Death of a Programmer, Life of a Farmer
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I can remember sitting on my grandfather's lap, riding on his John Deere two-cylinder (it was called a Johnny Popper.) Pre-school? I went to pre-farming. I was probably 3 years old the first time I rode a tractor.
By the time I was 8, I was driving that popper while two of my grandfather's farm hands tossed hay bales onto a flatbed trailer. We drove back to the barn, and I scampered up to the second floor and waited as those guys tossed those hay bales up through a huge opening. I had to stack the hay bales, and had to run my ass off to keep up. Then, we'd do it all over again until the barn was full. I was exhausted every day, but my grandfather allowed me to drink my first beer with those guys when we were finished. It sounds awful, but it was an amazing experience.
I'm no longer out in the field. For me now, the feeling of working on something with my hands is cathartic. Some of my best days for relaxing involve doing simple yardwork around our house.
The farm life works for some people, but not for others. What is great is that no one need debate whether that choice is right -- it only matters to yourself. Good for this guy, I think he made a great choice for himself.
I agree. I couldn't do farm, I have bad allergies to pollen, dust, and too much time under the sun and I become red as a lobster, and it is painful
But programming is what I love to do. So I will say "The programmer life works for some people"
I wouldn't call the original article "The death of a programmer", I would call it "The born of a farmer". He figure out were he feels happier, and that is good thing which sometimes means leaving behind what is hip for the masses, but that is not a failure, that is centering
I've never heard of a tech billionaire profess his love of programming so much that he's diving right back into the trenches. We're all human, we may love programming and farming, but let's be real, programming and farming are still work and we're all working toward retirement: a state where we no longer need to work.
Matthew Dillon doesn't need to work but keeps working on DragonFlyBSD.
Also it is possible to live and work as in retirement http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/fisherman.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arbei...
An English translation as PDF:
https://www.uea.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.33246!np_vol_5_article_8...
Source?
While I don't have access to Dillon's finances, his personal site http://www.backplane.com gives some hints: BEST Internet was an incredible successs successs [sic] These days most of my attention is focused on the The DragonFly Project
______
He isn't the only one, many open source developers contribute because they want to do it and not expecting any monetary compensation.
-rebuilding after an earthquake -fleeing if the local government goes bad -dealing with a crash in tuna price
We all still live in a competitive environment. Hunter-gatherers were replaced by massively-reproducing (but probably unhappy & unhealthy) farmers. In the example, fishing represents pure surplus value, produced from nothing - and in economic situations like that, producing less than others means you'll eventually be out-competed and replaced.
In reality the same tragedy of the commons applies to fishing, and we haven't solved it there either.
Until competition is restrained, we've gotta compete. Individuals can opt out but they're just removing their traces from the future - those left will still be struggling until we have a way to globally eliminate environments which force people to be maximizers. And in a big universe, it's uncertain whether we can ever really control enough to be able to relax. It may even be computationally impossible to really stop the continuous evolution of competition in how we live life
Look up Bill Gates. Unlike Zuckerberg, who was just a mediocre programmer, Gates was actually an elite programmer who "loved" programming. Nowadays he mostly travels the world with his family, and does philanthropy.
But in my opinion most people are like me. If you look at the world around you and how career paths are set up, how society is setup and the general nature of most human beings... imo it is the most logical conclusion.
> We're all human, we may love programming and farming
> we're all working toward retirement
I also appreciate how Bill Gates transformed from an elite coder into a dabbler as soon as it suited your argument. You're evidently not someone who ever let facts got in the way of a good story.
>> We're all human, we may love programming and farming
>> we're all working toward retirement
ok my bad, I didn't mean everyone as in everyone on the face of the earth. There's obviously outliers, I made a mistake for not specifying that.
> also appreciate how Bill Gates transformed from an elite coder into a dabbler as soon as it suited your argument.
What the hell is this? Can we not have a civil conversation without insulting each other?
I am NOT Changing my argument. As of what I KNOW, Bill Gates is currently a dabbler. He doesn't code regularly he's not part of any big coding projects. But back in the heyday he was an excellent coder and his code was responsible for much of early success in Microsoft.
Your attitude is not conducive to civil conversation and you're really pissing me off. You accused me of changing my argument even though from my perspective I did not. You say stupid shit about me like this:
"You're evidently not someone who ever let facts got in the way of a good story."
I understand we may have different perspectives, but there are better ways of expressing it then being excessively negative. You could of asked me what I meant by things that have been inconsistent in our conversation, you could have politely asked about the conflicting details. There is no need say I am "obviously" someone who ignores facts.
Please refer to proper etiquette below:
http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
That's my last word. I'm not going to continue on with a whole flame war and populate this thread with anymore shitty comments that no one wants to read.
> Linus Torvalds: 3840x2160 resolution - it's the Dell 28" UHD panel - for $299 thanks to Microsoft's black Friday deal. Thanks MS!
> Vladimir Odessit: At a net-worth of $150M I wouldn't think that you would care for black friday deals :)
> Linus Torvalds: +Vladimir Odessit I wish. Not even close. My net worth means that I can happily avoid Walmart and feel good about myself, but it's nowhere near the number you seem to think it is.
[1]: https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/4MwQKZhGkEr
Anecdotally, a neighbour of mine made millions with the sale of his company (not tech) and then started farming with those proceeds.
Even for my own farming operation, it only takes about four weeks out of the year of my time. It's not like I'm up at sunrise 365 days per year, breaking my back until sunset, like some people seem to picture. I consider it to be my vacation away from the day job as a programmer. I mean, what is more fun than operating highly advanced heavy equipment that costs more than high end sports cars? I can't imaging having billions of dollars at my disposal making that less exciting – it is a tech nerd's paradise.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2013/11/07/50-billio...
When people say they love programming. They mean they love building interesting things, solving interesting problems, and using interesting tools.
Unfortunately, actual programs are full of boring parts. Yes, most programmers would pay someone to finish the boring parts, but I don't think that means they don't love programming.
There certain folks who claim that going to a job everyday is like going to disneyland because they're doing what they love. I find this concept hard to believe. I'm just trying to express: yes people may love programming, but programming at work is still "work" which is very different from "play"; both of which can be done with a programming language.
I should mention lest I get accused saying everyone is like me, that there are outliers. There exists people who love programming so much that they never burn out.
> Turns out unrolling tight inner loops really speeds them up! 38% speedup from that alone. Makes sense, it's doing one eight of the branching
https://twitter.com/notch/status/595509436040491008
Even billionaires may want to micro-optimize! Bonus point: he is developing for a "20 years old platform"
I still think most people would stop coding once they had the resources to command other people to do it for them. Take for instance, Elon Musk, I'm pretty sure he's no longer in the trenches. That guy started coding at 12.
Some of them actually miss it. In most Bill Gates interviews he alaways remember his days hard at coding as the most fun.
I think your talk of "the trenches" is telling, though. The more money I have, the less I have to work on other people's projects and the more I can work on my own. Just as travel-lovers with more money can do less business travel to unpleasant destinations and more personal travel to favorite places, those of us who love programming just dream of doing more projects of our own choosing, not of escaping this terrible chore called programming that we only "say" we love.
But work is work, which this person is doing. People who say that working as a coder is like going to disneyland everyday because their totally enamored by programming... I find it hard to believe that many people are like that. Burn out is a real thing.
So, it sounds as though we agree that many people really DO love programming, they're not just saying they do, and would go on doing it even if they made billions, but loving programming doesn't mean loving all programming work. There are programming jobs that people who genuinely love programming don't love at all and wouldn't do if they didn't need the paycheck.
I'm semi-retired and living in Thailand where the cost of living is a fraction of my (modest for a programmer) life in the US. I don't code as much as I used to, but I still write a fair bit. But it's not for the same reasons; now I'm coding in order to teach my children, and hopefully eventually other children too.
I certainly don't see myself spending my time coding another database-backed CRUD web application any time soon; instead it's games and art and possibly soon music. It changes things, but it lets you do it for the reasons that matter instead of just to feed yourself.
> if ever we became so filthy rich that we could pay other people to do these things for us... we would.
I disagree; "programming" is far too broad a field to make generalizations like the parent makes. I suspect "growing food" is too, though I agree it's probably true of any farming on a scale larger than your own back yard.
