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I am retiring from tech to live offline

openpath.quest

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Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#491

Post by jjulius »

latkin wrote: post #351
fontain wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your cynicism is misplaced, Chad has been a fixture on HN for well over a decade. He said he has been offline in his personal life since February, not his professional life. His BlueSky is professional. He quit his job and will be offline completely following the handover.

> His BlueSky is professional. It's plainly not. https://bsky.app/profile/chadwhitacre.com/post/3mmvzmugfqk2g "my good friend Dana could really use some help paying for major dental work. " His latest YouTube post, from 2 weeks after the alleged go-dark date, is also all about his personal plan to walk away from tech. Needed to make sure there is a GoPro in his face while he talks about how low-tech he yearns to be.…

>His latest YouTube post, from 2 weeks after the alleged go-dark date...

Did we want to stop and ask how it got posted? Are we sure he did it himself? Does it matter if his letter is off by a couple of weeks? Could it have been a typo and he posted that on his last day, forgetting to add the 9 in his letter? Or are we just flippantly reacting to this?

>None of that negates the fact that this is an incredibly performative and hypocritical way to make this particular transition.

Some people can rip the band-aid off and go cold-turkey. Others need a bit of a transition. This just seems to be the latter. You seem to be letting this ruffle your feathers more than it needs to.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#493

Post by hermitcrab »

dheera wrote: post #97
azangru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> battling with AI, trying to get it do what I wanted What I am selfishly curious about is: is it possible to remain a software developer, and ignore AI? To write code the same way we did before 2022? I understand that there are many companies in which managers demand more of workforce — but are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago?…

> are there still places where people are satisfied to not rush ahead and do business same way they did three or four years ago They're getting outcompeted.

I'm less worried about being 'outcompeted' by clankers than the possibility that AI slop products become so numerous that it is almost impossible to get noticed.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#494

Post by Barrin92 »

thesamethrowawa wrote: post #443
Barrin92 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>that you can retain a reasonable life style as home depot as your only source of income. that's pretty presumptuous I think. He says in the piece he is an Orthodox Christian who wants to build a offline community in Pennsylvania where he lives. The average salary at HD is 70k, that's the household income in the state. I know a bunch of Orthodox folks in the US and their idea of a reasonable lifestyle doesn't include…

> I know a bunch of Orthodox folks in the US and their idea of a reasonable lifestyle doesn't include two Teslas and three holidays, they do just fine on less than that without a tech cushion. I'm not talking about Teslas and holidays. Where I am, an equivalent job would really be living on the edges in terms of the basics: rent, groceries, healthcare, energy, saving for retirement. > It does seem a bit tiring to me…

I used to be a barber before I became a software developer, I figure I earned about as much as someone at a large retailer, this isn't patronizing, I'm speaking from experience. You can actually live a normal life on a regular salary, earning 18-20 bucks an hour in a middle of the pack or slightly below average cost of living state is not some horrific condition. That's just how regular people live.

That said a middle aged guy with college education and 10+ years as an engineering manager I very much suspect is not going to literally stack shelves anyway, and store managers at the big retailers earn a pretty handsome salary. Working what might be the most common, white collar middle class job is not some horror story in the making.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#495

Post by hermitcrab »

I've been programming for ~50 years and I still like it. When I retire I will probably do some recreational programming.

I was planning to write a book about how to start and run a small software business (which I have been doing for 20 years), but things are changing so fast recently that I am starting to feel a bit of a dinosaur and I'm not sure anyone would be interested.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#496

Post by hermitcrab »

dhosek wrote: post #468
throwfaraway4 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in food service, landscaping and factory jobs. You're right, the tech job does feel super cushy after gigs like that. But I'm about 25 years in on the tech industry now and I feel the same GP. At some point, you can't avoid the politics and corp BS and it wears you down. Everything is relative. Now that I have the means to say "I don't have to or want to do this anymore" I'll be checking out after this ye…

Not to mention that with AI, the pleasure is going out of it, at least for me. I enjoy the crafting of code at least as much if not more than the actual results of the code. For almost 20 years, I’ve been declaring myself ready to leave tech behind and buy a chicken farm, but now I’m pretty much there emotionally and financially. I likely won’t actually raise chickens (maybe a couple backyard chickens for eggs), but…

Why a chicken farm? The medium to large scale ones I have seen videos of look like terrible places, for both the chickens and the human workers. I expect they smell even worse.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#497

Post by jLaForest »

rob wrote: post #90
sph wrote: post #70

Funny, if all goes well today is my last day as professional software engineer, after 20 years. I have enough savings to buy a modest cottage and to last me a year or two being frugal. After that it’s anyone’s guess, but I am beyond excited not having to program for a living any more, just on what feels meaningful, in complete autonomy. Projects lined up: a Erlang-like microkernel/runtime I have been designing for th…

Nothing like retiring with only 3 years worth of savings and no plan on what to do after that.

Anyone willingly making that choice has a massive safety net protecting them (almost always family money)

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#498

Post by HoldOnAMinute »

vostrocity wrote: post #449
HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way. I feel sad though that it's over and I never accomplished what I wanted to. But for the last 20 years my priority has been my family. Pickups and Dropoffs to school, sports, activities, and doctor appointments. At least I was able to give them a good life. Living in the United States, my retirement plan is "MAID"

MAID as in Medical Aid in Dying? Why would you do that?

To be able to leave some assets to my loved ones

In my country, best we can hope for is a quick, painless death - many people are bankrupted by medical bills and end-of-life care

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#499

Post by beej71 »

oleggromov wrote: post #477
jebarker wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you transition from tech to teaching?

And even more importantly, how do you make a living teaching?

Like the OP, I lived well within my means my whole life, so I'm doing OK overall. Not enough to retire today, but enough to work for less than my capitalistic potential, and I'm happy to trade 3 months off during the summer for not getting paid at this point.

I was also lucky to buy this house near market minimum so my mortgage is low. We buy virtually everything used and rarely spring for expensive fun stuff (except travel). My car is 27 years old (purchased new), gets 37 MPG, and I do routine maintenance myself. I commute on a $200 bicycle.

And I'm lucky to be GenX so I was able to navigate a relative sane economy during the majority of my work years, and my college was 5x cheaper than it is now (inflation adjusted). (When I tell my students my junior college charged $6/unit when I went there, their brains simply reject that information out of hand.)

Also, CS instructors can often command a higher salary since they're looking at a MASSIVE paycut to move out of industry into a college salary scale. And it was really hard to recruit near the COVID peak when I was hired. So I get paid pretty well for an instructor, probably 45% of what I could earn in industry. :) Part of that is made up for with a pension, good health insurance, and unpaid summers off. (That's actually a double-edged sword. Your entire time-off schedule is set from above every year with zero flexibility. I accrue zero days of PTO annually.)

Working for private schools pays more, but the salad days of the online school are behind us, currently.

Re: I am retiring from tech to live offline

#500

Post by esafak »

yubblegum wrote: post #87
sciencejerk wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably had a friend do it for him

Do the Amish pay non-Amish to do forbidden things for them? Asking for a friend.

Some Jews do! I've been asked to turn lights off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbos_goy
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