[HN Gopher] What happened to my career after 2010? (2021)
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What happened to my career after 2010? (2021)
Author : luu
Score : 209 points
Date : 2022-03-03 00:09 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gist.github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gist.github.com)
| kingcharles wrote:
| Please take care of your mental health, people. Especially as a
| man, most men are trained to avoid seeking help. If you think
| there is something suspect about your behaviour, get it checked
| out.
|
| In 2012 I realized there was something wrong with my brain, the
| way I was acting and living wasn't normal. 6 months later I sat
| down with my wife and we tried to make an appointment with a
| psychiatrist. It never happened because I was arrested due to my
| abnormal behaviour and spent the subsequent 8 years in jail. That
| was as bad as realizing that the 20 years before that had been
| lived vastly suboptimally.
|
| You only have one life to live. It sucks if you're not living it
| at 100% of your capacity.
| weakfish wrote:
| Hey, I'd love to hear more of your story if you're willing to
| share.
| going_ham wrote:
| This feeling hits home! This may sound very cliche, but one
| conversation with my dad changed my entire view of life. In that
| conversation when I questioned him how he was so happy, he
| replied that he had never expected anything out of life.
|
| The author also seems to find happiness out of the least expected
| things! He just tried things because he felt like it. Without
| expecting anything from it. It sounds selfish when people do
| things for themselves, but people like author needs these kind of
| work. The kind to let them go wild in their interest/imagination.
| Maybe author may find new interests, change his direction, and
| venture on new road. But that still means he is probably going to
| feel good about it.
|
| I hope he is still having a good time (and hope that he has no
| issue regarding money!) Make the best out of your moment and good
| luck with your ML adventures. Cheers!!
| jstarfish wrote:
| "Pessimists are seldom disappointed."
| slowhand09 wrote:
| "...he replied that he had never expected anything out of
| life."
|
| Something that helps is to lower your expectations of other
| people, then be pleasantly surprised when they "step up".
| honkycat wrote:
| The other day I was having drinks with friends, and a buddy of
| mine brings up medication.
|
| I am always advocating for taking responsibility for your mental
| health, finding a therapist, and getting on medication if you
| need it.
|
| So we had a chat, and I discovered something: Half the table was
| on Prozac. Some of the men, and basically all of the women.
| Apparently Prozac helps a TON with PMS.
|
| Another thing happened: I was talking to my brother, and he told
| me he got on a new medication. Yep, Prozac. It is like he is a
| different person. Happier, more artistic, more productive, more
| competent at work, able to procrastinate less.
|
| I hear it over and over again. PROZAC IS A MIRACLE DRUG.
|
| It is extremely helpful for people with anxiety, and can often
| massively reduce the symptoms of PMS.
|
| (Groan, I sound like an ad...)
|
| If you are struggling with anxiety, you do NOT need to talk to a
| therapist to try Prozac. Most medications are actually prescribed
| by your normal doctor. Just ask them, and they will likely give
| it to you. It's not like it is a party drug...
| claytonjy wrote:
| I've had similar realizations lately among my friends (early
| 30s). Especially since the pandemic, basically everyone is on
| one or more brain pills and most people have tried several.
|
| In contrast to your story, I have yet to meet someone who
| reacts well to Prozac. It seems to be the first thing a GP
| prescribes, but nobody stays on it. Lots of sexual dysfunction
| and weight gain, minimal positive effects.
|
| I was also put on it but did not stay long due to side effects
| and no improvement in other symptoms. I have been viewing it as
| a running joke in the industry, but I'm glad to hear it does in
| fact work for some people.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| After a year or two driving around a new town and being
| frustrated with drivers driving 10 mph or more under the speed
| limit, I heard an npr report that 1 in 5 drivers was on an
| ssri. Probably another 20% on pot.
|
| Correlation or causation of my anxiety, idk.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Can someone provide context here? Who is this?
| ayewo wrote:
| TFA was written by
| https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=sillysaurusx
|
| Context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27109946
| jeffwask wrote:
| A CPAP machine changed my life. I had undiagnosed sleep apnia for
| most of my adult life and just assumed being constantly tired was
| the way. Until 5 years ago, when I had a sleep study and started
| using a CPAP. I had avoided the problem it for so long because I
| didn't want to go sleep in some lab and how does someone sleep
| with a giant mask on their face every night. Just excuses despite
| multiple people telling me I would stop breathing when I slept
| and a habit of just falling a sleep when I stopped moving.
|
| The answers were: you don't need to sleep in a lab anymore most
| places have take home units and you get used to it quick because
| sleeping 8 hours and just waking up refreshed and really is worth
| anything.
|
| I can't preach any louder about getting a sleep study. It changed
| mine and my wife's lives for the better.
| sizzle wrote:
| Wow what a surprise ending, I thought the CPAP was going to solve
| your low energy and malaise problem but it was Prozac?
|
| How did the CPAP affect your energy levels though? Did you try it
| that before jumping on an antidepressant? I wish you tried CPAP
| and see how you felt before letting a doctor feed you pills that
| may or may not have been needed do to a positive Narcolepsy
| diagnosis, which effects quality of sleep and life and arguably
| sleep deprivation would lead to depressive episodes and would
| subside once you get all your REM cycles every night for days and
| weeks and months.
| criddell wrote:
| This is a great read and I'm happy for Shawn. Things seem to be
| better.
|
| I'm also grateful for the pointer to Gwern Branwen's site
| https://www.gwern.net/. What an amazing creation! I haven't even
| scrolled yet and already have half a dozen tabs open from it.
