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A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

latimes.com

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Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#71

Post by pixelatedindex »

foobiekr wrote: post #55
losteric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The older folks typically also benefited from getting into housing when it was less scarce, riding one or more waves of progress, at a time where healthcare ROI was much higher. My generation faces a different economic situation. I know people in academia that love what they do and dreamed of living a life like Rudy's. In practice, they're stuck - huge debts, dismally low post-grad wages, stuck renting, just hoping f…

Not everything is about housing, in particular someone choosing to work to 100+ doesn't really have anything to do with housing.

No, but it helps to own a house if you wish to work to 100+

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#72

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #6

If today's scientific community were as functional as Rudy Marcus' we'd still be progressing. The key moment of his career was prediction of an inverted trend in an unexplored experimental regime. In today's academia, he would have hopped to a startup rather than struggle for tenure with foreign ideas that don't support anyone else's old stack of fluffy papers.

Progress is brought forward by people who are 'out there' and are 'out there' enough to let the whole world to know that they are.

But you cannot confine it to science and academia, rather it's the general background 'out there-ness' of the whole planet which then finds its way in various sectors.

In other words you don't get the Einsteins without the Hitlers and you don't get the Richard Feynmans without the Charlie Mansons

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#73

Post by mrtksn »

Kamq wrote: post #68
mrtksn wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I recall him criticising the capitalist system too for not rewarding the scientists properly. He is not a simple person.

> He is not a simple person. I'm gonna be honest here. I don't think anyone is.

Sure, just emphasising on it because the initial comment looks like a bit of mischaracterisation.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#76

Post by jacquesm »

zw123456 wrote: post #57

Hi there, old person here. Tomorrow is my 65th birthday. I had vowed to myself that I would completely and totally retire, Finally, at 65. But then, this "thing" cropped up and the day after tomorrow, I am pitching my 3rd startup to investors. I wonder, am I crazy. But I feel passion for this project. So, I am throwing myself into the fray again, there is no logical reason to do so. So, Rudy, I understand.

> Tomorrow is my 65th birthday.

Congrats!

> the day after tomorrow, I am pitching my 3rd startup to investors.

I'm still pretty active (58) but there is no way I'm going to do another run, I'm happy tinkering with stuff, spending time with kids and working on average 3 to 4 months per year. I always saw money as a means to an end, just another tool in the toolbox. I don't need more of it so that part of the drive is gone and I'd much rather spend a day playing piano or fixing something than that I'd want to be worried about metrics, investors, customer acquisition, payroll and the bi-annual whack over the head from the fourth dimension that throws all your carefully laid plans into disarray.

But I do very much wish for you to succeed at whatever endeavor you've got lined up and I'm curious to hear about it. Much, much good luck with your plans.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#77

Post by vl »

kenjackson wrote: post #54
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the folks in my peer group who followed their left-leaning parents mantra of doing something interesting, something that you love, got absolutely screwed. As much as I hate big tech, I cannot blame anyone for pursuing it.

How did they get screwed? I feel like I kind of got screwed going into SW. I have friends who make 1/3 the money as athletic trainers, but just seem to love their life so much more. Maybe when we’re 60 things will change, but seems like a bad tradeoff.

There are happier because their work is finite. They do athletic sessions, they are done, their time then is their own. As software dev/lead/manager/pm you are never done, there is always next thing to do.

This why some devs become SREs - your shift is over, you are done.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#78

Post by themitigating »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #5
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

Is it such a bad thing to dream of a life which values things outside of a workplace? To spend time with friends and family. The older generations cling to positions of power and refuse to make room for the newer generations, so it is upon them to find meaning and purpose through other avenues. Retiring seems important for allowing younger generations to take their place. But if all you have is your work and you've l…

If someone talks about how they love to work and don't want to retire it's not a judgement on any other choices.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#79

Post by varjag »

atrettel wrote: post #39
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #2

I’ve been fortunate enough to know a few older people who really loved their work and were excellent at it. All of them had one thing in common: they didn’t want to retire. Meanwhile all of my peer group is obsessed with FIRE and dream of retiring early. All of us are also involved in pretty meaningless work that has no measurable impact on the world (five lines of code to a million line codebase is hardly world chan…

I would think that the "obsession" your peer group has with retiring early comes more from the realization that they can retire early (they have the ability to if they want) more than anything else. Your observations of your peer group may have some selection bias present. Cast a wider net and you may come to the opposite conclusion. I agree that many people do not find much meaning in their work, but most people als…

Aye, this whole concept is a zero sum game hedging on you earning substantially more than median. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to live off your saved amount as the services rendered by other people would price you out. The returns on investments would have been very modest too with people extracting more value for their work.

Re: A Caltech Nobel laureate celebrates his 100th birthday, then gets back to work

#80

Post by shafiemukhre »

This is the way, I aspire for this. One of my goal in life is to have a long fulfilling healthy life doing the things that I love to do, and hopefully see the 22nd century. written human history has only been for 5,000 years and the progress of engineering and technologies has been exploding for the past 100 years. I wonder how it will be in the 22nd century , it must be unimaginable to us right now. And I hope I will live long enough and have the luxury of a healthy brain to comprehend the beauty of technologies in the 22nd century.

I like the work of Blueprint by Bryan Johnson, though it's not replicable for most and felt a bit too much. For now, my lifestyle include eating clean, weightlifting, cardio, and good sleep. This is it or there's more to it? Appreciate any other resources/readings to pursue a long life

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