I don't think most people refer as a "weekend project" to brag about performance and how much they did with little time, for me it's a general term that refers to something you do on your "free" time or time outside your normal work schedule.
I'm chilean, working from home for american clients, I have never been really interested in the local startup scene because, well, there was nothing of that a few years ago really, but things are changing and I'm glad we now have this initiatives and we're slowly starting to attract talent! we got the infrastructure but what we really need is to attract foreign talent / entrepreneurs, and to _keep_ good local talent. I wish you the best!
btw, Santiago ranked #1 in the list of Latin American cities of 2011/2012 by The British Financial Times Magazine: http://www.thisischile.cl/News.aspx?ID=6426&SEC=190&... there is a lot going on down here no pun intended
does HN do meetups? there seem to be a few people here from santiago - we could meet for a meal or drink some time? posting to here because you don't have any contact info in your profile :o)
hey Andrew, I'm not aware of specific HN meetups in the area but I'll be glad to join you for a meal or drink, I have updated my contact info and going to reach you over email, I'm not in Santiago because I love Viña del Mar ;) but we are just a bus ride away and I do have go hit Santiago in 2 weeks anyway :)
you know what? my wife is at the living room trying to study and we have a 4 year old son that I have to keep busy today. I am a big fan of RPG games and I really liked this idea, going to see if it works with him :) thank you!
much to my surprise it worked, I mean, after we finished the first maze (it was short just a proof of concept), he wanted to do another one and he really got into trying to save the schoolbus, funny thing was that he rolled the dice over the monsters and then hit them with the dice during the battle, epic!
I have a 4 year old and I'm 26 now, it does change your priorities for sure but more than that you start to realize "you just can't afford to fail", failing when you are on your own is less of an issue than when you have a kid, and that same pressure to not fail will have different consequences on different people, for the ones with the entreprenurial gene it will most likely be a motivator, for the ones without that entrepenurial gene/mindset/spirit will increase their fear of failure and make them pass opportunities or not give it a shot to their ideas.
All in all, I think, it's a great experience! very rewarding even the downsides (you know, lack of sleep, diapers, etc) are not as bad as they sound, you kinda get used to it and trust me, raising a happy kid is priceless, so changing diapers for a few years and missing some sleep hours is a very small price to pay imo.
