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Neofetch developer archives all his repositories: "Have taken up farming"

driverdan
141 replies
5h50m

Every time this topic comes up I say the same thing. If you've never worked on a farm and have some kind of romantic idea about it then you shouldn't do this. Farming is hard work. Modern farmers have college degrees, millions in equipment, and a vast amount of knowledge and experience you do not have.

If you're thinking of doing this and do not have experience go work on a farm for a year before you buy in.

miah_
38 replies
5h40m

Maybe they have saved enough from working in tech that they can grow vegetables for themselves in a very low scale way. Its nice to escape from the career you've had for decades. Sometimes its not even an escape from the career, but the career and the city you've lived in. Moving to the forest and growing some vegetables and raising chickens isn't that difficult. You certainly don't need "millions in equipment". Its exactly what I did.

I found it difficult to get a job in tech at the start of COVID after working in it for ~25 years. I moved to Michigan, and now live in the woods. My Cost of Living is a fraction of what it was. My mortgage is only 80% of what I was paying for rent in the SFBay area. Its peaceful and quiet here. It actually gets dark too. I no longer hear BART screeching on the rails at 2am or the constant flow of traffic. I.. do once again work in tech though at a much 'smaller' scale. My company is small and work demands don't dominate my life. I have balance.

This year I've planted ~200 onions, ~100 potatoes, ~100 garlic, ~60 strawberry. I have blueberry from a few years back starting to flourish. I have wild blackberry, and mushrooms galore. "touching grass" is a daily activity as we manage our small flock of chickens.

godzillabrennus
14 replies
5h32m

The woman who ran PR for Chicago Tribune did the same thing with her husband. She now has a small farm in Michigan. She runs a PR agency from the farm.

I personally couldn’t do it… I prefer loud noises and bright lights but I lived in Rincon Hill and Times Square at various times…

jader201
13 replies
4h49m

I personally couldn’t do it… I prefer loud noises and bright lights

How old are you?

You don’t have to answer, but I’m guessing you’re probably not past 45.

At some point, you start to prefer quiet.

I haven’t lived in a really large city, but have been around noise enough that I’m hoping our next move will distance us from neighbors and highway noise.

And yes, maybe we’ll have a farm animal or two.

selectodude
7 replies
4h45m

I grew up all my life in a major city. The quiet and tranquility of a small town freak me out. For somebody who’s never lived in a city, you’re making quite a few assumptions.

coldtea
6 replies
4h42m

As somebody who lives in a multi-million city, every second person I talk to wants to move to the country, and it definitely much stronger tendency after around 30-35+.

It doesn't matter if the parent's assumptions are "quite a few" or don't match you, what matters is if they match a big segment of the population to be statistically useful. There are always outliers who love to grow old in a big city and have their ashes scaterred in the middle of Manhattan.

ethbr1
4 replies
3h52m

The only set we should really be listening to are people who both:

   - Lived in a big city
   - Lived in a rural community
Otherwise, everyone always thinks the grass is greener, absent experience with the alternative.

Or as I heard it quipped -- you don't love something for it's best bits; you love it because you can tolerate its worst bits.

coldtea
1 replies
3h39m

Otherwise, everyone always thinks the grass is greener, absent experience with the alternative

For our purposes (which in this subthread is determining whether grandparents idea that "45+ prefer more quiet and wish to move to the country" is valid), this distinction doesn't matter - since this is not about whether that group is justified in preferring the country, but whether they prefer it or not.

ethbr1
0 replies
3h33m

I care about maximizing people's happiness function.

Whether there are a large number of people who believe in something that's incorrect is immaterial, as is over-counting kvetching without any intent to follow through.

rickydroll
0 replies
1h19m

Yeah, that's mostly me. I've lived in Massachusetts at multiple locations between Boston and Gardner. I'm now living at the edge of one of the mill cities. It is not far enough from traffic noise, but it is much better than any other place I've lived other than Massachusetts rural.

I've also lived from the deeply blue-collar (father's small business moving machinery) to the tech world. I find myself marketing my consulting business to small to medium-sized blue-collar/manufacturing businesses. Even though their Trumpist attitudes irritate me, I understand their world better than I do that of urban-centric, and their political views do not stop me from taking their money. It makes it easier for me to charge them the rates that I do.

I think the quip is a good one. However, I feel it could be better phrased as, "You need to seek out the best bits to remind you why you tolerate the worst bits."

When I'm having a bad day, and I wonder why I'm putting up the crap in my life, I walk into my yard, look at my garden with cucumbers, beans, cauliflower, and something like 20 tomato plants next to raspberries, blueberries, sour cherry tree, and Apple tree. And if it's a really really bad day, I will go and settle into the hammock and stare at the sky.

When I can finally feel gratitude for the life I have, then I go back and deal with the crap that lets me afford the life I have.

fragmede
0 replies
1h6m

For the purposes of input on the question of living in a big city vs a rural community, yes, but don't forget, there is also the 3rd option of living in suburbia. I hear it's quite popular in America.

asveikau
0 replies
15m

every second person I talk to wants to move to the country

Doesn't that possibly reflect your social circle more than a statement about the public at large?

insane_dreamer
2 replies
3h46m

Same here. I lived in some of the world's largest cities most of my life, and loved the "big city" atmosphere. But in my late 40s it changed and started to crave being out in the countryside, away from people, noise, etc. I now live on the outskirts of a medium size city (in 5 minutes I'm out among orchards and vineyards), but would prefer to be even further out, have an orchard or small farm (though I have no illusions that I could make a living from that)

ethbr1
1 replies
3h26m

One uncounted point is frequency of novelty.

Generalizing, I'd say younger people (18-35) are more default-comfortable in novel situations. As we age, people's tolerance for that seems to decrease.

And, on the whole, I'd say that rural life provides less novelty than city life. Or at least novelty within tighter bounds.

insane_dreamer
0 replies
1h18m

I still crave novelty, in that I'm always wanting to discover new things, go new places. But I don't feel the need to be so "busy" as is common in a big city.

fullstop
0 replies
4h4m

At some point, you start to prefer quiet.

I haven’t lived in a really large city, but have been around noise enough that I’m hoping our next move will distance us from neighbors and highway noise.

I feel this, and I'm mid 40s. I keep my eyes open for places to live which are somehow both remote and near decent healthcare options. I don't need the healthcare options now, but I am aware that I am only going to get older and that's something that I'd want.

I do my best to keep my yard full of life and tend to my plants and my gardens, but there's always the noise from the highway a mile or so away. It's less annoying when it's hot out, but the drone bothers me in the winter months.

asveikau
0 replies
4h22m

Some people do still like city life in their 40s.

Some people do find a more rural life unappealing.

totemandtoken
8 replies
5h4m

It's always interesting to hear from people who moved to Michigan because the better part of my adult life has been devoted to getting out of Michigan. It sounds like you have a peaceful life though

miah_
3 replies
3h57m

I grew up here and left as soon as I turned 18! After living all over the US and trying out different cities and locales returning to Michigan made the most sense. Buying a home in the SFBay area isn't feasible unless you're willing to work multiple jobs or sell your soul to FAANG.

Want a house? Get ready to replace: The foundation, the roof, the sewer lateral, oh and the addition wasn't done with a permit so its not to code at all. All for the low low price of $500k! On a lovely 1/4th acre plot, you'll be hearing your neighbor while they fart in the bathroom. What, you only got $500k? Don't worry, this other person here has $550k and they don't have a problem with the house need to be rebuilt!

Oh I'm looking at $500k houses? I should be looking at 1.1mil houses to not deal with all those problems? Now I've got 1.1mil mortgage for 30 years. I don't want to work into my 70's for a house.

Compared to... come to Michigan, you can get 5 acres for less than $300k and your house is functional, maybe it needs a new roof within 5 years. My mortgage is 15 years and will be paid off before that.

I think "competition" is the big thing that drove me back home. I was tired of competing with my neighbors (people who live in the same city) for _everything_. I don't mind people, I loved meeting people in every city I lived. I just felt like I had to fight for every "inch" in most "big cities" (but especially SFBay area).

It's very peaceful here. I love it. Maybe I'll go to the big lake (Michigan) later and swim.

ethbr1
1 replies
3h49m

Agreed that competition is one of my major annoyances with big cities.

Once it gets big enough that "good" restaurants require a reservation any day of the week, and those reservations are difficult to get, I'm moving somewhere else.

Why work to fight to win... what you can just enjoy somewhere else?

fragmede
0 replies
16m

To be a total snob about it, it's because the "what" is better in some places. If the best restaurant in town is a Cheesecake Factory or Olive Garden, and there are no reservations; hey, you do you.

mdip
0 replies
2h30m

Michigan's housing prices vary pretty dramatically and we don't have a terribly low cost of living in parts -- especially real-estate. It's no SFBay, but it's rapidly getting worse.

You mentioned the 300,000 on 5 acres, and that's definitely possible, but you're not getting that in the desirable parts of Macomb or Oakland County[0], nor anywhere in Wayne outside of Detroit/Detroit-ish areas.

I watched a house on a busy city road (one where "pulling out of the driveway means an immediate traffic backup to the light" between 7-9 and 4-6 every day) which was 2,200 sq ft, 4 BR 2.0 BA, though it was new construction (relatively modern/upgraded interior) go for $550,000 in 2022 after multiple bids. The home I own (1800/3BR/1.5BA) which I purchased for $175,000 in 2001 and would have lost money had I sold it between 2007~2018, is worth about $330,000. This is partly due to the value increasing due to local changes and "what's happening everywhere in the country" housing prices-wise. I know folks who moved to Plymouth to a home with similar specs but paid a quarter million in 2017.

