I loved music growing up, so I got a degree in Music and went into the record biz. I loved it, but it changed music for me, from something that was fun, to something that was work.

Eventually the record biz collapsed, and we all lost our jobs, and I moved on from music.

Years later, during the pandemic quarantine, I picked up the guitar again, after having dropped it as a college student. Without having to rely on music for a living, I can just enjoy it. There is nothing more satisfying that sitting on the front porch at sunset, looking out over the pond across from my house, watching the birds settle for the evening, and fingerpicking through my favorite songs, in my own arrangements.

Music has become fun again, and has improved my health. By picking up the guitar instead of going to the fridge, my playing improved, and I’ve lost 100 pounds. It has also been amazing for my mental health, giving me sense of pride and confidence for having learned to do something very difficult.

I work in IT, so if I ever walk upon a tablet (or something similar) that is accessible to the general public my first instinct is to check if they did care enough to properly restricted access.

Story time: Me and some friends met in Berlin last year and while walking through a mall we stumbled across a “presentation” from Lego. Basically it was a giant screen with an IPad connected to it and you could type in your name, select an animation and it would then display it on the screen. Nothing fancy and probably quite fun for kids. However, I guess you can imagine what happens when about 7 IT nerds see an unattended IPad in public. We of course tried to check, if we could get access to other programs we were not meant to get access too.l or exploit the programming in any other way (AS example inserting funny things like “null” into the name field). After some experimenting, we found out that if you pressed for a longer time on the field where you could insert your name the option “autofill” and “share” popped up. This meant, that you could theoretically insert and open files through this and you could also share contacts. This meant, that we just discovered the about 200 contacts, that were saved in the iPad. This meant, that if we wanted we could have just write down information like name, phone numbers and E-Mail adresses. There were also separate groups of contacts called “family” and “work”. We of course did not do anything with it and reported it to the person attending everything, but I think that person did not realised, that its bad to expose all of someone’s contacts to the general public saying things like “It was meant for kids” and “no one would do this”. Well, guess who didnt stop a group of adults trying to break the software on that tablet.

Also I think I dont really have to say, that I usually experience physical pain when I see how movies depict programming or hacking like its something you can do in a few minutes. And its usually even worse, when any form of actual code plops up in a movie and you realise, that they are either doing updates on a Linux system or its code that doesn’t even have a correct syntax and matches the corresponding action even less.

Excluding the IT aspect of my job, I am unable to walk past a ship without thoroughly examining its mast to see which antennae it has and determine the capabilities.

Some tidbits I’ve noticed:

• A HF radio is popular, despite the ship otherwise not being rated for areas where HF radios are required.
• Older EPIRBs are indestructible provided that the battery and the hydrostatic release units are changed on schedule. I still see models around that are decades old.
• Starlink is seeing more and more offshore use, but nobody is getting rid of their VSAT.
• Iridium is starting to make a dent in the amount of Inmarsat-C installations after Iridium became approved for GMDDS.
• Fleet77 is gone. Haven’t seen it in ages.

I can’t drive past a recently felled forest and rate it as a planting site.

I used to plant trees

Mechanical engineering. Whenever I see a big piece of tech — say car, plane or any industrial machinery/piping — I think of all the time and effort that went into creating each part of it, from drawing blueprints, modeling, checking national/international standards, choosing materials, running software for calculations, running through different people for approval, assembly, maintenance, etc.

It’s so much work and even more paperwork. I feel we take what we have for granted.

Being trained in behavioral psychology and watching my girlfriend’s sister with her dogs is torture to me.

She’s got a good boi who barks for attention. She gives him attention every fucking time. He’ll be barking away in the corner while we try to talk, and instead of taking him outside or something, she calls him over to her and pets him.

I see this over and over again and think, “It’s no wonder he barks so much, when she reinforces him for it constantly.”

It drives me nuts and honestly makes me not want to go over to her house. I really want to say something, but I don’t want to be that person coming in and giving unsolicited advice to others about how to train their pets. So I just watch it happen over and again and suffer in (bark-filled) silence.

Edit to add: Also, my brother and his kids. This one hurts more for a number of reasons. He complains about how our mom raised us, but then does the same shit with his kids, never connecting the dots. Meanwhile I learned what not to do by watching my mom. Then through education and working in the field, not only have I been vindicated for the way I interact with kids, but I learned lots of new skills that could help the kids learn appropriate behavior while maintaining their self-esteem. But when my brother’s around, he’s all, “I’m their parent and I’ll raise them my way.” Even his own parents-in-law told him, “You listen to Whats_your_reasoning, she knows what she’s talking about.” But no, I’ve got to not do the things I do every day that could help his kids and his life in the long run because he doesn’t want to hear it.

I used to sell and fix bikes, now every time I’m out I’m judging people’s choice of bikes.

