How to do what you love

[iago]

This article is very good, especially considering that most of you are young and probably at the point in your life where you have to make decisions about the future.  I realize it's very long, but reading it could be important to the rest of your life. 
http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html

Here are my favorite quotes:

[T]he important question [becomes] not how to make money, but what to work on.

The definition of work [is] to make some original contribution to the world, and in the process not to starve.

And, the best line in the article:

Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like.

[trust]

And for me, that's a lawyer and politician. :)

Luckily I get the great benefit of liking my job, having a good income, and carrying prestige along with it. :)

[GameSnake]

How do you bring a culture together in happiness and peace? Thats what I would love to do.

[Sidoh]

How do you bring a culture together in happiness and peace? Thats what I would love to do.

" How do I join together two polar opposites? "

They seem to be the same question.  While your efforts would not go unheard (or unreasoned), no culture can exist completely harmoniously when opinions are allowed.

[GameSnake]

Yes but don't we all agree there should be peace in our hearts?  What does everyone else  think about the future,? I think it still looks good, we shouldn't be fighting and I'd hope to find a common goal with my fellow man.

[Sidoh]

Yes but don't we all agree there should be peace in our hearts?

Ask Hitmen.  He eats babies and gets off to watching Jesus crucified.  Some people are fucked up; you'll have a hard time getting around that if you think everyone wants peace.

[Ergot]

It's on Slashdot! Omg... iago beat Slashdot?! That's unpossible.

[Joe]

And for me, that's a lawyer and politician. :)

Luckily I get the great benefit of liking my job, having a good income, and carrying prestige along with it. :)

Scratch lawyer and policitian, put programming. Last statment continues in truth, except perhaps prestige because I don't know what that is.

[iago]

Yes but don't we all agree there should be peace in our hearts?  What does everyone else  think about the future,? I think it still looks good, we shouldn't be fighting and I'd hope to find a common goal with my fellow man.

As Sidoh alluded to, that's not the nature of humans.  There has never been a harmonious time in our history, and it's not likely that there will be one in our future. 

It's on Slashdot! Omg... iago beat Slashdot?! That's unpossible.

This was actually assigned reading in school, he gave it to us last Wednesday.  I got around to reading it yesterday, so I posted about it yesterday.

[Hitmen]

Yes but don't we all agree there should be peace in our hearts?

Ask Hitmen.  He eats babies and gets off to watching Jesus crucified.  Some people are fucked up; you'll have a hard time getting around that if you think everyone wants peace.

:)

Peace is boring. The world needs more violence, sex, explosions, zombies and cannibalism.

[Mythix]

Good article, I've already had to read a lot of similiar ones. Makes a good point in it.

[trust]

And for me, that's a lawyer and politician. :)

Luckily I get the great benefit of liking my job, having a good income, and carrying prestige along with it. :)

Scratch lawyer and policitian, put programming. Last statment continues in truth, except perhaps prestige because I don't know what that is.

http://www.google.com/search?hs=jDq&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial_s&q=define%3A+prestigious&btnG=Search

Furthermore, prestige will still be not be included because a programmer doesn't really have a prestigious job. People look at them as geeks and whatnot, even though programmers are what make life easy for people. Unless you're like a lead developer at Microsoft and making some good paper.

Furthermore, people identify lawyers by their job (ex. "My son, the lawyer" )

[iago]

http://www.google.com/search?hs=jDq&hl=en&lr=&;safe=off[.....]

safe=off, eh?  How dirty is the definition of prestige? :P

Furthermore, prestige will still be not be included because a programmer doesn't really have a prestigious job. People look at them as geeks and whatnot, even though programmers are what make life easy for people. Unless you're like a lead developer at Microsoft and making some good paper.

There can be plenty of prestige in computer science, although it often only affects other people in the same field.  The same way as most of the presitigious physicists and mathematicians and other sciences aren't normally looked at as prestigious. 

Furthermore, people identify lawyers by their job (ex. "My son, the lawyer" )

We've have rather long discussions about that in class.  The fact that engineers, doctors, lawyers, dentists, and other professions are recognized, when computer scientists aren't.  That's a whole other topic that I may post independently at some point. 

[trust]

Perhaps one day they will be. Afterall, a single programmer has the potential to affect more peoples lives than a single lawyer.

[iago]

True. 

Interesting:

If an engineer builds a bridge/building/whatever, he tends to use a computer program to do the modelling.  If he uses a buggy program that tells him the bridge will stand, then builds it, and it collapses, kill people.  Who is introuble?  The engineer. 

If a surgeon is using a computer program that crashing, causing the patient to die, who is in trouble?  The doctor. 

Programmers aren't responsible for their programs.  I think that any money lost due to faulty software should be the responsibility of the programmer, at least for critical applications.