Depending on your preferences, you can get one of in ear/on ear/over ear models from audio technica with noise cancellation. They are way cheaper than Monster.
If you are not into noise cancellation stuff, you can go on AKG k77 ($42 on amazon) or Audio Technica t500 ($82 on amazon)
I own a pair of sennheiser 555 for about three years, and apart of low quality plastic (it broke in the first year of regular use, but some glue is pure magic!), the sound is excellent (although you can hear almost all ambient sounds)
If premium means anything else than premium quality (of code in the first place then other aspects like design, features, etc), then yes, it is saturated.
Your problem is that you took a very risky path. From what you say, you didn't try the water with a finger, but you just did a cannon ball. Which is kinda wrong.
Get a full time job and you can do freelance after working hours, as a part time job. Risks are near to zero but chances to succeed are near to 100%.
You should say what do you know to do, maybe you get a job here, on HN.
I had somehow similar case back in January. Differences:
- reason was different;
- i was working remote;
- there wasn't a product per se, but there was a lot of small..ish projects;
My aproach: noticed that February will be our last month working together and few months of support for existing projects.
Everything was fine.
Being the only developer, i highly doubt that you will be kicked out when you will notice them.
However, if you enjoy working on the product, you may want talking with them first and expose the issues you see with the workflow and the whole bureaucratic stuff. If nothing works, i guess a month notice & help them to find a replacement for you would be enough.
Just one quick observation: If you have more than one or two paragraph on „Using Git” in your book, you probably do something wrong. It's a RoR book, not a best practices book...
You could go to Germany, Austria or any other deutsch-spoked country and stay there at least a month. Preferably not in a big city. You will probably learn it :)
- because you need a good connection with high upload rate. Which may cost a lot, depends of your location. And you will need at least TWO.
- because your cat can eat a part of you utp cable => no connection
- because your neighbor decide to dig a hole in the ground and he hit an AC wire => no more electricity
- because of temperature. If you stay in a hot area (35°C/95°F) you will need an air conditioner unit (on my 2 years old machine there is a difference of 5-10°C with my AC on vs AC off)
Common connection is 100mbs and costs around $10/mo.
And no, we don't have vampires :)