Happy NYE! Was a big one for me: went sober. Alcohol became my band-aid solution for everything, which ended up with me ignoring things that needed to be done and putting my relationships, job, and health at major risk. I am now 10 months sober and beyond relieved to not be where I was one year ago. I found my dream job in the process, and was able to transition out of an old job that felt stale and holding me back. There is still lot's of progress to be made.
Still some five hours to go here in Norway, but it has been dark outside for a few hours already.
Dinner is just about ready, friends pouring in the doors as we speak and as for fireworks, seeing as we live quite rurally, a couple of kilos of dynamite is at the ready.
Professionally, 2025 has been kind to me. Got to visit Japan and Libya for the first time and am going back to Japan next week for a scientific cruise down to the Mariana trench or thereabouts; when back, I will start working on the next generation control system for our products, having spent the past few months trying to learn enough about control system architecture to hopefully avoid the most obvious pitfalls.
Oh, and I have learned from painful experience a few of the things NOT to do evaluating the current design...
Happy new year everyone
Some good stuff in 25 for me
- went to Yellowstone
- dislocated my shoulder for the first time, went to pt and feel better than ever
- switched jobs for higher pay and better wlb
- started getting into game dev with the goal of releasing in summer 26!
Here’s to a great 2026 everyone!!
2025: My first full year of running my own business, and things really went well. Also had my second child, a beautiful daughter who is currently not sleeping well at night. I am so tired. I lost my dog suddenly - he was my first dog and my companion for nine years. I love that guy so much.
- Visited/lived in: Austria, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, UAE
- Started (too many) side-projects
- Managed to grow a number of projects / startups
- Almost back to PRs: deadlift 155k, squat 90k, bench 80k
Ideas for 2026
- Focus on getting things done / releasing stuff rather than starting / release an app (iOS/Android)
- Triple revenue
- Visit 12 countries I haven't visited before (Morocco, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Malta, Cyprus, Brazil, Peru, Chile)
- Deadlift 200k, squat 120k, bench 100k; lose 10k BW
- Learn formatting on HN :)
Happy New Year HN! Grateful for the insights I get every morning from fellow humans through the comments.
This year I sold my company, for a while I thought I will die with it. This year has been brutal in some ways, tackling lots of daemons and getting through them.
Wishing everyone a great new year celebrations with friends and family.
We started traveling a lot post Covid and after all of the stars aligned for us. But this is the first year that we have done any international travel besides flights Mexico (cruises don’t count).
We went to Costa Rica (Manual Antonio), London with a day trip to France and Canada (landed in Buffalo NY).
We are going to see if Costa Rica is a good Plan B when we retire on paper (I am 51) it looks good. We are staying for a month next year. I work remotely.
As far as side projects? I plan to continue my 30 year next year streak of never doing anything software development outside of work. Between continuing to learn Spanish, exercise, and spending time with family and friends, I’ve got enough on my plate.
This year I got my PhD (focused in robotics) and walked the camino del norte (a pilgrimage in Spain).
I am trying to transition from academia to industry without success (for now) and several threads here on HN remind me I am not alone in this.
Happy new year from SF. 2025 was about hanging on, balancing a heavy workload and a new baby, but in ways which I’m confident are the right decisions for our future. I did a lot of Becoming An Adult this year, learning to trust myself and my partner, and prioritizing what matters. 2026 will probably be more of the same..! But I am hopeful things should ease up over time.
Happy new year, this community has given me a lot and I’m grateful for you all.
You guys are all truly wonderful, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
As from someone who started my own company last year and decided to dive into a dozen of projects, reached new milestones and a lot of success, but suffered from severe burnout and depression:
Remember - you can do anything, but not everything. Choose what to focus on and what makes you happy and go for it.
Happy 2026!
The perfect square year is now over...next one is 2116. Silly thing to note, but I am thankful for being able to live in such a year. Additionally, 2025 was quite transformative to my life. Where I am today, in terms of career and personal connections, I wouldn't have expected to be here even two years ago.
It was a crazy year. Spent half of it living in my college building (Read about huge nationwide student protests in Serbia where students blocked all colleges because of the government corruption for almost 9 months).
2025:
- set up new facility for mfg of CVD diamond tech products
- replaced awful old carpets at home with bamboo wood floors
- lost 42 lbs (thanks, tirzepatide)
- secured $ for a new CVD diamond system, build starts in January
- road trip to see friends & family, some for first time in a decade
Wishing happiness, love, accomplishment and adventure to all!
Finally got my first GitHub repo to 100 stars (yesterday!) so that is something I'm really dang proud of. This year, I do have my Cambridge A Level Examinations coming up, hopefully I don't mess it up as bad as I did for my O Level Exams...
Okay, not unthinkable but I would think it is very difficult. I'm hoping a country who has never won a WC to be champions this year. Croatia and Netherlands have done well in the last few. Cape Verde and Curaçao have also never won.
2025 I'm proud of my 2025. I lost weight with a slow pace. I launched one of my projects and built on top of it and I'm currently at 99 items sold. Hopefull it will get to 100 by end of the year. Not gonna lie, bad stuff happened too, but I'm not gonna focus on those.
2026 If everything goes as planned, I'm hoping to see my my mother and brother after 4 years. I want live a bit healthier, and I want to grow the same side project. I really hope I scroll less shitty content.
This is the community I feel safe the most in and really helps me keep going everyday.
Hoping to see the start of the AI-powered technological singularity in 2026. The end of humanity is nigh and I can't wait to be melded to the machine. This life was kind of boring anyway.
Happy New Year man!
Have very similar goals, even JLPT 5, started a little pet project I've been building https://sharyphil.com/japanese/japanese.html , gym goals too, let's go for it!
