Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help • Hacker News Board

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#751

Post by ay » Sun, May 10, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #722

ay wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on the small 1-2 weekend tangible projects, that you may have wanted to build before, but never got to, they are great for morale. This weekend I implemented RS232-powered RGB LED that is controlled attiny85, which reacts to strings sent to that very same RS232. A gross violation of standard, probably, but it works! It definitely added a lot of joy. I typed “git init” only after I finished the first working versio…

For even more fun with low level breaking of standards, bit-banging rs232 is fun and very doable. Don't use timers for timing either, just spin the cpu the right number of times. :)

This project actually does decode of Rs232 data, with the special prefix triggering the interpreter mode where you can control the color and delay between the cycles. Only ground and TX pins are used to connect. Oh, and no interrupts - poll for the start bit while running the currently programmed light animation cycle :-)

One thing that made the development of it all immensely easier was having a Saleae logic analyzer. Highly recommend it (no affiliation, just a happy customer).

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#752

Post by ismyrnow » Mon, May 11, 2020, 1:04 PM UTC

This isn’t how life as a software engineer has to be. I work for a small software company, which hasn’t taken any investment money, and is experiencing slow growth. The entire company is remote, and I love my coworkers, who I see daily, but only see in person a few times a year. I make enough money to live very comfortably with my family.

A lot has to do with your perspective on life. If work is life and it is what you get your value from, you’re bound to be disappointed if you work for someone else.

I can’t finish up this comment without mentioning that I’m a Christian, and I find value not solely in the work I do (what if I get injured and can’t work) or in my family (they’re human and far from perfect), but in being loved by God. Most people are gonna call that stupidity or the result of brainwashing or naïveté, but it’s a comfort few people have when the world turns upside down due to global pandemic and recession. I’m not here to argue religion with anyone, just to say that a Godless life can be a hopeless one.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#753

Post by HAPMCEZ » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:00 PM UTC

throwaway839246 wrote: post #318

HAPMCEZ wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well based on that belief I think you might have your answers to why you went through this experience. you clearly value discovering both sides of things and you say you want to integrate that. The positive take I have on that is you want to integrate all of that information positive and negative into something stronger and more real. that's ultimately more creative and future looking then the CEO kiddies who just ri…

A lot (most?) of the responses in this thread are "learn to leave work at work, fuck greedy capitalism, enjoy your family and hobbies". And most of those responses sound to me like they come from people with a lot of unresolved resentment and cynicism. I know that I can't do that. But my god, the integration is hard. No one really prepares you for it. The old role models don't work because they're unwittingly or deli…

I hear you, it does sound super hard, never seen it addressed in the "SV lore" and you could be onto some uncharted waters, would could spell opportunity. Whaddayathink?

Good to hear you're sounding a little better, because it must be super hard to go through that.

Re pg, it's obvious to me why nobody mentions this. It's not part of the narrative, which is designed to produce useful slaves (darts) to throw at a bet (target), with a blindfold on.

If you wanna chat more about it, you can mail me crisf7e@gmail.com. I have a feeling it could be interesting.

Re: Extremely disillusioned with technology. Please help

#754

Post by HAPMCEZ » Thu, May 14, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

badpun wrote: post #416

throwaway839246 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot (most?) of the responses in this thread are "learn to leave work at work, fuck greedy capitalism, enjoy your family and hobbies". And most of those responses sound to me like they come from people with a lot of unresolved resentment and cynicism. I know that I can't do that. But my god, the integration is hard. No one really prepares you for it. The old role models don't work because they're unwittingly or deli…

> For example, I've never heard pg talk about this I remember him writing somewhere that he does not have another startup in him - that, at best, he can now do the YC. It's kind of a hint that doing a startup sucks. BTW you may want to try reading Jacob Fisker's "Early retirement extreme". He's an ex-astrophysicist who became disillusioned with the way modern society is organized and wrote what is essentially a philo…

Re pg saying that, that's sort of different to what OP is saying. It's not just a general "startups suck" or "it's hard". It's a specific critique of the structural abusiveness of the industry which pg is actually a part of propagating these days.