The best learning material is the one you have motivation to follow through. Doesn’t matter if there exists better ones, if those will be left unused.

I don’t care about which operating system, but my hobby projects have always included things that help myself. E.g.

• Software to collect/archive/analyse real life data (e.g. real estate data from various sources).
• Scripts to parse and structure data that I need e.g. for learning other things.
• Firmware for small embedded electronics.
• Home automation.

So my suggestion is to think of something that you need, but there isn’t a perfect solution yet. Although this advice comes from someone who has been working in software development for two decades now.

If you haven’t programmed before, think something very very small first.

I participated in multiple homestays in different countries as part of my studies. The shortest was one night, the longest one month. But to be clear, no working, just an opportunity to live with a local family when studying abroad.

I guess those were the best ways to actually see how regular people live in those countries. What are the apartments like, what kind of habits they have. Everyday stuff that you won’t see as a regular tourist.

Those would have also been golden opportunities to improve my language skills more, if I wasn’t so shy.

But regardless, now almost 20 years later, those are one of the very memorable and distinct experiences from my youth.

I would definitely recommend it. Assuming the culture/country is something that interests you.

At least in Chinese it’s 海豚 (haitun).

There are many streamers who stream somewhat daily things. But the streamers are content creators - they interact with the viewers and choose their activities such that it is likely to be interesting to watch.

So, I’d give it a try if I was you. But probably not exactly what you are looking for.

I think there are many good replies already, but I feel one consideration is missing: time.

If you have the time for only one job, why wouldn’t you take one paying more, even if it requires a bit more skills to achieve? You are going to do that for a long while, so living more comfortably has a value.

I live in a northern country with cold winters. The alternative to “white Christmas” is really an icy or wet Christmas. Green would not even cross my mind.

And certainly I prefer snow over sleet or black ice on the roads.

What are the numbers for other startups? As far as I recall, the numbers for non-food businesses are in the same ball park. I.e. founding a successful company is difficult.

My iPhone experience is a couple of years old now, but my biggest thing has been the flexibility of the home screen in Android. I can modify the home screen and run very convenient widgets for some apps with a 3rd party home screen app.

how far did you go in terms of features?

I’m a hiring manager for a company in a regulated field. In addition to what has been said already, if a candidate came with a list of their own requirements for the said app, preferrably with unit tests, and/or a checklist of how much work there is still left, that would be gold.

The fact is, that probably all organisations deal with large legacy systems. If a candidate shows the capability to think a bit further than a tech demo, that’s a huge plus.

Wasn’t Mario remastered for SNES? I preferred those over the NES versions.