Cool. And because I didn't re-finance, I don't have a mortgage any longer. Except I want to upgrade. And had I done that in 2008, I could have afforded it. Now that upgrade is twice as much but my salary has not followed suit. My desire to upgrade went to near zero, already, once I paid it off. But now I couldn't even afford to if I wanted to. I figure I'll downgrade and move near the kids when they're older and take home some cash in the process.

One thing I love about where I live in Michigan, though ... it's rare that a house doesn't have a basement. Even in places you wouldn't expect -- our next-door neighbor on Lake Huron had a full basement with 12ft ceilings (and a hell of a system to keep it bone dry). And newer homes tend to have excellent ones you can make useful -- if not always up-to-code -- living/lab spaces out of. SFBay hacks in their garage. We hack in our basements.

[0] When people say they "Live in Detroit" that's probably where they live. Just like the Detroit Zoo.

hammyhavoc
1 replies
4h39m

Everyone else's grass is always greener it seems.

cryptonector
0 replies
4h4m

Not in west Texas I'll tell you that!

scruple
0 replies
4h13m

I grew up in Ohio, and I did grow up on a farm for the first part of my life, and I worked like hell to get out of there and I'd never go back, but somehow a small farm in Michigan has become an idea in my brain, too.

mdip
0 replies
2h55m

I've lived here since I was born and I'd say I feel that way a lot of the time. There's a lot of downside: tight ties to autos (where I live) mean that a lot of employers -- even if "technically" they aren't automotive focused -- tend to have so many customers in that industry that "when something goes wrong at GM, Ford or whatever Chrysler is called, everyone around here gets it."

Best I've been able to do is work for employers out of state/country but I'm currently employed locally at a remote-only shop.

The weather. I get it. Everyone uses the same "5 minutes and it'll change" joke, but we're unique here. I thought I read somewhere that we see fewer cloudless days than the Pacific Northwest, but I can't find a reference so I suspect that's false, but we spend, basically, December to April with few sunny days. We live in a place of extremes, as well. Ten below (Fahrenheit) in the coldest winter days, 99 degrees a couple of days ago. Had one day in July when I was in High School where it was 85 degrees in the morning and in about a 15-minute period of time dropped to 45 due to a Derecho[0] rolling through (which almost picked me up off the ground due to 75 MPH winds and sent a large Oak Tree through our master bedroom).

We don't get Spring or Autumn, we get Winter, Summer, and a period of time where the two are at war and it may be Winter or Summer depending on what day/hour it is. A decade ago, I was in the ER on the first week of March. The hospital couldn't "turn on the Air Conditioning" at will, they had to switch over seasonally, so when we had an unexpected 85 degree day, that meant it was about 85 degrees in the ER. That was fun.

It is a beautiful place if you get out of the more populated parts, but I work here and that's where I live. Still, nice that it's an hour drive to get to something that qualifies as "Up North[1]"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derecho

[1] A phrase that has little to do with direction around here ... mostly just means "resort-ish small town, a lot of which survives due to summer 'Cabin Up North' folks." Ours is in Port Sanilac. But, really, Lake Orion and Walled Lake used to be "Up North" communities :)

pastaguy1
6 replies
5h26m

Funny comment about it being dark in Michigan. My feeling here in the summer is like, will the sun ever set (somewhat light out until almost 10pm depending on location)? I know what you mean, of course.

sneak
2 replies
5h7m

I grew up in Michigan. I live in Berlin now, and it’s light to 11:30pm and I can read on my balcony in natural light at 4:30am.

rob74
1 replies
4h28m

Well, seeing that most of Germany is further North than Michigan (southernmost latitute of Germany ~47°, northernmost latitude of Michigan ~48°, that sounds correct.

If you think about how most of Europe is at the same latitude as Canada, you really start to appreciate how important the Gulf Stream is for our climate...

FireBeyond
0 replies
2h41m

NBA... Toronto Raptors had/have a big campaign around "We The North".

Except whenever they came to Portland to play the Trailblazers, the arena commentators would mock it with signs like "We The North-er" etc. Portland is just over 2 degrees further north than Toronto.

miah_
0 replies
5h16m

Ya, the sun is out quite late right now =) My chickens don't want to go to bed! But then the sun goes down, and you can see _EVERY_ star in the sky. When I walk my trashcan out to the street, its pitch black. I LOVE it.

mdip
0 replies
5h4m

Who'd a thunk there'd be so many Michiganders on Hacker News?

I'm with ya, I tend to rise with the sun and 5:00 AM gets very old. Morning's like "Can I just sneak by you? Ope[0], sorry 'bout that, didn't mean to wake you up"

[0] I couldn't resist.

epolanski
0 replies
5h20m

Reversely it's gonna get dark at 4pm in winter.

It's the same in Poland, in this period of the year the sunset is at 10 pm and dusk at 11.

igleria
3 replies
5h32m

I wanna be you! problem is probably 15 years or more until it's feasible to me due to current salary, savings and country.

FredPret
2 replies
4h43m

Never give up - all three of salary, savings, and country can change dramatically for the better.

zubiaur
1 replies
4h33m

Start with country. The best tool against inequality is a suitcase.

FredPret
0 replies
3h32m

Agreed - the day I emigrated from the third world to Canada was the day my life hit the elbow of exponential growth.

synergy20
2 replies
4h30m

Michigan might be cool in summer, what about winters? I need find a place for summer as I'm getting older and texas is just darn hot for 4 months in summer.

uxp100
1 replies
4h26m

Michigan is not particularly cool in summer.

miah_
0 replies
4h14m

Right, it gets humid, but averages low ~80's. I'd honestly say its low ~70's, but this summer has been hot. I remember times when I was a child where it would still be snowing in May. Spring is also short, winter starts in October. I don't remember ever going out for Halloween without wearing a jacket, or where there wasn't cold rain or snow.

Michigan summers are much much milder (and shorter) than Texas summers (I lived in Houston for a few years).

spiderfarmer
11 replies
5h44m

A lot of people are heavily influenced by Youtubers and other influencers who conveniently leave out the earnings they get from their Youtube views, all while selling a romantic, self sufficient dream of living in harmony with nature.

In that regard Jeremy Clarkson paints a much more realistic picture, even though that show is very over the top and mostly scripted.

I grew up on a farm and was on track to take it over. I know how hard it is. And it was not the live I wanted, so I pivoted to online marketing and web development instead.

Loughla
8 replies
5h41m

I was the only grandkid interested in the family farm at all and stood to inherit the whole works.

I went to college instead and work a regular job. Grandpa has been on that farm since he was born in 1922. Until he retired in 2006, he took two days off work the entire time.

No. Thank. You.

mnmalst
3 replies
5h37m

What happened on those two days? Birth of his children? Probably a broken back or some other injury is more likely tho. :)

Loughla
2 replies
5h16m

Lol he got caught in a piece of machinery, which stripped the skin off of his arm from his elbow to his armpit. One day off for ER one for recovery.

hammyhavoc
1 replies
4h36m

What a trooper. They don't make people like they used to.

Kye
0 replies
4h28m

There are plenty of people like this. They bust their asses doing thankless work every day so people like us can argue on forums about the decline of society.

latentcall
3 replies
5h24m

Two days off sounds bad but when you’re working for yourself and don’t have to answer some prick manager, suffer on a commute, sit hunched unnaturally at a desk, it could be much better.

criley2
1 replies
5h8m

I'll take my 5+ weeks off per year (with strict 40 hour maximum weeks and strong work life balance) and you can have your self-employed 2 days per 30 years = 0.06 days off per year. That's 32 minutes of personal time off per year.

FredPret
0 replies
4h35m

When you’re working for yourself, every hour goes towards your personal equity, and you’re the boss. It hits different.

red-iron-pine
0 replies
4h31m

yeah instead its 12 hour days with animals that can and will try to kill you, rain or shine, in the snow, dark, and mud.

i've herded cattle on an aussie ranch as part of a working holiday. fun experience as a young man, but absolutely convinced me that IT was the right choice.

gempir
1 replies
4h39m

I really like Goldshaw Farm[1]. He does yearly breakdowns how is farm performed and the reality is he could not live at all if that was his only income stream. And I think his scale is most realistic what a developer could achieve when he quit and just wanted to try to farm.

YouTube pays his bills mostly, not the farm.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD4VW0lLYjE

debacle
0 replies
4h11m

Goldshaw is very informative, but I think he is a bit more of a hobby farmer than a real homesteader. If you have a sophisticated system (and are willing to work hard), you can bring in substantial amounts of money on small acreage.

latentcall
11 replies
5h26m

Farm doesn’t always mean hundreds of acres and millions in loans. My neighbors across the street are farmers and live in a residential neighborhood. They have a quarter acre in the front yard for growing veggies and own a 1 acre plot just outside of town.

At some point sitting at a computer becomes unfulfilling and some point some people can’t take it anymore.

postexitus
9 replies
4h53m

They are not farmers. They have a quite serious hobby (and some savings or other income to rely on probably). It's impossible to make a living out of a 1.25 acre of arable land.

swiftcoder
3 replies
4h33m

To a great extent that depends on where you live, and what you grow.

