Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 113 posts

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#81

Post by idlewords »

liamondrop wrote: post #77

As 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 opportuni…

Investment in infrastructure would especially help, because it would create jobs that could then flow into the local economy. West Virginia is one of the most beautiful parts of America, and could have a booming tourist industry. Travel through there and you see one deindustrialized town after another where a few million dollars of investment would transform the local economy.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#83

Post by jbawgs »

didibus wrote: post #82

I'm curious, what was the actions put in place by the federal government that they blame for killing their coal industry?

In general, they blame environmental regulations rather than market forces. The area is full of urban legends about how the natural gas power plants are vastly inferior to coal fired plants, but they're being upheld by a cabal of evil liberals who want to destroy the industry because ???

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#84

Post by unclebucknasty »

mythrwy wrote: post #38
unclebucknasty wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for saying this. To me, in a strange way, it's a little arrogant to think I am being generous by saying that anyone can code. It feels like I'm engaging in false humility and I am putting myself above them in the first place to confer this "honor" upon them. I'm also subtly devaluing the many other things they probably can do. But, maybe I'm over-thinking that part. Either way, I have witnessed first hand that…

Agreed 100%. My experience is that being a good programmer is more than a matter of intelligence. It's a certain thinking style that lends itself well to organizing data flows and presentation. It's a certain ability to focus on abstract structures and keep chains of relationships in the mind while envisioning how to manipulate them. And a lots of otherwise smart people just don't think like this natively and "teachi…

Exactly. Really reminds me of proofs in geometry. You amass this knowledge or ruleset, then apply that knowledge in successive steps to solve the proof.

But, the bigger part is being able to step back and "see" the path; to pull from what you know to approach the problem and formulate a solution.

Seems like there were three groups: those who just couldn't get it; those who wrestled and muddled their way through; and those who just kind of got it, almost intuitively. The latter is a minority, and I would bet that an outsized percentage of those people really can learn to code.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#85

Post by 467568985476 »

fuball63 wrote: post #23

I'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…

There are dozens of cities in the U.S. that want to be the next hub for young tech entrepreneurs, and most of them have more financial options than Kentucky, which is among the most dependent state budgets on federal dollars. Additionally, young people are socially and politically liberal, while KY voters overwhelmingly elected staunchly anti-LGBT representatives and were strongly in support of Trump.

I think it would be pretty hard to convince even the most disillusioned Bay Area or NYC software developer to move to rural Kentucky over e.g. Pittsburg or Portland.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#86

Post by jbawgs »

Animats wrote: post #79

A 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…

Its the only actual town for miles in any direction. All those other dots on the map nearby are incorporated hilltops. If they have a gas station with a Hunt Bros pizza franchise, its a town.

That said, our leaders spend any aid money we get on 'tourism' which never pays off, but they don't learn.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#87

Post by camerintinbun »

gm-conspiracy wrote: post #36
fuball63 wrote: post #23

I'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…

KY is definitely behind (being from there). But they have started an initiative to get fiber out to the backwoods areas. The initiative, called "Kentucky Wired", is going to start with outfitting the backbone against major highways, then push out from there.

http://kentuckywired.ky.gov/Pages/index.aspx

Not sure how efficient it is at the moment, seems pretty slow going. I get all the ads for "Fioptics", but the best speed that is offered in my location is 10 MBps :\. But supposedly it is actively underway to connect the state with increased internet speeds.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#88

Post by mauvehaus »

jbawgs wrote: post #63
rybosome wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel that a lot of your friends and family are open to this type of development? I haven't ever seen surveys gauging local public opinion, but I had assumed that the foremost economic issue for Kentucky was coal, and the focus was on preventing legislation which would harm that market.

In general, the fervor surrounding coal stems from the fact that for a long time it was the only industry where a person could bring home more than minimum wage, and see the decline of the industry as a personal attack. What the people really want is work. The article tells the tale - a thousand applicants for a handful of positions. The program I'm in had hundreds of applicants for only ten positions. To me, too muc…

As an outsider who has spent a fair amount of time in the area (climbing in the Red River Gorge area, specifically), thanks for shedding some light on the politics and mentality of the area.

Can you shed any light on how the oil industry is viewed, how many people it employs, etc? I've really only ever been down to the area on the weekends, and while a lot of the climbing access is via oil company roads, I've never seen any oil workers or trucks. Is this because the industry doesn't employ many people, or just because they don't work weekends?

Incidental fun fact, the Gallery climbing area has a huge overhang (15-20 meters horizontally, 20-30 vertically) where there's a well casing that goes from the ceiling to the floor for no apparent reason. Presumably there's an oil jack up top, but I'm curious why the well is located there...

Thanks for your informative participation throughout this discussion.

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#89

Post by cylinder »

mbarq wrote: post #80

While 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…

It's capital vs labor. It's cute how employee professionals think they are in some sort of ruling class (at least according to the media).

Re: Former miners out to put Kentucky on the tech map

#90

Post by Animats »

mauvehaus wrote: post #88
jbawgs wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the fervor surrounding coal stems from the fact that for a long time it was the only industry where a person could bring home more than minimum wage, and see the decline of the industry as a personal attack. What the people really want is work. The article tells the tale - a thousand applicants for a handful of positions. The program I'm in had hundreds of applicants for only ten positions. To me, too muc…

As an outsider who has spent a fair amount of time in the area (climbing in the Red River Gorge area, specifically), thanks for shedding some light on the politics and mentality of the area. Can you shed any light on how the oil industry is viewed, how many people it employs, etc? I've really only ever been down to the area on the weekends, and while a lot of the climbing access is via oil company roads, I've never s…

Oil fields used to employ people only during the drilling phase. Once in production, they're mostly unattended. The classic oil field is a spread-out collection of pumpjacks running endlessly with nobody around.

Fracking operations, though, are complicated. There's usually a sizable site from which directional drilling spreads out underground. There's water, sand, and hydrochloric acid going down the holes, and mixed oil, gas, and sludge coming up. Lots of trucking activity.[1]

[1] https://www.fractracker.org/resources/oil-and-gas-101/explor...

Post reply on HN