback from my team.

I asked two people to be references (this doesn't sound like a big one, but it was probably the hardest thing on this list for me - I've always felt really uncomfortable about asking for this) and they both said yes, they'd love to.

I integrated HabitRPG into my everyday life, and since doing so (about a week ago) have achieved all the daily habits I'd previously been inconsistently working on for months (including habits about when to turn screens off, when to go to bed and get up, exercise and other health things) at least 5/7 of the time, and have been feeling much more productive in general.

My stats tutee went from failing her course to getting 80% in her most recent test.

I completed the following online courses:

• Automata - run by Stanford
• Logic: Language and Information 1 (Distinction) - run by University of Melbourne

I wish the order was different - would have been a lot better to have done the 2nd course first, as I found some of the Automata theory very tricky.

I have reduced my discomfort with talking to anyone about anything, especially requests for help/information. Instead of avoiding talking to people like my parents, teachers, or businesses due to some odd, misplaced anxiety I've successfully started noticing this pattern and purposefully overcoming it.

Examples include:

• Talking to my family about wanting to move to Australia, instead of putting it off until the last minute.

• Calling several local banks and asking about shadowing opportunities, something unfamiliar to both me and the banks.

It's not incredible, but it feels nice to be making progress in the right direction.

Got a 2340 SAT. That's 800 on both Math and Reading, 80 subscore on Writing, and 6/12 on the essay. The only points off were for the essay. Perfect on multiple choice, although I think I did get one wrong on reading (maladroit and peremptory).

Passed my first programming MOOC, MITx 6.00.1, even though I accidentally missed the final. Also learned how to use LaTeX.

I got a heavy medicine ball for my home office which I frequently pick up and throw into the air. It reduces the trivial inconveniences of taking small exercise breaks.

I gave two conference papers in the last month, both in a fairly new field to me, having never attended a conference before. I got good responses and lots of encouraging feedback.