One of my neighbours produces 10,000 litres of wine/year on ~4 acres of vines. An acquaintence runs a market garden on less than an acre. Another raises pigs in a barn on half that.

postexitus
2 replies
4h26m

I didn't say you cannot run anything. As a side project, sure - 1 Acre is quite a piece of land. But it's impossible to rely on it as your only source of income (i.e. definition of being a farmer). Even in the wine example - let's say they make 2$/liter, that's $5k/acre/year. Pigs actually make very little profit on average, when you combine all the other costs associated with raising livestock. I would be very surprised if they make more than $100/pig/year (averages have been <0 for the last few years).

swiftcoder
0 replies
3h32m

In this case the wine is being sold directly to restaurants, removing any middlemen. The pigs are being made into artisanal chorizo onsite, and direct-to-consumer sales allows the farmer to capture most of the markup. Similar goes for the market gardener selling fresh and washed vegetables directly at markets and to CSA box subscribers.

I'm not suggesting everyone can be Jean-Martin Fortier, but with sufficiently low overheads and access to somewhat affluent markets, it is possible to make a living on an acre.

cryptonector
0 replies
3h36m

If you live off the land then you don't need much income, and the income you get from selling your surplus can be sufficient.

Take a trip through rural America sometime and look around. You'll see lots of very poor-looking households, but if you look carefully you might notice that they keep chickens and have a garden, and larger properties have more in the way of animals. Many are dirt poor, but they live off the land, and can afford to be dirt poor. Not romanticizing it or anything -- the homesteadies I know are not into being dirt poor, but they are into being more independent and living off the land so as to stretch their savings.

anticorporate
2 replies
4h29m

They are not farmers.

This seems like an unnecessary distinction with no purpose other than to gatekeep. A bartender is still a bartender if they only work weekends. An artist is still an artist if it's not their dayjob. A barber is still a barber if they have to work another job to make ends meet.

No, you shouldn't delude yourself into thinking that farming an acre or two is going to replace the income of most 9 to 5 jobs, but at a time in history where we absolutely need to be working to preserve and promote small-scale farming, we shouldn't be gatekeeping people.

postexitus
1 replies
4h24m

ok, fair enough - I agree that the definition of a job shouldn't be tied to the income generated from it. However the main argument presented above was that people shouldn't assume farming is easy and relaxing - and working on a 1 acre farm with no expectation of income is not the same as "being a farmer to make a living" which is 100x harder.

cryptonector
0 replies
3h27m

It's not easy, but it is relaxing. When I'm with my bees I have no other cares in the world. The buzzing alone makes sure of that. If I slipped up, they could kill me, so there's also that. But mainly it's just so darned fun and interesting, and not killing bees is a challenge (which is why we've converted our Langstroth hives to top-bar hives, so it's actually feasible to not kill any bees, but it still requires care and attention). When we eventually take up larger animals, I expect much of the same.

whalesalad
1 replies
4h21m

I know people making 100k annually in side income from farming microgreens alone in a very small area. This entire thread is full of weird gatekeepy false information.

fullspectrumdev
0 replies
3h31m

There’s a lot of interesting and profitable niches that can be done in a small scale such as microgreens, certain species of mushroom, certain varieties of pepper, etc.

This will entirely depend on local market conditions and suchlike, of course.

chrsw
0 replies
5h4m

I read "Have taken up farming" as "I now make a living from farming and nothing else". Maybe that was wrong of me to assume that but I was also thinking that's what the parent comment was referring to as well.

wsc981
7 replies
5h33m

My Thai girlfriend enjoys her farm, spends a couple of hours a day to work on it.

Of course, it's not our primary source of income, as that is my work as software engineer. For her it's a nice hobby.

I don't think you'd need a degree anyhow. Plenty of stuff can be learned online these days. And you don't need a lot of equipment either, if it's just to take care of yourself or your family. Depending on your community, you might also be able to rent some equipment if you need it at times (my girlfriend rents some equipment, tractor or some such with a driver, to cut the rice, about 2 times a year, as do most people in our village).

If you have a bit of a garden, can easily start as a hobby, I think.

bryanlarsen
6 replies
4h43m

You don't need a degree, but if you want to make a good living while farming you need to compete with people who have both a degree and millions in capital invested.

Farmers can make a lot of money, or at least somebody does. A single family Saskatchewan dryland wheat farm is typically worth $10M in land and equipment so either the farmer makes enough money to pay the interest on a multi-million dollar bank loan or enough money so that continuing to farm is preferable to retiring and living on the interest.

The problem is of course the variability due to weather and wild swings in commodity prices. A farm can produce a high six figure income one year and lose six figures the next.

But as you noted, if you're not looking to pull six figures per year from your farm, then it does become quite a bit simpler.

ifwinterco
5 replies
4h14m

In the UK with arable you can potentially make money (although probably not), and it isn't a crazy amount of work. You plant crops in the autumn, spray them a couple of times, then it's too wet to get into the field and do anything during the winter even if something goes wrong. Only really busy time is a couple of weeks in the summer for harvest.

On the other hand, livestock farming is incredibly hard work (cows need to be milked 365 days a year) and you more or less always lose money.

cryptonector
2 replies
3h41m

Cows are easy if you raise them for meat.

ifwinterco
1 replies
3h21m

True, but you can't really just go on holiday for a week if you have any kind of animals, whereas with arable there are times of the year when you can

cryptonector
0 replies
3h17m

Sure you can! Leave them enough hay and make sure the water's flowing.

rini17
1 replies
3h46m

There are no slugs nor stink bugs in the UK? These are main topic of discussion in any gardening community in Europe throughout growing season. You can't just spray them away.

ifwinterco
0 replies
3h17m

I'm not actually a farmer I just grew up in the countryside, so I'm not sure, but I think with row crops slugs are less of an issue than vegetables, and they do use slug pellets if necessary.

Pests, bad weather etc. are definitely issues even with modern farming techniques, so in a good year you make a bit of money but in a bad year you can lose most of the crop

stetrain
7 replies
5h29m

I read someone who retires and "takes up farming" as retiring to a house in a rural location and maintaining a garden and maybe some small quantities of livestock.

IE someone who is not depending on the "farm" to be a commercially successful operation or is even attempting to run it as a profitable business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_farm

newzisforsukas
2 replies
4h21m

In the U.S., a high proportion of farms might be classed as hobby farms. In 2007, over 40% of farms reported less than $2500 in income and over 10% of farms had less than 10 acres (4.0 hectares) of land

Hmm, why?

debacle
1 replies
4h13m

Because there's huge benefits to having a Schedule F on your federal tax return.

cryptonector
0 replies
3h53m

You also can get exemptions on your property taxes in many states for the land under agriculture.

You could end up:

  - living off the land

  - paying low taxes on your homestead
    (house + 1 acre)

  - paying almost no taxes on your ag
    land (all but 1 acre)

  - stretching your savings for many
    more years than you'd have any
    right to otherwise

vbezhenar
0 replies
4h55m

30 years ago this garden was the only thing that helped my family and millions other people survive when USSR crashed. 600 square meters planted mostly with potatoes provide enough food for family to survive winter and next summer and even sell something. And it's not that hard work, because people usually had their main work for some tiny money and maintained garden before and after work.

I think that everyone should own some land to feed himself in the event of economy fallout.

silisili
0 replies
4h45m

That's how I read it. Farming doesn't have to mean planting thousands of acres of soybeans and corn and hundreds of head of cattle.

A large garden, some chickens, and perhaps a few goats are more than enough to keep a hobbyist tinkering all day, and is still what I'd call 'farming', though YMMV.

lm28469
0 replies
4h38m

Yep, it's insanely easy and cheap to sustain a family if you have land, a bit of time and two brain cells, but it's insanely hard and expensive to run a successful modern large scale farm

ethbr1
0 replies
3h15m

Aka what vets call "Noah's Ark farms"

Because they have two of every animal, but an uneconomically small herd.

lm28469
7 replies
4h41m

It's the two extremes of work. One is hard physical work directly associated with producing the things you need to stay alive, the other is purely intellectual work which is 20 levels of abstraction away from your necessities.

Farming is hard work. Modern farmers have college degrees, millions in equipment, and a vast amount of knowledge and experience you do not have.

It depends on the scale, I know 80+ years old people living in the countryside, still splitting their own wood, growing their own garden/orchard, manually removing potatoe bugs from their decently sized potatoe field, cutting grass with a scythe, taking care of their chickens/goats/sheeps... they're 100% self sustained and use tools from the 19th century they inherited from their parents. They're in better physical and mental shape than most code monkeys I know while being 50+ years older

rini17
3 replies
3h55m

survivorship bias says hi

lm28469
2 replies
3h44m

I got a whole village of 300 survivors for you

Kye
1 replies
2h40m

That's still survivorship bias. Figure out how those 300 survived and why an exponentially larger number of people didn't and you might have a solution for all the people who want to get into farming.

lm28469
0 replies
2h6m

There are many reasons why people quit commercial farming, none of them apply to personal farms, and you seem to not consider what people lost to become urbanites

lye
1 replies
2h54m

I know 80+ years old people living in the countryside ...

I do too, and not a single one of them is happy about it. Every person I talked to, starting from my grandparents, wants to move to a city where heating etc is taken care of for you, but in their age it's easier to continue doing what they've always been doing instead of enduring massive changes like that.

lm28469
0 replies
2h5m

At least they grew in nature, mostly free of obesity and other modern diseases, the grass is always greener... I'll take that over breathing tire/brake dust and sitting 10 hours a day in front of a glass rectangle

cryptonector
0 replies
3h50m

I've met an 80+ year old farmer who looks old and frail but raises calves and keeps 80 hives, and he moves those fully loaded hive boxes like it's nothing. It's rather surprising the first time you see it.

andoando
4 replies
5h27m

With all this tech youd imagine it should have become easier to self sustain.

fullspectrumdev
1 replies
3h3m

There’s a lot of interesting methods you can combine with tech stuff to do things like aeroponic towers, composting, mycology, etc.

