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An extra thought is: Would I retire?
My wife wonders why, when I get home from work, I start working on my computers at home. It's because I enjoy programming - creating new software is fun (usually).
A few years ago I was given the opportunity to give up the management line (Director/Manager of Software Development) and went back to "pure" programming as a Senior Software Engineer. It was actually slightly more money and much, much more fun! It was the best decision I made, career-wise - and probably health-wise as my stress levels dropped considerably. Since then I moved to another job, also as a Senior Software Engineer, which paid a lot more money, with shorter hours and even less stress - and I got learn a lot of new stuff. Fascinating.
Eventually, I suppose, the amount of new stuff that I want to learn may drop off but, until then...
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I get your point. Coding is my hobby and I too passed up on management offer. The idea of going to work and just talk to people, sitting through mind numbing meetings after meetings and writing reports is not my idea of fun.
For retirement, as the way economy is going, most of us would not be able to retire. Social Security may be dried up by the time we get to call it permanent vacation. I will work until I dropped dead on my keyboard. 
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Leng Vang wrote:
For retirement, as the way economy is going, most of us would not be able to retire. Social Security may be dried up by the time we get to call it permanent vacation.
I've always taken for granted this is actually going to be the case. If there's anything left, don't want it to live on, I want it purely as a bonus.
I have some retired acquaintances who are living miserably (no other way to put it) with whatever the government decides they're allowed. I don't want that for me.
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I do program in my spare time, but that is not because I find programming fun [any longer].
I program because I encounter lots of tasks in fery different fields where some software can be a nice tool to solve another issue. Like keeping track of my music collection. Like illustrating how real life objects might interact, in a small simulation model. Like making a workable backup system for my computer. Yes, a backup system is directly related to the computer, but what I strive for is to have the software completed and available, not the programming of it.
Maybe I want to "solve problems". But those problems are not in multiple inheritance and sofware paradigms and self modifying code and patterns. Those are not the real problems. Even if my problem solving uses software as a hammer and a saw, the real problem has little to do with the compiler. I care for some real problems, not for the tools as such.
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It would depend on whether my loved ones were also taking this new medical breakthrough. If they were, then yes. I could live a longer life surrounded by those I love. If they weren't, then I would prefer to live out my allotted years as nature intended.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Retire...
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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If I put 10K in an index fund at let's say 5% annually, what would that be in 1000 years?
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Monetary concept may not live pass the next 100 years. 
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So we'll do things purely "...in pursuit of higher goals"?
Yeah, as much as I like Star Trek's optimism, Gene Roddenberry dropped the ball on that one. This ain't happening.
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After 100 years it would be: $1,315,012.58
After 750 years it would be: $77,978,396,963,807,380,000.00
After that, the calculator overflows.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Well, if they have the same calculators in 1000 years, that would be one of the problems
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Maybe they will even have invented log10 by that time to cope with bigger numbers.
(Of course natural log, ln, would work as well, but that would require a deeper understanding.)
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log10 is communism, it will never work
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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Maybe they will even have invented log10 by that time to cope with bigger numbers.
(Of course natural log, ln, would work as well, but that would require a deeper understanding.)
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Better make it 2% to adjust for inflation.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
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Confiscated by the government somewhere around year 37. At year 37.006 they turn off the updates for the nano-technology keeping you alive due to non-payment.
Software Zen: delete this;
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In the long, long, run common rate of return assumptions just wont pan out.
Story made short: Two descendents of two men find a 2000 year old scroll that is a document of one shekel loan at 8% annually between their ancestors, never paid back. The one descendent decides to make good to the other on the ancient debt only to find that the cost of the compounded interest is a ball of gold bigger than the sun.
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Some may not want to live pass tomorrow. Me? I would love to live several hundred million years. Imagine what you could've accomplished. Mere 70-80 years is really a blink. You spent 30 years learning to barely walk. And spent another 35 years just to get establish and then you ran out of time to do what you really born to do.
If scientists figured out how to prolong cell delay (hence live longer), they would have figured out how to cure most diseases too.
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As if its not hard enough ....
