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I can't begin to understand how you could make a comparison between a STEM career and music, art, or professional sports. I have worked, directly, for decades a

I can't begin to understand how you could make a comparison between a STEM career and music, art, or professional sports. I have worked, directly, for decades as both a professional musician and as a user interface designer, a web programmer, a graphic designer, and an internet marketer. I am a far more competent musician than any of the other skills. My resume in music is in the top 1/100th of a percent. I have been doing music far longer, and with more devotion. But I can far more easily pay my rent doing any of the other things listed. I can make mediocre user interfaces all day long and cover my mortgage with a week's salary. While doing web marketing on the side. And learn python in my spare time. If I want a world class musician to come to my studio and play, I can probably get them to do it as a favor, or for a small fee. If I want someone to do some coding for me, no amount of money seems to be sufficient. It makes my brain explode when people in computer science try to compare their lifestyle to that of a musician's. I have lived both. They are completely, utterly, unlike each other.

VLM 14y ago
Let me quote one of your other posts completely out of context: "And I live in NYC" The other 98% of us in tech do not live there, and most certainly do not have employment opportunities like you describe. Looking at the cost of living there, vs here, I kinda wonder about your claim of the mortgage being 25% of takehome, that doesn't add up unless you're in a really bad part of town or make an amazing amount of money. I live in what is locally about a 90th percentile income house, which in NYC would be what, like 5 million bucks? So that must be quite an income to pay that mortgage. I will tip my hat in your direction WRT music, there's making a living, and there's making life worth living, so thanks for making music in whatever small way you're doin it. However you just have to realize that if you don't live in Manhattan or SV that being "into" tech is a heck of a lot more like your music experience than like your tech experience. I've done extremely well and I'm incredibly lucky and/or arrogant depending on how I feel at the time of comment, but I'm well aware than for every one of me there's like 10 equally skilled guys sitting in a call center or pulling cat-5 cable or resetting passwords all day or even worse sitting at home, or working as a bartender or carpenter or truck driver or something. Nothing wrong with being a carpenter, something wrong with having a BSCS and your best offer is framing houses or driving a truck. I was just lucky, unlike the two people I'm talking about.
- whiddershins 14y ago
  I live in a modestly-sized Brooklyn apartment which I bought before the real estate bubble. Not in a 90th percentile house. So I can afford to play music. For perspective: I am not making music in a small way, I am an extremely fortunate musician who has worked with legends and toured the world many times, I have played Lolapalooza and the Sydney Opera house, I cowrote one of the most talked about records in the past few years and I have released a bunch of music solo and with my own bands as well. It is still easier for me to make a buck pushing pixels. I don't know, maybe I am a genius at computers and absolutely suck at music. I consider that possibility at least 3 times a week. But mostly, it just seems like one is a lot easier than the other. I talk to guys all the time who are the elite of the elite world class musicians, and they have to really hustle to make ends meet. YMMV.

VLM 14y ago

Let me quote one of your other posts completely out of context: "And I live in NYC" The other 98% of us in tech do not live there, and most certainly do not have employment opportunities like you describe. Looking at the cost of living there, vs here, I kinda wonder about your claim of the mortgage being 25% of takehome, that doesn't add up unless you're in a really bad part of town or make an amazing amount of money. I live in what is locally about a 90th percentile income house, which in NYC would be what, like 5 million bucks? So that must be quite an income to pay that mortgage. I will tip my hat in your direction WRT music, there's making a living, and there's making life worth living, so thanks for making music in whatever small way you're doin it. However you just have to realize that if you don't live in Manhattan or SV that being "into" tech is a heck of a lot more like your music experience than like your tech experience. I've done extremely well and I'm incredibly lucky and/or arrogant depending on how I feel at the time of comment, but I'm well aware than for every one of me there's like 10 equally skilled guys sitting in a call center or pulling cat-5 cable or resetting passwords all day or even worse sitting at home, or working as a bartender or carpenter or truck driver or something. Nothing wrong with being a carpenter, something wrong with having a BSCS and your best offer is framing houses or driving a truck. I was just lucky, unlike the two people I'm talking about.

whiddershins 14y ago
I live in a modestly-sized Brooklyn apartment which I bought before the real estate bubble. Not in a 90th percentile house. So I can afford to play music. For perspective: I am not making music in a small way, I am an extremely fortunate musician who has worked with legends and toured the world many times, I have played Lolapalooza and the Sydney Opera house, I cowrote one of the most talked about records in the past few years and I have released a bunch of music solo and with my own bands as well. It is still easier for me to make a buck pushing pixels. I don't know, maybe I am a genius at computers and absolutely suck at music. I consider that possibility at least 3 times a week. But mostly, it just seems like one is a lot easier than the other. I talk to guys all the time who are the elite of the elite world class musicians, and they have to really hustle to make ends meet. YMMV.