|
Had almost exact same situation about 10 years ago when I stopped working for a paycheck (no, I'm not that old, I just stopped early  ). Didn't need to look for a hobby because I already had one: writing programs. So I kept writing programs, sometimes for old customers or friends and sometimes just for the heck of it. Even made a few bucks which are always welcome. Started hanging around here and writing a few articles; people seemed to like them and that gives a warm feeling.
SWMBO stopped working the same year and that indeed required a bit of adjustment: we were not used to be in each other's hair all day long. Took a good 6 months until we each found our own personal space and routines.
As they say: you have to retire to something - not from something.
Mircea
modified 1-Aug-24 20:55pm.
|
|
|
|
|
 I agree
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
|
|
|
|
|
Mircea Neacsu wrote: Didn't need to look for a hobby because I already had one: writing programs
That's my retirement plan.
Coding for me started off as a hobby as a teenager, and then turned into work. The risk here is that when things don't go your way between 9 to 5, it can seep into your after-hours and weekend hobby. I burned out and hardly ever code any more during my spare time these days, unless I'm working on something small-scale and very specific. I still love it and wouldn't trade it for the world - but it's not something I can continue doing during all my waking hours.
But as soon as a work schedule no longer gets in my way, I'm going right back to coding for my own little pet projects, and I'm actually feeling pretty good about that prospect. Over the years I've collected enough ideas to last me a few lifetimes.
|
|
|
|
|
As Oscar Wilde put it, "Work is the bane of the drinking classes".
If you don't have a hobby already, get one. Preferably one that gets you out of the house and socializing, on occasion. Courses at the local college or some such are often cheap (for senior citizens) and ideal for stimulation.
Employment, for all its faults, stimulates the brain. Now that you've retired, don't let it decay!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
|
|
|
|
|
Reminds me of signs seen in towns in the the Florida Keys.
Quote: "A quaint drinking village with a serious fishing problem."
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
charlieg wrote: I spent most of July playing with myself
An entire month? 
Cheers,
Vikram.
|
|
|
|
|
oh shut up.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
|
|
|
|
|
charlieg wrote: But I don't know what to do with her. This is completely weird like we're in a fuzzy zone of vacation but we're not.
That's what I keep hearing (says the single guy): Don't plan your days as if you're both supposed to constantly be in each other's company, otherwise you'll soon both find ways to get under each other's skin, no matter how great you both put up with your own quirks.
|
|
|
|
|
truth, bout you are a single guy, and I've been married for 46 years. Insert awkward silence. lol.
If we can get through 11 children and 2 senile parents we'll be okay.
I guess my general point is that most of us bust are a$$ for many years. Both of us, I know my wife has worked harder than I have. When the minions were younger, as soon as I got home, I started changing diapers and helping with dinner. On the weekends, I was cutting grass, fixing stuff, then came sports.
To be honest, retirement was not even on my radar screen until I ran a spreadsheet. We've been frugal - simply no choice. Used cars, bulk food, hell, even now, I go out for a burrito and it costs me $70+. And I make better burritos. So, spreadsheet wise I had a wtf moment. We're not playing golf everyday, I suck, but I can keep the house. See I'm an engineer - which is the original point of the post. Never saw it coming.
Big smiles  I'm laughing at myself, life is a roller coaster.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
|
|
|
|
|
![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Bless you, man. That's all I can say. 
|
|
|
|
|
I appreciate that Dandy, I truly do.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
|
|
|
|
|
Have been more-or-less retired a couple of years now, started getting my state pension this week. 
I still have a couple of clients I provide ad-hoc support for, but boy does it get in the way! I have no idea how I used to fit in a full-time job (and, in the previous century, commuting as well). I find I'm working till almost midnight fairly often just to do what I consider the essential stuff. Partly I think I have slowed down (things take longer) but that doesn't account for it all. I'm just too busy. The real pain is hospital appointments (for me and SWMBO) as they're pretty inflexible, and far too many of them. Sometimes they impact on real-life more than the conditions they're supposed to be dealing with.
And my to-do list is still getting longer...
|
|
|
|
|
It's seriously weird, isn't it? The part about retiring and somehow getting busy again. I don't mind the work, but it irritates me. I'm still working through it.
The hospital and doctor visits just blow. I see you are in the UK. Here on my side of the pond we have the wonderful SSA. That has had no issue taking my money for 50 years, sending me statements the last 5 years and now when I want to retire, someone needs to review my account for at least 30 days. I don't tolerate beauacracy well.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the supplemental newsletter, this link The Decline Of Mobile Development - DONN FELKER appeared. Having semi-successfully attempted to write for Android, this guy is only touching the tip of the iceberg on why mobile development sucks. At this point I think any mobile apps I'd write would be pointers to a website that's written to detect screen sizes and adjust.
|
|
|
|
|
Do you think that mobile development sucks because it's not dominated by one company the way Windows development is?
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
|
|
|
|
|
I have developed mobile apps for both Android & Apple.
In the past, Android Studio and Kotlin was the best.
Building hte UIs was very nice using the XML (normally I hate XML-anything).
Android apps had the same feeling as developing apps for early windows using MFC & Visual Studio C++.
Really not that bad once you learn some basics — but Android added many things (paths) to creating apps (Jetpack, Materials (UI framework) and it got really confusing to know which path to take.
iPhone apps were terrible when Swift first released — still using InterfaceBuilder (there were things you could only do with your mouse — adding button click events — & it was crazy)
Then iphone released SwiftUI and building the UI became so easy!!!
