Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?

With my day job gone, I have a huge stack of side projects and hobbies that I'd love to put more time into. I think the hardest part, in a world where I've regained the time I spend on my job, would be deciding which of those things I actually want to dedicate my time to (there isn't enough time in my life for all of them, sadly).

I'd definitely spend more time on fitness, reading, and playing and listening to music. I have plenty of programming related projects I'd like to work on too. I like making videos and writing blog posts, and I'd continue doing that - probably at about the same rate that I currently do, creating a writeup or a video when I find something cool to share.

Honestly, I'd spend my time about the same way I do now - just "more so." I guess I'm fortunate to be able to say that!

But in terms of study - academic work - we're free. She's got a PhD in theoretical physics and has finally had the time to start publishing, including picking up quantum chromodynamics.

I've picked up my original doctoral work, too, which was on hold for thirty years while I supported the family. I've had no problems whatsoever tackling difficult topics - in fact, I've had less difficulty. I'm calmer, partly because I have to be in order to keep my blood pressure under control. I think I can do less in any given day, but I'm not even sure about that, because when I look back at items checked off over a week or a month, it's about what I wanted to get done.

So putting off study until you're 55 is not a bad plan. Keep reading about things in the meantime, of course. Take good notes. Keep things where you can find them in ten or twenty years. Write down your daily thoughts. You'll thank yourself later, trust me on this.

The slab part of the foundation generally is meant only to transfer the load of the house onto these footings rather than support the weight itself, sort of like a desk transfers the weight of it's contents onto the legs.

While this can help resist movement, it all depends on the drainage and expansion qualities of the soil where the bottom of the footer rests. If the area sees periods of extreme drought in highly expansive soil and the drought 'reaches' the bottom of the footer then you'll end up with significant movement as the weight of the foundation and home settles down into the void created by the now dry soil, while the opposite is true during periods of extremely heavy rainfall.

When you combine periods of extreme drought and heavy rainfall in close succession of each other on highly expansive soils, pretty much any slab that is not supported by bedrock in some way will be at risk of cracking due to the frequent seasonal movement of the surrounding soil.

This can be mitigated somewhat during periods of drought by 'watering' the areas surrounding the foundation, and during periods of heavy rainfall by having a properly graded home site that routes water away from the home in every direction. Unfortunately these are mitigations that require monitoring by homeowners who may not be aware of these issues at all.

Ideally prior to building any permanent foundation a core sample would be obtained from the site and analyzed to determine the footer depth necessary to compensate for the 'worst case' rainfall and temperature fluctuation in that region, additionally accounting for local movement due to topography.

Except most folks building out in my area are just trying to make as much money with as little investment as possible, and thus do just enough to not be liable if any of the above scenarios conspire to create problems for their long-since-forgotten customers.