[HN Gopher] I'll never be an astronaut
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       I'll never be an astronaut
        
       Author : weird_science
       Score  : 142 points
       Date   : 2023-08-13 15:16 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (shaunoconnell.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (shaunoconnell.com)
        
       | dcassett wrote:
       | From the title I expected a humorous reference to the "Potential"
       | gag poster (https://despair.com/products/potential), probably
       | because the chances of anyone becoming an astronaut are very
       | slim.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | myrloc wrote:
       | > The surgeon told me I was too young to have a bioprosthetic
       | valve - from a pig or a cow - as these don't last like metal ones
       | do, and other surgical options, even though they wouldn't need
       | warfarin for ever were not recommended for me, as a relatively
       | young patient.
       | 
       | I had my pulmonary valve replaced when I was 13 with a porcine
       | (pig) valve. True, they don't last forever, but they can last a
       | good two decades before you need to exchange one out. My
       | cardiologist, as far as I know, plans to use another one for my
       | next surgery.
        
         | Supermancho wrote:
         | I have had a synthetic (metal/plastic) aortic heart valve for
         | decades. The differences in anatomic valves and the designs do
         | matter, day to day. My organic was replaced at 2 with a near-
         | experimental synthetic, then at 9 with a Bjork-Shiley design
         | (blood thinner from then on) then again at 32 with an Onyx
         | design.
         | 
         | My heart is now considered too damaged to get a more modern
         | version, even if there was a big improvement (unlikely). The
         | flow control and stress testing that has been done on
         | synthetics make them far superior to organics, among other
         | features like the multi-leaf design that makes blood thinners a
         | formality via FDA blanket process rules for synthetic approval.
         | 
         | I'm really surprised that anyone recommends organics for aortas
         | or even chooses to have them. To continue the rather opulent
         | lifestyles that celebrities/politicians might maintain, there
         | may be a narcissistic belief they can stave off the inevitable
         | growing handful of pills they need to take every day to soldier
         | on. Good luck to each and every one.
        
           | strangattractor wrote:
           | It is related to age. If your immune system is on the decline
           | as it generally is as we age it doesn't do as much damage to
           | the bioprosthetic valves and they last much longer. The
           | controversy revolves around just what that age is. When my
           | surgery was done I was in that gray zone 59. The first
           | surgeon I spoke with was adamant about using the mechanical
           | valve. The next surgeon I spoke with was more like I can see
           | arguments both ways.
           | 
           | I am fairly active. I chose the bio because I knew I would
           | have trouble regulating the thinners. The tissue is
           | chemically treated in the newer valves to increase their life
           | span (maybe). When I get this valve replaced they can insert
           | the new valve within the old using TAVR which doesn't require
           | them to open your chest. If my valve last long enough I
           | figure they will have new better ones using carbon
           | synthetics.[1]
           | 
           | [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9967268/
        
       | mrtri wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | ramshanker wrote:
       | This post is inspiring me to take care of my health better than
       | my current life style.
        
       | _sword wrote:
       | My father had an undiagnosed bicuspid aortic valve. He collapsed
       | while swimming when he was in his early 60's, thankfully in the
       | shallow end of the pool. He was pulled out unresponsive by
       | lifeguards, brought to a hospital, and thank God woke up. A few
       | weeks later and at a better hospital than our local one, he has a
       | porcine valve installed. That lasted about 20 years. Thanks to
       | his preference to avoid doctors during COVID, a few medical
       | issues occurred simultaneously and the worst ended up happening -
       | endocarditis, or an infection of the heart around this replaced
       | valve. He almost died a second time last year from this, but he
       | survived emergency open heart surgery that replaced the valve and
       | cut away a section of infected aorta.
       | 
       | Until this year he would always swears that he was the unluckiest
       | person. Now he's 82 and still alive after all this and he feels
       | lucky.
       | 
       | Go to your doctors regularly, get screened, and don't put off
       | procedures until they're an emergency.
        
