From 2707320a3d7567364f56bd40be80f1d7e00cfd49 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Melody Horn Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 21:15:11 -0500 Subject: Write a blog post about possible futures I don't think this is "done" but I need to be done with it. Here's hoping I don't regret writing this a few months from now. --- _posts/2018-08-31-futures.md | 65 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 65 insertions(+) create mode 100644 _posts/2018-08-31-futures.md diff --git a/_posts/2018-08-31-futures.md b/_posts/2018-08-31-futures.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c2116a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2018-08-31-futures.md @@ -0,0 +1,65 @@ +--- +layout: default +title: Futures +--- + +I'm going to be graduating from college in December and I'm a little bit freaking out. +Not because I don't have a plan, but because I have six plans. + +## Melody the grad student + +I may hate college, but that doesn't mean I'm not good at it. +I'm still not entirely sure if it's college in general I hate or just my college in particular, but I've got a hunch it's the latter. +In that case, I could absolutely try to get a master's in computer science at a halfway decent university. + +This would be the next step towards getting a Ph.D. and becoming a computer science professor, which is a thing that I think would be super cool. +However, the step itself would take a whole bunch of work and I don't necessarily have all that much interest in CS theory. +Someone suggested that I could pursue a master's in philosophy instead, which is an intriguing but counterintuitive prospect that I haven't necessarily thought all the way through yet. + +I don't think I could take another semester of college right now, but most places are probably set up for people to start in the fall and not the spring, so that works out. + +## Melody the indie miscellany dev + +I am a walking collection of half-baked project ideas waiting to be built. +Web application that bridges Twitter content into the ActivityPub/OStatus fediverse (Mastodon et al). +No-code-required Discord bot toolkit. +[TodoMVC](http://todomvc.com/) but for desktop GUI frameworks. + +If I had the time, I could actually build some of those things. +I'd need to make money somehow, though; if this were me full time I'd probably be on Patreon or trying to figure out non-shady ways to monetize this stuff. +However, being solely responsible for things that people actually use would be super stressful. +Plus I don't think I have the discipline to do anything if there's nobody to make me do it. + +## Melody the indie game dev + +Games are cool. +I've made a handful already for game jams and whatnot. +Actually, the first thing I actually did as boringcactus was make a game for a game jam. + +The trouble is that I don't have a big-I Idea that I would pursue if I decided I wanted to be an indie dev. +Most of my jam games are either finished or not worth finishing. +I'd love to make something that's an indie success story like Night in the Woods or Gunpoint, but those games already exist. +Plus the odds of taking off like that are kinda one-in-a-million. + +## Melody the musician + +*This* is a long shot. +But music production and performance is a thing that's always been important to me. +Early in high school I made some garbage tier EDM that didn't go anywhere. + +What I'd really like to do is live looping covers of things that weren't really designed to be replicated like that. +I think something like [this live performance of Marian Hill's *Down*](https://youtu.be/uc9Bi52ZQ7A?t=30s) would be super amazing to do with more complicated songs. +I wrote a [REAPER](https://www.reaper.fm/) plugin that would help with stuff like that, but I haven't actually used it for anything yet. + +## Melody the small tech co employee + +This is a rant that I'll probably give in more detail some other time, but I think the Silicon Valley venture capital model is directly responsible for how shitty the tech industry is. + +If I wanted traditional employment, the best environment for it would be a small company that isn't beholden to a VC firm. +A company that can keep its standards and leave growth on the table if it'd be unethical to pursue it is a company that I'd probably be comfortable working for. + +## Melody the sellout + +Of course, small companies don't get that way by hiring every rando with a résumé. +Big companies with bad ethics are almost always hiring. +And they're the most likely to still be around several years from now. -- cgit v1.2.3