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Ask HN: Interesting *non-computer related* job's?

3 points by Shared404 ↗ HN
I've always intended to go into something involving computers as a job, I've been studying development, security, operations, anything I can get my hands on.

However, the more I look at what computing looks like today, the more I hate the direction it's going, with locked-down OS's, telemetry, backdoors, etc.

What are some interesting jobs which are either not related to computers, or have computer skill as a prerequisite, but have other skillsets majorly involved (For example, I read a comment where someone described a job where you would backpack around National Park's and do deployments/maintenance of computers around the park.)?

EDIT: I'm open to any suggestions. Anything from hoboing between renfests selling hand-made goods, to being a park ranger, to homesteading a farm. I'm just curious, and looking for ideas.

8 comments

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sigmaprimus
I'm building a homestead with a long term (12-15 years) goal of growing a hazel nut orchard. I'm only in year 3 but things are progressing albeit slower than I expected. I hopefully can produce around 2 tons of nuts per acre once the trees are mature and it only requires around 50 hours labour per acre, per year. It is only a small 10 acre orchard which I expect to earn around 30K per year for the raw in shell nuts(field price) before value added processing and marketing. Eventually I would like to build a small commercial kitchen to produce craft butter and brittle that I will market online.

The trees were planted 3 years ago but wont begin producing anything substantial for 4 or 5 more years, until then I have a small layer hen operation with farm gate sales and a small wood working side hustle.

It's a low stress simple life which is enjoyable most of the time and provides me with a lot of spare time to pursue my hobbies.

Shared404
This is a perfect idea, thanks for the response. I've thought about doing this before, do you have any good resources to start doing research from? A quick DDG mostly brings up (edit: what appears to be) blog-spam, and I'm not sure how to sort the wheat/chafe, (e2: as I don't know much about the topic).
sigmaprimus
As far as hazel nuts go,

https://members.oregonhazelnuts.org/

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/crop-production/nuts

For farming, homesteading and general inspiration... and if you can get past right leaning attitudes. (Which I would say most homesteaders and farmers have)

Joel Salatin is number one in my opinion

Justin Rhodes would be next, he has a good Youtube channel and produced a entertaining documentary called "The Great American Farm Tour" which will give You lots of ideas.

Another source of information on homesteading and building a successful, profitable lifestyle is Jack Spirko. He produces an hour or so long podcast 5 days a week but he is an aquired taste.

This episode will most likely give You some good ideas but like I said You need to take a grain or two of salt with him, eventually he grows on You and has a large loyal following of 250K+ daily listeners.

http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/content-based-business-fre...

Shared404
Much appreciated. I obviously don't know for sure yet if this is the right path for me, but I have a strong suspicion that it will be where I want to end up when I'm ready to settle down.
airbreather
No truffles with those hazelnut trees?
sigmaprimus
Wouldn't that be great! I might get a few inoculated whips down the road. I am planning on adding pigs to my homestead in a couple years but hoping to find a 4H kid to take care of that.
airbreather
Control systems engineer spans a lot of ground, with computing a part, but so many things including human factors.
Shared404
That also looks quite interesting, thank you!