5 ms·

I'm hesitant to post because there is so much anguish here about winning the lottery for interesting work. I have been extremely fortunate in my career. I'd sa

I'm hesitant to post because there is so much anguish here about winning the lottery for interesting work. I have been extremely fortunate in my career. I'd say I won the interesting lottery. I started very early by today's standards, taking my first programming class at the local university when I was in 5th grade, back in '76. At 17, in '82, I had a game company selling nationwide in Sears & KMart a few Vic-20 games I wrote. That got me a beta testing role with the unreleased Macintosh. Which got me to move to Boston, where I worked for Mandelbrot & DeVenney on the initial publishing of Fractals. Basically, I've been fortunate to be an early developer for a series of advanced technologies: - initial 3D graphics research community (back when the question was "how to do 3D graphics at all"), - initial GUI developments (before Windows 3.1, there were a lot of competitors), - early real time mapping / navigation, I worked on one as my first post graduation job - early streaming media, I was writing media players for CD-I/CDROM/Network back in '90-'92 - early 3D gaming consoles, I was an OS developer for the 3DO and the first PlayStation - early 3D games, lead developer for games for 15 years - VFX, left games and worked on 9 VFX heavy feature films at an academy award winning studio - startup, left VFX and spent 7 years doing a ML based 3D reconstruction of photos to realistic 3D avatar web service - Facial Recognition, closed my startup and now I develop facial recognition software for an industry leader There is not time enough in a day to explore all the stuff I've done or am interesting in further pursuing. Luckily, I am one of those that sleep less: 5 hours leaves me groggy, and 4 is just right. So I spend my daze 10 hours coding for work, and another 4-6 pursuing "mad science".

jciochon 8y ago
Wow, it sounds like you’ve had a fascinating career. You say you may have just been lucky to get in on the ground floor as it were, but would you attribute your success to any other habits, behaviors, or personal qualities?
- bsenftner 8y ago
  I'm enthusiastic, almost to a childish degree, and I obsess. The joke at work is I'm "Sheldon", and I don't watch that show so I'm only vaguely aware that he's some type of bad communicating nerd. I think I communicate better. I'm also somewhat fearless, accepting projects over my head and still delivering.
gm-conspiracy 8y ago
VideoToaster? BBSs? What was your first computer?
- bsenftner 8y ago
  I first had access to a PDP-1170 at my local university, then a borrowed Apple II, then my first computer was a Vic-20. Then a C-64, then the beta Mac.
  - gm-conspiracy 8y ago
    Do you think if you had not started with a 16-bit computer, your learning would have progressed differently? I know this is a highly speculative question.
    - bsenftner 8y ago
      The Apple II and Vic-20 were both 8-bit computers. The minis and mainframes at universities were 16 and 32-bit systems, but for the large part I just ignored the word-length of a system. I really only cared if I needed to work in assembler, which I preferred for a good 15 years. I generally work in C flavored C++, and don't really optimize via process bit knowledge until bottlenecks are being removed.
superasn 8y ago
Wow pretty amazing. A little OT but just reading about coding 10 hours a day is just making me think of back pain. Is it really possible to sit for that long everyday and not suffer from it. I know I'm probably focusing on the wrong thing but just the idea of being able to code for that long everyday without suffering any physical problems would be reward enough for me.
- bsenftner 8y ago
  I actually code closer to 14-16 hours a day. But I have a standing desk / bar stool combination, plus a compile of my work typically takes 3-4 minutes, so I have a yoga mat, weights and stuff to work out while I think & wait. I'm 54, yet look 40 with a near six-pack. I'm really lucky.
  - superasn 8y ago
    Wow man that's really awesome. Would you mind doing a blog post about it sometime (or maybe linking to the source where i can learn more about it). It can help a lot of people like me who are struggling to work even 5 hours a day at just 37. Still thanks for the reply, I am now seriously thinking of getting a standing desk.
    - bsenftner 8y ago
      My #1 advice for being a healthy developer is to observe a regular hard cardio workout. <back story> When I was 16 I was a fairly muscle bound half geek / half athlete. To give you an idea, I was a running back on my high school football team, and a tackle and two linemen and I would have to shampoo one anothers head's after weight lifting practice because our arms could not reach the top of our heads from being so buff. We were muscle bound jocks in Iowa, what can I say... Well, I had a bad tackle when running with the ball during a game, and I crushed 3 vertebra, doubling over backwards with my hips pushed backwards till they touched my shoulders. The stadium had a collective gasp and then silence as I was seen on the field broken. Long story short, bolts in my temples and hanging vertically for 6 weeks healed my young spine with only weather changing aches. However, I went from 230 lbs to 130 lbs, and it took another 6 weeks of therapy before I could walk. That was the start of a decade of no athletic activity and nihilistic punk rockerism mixed with quite the intellectual journey as I left Iowa and became a part of the Harvard/MIT/BU 3D graphics research community. (This was the early-mid 1980's) It was not until I was 30 that my then girlfriend, now wife, got me to start morning walks, then light jogs, and finally an actual return to an athletic lifestyle. To give you an idea, at 30 I could not jog a block without heavy panting and sweats. After a year I was able to jog 1 block. It took whole year to do a block without dying! During that year, I'd get delirious and throw up if I pushed. But the persistent and incredible patience of my girlfriend slowly got me back into what is considered "normal" shape. Once I'd refreshed my previously athletic muscle / body memory, all kinds of positives kicked in like a general optimism, a general active energy level, and greater interest in everything in general. However, this was tempered with realization that if I slacked for even a few days, I'd get depressed, and if I went a week I'd start having bone/joint chiropractic misalignment and then I'd be injured and unable to be active at all. So, now I have a strict 3 days (at least) per week hard cardio. I ride my bike about 8 miles, living near a bike path in the San Fernando Valley. Plus I have a yoga mat next to my standing desk. I need to get a newer computer, as a recompile of my work take 10-12 minutes. But I exploit that time working out, so maybe I don't want a new development computer...

