Wow, so much to pack in and respond to so I will start with a TLDR of a +1 annectoda of ‘it can be done’.
Did I make the right choice? Yes and No. Did it work out ok/well? Yes... And No.
Would I do the same again? Yes.
Note: I considered posting under a Temp/Throwaway nick but figured meh, to hell with it.
The following is just a +1 anecdotal "can be done" rambling of some internet stranger so take it with as many pinches of salt as you wish :)
I am 'semi-retired' from the IT game, rode the Y2K and Dot-com boom and bust and semi-retired/ 'left' the industry back in late 2012. At that time I had reached a level where I could pick and choose and/or name a price without worry, secure in the knowledge that within a day or two my phone would ring with someone else on the end desperate to have a problem fixed. {Will list my reasons for getting out of the IT game at the end of this comment}.
I branched out in to a non-IT related field (but was still a very technical and hands-on field). We are who/what we are and I just have this itch to 'fix' stuff.
My pay at first was a LOT less than I was earning previously (roughly 1/10th) but within two years it was on par and within 5 years it was about 3x what I was earning in IT so yes, it can be done.
The thing to ask yourself is this (I'm assuming here that you have considered all possible different roles within the industry and found that none of them would suit you. If you haven't done that yet then do so with haste. Often it's better the devil you know).
Also consider this - Wherever you go, You always take the Weather with you. In other words - If you haven't identified the underlying cause of your dissatisfaction then even if you do decide to trade fields you will find yourself asking the exact same question on a different technical forum within a few years ;)
If still convinced that a change of career is the right thing to do (hint – the fact that you haven’t reached the point where you go Fuck it – anything is better than doing this even if it means going back to Ramen Noodle Days suggests that you aren’t at that point) then consider doing a good old fashioned “likes and dislikes” and a SWOT analysis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis ) to identify where/what to do next.
Those same strengths that brought me to that point in my IT career of where I could chose who to pick up the phone to also served me well in my ‘new’ choice of career. How did I identify the new field I chose to get in to? By trawling through a lot of Job sites (with pay filtering turned off) and just clicked/viewed the vacancies that sounded of interest. This gave me a really good idea of what interested me and if something was of interest then a quick Google/Glass-door search for roles within that industry showed the max potential earnings). As an example – “Street Sweeper” ticked a lot of my ‘boxes’ except that even the best of street sweepers could never hope to come close to what I would like to earn. But doing that gave me the criteria to narrow down on what aspects ARE essential for me in any role.
{Reasons for leaving IT}
During the 2000’s the amount of pure greed, the countless ‘chancers’ (aka “cowboys”) in the field left me sickened and disgusted.
What ever you decide - Good luck and I hope you find happiness/contentment.
I think the lede is this ... * " began testing a system to use artificial intelligence to recognize secret words and messages for drug trafficking efficiently in order to ask Twitter to delete them. *
As is almost always the case - the road to hell is paved with good intentions & mutters something, something slippery slope towards automated censorship.
And as always it's "think of the children" or another one of the boogie-man "reasons".
I have an almost Pavlovian response to be against any initiative that uses those dog-whistles.
"Quickly create and run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux desktop VMs" submitted four hours ago which points to the GitHub repo (TFA links to it at top of article)
" ... and to legally prevent anyone doing it from calling it eco-friendly."
Ok, that bit I can agree with.
Buuuttt, what I have a problem with is this - if Sweden / EU wants to ban crypto mining then simply create a specific industry code [1] that covers crypto mining and legislate/tax accordingly.
One of the criticisms of this device as per the article is that the critics feel that it might entrap marine life. That sounds like a reasonable criticism and is one that is refuted by the inventor saying that the ‘net’ is towed at low enough speeds and it also has various lights, escape paths etc. as mitigations but nobody seems to say either “it was zero caught so pffft to that criticism” or “yes a small amount were caught up but was it a small enough number that the benefits to species x,y,z outweigh the small amount of accidental damage” or (from the critics) “it was a fish massacre”.
I appreciate there might be technical reasons why the inventor is unable to determine the exact quantity (if any) however the absence of any quantities being mentioned at all is puzzling and either a missed opportunity to ‘slay the nay-sayers’ or is something they would rather not mention.
In fairness there may be an exact figure available somewhere out there but wasn’t something a quick dig through the first few pages of search results revealed.
If you compare to wind turbines, the scale of the potential harm is small enough that it takes proper scientific investigation to say whether it is a problem, and whether any particular attempt to improve things is helping.