This year let’s all act kindly towards others and learn and discuss things in civil tones. In a world where Reddit is the norm, make Hacker News a beacon of hope.
Still some five hours to go here in Norway, but it has been dark outside for a few hours already.
Dinner is just about ready, friends pouring in the doors as we speak and as for fireworks, seeing as we live quite rurally, a couple of kilos of dynamite is at the ready.
Professionally, 2025 has been kind to me. Got to visit Japan and Libya for the first time and am going back to Japan next week for a scientific cruise down to the Mariana trench or thereabouts; when back, I will start working on the next generation control system for our products, having spent the past few months trying to learn enough about control system architecture to hopefully avoid the most obvious pitfalls.
Oh, and I have learned from painful experience a few of the things NOT to do evaluating the current design...
- Got 300+ stars on GitHub for my free, open-source project EasyInvoicePDF https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf
- Received a lot of great and useful feedback about my project on social media
- Moved to a new apartment - better and bigger
- Lost 5+ kg and exercised more than last year
- Visited Hungary, Austria, and Italy for the first time - Hungary and Italy exceeded expectations
- My project was featured in a large startup-related Telegram channel (50k+ subscribers)
Happy New Year
2025: My first full year of running my own business, and things really went well. Also had my second child, a beautiful daughter who is currently not sleeping well at night. I am so tired. I lost my dog suddenly - he was my first dog and my companion for nine years. I love that guy so much.
Got an internship
Rejected a lowpay job offer
Quit the 9 – 5
Built my own SaaS in 15 days as a self-taught dev
Got 250+ users on my app
Made my first sales before even consuming my 1-month stipend savings
Crossed $100+ in December revenue
Learned coding + marketing
Didn’t skip the gym
2025
Ideas for 2026This year I sold my company, for a while I thought I will die with it. This year has been brutal in some ways, tackling lots of daemons and getting through them.
Wishing everyone a great new year celebrations with friends and family.
Love you HN.
We started traveling a lot post Covid and after all of the stars aligned for us. But this is the first year that we have done any international travel besides flights Mexico (cruises don’t count).
We went to Costa Rica (Manual Antonio), London with a day trip to France and Canada (landed in Buffalo NY).
We are going to see if Costa Rica is a good Plan B when we retire on paper (I am 51) it looks good. We are staying for a month next year. I work remotely.
As far as side projects? I plan to continue my 30 year next year streak of never doing anything software development outside of work. Between continuing to learn Spanish, exercise, and spending time with family and friends, I’ve got enough on my plate.
This year I got my PhD (focused in robotics) and walked the camino del norte (a pilgrimage in Spain). I am trying to transition from academia to industry without success (for now) and several threads here on HN remind me I am not alone in this.
Wish you the best people!
Happy new year, this community has given me a lot and I’m grateful for you all.
2025 wrapped: https://duti.dev/blog/2025/2025-in-a-nutshell/
Putting this down as my 2026 goal: At least one commit a day. Stop putting things off.
You guys are all truly wonderful, otherwise you wouldn't be here.
As from someone who started my own company last year and decided to dive into a dozen of projects, reached new milestones and a lot of success, but suffered from severe burnout and depression:
Remember - you can do anything, but not everything. Choose what to focus on and what makes you happy and go for it. Happy 2026!
The perfect square year is now over...next one is 2116. Silly thing to note, but I am thankful for being able to live in such a year. Additionally, 2025 was quite transformative to my life. Where I am today, in terms of career and personal connections, I wouldn't have expected to be here even two years ago.
2025: - set up new facility for mfg of CVD diamond tech products - replaced awful old carpets at home with bamboo wood floors - lost 42 lbs (thanks, tirzepatide) - secured $ for a new CVD diamond system, build starts in January - road trip to see friends & family, some for first time in a decade
Wishing happiness, love, accomplishment and adventure to all!
- Built a website for playing Riichi Mahjong https://online-riichi.com
Finally got my first GitHub repo to 100 stars (yesterday!) so that is something I'm really dang proud of. This year, I do have my Cambridge A Level Examinations coming up, hopefully I don't mess it up as bad as I did for my O Level Exams...
Thanks so much, HN, for this year.
H_N_Y from the Alps!
https://github.com/tirrenotechnologies/tirreno
It was difficult, but overall great year. Looking forward what 2026 will bring.
There will be a new FIFA World Cup champion unless Argentina does the unthinkable.
No doubt regime change somewhere. Probably a massive cyber event that cripples critical infra. A magnitude 8+ earthquake in a populated area?
Maybe the hand of God will help them out again. ;)
(For people who aren't familiar - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_hand_of_God)
2025 I'm proud of my 2025. I lost weight with a slow pace. I launched one of my projects and built on top of it and I'm currently at 99 items sold. Hopefull it will get to 100 by end of the year. Not gonna lie, bad stuff happened too, but I'm not gonna focus on those.
2026 If everything goes as planned, I'm hoping to see my my mother and brother after 4 years. I want live a bit healthier, and I want to grow the same side project. I really hope I scroll less shitty content.
This is the community I feel safe the most in and really helps me keep going everyday.
May 2026 be a much, much better year than this one!
Hoping to see the start of the AI-powered technological singularity in 2026. The end of humanity is nigh and I can't wait to be melded to the machine. This life was kind of boring anyway.
Hope 2026 I can finish my todo list
- Got at least JLPT N5
- Work abroad
- Start working out again
This year let’s all act kindly towards others and learn and discuss things in civil tones. In a world where Reddit is the norm, make Hacker News a beacon of hope.
For all of our sake I hope it will be better than 2025
Just kidding. AU!