For example: a “enclosed” mushroom growing op (a few sheds or cabins) can be made incredibly efficient using various sensors, automation solutions, and environmental controls to maintain the optimal growing environment. It can be as complex or as simple as you want.

andoando
0 replies
42m

I am sure there are. I was quite into aquaponics for a while as well.

I just wish these things were more common place. All these technological advances...it should be easy option for people to live in communities where they can do few hours of work a day and live simply. Yet this is somehow a complete luxury!

Instead we need cars, roads, computers, phones, to work 8-10 hours a day just to provide ourselves with shelter food and clothing.

chrsw
1 replies
5h1m

Maybe. But when I think "tech" the first thing that comes to mind isn't "sustainability". The first things that come to my mind are "cost, maintenance, consumption and waste".

debacle
0 replies
4h5m

Traditional farming has an obscene amount of waste.

throwaway211
3 replies
5h30m

Corn or dairy cattle, absolutely. Oranges for concentrate, sure. Even cabbages for transport, right.

But there are other things there's demand for, or demand can even be created for, that do not have such vast efficient scales. Hand-reared escargot, or spinach grown within resonance of a woodpecker pecking at dawn, just two examples.

nativeit
1 replies
5h12m

…spinach grown within resonance of a woodpecker pecking at dawn,

Please tell me this is a real thing freaks overpay for…

0perator
0 replies
4h55m

It’s just a marketing spin away from absolutely being a thing people overpay for.

cryptonector
0 replies
3h24m

Hand-reared escargot sounds fun. I bet you don't need much to do that. They're yummy, and any surplus can be sold at a farmer's market.

jfengel
3 replies
5h48m

There's also the old joke about the farmer who wins the lottery. "I'm going to keep farming. And when the money runs out I'll find another way to keep farming."

riffraff
1 replies
4h13m

I almost experienced this for real, when I was a kid I was working picking grapes in a vineyard and it was a terribly maintained one, you had to bend over and kneel etc. At the time the highest jackpot in history came up in my country, something like €50M

At some point the owner told us "I'm sorry guys, we'll fix this field. If I win the lottery, I'm gonna fix all of this, and I'm gonna hire a bunch of hot brazilian dancers to entertain us while we work".

It didn't even occur to him that he could stop doing it.

ethbr1
0 replies
3h18m

One lesson from farming and waterwork that I've tried to inculcate in myself is continual incremental improvement because nothing stays perfect.

In farming, something is always broken or less than it should be. But there is literally not enough time in the day (or money) to fix and maintain everything perfectly. So you do the best you can.

Similarly, in waterwork, the ocean beats the hell out of everything. Docks, boats, houses, machinery, etc. And so why fix that solid but beat-up dock, if there's a chance this year brings the hurricane that rips it away? Functionality is more important than form.

dreamcompiler
0 replies
4h40m

Q: What's the best way to become a millionaire?

A: Be a billionaire and then start farming.

trevyn
2 replies
5h41m

Sounds like you don’t know how to farm romantically.

worthless-trash
1 replies
4h18m

Do you swear at the crops in french ?

cryptonector
0 replies
3h20m

Pourquois pas?

AndrewKemendo
2 replies
4h4m

I’ve done both and I’d prefer farming

I was a staff architect at a public company and started a trash cooperative this year

I 1000% prefer making my neighbors better off than some idiot CEO and all the assholes on the board and investors

fullspectrumdev
1 replies
3h9m

I would like to learn more about the trash cooperative.

I’ve had a few ideas in the direction of collecting certain types of trash to recycle (eg: food waste, garden waste, paper/cardboard) due to a personal interest in composting and related topics.

There’s certain stuff though that I have no idea how to recycle (yet). Would one negotiate with a larger waste management company for these items? Or simply offer it as a way for neighbours to reduce their trash collection bills?

AndrewKemendo
0 replies
1h53m

Seegull.org

Send me a message at Andrew@seegull.org if you want

connorgutman
1 replies
4h39m

I’m a programmer with a degree in Agricultural Science so my opinion is oddly relevant to this subject. Please shut up and stop shitting on people’s dreams. Not everything is about profit and scaling. Anyone can and should learn to farm regardless of their background or education.

seneca
0 replies
4h8m

Your degree has nothing at all to do with your comment, and doesn't justify its rude tone.

cocochanel
1 replies
5h13m

I see this kind of comment every time someone decides to take a different path. Pessimistic sounds smart I guess. Well, you are wrong. I have done it myself, started a farm on a whim a couple years back, and did just fine! And no I don't know what hard work you're talking about, I'm much healthier than I was sitting at a desk all day long.

hammyhavoc
0 replies
4h35m

Where in the world are you?

42lux
1 replies
5h36m

Every time this topic comes up a rhyme of your comment bubbles to the top and speaking from my own experience growing up in a winery. I can say: yes, it's hard, but no, it's not impossible to take up later in life. Stop assuming he just threw away his notebook and bought a tractor and stop spreading coffee table knowledge. Let people discover things for themselves, or even better, try finding things out for yourself. Because maybe, just maybe, you might discover that our differences are what make us unique and capable of achieving things in our own ways. There is no best practice for everything or everyone.

cryptonector
0 replies
3h58m

This needs to be the top reply. I know many people who have taken up homesteading while also keeping a foot in tech. They want to grow their own veggies and fruit, raise their own chickens, etc. They want to be closer to nature. And by and large they succeed.

xyst
0 replies
3h46m

If it’s commercial farming, yea it’s not fun. Exposure to many chemicals/pesticides/herbicides. Animal cruelty on a daily basis — those poor chickens and cows stuffed into tight spaces.

But if it’s for sustaining yourself, it’s not so bad.

Personally, the only “farming” I would pivot into is vertical farming. The idea of turning what would normally be a massive operation out in the country into a self sustainable, climate controlled operation in an urban environment is fascinating to me.

Optimize crops for taste rather than pest or weather resistance. Combine it with the fact that transportation can be reduced significantly; and it’s a recipe for a circular and self sustainable ecosystem.

whalesalad
0 replies
5h17m

You are thinking of big ag doing stuff like corn and beans with a combine. Farming can be as big or small as you want it to be. You can be a farmer on 1 acre of land. This is not a good take.

tmountain
0 replies
5h47m

That's one type of farm. Depending on someone's financial situation and expectations, there are certainly other types. Taking up farming does not necessarily suggest that you're going to compete in the highly competitive world of agribusiness. I personally know a smaller-scale farmer who has a biodynamic farm and provides a high quality of life for his family. He has not invested millions in equipment to make this happen (not even close), but he certainly works hard. There's no debating that.

thefz
0 replies
5h5m

Speaking personally, being that most of my work is "virtual", I take up as much physical work as I can, and even create some out of curiosity.

I miss the physical world and being able to touch and understand mechanical objects. In time I have become a decent bike mechanic and I can do some plumbing and electrical work.

This is just to say that some of us end up craving contact with the physical world more, not less.

sva_
0 replies
5h19m

I have done the farm thing for a while (gf to that time had a family farm). While manual labor can be rewarding, I have to say I was often bored out of my mind. And I usually never get bored.

oopsallmagic
0 replies
5h24m

Funny how nobody ever says the same about software, which underpins the entire modern economy and has the power to irreversibly change the lives of billions.

meristohm
0 replies
3h54m

What's the definition distribution of "farming"?

My bias is not to go directly to factory farming or industrial agriculture, which sound depressing. I'd rather a smart and lazy approach, helping the land recover to a point and then stopping succession, as has been done with fire in the PNW mountain meadows for berry crops. I'm not under the illusion that the land-management practices of the Nisqually or Puyallup, say, didn't involve consistent work, just a different sort of work, one more within individual and small-group control.

If petroleum-fueled agriculture is "necessary", it's a mess we've gotten ourselves into.

littlecranky67
0 replies
4h37m

I agree, and I say the very same thing about software engineering. Yet there are plenty of managers who hire unqualified people coming from a 6 week coding bootcamp into teams with highly complex requirements and very skilled, experienced devs. So from that perspective, one would propably think that a 6-week farming bootcamp also gotto be enough :)

krmboya
0 replies
5h30m

Someone could be going into farming for a low cost independent lifestyle, not necessarily as a profit maximization venture.

hansvm
0 replies
4h38m

That's the same line of advice I give in most disciplines:

Student: I've struggled with math in the past, what do I need to do to be ready for your class?

Me: Take the previous class first. You'll get easy A's in both, you'll actually understand the material when you need it, and there's no real downside since you have a minimum of 120 credits to fill to be able to graduate anyway.

In some ways it ties into the "big fish in a small pond" theory of life. People who take that sort of advice have easy, stable lives. I'll keep giving it. Likewise, most people probably shouldn't jump into farming unprepared.

That said, life is short, and a year is a long time. If you can stomach the downside risk (losing every dime you poured into farming, having to work hard at it), by all means just jump in. There are vibrant communities willing to teach you everything you need to know, and you'll learn faster working on real problems you're personally experiencing than rote memorizing the tasks a seasoned master tells you to do.

If you want to mitigate some of the risks, perhaps start with something small enough you could manage it without millions in equipment (high-margin products like mushrooms and arugula -- and if you go with those, focus on distribution as a primary concern).

gonzo41
0 replies
5h12m

Are you Jeremy Clarkson in secret :P.

giantg2
0 replies
5h34m

To be fair, most devs leaving the software industry won't have half the type of problems that actual farmers have - they have money, so they don't have the same pressures and they are typically doing some kind of boutique product.

