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Twitter

Practical Applications of Decentralized Prediction Markets

Hello to all two of the people that read these (whenever I can find the time to write them). I’m here to continue my Freelancer series (I have a feeling this is going to be a LLOOOONNNGGGGG series of these, because I am pretty much figuring this stuff out as I go. Any major happenings that happen to occur in my life due to freelancing is usually what prompts these which is why this is only the second one that I’ve written. Anyway let’s get into this. Backstory Benjamin Grimm Duke About two months ago this little wonder fell out of my body after nine grueling months of growing him. The day he was born was a long and busy one, not only did I not get sleep the night before (I was working), I was already exhausted and burned out from the weeks before, not sleeping, being in and out of the hospital for what I thought was the big day, working on side projects, studying and wrangling his three sisters and older brother (that’s right folks I got 5 kiddos). And I know what you’re thinking, and I’m right there with you, I’m about five seconds from sleeping in a different house to keep this from happening again, but on the other hand I make cute babies……and I don’t mean to brag buuutttttt Dad is pretty easy on the eyes My partner makes some cute babies too, and he’s a wonderful father who does what he can to provide. We’ve never had an issue with improving our situation when I pop out another offspring. Things might be tight for a little bit, but we’ve always been able to stretch to make room for another bundle of joy if (and when) the need arises. I would however like to say that I am closed for business for AT LEAST the next year so I can properly recoperate and drop the baby weight…I’m going off cantor here, let me bring it back. When I got pregnant with Ben, I had a job, granted I was a contractor and if all went as planned, I would have been hired on permanently, unfortunately that didn’t happen (if you would like to know more please go dig through the old blog posts, I wrote about it about 6 months ago), and I was let go, no sooner than I was let go, I got picked up by not one, but two contracts. My mentor from my apprenticeship ( ) and snatched me up pretty much THE SAME WEEK I was let go, so I had no reason to think I should worry about money or anything like that. These two awesome entities saw an opportunity to help me out, and they did, and I’m grateful. HOWEVER, there were some things that I didn’t know before taking on both as a contractor about being an expectant parent (I put parent because this applies to guys too). Zee Spencer Operation Code You Need Employment Insurance To Go On Maternity Leave You pretty much need it for any medical leave, and as a contractor YOU FOOT THE BILL. This is because as a self-employed person you foot the bill for pretty much all of your expenses. Your taxes, your healthcare, and your equpiment and work area. Maternity leave is no exception, and you have to foot the bill to ensure that you can get the time off without starving to death. I was also told I could file for disability, but everywhere I tried to look for info on that, the wording was let’s say a bit vague as to how to go about it and what to do and how long it would last. Whether You’re Freelancer Or Employee You Should Take Maternity Leave Especially if you’re the one who the baby fell out of. I’m not saying take an entire year off, but it should probably be longer than a week, because I was only off for the three days I was in the hospital and the weekend after, and I completely burned out about two weeks ago (look for a future post) and it made it hard for me to focus on anything. I should have taken extra care to make time for leave because not only did I just have a baby, I still have 4 other kids to take care of on top of that. Sleeping…for now…… Take Whatever Help You Can Get Self explanatory, whether its folks offering to come help you clean some things or work some things out or even if they want to get you out of the house for a few minutes for some coffee. TAKE THE HELP. Don’t get caught up in the“I NEED MONEY I JUST HAD A BABY!” loop. Money isn’t more important than your well being or your sanity (I figured that out after experiencing that burn out a couple weeks ago, stay tuned folks). REST Take a break, get some air, walk the dog. Don’t keep your head in your keyboard, don’t go from baby to work to baby to work. Get sleep when the baby is sleeping, make sure you’re eating and do something for you every once in a while. Self care is important not only so that you can take of your new bundle, but so you can continue to do your job so it all doesn’t come crashing down and you got burned out and just do nothing. If You Feel Depressed/Sad/Angry Talk To Someone Don’t stuff it down. Some sadness and I’ll even say some depression is expected after having a baby. They call it baby blues and it’s normal, it’s your hormones rebalancing and you getting used to catering to a screaming blob of flesh pretty much all day every day. However if it’s prolonged (longer then about two weeks) you’re going to want to see a doctor because it’s probably post partum depression and that’s not something to ignore or mess around with. Take Care Of Yourself Make sure you’re eating, staying hydrated, still doing at least some of the things you liked to do before you took on being a parent and a contractor. Don’t get caught up in work and baby all the time, you’ll lose your mind if you do. Get baby snuggles, get some rest, pet the dog, play with your other kids if you have them, talk to your spouse/family/significant other. Don’t forget who you are or the things that you enjoyed doing before you had the baby. I bought an ergo wrap when I had my last kid, she didn’t like and I happened to have it when I had this one, I wrap him up to me and clean the house, work, draw and even play video games. I’ve done Google Hangouts with the kid sleeping in his wrap on camera. Pair Programming Remember, You Can Do This Whenever you start to feel like you’re failing as a parent or a developer or a contractor, just remember that you can do it. Hell you’re so good at it, you’re doing it and you don’t even realize it. You’re going to get down on yourself ALOT, and you’re going to think that you’re not doing your best because you can’t devote all of your attention to your new baby because you gotta eat, and so do they, but I’m here to tell you, the fact that you feel that way makes you a pretty awesome parent in my book. I’m Going To End It By Saying This He’s pooping Being a parent is challenging, and no one really knows what they’re doing. Coupling that with love/hate relationship that many of us develop with freelancing is not an easy task. There are no rule books that tell you what to do and how to do it, and it’s mostly because everyone handles it and works with it in their own way. There are some fundamental things that go without saying that you have to do (pay taxes, get health insurance and business insurance) and there are things that just sprout up out of NOWHERE and leave you guessing. You may not always come out on top when things like that occur (I have yet to, I think I can honestly say that) but it’s important to note that they way you handle things and knowledge and experience you gain is important, and it’ll help you through it if you encounter it again. I’m pullin’ for ya…… SHAMELESS PROMOTION AREA: is on medium! go follow them! Operation Code is AWESOME Free Code Camp Is the awesome founder of Operation Code! Follow him! David Molina Is Operation code’s Software Consultancy Go follow them! Deploy Like what I wrote? I have a patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ArtsyVet My loving sister (@busterbrimstone on twitter) has gone through the trouble of creating a GoFundMe because I have two vehicles that have fallen into HORRIFIC disrepair. My husband’s car is falling apart and mine just doesn’t run AT ALL. I’m not one for asking for help, and she sprung this on me and now I have to share it, but she’s giving away iHeart radio tickets to a random benefactor if the campaign reaches it’s goal in time for the concert. If you donate even a buck you’re in the running it can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/2zue96a8

