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I think you might also be looking at tech with a slightly narrower view. Silicon Valley Web 3.0 startups are one section of tech, but you’ll also see stories ab

by pigsty 4y ago

I think you might also be looking at tech with a slightly narrower view. Silicon Valley Web 3.0 startups are one section of tech, but you’ll also see stories about John Deere and the right to fix farm equipment, optimizing motors, flood control, and whatever else on HN. Tech and hacking is a pretty wide field and every economic sector has its own definition of what constitutes “tech”. For some it’s optimizing excel spreadsheets, for some it’s crypto trading, and for some it’s about building better branch cutters.

4ggr0 4y ago
I live in a small european country with the same amount of people living here as in New York City. The city I live in has 60k people. Maybe that makes it a bit easier for y'all to understand. I really don't get why now a couple of people have told me that I'm wrong. I'm talking about my own, real-life experience, not some kind of mental, non-existing argument. I am not saying that IT can't be a diverse field and that only IT people can know about IT - I'm saying that in MY life, I have never met someone who knows IT who doesn't also actually work in IT or did at some point in their life. So I was curious why an IT person started to work as a brush cutter, or how they got into IT etc.
- pigsty 4y ago
  The point everyone is making is this is not an IT forum. It’s tech (which includes machinery) and business. You can avoid IT entirely and still work a tech job. I’d dare say the vast majority of tech jobs are in no way similar to IT.
  - 4ggr0 4y ago
    My point is that the commenter mentioned that they're a brush-cutter, while they have comments on their profile talking about Free-/NetBSD, Perl etc. This made me curious about this persons background. These details just created a very interesting image in my head - brush cutter by day, Free-/NetBSD hacker during the night. If they don't want to go into it, fine, just figured I might as well ask. Fine?
    - marttt 4y ago
      Brush cutter here -- not at all insulted by the question! I'm actually a trained journalist, but at one point I needed better work-life balance. Agreed to help out my (late) dad's classmate who is a forester. Brush cutting and tree planting seem to somehow fit my personality (excellent for loners who like physical effort in nasty weather, lol), so I stayed. As for BSD, Perl, Tiny Core Linux, Plan 9, etc -- I suppose I have a long-time intellectual interest in various "fringe" IT topics, computers as a tool for thinking, and repurposing old computers and ultra-minimal OSes in a meaningful way. I'm a horrible coder, but I love programming languages, lol. (I would have probably made a decent linguist, syntax or spoken language researcher, but oh well.) Obviously, HN is an excellent place for folks like me -- people who are (always?) slightly lost in life. Unable to make big bucks (this is fine!), but still intellectually curious. It really is a perfect online environment, and IMO a remarkably good embodiment of free speech and democracy. Thanks HN, and thanks dang, for the excellent moderation!
      - 4ggr0 4y ago
        > not at all insulted by the question! I'm relieved about that! Thanks for telling your story, glad that I asked :) And good to hear that you sound like you found your way.

by pigsty 4y ago

4ggr0 4y ago

I live in a small european country with the same amount of people living here as in New York City. The city I live in has 60k people. Maybe that makes it a bit easier for y'all to understand. I really don't get why now a couple of people have told me that I'm wrong. I'm talking about my own, real-life experience, not some kind of mental, non-existing argument. I am not saying that IT can't be a diverse field and that only IT people can know about IT - I'm saying that in MY life, I have never met someone who knows IT who doesn't also actually work in IT or did at some point in their life. So I was curious why an IT person started to work as a brush cutter, or how they got into IT etc.

pigsty 4y ago
The point everyone is making is this is not an IT forum. It’s tech (which includes machinery) and business. You can avoid IT entirely and still work a tech job. I’d dare say the vast majority of tech jobs are in no way similar to IT.
- 4ggr0 4y ago
  My point is that the commenter mentioned that they're a brush-cutter, while they have comments on their profile talking about Free-/NetBSD, Perl etc. This made me curious about this persons background. These details just created a very interesting image in my head - brush cutter by day, Free-/NetBSD hacker during the night. If they don't want to go into it, fine, just figured I might as well ask. Fine?
  - marttt 4y ago
    Brush cutter here -- not at all insulted by the question! I'm actually a trained journalist, but at one point I needed better work-life balance. Agreed to help out my (late) dad's classmate who is a forester. Brush cutting and tree planting seem to somehow fit my personality (excellent for loners who like physical effort in nasty weather, lol), so I stayed. As for BSD, Perl, Tiny Core Linux, Plan 9, etc -- I suppose I have a long-time intellectual interest in various "fringe" IT topics, computers as a tool for thinking, and repurposing old computers and ultra-minimal OSes in a meaningful way. I'm a horrible coder, but I love programming languages, lol. (I would have probably made a decent linguist, syntax or spoken language researcher, but oh well.) Obviously, HN is an excellent place for folks like me -- people who are (always?) slightly lost in life. Unable to make big bucks (this is fine!), but still intellectually curious. It really is a perfect online environment, and IMO a remarkably good embodiment of free speech and democracy. Thanks HN, and thanks dang, for the excellent moderation!
    - 4ggr0 4y ago
      > not at all insulted by the question! I'm relieved about that! Thanks for telling your story, glad that I asked :) And good to hear that you sound like you found your way.