A friend alerted me to this post because he thought it was me. I too have (or had, just left) a well paid contracting gig at bigco and have struggled with computer game addiction since I was 13 (now in my early 20's). My addictions are Dota 2 and online poker. I've long since lost count of the number of times I've stayed up all night or until 7 or 8 am.

The procrastination, feeling like I've gotten nothing done over a long period of time, and switching to a computer game when bored or hitting a sticking point are all things I can relate to. It becomes a life of mediocrity, which I can't stand.

Unfortunately there is no easy solution. Addiction is a strong force, and it takes an equally strong force to overcome it. Things I do that help:

- Uninstall all games and get rid of any mouses or other hardware that are used for games.

- Tell close friends and family about what you're doing. Have social accountability.

- Find other activities that pull you away from your addictions. I push myself to regularly work out and get a good night's sleep.

Ultimately I know that every time I feed my addiction, it grows stronger. It's either being fed or slowly dying.

Ugh dota. I've been horribly addicted to that damn thing THREE times now. First dota, then HON, then dota2.

"... how many grads do not have a decent grasp of elementary algorithms and data structures, and are not comfortable with code."

This is more a fault of computer science education than the student. I was taking 16 credits of upper division CS courses at [not renowned but not bad university]. Half-way through the term I had yet to do any programming. I realize that CS is about more than programming (my four classes broadly were proofs, computer hardware, methods of software engineering, and stats for scientists/engineers). But the only way to become good at programming is to do it consistently. One or two big projects towards the end of the term leaves you brushing up on old skills instead of building new ones.

I'll be attending Hack Reactor this fall because I want to become a good programmer, not vaguely familiar with everything CS has to offer.

CS isn't about programming at all. While CS can help make a programmer a better engineer, it's not intended to teach programming skills; which is much more a vocational skill than a science.

I think the primary reason so many development shops ask for CS grads, is not because they should have learned programming at university - it's because they've already been selected for intelligence by getting into a more selective hard science university program. If programming skills were more important than intelligence, these jobs could be filled with folks who have a 6-month certificate from ITT -- but hiring shops have evidently found out that they get a better product from CS departments.

I kind of feel that CS departments should really emphasize these points to prospective applicants so they can go to HackReactor instead of wasting their time in CS programs - but unfortunately they have little incentive to do so.

I treat college like a 9-5 job, going to the library to study at 9 am and attending classes throughout the day. I don't need to do this, but there are very specific reasons why I do:

- If I study at home, I have no sense of urgency. Home is the place I associate with relaxation, so it's kind of cruel to expect myself to get work done there. The general public in the library holds me accountable to make it look like I have a purpose to be there.

- There are places I'd rather be than the library, like home. This motivates me to get my work done as quickly as possible and move on to other things that are important to me.

- We are social creatures, and interacting with others is important to our well-being. Given two days where I get the same amount of work done, I'll feel more accomplished on the day where I adequately socialize. This is true even if my interactions are largely superficial.

College was more like a 10AM to 11PM job for me. The library was a place to sleep, the best place to work was the eating areas.

Now, I prefer coffee shops for out of office working. Home is too comfortable, while I can hit Starbucks early and grab a taxi when the roads aren't so crowded after rush hour.

Eric Schmidt says weird things (see http://dthin.gs/niXnvA). Here's what stood out to me in this talk (paraphrasing): "People don't have to use it if they don't want to."

You know you have a suspect product when that's the best defense you have for it. He wants people to use G+ yet he says that they don't have to. Saying stuff like that doesn't make current users comfortable or new users giddy to try it out.

This resonated with me too. "No one is forcing you to use it," - precisely, and therefore no one does! Just because there are a ton of nerds using the service right now, doesn't mean it's useful. My mom, who took a few years to get comfortable with email, she sure is not using it, but guess what, she's got Facebook! Google is disappointing :(

Very promising idea!

One thing I noticed that wasn't quite clear:

When I tried to create a new project in the second step, I typed in a name for the project and hit 'Create Project'. The page reloaded telling me, "There were some problems with the project you tried to make". I eventually realized it was because I hadn't selected the folder my project was in. Expect your users to be as absent-minded as me =)

Also, I added .ai and .png files to my project folder but it was not able to find them when I updated the dropbox files through the pixelstew UI. I can see them on my local dropbox folder and on my online account.

Good luck with the launch!

Thanks for takin' a look. Weird about the PNG files -- I think there is some lag between when things are uploaded in Dropbox and when they're available via the API...I'll have to look in to it further. We don't support AIs yet, but we definately should.

Thanks for finding that validation bug, there should be a message that says "select a project folder"...

"there's a belief that we had a potentially significant change that might be part of a new world order for a little while."

Another bubble popping?