Tech refugee

submitted by [deleted] from self.Introductions

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[–]magnora7 14 insightful - 3 fun14 insightful - 2 fun15 insightful - 3 fun -  (11 children)

Hey welcome to saidit. I'm pretty tired of the tech scene in a lot of ways too, I can relate.

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 5 fun10 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 5 fun -  (10 children)

Thanks, it's pretty bad. My first computer was a Commodore something that was basically a keyboard you hook to a CRT tv and saved your progams on a casette tape. Nostalgia heaven for my age, from what I gather. It came with games, but you had to build them yourself and save them to the tape to play them. It was like doing magic and was definitely part of the reason I got into tech, but that magic is long gone and it's all SEO keywords, fending off bots and scripties, arguing with support people who you can't understand and realizing how bad the company you work for got ripped off by crap software vendors. I hate this crap and every aged out boomer tells me the same story: "I hated it and bought a farm" or "now I just trade futures, to hell with blah-blah-tech crap". And now I've got grey hairs and I'm as salty as they are and I'm getting out soon. It used to be a passion, now it's just a job I want to get away from.

I had intentions to make this site, that app, just for kicks or whatever, but that's not happening until I don't do it for a paycheck. It is tiring. It's not rewarding at all. It's just money, and that completely kills it for me.

[–]magnora7 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 children)

My parents had a Commodore64 and the little 10" CRT tv I used to watch all the time as a kid, after they stopped using the Commodore. It was a bit before my time. My first real computer experience was DOS and playing games like Caesar II. My first personal computer years later was an IBM Aptiva with a pop-up cd drive and windows 95. It was awesome.

I was going to work as a CPU design engineer but after a few internships I realized what a nightmare it was, and how it was all boring incremental crap that was basically done by Chinese people for pennies on the dollar so it's very hard to get a job as an American too. Then I programmed fMRI machines for a year and then was fired the week I finished their research experiment codebase, when I was misled to believe it was a permanent position.

And software engineering has always been a turn-off for me, I like simple good code but I loathe bloated architectures. I've heard the same stories about leaving tech, it's high burn out, especially the stuff dealing with anonymous people online these days is pretty annoying because there's so many dedicated paid shill/bot farms now, and lots of people who realize they won't get caught. I can justify the work for saidit because I'm creating a public good that's beneficial for communication and culture (or that's what I tell myself anyway) which is at least better than some projects that just exist to make money, or don't even get used. So I've got that going for me. But yeah, it's just a lot of complexity to manage, it's tiring for sure

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

DOS was king. X-wing, Crystal Caves, Wolfenstein and DooM, I used to play DooM so much I would have nightmares about being in the game. My dad had DOS with Norton Commander as a file manager, and I remember being absolutely amazed when he installed windows 3.1 and it ran for the first time. That was when you did stuff in DOS and ran Windows when you needed to, I think it was better that way. It was like being headless but having a GUI on demand. He had a set of disks called the 'Windows Bible' that wasn't about the Bible but had a ton of free and demo software, and it included a lot of games from Apogee and Id (which I think are the same company?) like Commander Keen and BioHazard. Good times.

Didn't realize I was talking to the bossman, I like your show already, I've already been here for a couple hours and every time I click save there's a new response. Phew, gonna have to call off soon.

But yeah, it is an incremental nightmare, and it's all getting outsourced for cheaper and cheaper. I don't even do 'tech', I make ads and throw money at keywords, and solicit people on LinkedIn. No one needs me to write anything, they just want me to talk up customers and make sure the web site still functions. Occasionally I put out a dumpster fire by restoring a backup, or sometimes I stare blankly at log files wondering why someone would put so much work into trying to GET <script> into a company that, in the grand scheme of things, makes so little money. That fRMI burn sounds maddening, I would lose it. Good tech, I worked on RADAR, TACAN and ILS before moving indoors, so I get the RF stuff, but stories like that make me boil. It's not the first 'do this while your new to prove yourself, oh it works whoops you're fired' I've heard.

Well this has been fun, but I've just spent the past couple hours responing just to replies to my intro post (holy cow), thanks for running the place, what a welcome. I'm hoping it's been long enough from the rFMI fisaco that maybe you'll talk about what you working on at the time, maybe? I still really like RF stuff.

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Thanks for the chat.

The fMRI stuff was detecting brain activity as part of a realtime feedback experiment. Basically we had a participant in the fMRI machine, then they would look at pictures on a screen telling them to think about certain things, or try to imagine doing or saying certain things. Then we would watch the brain's activity appear on the fMRI machine readouto, with about a 6 second delay. We could then correlate physical activity in specific brain regions to certain types of mental activity. I basically programmed the entire real-time feedback experiment myself for $12/hr, and then was promptly fired when it was finished. And not only did they fire me, but they created false allegations against me and I was escorted out by security on my last day, not allowed to return to my desk to fetch my belongings. I had worked in that facility for 12 years. I was put on retainer and full salary but I had to be accessable phone for a month, to ensure I hadn't backdoored the software somehow. It was terrible.

[–]bobbobbybob 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I used to program those fMRI machines and the software used in them. EDITED to remove self dox doh

weird that we have that in common. Where was it?

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

That's cool we have that in common. I was writing mostly overlays to interact with the machine rather than the machine functionality itself. I have a lot of respect for that though because it's certainly complex. I'd rather not say where so I don't doxx myself.

[–]bobbobbybob 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

fair enough. I've doxxed myself to three people at least if they ever read that post!

maybe i'll delete it. not been that careless before. But yeah, was working on the machine protocols themselves, mostly, plus lots of backend coding to try and manage massive datasets for the data analysis in the days before big data. Huge parallel drive arrays acting as swap disk for big endian unix systems. Did a bit of work on the aux systems running it all. Was heaps of fun LSD helped :D

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

That's a nightmare. Hell of a first job, especially the false allegations crap. Could they not have simply hired you on temporary terms to start? I can't understand the motives of people who do things like that. And there's so many of them.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah it was bizarre. I think they did it that way to ensure they'd have me on retainer for a month, to ensure I didn't build any backdoors in to the software, or something strange like that. I'm so glad to be done with that. It was a nightmare, you've got that right

[–]yetanotherone_sigh 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I'm a couple years older than you, but similar experiences. First computer I ever typed on was a Timex Sinclair 1000 at school, then I used an Atari 400 and 800 extensively and learned to code in BASIC. Eventually I got my own Atari 400 and a tape drive and some game cartridges. Kids today have NO IDEA what it was like.

I'm at a similar level of burnout. I make ridiculous amounts of money, I have gray hairs growing out my ears, and I hate everything.

I have an exit strategy. I bought a piece of land with 8 acres of woods and a creek. It's almost paid off now. Building an off grid cabin with solar panels. It is just barely possible that my small investment in Bitcoin will make me able to disconnect from the rest of society and punch out. If not, I plan on selling my house in the next 5 years and moving up there, and working remotely part time. Going to chop wood and carry water and put my hands in the dirt. Fuck society.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Very nice. I picked up a few acres also by a creek, but haven't developed it yet. Wife's not going to tolerate a cabin, but that's the general idea: woodstove for heat, deep-well instead of munincipal water, big garden and some egg generators. As off grid as possible, with most of our food bought locally, which we're already pretty good about.