Interestingly enough, if you had grown up on a farm, you many not have developed allergies...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20497148
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=allergies+and+growing+u...
And have terrible allergies. I take allergies shots, two nasal sprays, and antihistamines. They still only go away in the snow and rock above the treeline.
They cleared up a year after leaving that life.
Farming can be awesome. The hard physical work and exercise are satisfying, and you'll often encounter problems that need to be solved quickly and ingeniously (e.g. some implement breaks and you need to come up with a quick fix while the sun's still up). You can really build a camaraderie with your family members / coworkers after slogging through some really physically challenging jobs or solving mentally challenging problems together.
The downsides are that the work never ends and you can never take a vacation. The cows always need to be milked (on a very annoying schedule I might add) and fieldwork needs to be done quickly when the weather is right (e.g. "make hay while the sun shines"). And it's really hard to find good hired workers to help out, because nowadays no one wants to do strenuous physical labor for relatively low pay. So on my dad/brother's farm, if one of them gets sick or hurt (another not uncommon danger), it's a big strain for them because they only have a couple high school-aged randos working part-time to help fill in the gaps.
For me the big thing that made me want to get away from the farm was the lack of free time to get lost in your own thoughts. All the menial labor, maybe excluding driving tractor, doesn't give your mind a lot of time to wander. Which, after we got our family computer when I was 10, I often found it wanting to do...
Agriculture workers in Britain are entitled to paid holiday, sick pay, etc. Does anyone know how this works in practise in the UK, or any other Western/Northern European country? (Is their leave fixed at the employer's convenience, are temps employed in the worker's place, or what?)
The underlying assumption for an agriculture worker in the UK, who is entitled to these protections, is that he is an employee ... not an owner.
Contrast this to your parent comment which was very likely a family owned farm at wich they were self-employed. They didn't have worker protections as there was nobody from whom to be protected.
Also, it should be noted that your parent comment was speaking of a dairy farm which are notorious for being "prison sentences" - you really can't ever take a vacation if you own your own dairy farm. It's the worst case scenario that he is skething out.
Edit: I found a description in English: http://www.mela.fi/en/farmers-holiday-and-stand-scheme
I am not always certain the vitality and character gained is necessarily worth the emotional drain. However I am sure there are mainy farms/ranches that get by without the _nepotent_ servitude that comes with it. :)
Recently I've begun camping on business trips instead of using my hotel budget. I'll fly in with a tent, sleeping bag, laptop, and cooler bag, rent a car, and set up camp in whichever campground is closest to the city. Most of these places are meant for local families, and are equipped with water, power (for trailers), and showers.
In the morning I drive into the city for business, then head back out to the campsite to hike, sit and think, and code. I haven't taken a smartphone with me, so those after-city hours are devoid of the usual notification hail.
It's done wonders for my focus, motivation, and sense of purpose. Waking up to sunlight, birds chirping, and the scent of pine is an invigorating start to a day, and those twilight hours are great for going over designs and pre-planning coding time.
A lot of that low-level building buzz of dissatisfaction vanishes after a few days of this. I think we need nature. We need freshness and quiet and the white noise of wind, birds, and streams.
I would love a community/place where this was always possible, but for now, travel-business-camping has worked wonders. (And the look on my colleague's faces when I tell them about my "hotel"... priceless.)
You must be a great programmer because there is no way I could program without Stack Overflow/Google.
Sure, you miss out on StackOverflow's expertise, but if you really just need to refer to API documentation, that should be doable.
http://zealdocs.org/ (Linux/Windows)
* Zeal is an offline documentation browser inspired by Dash, available for Linux and Windows.
* Quickly search documentation using Alt+Space (or customised) hotkey to display Zeal from any place in your workspace.
* Search in multiple sets of documentation at once.
* Do not depend on your Internet connection.
* Integrate Zeal with IDEA, Sublime Text, or your favourite IDE with a variety of plugins.
https://kapeli.com/dash (OS X)
* Dash is an API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager. Dash stores snippets of code and instantly searches offline documentation sets for 150+ APIs (for a full list, see below). You can even generate your own docsets or request docsets to be included.
That addictive, power-through flow state is hard to maintain without instant SO/Google access, and for many years that was the only way I coded. But I've begun to relish the other mode of programming: the deep thought and careful mental construction of the optimal program, piece by piece, module by module. Sure, I can't bang out as many lines at night, but when I go into the city in the morning I have a mental view of underlying structure – laid out in clear, bold strokes – that makes my SO-enabled coding so much more effective, and directed.*
(*I've noticed that letting SO answer a question prevents any pause which would make you step back from your work and ask "Am I even taking the right approach here?" Low latency, REPLs, and quick access answers make it very easy to go down a rabbit hole – the dark side of exploratory coding.)
And yes, as others have mentioned, I do cache and wget all the docs for whatever tools I'm currently using. With all that, it's hard to get truly stuck, even without the internet.
This is not camping. It's dishonest and offensive to call sitting around with every amenity programming camping. I can't understand where you get off having the audacity to say people need nature when you're flying around and driving hours to spend time in tacky family camp grounds and playing on your computer. I'm so disgusted that you think not taking a smartphone with you is an act of daring revolution. So, what, you own two phones? And the smart one can't be made to stop vibrating over every reply to your dumb tweets? Regarding everything else you wrote, there's a book about how to buck gullibility that might suit your little maverick wilderness adventures.
But the funny thing is, as a kid, I hated it. My parents got tired of the suburbs, I longed for it. They longed for simplicity, I longed for convenience. I hated the idea of having to drive long distances just to get some milk and eggs. I hated the silence, and how secluded I felt.
On the bright side, the silence drove me to cobble together an old computer and start programming at the age of 10, but that may have happened no matter where I lived.
So perhaps someday I'll snap and feel like moving to the country. But for now I'm quite happy with my wife and kids in the stereotypical suburbs.
Surely it's got to be worth someone setting up a local shop every couple of miles?
Middle levels have the money to burn and often prioritize time over money. Plus complaining about paying $3 for an apple at the gas station quickie mart is a rare and cheap conspicuous consumption opportunity for them. I only have about 2 hours "off" unallocated tonight and I'm not going to spend 1/4 of my time off today saving $2 on the cost of an apple by going out of my way to shop at the food store.
For poor people its a poor people budgeting thing. As per the previous recent discussions on HN, poor guy has $3 in pocket, gas station has $3 apple on shelf, he buys it because 1) he doesn't have $5 to buy a 5 pound bag from the supermarket 2) no idea when/if he'll ever have an extra $5 again to spend on an extra luxury like an apple 3) travel isn't free when you're poor so bus fare and hours spent taking public transit to the store and time spent not working means that $5 bag is more like $15 total systemic cost and thats a bit steep for a poor guy who just has a taste for an apple today?
Upper levels have their personal assistant / admin assistant buy the apple for them. Its all going to be expense-d and its a rounding error anyway and the admin assistant is in a hurry so fine here take this $3 convenience store apple and I need a receipt for that thanks.
And thats how we love our $3 convenience store apples. Despite most apple sales being in 5 pound bags at the supermarket of course.
I couldn't help but read the rest of this paragraph in Cartman's voice.
What's interesting is this trend seems to be reversing a little bit in clusters. Younger people are migrating back to the cities, and more developers in the suburbs are building apartment complexes with shops and restaurants mixed together, giving it the feel of living above a really nice mini mall. :)
The ultimate convenience store is attached to a gas station and has a drive-up window so you don't need to get out of your car.
While the ones with drive through windows are rare, I'd be hard pressed to think of a convenience store within a 30 mile radius that was not also a gas station. As far as I can recall, I only see c-stores that don't sell gas inside cities.
This is an undisputed fact, as people in those communities will readily protest the "crime train" coming through their neighborhoods.[1][2]
[1]: http://lewwaters.com/2012/05/22/light-rail-likely-to-raise-v...
[2]: http://larslarson.com/would-you-trust-your-kid-on-the-crime-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81tihdzaecc
This is the same high school that has a huge active oil derrick in the middle of campus:
http://www.nileguide.com/destination/blog/los-angeles/2010/0...
That was the camel's nose under the tent, and organizations influenced by the Ku Klux Klan used zoning laws as a tool for enforcing segregation at a municipal level.