       | bagacrap wrote:
       | I don't understand how the author can praise NHS for providing
       | this expensive surgery free of charge, whilst simultaneously
       | noting the hundreds/thousands of patients who die while on the
       | surgery waiting list.
       | 
       | Not to be morbid, but every time a patient dies before this
       | surgery, the NHS saves PS50-100,000. So is it really a successful
       | system if the only way to make the budget work is letting folks
       | die? Why on earth would the author not be gleefully prepared to
       | pump a little bit, or a lot, of his private funds into this
       | system in order to improve on his chances of survival?
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | > the only way to make the budget work is letting folks die?
         | 
         | "The budget" isn't a constant. It's something that politicians
         | have control over.
        
         | lostlogin wrote:
         | > Not to be morbid, but every time a patient dies before this
         | surgery, the NHS saves PS50-100,000.
         | 
         | Your looking at this too narrowly. There is a point when the
         | NHS saves money by having patients die - this is true in every
         | other health system too. But having a young tax payer die loses
         | them money in terms of future tax take. One can do the equation
         | and it would be something like healthcare cost versus tax take
         | multiplied by years of life left paying tax.
         | 
         | https://www.myhsn.co.uk/top-tip/how-much-does-the-nhs-cost
        
         | crote wrote:
         | > So is it really a successful system if the only way to make
         | the budget work is letting folks die?
         | 
         | The NHS doesn't get to make that decision. The problem is that
         | it has seen _literally_ a decade of budget cuts, despite a
         | rapidly aging population. Compared to countries like France and
         | Germany, the UK has far fewer doctors and nurses per capita.
         | 
         | The Tories are intentionally trying to make the NHS fail by
         | essentially strangling it as they _really_ want to privatize
         | it. As the decades before have shown, the NHS can operate
         | perfectly well when it is supplied with a proper budget.
        
         | kouru225 wrote:
         | The NHS may save that much money, but the US government
         | currently estimate the life of the average person to be worth
         | $10 million (btw this figure was created in the '80s so keep
         | inflation in mind). So how much is the UK losing here? It's a
         | net negative to let people die.
        
           | bagacrap wrote:
           | I don't know where that number comes from but I'm assuming
           | it's a contribution to GDP over a lifetime or something.
           | Seems high, but whatever.
           | 
           | The people dying of aortic stenosis have already completed a
           | large percent of their lifetime contributions and may even be
           | into the net negative territory (when you're retired and
           | society has to take care of you).
        
             | kouru225 wrote:
             | And how much do you estimate the cost of their early death
             | to be? Their children who mourn and become bitter at the
             | government and their society for not providing life saving
             | surgeries to their parents while the rich preserve their
             | fossilized parents... how much money will you advocate we
             | should spend on propaganda to manage their vulnerable
             | mental state? How much less money do enemies of the state
             | need to spend in order to bring those people over to their
             | cause and betray your government? And when terrorist
             | attacks become worse, how much money will you advocate
             | wasting on an increased police state?
             | 
             | If anything, the $10 million + inflation is an
             | understatement. There's no end to the potential monetary
             | value of increased quality of life, and there's no end to
             | the monetary loss of decreased quality of life.
        
             | lostlogin wrote:
             | > The people dying of aortic stenosis have already
             | completed a large percent of their lifetime contributions
             | 
             | I was sure you'd be wrong here, as congenital stenosis is a
             | thing. You were right - shows what you learn working in a
             | centre when congenital disease is a specialty.
             | 
             | Average age of death is in 70s.
             | 
             | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-15316-6
        
         | afterburner wrote:
         | Are you advocating for increasing the NHS budget, or replacing
         | it with privatized health care?
        
           | NikkiA wrote:
           | Probably for privatised health care - once it's down to money
           | it's the individual's fault for not being able to afford to
           | live and no longer a failing of the system. Thus goes the
           | libertarian concept of personal responsibility.
        
             | kouru225 wrote:
             | And yet this is a terrible plan because purposely killing
             | people is actually terrible for the economy and any money
             | saved will be drowned by the amount of money lost,
             | especially since the money saved will go directly into the
             | pockets of the people who own the privatized healthcare
             | companies and not back into the pockets of the people.
        
