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And here we go!

Caption: A new false color image of Pluto released by New Horizons. The photo was enhanced to show differences in the dwarf planet’s texture and composition. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI [Image]

Caption: Hubble Space Telescope captures the NGC 1140, a dwarf galaxy experiencing a starburst, an exceptionally high rate of star formation. The small galaxy is creating one star the size of our sun a year, the same rate as the much larger Milky Way. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: A ‘mother daughter’ portrait of two of Saturn’s moons, Dione (top) and Tethys (bottom). Named after Greek mythology, the moons are believed to have formed out of the same disk when Saturn was young. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: This photo was taken by a NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), capturing the sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away. The color photos were made with the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), using three separate images to create this high res view. NASA [Image]

Caption: Two of Pluto’s smaller moons, Nix (left) and Hydra (right). Nix has enhanced color taken by Ralph while Hydra remains in black and white taken by LORRI. Scientists note Hyrda’s strange shape and have estimated the moon to be only 34 miles long and 25 miles wide. NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI [Image]

Caption: New Horizons final image of Pluto taken on July 15. The dwarf planet is silhouetted against the sun and highlighting Pluto’s atmosphere, which appears to be much larger than scientists first predicted. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI [Image]

Caption: A photo of BDF 3299, a far away galaxy seen when the Universe was less than 800 million years old. Taken by the ALMA and the Very Large Telescope, the image shows a bright red spot which is a large cloud of material assembling a young galaxy. ESO/R. Maiolino [Image]

Caption: An image of Pluto (right) and Charon (left), one of the dwarf planet’s five moons. Data from New Horizons has determined Pluto to be 1,473 miles in diameter, a bit larger than many previous estimates. Charon is confirmed as 751 miles in diameter. NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI [Image]

Caption: A color image of Pluto taken on July 13, 2015. This photo is a combination of a black-and-white image snapped by LORRI and color captured by Ralph. New Horizons traveled nearly 3 billion miles and 10 years to reach the dwarf planet. NASA/APL/SwRI [Image]

Caption: An up close photo of Pluto shows icy mountains thought to be less than 100 million years old. “This is one of the youngest surfaces we’ve ever seen in the solar system,” says Jeff Moore, GGI team leader of NASA’s Ames Research Center. NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI [Image] [Image]

Caption: This photo is a detail of Pluto’s heart-shaped region nicknamed “Tombaugh Regio.” In the center are frozen plains that look a lot like mud cracks. The shapes are sporadic and surrounded by thin troughs. NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI [Image]

Caption: New details of Charon, Pluto’s largest moon. The surface has cliffs and troughs about 600 miles across, but very few craters. Preliminary research indicates the moon’s surface is fairly young, reshaped by geologic activity. NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI [Image]

Caption: This photo shows Pluto and Charon in false color to highlight the different features on each surface. The exaggeration shows Pluto’s “big heart,” a large feature that appears to have varying geologic, tectonic or morphologic origins. NASA/APL/SwRI [Image]

In case you missed it, NASA flew a probe by Pluto this week. And although we’re sure there are other space photos from the last seven days, nobody’s looking at them. So here are some highlights from a historic week of the little planet we never forgot. [Image]

Caption: This image is one of the first results from Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) project, using images from the VLT Survey Telescope and the massive camera OmegaCAM. The purple color is actually a combination of invisible dark matter and visible light. Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration/A. Tudorica & C. Heymans/ESO [Image]

Caption: This photo is of Saturn’s moon Prometheus (top right corner), which sometimes orbits near Saturn’s F ring. When the moon goes into the ring, it often eaves a hole in the smaller ring particles. Previous entries can be see by the dark streaks near the bottom of the image. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: An example of a little-known spiral galaxy, often called LEDA 89996. The dark patches in the spirals are dust and gas which can be used as raw materials for new stars. The image was created by Hubble’s new camera which has captured some of the sharpest views of space to date. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: A photo of Venus from the Hinode’s Solar Optical Telescope, beginning its rare orbit between Earth and the sun. Scientists have been studying images of the last event in 2012 to glean new information on the sun’s impact on Venus’ atmosphere during this period. JAXA/NASA/Hinode [Image]

Caption: The new Hubble Space Telescope took a photo of ESO 381-12, a galaxy which appears to have had a dramatic collision sometime in the recent past. It has an unusual shape, with delicate shells that bloom outward and still remain somewhat of a mystery to astronomers. NASA, ESA, P. Goudfrooij (STScI) [Image]

Caption: A Pluto flyby begins! NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has finally made the nine-year, three-billion-mile trek to Pluto. Up-to-date coverage can be found on WIRED. NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI [Image]

Caption: This GIF is created from an images of “nested rings of X-ray light” around an erupting black hole. It was taken by NASA’s Swift satellite. The multiple rings are caused by multiple reflecting dust layers up to 7,000 light-years away. Andrew Beardmore (Univ. of Leicester) and NASA/Swift [Image]

