All I'll say is that just because something is more complex than you would like doesn't make it wrong.

Since you mention your age, there is a good chance you are just having a quarter life crisis (becoming more cynical, great South Park episode about it!)

I've thought about that, and it is certainly true that I now know of most technologies and therefore cannot learn something new each week. However, the stream of technologies which realy did arive and prove to be world shaking in the past was real. There's no way cynicism is playing a role here. I saw (in no particular order)

1. consumer internet 2. WIFI 3. the first laptop with more than an hours charge capacity 4. the first tablet/smartphones 5. the incredible increases in bandwidth 6. the invention of mobile internet 7. the invention of google maps 8. the invention of code completion and inteligent IDEs. 9. the first interactive account based web services (web 2.0) 10. the laser mouse 12. working touch interfaces 13. the consumer digital camera 14. voice streaming 15. video streaming 16. hardware virtualization 17. the consumer 3D printer 18. the consumer CNC kit 19. bluetooth 20. the quadrocopter 21. wacom stylus interface over a glass screen 22. USB ports (might not seem like much now, but wow did that change things!) 23. CD roms 24. the push notification 25. distributed version control 26. automated software updates 27. consumer LCD monitors

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure there are more...

Almost all of those things were invented since I was 10ish, so there should be >1 really world shaking real, buy it on the shelf today, type techs per year.

The only such consumer technology that has come to my attention in the past 3 years is the electric bicycle, and that has yet to shake the world.

What recent real, actually existing technology has impacted reality to the extend that the ones that I listed have? Siri?

I forgot about cryptocurencies!

And eink/the ebook reader

There we go. :)

Agree with everything said about taking your break, but I think you also should set your expectations properly. 2 years without a vacation when starting a business is not so much, it's actually pretty standard I think. So are 80 hour weeks and everybody else in th company making money except for you. I don't know any successful entrepreneurs that are not complete workaholics.

This "grin and bear it like a big boy" attitude is toxic IMHO.

If you assume that 80 hours weeks are neccessary, you will work 80 hours long weeks whether it is needed or not and whether it is actually effective or detrimental.

There are lots, they just also aren't egotistical maniacs who need to let everyone know how pious they are.

If you want a really high profile example: DHH from Basecamp.

I regularly have to tell vendors that the "we want to grow with you" pitch doesn't work with big enterprises. We want cost to be CAPPED. The right pricing model is a no brained entry price point that grows to a reasonable price for all you can eat.

What's the end goal?

Either build a startup around ML in Africa or get a job on completion of my studies. So wanted to hear opinions from people in the field or doing this already.

If you get a full scholarship then probably, that's usually the case though. The PhD will give you prestige and credibility if you start your own business, and will open some doors when you are looking for a job (but also close others). It will also set you back a few years from your goals, and the amount of money you will get with a PhD won't be more than with a MS. Best perk of having a PhD is working in academia, which can be a great life style: much lower stress, decent compensation, lots of vacation time and recognition.

Oh yeah it has to be on full scholarship if accepted, great else i might have to just continue working and focus on Cisco Certifications.

Working in academia seems like fun but later in life not at this age :). Thanks

Are you concentrating on system/OS monitoring or application monitoring? Also, what price point are you thinking about? Cloud or on premises?

Cloud, but there is nothing stopping me from packaging it up and having it run on premises.

OS vs Application is what I am asking here about. I could focus on OS/system monitoring or specific applications. If I go for generic application monitoring then I am competing with the big guys and that is what I am trying to avoid.

As for pricing - looks like it would be niche dependent. I was thinking of nothing less than $99/month and then up since I probably could not support many small customers on a lower price point.

So it's hard do charge anything or much for OS/Systems because there are so many free tools (it doesn't take long at all to deploy ELK + metricbeat for example). I would concentrate on applications, but then you are competing with DD and Librato anyways, unless you can cover applications that they don't monitor because they are too complex (I can't think of any though). I think the questions more than what niche to go after is what added value can you provide.

The hash table is not a good example, because a hash is not a variable, it is a function.

F(x) = "doohickey" when x = "wotsit"

I think you guys are confusing variables and data types (or data structures) too, they are different things.

Would you not say that "next" is a variable, and the value, the thing, that "next" contains is a hash? "Next" is, of itself, not a function, surely.

It it isn't "next", it's next{x}. It's a function, not a variable.

It's not insanity. Since time invariance is more of an abstract construct than a natural occurrence, I think you all but but guarantees that the same action will eventually yield a different result.

If you expect things to turn out differently you will often be disappointed though.

That's a function of your expectations. People get sad when they don't win the lotto but they don't celebrate every day they don't get hit by a car. It's not the odds, it's the expectations that are off.