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Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#341

Post by rifung »

romaniv wrote: post #231

I think answers here will be skewed, since people who work on trivial programming tasks often don't visit websites like this. I've worked on moderately interesting problems in some positions, and I've also worked in positions where everyone with experience was sucked into fixing infinite streams of fuck-ups from junior developers and contractors, who end up doing all the actual development. IMO, it mostly boils down…

> I think answers here will be skewed, since people who work on trivial programming tasks often don't visit websites like this.

This is a big assumption you're making, and given the answers, it would appear that assumption was incorrect from what I've read so far?

From what I can tell, most people don't find their work interesting but work for the money and find interesting things to do outside of work. The exception to this is probably those in leadership or research positions. At least that's what I have seen so far in this thread and also witnessed in my own experience.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#342

Post by hangtwenty »

tw1010 wrote: post #96
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

You might as well have asked who among us won the lottery. I've been struggling with this for years now; after 4 boring jobs I finally gave up even the expectation that what I'll be asked to do will be even remotely interesting (or socially useful). The chance of landing an interesting job is absolutely minuscule - the market rewards whatever it rewards at the moment, and that's where jobs flock. These days, one of t…

There should be a name to the phenomenon that humans seem to become crushingly depressed once they start to grasp the big picture dynamics of the system they're encapsulated within. I think it's an effect that we're not quite prepared for as we reach closer and closer to science dotting all its i's. It's as if childhood primes us to think that life is all about figuring out what the heck is going on around us, and as…

In addition to the “Existential Angst” there is...

Koyaanisqatsi - life out of balance - see also the film

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#344

Post by bsenftner »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #284
bsenftner wrote: post #242

I'm hesitant to post because there is so much anguish here about winning the lottery for interesting work. I have been extremely fortunate in my career. I'd say I won the interesting lottery. I started very early by today's standards, taking my first programming class at the local university when I was in 5th grade, back in '76. At 17, in '82, I had a game company selling nationwide in Sears & KMart a few Vic-20 game…

VideoToaster? BBSs? What was your first computer?

I first had access to a PDP-1170 at my local university, then a borrowed Apple II, then my first computer was a Vic-20. Then a C-64, then the beta Mac.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#345

Post by jcadam »

Nope, getting an interesting problem to work on at work is a rare occurrence.

I'm 38 years old, and I'm convinced that if I hadn't been constantly working on side projects and pursuing learning on my own (books, MOOCs, etc.), and relied solely on the skills I could pick up "on the job", I would be absolutely unemployable now.

Seriously, doing nothing but writing glue code was old 10 years ago, now I'm really starting to feel burnt out. Today, I've been staring at a screen full of bad Java all day, knowing exactly what needs to be done, but can't force myself to do it. Maybe tomorrow.

Funny, I have no problem pouring myself into my side projects in the evening. Hmm....

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#346

Post by ghc »

kdv wrote: post #292
ghc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're targeting consumer you might want to be careful with tech like web-sockets. After a decade of using sensors in industrial facilities I've come to appreciate the value of on-device buffers and transactional logging systems that don't maintain persistent connections. Real-world environments are unfortunately really tough on technologies designed for browsers.

You sound like you have some experience in this area so I'll ask. I'm working with fielded devices that typically sit on enterprise networks. We operate much like an IoT device, but without the hardware constraints. The current c2 system uses a traditional polling REST HTTP protocol and we're looking to migrate something more real-time (for config pushes) and lighter on the server. Currently looking at everything fro…

It really depends on your edge data model, but the enterprise network should always be considered hostile.

At my previous company we ran SSH servers on our gateways for server->client pushes and it ran into the fewest problems with enterprise firewalls. We also ran our own mesh wireless networks a lot using our own gear. I'm guessing that's probably not an option, but when there's no admin running around looking for unauthorized wireless signals it's quite efficient.

Now all of these require a local host machine (or several) behind the firewall that do the brunt of routing and orchestration for pushes. There's a good reason for it though: It's a lot easier to get several hardened systems authorized to cross the firewall than a bunch of IoT devices. And if you can't get that authorization, you can put a cellular connection in the box or boxes more cheaply than one in every deployed device.

Happy to chat more if you want specific advice about certain situations. I also spend a lot of time investing in and mentoring Boston-based IoT startups so I have seen a broad cross-section of situations that can happen. brendan@sentenai.com

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#348

Post by amorphous »

I'm happy the technical part of my work is boring because as a business owner I receive more than enough excitement delivering excellent service to my clients. I think it is important to be a stakeholder and have complete ownership of a problem. Then you might prefer boring because all you care about is delivering a good result.

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#349

Post by kdv »

ghc wrote: post #346
kdv wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like you have some experience in this area so I'll ask. I'm working with fielded devices that typically sit on enterprise networks. We operate much like an IoT device, but without the hardware constraints. The current c2 system uses a traditional polling REST HTTP protocol and we're looking to migrate something more real-time (for config pushes) and lighter on the server. Currently looking at everything fro…

It really depends on your edge data model, but the enterprise network should always be considered hostile. At my previous company we ran SSH servers on our gateways for server->client pushes and it ran into the fewest problems with enterprise firewalls. We also ran our own mesh wireless networks a lot using our own gear. I'm guessing that's probably not an option, but when there's no admin running around looking for…

We have the full support of the network admin staff, so punching out is not an issue, we just want to keep it as clean as possible. My guess is our control channel will likely end up being some combination of WSS/Redis (if it plays nice w/ mutual auth and load balancing) or a variation of our current polling HTTP/REST solution. Thanks for the offer, I might take you up on it ;)

Re: Ask HN: Are you working on interesting technical problems?

#350

Post by sincerely »

jacques_chester wrote: post #155
thinkingemote wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marx is vague and rightly so. I think the situationists took a similar approach, which is also their main criticism. They do not describe what the utopia would be not really the steps, they instead say that it's a state that occurs when people live according to their desires. That to me sounds like "do what thou wilt" where the task is to find out what our desire, our will is.

If Kołakowski is to be believed, Marx's view of the post-revolutionary world has a somewhat mystical flavour stemming mostly from Hegel. It is the immediate roots in Hegelian philosophy that makes it, in practical terms, wishy-washy. What has always tied Marxism in knots has been the tension between waiting for the inexorable laws of history on the one hand (and sometimes trying to give them a hurry up) versus on the…

Do you think that the more left-accelerationist factions have any meaningful influence compared to more reformist organizations like the DSA? Is it different outside the states?
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