Things I wish Someone Would Have Told Me About Freelancing Part Two: Maternity Leave Edition

AP Photo/Eric Risberg 5 must reads on Apple’s $14.5 billion EU tax ruling Letter by , Apple A Message to the Apple Community in Europe Tim Cook Press Release by the European Commission Ireland gave illegal tax benefits to Apple worth up to €13 billion Press release by the Irish Department of Finance Irish Government disagrees profoundly with Commission on Apple by James Kanter and Mark Scott, The New York Times Apple Must Pay Billions for Tax Breaks in Ireland, E.U. Orders Opinion by Owen Jones, The Guardian Apple must now pay its taxes. This is a vindication of protest Enjoyed that read? Click the ❤ below to recommend it to other interested readers!

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Europe vs Apple: what you need to know

Because data entry sucks I despise inefficiency. This distaste leads me to build things to help make my life easier. It just so happens that tracking deal flow, as part of my job as an investor, is terribly inefficient and kind of a pain in the ass… I started working on this problem, over the past 2 years. Each iteration would get slightly more efficient, tying in various API’s and other fun stuff, until one day I realized I had built a product. slowly, You can see it here: http://dealscout.co/ I thought about trying to sell this but selling to Angels and VC’s sounds pretty miserable. Free is better. Main Page (Numbers and status’s shown are mostly not real) Here is what it solves. Forget manually typing deals into random spreadsheets or plugging in data to various fields in Salesforce or Pipedrive. Instead, use your VC CrunchBase License Key and start pulling all that data automatically (It also pulls from AngelList). Data Entry: Type in any company, hit enter and get a one page breakdown of the company and have it automatically added to your list of deals. Or better yet, forward an email from a company to and the system automatically creates a record of it and saves the body of the email as a note! track@dealscout.co Individual Company Page Evernote is great but is still a separate system and not tied directly to the company itself or your list of deals. Why not take your notes on the actual deal page and make them easily searchable, with notes organized by company rather than scattered about? Note Taking: Company Page with Note Sidebar Invite the whole team, it allows for unlimited users, and have everyone enter and update the status of deals as they happen. See each other’s notes and keep a better list of what is happening. Most fields can be personalized, if you have different names for each stage of the deal process, no problem, they are easily edited in the settings page. Collaboration: The system also works well for corporate innovation teams. I help run investments, partnerships, and M&A for dunnhumby and use it for all 3. If you are a motivated young Associate, or anyone really, and want to build this out further, contact me. Otherwise start using it and keep a better record or the companies you actually talk to. http://dealscout.co/