I would love to "farm", but only as a retirement "job", and only with specific products.

g9yuayon
0 replies
1h6m

When I started to study English many years ago, my mom gave me a book series titled America Today or something like that. The book was life changing as it made learning English so much easier than the Chinese way at that time and it taught me a lot about the US. The book 3 devoted many chapters to a day in someone's life, one of which is A Day in the Life of a Farmer. At that time, the US was the beacon of the modern civilization to Chinese people, a superpower that was far ahead of everything we did. And despite that the work of a farmer was still tough. They still needed to get up at 4:00am or early to take care of their livestocks. They still had to take care of their crops before the sun fully rose. They still had to handle many issues about their land, their equipment, and their business. They still had to do tons of intense manual labor. Despite all the toughness, though, the chapter also conveyed the idea that farming can be gratifying and fulfilling. I certainly appreciate this kind of optimism and appreciation, and the life an American farmer has a lasting impression until this day.

fullspectrumdev
0 replies
3h44m

Not all farming is large scale.

A lot of actually viable commercial farms where I live are smaller than many hobby farms in the US, for a start.

What a lot of people mean when they say they are quitting to take up farming is pretty much hobby farming - where you may break even or turn a miniscule profit, but the main “goal” is to simply become a bit more self sufficient and do it for some sense of enjoyment.

The interesting thing is some small “hobby farms” are effectively experiments in permaculture or other forms of regenerative “living” that can be extremely cost efficient or even profitable.

epolanski
0 replies
5h22m

Not everyone is taking on farming as an alternative line of work.

I know a dev who's stopped working in his 40s (made huge money by being in the right startup at the right moment) and took up on farming, but not as a mean to survive rather than "fun".

He even ended up having quite some profit after few years by focusing on exotic edibles for gourmet restaurants, but obviously he doesn't make anywhere near the money he did as a developer, but he does love his life.

I can't lie, I aspire to do kinda the same and pick up on farming, but just for myself and family. The food industry is beyond disgusting and you just can't trust what you're eating, no matter how deep your wallet it.

destitude
0 replies
5h22m

Yes, if you want to subscribe to the stereotypical unsustainable practice of running a mega farm. There is plenty of opportunities for farming on a small scale and selling your products locally or online.

cryptonector
0 replies
4h7m

Homesteading is more like hobby farming, and for some it's a retirement plan.

coldtea
0 replies
4h44m

Modern farmers have college degrees, millions in equipment, and a vast amount of knowledge and experience you do not have.

Are we talking industrial scale? Because not every farming venture needs to reach that, and most smaller farmers don't have "college degress and millions in equipment".

And you can pick up a lot in a couple of years, I've had friends who made the switch (and extended family who worked on farming).

Not in the US though, but judging from the decent sized subculture of "living off the grid" (or close), it's probably even easier there.

cmon-man
0 replies
3h37m

gate·keep·ing /ˈɡātˌkēpiNG/ noun 1. the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.

citizen_friend
0 replies
4h55m

Running an industrial farm that makes money efficiently is different than living on a plot of land with chickens and cows, giving you a cheap lifestyle.

astura
0 replies
5h18m

If you want to make a solid living farming, then sure. However, hobby farms that break even or even lose money also exist and are probably the majority by sheer number. "Farming" can be as big or as small as you want it to be.

Distant family member of mine started a hobby farm in retirement and lived on it for probably 30 years until his death. He lived off his pension and savings, not his crops.

SolarNet
0 replies
3h36m

To be fair, I suspect they meant it in a more idiomatic sense. Not that they literally went farming. Sort of like when one says "water under the bridge" they aren't commenting on bridges, nor water.

PuissantSheep
0 replies
4h6m

What you describe is how corporate farming is done in the United States. There are millions of people in Mexico, for example, who are farming, and they do not have college degrees or millions in equipment. They also work sunup to sundown, every day, with no vacations. "Right to repair" and John Deere are alien concepts to many of them.

NoMoreNicksLeft
0 replies
4h21m

I'm a little bit in touch with this particular demographic, and from what I've seen this has nothing to do with romanticism, and instead everything to do with a profound mistrust in technological civilization's ability to feed everyone into the near term future. Much closer to some sort of extreme insurance policy than anything else. There are systemic economic problems that can't be hand-waved away at this point.

Interesting side topic: did you know that while John Deere's top of the line combine is well over $1 million retail (and of course everyone else's models are similarly priced), that a model 42 combine from the 1960s will still go for under $1000 at auction, even as recently as last October, and is more than sufficient to harvest oh, probably even up to 50 acres over a few days? If one sells wheat or oats or whatever, there's no way to compete at market but if one only wants enough wheat to feed themselves for the coming year (and not have to buy seed again next), it's some absurdly small acreage. You might need like a fifth of an acre. There's still plenty of hard work, but mechanization solved some of the worst parts of that before we were even born.

Kye
0 replies
4h47m

Everyone thinks they're a born farmer until their first horn worm.

"I love tomatoes! I'm going to grow my own!"

wow what a coincidence so do these little baby moths

Don't get me wrong, growing your own food is neat, but you're going to trade the money you'd spend on veggies for time and effort trying to keep even a small back porch of plants alive. You have to be fastidious about everything from soil maintenance/security (from pests) to pesticide application.

Gud
0 replies
2h26m

Sorry but this is not the case everywhere. Some countries subsidise their farmers because they correctly determine that this type of industrial farming you describe is terrible for the environment.

4n6556mn56nm
0 replies
4h28m

I think this is a negative approach. This is an open source developer who donated his time and energy over years for practically free. The reason he is quitting open source development in favor of farming is because farming is a more rewarding experience.

The number one killer of open source projects is funding. It is demoralizing to spend years on something that isn't going to really put food on the table, and we do not live in a society that allows us to fully chase our hobbies and passions with complete abandon to that fact.

23B1
0 replies
4h55m

This is a terrible, terrible misconception about what constitutes a farm and farming!

Yes you can 'farm' on an industrial scale, or you can 'farm' on your parking strip. You're right when it comes to the former, and couldn't be more wrong when it comes to the latter.

KaiserPro
40 replies
6h20m

I do hope they enjoy it.

I grew up in a farming community, and whist it can be rewarding, if you are trying to make money, or be self sufficient, its fucking hard work.

Is it harder than programming? thats a subjective call. Objectively its physically harder work, mentally its way more varied. You need to be a welder, plumber, vet, horticulturist, builder, metrologist, and if you're doing properly, crooked accountant as well.

Would I take up farming? probably not. Would rather become a water mill owner? hell yeah.

zer00eyz
32 replies
6h12m

You need to be a welder, plumber, vet, horticulturist, builder, metrologist

I love this about farmers. They are the polymaths of our age and folks dont get it. Farming YouTube is a trip because there's more tech in a tractor than in some startups.

and if you're doing properly, crooked accountant as well.

Yea, most people dont get what a "future" is, and why corn and lumber have them (but not onions... thats a lesson too)... The farm has the support of a lot of high finance and hedging exists not just as an instrument but has a purpose.

Ask a farmer about a grain/pork "Marketing Plan" and who they are hiring as advisors and where that person got their degree...

It's a complicated world and there are some interesting intersections out there.

gunapologist99
12 replies
5h46m

Yea, most people dont get what a "future" is, and why corn and lumber have them (but not onions... thats a lesson too)... The farm has the support of a lot of high finance and hedging exists not just as an instrument but has a purpose.

Not many farmers I know (in an ag community) understand what a future is either, or would even know how to trade them. That's the domain of hedge funds, not farmers. (And, if they tried, they'd probably lose. It's not much different from me trying out day trading.)

The fruit of a farmer's work is not futures trading. It's trying to keep things alive long enough to make a small profit.

baq
7 replies
5h25m

They should, it's basic insurance. You don't have to be a speculator, just understand that you're long the thing you're producing in the future so it makes sense to be short some future contracts to lock in your price in that future.

(Just make sure your futures broker accepts delivery, otherwise there's funny stuff happening)

zer00eyz
6 replies
5h11m

They should, it's basic insurance.

If you grow corn: It can be sold as a future, and you can have crop insurance on it.

IM not sure you grasp what a future is in the case of a farmer...

Now if your in construction, or buying fuel a future can be insurance. Or a risky bet.

None of that is like your heath or home owners or car insurance.... unless you dont have them.

yccs27
3 replies
4h56m

Do you grasp what a future is?

Having home/car/health insurance protects you against it being destroyed. Buying fuel futures protects you against the price of gas spiking. Having crop insurance protects you against your crops being destroyed. Selling crop futures protect you against the price of your crops falling.

It's all protecting you from events that would seriously hurt your finances, aka hedging/insurance.

zer00eyz
2 replies
4h23m

Selling crop futures protect you against the price of your crops falling.

Price contracts are a thing. You can do this in new england with fuel oil for heating. It is fairly common.

But futures pay today for a product at some later date. It's a loan as well.

And as a producer it's not just a hedge on price. What happens if your expect to yield 140 bushels of corn an acre, and only get 130? Your crop came in, so no insurance, how do you make up the missing bushels? You're buying those futures back or delivering the contract even at 10x the price.

That isn't an outcome one expects from a hedge or insurance.

There is a reason that there are specialists in marketing and delivery of products with futures markets that help them plan.

baq
1 replies
2h1m

Price contracts are a thing. You can do this in new england with fuel oil for heating. It is fairly common.