               | afterburner wrote:
               | Libertarians aren't actually that great at looking at the
               | big picture.
        
               | bagacrap wrote:
               | You guys are tilting at windmills here. I didn't advocate
               | for anything except common sense. Unless you value money
               | more than lives, this system is clearly shite, but the
               | author doesn't acknowledge that, probably due to
               | politics.
               | 
               | The budget is part of the system. If you assume unlimited
               | resources, then every system will work flawlessly.
        
               | kouru225 wrote:
               | It's only common sense to present the pros and cons of
               | policy. You don't seem to even think it's worth your time
               | to take an actual stab at estimating the cost of death,
               | and so it's only common sense to think you haven't
               | thought your way through this at all. You're still
               | arguing this is a budgetary concern without acknowledging
               | the fact that your policy may actually result in a worse
               | budgetary concern.
               | 
               | You know what's also common sense? That death isn't a
               | good thing. More death = worse society. Bad society = no
               | money.
        
               | afterburner wrote:
               | You still haven't answered whether you're advocating for
               | improving or starving the NHS. Although if you're intent
               | on shitting on the NHS as if it's _intrinsically_ bad
               | (regardless of budget), I would strongly suspect you are
               | advocating for more private health care, and vote
               | conservative.
               | 
               | Feel free to elaborate on what your common sense dictates
               | as a solution.
        
         | ColinWright wrote:
         | They don't, you have mis-read the section:
         | 
         | > _If hip, hernia and cataract waiting lists had a similar
         | mortality rate then tens of thousands would die before they got
         | their op._
         | 
         | For these other types of operations there can be very long
         | waiting lists, but these are not conditions from which people
         | die suddenly without warning.
         | 
         | The NHS has its problems, but I, for one, am glad that if I get
         | a life-threatening condition I will be treated according to my
         | need without having to bankrupt myself in the process.
         | Additionally, I'm glad the insurance companies don't drive the
         | pricing of quite cost effective drugs and treatments until they
         | are out of range of the uninsured, even though they could
         | easily be priced affordably.
        
           | adastra22 wrote:
           | He gave sufficient numbers to do the math on how many people
           | die while waiting for their turn. It is thousands in this
           | case.
           | 
           | Regarding the NHS you are falling victim to the binary choice
           | fallacy. It is not a strict choice between NHS's model and
           | the American hyper privatized healthcare. Where I'm writing
           | this, Taiwan, there is a first-class healthcare system that
           | has national single-payer insurance for all residents (only
           | $27/mo!!), and generally no waiting list and patients can
           | normally see any specialist they wish with walk-in
           | appointments during usual working hours.
           | 
           | You can have your cake and eat it too.
        
             | arrowsmith wrote:
             | > It is not a strict choice between NHS's model and the
             | American hyper privatized healthcare.
             | 
             | You'd be amazed by how few people in the UK understand
             | this.
        
               | lostlogin wrote:
               | Same goes for the US.
        
             | sneak wrote:
             | Also, almost anyone who wishes can, at any time, fly to a
             | country that has affordable and efficient healthcare and be
             | a customer.
             | 
             | I have friends (Americans) who have had procedures recently
             | in South Korea, Turkiye, and Germany. Sometimes it's just
             | easier and faster, and isn't that expensive even if you
             | don't use insurance.
        
               | tenpies wrote:
               | I'm honestly surprised there is not an entire class of
               | insurance programs for people who happen to live in a
               | jurisdiction that has basically said "we would rather you
               | die on a wait list than allow private healthcare" (e.g.
               | British Columbia in Canada[1]). That insurance would
               | cover healthcare abroad, maybe constrained to certain
               | geographies and conditions. Unlike travel insurance it
               | would assume that your care abroad is necessary due to a
               | lack of services in your home jurisdiction.
               | 
               | Perhaps the actuarial data is hard to collect, but I
               | suspect it would be a booming business as most countries
               | with socialised system seem to be heading towards a total
               | decline, if not outright collapse.
               | 
               | ---
               | 
               | [1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/b-c-upholds-ban-
               | on-priv...
        