Zoning has been leaving its dirty mark since the 1920s.
Nowadays, you can probably just mentally substitute "colored" wherever you see "multi-family" or "high density", to get a sense of the original wording of the laws. The zoning map for my municipality actually uses the color brown for multi-family residential zones, and a light peach color for single-family & detached residential!
That may be an unfortunate coincidence. Zoning is probably much more about class boundaries than race now. Rich people don't want poor people walking past their houses. Or driving past them. Or seeing them. Or knowing they exist.
What's wrong with that? It's what they want.
> In North-American zoning, zones clearly specify which use is allowed on it. In general, zones allow only one or two uses. For example, a residential single-family detached home zone tolerates only single-family detached houses. Don't try to put a convenience store or a school in one, nor a duplex.
http://urbankchoze.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/japanese-zoning.ht...
Previous discussion:
Here in the city, there are shops everywhere. Mix use residential is fairly common with retail on the ground floor and condos/apartments up top. This has created a glut of storefronts with varying results. Its nice to have all these shops, but the glut of small storefronts means much lowered rents than before so a lot of fly-by-night businesses take over, and in my opinion, hurt the neighborhood like pawn shops, yet another open 4am tattoo shop, yet another shitty independent cricket/boost reseller, yet another liquor convenience store, yet another e-cig store, yet another detailing/hand carwash, yet another gourmet-style restaurant that will fold in 12 months, etc. Desireable shops like Trader Joes or Nordstrom can't open in those tiny and no parking storefronts so its high margin retail junk.
This isn't as common anymore -- thank god, but when I was a kid, every other residential block in Chicago had a corner bar. A few nice, but most just depressing places full of serious drunks causing problems all through the night. So yeah, being too liberal with business licenses isn't so great.
So this kind of thing cuts both ways, but yes, in the suburbs its especially bad. But at least they have the roads and capacity to handle it and their shopping centers are massive, which is nice as you can park at a giant mall or strip mall and get everything you need done. I can't do that, I have no giant structures like this remotely near me. In the city, we need closer stores because of how bad traffic and parking are. If suburban driving was this bad then they'd have the political impetus to change zoning.
tldr; city planning is hard and political.
I don't consider pawn shops and e-cig shops keeping things vibrant. Nice bars and clubs, restaurants, and unique retail do. Personally, I think pawn shops and payday loan stores are predatory and should be highly regulated if not eliminated. High margin junk like that edges out nicer stores because condo associations just want to go with the quick cash. For example, a lot of women here would love more boutique stores but the rent these stores can afford is being edged out by the guy selling $50 e-cigs. Then the e-cig market will normalize, crash, and these guys will go away, but we've chased off the boutique crowd and our neighborhood is now known for e-cigs, pawnshops, and tattoo parlours. That isn't terribly appealing, especially in Chicago where we have world-class tattoo artists within a short CTA ride away. Why go with the local shady scratcher on the corner? In other words, we are already vibrant.
I do very much like that we have mixed zoning bringing some unique things like a very nice comic book shop and lots of interesting small restaurants that would otherwise have a hard time renting a proper stand-alone brick and mortar store. I think this is all working itself out or will in the long run. I've already seen multiple shady convenience stores go out of business, but that's largely because we won't give them liquor licenses as there are already enough liquor outlets within walking distance. I think one of the vape lounges died recently too and newer development seems to be attracting a higher caliber of business. Maybe the low end high margin stuff is maximized for our neighborhood at this point? Or maybe condo associations are learning that its within their interests to be more discriminating and vetting businesses that might affect their property values, the neighborhood feel, neighborhood safety, etc.
I'm okay letting the market sort it out, but I think its fair to say that all this sudden cheap retail space in an gentrifying urban neighborhood can be disrupting in a bad way until things get sorted out. The argument above that the suburbs should accept this model without criticism is weak sauce. I've lived in poorer suburbs that saw their city counterparts do well with heavy retail and became more liberal with business licenses and now these suburbs just became liquor store, payday loan, and fast food havens. Large blocks of residential with no retail in the suburbs is a feature, not a bug. They're trying to avoid these and other problems (noise, traffic, etc) by segregating the two. Its actually a smart approach if you have the land and the roads to pull it off. If you guys are unhappy in the suburbs because of that, then come join us in the city.
I don't understand, you just claimed the rent is too low, now you are saying it's too high for boutiques.
> I'm okay letting the market sort it out.
You just wrote 4 paragraphs on why you're not ok with letting the market sort it out. The "market" (people who live in your neighborhood) is obviously supporting this "high margin junk." Maybe your neighbors aren't interested in overpriced boutique crap?
> Or maybe condo associations are learning that its within their interests to be more discriminating and vetting businesses that might affect their property values, the neighborhood feel, neighborhood safety, etc.
Let me tl;dr your post for you - "I don't like poor people."
And Trader Joe's can and does operate in no-parking storefronts in sufficiently dense neighborhoods.
Retail creates undesirable traffic and crime (at least, that's their common assumption). The suburbs fight hard to keep that as far away from residential areas as possible.
Sometimes they push this to the logical extreme conclusion -- zoning commercial spaces almost exclusively at the edge of their limits.
Here's examples of the actual zoning permitted in Kentwood and Grandville, (suburbs of Grand Rapids, Michigan).
http://www.ci.kentwood.mi.us/CityOfKentwood/media/files/orig...
http://www.cityofgrandville.com/images/pdf/Zoning%20Map%20Ap...
On both maps, you'll see almost all of the red (commercial) areas are near various edge boundaries, and there's little-to-no commercial activity allowed near any central neighborhood(s).
Realistically, a person walking at 3 mi/h won't walk more than 0.5 miles to visit the local shop, and a person bicycling at 12 mi/h won't go more than 3. They won't, unless they are combining trips. If the shop is on the way to somewhere else, or a very short distance beyond their primary destination, they might go further overall.
But pedestrian and bicyclist infrastructure is practically nonexistent anywhere in the US except for a bare handful of cities and suburbs. Many places don't even have sidewalks. Nearly everyone uses an automobile for personal transport.
As such, the "local shop" is right there at the gas station. We call them "convenience stores". They are most often placed at the intersection of arterial roads. So if you are lost in the back streets of suburbia, you will never see one.
It doesn't make sense from a planning perspective, but it does from a money perspective. When a developer subdivides a large property, they reserve commercial lots next to the arterial road, and build access roads past those into the residential lots. In theory, once the houses are 80% built, all that residential traffic will be flowing past the commercial lots at least twice per day, and a business will build there.
In practice, the developer exits after 95% of the houses are built, dumps the remaining 5% and the commercial lots on a strawman company, moving on to the next subdivision, and those businesses never actually get constructed.
So you end up with huge areas of houses and very few businesses. There might be one strip mall every 3 miles, filled with businesses that usually last a few months before failing from lack of customers. (The exception is the pizza delivery, which will be absolutely thriving.)
Residential buildings simply have a higher profit margin. Think about that before you decide to trust the developer's "phase IV" plans, when you're buying in "phase I".
The USA would be a much nicer place if no new residential development could be built without sidewalks. It would only require a little vision on the part of planning & zoning boards, with perhaps a little empathy for children, the elderly, and others who can't drive.
Besides that, have you ever read a zoning law? Be careful what you wish for; you just might get it, good and hard.
I live in a burb thats a bit over fifty years old and there's no spot more than maybe 6 blocks from the arterial retail/commercial/restaurant strips? In some new burbs you can easily be over a mile from anything other than residential.
I will say that when I was a kid there was a lot more to do in big zones because obviously there's more basements and garages and back yards and just plain old more kids. I mean, there's only about 200 kids in my current subdivision so with a distribution of ages its quite likely that there's no one to hang out with in the neighborhood for my own kids, whereas that's never an issue in a bigger zone where there's always a friend in the same neighborhood to hang out with. Some modern zones are so big that entire elementary school districts live within the borders of single zone! Obviously those kids always have someone to hang out with in the neighborhood.
And of course the bigger the zone, the crazier the traffic on the roads between the zones, which sucks.
Suburbs are unnatural and inorganic, and that's what people either hate or love about them.
This being said, there's frequently a "convenience store" that's sometimes closer than Big Mart. No veggies or actually even food, but they're there.
