I'd spend my days painting miniatures and reading. Don't really care enough about the rest of the world, to be honest; I'd turn inward.
And those books you're reading. They came from where?
Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
251–260 of 305 posts
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#252I would devote my time to building high quality, durable, and energy efficient 3bd 2ba homes in the rural areas surrounding major metropolitan areas, which I would then sell at material cost. Buying my first home (mobile/manufactured) has been a combination of the best and worst thing I've ever done. The house cost nearly 3 times what my grandparents paid about ~30 years ago in the same neighborhood (on the same stre…
Where do you live? The county or city should have codes for the foundation construction. If those are not sufficient I’d start there.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#253I have some specific ideas on high school maths education that I’d like to develop into a book or two for self-publishing. Working is currently one serious obstacle to that.
Care to relate some of them? My mom was a high school math teacher, my dad is a physicist and I had a STEM education, so math pedagogy is near and dear to me.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#254I'd need capital as well as financial independence, but I'd work on free / at-cost daycare, including for shift workers. Working in infosec, I've often thought that one of the reasons (not the only one of course) that we have so few women at the senior levels is that so few women can take the typical entry route (night shift SOC) for family reasons. I'm sure there are many other similar professions.
If that didn't work out I'd lie on the couch, get fat(ter) and read philosophy and history. Less meaningful but still a pretty good life.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will create a global society that is mostly a dictate of scientists and engineers. My point: It's better to be dictated by scientists and engineers than lawyers and accountants, if we have to be dictated. - It is MANDATORY to receive STEM education up to undergraduate level AND pass several tests unless you are proved to be unfit by more than one independent medical institutions; - A commission consists of global s…
i like it, and have thought of similar ideas. i would add yogis or "spiritual masters" or something like that to the scientists and engineers, just to keep things in check and not let the intellect take over too much. so it seems like your vision would be to maximize understanding of the universe, which i agree with, because that is like the ultimate thing that makes sense to do in order for our species to survive fo…
I have given my "model" some thoughts and unfortunately arrive at the conclusion that it probably won't change much, for the following reasons:
- Extraordinary scientists and engineers usually don't like management, so eventually management goes into the "managers". The rest is history.
- How can we make sure that ordinary people have a say? In my model I frankly dismiss their right to rule because they cannot compete with the elite scientists.
But again maybe this is still better than what we have today. Imagine the whole society functioning as a huge university. Sure you get corruption and cronyism in universities too, but at least if you mess up something and if you get caught, you will be shunned.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks a lot. I really appreciate your sharings. I'm glad that both of you manage to work on things you are interested in. Did your wife get the PHD recently or when she was young? Reading through the lines I feel it was when she was young but I could definitely be wrong. I also feel I don't have much to write down every day. Most of the time is spent on work chores or family chores. There are a few happy moments but…
She got her PhD in 1999, shortly after the birth of the kid who just finished his first year of grad school. Sure, you're working, I totally get that. But you're also sometimes reading about stuff relevant to your eventual academic interests, if only articles you see on HNN or whatever. Sometimes you'll have a thought in the car. Develop the habit of journaling them when they come, in some place you won't lose over t…
Thanks for the tip. I'm thinking maybe I should at least register for a few pre-requisite courses and see what happens. I did have a Math Master degree but I forgot pretty much everything except SV Calculus and basic Matrix computation. Or I could just use Coursera to advance my learning -- for hell, the topics I'm interested in, e.g. General Relativity, do not need experiments so I might not even need a degree.
Regarding the last paragraph -- yeah I recalled that my first programming adventure was Foxbasing in the mid 90s. I definitely forgot all of those!
Good luck to you too.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#257I would devote my time to building high quality, durable, and energy efficient 3bd 2ba homes in the rural areas surrounding major metropolitan areas, which I would then sell at material cost. Buying my first home (mobile/manufactured) has been a combination of the best and worst thing I've ever done. The house cost nearly 3 times what my grandparents paid about ~30 years ago in the same neighborhood (on the same stre…
Where do you live? The county or city should have codes for the foundation construction. If those are not sufficient I’d start there.
The codes are simply not sufficient. The codes simply dictate the minimum required to prevent significant loss of human life and property, but just as there is a vast gulf between "people dying and houses collapsing" and Things Are Up To Code™ there is too a vast gradient between the latter and Things Just Work™
When I first bought my house I tried to put in a warranty claim due to *MAJOR* deflection of subfloor in the kitchen and suspected water damage related to the installation of some plumbing. They refused to do anything unless I got the state involved; Literally they gave me the contact number for the state department responsible for ensuring everything was Good Enough™
Months later, nothing was fixed because according to the State as long as I can't stick my foot through a hole in the ground and get hurt there is nothing wrong. Never mind the fact that there is a slow water leak and the subfloor and joists are undergoing structural deterioration before I even moved in.
Had I known the headache this would cause, and known I could have taken other legal recourse I would have lawyered up at this point, but I was a young 24 year old with a 2 year old and another child on the way. I didn't know what to expect, I trusted the State, I trusted the builder, I trusted the realtors who all told me it was Ok™.
Up to code means it's safe to inhabit, not that you'd *want* to inhabit.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#258I would spend my time working on music. This entire universe was created from nothing to everything, and there has always been sound. I believe sound can be used to solve many problems, from healing people of sickness to moving heavy objects, as the ancient Egyptians did. So I would want to decode the mystery of music. The music I like to listen to and want to create more of is similar, so that I can derive great pleasure from listening to it.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#259I'd open a bakery and make fresh sourdough bread, pizzas, focaccia and pasta every single day, and give it away for cost.
Would you still start at 4am in the morning? I was contemplating "retiring" to work at a local cooperative bakery that makes similar things, but their shifts were at horrible times that felt like it would ruin my health.
I would not wake up at 4am. I am much more interested in making the bread, baking is the easiest part. I would hire a night owl to do the baking. Everything else can be baked for lunch.
Re: Ask HN: What would you spend your time working on if you didn't need money?
#260Probably Christian apologetics. It is clear to me that science is incompatible with atheism and supports the Christian worldview, but this does not seem to be widely understood.
If you want to be a theist why stop at Christianity? Why prefer one religion over the other? Theism has existed thousands of years before Christ appeared and these theists had wildly different ideas about almost everything than what Christ taught. Makes you think, who is right?