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Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#841

Post by spinal »

iso8859-1 wrote: post #180
spinal wrote: post #164

Embedded systems and electrical engineering. I knew close to nothing in either field and it is refreshing to learn a new field starting at the basics. Creating a practical, physical product is also very rewarding.

How did you get started?

Sorry for late reply. I went straight into projects, albeit small ones (a monitoring system for temperature, humidity, luminosity, my own light-based alarm clock). It's not quite as trivial as it sounds, for someone who has never touched electronics before :) The theory I learned was almost all just internet searches. I did research before ordering each piece of hardware, to the point where I was confident enough I won't fry anything. This might not be the most efficient way of learning, but it's more enjoyable than a book for me.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#842

Post by brailsafe »

reitanuki wrote: post #781
oakhaven wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree so much! I've always shivered when they asked me what tech I'm passionate about on job interviews. When I hear/read people who say that they're passionate about a javascript lib or a programming language, it sounds really disingenuous to me (or like marketing bs, depending on context). Although they probably mean well, in most cases.

If you only do programming for a job, it is probably very difficult to see how someone could be passionate about computing. I suppose I can't really illuminate this point, but I suppose for me it's about figuring things out and making something? Maybe a bit like maths, but if you play your cards right you have something to come out of it with.

Isn't the means somewhat incidental to the process and outcome though, and in that sense isn't it the same type of hobbyist or academic aspect that's as generally appealing as any other?

Programming is an appealing activity in a variety of ways if you're working on something appealing in an appealing context, otherwise it's just a tool like any other, therefore the tools are just tools and constrained somewhat to the appeal a tool can have, which isn't negligible, but isn't something I'd apply the word passion to; much like how I wouldn't describe using a computer as something I'm passionate about, or hiking poles or headlamps or skateboards or knives for carving unless my craft is knife making.

I enjoy the process (usually) of writing Swift and learning new things along the way, but the part that draws me back isn't the act of programming, it's derived from the problem; resolving the problem is often just as interesting sketching something out on paper or thinking about it, just like maths. Serious game developers probably get into it having what they'd describe as a passion for gaming or something, but 6 months away from their computer and I'm sure they wouldn't miss writing arbitrary c++ or wasting their bodies away in front of a screen for 10 hours a day quite as much, it's just often a necessary implementation detail.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#843

Post by jfil »

tommychillfiger wrote: post #311
namrog84 wrote: post #245

Quit my job earlier this year to start an indie game studio and a little bit of contributions to misc open-source projects. A fair balance of relax time but also enjoying the time off. There is so much I want to do and get excited for, but I still suffer a lot of procrastination related problems or else I feel like I could have done a tremendous amount more. I feel like there is lifetimes of things I get excited abou…

Feel this hard. I feel like I did well during unemployment while the Covid lockdown played out. I was an audio engineer before that, and during lockdown I ran 30 miles a week, made a lot of music, learned some Python, managed to pivot into tech (analytics). Still, it never feels like I'm really doing anywhere near as much as I could - that was all pretty much 3-5 hours a day with the rest being more or less pure leis…

There is so much more to life than being productive. Many of us are living with "internalized capitalism".

Something that helps me get over that feeling of not-doing-enough is time tracking my work (using a tool like Toggl). After a few months you get the sense that a productive day for you is X hours of work, and that makes it easier to disengage from work once you hit that point in your day. Knowing what your "X" is per day also justifies taking a break at hour X+2 because you know that you're straining your body at that point.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#844

Post by xctr94 »

Not distributing the equity early on via a notary, relying instead on an agreement. Later on the equity separation was only legally possible via a heavily-taxed mechanism, meaning I could never afford my stake. They kept the equity and I basically had to leave. (Be careful about Belgian laws around equity.)

