I started my IT career in 2011, I have enjoyed it, I have got to do a lot of interesting stuff and meet interesting people, I will treasure those memories forever.
But, starting with crypto turing general computing from being:
"Wow, this machine can run so many apps at the same time!" or "Holy shit, those graphics look epic!" or "Amazing, this computer has really sped up that annoying task!"
To being:
Yo! Look at how many numbers I can generate!
That brought down my enthusiasm severely, but hey, figuring out solutions to problems was still fun.
Then came AI/LLMs.
And with it, a mountain of slop.
Finding help about an issue has gone from googling and reading help articles written by something with an actual brain to mostly being rephrased manuals that only provide working answers to semi standard answers.
Add to that a general push to us AI in anything and everything, no matter how little relevance it holds for the task at hand.
I also remember how AI was sold to the us at first, we were promised to do away with boring paperwork, so we could get on with our actual job.
What did we get? An AI that takes the fun and creative parts, leaving the paperwork for the workers.
We got an AI that we need to expect to be stealing our work and data at every point, giving us shit work back, while being told that we should applaude it and be grateful for it.
And the worst thing, the worst thing is that people seem happy with it. I keep getting requests to buy another Copilot license or asking for another AI service to be added to our tenant, I am sick of it!
We got an AI that somehow has slithered onto the golden throne and can't be questioned.
I am not able to leave the tech market at this time, but I will focus on more tangible hobbies going forward.
This year, I have given myself a project, I will try to build a model railway in a suitcase. That will be a Z-scale tiny world in a suitcase.
I have never done anything remotely like it, but I feel like I need something physical to take my mind off tech.
Sorry for the rant, but I just came off of a high from realizing and putting words to my feelings.
Building a model railway in a suitcase is one of the most random and “out-there” things I’ve recently heard of someone setting out to do. This is fucking awesome. Props to you. How the hell did you come up with that idea?
I’ve been in IT since 2008, and got into building guns as a means to distract myself from working in tech, which I now abhor. Maybe trains would put my head in a better place.
Hehe, I have been aware of suitcase model railways for a long time, probably about two decades or so, but never felt like I had the skill to build one before.
At the end of the pandemic I got hit with dual flat feet, dual heel spurs and a bad knee at the same time.
It was a bad time for me, every step hurt, to the point that I ate six paracetamols and a few ibuprofen every day just to cope, and when walking home from the bus after work, I cried hard due to the pain of every single step.
During this time, I snowed in on videos about making dioramas, especially this video stuck with me:
https://youtu.be/HEG3d0cMuv4
I loved the weathering and how real it looked.
Anyway, I got help for my feet and knee, and mostly moved on from the videos, but never forgot about the above video.
I got laid off at my earlier job and got this job, it is far more stressful, and I have been feeling depressed, so I have been looking for something to do.
I recently did some simple wood working stuff, and found I quite enjoyed it.
So I decided to give this a try.
I have a workbench at home, in a utility room in my apartment, it used to be occupied with a shit load of rum and other alcohol, but last weekend I went and bought a small Billy bookshelf at IKEA and turned that into an fairly elegant bar shelf.
(Just a quick note, just because I have a lot of alcohol at home and live alone doesn't mean that I drink a lot.
I mostly collect because I find it interesting to have a selection to pick from.
I drink alcohol maybe once every other month, often less.)
So now I have a workspace, I need to make room under the workbench, get a chair and some proper lights and I can start the project.