I couldn’t friggin’ believe it. It is like using the old Visual Studio C++ winform editor but even better. I love it. I can’t believe I love it because Xcode (IDE kind of sucks)
Building apps is like old winforms apps:
1) build UI
2) connect events
3) run the app *
*of course you still break things up into classes (Models) etc, but I’m just saying the basics of building a UI and wiring it up is elegant and beautiful.
The big problem is that you have to have a Mac to even try Xcode and SwiftUI — so you have to go all-in.
|
|
|
|
|
obermd wrote: At this point I think any mobile apps I'd write would be pointers to a website that's written to detect screen sizes and adjust.
Isn't that what most mobile apps are nowadays?
Disclaimer: I've never written a mobile app in my life, except in the days of (yikes!) Windows CE. That was before anything got connected.
I avoid installing apps on my phone if I can help it, and I shudder when I see people showing me their phones and the loads of apps they've installed, which ultimately are just horrible, touch-enabled UIs that just castrate what would be a much better experience on a large monitor using a mouse and keyboard.
And then every app insists on being granted access to your contacts, your call history, your photos, your location, etc. Most apps have zero need for any of that to function, so we know what that's really about.
|
|
|
|
|
One issue with training data is it's often pulled from copyrighted material, whether deliberately or through an automated process.
Another issue, probably overlooked but I mentioned it on the discussion is "model collapse"
You can't get good models if your training data is generated AI content as well. It is essentially incestuous, and leads to model collapse. AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data | Nature[^]
I'm thinking regulations could actually solve both of these problems.
AI could avoid using data marked as NOT training data. Data generated by AI and copyrighted material could be marked that way, and flagged as off limits to automated processes that scrape. AI companies would have incentive, not only because of regulatory statutes, but perhaps more importantly so their own models don't get poisoned.
Thoughts?
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
modified 1-Aug-24 11:54am.
|
|
|
|
|
Because robots.txt works so well ...
Regulation is fine, as long as it can be enforced. If there's an enforcement mechanism that has sufficient teeth to discourage abuse of the regulations, the maybe it will encourage ethical behavior on the part of organizations creating and distributing AI.
I feel like we need an equivalent of Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics", but for AI.
"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants"
Chuckles the clown
|
|
|
|
|
There's definitely the problem of enforcement, but what I would say is that
A) It already behooves the AI companies to follow suit as it keeps their models from becoming incestuous and collapsing.
B) As far as people putting invalid tags on things - that's why I suggested tags marked NOT for consumption, because again, it typically incentivizes and otherwise doesn't really burden people to do it. It protects their copyrighted material in the first instance, and in the second, since the content is generated anyway marking it with tags is no bother.
C) In regards to actual teeth and where the regulatory statute might be leveled - if someone is knowingly producing generated content to poison other people's models and it flies in the face of said regulations it at the very least exposes the actors to civil, if not criminal liability. Civil liability in the states isn't so difficult to prove as a criminal case, relying on the standard of "a preponderance of evidence" rather than "no reasonable doubt". Such a case seems easy enough to make in many instances, although suing Russian actors from the states might be problematic. Still, that's a problem with the internet in general, and the argument that we shouldn't make a law because it can't always be enforced is pretty much a non starter, as that could apply to many laws already on the books.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
|
|
|
|
|
I'm not sure how the copyright material stuff should be worked out. I categorically disagree with the idea you just can't/shouldn't be able to train on copyrighted data.
If it is available to people for consumption then it should be available to feed to an algorithm. Piracy notwithstanding. But I'm not sure why you should have to buy all the media over and over again, even as an individual and that's kind of how we've been doing things for a bit.
I'm skeptical that regulation of the wild west would do more than make the natives restless and the cowboys chuckle.
The cost of trying to 'filter' all the content to not scoop that stuff up probably means that something purpose built (RISC?) to test content for model collapse against a model would be really useful.
|
|
|
|
|
jochance wrote: I categorically disagree with the idea you just can't/shouldn't be able to train on copyrighted data.
The danger in that, particularly where it pertains to code, is what if you indirectly rip from IBM's codebase via AI? Do you really want a behemoth like that coming after you with lawyers?
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
|
|
|
|
|
Recognizing that how things work and how I think they should are two different wildebeasts...
Of course not, but I somewhat object to the idea that IBM (or anyone else) should own trivial bits of code. I can get onboard with a copyright across the whole of a system's code. But we'd never be on board with the idea someone can "own" singular or smaller groupings of lines in isolation and why would we? You and I have almost definitely typed some of the same lines of code before and we'd never even know it.
In my opinion, the ratio of code worthy of the protections of copyright is just super low. If it were a Far Side cartoon it would be a caveman courtroom drama over Thag copying his neighbor's stick figures from their cave drawings.
Most of the value isn't really in the code itself but whatever it is the code is doing. If you can rewrite that in another language or even the same one then you've effectively 'stolen' the value legitimately. Some of the best bits of problem solving code are just going to be the same (or close) no matter who/where they come from, especially if the problem itself can map to code in straightforward ways.
|
|
|
|
|
jochance wrote: If it were a Far Side cartoon it would be a caveman courtroom drama over Thag copying his neighbor's stick figures from their cave drawings.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
