Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#151

Post by jonjlee » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

I’m a pediatrician. I studied electrical engineering and did software for about 6 years before the career change. I still enjoy programming. It’s a different experience that’s more focused on growing your trade inwardly, while my job now is interacting with people all day! There is so much low hanging fruit in medicine that technology can / should have already solved. I would love to see medicine delivered more efficiently and for doctors to have freedom to focus on patients and doing medicine, rather than wrestling with our digital tools.

I’ve mostly lurked on HN, but I know there are a number of others with the same passion here. I’d love to get to know you!

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#152

Post by math-dev » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:34 PM UTC

bjoli wrote: post #110

I am a bassoon player in a professional ochestra. I have been programming since I was 7, and apart from building a few small programs for small companies run out of a garage and one place where I got paid for consulting in a small common lisp project (although I am more of a scheme user these days), very little of what I have written has left any traces online. Anyway, now I program to relax. Recently I have been wor…

Thats great! Do you find music and programming are complimentary pursuits? I listen to a lot of music when I code and I know others who do that too

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#153

Post by howLongHowLong » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

I play guitar in a traditional jazz band. Found HN while self-teaching computer science as a quarantine hobby. I love the random interesting links and substanitive conversation. A lot of the conversation in the comments gives me direction in studying.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#154

Post by z3ther » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

I don't fit as a marketing person, but still find HN pretty and swung over here and really interesting during the reddit disporia of a few years ago. Found the Telegram bot for HN and that's something that's kept me coming back when I see some interesting stuff. I wish there was a HN for marketers, you have a really engaging community.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#155

Post by 16Sinker » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

Student and hobbyist programmer. I actually found HN through the programmingcirclejerk sub on Reddit and got hooked. I like learning new things, and Reddit isn't the best place to do that, so I've started browsing HN more.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#156

Post by exolymph » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

cbfrench wrote: post #137

Anglican priest here. (I would guess the only one?) IIRC, I ended up here during one of my sporadic attempts to teach myself to code for fun. I stuck around for the diverse and interesting content plus the thoughtful and sane discussions. I don’t participate that much, but I always enjoy reading the comments on here.

But far from the only Christian! God bless you Father (apologies if that's not what an Anglican priest is called)

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#157

Post by justathrowaway2 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

snickersnee11 wrote: post #58

ARandomerDude wrote: post #4

Philosophy and theology student here, former military. I have a passion for history and dabble in Latin. I'm here because I pay for my masters and academic hobbies in other fields with my tech day job. I believe in the Renaissance model of trying to understand and succeed in many fields.

This is interesting! How many hours a day do you spend at work? In what position? I think it's a very good opportunity for smart, tech-savvy people to realize their dreams. It's hard for me to do it myself, my day job completely exhausts me, usually by the end of the day I have no interest in doing anything else. That's why I've always admired people who can combine work and hobbies and be successful at them.

Not OP but philosophy student as well, paying my bills with programming. I spend 20 hours a week in a junior position, having four to five days a week for everything else that interests me. I am not particularly keen on having a „career“ in the classical sense. I don’t want a family with kids, don’t travel and have below average material needs.

There is truth in the saying that making your hobby a profession will suck the joy out of it. I think I would go crazy with doing either philosophy or programming full time. Splitting it 50/50 regularly gives me time off of both which is great for creativity and motivation, especially if things are not going so well with one of the two. On the downside I will probably never excel at either.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#158

Post by doodles526 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

Helicopter pilot here, currently wildland firefighting flying for a US Forest Service contractor.

Found HN as a uni freshman in CS. Had a 5 year mini career as a dev in tech, but wanted more fulfilling(for me) work - hence the transition.

Back then, I was an HN reader for what I would call "career development" learning, trying to keep on the bleeding edge. Now I'm here for the tech-adjacent conversations and reading the more nuanced insider discussions on breaking tech news(eg: recent FB stories). Another reason for my keeping up with HN is occasionally a post will inspire a new side-project to improve either my personal or professional life outside of tech.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#159

Post by MattGaiser » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #148

MattGaiser wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, as a dev with family in real estate development, I can see why it hasn't. Zoning and building codes alone seem like an enormous impediment to scaling anything there.

Somehow there's a decent amount of tech in the healthcare space, which has a lot of codes and regulations as well. Which I also don't understand as it seems like more trouble than it's worth sometimes (I worked for a corporation that was in that field at one point, we were expected to make big changes almost every year when new laws got passed).

In healthcare I imagine that they are at least somewhat universal across an industry or sub field or country. At the very least insurance forces some standardization.

A town of 10K might have a completely separate building code and zoning categories.

Re: Ask HN: Non-tech professionals on HN?

#160

Post by benatkin » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

It's just a quadrant in a model I use. There is how technical a role is on one axis and how much the company or organization you work for is considered to be in tech on the other axis.

If there are a lot of data points in the three quadrants that have something tech about them, there are going to be some in the fourth quadrant as well.