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Salesforce

A Better Way to Track Deal Flow

Last month, I started contributing regularly to open source ( ) for the first time. It has been a blast so far and I highly recommend it! Contributing to open source has a lot of benefits that just don’t seem to be talked about enough. So, I’ve decided to take some time to share some of the benefits I’ve found to be true while contributing to GitLab. GitLab My contribution graph ( ) https://gitlab.com/u/ClemMakesApps Contributing helps you learn One of my initial motivations to contributing to GitLab was to improve my front-end skills. I had a solid foundation in front-end development but there were many areas in which I still wanted to learn and grow. It was challenging at first since GitLab’s stack used a lot of tools and languages that was unfamiliar to me, but over time I was able to identify bugs and create working solutions. One of the most valuable learning moments when contributing to open source is the merge request review process. After you submit a merge request with your bug fix, the core team of the open source project reviews and provides suggestions and comments. This is a fantastic way to learn best practices and to practice communicating your thought processes. The core team appreciates your hard work fixing bugs (which saves them time to work on other critical items) and you are rewarded with a free learning moment from them! It’s a win-win situation! Contributing is fun Another aspect that I did not expect from contributing to open source was how fun it would be. Every time my merge request was merged, I was challenged to do more. Each time I was thanked for my contributions, motivated me to increase my participation within the community. This was because I felt like my contributions were making a difference. Positive reinforcement works! I had a brief stint last year building a startup focused on nonprofit fundraising and I’m fascinated with the similarities between philanthropy and contributing to open source. I would make a case that their emotional motivations are almost identical. In general, the emotional drivers that motivates people to give is the desire to make a difference. Contributing to open source (especially in big projects) is also about making an impact in the technology community. Nonprofits try to focus on creating multiple feedback loops to their volunteers and donors, so that their one time involvement transforms into a regular involvement. This is something that is critical in philanthropy and also an area where many open source projects fall short. This aspect of fun will vary across projects but overall in my experience, I would say that GitLab does an above average in this arena. The reviewers regularly express their gratitude for community contributions and the team also recognizes a valuable contributor each monthly release. The prestigious golden fork for Most Valuable Person (MVP) and yes, I did win it for the most recent release (8.11) Contributing builds reputation Another benefit to contributing is that it builds your reputation/professional network. This occurs in the same way as being involved in a nonprofit or meetup. As you contribute, you build a reputation and of being known in the community as someone who is a great developer and a good communicator. network effect Although you can use your open source contributions as an additional resume to companies and recruiters, you can also use the community to help you network towards more career opportunities. Some say that 85% of all jobs are filled using networking! Conclusion I hope you got to see a glimpse into some of the many benefits of contributing to open source and I hope that this made you think about it. To all of those who regularly contribute, thanks for all your hard work and for paving the way! Thanks also to the friendly community at GitLab who has taken time to review my issues and merge requests (@ , , @ , @ , @ , , ) smcgivern Connor Shea fatihacet jakecodes annabeldunstone Luke Bennett Phil Hughes

Benefits of Contributing to Open Source

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive August 30th, 2016

Practical Applications of Decentralized Prediction Markets

@shingaithornton
Shingai Thornton

Things I wish Someone Would Have Told Me About Freelancing Part Two: Maternity Leave Edition

@Krystyna789
Krystyna Ewing

Europe vs Apple: what you need to know

@asandre
Andreas Sandre

A Better Way to Track Deal Flow

@kfugere
Kyle Fugere

Benefits of Contributing to Open Source

@ClemMakesApps
Clement Ho

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive August 30th, 2016

Practical Applications of Decentralized Prediction Markets

@shingaithorntonShingai Thornton

Things I wish Someone Would Have Told Me About Freelancing Part Two: Maternity Leave Edition

@Krystyna789Krystyna Ewing

Europe vs Apple: what you need to know

@asandreAndreas Sandre

A Better Way to Track Deal Flow

@kfugereKyle Fugere

Benefits of Contributing to Open Source

@ClemMakesAppsClement Ho

@shingaithornton
Shingai Thornton

@Krystyna789
Krystyna Ewing

@asandre
Andreas Sandre

@kfugere
Kyle Fugere

@ClemMakesApps
Clement Ho