51–60 of 89 posts
OP sounds like the ideal employee who works 8 hours, then spends 4 more hours/weekends learning and working at home. For people who like doing other things, work already takes up most of their time and energy 5/7 days, and there doesn't seem to be much time for much else.
You have all the time in the world, what you don't have is priorities.
Is there a place where people can document and share the things they are tinkering with in the shed? I had this idea where people's inventions/devices could be sent around in a "pay-it-forward circle" for learning and inspiration. People already do that with crystals. Also, can being aware that x number of people are working on the same thing yield to development in the state-of-the-art if they start working together…
Hobby related forums are a great way for people working on similar projects to collaborate and share SoTA. Some random examples: https://www.lathetrolls.com/ https://www.shroomery.org/
https://www.lathetrolls.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=10610
How funny would it be if one of the AI firms started offering free web hosting, just to get good UGC back? They could even block bots from competitors, right?
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Ai detectors are bullshit. That said, the second paragraph has the distinctive stocatto tone of AI But AI is shaping how we write, so this could well all be hand written just by someone who spends time with AI output.
> stocatto Staccato, which is Italian for "detached, separated". When I see simple Italian words used as technical terms in music or art, I think "oh, this must be what English speakers feel when they work in tech - a lot of common words becoming specific concepts in that particular field".
I’ve had to drastically reduce the scope of my work, but not the Quality. Working alone, means smaller goals.
LLMs are a game-changer, here. They are helping me to re-expand my scope. I’m not where I was, while getting paid, but I’m getting a lot done.
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I think both viewpoints are valid. It's perfectly fine to see your work as a craft which you hone in your personal time, and also see it as a means to an end where you clock in, get the job done, and clock out. It's also understandable that the amount of personal time we have to dedicate to it, and even interest, can vary over time. That said, I think your day job is more enjoyable when you see your work as a craft.…
About the work being more enjoyable when seeing it as a craft: I think it only is more enjoyable, if you can somehow bring part of your craftsmanship into it, and are not overly limited by other people or the sprint or management or any of the other many factors that ruin the fun, like time available, terrible inherited codebase that would take weeks or months to fix, and so on.
That said, I struggle with this as well, so I'm speaking more aspirationally than from a place of wisdom. :)
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How’d you get out? For the many over-specialized readers like myself…
Surely step one is psychological. I feel like being able to accept a lower paycheck is critical to leaving tech if you’re at the over specialized part of your career
OP sounds like the ideal employee who works 8 hours, then spends 4 more hours/weekends learning and working at home. For people who like doing other things, work already takes up most of their time and energy 5/7 days, and there doesn't seem to be much time for much else.
One thing I've learned: We all give the same execuse, "Not enough time". The two biggest I hear is working out and meditation. You have all the time in the world, what you don't have is priorities.
I have a prioritised list, it's simply that not everything fits inside the list, because my time is limited.
Instead of "Not enough time" we could say "This is not high enough a priority".
During lockdown I worked in there professionally, which was a mistake. It turned what was a creative space into something that had the emotional stick of a bad workplace.
However. I have mostly overcome that now. If you want to see how I built it: https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/house/shed/
my most recent "finished" project is this: https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/despatchbox-pro/ which doesn't contain any electronics. This is unusual for me.
The projects I am most proud of are:
https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/electromechanical-c... Which is a clock using a tuning fork
and https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/stock-ticker-machin... which is a facsimile of a stock ticker
Like, "is vibecoding good or bad?"
Depends! Probably fine for a shed and terrible for a skyscraper. Or maybe there are some things within the skyscraper that might be vibecodable? I don't know.