The British are big optimisers. That's why the supermarket oligopoly (Tesco, Sainsbury's etc) have taken over many -- perhaps even the majority -- of small, neighbourhood shops (Tesco Express, Sainsbury's Local etc). The distribution centres and large vehicle fleet that delivers to the big supermarkets is reused to deliver to the neighbourhood shops, and many people then walk (or cycle) to those shops.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/Tesco+OR+Sainsburys+in+...
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/Tesco+OR+Sainsburys+in+...
Milton Keynes is generally regarded as a boring, US-style city: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/Tesco+OR+Sainsburys+in+... (I've never been).
No easy walking around town. All chain stores, very few independent shops. No hailable black cabs for some reason, everything involved calling a minicab and waiting. Just a terrible city to be in without a car and a designated driver.
The British invented optimization in the WWII sense of the word, so yeah.
I don't know Britain beyond what I read of it, but I understand there's the concept of "little Britain" as a thing so maybe that's why small shops exist. In Montreal, I know there are actual bodegas in the city center and American-style convenience stores in the 'burbs.
I grew up in a relaxed beach town in Florida, and hated it. My family all moved from NYC and fell in love in a heartbeat.
Something about not being in the same place for too long applies here, too.
I never moved back to the country. Okay to visit, but fuck that, I realized quickly that I much preferred the city over the country.
Even so, you don't hear as many kids hating on the big city as they hate on the suburbs or the countryside.
I mean, kids hatred for the suburbs have inspired tons of movies and songs, for the city, not so much.
Who knows, maybe she will move back when she is 20 and love it.
They did exactly that in the US too, up until the eighties -- and at a time when cities had crime rates even higher than today.
There is this nice article from the Austin Chronicle about it (pdf):
http://michaelventura.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/This-Is...
Now living in a smaller town.. she can go up and down the block alone. Not worried about it. Chicago was different. We had drug dealers living a block away, and a shooting about once per week. (And this was in a middle of the road neighborhood)
>tons of movies and songs
...this seems like self-selection bias, similar to I don't know anyone who voted for "X" in the last election. I'd present the country and western music genre as a counter-point, where there is a preference for non-urban living.
Not many teenagers listen to "country and western"...
I've moved to larger, and larger, and larger cities since, pursuing academia and career, and they have their charms and I'm glad I went. But now I miss the beach town, and hope to get back. I guess we are the sum of our experiences. Maybe the feeling you're missing out helps by driving you to seek new things out.
"There's nothing to do here."
I just thought "seriously? We have everything but a theme park." Go carts, beaches, movies, skating rinks, arcades, everything!
I've since learned that kids say that no matter where they live, seemingly.
But teen angst aside, I got a really good education, and had a lot of fun and opportunities growing up. (I actually lived in the suburbs of Flint and my family was middle class, so that probably helped.) I hated it at the time, but I can see the good and the bad now that I'm removed from it. I don't think I could ever go back, but there were positives despite its problems.
Venice YMCA has a ton of offerings--rock wall, skate park, basketball gym, adult leagues, etc.
You have pretty much every other normal amenity, like theaters & community college.
Tampa isn't far for theme parks, concerts, etc.
You're missing having a hometown bar scene, but those aren't too far anyway (and the 20-somethings make do with what's available, anyway).
What do you feel like you're missing?
You can do this in the Bay Area itself, though in general the closer you want to be to a supermarket, bank, etc. the more you'll pay. If you're west of Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, Cupertino and cross the 280, you encounter rural areas very quickly. And if you head far enough into the hills, prices begin to fall rapidly relative to flatland prices.
Near Boulder Creek, for instance, you can get 2 acres for $52K that's three miles from a shopping area: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Lorenzo-Valley/0-HARMON-GULCH-...
That's 23 miles from Cupertino via route 17 and smaller roads. Of course it helps if you enjoy living in the middle of the woods!
I've posted about this concept on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437492
But if you're willing to live that far from work and can find water and a nice lot, I'd give it a try. Also with a private pilot certificate you could fly an older ~$20K Cessna from South County or Hollister to KSQL pretty quickly on most days -- certainly a fraction of your effective groundspeed in 101 traffic -- and bike from there to work.
I don't own a plane but have in the post thought idly about commuting to the SF bay area from the Sierras. I've heard of pilots doing it from Pine Mountain Lake in the foothills, for instance, and a faster plane would make living in Nevada doable.
Trade-A-Plane lists 145 Cessnas for sale under $30K, though most in that range are 152s. There are a few older 172s: http://www.trade-a-plane.com/detail/aircraft/Single+Engine+P...
It would be nice to have the additional capacity of a 172, especially if you want to (a) fly with two friends, for three people total or (b) you're a large or heavy person yourself, which might exceed the maximum payload of a 152 with a similarly large or heavy flight instructor or passenger. Also I don't think 152s can be IFR certified.
It is kinda funny that these older Cessnas are now cheaper than the average car! Anyway, good luck on your project!
They'll appreciate them as kids, but they'll probably hate you as teenagers...
[1] A long distance where I live is anything more than 8 minutes drive.
I went to school in a small/medium city (Champaign/Urbana) and loved it. It was the perfect mix of having a city and space for a small suburban life. I lived in a house that was off campus, and was within walking distance to downtown and busing distance to the bars/main campus. It was peaceful and crazy when I wanted it to be.
I now live in Chicago and while I love the convenience of everything(huge advocate of all things public transit), I miss being able to easily just disconnect from urban life.
My next move will probably be somewhere warmer, but it'll probably be in a small/medium sized city for sure.
I never really thought of it as the suburbs at the time. Thanks!
I probably would have hated SF as a kid. I've lived in SF for 7 years, and I can't think of anything that is more convenient that I would have cared about as a kid. I don't know if its just SF, but it seems very adult oriented.
That said, while growing up, the closest mini mall was about 1.5 miles away. Which we would go to because one of the shops had arcade games. I've never lived in a suburb (3 of them) that wasn't 1-1.5 miles from a mini mall. That is easily within biking distance.
We didn't spend most of our time there though. We spent most of our time in the hills around us (South San Jose), and on the Baseball fields/Basketball courts at the local elementary school. Or playing baseball with tennis balls in our cul-de-sac. Or digging forts in our backyard. Or riding our skateboards through the streets.
Now I find myself wanting to move back someday - find a few acres just outside of a city. I miss the quiet and the privacy.
I'm a programmer who loves to code and build stuff, learning new programming languages and frameworks, discussing about architecture, etc. I love shipping new features and making customers happy.
BUT inside of me a desire has been growing to go back to the roots, to live a life closer to the nature. I feel the need to spend more time outside, with less time pressure.
I've been thinking about this idea to build something like a "tech-farmer colony". Maybe it's been done in the past, never heard of it, but it would be a group of engineers and their families, living together and working part-time as software / hardware engineers, and part time as farmers, with flexible division of tasks. Maybe the software / hardware company could even work on projects closely related to farming, in order to improve productivity / efficiency / cut costs / promote ecologic food, etc.
I'd be curious to see if there are more people in the tech industry who would love to do something like this. I'd love to read some interesting ideas / critique.
And while many engineers seem to believe they can do anything with applied knowledge -- practice and execution are two very different things.
You mean "civil engineering"
> cooking
You mean "culinary engineering"
> cleaning
You mean "sanitary engineering"
> teaching
You mean "educational engineering"
> schooling
You mean "educational engineering"
> animal husbandry
You mean "agricultural engineering"
> community health
You mean "medical engineering" or "civil engineering"
> repairs
You mean "engineering"
> safety
You mean "engineering"
> upkeep
You mean "engineering"
> music/arts/entertainment
You mean "acoustic/visual/recreational engineering"
> policy
You mean "political engineering"
> the list goes on
And the list will still be refactored into engineering fields (some of which I may or may not have extracted from my rectum in an ad hoc fashion).
Engineering really just boils down to using the scientific method, mathematics, and ingenuity to solve problems. Pretty much every activity you described could very easily have an engineering mindset applied to it.
I'd not limit it to engineers though -- just makers in general.
https://farmcombinator.slack.com/
You'll need an invite, so if you're interested in this sort of thing seek me out on Twitter (@ccallebs) or send me your email (chuck@callebs.io).