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#845

Post by pipes »

cedws wrote: post #691
pipes wrote: post #601

Not drinking. I only drank at weekends. But pretty much every weekend for 25 + years, this is totally normal from where I'm from. I read the book alcohol explained https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alcohol-Explained-William-Porter-eb... Listened to the Huberman podcast about alcohol. And realised I don't want to drink anymore. It's really strange, I used to struggle having a single weekend with no booze. Now I actively just d…

Cutting a vice out of your life is always a good thing, so well done. But I am curious: why not just moderate your drinking? The dose makes the poison. Yes, it is true that alcohol is bad for you, but so are many things. If you limit yourself, you can enjoy it on occasion without doing too much harm. I personally don't see utility in having a hardline approach to alcohol. You only live once. If you want to crack open…

I'm sympathetic to your point, but in my case I'd just really like to be able to say I don't drink. It's one less thing to worry about. I've drunk enough for 3 life times. I've been worried for a long time about it.

Also, the point in the book alcohol explained, really stuck with me. One drink feels good for about half an hour, it's then replaced with feeling of anxiety unless you have another. It's like borrowing money with a high interest rate, except you are borrowing happines.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#846

Post by charlesdbecker »

rojeee wrote: post #600
theryan wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tips for running pain free? I used to run pretty often (3-5 times per week) for 5+ miles. Longest was 11. However, my feet started hurting while running -- never while walking even long distances.

Have a look at recover athletics [1], recently bought by Strava, which allows you to specify where the pain is and they give you strength exercises to help strength surrounding areas which will put a stop to the pain. You get pain through muscle overuse and the best way to fix it is to strengthen up. Running is pretty tough on your muscles and tendons, especially if you are not used to it, you ramp up volume too quic…

Do you have any good strength exercises for anterior pelvic tilt? I have to and I’d like to correct it as I am also a heavy guy who recently started running.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#847

Post by user_7832 »

linsomniac wrote: post #759
user_7832 wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hoping to build "small but might" type bookshelf speakers - I don't live in a large house and I might move so I don't want to have large/heavy speakers. Using DSP quite some impressive things are possible. Thanks for the links, I think I've seen (parts of) both videos but now that I have learnt a lot more I think I'll pick up more info. Btw there have been a few valid criticisms of these speakers, although it's m…

Have you seen this video from DIY Perks? https://youtu.be/XEspOD1NHr0?si=MpFTZaMYsfNdSrAU

Thanks for the link, yes I have seen it. While it's not a bad build, from what I've heard + my own opinion, it's a bit poorly designed - you could get better performance at the same cost with a different set of components, or target and get similar sound for probably half the cost.

If you're curious for a speaker build there are lots of excellent speaker kits and resources online that are (much) better reviewed.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#849

Post by conductr »

jkestner wrote: post #437
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your kids school has a makerspace - that sounds awesome can you provide any more details?

Helped my kid’s teacher win some Teacher of the Year award where a company gives away grants for PR, and as punishment, she charged me with using the money she won to set up a makerspace in the library. Funny thing is when I went to see what they already had, there was more than enough to start with…LittleBits, Makey Makey, a ton of supplies for paper circuits, etc. Used the money to buy some more things like a micro…

> but realized that it had failed before and will fail again because there isn’t enough humanpower to guide the kids in activities

See if you can partner with an high school STEM class to have elder students mentor the younger ones. Things like this are required Service credit at our kid's school, it works wonderfully and also if they're around enough the little's look up to the big's. It helps strengthen the character as community & individual

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#850

Post by azv_ »

XCSme wrote: post #581

Table tennis! The sport has so much depth, that you can keep learning/improving for a life-time. Whenever you think you now everything about it, there is something new to learn (spin, tactics, focus, psychology, bluffing, etc.). It's like a combination of fast-paced chess, poker and reaction testing. That, also combined with other hobbies such as VR (Eleven VR), 3d printing (printing/designing table-tennis adapters f…

Love table tennis! I used to play and compete as a kid and picked it up again 15 years later, that was 6 years ago. I've played 3 tournaments since then and went from 1200 to 1600 and 1800 usatt rating. I'm hoping to reach 2000 one day. There's something about it that's highly addictive, you can't think of anything else while playing, that somehow gives me peace of mind and a way to shut down my mind, in a healthy way.
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