               | adastra22 wrote:
               | That's why I'm in Taiwan right now :)
        
           | strangattractor wrote:
           | I had the same surgery done in the good old US of A and I
           | only had to wait 3 months to schedule surgery in the SF Bay
           | area. How bout that for service;) Knocking the NHS is getting
           | really tiresome. The US with it's private insurance is
           | already making people wait and also not providing optimal
           | outcomes while still being overly expensive. The fact is
           | either system can work - but we as a society have not
           | prioritized the necessary training in volume to make these
           | highly technical jobs available at scale.
           | 
           | [1] 28K new doctors are minted in the US each year. [2]
           | Predicted shortfall of doctors up 124K by 2034
           | 
           | [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+doctors+graduate
           | +ea...
           | 
           | [2] https://www.aamc.org/news/aging-patients-and-doctors-
           | drive-n...
        
         | tux3 wrote:
         | The only way to make the budget work, for all of medicine
         | worldwide, is to let people die (!)
         | 
         | There's a marginal dollar cost on saving one extra life, versus
         | not saving it. It's not that we're out of people to save, it's
         | just not in the budget to save the next one. The one more.
         | 
         | You can contribute using generosity.
        
           | crote wrote:
           | It's not that simple, though. You can't set a budget and let
           | everyone die once you reach your limit.
           | 
           | Healthcare often uses "quality-adjusted life years", where
           | the value of a medical intervention is judged by the amount
           | and quality of the life years gained by doing the
           | intervention. Once you set a value on a life year, it becomes
           | a simple calculation whether the treatment is worth it. $5000
           | operation to save a newborn baby? Obviously worth it. $10M so
           | a 90-year-old can live three more months? Yeah, not going to
           | happen.
           | 
           | The best part is that you can apply a similar principle to
           | _other_ things. For example, at a certain point you gain more
           | quality-adjusted life year per $ if you spend it on non-
           | healthcare things, such as safer roads, better education,
           | preventing homelessness, and fighting crime.
        
             | tux3 wrote:
             | I agree it's not that simple, and finding better
             | interventions in term of quality-adjusted life years seems
             | really good!
             | 
             | I'm not sure though how much elasticity there is in
             | people's willingness to contribute more in response to more
             | effective medical interventions. Setting a value on a life-
             | year makes sense when choosing intervention, but
             | individuals looking at their taxes or charitable
             | contributions don't have a step-change reaction where
             | they're happy to give without limits to the $X QALY
             | opportunity until it becomes $X+1
             | 
             | I do think you have that budget in a very real sense, and
             | I'm not sure I know exactly how sensitive it is to the
             | effectiveness of the interventions, especially as you
             | expand out. I'd argue that the current price of a life year
             | still seems relatively cheap, but the healthcare system
             | does not often complain from being inundated with too much
             | funding.
        
           | voakbasda wrote:
           | No one wants to believe this. But it is absolutely true:
           | there is no healthcare system that can save everyone forever.
           | 
           | The growing assortment of treatments to combat issues that
           | arise naturally through aging gave rise to the expectation
           | that we can live longer. Technically, that's true, but the
           | collective cost of care starts to go exponential. At some
           | point, we must acknowledge that we will go bankrupt trying to
           | save everyone.
           | 
           | I wish there was a way for people to check out before they
           | become such a burden on society. Until then, we had better
           | make peace with the reality that "death panels" are choosing
           | for us, because we as a civilization can't afford for
           | everyone to live their longest possible life.
        
             | ChoHag wrote:
             | [dead]
        
             | MattRix wrote:
             | I see no logical reason for this to be true, certainly not
             | in any absolute sense.
        
