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Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
141–150 of 452 posts
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#142(reviving an account this once to just say...) I've been lucky to work closely with Gavin at Hasura for years, and he is really a brilliant and versatile engineer, and is just a pleasure to work with. Great energy, down-to-earth, hilarious. If I had to assemble a "dream team" he would be on it for sure.
Thanks for sharing this part of your story dude!
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Indonesia. We have the highest per-capita rate of bike ownership in the world. I have seen what happens to motorcycle riders when there are accidents and I have seen what happens to car drivers when there are accidents. I won't get into the gory details but I avoid using bikes as much as possible.
Crashes. Not accidents.
Accidents. Not everything is under the driver's control, nor does it happen due to their intention (or even necessarily due to their lack of attention or whatever).
There's a reason the term accident is used (I know at least 10 countries where the meaning is the same).
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#144Shoutout to the author. I don't think I've met you, but I'm proud of you. What you've done is not easy. Neither is talking about it. I've not had nearly the adversity of the author, but I do know a little bit about what it's like to have an alternative background that makes companies not want to take a chance on you. It motivates you to take advantage of the chances you're given. The first time someone gave me a job,…
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Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
True but a motorcycle is basically 100% given that you will crash and have bad injuries.
It's a risky activity, yes, but lets not forget metropolitan areas in other countries are shock filled with motorcycles and most people live their entire life without being involved in any majorly serious accidents.
You mean scooters traveling E.g. the most common motorcycle in Vietnam is the 110cc Honda Wave with a top speed under ideal conditions of ~60mph. It literally would not be called a motorcycle in the US.
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
> chronically adverse culture That's the thing. On a bike you can do everything right and still lose. California is one of the safer places to ride given how many bikes are here and I've still had too many near misses as a trained, experienced, and conservative rider. Most people put 1-2k miles a year on their bikes, when I was riding often I put on 2-3k/ month.
> That's the thing. On a bike you can do everything right and still lose. Same with anything in life. Same with a car, just less so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway). At some point there's a tradeoff people make. Some people make it where the tradeoff slider says "motorcycle", rather than stop at "car". And I'm not talking…
Yeah exactly, same with BASE jumping or wingsuiting.
It's the same risk dynamic as driving a car to work, just more so. Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 (and can still die from any number of things anyway).
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#147Well done, mate.
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#148Had similarly unorthodox path to tech, albeit without the drug addiction or prison.
90s early internet/BBS punk rocker/computer nerd. Hated school angry.
Dropped out to work as a bike messenger for 5 years before packing a bag and moving west randomly. Couldn't sit still. Rode freight trains around the country for a few months.
Washed dishes and landscaped to cover my cheap rent till that fell thru. Discovered shop lifting. Covered food and beer stealing from local progressive grocery store chain. Stole goods to sell on CL to cover my rent. That scam went tits up and narrowly escaped serious charges after the head of loss prevention from a regional retailer caught up to me
Was sleeping in the park--this was pre super meth/fentanyl crisis so street living was a bit more stable and low key. Didn't want to wash dishes or dig holes any more so looked around on CL. Found a small company trying to bootstrap a regional office for an established linux-related open source company. Worked for free / interned using a stolen laptop for a year or so while sleeping outside or couch surfing local punk houses.
Eventually got hired on for s but stayed for a couple years and made many FOSS connections. Eventually left to join a well known FOSS-centered company that was fully remote.
Told myself when I was young that I would never work in an office. ~15 years later and I never have ,but now work in bit tech, get paid too much, own a home and have a great family with kids who play at the same parks I used to crash at. We shop (and pay) at the same stores I used to crib from.
I'm respected and tenured at my gig but Imposter syndrome still holds me back. Nobody I work with knows where I came from and thankfully have nothing incriminating that would block a background check
Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some US highways I'm sorry, but from a European perspective, this is the problem, not bikes. If your roads and driving culture encourage driving a tank for safety, that's a bit less than ideal. I commuted to work for 5 years on a moped. I never used a highway, almost never exceeded 50km/h, and had 2 accidents during that time; both resulted in just a few scratches and bruises. In another post, you said: "maybe spee…
I lack the commenting impulse control to say this in a politically correct way so my apologies for the outrage that will follow, but to put it crudely there is someone in my extended family who became a retard after falling off their bicycle at roughly walking speed and with a helmet on. It's rare but you can easily die just from walking and slipping on a banana peel. While you're right about slower generally being s…
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Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a risky activity, yes, but lets not forget metropolitan areas in other countries are shock filled with motorcycles and most people live their entire life without being involved in any majorly serious accidents.
You mean scooters traveling E.g. the most common motorcycle in Vietnam is the 110cc Honda Wave with a top speed under ideal conditions of ~60mph. It literally would not be called a motorcycle in the US.
From time spent living in the Philippines I have no idea what they're even on about. Sometimes I watched the local news and it was absolutely plastered with endless mass death of motorcyclists. Life is just cheap in south east asia so when a gazillion people get splattered on their bike no one thinks too much about it, it's just the risk of doing the business.