Based on the headline, this is the first thing I thought of.
_spoke_ 10 hours ago [-]
Is anyone else bothered that this was run through an LLM before publication? The tone is a distraction for me.
foltik 9 hours ago [-]
yes
All the superficial filler leaves a linkedin flavored taste in my mouth. I’d prefer to hear the author’s own voice and thoughts without noise injected to give the illusion of polish.
bee_rider 9 hours ago [-]
I thought it was actually quite funny, but I read it as a sarcastic parody of that writing style. I mean there’s no way:
> This is the founder story: what I built, why I chose it, and what a month of hardware taught me. The engineering writeup will come later, once I've talked to someone who actually understands IP strategy.
is for real, right?
hdndjsbbs 7 hours ago [-]
Oh this is very real. As someone who lives in Ottawa, Shopify employees are a unique brand of people who think they are tuned into the SV trends but are just huffing their own farts. They're all acting out a small-scale replica of taking peptides and trying to found Uber for Polycules but in a sleepy capital city full of government employees.
blitzar 10 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
jrflo 8 hours ago [-]
So how does the power meter itself actually work? How do you know the output is accurate? How much power is lost from the measurement due to dampening? How do you know it will hold up to cycling in such an aggressive environment? That's kind of the interesting thing here, but there's no mention of it in the article.
svnt 5 hours ago [-]
Well “I badgered claude code for a month and got something that seems to work but I don’t remember how or why” doesn’t make for very compelling reading.
We are seeing the rift between actual hacking and vibe-building opening in real time. People always wanted to do this and get the attention. Now they can do it but it isn’t worth the attention.
pdabbadabba 8 hours ago [-]
Agreed. I was disappointed at the overall lack of engineering content in this piece. Lots of general talk about how there were issues and that they were overcome. But what? And how? I feel like most of the content could apply to almost any project.
ramon156 10 hours ago [-]
Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
> a paid month off
that's not a sabbatical anyway, is it? i thought this was 6-12 months, not one?
Post also has some LLM sniffs, so I'm unsure how much of the content is true.
wdrw 9 hours ago [-]
At least in North America (and the author seems to be from Canada), having a company give you any sabbatical at all is pretty rare, and 6+ months is pure fantasy:) And not everyone likes travel, the post actually explains his reasoning pretty well.
MisterTea 9 hours ago [-]
> and 6+ months is pure fantasy:)
I've seen this before. Had a vendor become helpless after their only engineer took a 6 month sabbatical. Had to cancel orders and switch vendors because they stated "Until the engineer returns, we can not quote a delivery time." Imagine being that company...
bee_rider 8 hours ago [-]
Kinda surprising they weren’t able to plan around that, surely The Engineer didn’t just decide randomly to go on a 6 month sabbatical all of a sudden.
netrap 4 hours ago [-]
Intel at one time did 6 month sabbatical if you worked 10 years.
mikepurvis 7 hours ago [-]
"Just so you know, our bus number is 1. Now, about your order..."
0xfaded 9 hours ago [-]
I work in the US and every year I take 17 days off over the July period which works out (with another company holiday) to be 4 continuous weeks. The first year I did it I told my manager "I'm going to take three weeks off, but what do you think about four?". I got my three weeks and made myself indispensable enough to get the four the next year.
This stuff can be negotiable if asked for and planned correctly. It won't be offered.
The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
lagniappe 9 hours ago [-]
>The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
Is there a skeleton crew to run grocery and fuel?
zokier 8 hours ago [-]
OP was talking about white-collar jobs, not service industry.
0xfaded 54 minutes ago [-]
Yes, but something like 90% of the workforce is unionized, and 5 weeks vacation per year is by law, with a "sixth week" being a common perk.
asib 7 hours ago [-]
> Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
Because they didn't want to? A very odd question; people have motivations/interests that aren't yours.
MisterTea 9 hours ago [-]
> Cool idea, just wondering why you wouldn't travel during a sabbatical.
That is really none of your business and sounds judgemental. How about we talk about the pollution you contribute when needlessly traveling for ego boosting?
lagniappe 9 hours ago [-]
>After five years at Shopify, employees get a paid month off to do whatever the hell they want. I took mine in April 2026.
Bleak.. Only a month after five years.
NDlurker 8 hours ago [-]
I think it's a month in addition to whatever they already get. So that could be pretty good.
I've been with my employer for 12 years and get a total of 296hrs PTO per year. That's probably abnormal now that I think about it and one of the reasons I've stuck around so long. I don't think I've ever used up all my PTO in a year, usually cash out a week or 2 in December.
RyanOD 7 hours ago [-]
Not bleak for most people. I've never worked anywhere that offers an earned chunk of time off like that (besides standard PTO days).
gary_b 6 hours ago [-]
If by "most people" you mean "most Americans." That is pretty standard in Europe
MattRix 8 hours ago [-]
Not sure why that’s bleak? It’s on top of the regular vacation days you get every year. I don’t know of any other company (at least not here in Canada!) that would give you an entire paid month off.
