Neil Hopcroft

A digital misfit

This is how it ends

As you know my time in Sweden is coming to an end – I finished working on Tuesday and now its time to move back to England.

This time a change of job will bring with it a change of lifestyle too, since it is now clear to me that consumer electronics, and technology in general, is deluding itself as to its place in this world. We cannot keep on making the same things smaller, faster and with less quality than last years model.

So I have decided to seek some a career path, the current potential directions are:

– carpenter
– marketing
– lorry driver

…but I’m seeking your opinions on other possibilities that you think I should consider?


Categories: Memories.

/ 15 Comments

15 comments

  2. jarkman

    If you’re looking for an industry that’s got some technical progress left in it, the obvious options are:
    – 3D printing & home fabrication
    – The various tools of what you might call the Maker movement

    Those all require technical skills, but they are working on doing new kinds of things on a more personal scale. It may be electronics, but it is not consumer electronics.

    I don’t know if that’s what you are looking for, or if you want to escape technology altogether. For me, if I wanted to get away from technology I’d probably try to become a jeweller. From your list, I’d pick carpenter.

    Reply
    • neilh

      I don’t think I’m actually going to escape from technology – thats what I know and what I love – but perhaps it would be worthwhile thinking about some directions that take me toward more physical things, pure software becomes too distant from anything real.

      Reply
      • jarkman

        In my experience, people invariably enjoy making physical stuff (and especially learnign how to make physical stuff).

        If you’re looking for suggestions, I’d say that you ought to find ways to have a bit of a taster, to see which kinds of stuff call to you. Evening classes, or weekend courses, or geting your friends to let you loose in their workshops for a weekend.

        I don’t think you can reliably pick a direction without putting your hands on the metal (or wood or glass or stone or cake or cloth).

        Reply
  3. fluffydave

    I laboured with a master carpenter for a few weeks, it was very physically demanding and long long hours. I was doing 12-14 hour days and I wasn’t even working as hard as him.

    I’ve always liked the idea of a mid-life career change like park ranger or something outdoorsy in a remote location. But it’s achieving it with the attendant pay cut that’s the problem.

    Reply
    • neilh

      I think that kind of change probably requires a little more lifestyle planning than I have really been able to apply so far. I’ll stick with the tech for the moment, maybe think about other things for my next move.

      Reply
  5. aperrott

    Lorry driving is great if you enjoy physical and mental exhaustion, stress and don’t expect too much pay, but I wouldn’t recommend it otherwise.

    Marketing has always struck me as being the preseve of the asocial, egotistical and shameless. It seems to exist mostly to push the sort of products you’re looking to escape from so I’m not convinced it’s what you’re looking for.

    I’d recommend carpentry as a sideline to your main business. You’d gain some very useful skills and be able to make beautiful and useful things that will last for as long as people are prepared to keep them. I have a number of books on the subject and would love to sit down and have a natter when you’re back in the country.

    Overall I agree with and will make an effort to follow his advice myself!

    Reply
  9. neilh

    Forestry would be an interesting direction – I’ve been thinking about trying to find some timber land to buy – but it seems like a lot of hard work.

    Reply
  10. neilh

    I think it’ll take a good deal longer than 6 weeks to do anything useful.

    You have to get lucky with science careers – persistance will get rewarded eventually. Of course theres no harm in picking up other skills along the way.

    Reply
  11. Anonymous

    building electronics

    Ok i am biased being an Architect, and software programmer.

    But building automation is somewhere that almost no real technology progress has happened and its really still an open playing field.

    Also as the drive to lower your energy bills gets more and more insane, people are forced to use smart building technologies to make their systems more efficient and also to respond to the real worlds. SO sensors, and smart relay boards are all the rage, but no one has one that works yet.

    Have a look at technologies peoples own efforts and how eay it is to make a Pic / IVR controller to automate all your systems. A manufacturer wants 1,000 euros for a 30 USD board with 30 lines of code in it . Insane !

    Then there is the crazy manufacturers and the installers.
    The Heat pump people, hate the idea of anyone using someone else really board to control their heat pump. Modbus is terrible.
    A Rest based relay board that then has modules to talk to the various products via modbus of whatever crap their us is the answer. But no one has made one at all.

    Installers. The poor plumber and electrician does not stand a chance against how complex the systems are getting. A plumber is trained to understand plumbing, not how a ModBus or Zigbee system works.
    SO there is huge room for smart people to work a Building Integration people.
    i often end up spending an hour teaching an electrican how current and not voltage is how LEDS are driven for example.

    Gerard

    Reply

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