               | [deleted]
        
       | golem14 wrote:
       | Don't love all the negative attitude about the NHS in the
       | comments. Yes, could be better. Still, amazing progress over
       | time. This un-constructive pessimism really doesn't serve much
       | purpose IMO.
       | 
       | Heartfelt (no pun intended) get-well wishes to the author. May he
       | be able to send many more excellent write-ups.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | dmbche wrote:
       | Riveting writing. I have a family member who collapsed from
       | sudden cardiac failure, from a non diagnosed heart syndrome she
       | had since birth - she luckily was at the hospital when it
       | happened.
       | 
       | This and aneurysms make me value the small things in life - you
       | could fall down and die any minute.
       | 
       | I hope the sound of the valve will fade away!
        
         | shadowofneptune wrote:
         | Got diagnosed this year with mitral valve prolapse. It won't be
         | an issue medically for some time, but it is definitely sobering
         | to feel the heart beating so strongly.
        
         | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
         | I think an aortic aneurysm is what took out John Ritter.
         | 
         | He was in terrific shape, and just dropped dead.
         | 
         | I know someone else that was also in great shape (AT through-
         | hiker), and died of a brain aneurysm. They found him dead in
         | his RV, in Vermont.
         | 
         | We all have today, and right now, is the only guarantee.
         | 
         | I also know folks that have _very_ bad quality of life, yet
         | somehow, manage to have a great attitude.
        
           | ghufran_syed wrote:
           | I think strictly speaking it was an aortic dissection that
           | killed John Ritter, not an aneurysm. Aneurysms grow slowly,
           | and like a balloon, the wall thickness goes down as the
           | vessel circumference increases. So then it can suddenly leak.
           | The aneurysm is chronic (though often asymptomatic), the leak
           | is usually sudden and catastrophic. An aortic dissection is a
           | sudden tear in a usually non-aneurysmal aorta, if the leak
           | goes all the way through it's usually immediately lethal, but
           | often the pressure of blood "dissects" (separates) the inner
           | and outer walls of the aorta, leading to all sorts of weird
           | symptoms, which is why it is often misdiagnosed (A vascular
           | surgeon was once reported to have said about aortic
           | dissection that the "the standard of care is to miss the
           | diagnosis", because it so often mimics other conditions, both
           | benign and dangerous. )
        
           | somenameforme wrote:
           | Grant Imahara from Mythbusters is another one. 49 and in
           | ostensibly great health, taken out by an aneurism. Life is
           | short, at best, but for many of us it will fall shorter even
           | still.
        
             | klipt wrote:
             | Ultimately we're all made of meat, and sometimes the meat
             | goes bad.
        
       | bhickey wrote:
       | > If you're standing outside a cardiothoracic operating theatre,
       | you have a better chance than the majority who will be miles away
       | living their lives.
       | 
       | Most of the time you don't, but sometimes you get lucky. When
       | Neil Clarke had his "widowmaker" heart attack he was at a
       | conference down the street from a hospital[0]. In another case,
       | an new father suffered an aortic dissection walking in the front
       | door of Brigham and Women's Hospital[1].
       | 
       | [0] http://neil-clarke.com/the-day-it-nearly-ended/ [1]
       | https://bwhpublicationsarchives.org/DisplayBulletin.aspx?art...
        
         | js2 wrote:
         | A previous boss of mine had a heart attack while finishing a 5K
         | turkey trot. He happened to be nearby multiple emergency and
         | medical personal who started administering CPR immediately. He
         | survived and still runs.
         | 
         | https://archive.ph/Yc4gU
         | 
         | Bob Odenkirk was also very lucky that through a set of unusual
         | circumstances, there was an AED available when he had a heart
         | attack on set:
         | 
         | > Rosa Estrada -- we were very lucky that this woman was nearby
         | because she knew how to do CPR properly, and she had the AED
         | [defibrillator] in her car, and she only had it in her car
         | because she was returning it to somebody who she borrowed [it
         | from]. It was a total crazy coincidence that she had put it in
         | her car, and I guess she'd had tried to return it, but the
         | friend wasn't home. Otherwise she wouldn't have had it either.
         | And so it's only because of that circumstance that it was in
         | the trunk of her car. And I'm sure that helped me immensely. I
         | mean, the CPR is number one, but the fact is, I didn't get a
         | heart rate for 18 minutes after this started, and that's a long
         | time.
         | 
         | https://www.npr.org/2022/07/25/1112731181/better-call-saul-b...
        
