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I can clearly see both sides by now. I've built a high sleeper in my old apartment from scratch (which is kind of an understatement as it was effectively half a

I can clearly see both sides by now. I've built a high sleeper in my old apartment from scratch (which is kind of an understatement as it was effectively half a floor on top of a whole room including real stairs as a concession to my then-pregnant wife). After 3 months of advance planning, I finally realized the gravity of my mistake when the delivery truck lifted half a ton of wood onto the sidewalk and drove away. For me, it was just enough of a project to seriously endanger our relationship and get me to my mental and physical limits, but hell, it turned out great. There's really something to physical work and woodworking in particular that is haptic and makes you proud inside which you don't get at all in software engineering. Would I do it again? Absolutely not, that was nuts. But I'm still glad I did and I enjoy doing some woodworking from time to time (like that bottle rocket launch pad for my daughter lately). In the end I'm also pretty glad I'm in a job without breaking my back before I'm 60.

TomMarius 6y ago
The software is only in our heads. It's mind blowing, but you can't see and feel it. I also love to build physical stuff - last month I built a bed into my car, now I can go anywhere and sleep there - what an awesome thing it is, and my girlfriend loves it too. She appreciates software as well (being a genetic biologist/data analyst/programmer), but the bed, a comparably simpler thing, is what we talk all the time about. The second thing - when was the last time you built a piece of software that helps you do fun stuff? I didn't do that for years, maybe never - all software I build is for "serious work stuff". To be honest, I don't know what program could I make that would bring me joy comparable to the car-bed.
- sushshshsh 6y ago
  Probably the thing you crave is the intersection of robotics and software, or at least firmware for devices that transform objects in the real world. For example, there probably is some work that the software world can do to transform how humans currently go about cooking food. A wifi crock pot is a step in the right direction, but what about a wifi controlled airfryer, or a system of machines that is coordinated to do food processing in more human-ways? Hardware and software alone by themselves are unable to solve this problem without working together: a knife and a pneumatic arm can't achieve anything without human/AI/preprogrammed input, and a human cannot possibly take themselves out of the cooking equation without some physical device, i.e with just an app and a database.

TomMarius 6y ago

The software is only in our heads. It's mind blowing, but you can't see and feel it. I also love to build physical stuff - last month I built a bed into my car, now I can go anywhere and sleep there - what an awesome thing it is, and my girlfriend loves it too. She appreciates software as well (being a genetic biologist/data analyst/programmer), but the bed, a comparably simpler thing, is what we talk all the time about. The second thing - when was the last time you built a piece of software that helps you do fun stuff? I didn't do that for years, maybe never - all software I build is for "serious work stuff". To be honest, I don't know what program could I make that would bring me joy comparable to the car-bed.

sushshshsh 6y ago
Probably the thing you crave is the intersection of robotics and software, or at least firmware for devices that transform objects in the real world. For example, there probably is some work that the software world can do to transform how humans currently go about cooking food. A wifi crock pot is a step in the right direction, but what about a wifi controlled airfryer, or a system of machines that is coordinated to do food processing in more human-ways? Hardware and software alone by themselves are unable to solve this problem without working together: a knife and a pneumatic arm can't achieve anything without human/AI/preprogrammed input, and a human cannot possibly take themselves out of the cooking equation without some physical device, i.e with just an app and a database.