LanceH 7 hours ago [-]
It's "bleak" because some people enjoy making others feel worse about things they have no control over.
digitallogic 4 hours ago [-]
This is pretty cool! Your note about cycling power meters changing the way you perceive effort matches my experience as well. One other bit from my experience: I'm a runner and a cyclist, and I've always lusted after having cycling style data and prescribed workouts for my running. When Stryd launched I was all in, but... all it gave me was power numbers. It didn't have the tribal knowledge that came with my cycling power meter. Eg - lots of online content about zones, free and paid workouts / plans to target different goals (eg sprinting vs long endurance). It almost seems like any discussion of serious training on a bike comes back to watts.
But with the Stryd, all I got was power numbers, and the option to signup for a monthly paid subscription with some training plans that were pretty bare bones. It seems like running power meters just haven't been adopted widely enough for that critical mass of information to emerge. My realization from this is the data is useless without the tribal knowledge of how to use it. So my Stryd sits in a drawer somewhere, and I'm back to running by heart rate.
xcskier56 8 hours ago [-]
I could see this being used for fitness tests for cross country skiers. A very common exercise is med-ball slams. These aren’t a perfect analog to double poling but definitely close.
Being able to track your one rep max force you can generate could be an interesting metric especially for sprinters
webnrrd2k 6 hours ago [-]
I'd think that electronic drum heads would provide a good prototype. I really know nothing about it, so I could easily be wrong, but the basics are all there... They are percussive, and the sound varies by how hard they are hit, so there has to be something like a power meter going on.
Maybe someone else knows more?
1970-01-01 10 hours ago [-]
I could see this becoming a tiebreaker or ranking device for lumberjack competitions.
hermitcrab 6 hours ago [-]
I believe there are already various, martial arts related, striking meters - to show how hard you are punching/kicking. Isn't this rather similar (but I guess not mounted vertically and calibrated for harder hits)?
You remind me of a saying: Boring things are actually interesting.
Pay08 10 hours ago [-]
Charpy would like a word.
hdndjsbbs 7 hours ago [-]
> People I look up to include Frank Zappa, Richard Feynman, J.K. Rowling, Peter Norvig, and Geoffrey Hinton.
TFW you want to seem intellectual
engineer_22 10 hours ago [-]
I'm 13 years into my career and I haven't taken more than 5 days off in a row. That's usually a family reunion.
I think 4-8 weeks to recharge and reset would be helpful. What's the research say?
FinnKuhn 9 hours ago [-]
Minimum vacation days here in Germany are 20 with many companies offering 30 so the idea that you can't take of at least a couple of weeks for a vacation is just crazy to me.
How do you travel and see the world like that?
sco1 6 hours ago [-]
> How do you travel and see the world like that?
Wait until we're old enough to retire and then can maybe afford it.
ilikecakeandpie 9 hours ago [-]
I'm almost 17 years in and there's been a few times where I had more than 10 days off in a row, and I recently had a four week sabbatical. Anecdotally, it was great and reminded me that retirement has always been the goal.
AntiUSAbah 9 hours ago [-]
A sabbatical is half a year or a year in germany. NO one would ever say this nonsense of 'four week sabbatical'.
qwerpy 7 hours ago [-]
To me, “work 40+ years and retire when you’re already physically and mentally slow” is the real nonsense. A sabbatical thrown in here and there doesn’t make up for it. I’m grateful that I live somewhere with high enough paying jobs that I can simply quit after just 20 years.
ilikecakeandpie 4 hours ago [-]
Sabbaticals, paid or not, seem to only be somewhat common in western Europe. I'm glad that you're able to able to experience this but recognize it's quite a privilege globally. It's not just the USA that has this "nonsense"
world2vec 9 hours ago [-]
I take 3 weeks in a row every summer, couldn't live without it.
darkwater 7 hours ago [-]
Wow. Are you in the US? If so, is this the norm in the US?
Pretty depressing... why do you want a SV wage then?
markus_zhang 10 hours ago [-]
Wish I could do that too. But sabbatical is usually reserved for the elite engineers in elite firms.
T0Bi 9 hours ago [-]
Or Europeans (:
ramon156 9 hours ago [-]
Work culture is so weird. What do you mean, it's reserved for the elites?
In my country you get to build your holiday days, so I could totally take a month off if I don't take any other days off this year. Hell, we even have a website to perfectly time it here so you get the most bang-for-your-days. lmao.