Caption: An image of the planetary nebula NGC 6153, which is located about 4,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion). The blue haze is from a star like the sun that has depleted most of its fuel. ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Matej Novak [Image]

Caption: A M7.9-class solar flare on June 25. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere, but the flares can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. NASA/SDO [Image]

Caption: A photograph of the largest and brightest set of rings from X-ray light echoes ever observed. The rings were produced by a flare from a neutron star and gave astronomers a rare chance to precisely measure the distance to an object on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison/S.Heinz et al; Optical: DSS [Image]

Caption: This image from the Cassini mission shows three of Saturn's many moons all caught together in a crescent shape. The three moons are Titan, Mimas, and Rhea. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: A photo of an aurora as seen from the International Space Station on June 23. The photo was captured by NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly. NASA [Image]

Caption: Astronomers recently discovered that the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 has swallowed an entire medium-sized galaxy over the last billion years. European Southern Observatory [Image]

Caption: Astronomers recently discovered the brightest galaxy ever found in the early Universe. There is strong evidence that examples of the first generation of stars might be found inside. Artist's Impression, David Sobral [Image]

Caption: A cluster called Liller 1 where the stars are so densely packed that it might be one of the few places in our galaxy where astronomers think stars can collide. Gemini Observatory/AURA [Image]

Caption: A photo of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097 that has a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass 140 million times the mass of the Sun. ESO/R. Gendler [Image]

Caption: An image of Saturn's moon Dione, taken during a close flyby at an altitude of 321 miles from Dione's surface. Saturn's geysering moon Enceladus can be seen in the upper right corner as well. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photo of the sun. The image shows what’s left of two arrow-shaped solar filaments, dark features hovering above the sun’s surface by its magnetic field. Scientists still don’t know how or why they form. NASA/SDO [Image]

Caption: This is the galaxy UGC 11411, an irregular blue compact dwarf galaxy. It’s ten times smaller than a regular galaxy and made up of large groups of giant stars that are so hot they sometimes have a blue hue. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: A composite image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1097 with a supermassive black hole at the galactic center that has a mass 140 million times greater than our Sun. In comparison, the black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a mass that is only a few million times greater than our Sun. ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ), K. Onishi; NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, E. Sturdivant; NRAO/AUI/NSF [Image]

Caption: NGC 6503 is a spiral galaxy at the edge of the “Local Void,” a seemingly empty section of space nearly 150 million light-years across. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 [Image]

Caption: A first-time look at a giant red star, L2 Puppis, giving birth to a planetary nebula. ESO/P. Kervella [Image]

Caption: A photo of the Crab Nebula, a remnant of a supernova explosion. Remains of the exploded star are still expanding about 1500 kilometres per second. ESO / Manu Mejias [Image]

Caption: Saturn’s moon Thethys which is covered by multiple impact craters. The crater Odysseus (pictured on the right) covers about 18 percent of the moon’s surface. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: A southern constellation surrounding L2 Puppis in the Milky Way. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 [Image]

Caption: A composite of NGC 5813, a group of galaxies with a supermassive black hole in its center. The black hole has had multiple eruptions over the last 50 million years. X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/S.Randall et al., Optical: SDSS [Image]

Caption: A dwarf irregular galaxy PGC 1843 which is part of the space surrounding our galaxy known as the Local Volume. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captures photo of a “fresh” crater near the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona [Image]

Caption: A photo of Saturn’s strange moon, Hyperion, captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft when it flew by on May 31, 2015. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Caption: An up close shot of the "oddball" Hyperion, Saturn's moon. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: Hubble sees a fascinating core. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: NASA instrument on Rosetta makes comet atmosphere discovery. ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM [Image]

Caption: NASA spacecraft views aftermath of Texas floods. NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team [Image]

Caption: Mysterious lunar swirls on the moon may be caused by crashing comets. NASA/Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [Image] [Image]

Caption: The star forming cloud RCW 34. In the brightest region of this glowing nebula called RCW 34, gas is heated dramatically by young stars and expands through the surrounding cooler gas. Once the heated hydrogen reaches the borders of the gas cloud, it bursts outwards into the vacuum like the contents of an uncorked champagne bottle — this process is referred to as champagne flow. But the young star-forming region RCW 34 has more to offer than a few bubbles; there seem to have been multiple episodes of star formation within the same cloud. ESO [Image]

Caption: Large Hubble survey confirms link between mergers and supermassive black holes with relativistic jets. In the most extensive survey of its kind ever conducted, a team of scientists have found an unambiguous link between the presence of supermassive black holes that power high-speed, radio-signal-emitting jets and the merger history of their host galaxies. Almost all of the galaxies hosting these jets were found to be merging with another galaxy, or to have done so recently. The results lend significant weight to the case for jets being the result of merging black holes and will be presented in the Astrophysical Journal. Artist's Illustration: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada (ESO) [Image]