My girlfriend is from upstate New York, and her father is a farmer. It's backbreaking work to run a farm if you're mostly by yourself, hiring farm hands when necessary, and when ROI is sufficient. Yet, at the same time, the "Mega farms" of corporations tend to use a lot of hands BUT also inappropriate a lot of tech.
There seems to be a middle ground where, like you mentioned, a tech+farm group could be formed either members own their own small plots, or own one together. The burden of tech costs could be spread amongst the members, but the tech can be incorporated to satisfy the intellectual engineering approach to things, as well as the "close to nature" manual labor wants.
I feel like I'm rambling... Anyway, this is sounding very much like a hippy commune, but I am not sure if that bothers me at this point.
Now that is one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. Knowing how farms work, I could find a ton of ways for this to be difficult, but we're engineers -- let's solve hard problems. :-)
Division of tasks is where this kind of thing tends to fall down.
It's been tried over-and-over-and-over for centuries and there's a ton of research. If it's not based on a religion, it fails, is the long and short of it. Only works with religious people.
I think it has to do with 2 things: The ability to shame individuals into compliance without resorting to violence, and the ability to shut off free-loaders.
That's the problem with intentional communities. Everybody (claim to) have the best intentions, until push comes to shove and you have to actually put your self interest on hold for the greater good of the community.
Power structure.
Religion usually has a built-in power structure that nothing else has been able to replicate.
Take the military by example. They have a remarkably good track record of literally sending men to die, in full knowledge that their chances or survival are negligible.
There are many other less dramatic cases: at work in both the private and public sector, at the school's social dynamic, at charitable organizations, and yes in the church.
The statement was that historically communes only work out when founded on religion.
Religion usually has a built-in power structure that nothing else has been able to replicate.
I wasn't sufficiently clear. I meant within the context of "things that have been used as a basis for communes", religion stands alone.
I wrote some more in an earlier thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437392
Guess that the whole twist would be to not only depend on agriculture for providing income and food.
Also, I wouldn't make it about living isolated from society, without electricity, cars or mobile phones. It would be a much more relaxed, simple life, but every individual or family would put their own limits, respecting their comfort zones.
And yes, there would be life in community, maybe sharing some meals or having kids play together, but as I said at the beginning, families would have their own houses or appartments, so they could also here decide how far they want to go.
The cool thing would be having lots of like-minded people (= engineers) living and working close together, which could develop into some nice side projects and ideas.
Thanks for the info!
1) what about (possibly automated) vertical farming? It sounds like there's a fair amount of research/discussion of that right now and could be a neat blend of technology/nature. I'd love to see open sourced versions of this technology; possibly with toolkits for anyone to setup on their own. Also, might in the long run give you higher ROI for given land/water resources.
2) I've often thought of setting up some kind of ranch where fellow developers could go for a bit when feeling burnt out; you join for free (or maybe a fee) for a month or so and grow your own food (or else grow food for the next wave of burnouts and eat that grown by the previous wave). Getting back to nature and doing some strenuous work could be a great way to get back in your normal groove, or to see if this is the life for you.
2) I love this idea! It could be a way of providing additional income for the farm. Classic farms often offer vacations for families and kids, I guess this would be a similar idea, but for engineers.
Anyone can work on the vertical farming ideas while they are there with the agreement that it's part of the project to released under Creative Commons (or similar license).
They're building open source farming tools -- or as they say, "blueprints for civilization". Perhaps they're open to volunteers?
Their TED talk is worth watching: http://www.ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski?language=en
I would love to do something like this
The first thing that comes to my mind is a ticketing system with a time-dependent bounty attached. The chickens investors establish the chicken requirements, such as "ensure that all chickens are inside the coop and secure it against predators before civil twilight". That ticket repeats daily, with a bounty rising until the deadline, at which time the bounty freezes at the maximum, and the nag program starts messaging people to go do the task before a raccoon shows up. When you do the task, you press a button, which attaches a timestamped photo of you to the ticket log, which is freely auditable by the stakeholders.
The mobile farm app is continuously updated with outstanding chore tickets.
The investors pay the bounties, so it would behoove them to more often do the chores attached to the farm products for which they are larger stakeholders. If someone would prefer to skip a chore to bring in some outside income, they will essentially be paying someone else out of that to pick up the farm slack. If everyone winds up doing that, there might be professional farmhands available as the fallback, so the bounties would have to reflect what it actually costs a farming professional to do the tasks.
I am a software worker because I am an essentially lazy person, so if I were involved, it is very likely that I would invest heavily in a perennial polyculture plot, and spend much of my time researching robotic harvester designs and preservation methods for uncommon fruits and vegetables. For instance, how do you get a pawpaw off the tree and to the customer before it rots? How many walnut trees can you use in your canopy before you start shading out your persimmons? How cold can a trifolate orange tree get before you lose the fruit? Would people eat linden leaf salads? How do I encourage permanently resident pollinators?
The only people seriously looking at these questions, if anyone, would be Ag-Sci professors and their grad students. And their research might not necessarily have practical utility when it comes to making a profit as a part-time farmer.
And, of course, it goes without saying that we would have to jailbreak the Deere and come up with some open source firmware.
Is the 19th century Industrial revolution just an illusion, the factories, the cars, the towns, the wars just a view of the spirit, and the little birds singing in the trees the real world ?
Is the current (electronic?) revolution an illusion, just a bait for digital addicts, a virtual world that drags us away from our real world ?
I think it's quit the opposite. I think the real world is this huge uncontrollable human growth on the branch its standing on.
Don't get me wrong, I was raised in the countryside and my entire soul is deeply bonded to the forest, and the animals and insects living in it. But don't call it the real world. Rather something like the fading world. And we need all the talent and imagination behind computers (or in labs), where we can have true impact on things and save it.
Going back to it is the true illusion...
Computation has been trapped inside boxes and tiny screens, virtualization with behaviors that don't even approach the richness and complexity of reality outside that box. Don't get me wrong, it's a noble and passionate endeavor, but it's misguided if it traps you there forever.
given all the human and computer driven computation to create simulations on a screen resulting in something 1/100,000,000th as complex as a sqft of rainforest
This is an absurd comparison. Besides being apples to oranges, besides being super arbitrary (where did you get 1 square foot?), besides being completely undefined (what kinds of simulations are you talking about?).. it doesn't make any sense.
Let's follow your logic a little bit. * A butterfly in the rainforest creates a chrysalis. That chrysalis is not real because it's 1/100,000,000th as complex as a square foot of rainforest. It's a noble and passionate endeavor, but it doesn't even approach the richness and complexity of reality outside that chrysalis.
Does that make sense to you? Do you agree with it?
Let's use your logic to try to compare apples to apples. Let's compare a square mile of rainforest to a square mile of New York City. Is one more real than the other? Since you seem to think complexity has something to do with realness (an idea that seems silly and arbitrary, but let's go with it), is one more complex than the other? Hard to say. The rainforest almost certainly has more individual living things. But is that how we define complexity? The city is chock full of human brains, and it's hard to argue with the fact that the human brain is one of the most complex things on the planet. The city also seems low in entropy compared to the jungle. The very fact that a city exists, distinct from the jungle, seems to imply lower entropy. If you let the city go without tending for a long time (and if its location was right), it would become jungle. You might argue that that's because there's no one keeping the complexity high. And since high complexity means more real (I still don't get it, but I'm just going with your "logic"), I have shown the city is more real than the jungle.
Does that make sense? Not really? It's definitely not rigorous. It's not based on sound principles. The logic is faulty in all kinds of ways. It makes leaps of logic and uses poorly defined concepts. Does that stand out more when I do it compared to when you're doing it? I urge you to not be "that guy" or "that girl" that uses that kind of logic.
I think it's a reasonable point. One of the useful tests for "realness" is what lasts, what is sustained without human effort. Artificial environments are in some sense a fantasy made real. Sufficiently advanced technologies are indistinguishable from magic because we are always trying to construct our dreams.
Our civilization is in many ways a collective fiction. The clearest example is money, which works only as long as we believe. But there are plenty of other essentially imaginary underpinnings to our constructed world. For example, the US's national ethos, the American Dream: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream
What? This ismeaningless, and obviously false if you just think about it for one second. Please see my reply to tsunamifury above.
