I envy the people who have the free time to tinker but what they keep forgetting, time and time again, is that they are the minority. Many people have happy family lives and prefer to spend most of their leisure time with people -- or non-tech hobbies. I do enough programming already, thank you.
(EDIT to add: and not everybody is in perfect health shape as well, so they use their free time to recharge -- not to work some more. Stress and overworking come with an army of health issues. Climbing a hill with a 50kg backpack, to give an analogy, is not as easy as it looks like from the side.)
I respect smart hardware technicians but he lost me as an audience with his Apple hate.
+1 on "hate doesn't work". Just adding a perspective that you might be missing. The stuff that OP described doesn't really feel like "work" to him. To him its the exact thing you described - it helps him recharge - so that he can go back to "work" the next day :)
[P.S. "I do enough programming already, thank you." doesn't help as well. To get an idea of how sad it is to read, imagine if someone tells an artist "I do enough painting already, thank you.". People love to do different things, and that is okay.]
Yep, I know it helps them recharge. But I find it sad how oblivious they sometimes are that others might be so beat up that they need an almost passive recharge. :(
As for my programming, I actually do some small work outside of work hours on my own enthusiastic basis. But I have to tell you, even this minor 4-5h a week thing took me years of recharging and healing before I felt the passion for the first time in years and years.
(As an aside, we the techies need non-tech hobbies but that's just an opinion.)