But futures pay today for a product at some later date. It's a loan as well.

This does not compute. You say forward contracts are common but futures give you money today? Futures are standardised forward contracts, you don't get any money when you open them unless your futures are different than mine?

And as a producer it's not just a hedge on price. What happens if your expect to yield 140 bushels of corn an acre, and only get 130? Your crop came in, so no insurance, how do you make up the missing bushels? You're buying those futures back or delivering the contract even at 10x the price.

Exactly right hence why I said 'some'? You hedge when you can to lock in e.g. aforementioned 30%.

There is a reason that there are specialists in marketing and delivery of products with futures markets that help them plan.

Completely agree - but it isn't that complicated with futures. Now options...

zer00eyz
0 replies
52m

https://rjofutures.rjobrien.com/futures-trading-resources/gl...

Futures are technically different than forward contracts... the former is public the latter is private.

But a lot of the people doing cash forwards, trade futures on the same products, and call and put options on those futures.

Then add actual insurance in on top of all that...

There are farms that look more like Wall Street Banks with how cover and leverage.

shagie
0 replies
4h59m

The Great Onion Corner And The Futures Market - https://www.npr.org/2015/10/22/450769853/the-great-onion-cor...

How an Iowa farmer pushes through less-than-average crop yields - https://www.marketplace.org/2023/07/27/how-an-iowa-farmer-pu...

Ryssdal: Yes. What about prices? When you take it to market — or when you’re going to take it to market — are you selling futures?

Hemmes: Well, a lot of people do that. I forward cash grain, or forward contract. Right now, I could sell delivery in March and set my cash price, or set the basis. A lot of people do options to set that bottom. But I’m telling you, Kai, I need some kind of collar because of the whiplash I’ve been getting from these markets — they’re up one day 50, down 40 the next, and everything adds to it.

Farming is “not easy and it’s a lot of risk,” says Iowa soybean producer - https://www.marketplace.org/2024/05/28/farming-is-not-easy-a...

Ryssdal: Have you sold your futures yet? Have you sold any of this stuff that just got in the ground?

Hemmes: I have. I’ve sold about 30%. Our co-op gave me a heck of a bid. But it’s kinda like wait and see because this market just keeps going. Like soybeans are down 18 cents today and then they could go up 50 tomorrow. Who knows?
baq
0 replies
4h11m

Yeah I mean if hail destroys your corn it's a different kind of insurance you should buy, I agree I guess? I mean there's always a risk of getting LME-nickeled if I may, but just hoping that corn has a reasonable price next year is also a risky bet?

yccs27
1 replies
5h8m

From a farmer's point of view, futures can allow for relatively cheap insurance against the agricultural product's price moving against you. You're basically negotiating the price of the product before it's ready to sell, with a standardized product on a global marketplace.

zer00eyz
0 replies
3h49m

Again... Not just price

Payment date can be decoupled from delivery date... So it can be a "loan" as well.

As a producer you're betting on yield. If you expected 140 bushels an acre and got 130 your on the hook for the rest. Regardless of price on thee market ... even if its 10x what you were paid. SO your negotiating VOLUME on a product you haven't made yet, and could have a shortfall of.

There is a whole set of quality issues with the product as well... Too wet, to dry, wrong type, misses the mark on grading...

You can sell options on futures... some smaller amount of money today and agree to sell at a price at a later date, maybe... if the actual price is lower than your offer price then you get the money and the crop.

There is more to the futures market than HN learned from the Duke Brothers.

KaiserPro
0 replies
4h4m

Not many farmers I know (in an ag community) understand what a future is either

I can see that, but they do know about how pricing might be fixed. Obviously subsidies make a huge difference, so some crops might have a fixed price (ie things that are used to grow biofuels) vs stuff that has a free market vs single large buyer.

AdamN
6 replies
5h55m

You need to be a welder, plumber, vet, horticulturist, builder, metrologist

Not sure how commmon this is anymore. The age of the family farm with a mix of livestock, rotating crops, and woodlands are long gone in the developed world. Each of these tasks would be handled mostly by a professional in any serious farming operation.

zknow
0 replies
5h26m

that might be gone but in my experience - and I live on a farm in the developed world - while some tasks are handled by professionals on serious operations, its pretty common for farmers to do a bit of their own welding, a bit of their own plumbing, treat their own animals, etc, and only bring in professionals for big jobs. Its still very much a family affair even if a farm is only focused on one crop.

zer00eyz
0 replies
5h48m

Common.

Plenty of farmers (who are super savvy) have embraced social media, and are showing not telling what they do.

fullspectrumdev
0 replies
2h57m

A lot of farms where I live, in a developed country, are exactly this kind of mix.

Some cattle for dairy, meat and market. Some crops. And often some woodland for tax or grant reasons or under forestry contracts. Maybe some chickens or pigs or similar - usually for local markets.

It’s actually quite neat: I can easily obtain actually free range eggs at relatively low cost, produced within a few kilometers of where I live (a city). Same for pork products, etc.

dgacmu
0 replies
5h5m

I don't know how common this is in row crops, but it's exceptionally common in cattle ranching. The majority of cattle producers ("cow-calf" operations, the ones who raise cattle from birth to about half-grown) are smaller operations. They're absolutely jacks-of-all-trades.

chongli
0 replies
4h58m

Look up “Just a few acres farm” on YouTube. Pete, a retired architect, has done all of the above and documented it on his YouTube channel. Heck, add aerial drone videographer and video editor to the list. He makes some excellent videos while cutting hay!

He also has a lot of really practical videos on the business of small farming. He’s very adamant about not going into debt before you start, doing market research in your area, and starting very small but rolling over the proceeds from your first sales back into the farm.

KaiserPro
0 replies
4h2m

Depends on what you farm. But if you have pasture, then you are all of those things. You need to make sure that the land is growing something edible at the right time, it needs to be drained.

All of that requires big machinery, and that breaks or is expensive. So it needs fixing. specialist fixers are there for expensive things, like combine harvesters. but for unfucking a plough or much spreader, thats a you problem.

mawaldne
2 replies
4h37m

Can you recommend some good farming youtubes?

zer00eyz
0 replies
4h10m

Mike Mitchell is great. He's very Canadian but pleasant. And they have an operation on a massive scale (family business).

Barn Talk is... something. IF you're liberal it might offend you at some points, but there is a ton of gold in there. They also have a channel about their day to day farming.

Welker Farms, Millennial Farmer, Cole the Corn Star and Larson farms are all "interesting"... They are all very different.

KaiserPro
0 replies
3h54m

Clarkson's farm has a number of issues, but it does give a fairly broad base about modern farming in the UK

especially as all that work in the first year meant he made something like £900

barbs
2 replies
5h56m

Does the Farming Simulator series of games aim to replicate this complicated variety of skills?

jon-wood
0 replies
5h24m

Farming Simulator, whilst good for listening to podcasts, seems about as accurate a simulator of farming as Goat Simulator is for being a goat.

ethbr1
0 replies
3h58m

Press A to stick weld your plow in the middle of the field.

ethbr1
0 replies
3h6m

The fascinating bit to me was that they axed the whole onion futures market vs just adding guardrails against predatory trading.

Then again... this was the 1950s and paper contracts, so US market intervention or not was more stark.

And also Eisenhower was likely more concerned about whether the USSR was going to nuke the US and if China was going to try to invade Taiwan for a third time.

qb1
0 replies
5h50m

Economics and polymath abilities aside. There is significant risk of bodily harm in farming. Humans, machinery, and chemicals create a potential deadly mix. The risk often captures children and amateurs as they have lesser developed farming knowledge and skills[1].

[1] https://www.nifa.usda.gov/about-nifa/blogs/study-reveals-agr...

hnthrow289570
0 replies
5h49m

I love this about farmers. They are the polymaths of our age and folks dont get it.

Letting it get too complicated risks losing all of the small-scale farms because then only large companies will have the scale and aggregate skill and money to farm. Tight margins means they might decide to quit and go do something else given the amount of skill and work required for so little profit.

Being a farmer and not owning the land that you work is soul crushing.

gunapologist99
3 replies
5h57m

if you're doing properly, crooked accountant as well

Don't know if it was intentional, but this maligns some of the hardest-working and down-to-earth people that I've ever known as crooked.

But perhaps this is just referring to taxes, but farmers are also not incented to fudge too much on their taxes: they receive subsidies, and very little is paid with cash anymore, so is easily tracked.

Sadly, most farms today are huge corporate operations, so perhaps that's what you're talking about, but out of the less than 25% of the remaining family-sized operations, most are not wealthy by any stretch. Perhaps that's what they're doing "wrong".

I think one of the reasons you can't really be crooked as a farmer is because it's a small community and everyone knows everyone else. If you rip someone else off, everyone will know. It's much easier to be crooked in a bigger city where there's another sucker born every day.

brianleb
1 replies
5h54m

Is there something about farming that precludes one from being crooked? Are there any other jobs that are above reproach?

lukas099
0 replies
5h47m

Granted that farmers can be crooked, does this justify saying that it’s necessary for ‘doing it right’?

KaiserPro
0 replies
3h56m

Don't know if it was intentional, but this maligns some of the hardest-working and down-to-earth people that I've ever known as crooked.

you misread me.

I don't mean, they rip off other farmers, I mean subsidy farming.

In the UK there were such things as flying herds, that were bussed in when inspections were due. Do they get rich from it? fuck no, does it allow them to survive, it did, until the UK government threw them under a bus.

