I'm one of those guys who comes to Hacker News, reviews what others have built, and immediately thinks 2 things:
- That is so cool!
- So what?
Like most others, I love playing around with widgets and technology just for fun and to see what happens. But the satisfaction from this is usually short lived.
I liken playing around with techology to running around and having lots of good sex with strangers. It's fun and it feels great, but sooner or later, you'll want something more substantial. For me, that requires the satisfaction of others. (This applies to both programming and sex.)
I build things that can help others have sex with strangers. I can quite clearly remember the first time someone came up and told me they were getting married because of my spare-time project.
My first big side project was that; I have received over a 1000 cards/mails/etc of people who are married and/or have babies because of that side project I created with my wife on vacation on the canary islands. We expected it wouldn't get more than a handful of members, but it had 10.000 after a few months and kept growing. Very satisfying feeling for something just built for fun.
I'm one of those guys who comes to Hacker News, reviews what others have built, and immediately thinks 2 things:
Like most others, I love playing around with widgets and technology just for fun and to see what happens. But the satisfaction from this is usually short lived.I liken playing around with techology to running around and having lots of good sex with strangers. It's fun and it feels great, but sooner or later, you'll want something more substantial. For me, that requires the satisfaction of others. (This applies to both programming and sex.)