3 ms·

I think what some people are missing here is that, for people like Buffet, the stuff they do for work IS their "hobby". Try this thought exercise: if you sudde

by magduf 7y ago

I think what some people are missing here is that, for people like Buffet, the stuff they do for work IS their "hobby". Try this thought exercise: if you suddenly became a billionaire, and didn't need to work for a paycheck any more, would you continue to write software (I'm assuming you're a developer like most on here)? Personally, I would. I probably wouldn't do it 8 hours a day, but I'd find some fun project to work on, and spend some time on that. It'd be my hobby, when I'm not doing something else I enjoy like traveling or skiing or whatever. I didn't get into this field just for the money, I did it because I like computers. Buffet likes investing. What else is he going to do with his spare time?

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
I wish there were more part time opportunities for professionals. Yeah, I'd keep doing ML (my day job), but I wouldn't do it 8 hours a day. Unfortunately, nearly all of the ways to to do it require that it's either a fulltime job or not a job at all. If there were a way to work 4 hours a day, or 8 hours a day 9 months of the year or something, turning off my email/slack/meetings outside that window, I'd be all about that. I'd love to slowly retire, putting in less and less time every year. But the job market doesn't seem to support that, so it's full time or no work for me (unless I put in the huge effort to build up a freelancing portfolio, which doesn't seem to be as much of a job market in ML yet?). Given the choice, I'd choose no work, and make my own work for fun.
- magduf 7y ago
  Maybe you should look into some other kind of programming hobby? Any why can't you do ML on your own anyway? Does it require too many computational resources? (serious question, I know almost nothing about the field) Personally, I could easily work on some kind of OSS project if I suddenly found myself with lots of free time. I can do C, C++, Python, etc., so it wouldn't be hard for me to find an existing project to contribute to, or make my own.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
    I think I was unclear. We're in agreement. I already do plenty of it in my spare time, like you suggest, and I'd love to expand the spare time stuff. What I was trying to add was that since I'd prefer to do it less than 40 hours per week, I wish there was a paid way to do it less than 40 hours per week. The status quo doesn't have much room for paid part-time work in this line of business, and that makes me sad. And depending what you're doing, it can require ridiculous computational resources (like hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a model), but that's far from the norm. If you aren't trying to advance a couple particular states of the art, you can get by with a fancy computer and patience, or a pretty reasonable AWS/GCP bill, probably comparable to any other fairly expensive hobby.
    - magduf 7y ago
      I see. I agree about the part-time thing too; considering how much of a skills shortage the industry is constantly crying about, and how well-paid developers are (which means that, if they live frugally and don't have kids, they don't really need to work to retirement age if they don't want to), it really should be possible to have part-time positions for people who want to stay current and work on interesting problems but not have to dedicate themselves to it full-time, and not be stuck only doing OSS stuff (which is great, of course, but not really doable with some fields).

by magduf 7y ago

6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago

I wish there were more part time opportunities for professionals. Yeah, I'd keep doing ML (my day job), but I wouldn't do it 8 hours a day. Unfortunately, nearly all of the ways to to do it require that it's either a fulltime job or not a job at all. If there were a way to work 4 hours a day, or 8 hours a day 9 months of the year or something, turning off my email/slack/meetings outside that window, I'd be all about that. I'd love to slowly retire, putting in less and less time every year. But the job market doesn't seem to support that, so it's full time or no work for me (unless I put in the huge effort to build up a freelancing portfolio, which doesn't seem to be as much of a job market in ML yet?). Given the choice, I'd choose no work, and make my own work for fun.

magduf 7y ago
Maybe you should look into some other kind of programming hobby? Any why can't you do ML on your own anyway? Does it require too many computational resources? (serious question, I know almost nothing about the field) Personally, I could easily work on some kind of OSS project if I suddenly found myself with lots of free time. I can do C, C++, Python, etc., so it wouldn't be hard for me to find an existing project to contribute to, or make my own.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y ago
  I think I was unclear. We're in agreement. I already do plenty of it in my spare time, like you suggest, and I'd love to expand the spare time stuff. What I was trying to add was that since I'd prefer to do it less than 40 hours per week, I wish there was a paid way to do it less than 40 hours per week. The status quo doesn't have much room for paid part-time work in this line of business, and that makes me sad. And depending what you're doing, it can require ridiculous computational resources (like hundreds of thousands of dollars to train a model), but that's far from the norm. If you aren't trying to advance a couple particular states of the art, you can get by with a fancy computer and patience, or a pretty reasonable AWS/GCP bill, probably comparable to any other fairly expensive hobby.
  - magduf 7y ago
    I see. I agree about the part-time thing too; considering how much of a skills shortage the industry is constantly crying about, and how well-paid developers are (which means that, if they live frugally and don't have kids, they don't really need to work to retirement age if they don't want to), it really should be possible to have part-time positions for people who want to stay current and work on interesting problems but not have to dedicate themselves to it full-time, and not be stuck only doing OSS stuff (which is great, of course, but not really doable with some fields).