But my main point was the widening divide between our artificial environment and our biological one, the raising concerns that the first is destroying the latter and what we can do about it! I think turning your back to civilization with the notion that it's all an illusion is a dangerous misconception.
When I returned, I realized that there is nothing about the world of tech that is any less real, relevant or right than is the world of nature. We may not always do things in ways that produce the least negative impact for our fellow humans, or on nature in general, but show me how this digital reality of ours is invalid?
I actually thrive under the massive hours of work, the stress of delivering and the multitasking mentally I have to endure to stay afloat in the tech industry. It may not be the most conducive to a family life, but I'm figuring it out as I go and I know that I will be happier for having not stayed out in the wilderness.
I applaud anyone who finds what they need, what they want, and once they have it are happy. But I don't believe all humanity is going to find the same thing makes them happy, or is really what they need.
In fact, it is YOUR OWN DAMNED fault if you fail to sing with your children while you worked as a programmer. Wait, it's your own damn fault for pretty much everything in your life. Programming is not the disease; you are. I know people who finished extra degrees while working as programmer; I know people who climbs mountains while working as programmer; I know people who play music professionally while working as programmer; I know people who take excellent care of their family while working as a programmer. Your job exchanges (some) of your time for (some) money. The responsibility of adjusting the job to the life lies in your hand. Stop blaming programming for your troubles.
You know, the whole "OMG! I got a new job! It's wonderful! It beats my previous job!" kind of silliness should really really stop. Most things have their rewards and challenges. Maybe farming suits you better. I don't know. However, judging from the kind of stupid judgment thrown around ("real world" and "no exception" and "I sing for my kids), doubt haunts my view. But oh well. Good luck. And stop bashing other people's job, please.
The article was well written, wasn't judgemental, and provided some lightness to my day and to others.
Chill out!
On the other hand, I think you do us all a big disservice by clubbing down anyone who has anything slightly negative to say about our trade. If you cannot criticize, you cannot optimize.
Farming isn't a silver bullet, but neither is programming. Of course. I see the value, appeal, and benefits in both. I don't believe the author intended to label programming a disease for anyone other than himself, so vilifying him for it seems pretty harsh.
I went out nearly every morning to work in fields, spent days in cellar and did just few hours of programming per week to pay my bills. It was great for some time, not having to think about real life outside, being really free to just enjoy pointless discussions in local pub till early in the morning, then spent some time with neighbours just drinking coffee in the morning and gossiping before going out to do some work outside.
I was sure to never work in technology ever again, but I relapsed and here I am back in the city, running company in ag-tech space (lab hw for wine analysis) and coming back to my fields just for weekends (and odd week days here and there) to take care of my vines. I did downsized my plans for mid-sized winery for now and keeping the operation just as a hobby and side business, but I am sure I am going back fulltime once I am done with my company.
Longer comment on Reddit[1], but the goal is to make a climate controlled greenhouse that houses a heavily automated aquaponics setup along with backyard chickens for eggs and eventually meat. I may take on a couple goats for milk but that would follow later. As part of this I also want to setup solar and vertical axis wind along with evacuated tubing for heating to cut down on energy dependence at the same time.
Once you realize how much of your working time is going to just provide food, shelter, and energy, it makes you question if you could manage to provide those basics in another way than money. With the tech we have now and the rising costs of food taking a bigger cut of your paid time I think we very soon could find that the cost/time investment to DIY will become less than the time investment to purchase from someone else.
This is all of course ignoring the upfront capital requirements but the idea is that if I can reduce the portion of my pay going to those things, I could either a) have more money left over for other things, or b) reduce the amount of time I work equal to the reduced expenses and have more time available for other things. Either way, less external dependencies = more degrees of freedom.
1 - http://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/2yovsq/canada_risks_...
I do love this story though. I'm glad it's working out. It must have been tough to make that huge change, with kids and everything. Good luck.
Thank you very much for the well wishes!
I want to write code and build things for myself, with hope that this code will be beneficial to others as well, but it doesn't have to be. Even better, if writing the code for myself can provide a life for my family and I, and also be beneficial to others.
I've heard it said that even philanthropy is as much driven by the individual philanthropist's need to feel the good feeling of giving, as it is by the actual or perceived need of others outside of the philanthropist. Sometimes goodness happens through the alignment of personal incentives with those of others, sometimes it is purely personal, but you probably need a blend of both to survive physically and emotionally.
There's a lot one could consider and digest in this thinking - open source vs proprietary, for vs. non-profit, side projects for fun vs. for profit (and where those blend together sometimes), "freedom" and much more.
I think a lot of this is about opening up yourself. It seems you're doing just that with your current endeavors, and I applaud and congratulate you for it!
Passion does go a long way as does working on fulfilling projects, but even the most passionate person will get burned out putting in long hours week after week. Everyone needs balance and thorough time away from the desk/cube/screen.
Couldn't agree more. The strange thing is just how hard it seems to be to reconcile these two preferences. Growing up in the UK countryside in the 1980s and watching the march of communication technologies, it seemed inconceivable that tech jobs would stay shackled to urban areas. Who knew?
One day, I'll find the remote gig I'm looking for...
I grew up on a large agriculture operation miles from town. I hated it. My friends all got to do cool stuff like skateboard and go to the mall. I had to have a milk cow instead. I couldn't wait to grow up and get away and live in a city. I was going to be an electrical engineer. Instead I became an agronomist. I worked on some different types of farms and although it was OK it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to think all day at work, not just exist and do the same thing season after season. I always loved computers and had ever since my first TSR-80. I started playing around with HTML. Then I learned Python and Javascript. Then I started writing more complex programs. Then I decided I wanted to do it full time about 4 years ago and quite my job as a land reclamation specialist. My boss was quite surprised... he knew I was "good with computers" but I was going to be a programming nerd? I got some contract jobs. Then I got a full time job as a web developer. I love it. Every day I'm clean, I sit in a comfortable chair in a climate controlled environment and I play with computer code. I'm very happy (although I still live on a few acres and have a big garden... it's a hobby now which is just the way I like it).
This is the sort of thing I meant. Dig back into the first post and it's clear that this person was very interested in coding as a hobby, but that it didn't translate as a career. A bit of discouragement, or at least, something that most people who are gung-ho about encouraging people in, in, in to coding would consider discouragement but perhaps also could just be called "realism", could well have saved this person a lot of pain and suffering. Mindless encouragement is not a virtue... it must be mindful.
I am where I belong. I've done farming and gardening and it does nothing for me, for a variety of reasons. I would (and I suppose, do) pay not to do it. This would be a horrifying career change for me. But I am grateful that I am a statistically-crazy guy who actually loves this almost inhuman job of programming, grateful that I get to do this crazy stuff that few other people really want to do, and they can go do stuff that I don't want to do. Real diversity is great.
Be careful about encouragement, and be honest about the whole package. There are people out there who are natural programmers (or other technical positions), and don't know it yet. There are people out there who think it's a good idea, and really shouldn't do it. There are people out there who don't know about programming, and don't need to because it isn't for them, and somebody really needs to come talk to them about the virtues of plumbing, or how much charity work they could do. There's a lot of people out there who should be introduced to what computers can do for you as a hobby or an adjunct to another career but don't need to be "programmers". You can't perfectly predict, and ultimately everyone's responsible for their own decisions anyhow, but be thoughtful about what you say. Is the end goal to create a programmer, or to create a satisfied person?
I think this is sort of what many people are reaching for when they start babbling about teaching everybody to program (I guess many people calling for teaching everybody to program may not really understand it themselves).
Do you all really want to accept the idea that "encouragement is always good regardless of the consequences!" with such religious fervor? Is the idea that sometimes someone should not be encouraged in a particular direction really that horrifying? Where did this idea come from? Have you examined it? Have you consciously accepted it? Or is it an unexamined axiom that has wormed its way into your belief structure? And I mean that with all the philosophical baggage the term "unexamined" has.
Think. These are people's lives and livelihoods we are talking about here, not what they're going to eat for dinner tonight, and you are not excused from thought by an unexamined axiom that "encouragement always good". The linked post is hardly that unusual; I personally can name at least three people who have left the career and also gotten happier, and I know one other person currently finishing up before they go back to school to switch to a career that is definitely not programming, something that is not "farming" but is also in its own way absolutely as far as you can get from programming. You have to think, and teach others to think too.
