(Dec. '08) After returning from Europe in October, I visited family in Canada and then moved to Seattle again. I needed the mountains and the tall trees to be able to let loose and think. The dirty snow slush on the streets and the clusters of underground pathways in Toronto, while romantic sometimes, don't exactly lead to creativity. I'm working during the week in "the big company" while letting Paul Graham and Joel Spolsky seduce me back into what I really want: finding and owning the solution to a problem.

I learned a thing or two from my Groundfeed attempt: one must solve a real problem, not a hypothetical one. I will suspend that project for now and look into building something more in theme with people's needs. For probably the 7th time I real Paul's "why smart people have bad ideas" and his assertion that if you don't work on ideas, you won't have any, in "Ideas for Startups".

I've installed a Source Control server (Subversion, it's open-source) on my home development machine and while I'm thinking about ideas, I've decided to put more demand on my non-routine thought processes by starting to write essays again. I'm also interested in partnering up with good coders to collaboratively work on future projects.

By the way, once in a while you see a very small application or game that reminds you what inspired you to study Comp Sci in the first place. Bloxorz is one of those little games.