Caption: Rhea's Horizon. The surface of Rhea (949 miles or 1527 kilometers across) has been sculpted largely by impact cratering, each crater a reminder of a collision sometime in the moon's history. On more geologically active worlds like Earth, the craters would be erased by erosion, volcanoes or tectonics. But on quieter worlds like Rhea, the craters remain until they are disrupted or covered up by the ejecta of a subsequent impact. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute [Image]

Caption: This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. It is located about 25 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer), close to the heart of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It is, like its neighbour the Quintuplet Cluster, a fairly young astronomical object at between two and four million years old. The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the Sun and its nearest star there would be over 100 000 stars! NASA & ESA [Image]

Caption: A fish-eye view of the VLT. A ring of air glow encompasses the VLT in this fish-eye shot, while the band of the Milky Way bisects the night sky. ESO/G. Brammer [Image]

Caption: Herschel’s View of G49 Filament. New images of huge filamentary structures of gas and dust from the Herschel space observatory reveal how matter is distributed across our Milky Way galaxy. Long and flimsy threads emerge from a twisted mix of material, taking on complex shapes. This image shows a filament called G49, which contains 80,000 suns' worth of mass. This huge but slender structure of gas and dust extends about 280 light-years in length, while its diameter is only about 5 light-years across. In this image, longer-wavelength light has been assigned visible colors. Light with wavelengths of 70 microns is blue; 160-micron light is green; and 350-micron light is red. Cooler gas and dust are seen in red and yellow, with temperatures as low as minus 421 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 252 degrees Celsius). ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/Ke Wang et al. 2015 [Image]

Caption: Dawn Spirals Closer to Ceres, Returns a New View. A new view of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 23, shows finer detail is becoming visible on the dwarf planet. The spacecraft snapped the image at a distance of 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) with a resolution of 1,600 feet (480 meters) per pixel. The image is part of a sequence taken for navigational purposes. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA [Image]

Caption: ESO’s Very Large Telescope images of the Medusa Nebula. ESO [Image]

Caption: Wide-field view of the sky around the Medusa Nebula. ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2 [Image]

Caption: Coronal Loops Over a Sunspot Group. NASA, SDO [Image]

Caption: Hubble Revisits Tangled NGC 6240. NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage [Image]

Caption: Hubble Observes One-of-a-Kind Star Nicknamed 'Nasty'. NASA, ESA, and J. Mauerhan [Image]

Caption: Rover's Reward for Climbing: Exposed Geological Contact. NASA/JPL-Caltech [Image]

Caption: Galaxy’s snacking habits revealed. Angel Lopez-Sanchez (AAO/MQU) and Baerbel Koribalski (CSIRO) [Image]

Caption: SGR 1745-2900: Magnetar Near Supermassive Black Hole. NASA/CXC/INAF/F.Coti Zelati et al [Image]

Caption: Hubble 47 Tucanae - UV. NASA, ESA, and H. Richer and J. Heyl (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada) [Image]

Caption: SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule docking to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module. NASA [Image]

Caption: The giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) and its strange globular clusters. ESO,ESA/Hubble, NASA. Digitized Sky Survey. Acknowledgement: Davide de Martin [Image]

Caption: Iridescent Nightscape over La Silla. ESO/Y. Beletsky [Image]

Caption: Hubble Spots the Layers of NGC 3923. ESA/Hubble & NASA [Image]

Caption: Discovery of Rare Quasar Quartet. HENNAWI & ARRIGONI-BATTAIA, MPIA [Image]

Original Submission

Armed with impulsive spending habits and a sense of urgency, I went to Amazon and purchased just about every programming book not related to web development I could find. Cryptographic protocol implementations in C, Embedded Systems development, Linux Kernel Development, etc. I wanted to learn things that real programmers knew. I wanted to learn the hard things. I bought an Arduino, started hanging out in ##c on freenode, began reading through implementations of the C standard library.
I never fully read any of those books. Most of them I never even started. I didn't do anything substantial with the arduino. I never made it passed analyzing "assert.h" in the C standard library (which I was planning on progressing through alphabetically.)
...
When you hate what you do, you stop caring about it. When you stop caring about something, you aren't going to bother learning more about it.
For a period of nearly 3 years, I was stuck in a terribly unproductive mental state. I hated web development, but I didn't know how to do anything else. Web development was all I knew. Bills needed to be paid, so CRUD apps needed to be made.

And thus arose my main cognitive dilemma: I hated web development because it was easy, but it was never actually easy to me. Instead of concluding "maybe web development is actually hard and those people don't know what they're talking about", I concluded that I must be a terrible programmer.

Question to SN fellows: have you had moments like this (doesn't matter if in relation with Web development or not)? Have you crossed over them? If true, how?

Original Submission