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Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

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Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#41

Post by borneogamer »

Strangely enough, this happened to me 4 years ago. I think they called it middle age crisis? Anyways, what I did then was switched from being in IT field to aquaculture. I built a fish farm, raised some fish, learn all about aquaculture, built a profitable little business.

And yet... something techies deep inside me keeps stirring. The need to create something shiny and new and the feeling I get when I say "I made this" is just indescribable. Thats why early this year I sold my fish farm and started an IT company... again. :P

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#42

Post by aufreak3 »

This is kind of a useful sign actually. When things look bleak like this, it usually means you're on the verge of something radically new ... and that's exciting to think about. Its like the guy who said "lets close the patent office 'cos everything that can be invented has already been invented."

This might be useful too -

A long time ago, someone on HN wrote about a similar give up point he came to in his life (sorry can't locate that post, but I recall it quite well). He decided to take a year off the industry - completely cut off. Just doing stuff like rock climbing, traveling, etc. .. until one day he had an epiphany that he'd taken up software in the first place because he loved it. He then got back in, full of enthusiasm.

So looks like taking a total break for a while can make things clear.

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#43

Post by zedshaw »

I actually probably have nearly the same history as you. Graduated about the same time as you. Been fascinated with computing as long as you. And just about as fed up with the current state of things as you.

I think the difference between us is I've got some notoriety so I'm looking to at least try to tear down the current situation before I get out of here. I figure might as well give it a shot, and if it doesn't work out I'm smart enough to change careers.

So I say, if you're not interested in it anymore, then try not doing it for a while and do whatever else you want. Even if this 2nd career is a total failure you at least tried.

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#44

Post by luckystrike »

cdavid wrote: post #33

Open source still makes a big difference, especially in 3rd world country. I went once to an open source conference in India, it really opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at the movement. Maybe that's what you may want to look at: software which really makes a difference today for many people.

it really opened my eyes to a whole new way of looking at the movement

Interesting. Can you share more details on the new perspective you got from being there?

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#46

Post by chopsueyar »

borneogamer wrote: post #41

Strangely enough, this happened to me 4 years ago. I think they called it middle age crisis? Anyways, what I did then was switched from being in IT field to aquaculture. I built a fish farm, raised some fish, learn all about aquaculture, built a profitable little business. And yet... something techies deep inside me keeps stirring. The need to create something shiny and new and the feeling I get when I say "I made th…

Can you provide more details about your fish farm? What type of fish? Size of tanks? Time to "harvest"?

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#47

Post by cageface »

I can definitely relate. I'm doing two things to combat this. First, I'm taking a year off to travel. This doesn't take that much money if you do it frugally. Second, I'm studying an entirely new problem domain. I picked machine learning, but I think anything that requires you to learn some new fundamentals that don't necessarily have directly to do with tech can work.

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#48

Post by chopsueyar »

richardw wrote: post #15

I wouldn't worry about it too much. Accept that you need a change for now and re-look at it every so often. I've been coding since '84. I've found myself very jaded by computers a number of times in the past and I'm definitely not chasing every technology thread I could be. But hey, sometimes it comes back and you see the same stuff in a new light, or you discover areas that really do interest you, or you combine wha…

Can you provide details of your personal experiences in this regard? (Very curious, not trying to pry.)

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#49

Post by fauigerzigerk »

You know what I find pretty amazing is how much data is out there in the public nowadays. It wasn't like that 10 years ago. For a very long time AI has suffered from lack of automatically extractable knowledge about the world, lack of sources from which to learn, lack of feedback loops. And now, suddenly, we have so many sensors everywhere and we have so much public expression of knowledge, intent and action.

Shouldn't we be able to build machines that are much more capable of interpreting every day goings than we used to be? There is still so much boring routine work that people do. I think the next revolution in computing is imminent and I think the very recent abundance of data from which to learn will be what makes it happen.

The way I (as a robot) look at social networks is as a source of interactions from which to learn about humans.

Re: Ask HN: After almost 30 years the romance is over - What now?

#50

Post by chopsueyar »

lien wrote: post #9

If you had to re-create social media for non-social people, what would it be? I'm a big believer that social media is still in its infancy, with huge innovations yet to happen. let's take an anti-social topic, say, coding. if i were to create social media for this, I would probably create a site where programmers learn from each other. can you assign points to a person based on "likes" and "tags" and promote them to…

You seem a bit obsessed with "socializing." Until it becomes required by law, there will always be a percentage of persons not wanting/willing to participate.

If only I could make everyone attend church...

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