Easy enough to make claims, but they're worthless without the science to back them up.
Thanks for posting this - I almost posted a slightly better / different link to a Betty Crocker Effect page [1] but checked the comments first and TIL, Snopes (FWIW) agrees that your are correct (see [2]).
Personal opinion only based on a life-times worth of collecting grey hairs. Stick with your studies.
A certificate is much more valuable in the long run compared to 'worked at startup xyz for 2 months before it folded/leveraged/pivoted’.
Yes there is a genuine fear that you might turn down a role in the next unicorn and miss out on a fortune but realistically playing the odds that the bit of paper will be worth more than an entry on your CV makes it worth sticking to your studies.
Personal experience story time: I once quit a course a few weeks away from graduating in order to take an oppurtunity that seemed to good to be true. Turns out that it was indeed too good to be true and the company folded a few years later. If I could turn back time I would do so on that one (and a few others).
FOMO and sweet whispers of untold wealth if only you get in early enough tempt many to abandon their studies.
Some times it works out, often it does not but ask yourself this - how often do startups turn in to unicorns?
Yes by passing on the offer you might miss the next Google but be guided by the statistics and acknowledge that you are still green enough to be unable to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Personal experience data point of n=1. Number of unicorns missed by passing on a job offer = 0. Number of roles that opened up because I had some piece(s) of paper that provided solid evidence of skills and abilities = 20+
IKEA and Costco (amongst others) have chartered entire ships in order to secure shipping slots. A few weeks back there was a "Ask HN" posted about how to set up a shipping company. Shipyards are back-logged with orders for container ships. Shipping rates are through the roof.
My biggest concern is that when the bubble bursts (i.e. the global backlog is processed) that there will be a hella lot of insolvencies which will lead to cancelled orders (for container ships) which will lead to lay-offs as shipping prices crash.
Sometimes 'The Market' makes no sense to me, Sometimes it makes me SMH. Other times, it makes me weep.
Did I make the right choice? Yes and No. Did it work out ok/well? Yes... And No.
Would I do the same again? Yes.
Note: I considered posting under a Temp/Throwaway nick but figured meh, to hell with it.
The following is just a +1 anecdotal "can be done" rambling of some internet stranger so take it with as many pinches of salt as you wish :)
I am 'semi-retired' from the IT game, rode the Y2K and Dot-com boom and bust and semi-retired/ 'left' the industry back in late 2012. At that time I had reached a level where I could pick and choose and/or name a price without worry, secure in the knowledge that within a day or two my phone would ring with someone else on the end desperate to have a problem fixed. {Will list my reasons for getting out of the IT game at the end of this comment}.
I branched out in to a non-IT related field (but was still a very technical and hands-on field). We are who/what we are and I just have this itch to 'fix' stuff.
My pay at first was a LOT less than I was earning previously (roughly 1/10th) but within two years it was on par and within 5 years it was about 3x what I was earning in IT so yes, it can be done.
The thing to ask yourself is this (I'm assuming here that you have considered all possible different roles within the industry and found that none of them would suit you. If you haven't done that yet then do so with haste. Often it's better the devil you know).
Also consider this - Wherever you go, You always take the Weather with you. In other words - If you haven't identified the underlying cause of your dissatisfaction then even if you do decide to trade fields you will find yourself asking the exact same question on a different technical forum within a few years ;)
If still convinced that a change of career is the right thing to do (hint – the fact that you haven’t reached the point where you go Fuck it – anything is better than doing this even if it means going back to Ramen Noodle Days suggests that you aren’t at that point) then consider doing a good old fashioned “likes and dislikes” and a SWOT analysis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis ) to identify where/what to do next.
Those same strengths that brought me to that point in my IT career of where I could chose who to pick up the phone to also served me well in my ‘new’ choice of career. How did I identify the new field I chose to get in to? By trawling through a lot of Job sites (with pay filtering turned off) and just clicked/viewed the vacancies that sounded of interest. This gave me a really good idea of what interested me and if something was of interest then a quick Google/Glass-door search for roles within that industry showed the max potential earnings). As an example – “Street Sweeper” ticked a lot of my ‘boxes’ except that even the best of street sweepers could never hope to come close to what I would like to earn. But doing that gave me the criteria to narrow down on what aspects ARE essential for me in any role.
{Reasons for leaving IT} During the 2000’s the amount of pure greed, the countless ‘chancers’ (aka “cowboys”) in the field left me sickened and disgusted.
What ever you decide - Good luck and I hope you find happiness/contentment.