       | pcardoso wrote:
       | My oldest son was born with a similar condition. First murmurs at
       | birth, then aortic stenosis diagnosis at 1 month, severity still
       | unknown due to the heart immaturity, and the urgent operation at
       | 2 months old to try fix it. A balloon was inserted into his
       | aortic valve by a catheter from his groin and expanded to dilate
       | the valve. It was a terrifying experience, but one that worked
       | great for us. He may have to have a replacement one day, but for
       | now he is healthy and off any medication. We have yearly
       | checkups.
       | 
       | I am told replacement surgeries can be done via catheter, sparing
       | the much larger risk in have the chest cracked open.
       | 
       | A huge thank you to SNS, the portuguese NHS. All this was done
       | free of charges. It gets a bad rep from some things that don't
       | work well, but I only have good things to say.
       | 
       | A year later I was preparing our 1 year old party and had a call
       | from a friend which had a baby born with a much severe heart
       | condition. He didn't survive the required operation and I really
       | felt for him. It messed me up. We had been in the same spot but I
       | had been very lucky. Still am.
        
       | pbj1968 wrote:
       | Runs in my wife's family. Most of them refuse to get scanned. The
       | taint of "pre-existing conditions" haunts many, and there's
       | really not much to be done about it. I just carry a lot of life
       | insurance on her and we live our lives.
       | 
       | Meanwhile, I'm a land whale that's been CT scanned and been told
       | by a frequent NYT contributing cardiologist "I have no
       | explanation for how a man your size has such a healthy heart."
       | 
       | Genetics, yo.
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | This person's adoration of the NHS, the mismanagement of which is
       | possibly actively killing them, is somewhat amazing.
       | 
       | That said, there are great cardiac surgery hospitals on the
       | continent that take private payers. He could get patched up near
       | immediately for a small fraction of the price cited in the
       | article.
       | 
       | I was going to write him specific information but his "contact"
       | page doesn't have an email address.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | slamonjam wrote:
       | What a great write up. Hope that Shaun will have his surgery
       | soon.
       | 
       | I underwent mitral valve surgery this summer due to mitral
       | insufficiency. Fortunately the surgeon was able to repair my
       | heart valve using a Physioring. This means that I will not need
       | life long warfarin treatment, only 3 months post surgery (which
       | is soon up).
       | 
       | When I woke up after the surgery my first thought was "I can no
       | longer feel my heart beat". Before due to the insufficiency my
       | heart worked hard and I could mostly feel every heart beat even
       | at rest.
       | 
       | Now that its been a few months I'm feeling so much better than
       | before the surgery - like I've been given my life and a future
       | back.
       | 
       | Without the surgery I would have developed heart failure and died
       | in a few years time. Now I have good odds at making it to
       | retirement age and hopefully even more. Certainly a humbling
       | thought.
        
         | strangattractor wrote:
         | If you read this Shaun - you will eventually feel better than
         | before the surgery!
        
       | xwdv wrote:
       | Personally I'd rather be a scientist doing a stint in Antarctica
       | than be any kind of astronaut, although I know there is no use
       | for a software engineer over there.
        
         | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
         | I think this person is in IT: https://brr.fyi
         | 
         | May not be a software engineer, but they have an interesting
         | job.
        
         | dysoco wrote:
         | There are computers and electronics systems in Antartica, so
         | they obviously need technicians/engineers to maintain those, I
         | know someone who has been there for some months doing that.
         | It's not software development but you might apply if you know
         | some sysadmin/technician things.
        
           | Eddygandr wrote:
           | The Cambridge based British Antarctic Survey group hire
           | sysadmins which don't look particular senior however the pay
           | _sucks_ which could be an issue for those with mortgages etc.
           | PS25k or something if I remember correctly.
        
             | rsynnott wrote:
             | 25k?! That's only slightly above minimum wage, isn't it?
             | That has to be the worst-paid sysadmin job in the UK,
             | surely.
        