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's in the same class of cognitohazards as tvtropes.org.
| chaosharmonic wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're saying that stumbling across this site
| will _ruin_ my life, or _enhance_ it....
| barrenko wrote:
| I did my first hour of therapy this week and while I couldn't say
| anything unusual happened, I'm still in shock.
| fswd wrote:
| This doesn't sound like Narcolepsy? A narcolepic person will
| suddenly fall asleep during a conversation, and 5-10 minutes
| later wake up and continue talking as if nothing happened. I was
| giving a ride to somebody in NYC once from Florida and getting
| directions was difficult. Several times I had to drive around the
| block for 20 minutes or so, and she would wake up angry that we
| were going to wrong way. Eventually we got her home and she got
| her medication (modifinil).
| seanw444 wrote:
| I think that's just an extreme case. To my knowledge,
| narcolepsy is simply an "unquenchable tiredness." You're never
| not exhausted.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| Coincidentally, even I am thinking of making a switch from
| security to ML. I have just started my security career, but I
| already feel dissatisfied with not building stuff (and instead
| writing reports / doing analysis).
|
| I used to have an aversion to ML due to the hype, but when I dove
| a bit deeper in practice, I really liked it. Have now done
| several deeplearning.ai courses and building some stuff on my
| own.
|
| Looking into ML engineering / infrastructure work in the long
| term. Hard to switch domains given how saturated ML is, but if
| anyone has any leads, do contact me through my HN bio.
| elephanlemon wrote:
| Narcolepsy is a recognized disability under the ADA. I am
| surprised there was no mention of this in the article.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Yeah, really hoping he got a big fat severance for that.
| travisporter wrote:
| > I'm posting it here since HN rejects it with "that comment is
| too long.
|
| My god just thinking that you typed all this in a text box and
| were one accidental mouse click/backspace away from losing it all
| is making me shudder.
|
| That final link really resonated with me. thank you so much for
| sharing.
| bmitc wrote:
| And web apps are the "future".
| hateful wrote:
| I always type messages in an editor (EditPad Pro for me) and
| them paste them into the text boxes. I do this for email also.
| munificent wrote:
| I've experienced that so many times that whenever I'm typing a
| comment above a certain length, I switch to my text editor,
| write it there, and then paste it back into the browser when
| I'm done.
| [deleted]
| chaosharmonic wrote:
| Does this not persist when you navigate around? I've only ever
| seen the page contents here -- including text input values --
| change if I explicitly reload. I haven't looked in any detail,
| but based on the behavior it _seems_ to generally be getting
| cached in the browser?
|
| (Though it does seem to be an HN thing specifically, and yes, I
| would absolutely _dread_ this if I were typing a draft anywhere
| else)
| moonchrome wrote:
| Just out of curiosity - does modafinil help with narcolepsy ?
| AFAIK it's the only thing it's approved for.
| ketamine__ wrote:
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Aside the medical misfortunes your story is absolutely typical.
| The games industry has a tragic problem with churn. I see eager
| CS graduates go off to "get into games". Within a few years they
| get out, bitter and burned, and go into more regular jobs in
| medicine, defence, finance or whatever.
|
| It's called the 20:20:20 rule.
|
| Only 20 percent of creative projects ever get to the production
| stage Of those, only 20 percent complete production. And of
| those, 20 percent get through marketing and publishing to become
| "titles".
|
| That means if you are put into a team on a new creative project
| it has a roughly 0.8% chance of being sold online, and then you
| can tell all your friends about it.
|
| There are two further problems. One is that projects like games
| or films take about 2 years to complete. That means it's likely
| your first project will get canned. And your second. And your
| third. I have spoken to devs in the game business 6 or more years
| into their careers who have never seen a title release.
|
| If you are lucky to have a successful title and get into the
| "pop" stream, then it's more likely you'll get onto a team
| destined to have another success, and a positive success loop can
| begin. Just like the film or music business, that can take you 10
| or 15 years.
|
| The second is that creative people really need validation and
| feedback. Each time a management team kill a project it's a gut-
| wrenching experience for creative developers. Unlike music or the
| theatre where you might play out a few bad nights before a show
| is pulled you lose everything in a single stroke. Often for
| "intellectual property" or "reputational" reasons they want to
| bury the entire project assets and act like it never even
| happened. This leads creatives to get depressed.
