Looking at that picture of the huge empty highway and ramps, I can't help but think that the $15 million needed to connect to fiber optic backbone could have been found if so much hadn't been wasted on that road building. The same is true in many economically shrinking areas of the US, where fewer and fewer people get more and more miles of roads. (Also, think of how much of their newly created 400 acres of flat land was wasted on those ramps.)
Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
71–80 of 113 posts
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think programming is science I think it's more like plumbing. You're dealing with a complicated system made out of the most simple parts. Anyone can learn how to setup or fix these systems if they get what the basic parts do. There's not really much science in non-academic computer science. We're just builders who make, fix, and break things. Edit: added do
You just described an Engineer.
Sure, but the wash out in engineering school is 2/3, and that's the "kid who is good in math". So that does not describe "anyone", according to the original post.
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
>in 2015, then watched as more than 900 applications rolled in. From this pool, they chose 11 former miners who scored highest on a coding aptitude test. Two years later, in an old Coca-Cola factory by the Big Sandy river, nine men and one woman remain They gave people an IQ test and took the top percentile of a group that, due to their interest, was already slightly selected for intellectual ability. This is not pro…
I missed the IQ test part. All I read was coding aptitude test, whatever the hell that is. Sure we're all different and maybe 95% is high but its at least 50%. One out of every two people I meet I am confident they could become proficient at programming given a solid learning environment.
I studied math & computer science at university (15 years ago) that was quite selective in CS admissions (probably filtering out ~80% of high-school graduates).
At least half of these already self-selected and 80% filtered students were not really able to program (and eventually flunked or transferred to other departments - although some people who could program flunked and some who couldn't graduated, I think the two groups were quite well correlated).
I'm sure you can do better at teaching (and filtering) than the CS program at my university, but if such a focused group had a 50% failure rate I'm sure the general population is at the very least not better (remember that it's not just about 'raw' ability but also about interest and motivation).
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#74Looking at that picture of the huge empty highway and ramps, I can't help but think that the $15 million needed to connect to fiber optic backbone could have been found if so much hadn't been wasted on that road building. The same is true in many economically shrinking areas of the US, where fewer and fewer people get more and more miles of roads. (Also, think of how much of their newly created 400 acres of flat land…
Well, at one time it stayed full of coal trucks. Not that I disagree with your point.
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#75I'm from the region, and work remotely as a coder. Some of these really backwoods areas are very beautiful and tranquil, and when combined with the affordability, I think it is a great place to code. A lot of local politicians and economic developers are grasping to coal/lumber/manufacturing, but I think there is opportunity to build small tech hubs for young people burnt out on expensive, crowded, and distracting ci…
Good luck with the broadband, especially in the current political climate of the FCC. I believe that having affordable, high-speed internet (where you are allowed to actually host a server), would revitalize Appalachia. Between the shuddered coal-plants that can be repurposed as data-centers, and rails-to-trails right-of-ways that can be used for fiber runs, there is plenty of opportunity. Good luck convincing the po…
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Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#76Looking at that picture of the huge empty highway and ramps, I can't help but think that the $15 million needed to connect to fiber optic backbone could have been found if so much hadn't been wasted on that road building. The same is true in many economically shrinking areas of the US, where fewer and fewer people get more and more miles of roads. (Also, think of how much of their newly created 400 acres of flat land…
I swear to pizza, in my hometown they are removing TWO ENTIRE MOUNTAINS because rocks keep slipping on to ONE of the South-bound lanes. Last I heard, the estimated cost is over $50M. Only 50k people live in the entire metro area. Population is halving about every generation on top of that. Best part is, this route runs alongside a river. On the other side of that river is an identical route. They could literally just shut down the road and not even need to build any new bridges...
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#77As someone who grew up in Appalachia and has since moved to NYC and built a career in tech, it hurts me to read stories like these and think about how many good people are getting left behind, due to factors largely out of their control. Sure, folks could uproot and abandon the area, but that solution is no less tragic. In terms of natural beauty, few places can rival. With a bit of enlightenment about what opportunities already exist in affordable tech education, some meaningful investment in infrastructure, and some entrepreneurs willing to get their hands dirty, we could turn this region around. Silicon Holler has a ring to it.
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I'm of the opinion that a lot of programming learning difficulties come from the teachers and methodology of teaching programming. Though it's all antidotal from Going through different college courses that teach both programming and contactor/ladder logic. The programming classes had something like 40% learn rates, while the ladder logic classes everyone eventually got it. And with chances of going out to…
College doesn't really teach programming. They teach computer science. Professor largely expect you to pick up programming on your own to solve the problems given.
At the upper-division level (years 3/4) this is true, but my college certainly teaches programming and syntax in Python/C++ along with computer science concepts your first two years.
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#79A huge amount of Government money has gone into infrastructure for Pikeville, KY. There was the Pikeville Cut-Through, finished in 1987, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved the river to a more convenient location.[1] That also got the town a superhighway connection with two interchanges. There's the East Kentucky Expo Center [2], which has only two events, wrestling and a beer fest, scheduled for the rest of the year. There's the University of Pikeville, with 2,300 students. There's the Pikeville Medical Center, an 11-story hospital with a 10-story parking garage and 3,200 employees. There's a large, modern high school with a swimming pool. It has 2,300 students, so it must be drawing from a larger area than the town. There's a downtown multistory car park connected by a sky bridge to part of the University of Pikeville.
All this in a town of only 7,000 people.
Population is increasing slowly; it's not a dying town. The town itself never had heavy industry; the mines were elsewhere. It's a service center for central Appalachia. Population within 20 miles is 110,000. The town's problem is that the area it services is losing population.
If you wanted to locate there, the local mall has about 30,000 square feet available. No coffee shop in the mall, but the mall has a supermarket-sized Texas Roadhouse. Eat more beef. AT&T offers 45mbps Internet in most of the downtown area.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikeville_Cut-Through [2] http://eastkyexpo.com/AllEvents.html
Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map
#80While bridging the diversity tech gap, this is another gap that needs to be addressed; the tech-displaced gap (which is the same tbh, and is only going to get wider as time goes on).
Don't want to get too political here, but this "middle-america" vs. "liberal minorities" class war is nothing but a fabrication of the media and the elites to get these two disenfranchised groups to battle amongst themselves- they're the same side of coin.
At 25 I went back to school for programming and it was hard and I only was able to do it because of the support of my parents. For a 55 y/o coal miner with a family to support, rent to pay, etc. I can't even begin to imagine how they would go about "learning to code"- as if they don't have these responsibilities.
Though children are the future, these people are the present, and if we don't find ways to help them (whether it's free community college, bootcamps, or internship placements), they're going to get desperate (e.g. vote Trump), and the future is going to pay dearly for it.