Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 195 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#121

Post by afarrell »

deadlast wrote: post #115

I'm an recent high school graduate. I come here because, despite high test scores, I don't know what I want to do with my life, and I feel like being here might help me.

You don't have to decide what to do with your life you know. In fact, you kinda can't. Sure, you might decide something now, but then 20-year-old you could just as easily say "Well, fuck it. I'm going to drive across the country and marry her."

Suppose you had 2 years, what would you want to do? What would you want to have done and set yourself up to do?

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#122

Post by markmassie »

Nuclear engineer here. Definitely not in the software industry, but still do a bit of coding, albeit mostly in Fortran because (most) reactor design software stays pretty far from the bleeding edge.

I come to HN for the startup culture discussions. Even though my field is pretty far from the software/tech field, it's pretty amazing how much of the startup experience remains the same.

For those interested, my startup, Transatomic, is developing a molten salt reactor that's cheaper than coal and (hopefully) as cheap as natural gas, just without the greenhouse gas emissions.

We just closed our first round of VC funding from Peter Thiel and Founders Fund a few days ago. More details here:

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2014/08/05/nuclear-waste-start...

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#123

Post by selleck »

I am 32 and in Software Sales. I am busting my butt to get into the software industry through coursera, edx, udacity, books and side projects. I come here for learning resources that are often posted and to keep my ear to the ground on what is happening in the tech/start up space.

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#125

Post by egypturnash »

wdewind wrote: post #90
egypturnash wrote: post #21

I'm an artist. I'm engaged in writing and drawing a graphic novel about a robot lady with reality problems. Reading HN gives me things to mull over regarding my own hesitant steps into the world of promotion, sales, and making a business happen on the web. Also I used to dabble in programming back in the days of the C64 and Amiga. I will probably never do any major programming projects but I like to keep up with tech…

Your comic is really awesome but the top 20 or 30 pixels are cut off. Please fix it I want to read!! http://cl.ly/image/2J1h2b0B3C40

Oh yeah I need to tweak some stuff in the style after some other changes, thanks!

edit. Finally got off my ass and did what turned out to be a pretty trivial fix, looks fine for me on safari/ff/chrome now. Thanks for the nudge to deal with it.

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#126

Post by bootload »

bkohlmann wrote: post #94
justhw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to hear a story.

And another: http://conservativeorthodoxy.blogspot.com/2010/04/combat.htm...

"... Our suspicions were unfounded. Later on the transit home, in the hour of nothing but straight and level fight, we discussed this within our two man crew. The running could have been kids playing as they are wont to do around campfires everywhere. How do you balance the benign with the threatening? ..."

Respect.

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#127

Post by egypturnash »

daveloyall wrote: post #32
egypturnash wrote: post #21

I'm an artist. I'm engaged in writing and drawing a graphic novel about a robot lady with reality problems. Reading HN gives me things to mull over regarding my own hesitant steps into the world of promotion, sales, and making a business happen on the web. Also I used to dabble in programming back in the days of the C64 and Amiga. I will probably never do any major programming projects but I like to keep up with tech…

I recognized you at "robot lady with reality problems" and I absolutely LOVE your work. Thank you! See you in the future!

haha thanks! I got cons coming up if you're west coast and want to say hi in the flesh: Rose City, Rainfurrest, Emerald City. I was hoping to do a couple more but I missed some table application deadlines.

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#128

Post by Intermernet »

foobarbecue wrote: post #27

I'm a geochemistry PhD student working on volcanoes, but I have several website projects, of which climbshare.com is the most recent. HN has alerted me to some useful new web technologies.

Climbshare is wonderful! I've resorted to the Android Photosphere function for capturing entire boulders, but a true 3d model is infinitely better.

I'd love to know if you're doing this with LIDAR, or reconstruction from 2d images.

How would I go about submitting climb data (mostly boulder problems) to your site? What data do you need,and in what formats?

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#129

Post by jmenn »

periwinkle wrote: post #62
frozenport wrote: post #17

Graduate student who does code but in a non-cs field, I use this site to stay in the know about tech, which has practical value for job interviews.

I'm a neuroscience PhD student, similar deal - I write a lot of code (matlab, python) and find it an enjoyable hobby and potential non-academic career path.

Same, but English literature PhD student keeping an eye on being employable in the future if tenure disappears. Generally find myself writing Python as a hobby or for my dissertation.

Re: Ask HN: Who isn't in the software industry/not a hacker?

#130

Post by leonth »

atmosx wrote: post #71

I am a pharmacist living in a small town of 35-40k people in Northern Greece and my ruby code, which I try to put together in my spare time, is kinda silly :-) do I need to say more? :-p For me HN is a view in the dream-land of the cool kids :-) I love it! Also the most high-quality discussions/views I read on tech or even politics often come from HN.

Haha. Fancy seeing your post again :)
Post reply on HN