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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Robert Heinlein wrote an interesting book on this topic called, "Time Enough For Love." The central character is Lazarus Long who deals with this question because they have all of the treatments available to do just that. I'll refrain from mentioning his decision.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I'm glad I read through all the replies before putting in my 2c worth. I loved all the LL stories starting with Methuselah's Children.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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The priest talks with this lady of his congregation:
- I haven't seen you much in church lately, why is that?
- Well, you see ... my daughter has started playing the harp ...
- Is that true? But can her harp replace our wonderful church organ?
- Oh, that's not it. But I have been considering ... I am not sure that I will be able to handle harp music for an eternity...
For answering your question: I am happy to be as old as I am, as close to death as I am. The world changes, and as every aged person knows (and it has been that way for at least a hundred years in the Western world), it changes away from my own ideals, values and principles. When I was young, I expected to be allowed to live my life in my way, not the way my parents and grandparents would rather see it. Now, I grant young people the right to live their way, and shape the world and the society accordingly.
I feel like a stranger to a lot of the music being produced nowadays. To the books written. To movies. How people behave even out in the wilderness. Or at parties. The intense turf wars both in my own profession (SW development) and in social arenas. The way people communicate: When I want to ask or say something to another person, I cannot just say it. First I have to wave my hands before their face to make them look up from the smartphone screen, then wait for them to remove the earplugs before I start speaking. I get a brief answer while they impatiently hold the earplugs ready for plugging back in, with an attitude that clearly says: When are you done disturbing me? ... Not evrybody are that way, but quite a few. Noone will read any thorought and well thought out explanation - I can't tell how many times I have received a "tl;dr" in response (and I will for this post as well!). So always when I write something, I read it over to see if I can delete words, shorten sentences, remove marginal arguments... to make it accessible to more readers, by being short enough.
I do not relax until I am back in my own living room, with my own music, books, movies, and way of expressing myself. I am getting weary out in the real world. The day I retire, I guess I won't be leaving my house for anything but the food store. If there were anyone that might come to visit me - smartphone in hand - I would lock my door for them. I guess there will be noone. Then, when I have read all my books that today are sitting unread in my shelves, when I have watched all my movies enough times to start boring me, and heard my music so many times that none of it is exciting any more, then I have done my duty. Then I am satisfied, there will be nothing more for me to do.
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I still dream of having my own library at home - and the time to read every single book at my leisure.
The library is possible, the leisure time less so - unless I live a loooong time.
A physicist friend of mine set up a Faraday Cage around his den (aka basement) so that when his friends came around to talk and play cards or board games they wouldn't ever be interrupted by their cell phones going off. Eventually, as smartphones became ubiquitous they noticed that they couldn't check things with google, etc. and kept running upstairs to get a signal rather than just doing without the answer instantaneously. I was the only one apart from him that didn't do this so we ended up getting new, older friends instead. The young ones couldn't take it! 
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Forogar wrote: A physicist friend of mine set up a Faraday Cage around his den (aka basement) so that when his friends came around to talk and play cards or board games they wouldn't ever be interrupted by their cell phones going off.
I have been considering something similar, but never learned enough about signal propagation to know how to do it properly. How realistic is it to make a successful shield?
The elevator at my workplace has a steel ceiling, steel walls, steel door, and I assume there is steel in the floor as well. It is a closed box of steel. I am not sure how good the grounding of the steel is. Even without grounding, I would expect at least some weakening of the mobile signals, but the signal indicator is at top of the scale all the time, even with the elevator going down to the basement. So what does it take to make an effective shield against the signals?
Is an ungrounded shield completely worthless - is that why the steel box elevator does "nothing" to weaken the signals? Is a mesh better than solid steel plates? If it is: Should the mesh size be selected according to the frequency? Cellular phones use a good handful of frequency bands, so do you need different meshes for each band?
Maybe we are wasted in this country: We expect excellent mobile coverage everywhere, from deep sub-basements to wilderness mountain plains a hundred kilometers away from any signs of civilization. We expect capacity to be unlimited, and signal strength to be at top of the scale, everywhere.
Maybe successful shielding is possible at some desolate mountain farm in an area where no mountain hiker ever goes (i.e. noone needs to update their FB profile with their most recent mountain climbing achievements). But how realistic is it to shiels cellular signals in a rural area?
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yes, I would love to be immortal. Then when I smite my enemies down, I can rear my head back, and with hearty cry, I wold say "There can be only one!".
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