|
| I've seen a lot of it and now warn students about "getting into
| games" or any other industry that subsidises 99.2% of dead-end
| misery with obscene profits it makes on 0.8% of mega-successes.
| But that's just the Pareto mathematics of high-risk creative
| work.
| kingcharles wrote:
| My whole childhood in the 80s was writing video games at home.
| It's all I wanted to do. I was really fucking good at it.
|
| First job out of school - writing video games professionally.
| It sucked. Really sucked. This was back in the mid-90s when the
| profession was in a _really_ bad place.
|
| I got out within 2 years and never went back :(
|
| I heard the industry was much better now, though?
|
| This is the game I worked on:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abomination:_The_Nemesis_Proje...
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I hope, as with the original article author, that you find a
| way to rediscover your childhood passion in a form that works
| for you today.
|
| It's not hard to understand what happened to our generation
| as teenage geeky culture turned into a multi-billion global
| business in less than a decade. A ton of brilliant
| programmers got left behind and left out. Not just because
| there's only room for a few John Carmacks or Tim Sweenys,
| (there's a good deal of luck in navigating an unfolding
| culture), but because rapid industrialisation changes the
| very nature of what it touches.
|
| Industrialisation of games had many unfortunate and
| unexpected effects. It made creativity a liability. Gaming is
| one of the most conservative industries on the planet, way,
| way ahead of music or film production for having cast itself
| in stone.
|
| Coincident with formulation and industrialisation came
| specialisation and a great deal of deskilling. I knew guys in
| the late 90s who built their own 3D engines, knew quaternion
| geometry, how to mix, reverberate and filter multi-channel
| audio in C++. Now you just grab and Unreal or Unity engine,
| plug in and go. In some tragic ways, the smarter those
| hackers were the quicker they found themselves on the
| margins, or out on the scrap heap.
|
| Like the music business, in the past 20 years the industry
| has functioned by burning through a lot of aspirational
| talent. It leaves a trail of broken hearts and dreams. As
| educators we have been complicit in overselling it, and
| feeding it with souls.
|
| You can always tell an industry is a hustle when the
| marketing machine harps-on about how to "break into" it.
| Young people are made to feel that if they were privileged to
| get a job it would have little to do with their merits and
| talents, but their guile and grit. If you wanted a job you
| had to "break in to", become a burglar. The hours and the pay
| are much better. Maybe that's why many of the kids I taught
| to code switched from chasing that rainbow to being hackers.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| _Coincident with formulation and industrialisation came
| specialisation and a great deal of deskilling. I knew guys
| in the late 90s who built their own 3D engines, knew
| quaternion geometry, how to mix, reverberate and filter
| multi-channel audio in C++. Now you just grab and Unreal or
| Unity engine, plug in and go. In some tragic ways, the
| smarter those hackers were the quicker they found
| themselves on the margins, or out on the scrap heap._
|
| What's weird to me is that I feel like we're in a gaming
| dark age. How can that be if gaming engines make everything
| so much easier?
|
| The single player game I probably played the most last year
| was MicroMages, a game written in 2019 for the 8-bit
| Nintendo Entertainment System. Somehow it was more
| captivating to me than say, GTA Online.
|
| Some of my other fondest memories of games were very, very
| obscure games with text graphics that aren't even well
| known among people who play games with text graphics. All
| made by lone hackers.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's also not unusual that even someone absolutely in the
| top 1% of the industry by one or more measures when
| relatively young just doesn't recapture the magic as
| companies change, consumer tastes change, etc. And even if
| they stay in the industry and talk at GDC and so forth,
| it's just not the same thing.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > I heard the industry was much better now, though?
|
| Perhaps get a hearing aid? It's extremely toxic.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| I've heard Robolox is a nice place to work and every other
| gaming company is a little better than it was in the past
| because they have to be.
| derekdahmer wrote:
| I believe the first and second 20% but you're saying 80% of
| _completed_ games are never released? I'm curious why this
| would be the case if the bulk of the cost is already sunk.
| wccrawford wrote:
| I think it depends on what you think "games" means. If you
| think it means AAA titles, then no, 80% of AAA titles don't
| fail at the last step.
|
| 80% of _all games created_ , including all the absolute
| garbage, fail. At least, that's how I read it.
|
| It's like when they say "90% of new businesses fail." Sure,
| but most of those were bad ideas in the first place.
| trevcanhuman wrote:
| Nice. I imagined the story as it went through. I definitely felt
| connected to it. This guy definitely is a good writer. I also
| wrote about my feelings quite recently [0]. I talk about how i
| went through some bad feelings and how I went back up. But I'm
| still in high school and never had a real job, if that matters.
|
| [0] https://trevcan.duckdns.org/blog/hello.touch.html
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