Aurornis
1 replies
5h47m

I don’t know the details of this person’s situation, but farming is much more enjoyable when it’s done as a semi-retirement hobby than as a way to bootstrap one’s career.

The farmers I know in my family all struggled mightily because every year was about accumulating a little more capital so they could rent some more land or buy the next piece of equipment they needed to grow in a few years.

The people who do it as a semi-retirement after a different career often come in with funds to buy land (as an investment) and have some working capital up front. When the goal is more about getting any positive number out of the farm to offset property taxes and you’re not running it like a business where squeezing every penny out of rented land with rented equipment is the only way to make it to next year, it’s a very different experience.

Hopefully this person is lucky enough to be in the latter group and have this be more hobby than bootstrapping a farming enterprise.

KaiserPro
0 replies
4h1m

you put this much more poetically than I could have!

netbioserror
0 replies
5h46m

Really this is if you're trying to be a high-volume commercial farmer. Homesteading is still hard work, but if you're growing food for just you and your family, it's a much less exacting science that requires much less equipment. It is startling how much a garden of various veggies and starches wants to grow and only needs a bit of help from you. Throw in some chickens and you've got a fairly big boost to your family's organic nutrition.

teddyX
17 replies
5h55m

Farming for fun is probably ok but farming for income sounds like a horrific idea

bobim
7 replies
5h44m

It pays badly yet it's the most essential bs-devoid job on this planet. That's showing how much our society is twisted.

malfist
5 replies
5h39m

Oh there's lots of bullshit in farming, especially if you have cattle

cies
3 replies
5h18m

That why I hate the word "farm" and derivatives like "farmer" and "farming".

On one side is see land cultivators and on the other hand i see animal exploiters. The first do -IHMO- a great job akin to school teacher, the latter do a horrible job akin to a concentration camp commander.

Having one word to describe both is beyond me.

That said, I do find it amazing how these two groups stick together and back each other up in politics!

PuissantSheep
1 replies
3h51m

I think the terms "farmer" and "farm" are entirely appropriate, as the farms that traditionally sustained humanity absolutely required animals to provide labor, fertilize the soil, and consume what would otherwise be waste. This all looks like a "concentration camp" to vegans, because vegans enjoy their privileged beliefs. Veganism is a form of masochistic asceticism.

But since I'm talking to a vegan interlocutor, the response will be "murderer, psychopath, exploiter, rapist, torturer", et cetera. The out-group is wrong and evil, by definition.

Vegenoid
0 replies
2h29m

Most vegans are not militant and hateful as you describe, they are just the most visible ones. Most vegans live regular lives and are friendly to omnivores, and you'd only know they were vegan if you spent some time with them and encountered situations where food decisions were being made.

ttyprintk
0 replies
4h58m

Ranchers and farmers are quite different and I get along much better with the latter. Their politics coincide when it comes to a common cause, like water for hay.

sir_eliah
0 replies
5h28m

Golden comment.

resource_waste
6 replies
5h48m

Yeah, the ROI is way lower than tech.

You need capital for land (and if you are going to have this capital as a tech person, go invest it and get passive returns, or start your own tech company doing service work) + labor.

Your labor is worth less, and close to third world wages.

The economic value comes from improving the land with labor and tech. Your competition is paying the same wages.

I know 2 people doing this, both are on medicaid.

polairscience
4 replies
5h28m

They're both on medicaid because we have decided collectively, as a society, that "ROI" is something we should chase. The mentality that it's the wrong choice because he's not trying to write a money printing piece of software is precisely why we live in the world we do. I admire someone who wants to go out and create something in the physical world. Even if, for insane reasons, America no longer seems to value that.

oopsallmagic
3 replies
5h21m

Concur. I cannot believe we've gotten to the point where the tech elite poopoo one of the last remaining jobs that actually keeps people alive because it doesn't make the stock price go brrrrr.

Maybe... maybe some things are worth doing not simply because there's a dollar sign in the result. Let's ponder that this Juneteenth.

ttyprintk
2 replies
4h53m

This has nothing to do with tech weenies. The enemies of the American farmer are:

- declining reliability of seeds

- increasing variation in climate

- Ron DeSantis, according to Donald Trump

polairscience
1 replies
4h31m

While those things are true, the real enemy of the American farmer is in fact the American mentality. Of which, one component is the incessant need to get high ROI on low effort projects. We're obsessed with it as culture. This website revolves around it. It's our social network that creates an environment where farmers aren't valued. We value web advertisements. Plain and simple. Look what jobs pay the most.

ttyprintk
0 replies
2h29m

You're right; my parent post was off-topic, just the things my local farmers say they worry about.

I think the temptation of America's artisanal manufacturing and farming is to revive a strong relationship between hard work and value. Maybe you remember beginning in software to help people, but look back at too many sacrifices inflicted on nature and humanity just to game the extractive component of ROI. So, I agree with your philosophy, but I want to say that farmers themselves obsess about ROI. I'm sure you understand their long-term success relies on interfacing with competitive markets right up to physical delivery. I wouldn't call that an American mentality because it affects farmers around the world.

randomdata
0 replies
4h20m

> Yeah, the ROI is way lower than tech.

The classic risk-reward scenario. Tech has the potential for tremendously greater upside, but it is also insanely difficult to succeed in. Farming is comparatively quite easy. Your customer base is essentially guaranteed.

> go invest it and get passive returns

Technically farmland is an investment with passive returns. Other farmers will fall over themselves to rent it from you. If you choose to farm it yourself, you do not lose the passive return. Your farm income should reflect the rent that you would have otherwise paid if it weren't your land. Thus, in effect, you are still paying rent to yourself even if you don't formally account for it.

> Your labor is worth less

My tech job also pays me to farm. Double-dipping will always be worth more. However, even ignoring that, I make more per hour farming than I do in my tech job.

It is not very many hours, though. A hypothetical $10,000 per hour job doesn't get you far if there is only one hour of work per year to do. This is why making a living farming is hard.

shagie
0 replies
4h50m

A lot of things "for fun" are probably ok. The difficulty comes when you don't enjoy / tolerate the hard problems that come with doing it for an income.

Programming for fun is great too. Hit a problem that's not something you enjoy? Drop the project and move on.

The "its fun" vs "I don't tolerate these hard problems that come with the skill" is a significant disconnect that people have and one of the things that generates a lot of people starting something (be it a project or a career) and not moving up on it.

http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018...

... Then I went off to college to study architecture... and found that, while I liked many things about the field, I didn't really like to do the grunt work that is part of the architecture student's life, and when the assigned projects got more challenging, I didn't really enjoy working on them.

But I had enjoyed working on the hard projects I'd encountered in my programing class back in high school. They were challenges I wanted to overcome. I changed my major and dove into college CS courses, which were full of hard problems -- but hard problems that I wanted to solve. I didn't mind being frustrated for an entire semester one year, working in assembly language and JCL, because I wanted to solve the puzzles.

Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe instead we should encourage people to find the hard problems they like to work on. Which problems do you want to keep working on, even when they turn out to be harder than you expected? Which kinds of frustration do you enjoy, or at least are willing to endure while you figure things out? Answers to these very practical questions might help you find a place where you can build an interesting and rewarding life.

I realize that "Find your passion" makes for a more compelling motivational poster than "What hard problems do you enjoy working on?" (and even that's a lot better than "What kind of pain are you willing to endure?"), but it might give some people a more realistic way to approach finding their life's work.
Havoc
0 replies
3h56m

Doesn’t have to be either or. Maybe he has some reserves but not entirely enough.

tetris11
6 replies
6h34m

Twice in my life now I've thought about the effort I've been putting in to my various projects and the lack of satisfaction I've subsequently received, and generally thought about giving it all up and going back to my dad's goat farm (Note that a single goat can go for about €1000).

Then I let loose for a week, touch grass, allow my mind to wander/wonder and - boom - a new coding project consumes me and I rekindle that initial passion I had once again.

Rinse and repeat, for the rest of my life, and I don't see issue with that.

perihelions
1 replies
5h24m

- "(Note that a single goat can go for about €1000)"

What a capricious market!

boffinAudio
1 replies
5h55m

One has to wonder if this sort of thing would be less frequent if the West had a decent attitude regarding time off and vacations. Its inconceivable to me that folks in that part of the world don't get more than 2 or 3 weeks off every year, most often, unpaid.

(Dylan is an Australian - they only have a moderately slightly better attitude about vacation than the USA, alas. 4 weeks instead of 2-3, on average. /laughs in Austrian ..)

camtarn
0 replies
5h25m

"The West" usually includes Europe. Since you're in Austria I'm guessing you're using it solely to mean "the US", but that is not the usual usage.

sira04
0 replies
5h37m

I hope one day it'll be easy to make a living doing several different things, and not just one thing for 8 hours a day.

nottorp
0 replies
6h14m

You need ... surprise! ... breaks!

Unthinkable in the Silicon Valley hustle culture, but true.

semireg
4 replies
4h32m

20 years ago I read a few Wendell Berry essays on agriculture and it changed my life. I immediately believed two things: 1) if it wasn’t for computers I’d be an agrarian and 2) I finally had a better idea of conservatism in the sense that nature selects for conservative agrarians.

These ideas challenged my ideas of “turning it off and on again” and overall system design. I needed to prove to myself that I was more than a brain, and I was more than the “kid that was good with computers.” What was my body for?

I quit my virtualization/sysadmin job and moved to a farm in central Wisconsin, helping a small family with 4 acres of veggies for market, milked 20 goats and 2 cows, turkey, sheep … the whole works.