               | Eddygandr wrote:
               | My first tech job at 19 was sysadmin in Exeter for PS13k
               | lol, as a first line technician. Pretty sure the only
               | reason I got that job was I didn't care about salaries so
               | just said what I was earning at an electronics store.
               | 
               | PS25k is definitely low though.
        
               | Spooky23 wrote:
               | Universities always pay the professional-ish help poorly.
               | 
               | You want to be a janitor or a deputy Vice Provost or
               | something to work at a college.
        
               | eternityforest wrote:
               | The most I've ever made in my life was $28k. I'd probably
               | be perfectly happy with 25k to be honest, at least until
               | real self driving cars exist, that's pretty much the one
               | expensive luxury thing I want besides a few vacations.
        
               | xwdv wrote:
               | Your priorities are messed up. A self driving car for
               | what, so you don't have to drive back and forth between
               | your $25k job?
        
               | Eddygandr wrote:
               | > Your priorities are messed up.
               | 
               | They could be from a country with a lost CoL so $28k is a
               | huge deal, they could be living the life they want doing
               | a job they love, etc... Just so happens some future tech
               | is interesting enough that they wish they could afford
               | that too. Not everyone is in tech for the FAANG bucks!
               | 
               | Although if GP wishes they could earn more I assume any
               | account holder on HN is technical enough to find a remote
               | job paying more than that if they wanted.
        
             | dysoco wrote:
             | Well yeah, it's a government job so it's probably going to
             | suck money-wise; the guy I know ended up losing money I
             | believe because he had to buy a lot of snow clothes and
             | paid travel expenses on his own account.
             | 
             | Moreover, I believe he had a really bad time there because
             | the population in the base was mostly military and they
             | treated him like shit in the most military bootcamp style
             | with physical aggressions and such. So, he ended up not
             | completing the whole term. (This probably will depend on
             | the country of course).
        
               | Eddygandr wrote:
               | It's a research institute so I don't think it's directly
               | a government role, more like a university. I see adverts
               | at Oxford University for sysadmins at around PS45-65k so
               | it's on the low side for what I consider comparable jobs,
               | but my thinking might be flawed
        
               | robertlagrant wrote:
               | It's pretty bad considering Oxford prices.
               | 
               | (Source: I am an Oxford resident.)
        
               | Eddygandr wrote:
               | Agreed, although most companies in Oxford never really
               | matched living costs either (well, housing costs) -
               | Oxford Uni pay staff comparably to other companies in the
               | area (like Elsevier or Oxford Computer Consultants). Let
               | alone the low salaries in academia there...
        
         | rcpt wrote:
         | I feel like astronaut is only a good idea if you really enjoy
         | long airplane rides.
        
         | syntaxing wrote:
         | This person's blog pops up every once in a while in HN but
         | might be a good inspiration [1].
         | 
         | [1] https://brr.fyi/
        
         | jacoblambda wrote:
         | It depends what you do.
         | 
         | If you do embedded software/embedded hardware
         | (microcontrollers, FPGA, kernel dev kinda stuff), you'd
         | probably have a spot with the experiment operators. Maintaining
         | the experiments generally requires a decent bit of low level
         | software and hardware experience even if you aren't necessarily
         | sitting down and coding every day.
         | 
         | And if you are good with interpreting/processing data you may
         | also still be able to land a seat with the experiment operators
         | since they do that as well.
         | 
         | Or if you have Ops/DevOps, SysAdmin, or DB Admin experience,
         | you likely could secure a slot in IT.
         | 
         | You likely wouldn't get the job the first time around but if
         | you keep submitting applications, eventually you are likely to
         | secure a job down on the ice.
        
         | eichin wrote:
         | https://icecube.wisc.edu/jobs/ doesn't have anything right now
         | but they used to have a bunch of sysadmin/sre positions ("do
         | you know ethernet cabling _and_ python " kind of thing - they
         | used to recruit at pycon US.) So there are definitely
         | opportunities...
        
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