justonceokay

Funny to see this comment here. I was just thinking this morning whether the socratics or the sophists would be more alighted with conversational AI

Software developers saving face?

I did this a few years ago and I’m so happy I did. It doesn’t pay as well to rehang doors, but I’m glad that I never talk to a computer or even look at a computer screen all day at my job

It doesn’t confuse me at all. But maybe that’s just because I come from a family where people disagree and try to undermine each other as sport

It doesn’t confuse me at all. But maybe that’s just because I come from a family where people disagree as sport

Least they are using an algorithm that has the intended purpose of matching people. For profit dating apps are more interested in keeping you coming back then they are in creating successful relationships

Many people in life are underutilized and ready to step up to challenges if given the opportunity.

Just like everyone else. I have a feeling your definition of “livable” is not in line with the reality that most people face. You share more in common with a stay-at-home mom going back to school to become a phlebotomist than you think. It’s just pride gets in the way

When the risk is the benefit things get weird

Yes, things are infinitely clearer. I think I underestimated just how much space in my brain I needed to keep up with my own company’s software, let alone keep up with the state of the art in AI, source control, IAAS, AWS services, Linux patches, etc.

My brain is full of knowledge about technical things still, but all the know-how I have about what caulking to use in which scenarios is going to be useful 30 years from now. The know-how I used to have about my teams proprietary sorting algorithm used to be invalidated almost daily. That is a lot of mental overhead to keep all those diffs

It’s not really a story with a beginning and an end, but I guess I just got so fed up with how anxious the industry was making me. I put up a good fight for over 10 years at different companies and in different roles, but just couldn’t find the right place.

So I quit and became a bartender for about a year. Fun, but the hours are horrible. Then while doing that I got my massage licence, mostly just on a lark. Then I worked at a candle factory for some years, and found I enjoy that kind of work. Apartment maintenance was mostly a compromise I made, because apartments are a much more stable career than manufacturing in Seattle.

So now I’ve got my toolkit and I debug and maintain all day just like I used to, but in meatspace instead of virtually. I like being a part of my local community and work with a great team. Some days I touch poop, but I never feel like my brain is being taken over by useless facts about software that just makes people’s lives worse.

I went through this and ended up becoming (through a long and twisted path) a maintenance super for an apartment building near my house. Maybe an overreaction but every day is a blessing compared to the mental anguish I experienced making corporate software

That sounds nice but in practice it’s probably not super helpful. Yes you could make a special case for reducing “+” over integers. But in python you can generally not promise that all the inputs are strictly integers, and you can’t even promise that your “+” function has no side effects.

That’s very nice but that isn’t the price you would sell it for, especially if you were trying to make it your livelihood

If you watch The Price is Right episodes from the 80s, it is clear that household items have only had mild inflation. Many items are prices a little lower than today but not outrageously so.

On the other hand, the quality of the items is often much nicer. So someone might win a $500 desk, but that desk is hand-made out of hardwood. Today you can still buy a $500 desk but it will be IKEA quality. A product of comparable quality would cost many $k

Airline tickets are a very clear-cut example of this. Tickets are cheaper than they were in the ‘90s (even with inflation) but you get a lot less for that ticket than you did 30 years ago