41–50 of 189 posts
I like simple technologies like IRC. You don't need K8s clusters or deployment pipelines. String together everything with a smattering of bash because nothing is really at stake. It's easy to get started since the tech is as simple as it gets, and there's nothing actually on the line. You can practice using obscure languages never seen in industry. Do things because they make you laugh, not to build a portfolio or a product. At the least, I can still crank out a modest amount of code and actually enjoy the process, without tearing my hair out over whatever asinine enterprise-scale clusterfuck needs to be untangled now.
Still waiting for whatever is next.
As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
Research is my absolute favorite thing to do but everything else surrounding it I just absolutely hate and it feels draining and worthless. Ideas get dismissed without explanations (even after asking), publication process is incredibly noisy and when you get a nonsensical review (I can share) people just say "shit happens" or "weird" and then it happens again and again, and advisors and managers want weekly updates but visible progress in a project goes through wild cycles of lots of work with little to nothing to show vs low work where it looks like lots of progress is made (e.g. tuning models). It just feels like hell. I'm always thinking about my projects because they sincerely interest and captivate me but I feel like the systems we have built around what is entirely a creative process is structured for routine work. I'm being asked to do things that have never been done before -- and I love this, it is the ultimate puzzle -- but how the fuck do you expect me to give accurate ETAs and to do this 3-5 times a year and launch ground breaking work with some 2080Ti nodes and maybe one A100 node? How ground breaking of work can it be if it is done in a few months? I am supposed to do this by myself and compete against a team of Google engineers? This publish or perish paradigm is absolute bullshit and we're at a point where fucking Nvidia asked for a new PhD to have 8 top conference 1st author publications.
Therapy and medication definitely help, and I were I not to start them I, without a doubt, would have dropped out. But I think we need to have a very serious discussion about the systems that we have in place and how we're continually shooting ourselves in the foot with this fucking rat race. Maybe I'm just a bad researcher, because it does seem that there are a lot of highly successful people. But if I'm being honest, when I talk to those people I can't see anything that they are doing different other than opportunities/resources and possibly better mentoring. There are of course people that stand out and I can definitely see their genius when talking to them, but for the vast majority of researchers I really can't tell what makes the difference between making it and breaking it. I can't tell what makes a paper work and not work.
I really just want to spend my days reading math books, hacking away at ML systems, and trying to understand what this whole thing around consciousness, intelligence, and sentience is. But I don't know how to make this life. It isn't academia and it isn't industry. So how do I be born rich? Can we get to post scarcity yet?
As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
burnout = depression
As a researcher, I’ve felt largely the same way lately. It’s been hard for me to even wrap up a project I was so excited about when I started it that I missed sleep because I was that engaged. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cozy tenure position at a major research institution to ride out the burnout until I feel inspired again. I’m just a lowly postdoc. I’ve thought about leaving the research life for a regular job, b…
Not sure it would help, but it may: adopt a rescue animal, if you're a pet oriented person, and don't already have one, and it may jar your perspectives in multiple dimensions as to what is fun, what is entertaining, what is meaningful. That worked for me when i felt like you describe.
I'm not a mental health connoisseur or anything, but removing your own pressure to perform seems like good advice regardless of your circumstances. If you're tired or stressed or whatever, labeling yourself as "a burned out person" seems to me like the only good thing it does is add more pressure. Because how can you do well if you're "damaged" in some way? It's important to not just do old style sweep it under the r…
I agree there is probably a balance, and we are currently focusing too hard on it. I’ve had the same thought about the obsession about childhood trauma from people with average upbringings.
But both parents and work have heavy influences on how we live our lives, so who else are you going to blame? Yourself? Don’t be silly.
While this passage is inspiring, it boils down to: 1. Get good at something 2. Get paid for doing it 3. Get burned out by doing it 4. Return to the fun way of doing it 5. ??? 6. Win a Nobel prize or similar How repeatable is that pattern? Is that one of the patterns we want to teach the next generation? Serious question. I don't know the answer. Feynman is obviously rather exceptional. Should we encourage people to f…
Finding a fun way to do things does seem like it produces better solutions, though. I mean, if you dread reading about your solution, what do you expect from people who don’t even want to devote their life to it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
burnout = depression
You are right, but the hard part for me is determining the causality here. Am I depressed because I’m burnt out, or am I feeling burnt out because I’m depressed?
For a really cool video from the International Space Station about a phenomenon related to the spinning plate stuff, see here: Dancing T-handle in zero-g, HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-HMSCDYtM
I mean orientation changes regarding the flip, not the obvious spinning motion.