A person, especially a young person, can become convinced that they are OK with a path they don't much care for, for a few years, maybe a decade. But eventually fate will come knocking, and they will walk away or get depressed. You don't want to be the cause of those lost years.
* The grass is always greener on the other side. It's not obvious to me that, had the author of this blog started as a farmer and eventually ditched it to become a programmer, he would not have felt a similar sense of having moved to something better.
* It's not obvious to me that we should not be encouraging everyone to do whatever constructive thing they want to do at that particular time. Maybe by demotivating someone we're lowering their chances of getting far enough along that trajectory to even realize whether they like it or not. Maybe your advice makes it more likely for people to choose to do nothing hard or risky and end up unhappy flipping burgers.
Also, I'm not saying to never be encouraging... I'm encouraging honesty. People need to know what a job really is.
Never easy to kill something you're supposed to be taking care of.
Isn't it funny how this is a completely arbitrary definition?
The most sensible explanation I've seen about this phenomenon is called carnism and it's brilliantly explained by Dr. Melaine Joy in this TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0VrZPBskpg
Frankly, that video sounds like BS to me. How much time did she spend within family farms that raise animals? The idea that you need "invisibility" or to abstract animals as non-individual or as objects is so untrue it's not even funny.
Even a 'picky eater' society like the US that only eats a few kinds of land animal species treats all fish as edible but only a few named species as 'the good ones', and only a handful of plant species are commonplace in the diet despite lots more being readily available.
I have no idea if she has spent time within family farms, but I would guess that she, like most people versed in animal rights, would strongly disagree with exploiting the bodies and reproductive systems of animals unnecessarily. Regardless of it being done in a factory farm or in the best family farm, where animals roam free until the day they are sent to the house of slaughter, at a young age.
If you sent a perfectly healthy dog (or horse, or cat, or elephant) to slaughter, for profit or pleasure, in a culture that sees those animals as members of their moral community, you would get a very different reaction from society.
The fact that the reasons are different doesn't mean they're arbitrary, merely not universal. Some cultures practice(d) cannibalism, does that mean that our opposition to that practice is necessarily arbitrary?
I think it's clear that many, if not most, are not arbitrary - which doesn't mean they are well supported; not everything is valid just because it has some reason behind it.
I have no idea if she has spent time within family farms, but I would guess that she, like most people versed in animal rights, would strongly disagree with exploiting the bodies and reproductive systems of animals unnecessarily. Regardless of it being done in a factory farm or in the best family farm, where animals roam free until the day they are sent to the house of slaughter, at a young age.
No doubt, but that wasn't my issue with the video. I wasn't disagreeing with the opposition of exploiting animals unnecessarily, just with the theory of Carnism that she uses to support it.
I inquired about her experience with family farms, not because they don't exploit animals, but because I believe they put a very obvious hole in her theory about why people do exploit animals.
If you sent a perfectly healthy dog (or horse, or cat, or elephant) to slaughter, for profit or pleasure, in a culture that sees those animals as members of their moral community, you would get a very different reaction from society.
No doubt, but her theory had more than just "people treat animals differently".
The definition of arbitrary is "having no reason behind it". Sure, judging whether a particular classification counts as "arbitrary" is hard because the definition of "arbitrary" is squishy. But what you just said amounts to:
It's not arbitrary. It might be arbitrary, but it's not arbitrary.
Dogs are a bad example. Dogs have been our companions for tens of thousands of years. They have been so because they are useful to us -- we have developed a symbiotic relationship. Dogs understand us and are attuned to our emotions to a much higher degree than any other non-human animal. I wouldn't say it's arbitrary to place a higher intrinsic value on dogs than pigs.
Don't get me wrong, I don't claim that as justification of anything. I'm a vegan. I just don't think something has to be arbitrary to be wrong.
Unfortunately, she was also rather soft and she grew quite attached to her chickens...so attached that when the time came, she just gave them back to the farmer who had sold her the chicks!! :)
I disagree-- Slaughtering them means you're no longer responsible for their health and wellbeing, so it comes as a huge relief. Kind of like sending your kids off to college.
This describes my habits so well. Some days, it's exhilarating to have so many options for where to point my brain, but other days, I just wish I could sit down and focus on something I actually thought was important.
In the winter, Dad went to the library each day, checked out 3 books, (the maximum then), returned them the next day, got three more. Mom would always be cooking and cleaning, getting us kids off to school, secretly writing poetry.
Farming for us was mostly about driving. Tractor, truck, swather, combine, rake, fuel pickup. Not so romantic as painted by the article.
Lots of fond memories. Sunsets would often fill the vast sky. Light in the sky until 10:45. Milky Way an astonishing sight. Occasional Aurora. On the tractor on a summer day, if you watched very carefully, you could see the dust devils form, and see the smooth-walled tube raise up a 1000 feet or more, then disappear. The satisfaction of learning how to drive a caterpillar pulling a duckfoot plow and making a half-mile long very straight line. The satisfaction of the end of harvest, which statistically would be on the day that the sky turned black and the fields were inaccessible for weeks.
But hard work during the summer, for sure. 10 hours each day on a tractor, no radio or other entertainment other than daydreams. (And still the only place that you can find me singing. And even then, not very often.) The risk incumbent with a state known for violent weather making sure you got all the harvest in in the approximately 30 days that you had available. Or the day in late June when I was about 8 that a sudden thunderstorm came up and the three of us watched, transfixed, as a 10 minute hailstorm wiped out the crop. Dad says "Well, that's it for this year".
And there are some irreconcilables. Judy Blunt in Breaking Clean said it very well about her own boys after she left the farm and moved to the university town: "On the farm, they were men in training. Here, they are just boys".
What most folks don't understand is that in America, the lives of small farmers, staring with my Grandfather's generation, was more affected by technology than any other way of life. A nearly two orders of magnitude of improvement in productivity over that time span. So even the farm of my youth isn't any more. Patterns are already different, machines are larger, more sophisticated. I am pretty sure that both Dad and Mom don't have much romance for that way of life. I couldn't wait to get out of there to University, with the full support and encouragement of my family. Even thought there isn't really a horizon here in Illinois. You can't see what the weather is until it is upon you.
I do get back now and again, having some family there. The sunsets are spectacular. So is the wind, occasionally tipping over boxcars. And there is February.
But props to the author of the article. Do what you love. But I can't help but wonder if there isn't a bit of a Hawthorne effect for both of us.
Now that finally that time has come, for one thing I'm sure: I'm never going back (or at least I won't go back for a long time to come).
I love "sitting behind a desk and pumping out code", it's way more fun, comfortable, and profitable than digging in the ground, planting tomatoes, or picking gumbos.
edit: I feel that I have to mention my enormous love for nature. There are a lot of ways to be close to it, farming is definitely not the only one.
I think it takes courage (and a bit of risk) to completely shift the course of your career, especially while you have a family to support. I will be curious to hear if he sticks with it long term, but to me, it sounds like he never was designed to be a programmer.
To be a programmer, it takes someone that doesn't mind being behind a computer for a good part of the day (even if you're able to take a break to get some fresh air on occasion). Otherwise, it will have the effect it seems to have had on the OP, and ultimately leave you wishing for something else.
And that's completely cool -- those people should find what drives them.
But it's also completely cool if you're designed to enjoy programming. And I think you can still do this and, at the same time, make sure you're doing other things to bring a smile to your face (in addition to programming), like spending time with family and friends.
Then you can set your own terms, possibly livable ones :)
I don't know if that's true for everybody.
Being behind a computer all day long is what I've been doing since I was 8. I'm 26 now. I like computers. I don't mind it. But whenever I do a little traveling or have to spend a while outdoors, I feel an immense joy, and I get the feeling that there's an incredible amount of things out there I'm missing out; I yearn for life "outside". I think I'd do well on it. I'm happy as a programmer, but I can imagine myself being happy a farmer - who knows? Whether I'd be happy, or happier, I have no idea.
