Freelancing

I'm wrapping up my second year of CS undergrad and I'm starting to burn out a bit.  My goal is to get my degree and live the "digital nomad" lifestyle, moving from country to country every couple of months (after a year or two of workplace experience/credential building).

I've heard that it's actually pretty hard to survive off of online freelance projects alone, as a lot of people want to meet in person and the good jobs require niche specializations.


Is this a realistic aspiration?  Could I support myself without an office job?

Get the Culver on your home computer.
(use irregex srfi-1 tcp)

(define (get-image page)
 ((lambda (x)
   (if x
    (string-append
     (substring x 0 (- (string-length x) 6)) ".jpg") #f))
  (find (lambda (x) (irregex-search "_m.jpg" x))
   (irregex-split "\"" page))))

(define (get-newer page)
 ((lambda (s)
   (if s (string-append "http://www.flickr.com" s) #f))
  (find (lambda (x) (irregex-search "photosof" x))
   (irregex-split "\'" page))))

(define (write-file path data)
 (with-output-to-file path
  (lambda () (write-string data))))

(define (get-page uri)
 (define (connect host port)
  (call-with-values (lambda () (tcp-connect host port)) list))
 (define (ftake lst a)
  (if (or (null? lst) (eqv? a (car lst))) '()
   (cons (car lst) (ftake (cdr lst) a))))
 (define (fdrop lst a)
  (if (or (null? lst) (eqv? a (car lst))) lst
   (fdrop (cdr lst) a)))
 (define (get-hostname uri)
  (list->string (ftake (cddr (fdrop (string->list uri) #\/)) #\/)))
 (define (get-document uri)
  (list->string (fdrop (cddr (fdrop (string->list uri) #\/)) #\/)))
 (define (strip-header str)
  (define (strip-header-aux lst)
   (cond ((null? (cddr lst)) #f)
    ((and (char=? (car lst) #\newline)
      (char=? (cadr lst) #\return)
      (char=? (caddr lst) #\newline)) (cdddr lst))
    (else (strip-header-aux (cdr lst)))))
  (if (< (string-length str) 3) #f
   (list->string (strip-header-aux (string->list str)))))
 ((lambda (server document)
   (apply
    (lambda (reader writer)
     (display
      (string-append "GET " document " HTTP/1.1\r\n"
       "Host: " server "\r\n"
       "Connection: close\r\n\r\n")
      writer)
     (strip-header (read-string #f reader)))
    (connect server 80)))
  (get-hostname uri) (get-document uri)))

(define (fetch-the-culver newest oldest)

 (define (right-in-the-culver n page uri)
  ((lambda (image-uri file-path)
    (display (string-append image-uri " -> " file-path "\n"))
    (write-file file-path (get-page image-uri)))
   (get-image page)
   (string-append "culver" (number->string n) ".jpg"))

  (if (not (string=? uri newest))
   ((lambda (uri)
     (right-in-the-culver (+ n 1) (get-page uri) uri))
    (get-newer page))))

 (right-in-the-culver 1 (get-page oldest) oldest))

(fetch-the-culver
 "http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/5155673220/in/photosof-leahculver/"
 "http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/3263299572/in/photosof-leahculver/")

(Got into a fight with http-client, hence the weird get-page procedure)