Sorry for the second reply, but I have written a blog entry on my book writing experience. It ended up larger than I expected, yet still doesn't exhaust all that I would want to say, so more may follow.
Sorry for the delay. I generally abstain from HN over the weekends.
Feel free to email me, there are several addresses in my profile entry. I reply fastest to the GMail one.
I really should blog about my experience of writing a book. Some parts were easier than I expected, while others were about as hard as I expected. All together, I think with the facilities available through services like LeanPub and CreateSpace, it was easier and smoother than I initially expected.
Twenty years ago, back in England, I had 5 weeks of vacation and standard public holidays. I moved to the United States and after twenty years I have "progressed" to zero vacation days and all public holidays as unpaid time off.
Yup. Man I remember my childhood and it was awesome ... no planned sports, regular family meal times and plenty of time to just play or read or ride my bike or walk for miles in the local fields. I try to provide something close to this for my kids.
Step number one: no TV!
Step number two: remind them that boredom is life's way of encouraging them to be more creative!
I'm a pastor (and former geek) and I would love to see more info on your landing page before handing out an email address.
Not sure if my congregation is ready to go "online giving", but the organization I belong to may be interested. Is this only suitable for church congregations, or would a church organization (state level) be able to use it?
That's easy ... the worst thing about most project management software is the project manager (PM) that uses it. :-)
Now that I have gotten 23 years of corporate IT cynicism out of my system I'll try to be more sensible. I have only rarely used PM software, so I really cannot speak to it, but I have been inflicted with bad PMs for the vast majority of my time.
My observation is that it is the way that PMs approach the process of PM, not the software that makes the difference. As long as projects start out with a due date and a cool name, it doesn't matter what the software is or does or doesn't do, because the project is doomed already. Who needs estimates when the completion date has already been carved into stone?
The in-house methodology states that requirements will be gathered and estimates will be collected and they'll be put into the approved software and then they will begin to suffer from bit rot because they were bad to start with and will never be revisited. The requirements are always incomplete because there are whole aspects of software development that are never considered, especially testing and creating administration capabilities. The estimates are always wrong because projects are rarely enough like previous ones to make prior experience useful, programmers are by nature optimistic and project managers are people pleasers. (I've seen my careful estimates cut in half right in front of me.) And don't even get me started on the "green shift" that PMs apply as they report up the food chain!
My favorite way of describing most IT projects is "measure with a micrometer, mark with chalk, cut with an axe!"
Seven months ago, I became a full-time pastor. Quite different from web development using Java and programming in general. Twenty three years working as a geek is not the most helpful background for pastoring. On the other hand, I love the pastoring and I made sure that the church has a decent web page. :-)
The biggest thing for me to get used to was (still is) managing my time, being a 24x7 people person (I'm a type B personality) and juggling the needs of a congregation. Do I visit A, B or C today? And don't forget to phone D, pop an email to E and be sure to remember that you have lunch with F today and breakfast with G on Saturday. And must have a sermon ready for Sunday. And be available for people to phone or text or Facebook chat with. It's all good, but can get complicated because of the people issues ... and it's all people issues!
Not sure. I know you can edit comments for up to an hour after posting, but I don't know about top level stories. People with moderator privs can change things. Perhaps one will see it and change it.
Or you could just post a new top level story with a better URL.
Either way, I'd hate to see this story get no traction. Good on you.
A great idea, but the blog entry linked is from April 2012. Go to the site, click on the site title and then navigate around from there. It would be helpful if this link had gone to a page that gave a summary or a list of links to the material. It just seemed a dead end at first.
I'm glad that you have had more positive experience on HN with faith/religious comments than I have. Others have made similar observations to mine.
Some conversations have gone well, but there are more that have not. Most likely my own fault for calling people on their intolerance rather than just shrugging and finding another story to comment on. :-)
Your whole answer radiates a tone. Tone is that sentiment that is expressed over and above the words actually used. You could say that tone is found by reading between the lines.
Describing something as a conspicuous flaw is not a statement of lack of understanding. It is an assertion. You can say that you don't understand the Christian perspective on the flood account and then we could have a conversation about it. But making a strong assertion does indeed set a tone.
As a former atheist, I understand the perspective that causes people to make such statements, but please do not confuse my willingness to point out such things with being a sensitive little snowflake. Your whole reply is intolerant because of the combination of your statements and the tone you have used. Methinks you are the sensitive one here. :-)
Your point about "Tolkien fanatics" is a good one, but I was not reacting to just one word. As a Toby Mac fan, I like to refer to myself as a Jesus Freak, so mere labels aren't the issue. It's the tone of the whole comment and the inference that one who believes the bible is the literal word of God is an unwise and foolish person.
When there are difficult or tragic circumstances and we believers speak up to try to help or encourage, we get voted up, but the rest of the time, we get downvotes and negative responses.
Suggestion 2: Signup with https://www.khanacademy.org/ and work through from 1st grade until you feel that you've gone as far as you wish.