jciochon 8y ago

Wow, it sounds like you’ve had a fascinating career. You say you may have just been lucky to get in on the ground floor as it were, but would you attribute your success to any other habits, behaviors, or personal qualities?

bsenftner 8y ago
I'm enthusiastic, almost to a childish degree, and I obsess. The joke at work is I'm "Sheldon", and I don't watch that show so I'm only vaguely aware that he's some type of bad communicating nerd. I think I communicate better. I'm also somewhat fearless, accepting projects over my head and still delivering.

gm-conspiracy 8y ago

VideoToaster? BBSs? What was your first computer?

bsenftner 8y ago
I first had access to a PDP-1170 at my local university, then a borrowed Apple II, then my first computer was a Vic-20. Then a C-64, then the beta Mac.
- gm-conspiracy 8y ago
  Do you think if you had not started with a 16-bit computer, your learning would have progressed differently? I know this is a highly speculative question.
  - bsenftner 8y ago
    The Apple II and Vic-20 were both 8-bit computers. The minis and mainframes at universities were 16 and 32-bit systems, but for the large part I just ignored the word-length of a system. I really only cared if I needed to work in assembler, which I preferred for a good 15 years. I generally work in C flavored C++, and don't really optimize via process bit knowledge until bottlenecks are being removed.

superasn 8y ago

Wow pretty amazing. A little OT but just reading about coding 10 hours a day is just making me think of back pain. Is it really possible to sit for that long everyday and not suffer from it. I know I'm probably focusing on the wrong thing but just the idea of being able to code for that long everyday without suffering any physical problems would be reward enough for me.

bsenftner 8y ago
I actually code closer to 14-16 hours a day. But I have a standing desk / bar stool combination, plus a compile of my work typically takes 3-4 minutes, so I have a yoga mat, weights and stuff to work out while I think & wait. I'm 54, yet look 40 with a near six-pack. I'm really lucky.
- superasn 8y ago
  Wow man that's really awesome. Would you mind doing a blog post about it sometime (or maybe linking to the source where i can learn more about it). It can help a lot of people like me who are struggling to work even 5 hours a day at just 37. Still thanks for the reply, I am now seriously thinking of getting a standing desk.
  - bsenftner 8y ago
    My #1 advice for being a healthy developer is to observe a regular hard cardio workout. <back story> When I was 16 I was a fairly muscle bound half geek / half athlete. To give you an idea, I was a running back on my high school football team, and a tackle and two linemen and I would have to shampoo one anothers head's after weight lifting practice because our arms could not reach the top of our heads from being so buff. We were muscle bound jocks in Iowa, what can I say... Well, I had a bad tackle when running with the ball during a game, and I crushed 3 vertebra, doubling over backwards with my hips pushed backwards till they touched my shoulders. The stadium had a collective gasp and then silence as I was seen on the field broken. Long story short, bolts in my temples and hanging vertically for 6 weeks healed my young spine with only weather changing aches. However, I went from 230 lbs to 130 lbs, and it took another 6 weeks of therapy before I could walk. That was the start of a decade of no athletic activity and nihilistic punk rockerism mixed with quite the intellectual journey as I left Iowa and became a part of the Harvard/MIT/BU 3D graphics research community. (This was the early-mid 1980's) It was not until I was 30 that my then girlfriend, now wife, got me to start morning walks, then light jogs, and finally an actual return to an athletic lifestyle. To give you an idea, at 30 I could not jog a block without heavy panting and sweats. After a year I was able to jog 1 block. It took whole year to do a block without dying! During that year, I'd get delirious and throw up if I pushed. But the persistent and incredible patience of my girlfriend slowly got me back into what is considered "normal" shape. Once I'd refreshed my previously athletic muscle / body memory, all kinds of positives kicked in like a general optimism, a general active energy level, and greater interest in everything in general. However, this was tempered with realization that if I slacked for even a few days, I'd get depressed, and if I went a week I'd start having bone/joint chiropractic misalignment and then I'd be injured and unable to be active at all. So, now I have a strict 3 days (at least) per week hard cardio. I ride my bike about 8 miles, living near a bike path in the San Fernando Valley. Plus I have a yoga mat next to my standing desk. I need to get a newer computer, as a recompile of my work take 10-12 minutes. But I exploit that time working out, so maybe I don't want a new development computer...