There are so many occupations out there, and each person is so complex, I find it hard to say with any confidence that a person has found his true profession. It might just be that I'd have been an extraordinary sailor, but the circumstances of life have made it so that I will never know that reality. Everyone convinces themselves that they've found the path they were cut out for, but there's a lot of wishful thinking there, and many people don't even consider these issues at all.
Not sure how to make that work while providing for my family, though, since working 1/3 a year at a professional job isn't usually an option and, even if it were, I'd be passing up a lot of money.
Oh well, can't have everything. Hurray for comparative advantage, I guess? Back to coding....
Occasionally I get to do all that stuff above, outside the day job, and I love it. Trying to turn it into a real business but slow in getting there.
And I already live on a farm...
"We are problem solvers by nature, we just happen to be engineers and designers by trade."
I don't know, we keep getting these stories about people that burn out and quit the industry, just when they are beginning to get good at the trade.
I think the ones that drop off might be the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. Many, many of us feel some sort of "ennui" with the realities of the job as it is, but only the most sensitive individuals are quitting now. Just as a token example, earlier this year I felt really down after realizing I might never get paid to work on a code base that I can truly love. I am not sure if this is something that happens to every profession or is just a programmer thing, but I am sure as hell I am not the only one.
It might be misguided to label those that quit as "not real programmers". They are telling us something about who we are and what we are doing, and it's as tempting as self defeating to pretend we didn't hear anything.
I don't think that's really how it works. People are too complex, too dynamic to say someone is definitely X or Y.
I've been programming since I was a kid and loved the work, until at one point I didn't anyore and wanted out. I was done with tech. Does that mean I was never a real "programmer"? Was I soldier trapped inside a programmer's job? If I were to become say, a baker after this, will I have been a baker trapped inside a soldier trapped inside a programmer's job? Of course not.
Near Mt Arapiles in Victoria, there was (hopefully still is) a farm that had worked out that local climbers were the best source of cheap labour :-) They literally paid a day's wage with a bag of food.
I spent many happy days working on that farm (I already came from a rural background so was comfortable around animals etc) and the work always made me feel stronger, and more importantly, useful.
I also had the heart wrenching experience of animals dying in my hands, and was only consoled by the fact that the farmer was more distraught than I. It made me realise that the best of farmers know their animals, and care greatly for their animals above and beyond any possible monetary value. The fine line between "stock" and "pets" is a difficult one to walk.
It made me realise that the depictions of Wal and Cooch (especially Cooch, who would take a baby bottle to new-born lambs in the middle of a storm) from the wonderful comic strip "Footrot Flats" [1] were poignantly accurate, and that I really don't have what it takes to be a full time farmer.
I wish the author the best of luck, and a happy, harmonious life for the future.
Also, playing live music at the local pub with your son is awesome :-)
- Childhood: kids need space, safety/freedom and some friends to explore the world. Countryside and suburbs are the best option.
- Social years: humans are social and hierarchical. We need a place with plenty of opportunities to experience the world and prove our value in the different hierarchies. Cities are the best option.
- Maturity: after we had experienced the world and/or when our place in hierarchy gets stagnant, we want to slow down. Countryside is the best option.
I can relate somewhat, after having a child at a young age (22). My son makes me feel more full of life than I ever felt before, when I really had nothing and nobody to take care of besides myself. It sounds like the OP is way ahead of me though.
Children do seem to provide a fantastic relief for self-loathers.
Everything in this article is 100% accurate, based on my own experiences of the last 15 months.
Anyway, time to stop surfing news.yc and go check in on the pigs, then get back to building the greenhouse.
Changing professions to embrace an alternative lifestyle allows you to be enriched more fully, and to gain the perspectives of each lifestyle you experience.
It is my hope that the writer is able to apply the skills gained while writing code to his new occupation and way of life. While I was working on farms my mind was constantly working out how to apply efficiencies and work arounds to common problems. I use those skills now in my day job as a programmer, but the reverse could be applied in similarly effective ways.
Everyone should diversify their experiences. Too often a laser focus for extended periods yields productivity at the expense of flexibility, and eventual burnout. Over specialization can be as dangerous as generalization.
I'd be curious to know, though, and without being too critical, how this change affects his kids? Did they have to change schools? Leave friends and be further away from family? I ask mainly because as a kid I was often a victim of my mother's fickleness, and as a parent it has been a goal of mine to give my kids the stability I didn't have. Again, not a judgement here, just interested in hearing about that aspect of this endeavor.
I've made the first steps to more working at home (just asking my boss). I'll start with 1 day a week and I'm already feeling great about that tiny shift.
I'm obviously no cow or cow expert for that matter, but it just struck me as odd.
Imagine an self-sufficient community of designers, coders, families and everyone in between working on socially-positive startups and putting in some nominal personal time into the community farm. A 'commune' of the future.
Life is way to short.
I enjoy talking walks once in a while and looking up at the sky. Its the little things that keep us alive.
It's certainly possible on paper, and looks like a more-or-less ideal balance to me -- but very interested to hear about actual experiences.
But then, there is the issue of focus. How good can you get at both trades at the same time, if people normally take years to go through only one of the learning curves.
While there is a lot of physical work in farming, you need to keep a fair amount of tacit knowledge in your head and recall it almost instantly on an unpredictable basis. This is specially true if you are working with animals (which the OP is). It is not overly taxing to remember it all once you already know it, but when you are a newbie you have to put the effort and learn it in the first place.
More over, if you are learning it the traditional way (aka, following around an old hand and do as told) you are expected to figure out the patterns and learn on your own. This guys are no experts in pedagogy and since they are just mimicking their own mentors, an explanation of what you've just seen/done may or may not follow.
An old friend of mine was a car rental manager for ERAC. It's a stressful but stable job with room for growth. He rose to a damage control supervisor position at the Sacramento headquarters, then spent a couple of years feeling depressed, thinking something is missing in his life. Fast forward to 5 years later, and I find out he's now an offshore diver based out of Houston. From office ties to diving suits, helmet, breathing hose, belt and breast weights, and leaded feet. He couldn't be happier.
Congrats on finding something that soothes yours.
Then, use the Internet to decide where to live.
-balaji s
Today, however, I sit here writing this post as a 32-year-old man with a head of gray hair, a mind that cannot stop thinking a million miles a minute about a million different things, and eyes that have only been open to the digital world. I am burnt out on writing code. I am burnt out on configuration. I am burnt out on automating monotonous tasks. I am burnt out on completing tickets. I am burnt out on completing tickets that undo what those other tickets accomplished. I am burnt out on debugging third-party advertising code. I am burnt out on having 16 terminal tabs open. I am burnt out on contributing to the “connected” culture. I am burnt out on having a “40 hour” work week that actually occupies the majority of my mental time. I am burnt out on sitting at a desk. This state of being burnt out has invaded so much of my out-of-work life that I have decided to take my Life back.
So much of that is congruent with my experience as well. Yet, for reasons that seem hard to explain at first, I go deeper into the beast rather than move away from it (and my choice is in no way superior). I love what technology can do-- liberate humanity from drudgery, improve the human quality of life, make interactions and knowledge and discovery possible that wouldn't otherwise be-- and I enjoy the intellectual challenge. I hate so much of what it's actually used to do: serve the short-term economic interests of power-holders who are incompetent but don't want to give up their seats.
As much as I love being in the forest, I must be a natural urbanite because I have a natural draw toward being in the main fight. Even with the risk and clamor, I like carrying a sword (metaphorically speaking, since my chosen war is cultural and therefore fought by typing rather than swinging a blade). I feel like it is my destiny to be in the fight to take technology back from the current crop of useless power-holders. I want to be in this war, and I really fucking want to win it, but I can't blame anyone for wanting to get the fuck out of it and work on a farm. It's an appealing idea.
I'm not anti-farming (I mean, I like food) but I also recognize that, without technology, life would be a lot worse than it is right now. Not all of us can be farmers, not anymore. Munching Jira tickets to appease some middle manager may be a waste of life (nay, it is) but I still feel like what we do as technologists (or, at least, what we can do) is important. We're a part of evolution and progress... even if many of us get drawn down into nonsense.
Reading the OP, I'm really glad that he found work that enjoys and that gives him a sense of purpose, and I hope that that never changes for him. I also find it sad that technology gave him such a useless, negative experience (munching tickets instead of driving forward progress) and see fit to take that as a warning.