Not in the “ugh you’re riding a mongoose?” way but the “you need to give that bicycle to a teenager and get a larger one that fits your size, how tall are you? What kind of riding are you expecting to do?” and many other such questions if I strike up a conversation with them.

I want everyone to have a pleasant time while out on their bike. If they don’t have fun, if they are too tired after a ride, or in pain, they won’t want to ride more, and then less people are out not driving cars.

Lpt: (in general) when riding a bicycle, you want the top section of your leg (femur) to be no higher than parallel to the ground at the top of the pedal stroke, and you want your leg to be extended, but not fully straight, when at the bottom of the stroke. You can injure your hips, knees, and leg muscles if you ride an incorrectly sized bike for long periods.

Most adult bicycles should be measured from the spot where the pedals go to the frame to the hole where the seat post goes in. If it’s not measured in inches or centimeters, it might have letter sizing, and if it has bone of those, I wouldn’t trust the quality of the bike. These measurements are more of a guide, when in doubt, use the leg position rule.

The type of bike you have will change your experience quite a bit. If you try to take a road bike (super skinny tires, often has ram horn handlebars) on the mountain trail, you’re gonna have a bad time. Mountain bikes are geared for more power, road bikes are more geared for speed. Hybrids have a good balance and make light off-roading possible. Downhill bikes are like mountain bikes but with a steeper angle on the front fork, to give you better handling while, you guessed it, going down a hill.

I die a little inside every time I see an adult riding a child sized bike.

“well the teenager at Walmart said I needed a 26 inch bike for the hiking trails so I got the 26 inch bike” he said, standing at 6ft3 next to a 15 inch frame bike with 26 inch wheels and tires about an inch wide…

And now when I see aluminum construction, I wonder how it’s been done and try to figure out the various extruded pieces they used.

I’m a production artist so now I can’t really watch a movie or play a video game or see a billboard or something without wondering how they did a certain thing or if I see a small continuity error or something wasn’t masked out properly. It doesn’t detract from the experience, in fact it adds to it. When I see something that amazes me, I think of how I can recreate that by developing new techniques or using a piece of software I’ve never used before. And, I take a mental note of how a story affected me and what part really affected me and I use that as a reference for my own things to reproduce that genuine feeling I have of wonder, excitement, sadness, or fear.

And, as an artist working in the industry, when I see stuff that other budding artists have done sure I can spot things that could be improved. But, I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve heard a quote that I took to heart “Never criticize, always encourage.” And, so that’s what I try to do.

I’m a data analyst/software engineer in rocket engine testing.

I get super excited when I see rocket launches in the news or on the Internet.

“Woah that’s so cool!”

“Holy shit! Hardware I touched is on that!”

“Yooooo. Those engines I tested are on the Moon!”

Software engineer (you’ll get a lot of those). Most software has so. many. bugs. I keep a mental list of them and when I see some weird behavior I’ll try to reproduce it. I’ll also judge bad design choices.

But this has very minor impact. I can’t imagine being a health professional in a setting with many people. It must be pretty stressful seeing people being disgusting with public spaces.

Oftentimes it’s, “This food sucks. I should have just cooked.”

Great question!

I’m a parole officer tasked with interviewing defendants awaiting sentencing hearings and typing up pre-sentencing reports in which I give my recommendations to the courts regarding non-incarcerating sentences. As in, would a time-served and/or probationary sentence be appropriate in a particular case and why?

I meet people that seem genuinely sorry for their crimes and people that give zero fucks. I meet people that are awaiting trial for having stolen an apple from a supermarket and people that have raped their own children.

As I stroll about my town on my free time, I cannot stop myself - or my mind - from getting involved when I see people that seem to be having a hard time. I sometimes walk up to them asking how they are doing. Or asking them whether they could do without that last can of beer, or without shooting up that last injection. Or asking them who their social worker is and offering to walk them to the social services office.

Since I started doing this job, I have lost the ability to ignore that which to a lot of people is mere nuisance. Social injustice, addiction, violence of any kind. I have become too sensitive to them, perhaps to my own detriment, since I sometimes receive death threats when I intervene. Hopefully, it’s just the substance or an untrained attitude talking. 😄

Healthcare professional. Play spot diagnosis from people’s walks and stuff observable from a distance. always keep an eye out for people who look like they need help. Always check people at car accidents are out of the cars and calm before driving on. I do the veins thing too.

As a software developer I tend to open the development console in my browser to see if I can remove paywalls or if i can identify errors if a site isn’t working

Among other things I’m an audio editor and producer, and badly-done audio really grates on my brain. When clips have been poorly chopped together, when a character running away from a monster screams the exact same scream twice, when statements are clearly frankenclips made of fuck knows how many different recordings, my brain raises the alarm.

This is especially rough when reality TV competition shows are on. I like Drag Race, for example, but RuPaul is employing some idiots hacking at spools of worn-out tape with rusty knives or something.

“I’m _having trouble with ^this challenge!”