I will never comprehend this Silicon Valley mindset. You can also be a 10x engineer while drinking a martini in the balkans.
ilikecakeandpie 9 hours ago [-]
Lives don't exist in vacuums. If I could uproot my close friends and family and we all moved to the same place then I would, but that's not possible. I'm sure it's the same for a lot of people
ambicapter 9 hours ago [-]
What does uprooting your friends and family have to do with taking a month off once in your life?
ilikecakeandpie 3 hours ago [-]
This was mostly in response to "You can also be a 10x engineer while drinking a martini in the balkans." and is likely a bit of an overreaction to the amount of "just move if you don't like it!" things I've seen. Mobility is a luxury
Uprooting family and friends has little to do with taking a month off, but if things don't fall right then one runs the risk of spending their month off mostly by themselves which may or may not be attractive. I've known single teachers complain about this that they have June-August off but no one to spend it with because most of their friends are not teachers
average_r_user 10 hours ago [-]
"After five years at Shopify, employees get a paid month off to do whatever the hell they want. I took mine in April 2026. Thanks Tobi!"
AntiUSAbah 9 hours ago [-]
Wow thats depressing.
I went to japan and took 14 days. I went to Iran and took 14 days. I went to canada and took 4 weeks. I went to Mexico and took 3 weeks.
Don't you want to do things with your life? Experience them properly?
engineer_22 43 minutes ago [-]
I, I, I, I...
More to L-I-F-E than "I".
porkphish 10 hours ago [-]
Now I have Peter Gabriel in my head.
a_shoeboy 8 hours ago [-]
Me too, but it's "Shock the Monkey" which doesn't make sense in this context.
Please pardon the AI-generated placeholder images and some of the text at https://intensity.systems, I'm still very actively working on that.
It seems like joules would make more sense, right?
What you need is a small weight or something that rises up a pole depending on how hard you hit it, a great visualisation.
You could even have a bell at the top, so if this small weight hits it with enough voom it could making a resounding ding sound, so life affirming.
Perhaps you could charge a 'apenny a go, and give a prize for those that can do it. Saying Roll up Roll up to passers by in a local fair.
"High Striker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_striker
All the superficial filler leaves a linkedin flavored taste in my mouth. I’d prefer to hear the author’s own voice and thoughts without noise injected to give the illusion of polish.
> This is the founder story: what I built, why I chose it, and what a month of hardware taught me. The engineering writeup will come later, once I've talked to someone who actually understands IP strategy.
is for real, right?
We are seeing the rift between actual hacking and vibe-building opening in real time. People always wanted to do this and get the attention. Now they can do it but it isn’t worth the attention.
> a paid month off
that's not a sabbatical anyway, is it? i thought this was 6-12 months, not one?
https://intensity.systems/ is currently unstyled.
Post also has some LLM sniffs, so I'm unsure how much of the content is true.
I've seen this before. Had a vendor become helpless after their only engineer took a 6 month sabbatical. Had to cancel orders and switch vendors because they stated "Until the engineer returns, we can not quote a delivery time." Imagine being that company...
This stuff can be negotiable if asked for and planned correctly. It won't be offered.
The Danes do it best, they basically shut down the country for 3 months every summer and have an unspoken agreement that nothing will get done.
Is there a skeleton crew to run grocery and fuel?
Because they didn't want to? A very odd question; people have motivations/interests that aren't yours.
That is really none of your business and sounds judgemental. How about we talk about the pollution you contribute when needlessly traveling for ego boosting?
Bleak.. Only a month after five years.
I've been with my employer for 12 years and get a total of 296hrs PTO per year. That's probably abnormal now that I think about it and one of the reasons I've stuck around so long. I don't think I've ever used up all my PTO in a year, usually cash out a week or 2 in December.
But with the Stryd, all I got was power numbers, and the option to signup for a monthly paid subscription with some training plans that were pretty bare bones. It seems like running power meters just haven't been adopted widely enough for that critical mass of information to emerge. My realization from this is the data is useless without the tribal knowledge of how to use it. So my Stryd sits in a drawer somewhere, and I'm back to running by heart rate.
Being able to track your one rep max force you can generate could be an interesting metric especially for sprinters
Maybe someone else knows more?
https://shovelglove.com
TFW you want to seem intellectual
I think 4-8 weeks to recharge and reset would be helpful. What's the research say?
How do you travel and see the world like that?
Wait until we're old enough to retire and then can maybe afford it.
In my country you get to build your holiday days, so I could totally take a month off if I don't take any other days off this year. Hell, we even have a website to perfectly time it here so you get the most bang-for-your-days. lmao.
I will never comprehend this Silicon Valley mindset. You can also be a 10x engineer while drinking a martini in the balkans.
Uprooting family and friends has little to do with taking a month off, but if things don't fall right then one runs the risk of spending their month off mostly by themselves which may or may not be attractive. I've known single teachers complain about this that they have June-August off but no one to spend it with because most of their friends are not teachers
I went to japan and took 14 days. I went to Iran and took 14 days. I went to canada and took 4 weeks. I went to Mexico and took 3 weeks.
Don't you want to do things with your life? Experience them properly?
More to L-I-F-E than "I".