Farming didn’t work out long term for me but it taught excellent lessons and gave me a better foundation for understanding my satisfaction of being human, e.g. is the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

squarepizza
3 replies
4h21m

is the grass greener on the other side of the fence?

Was it?

leetrout
1 replies
4h11m

Not OP but:

The grass is greener where you water it.

mlfreeman
0 replies
2h1m

Also it's greener over the septic tank.

semireg
0 replies
3h21m

For about 6 months out of the year!

miah_
1 replies
5h29m

This is accurate. My current job, is much lower than I was making int he SFBay area, but I actually have work life balance. I don't have to worry about my phone ringing at 2am, and I don't have to worry about yearly re-orgs or project managers who are "Agile Certified" but implement Waterfall.

ohwowdramang
0 replies
3h51m

beta convention gogoogogo

odyssey7
0 replies
4h54m

However, taking less pay for “meaningful” work is frequently an exploitative arrangement.

thih9
2 replies
5h51m

This is the creator of Kiss Linux, a meta-distribution for x86_64 focusing on simplicity.

Also, the tagline of that distro is "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."[1] - I call foreshadowing.

[1]: https://kisslinux.github.io

southwesterly
1 replies
3h40m

This looks excellent. Is it worth it?

cryptonector
0 replies
3h19m

Try it and let us know!

karaterobot
2 replies
5h6m

As we argue over which of the software engineers in this thread knows more about farming, are we totally sure that statement isn't, at least in some sense, a joke?

burnte
0 replies
3h49m

My immediate first assumption was "he's retired from doing this and this statement is a reference to doing something very much not IT related, like goat herding or farming." I haven't moved from that assumption yet. :D

SolarNet
0 replies
3h32m

I mean yea, I read this as an idiom for "went to do something wholly unrelated to programming". Not as "I literally am going to begin farming". Like I would read anything from "restaurant owner" and "artist" to "flight trainer" and "corporate DJ" as all fitting under that.

geenat
2 replies
6h37m

Living the dream

resource_waste
1 replies
5h47m

Take your 500k of investments, move to the mid-west, retire for a few years and figure out 'it was not the dream'.

I did something like this, it was life changing. For the first time ever, I wasnt counting the days until retirement or a long 7+ day vacation.

(Edit for clarity: I ended up taking a job. Talented coworkers were more interesting than my hobbies + I contributed to the world which was cool. Made it so I didn't really want to retire, I actually enjoyed work.)

skosch
0 replies
5h19m

For the first time ever, I wasnt counting the days until retirement or a long 7+ day vacation.

That sounds rather positive. Still 'it was not the dream'?

sneak
1 replies
5h4m

Counterpoint: I have been programming for 27 years and I am constantly trying to find more ways to spend time indoors, or to make the indoors time more indoorsy: blackout windows, sub-basements, HVAC upgrades (currently lusting after a central whole-house humidifier).

Not everyone thinks “touch grass” is the answer. I want to live in the second subbasement 24/7, or in space.

fullstop
0 replies
4h8m

lusting after a central whole-house humidifier

These are not terribly expensive, although installation can be tricky if you're not handy. The humidifier, for me, is a godsend in the winter months. I had a cabinet style one before and I'd have to refill the water tanks daily, which was a pain. It put ~5 gallons of water into the air each day.

qwertox
1 replies
6h35m

I went from "not again" to "yay!" in a fraction of a second.

fernandotakai
0 replies
6h1m

same. happy this is not another _why situation.

Y_Y
0 replies
4h25m

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden

jmclnx
1 replies
6h16m

I knew a few developers who went that route, and they were glad the did, so hope he enjoys his life.

If first few were in the late 80s, back then it the trend where I lived was Pizza Shops in areas that were growing fast. The ones I knew that jumped were happy they did.

edit: fixed typo to happy

INTPenis
0 replies
6h14m

I remember back on box.sk network knowing a young guy who was extremely bright. He could pick up anything from programming to genetics. But I also remember him feeling burnt out in his early teens and taking a break from all things computer.

Really made you think about those brilliant minds out there and how they work.

je_bailey
1 replies
4h57m

It seems everyone is taking them literally. Is that something confirmed or is it more of an allegory?

yoyohello13
0 replies
4h55m

Yeah, maybe he means he’s just going to play stardew valley all day.

hennell
1 replies
6h5m

To me the most interesting thing about this is that his github history shows he really gave up in 2021, with almost no commits since then.

I don't know enough of the context of these repos, their significance or ongoing use, but it feels weird to return just to archive en masse. I think it might actually be the least worst option - leaving it open as if you might return gives a false sense of the project, and passing to a successor is a lot of work.

We really put a lot on the heads of solitary people with the open source model.

pdimitar
0 replies
5h57m

I think it might actually be the least worst option - leaving it open as if you might return gives a false sense of the project, and passing to a successor is a lot of work.

IMO that's exactly it, the guy wanted to give a strong signal and not string people along. That I respect a lot.

We really put a lot on the heads of solitary people with the open source model.

I don't know who is "we" in your sentence but "we the working programmers" are busy as hell and most of us are not as privileged to basically wonder what do we do with our time. Whoever has the time and energy and if they can muster the motivation, please help -- the OSS world desperately needs much more people, and has always needed them. The rest of us who have to prioritize well-being and family are excused for wanting to spend a few leisure hours a day.

woile
0 replies
4h58m

"the market garden" is a book that has inspired younger generations to go back to farming. I know some small scale farms making 100k a year in Portugal. Quite a nice book.

thefz
0 replies
6h23m

I know him more for the pure bash bible; anyway godspeed and enjoy your new occupation, Dylan.

softwaredoug
0 replies
4h50m

What are the upsides/outcomes for open source project creators? Because it doesn't seem great...

It can help you market yourself (if you have that disposition) for jobs/gigs. But will you keep up interest?

You can try (and probably not succeed) at starting a company around open source. Then all the baggage that comes with maybe needing to switch to a non-open license to monetize it.

You can really put effort to building a large maintainer base / community and get it into a foundation (ie Apache, PSF, etc).

You can ignore it, but if its successful, be nagged and harassed incessantly to merge PRs

Generally these paths are all hard / different... and it seems the stress of dealing with the passive consumers is either a massive headache, or something you need to try to monetize. I wish we as an industry did a better job supporting creators here.

rurban
0 replies
5h13m

I do a lot of farming. Lots of S3 and zmq and vision and sensors. Pretty demanding job.

plasticchris
0 replies
3h29m

I am descended from farmers on both sides. When I was young dad made me raise some livestock to really impress on me how bad a job it was. I got up before sunrise to feed them before school and so on. When I went to sell them dad sat me down at a spreadsheet and had me enter all the expenses and the net profit was something like 10 dollars for months of work. Most farmers I know have a second job just to stay afloat, or do it only because they know the quality they can get is so much better than store bought stuff.

patwolf
0 replies
4h54m

I have some farm land that I lease out to a farmer for hay. Part of me imagines retiring early and living on the land. However, I checked up on it recently while the farmer was out there baling hay. It was 95 degrees and dusty. He told me he was pretty bummed because it was too hot and dry to fertilize earlier this year and his yield wasn't going to be as good as he wanted. Then in the short time I was there, the wheel bearing started acting up on his tractor and he got a flat tire on his rake after the valve stem fell out.

It would take a better person than me to make a living at it.

ohwowdramang
0 replies
3h54m

This code is terrible, so... good?

liversage
0 replies
3h42m

Brian Harry did something similar in 2018 when he was a corporate vice president at Microsoft: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brharry

linsomniac
0 replies
4h47m

One buddy of mine "retired" and bought a small farm a couple years ago. I think he's most famous for the talk "Stop Writing Classes". Another has had a farm for a long time, while also developing WingIDE. We joked that he should be careful when operating his homemade thresher with his remaining arm. A play on the safety sign "do not look into laser with remaining eye".

As time progresses, I get more and more envious of them both.

jnmandal
0 replies
6h1m

Good work Dylan. Many of us may want to follow suit if we hope to survive climate change

hkt
0 replies
5h41m

I wonder if he needs a field hand. I'd trade in the fanciest, shiniest laptop on earth for a shovel and a pile of dung right now.

francisofascii
0 replies
5h23m

"But farming... Really? Man of your talents?"

fool1471
0 replies
6h17m

Good for them!

deater
0 replies
5h19m

I guess we'll all have to go back to using "linux_logo" for our sysinfo ansi-art needs, though that author seems to spend most of their time on the demoscene/video-game demakes these days.

cjk2
0 replies
6h10m

I wake up every morning, stare at YAML, and think this.

Good luck to them.

bhaney
0 replies
6h40m

Happy for him

a-s-k-af
0 replies
5h41m

I mean, at one point this goat did like almost 7000 commits a year. That's around 20 a day.

Waterluvian
0 replies
5h41m

Given just how much variety there is to farming as a profession, I imagine it's the perfect job for certain kinds of people who end up not even experiencing it as "work."

Vitamin_Sushi
0 replies
6h31m

Good for him

Nezghul
0 replies
4h1m

It's like all my dogs (according to what my family told me).

MrPowers
0 replies
5h16m

IMO, it would have been better to donate the repos to a shared org and motivate the community to continue maintaining them.

But pretty awesome this individual is retiring from programming / taking a sabbatical. There is nothing wrong with taking some time off and pursuing other interests when you lose your passion.

FreeFull
0 replies
5h15m

In case anyone is looking for alternatives, there's a well-maintained fork of neofetch called hyfetch. There's also a neofetch clone written in C called fastfetch.