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Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

gavinray97.github.io

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Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#151

Post by newaccountman2 »

klibertp wrote: post #120
newaccountman2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fairly large % of those people--I would wager most, personally--would probably rather have cars, but can't afford to.

Probably depends on the locale. In Europe, riding a moped in a big city is a way to drastically cut your commute compared to driving a car. It's not exactly dangerous when all the other road users are moving at 5m/min, and being able to just skip all the traffic jams is a godsend. By car, my trip to the office was about 45min - it was 15min on a moped, a stop at a shop for some snacks included. And that's with riding…

oh interesting, I should have realized it was fairly common in Europe

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#152

Post by lazyasciiart »

HNisCIS wrote: post #107
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #20

Please don't get a motorcycle: A good felon buddy of mine has been out now for 4 years. He slowly built a car repair business, with steady clientele, and got his life back on track – including reasonable sobriety and a steady relationship. He and his girl would cruise around often, enjoying their newfound happiness . Last week he totaled his Harley and his body (destroyed bike, multiple broken bones). Total reset. He…

Motorcycles aren't invulnerable 3 ton steel tanks but the stats and anecdotes are deceptive. They're really not that bad if you're not a moron, even if you're mostly worried about other road users. The stat are wildly bimodal. ~30% of deaths involve drunk riding ~30% of deaths involve not wearing any helmet (let alone full face ECE 22.06 rated ones or any other gear at all) ~30% of deaths involve someone with no moto…

Isn’t this suggesting that the majority of motorbike deaths are licensed, sober, safety-geared riders?

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#153

Post by Aeolun »

I feel like US is ridiculously hard on even low grade drugs. Half of my high school would have gone to prison in the US.

Sending a 14 year old convicted of drug crimes anywhere but a location that will help them is bizarre. Sending them to a max security anything leaves me speechless.

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#154

Post by firesteelrain »

gavinray wrote: post #30
vijucat wrote: post #2

I love such stories. Right now, a lot of folks I know are struggling to find jobs, so I read the part about how he got a job the first day he was out of jail with some astonishment and nostalgia for the simpler days, when showing interest was often enough to land the job! Now, hoop number 1, the AI resume filter, is a strange obstacle that one has to jump through first.

The job market is rough. My wife went back to school for audio/sound design, finished the program + got a bunch of certifications. She's been trying to get anything, even an unpaid internship, doing sound design, going to local meetups, online conferences, and hasn't had much luck. But I told her: it's just a matter of persistence and time. If you're agreeable to be around, passionate about something, and just show u…

I applied to 100+ places in 2005. Took a job an hour from home for a year and half. Eventually found something closer to home. You take what you can find at the time until you find where you want to be

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#155

Post by trumpdong »

zuzululu wrote: post #23
vijucat wrote: post #2

I love such stories. Right now, a lot of folks I know are struggling to find jobs, so I read the part about how he got a job the first day he was out of jail with some astonishment and nostalgia for the simpler days, when showing interest was often enough to land the job! Now, hoop number 1, the AI resume filter, is a strange obstacle that one has to jump through first.

[flagged]

Why'd people downvote this? The minimum you need to be doing is pasting role descriptions and your résumé into ChatGPT and asking: should I hire this person? Because that's what every company's HR department is doing (automatically) and if the answer is no, then you may as well not bother sending the application. Or you could tweak it until it says yes.

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#156

Post by trumpdong »

antonvs wrote: post #61
khazhoux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing articles by hand isn’t just smart— it’s important. No shortcuts. No filler. No excuses. Key insight: relying on AI for writing assistance helps neither the author nor the audience.

Ironically saying "isn’t just smart— it’s important" (complete with em-dash!) and "No shortcuts. No filler. No excuses." sounds very AI-generated. Not saying it is, just pointing out how messed up the world we live in now is. But... was it?

that's the joke

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#157

Post by embedding-shape »

qmr wrote: post #126
embedding-shape wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the thing. On a bike you can do everything right and still lose. Same with a car, or anything really. The point of parent stands, globally there are billions of people going through their lives with motorcycles as their main vehicles, yet aren't involved in any life-changing accidents. Some places are more dangerous than others, probably places that doesn't have this already motorcycle-heavy culture, like ot…

Please don't say accident when you really mean crash. Promote language of responsibility and accountability.

Most crashes, but not all, are accidents. I think I'm talking about accidents, not crashes.

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#158

Post by trumpdong »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #113
Esophagus4 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost a good friend, a cycling partner, when she was hit by a car. I think she was a Cat 3 or 4 racer. Talented rider. I haven’t ridden on the road since. Just no joy in riding anymore if it just takes one careless individual on a cell phone… Every so often I think about linking up with a group ride again or even going to a spin class, but I just don’t see the fun in it anymore.

>I haven’t ridden on the road since. It's laughable how proud some cyclists become when they think a painted stripe will somehow protect them from cellphoned sharks. Obviously US bicycling infrastructure is laughably dangerous , and nobody deserves full-blame for exercising their legal rights upon roadways -- but e.g: biking up Lookout Mountain's shoulderless 2-lane highway is. stupid.ly common. These are tourist roa…

People do advocate for separated bike paths and concrete barriers between bike lanes and car lanes.

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#159

Post by lordsauce »

I apologize in advance for rambling. I never comment or post anywhere, but your post motivated me to share part of my story. I very much relate to the feeling that sharing can be too personal and too easy to misread.

Thank you for sharing. It’s refreshing to see that there are people who will take a chance on you. Your story helps with the burnout of pushing through with little to no results and exponentially diminishing resources.

I haven’t been so lucky, I joined a tiny startup in 2018 that shut down a year later, landed contract work in 2019 that was meant to convert into full-time, but was let go due to the pandemic right before converting. My most recent employer fired me on christmas of 2022.

I had a falling out with friends because they wouldn’t refer me for any role including tech sales. My uni wouldn't consider me for a master's degree because my microprocessor architecture professor wasn't "comfortable" writing a rec letter despite me sitting front of class and getting an A, all while practically begging students to apply (all 2/2 people that applied got into the program). Even in grade school my 2nd grade teacher was fired for lying to my parents that I was underperforming in school and that I needed to get kicked out of the talented and gifted program and repeat the grade. I still don't know what to make of all of this.

I haven’t been able to land phone screenings, let alone a first round interview anywhere. I am having a hard time getting minimum wage work due to being "over-qualified". I've been priced out of my hometown. I’ve completed web development, data science, and cloud infra bootcamps as a way to up-skill while also having a degree in electrical engineering. I would consider myself adaptable: I've worked in designing/improving electrical hardware, reverse engineering, web, mobile.

I am first-gen American, grew up homeless, but received a world-class education. Sometimes I wonder if I’m on a blacklist somewhere, or if I need to fall further for something to finally click. I guess I’m just having a really long bad luck streak, so here’s to hoping something better is around the corner!

Re: Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

#160

Post by caconym_ »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #101
antonvs wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make a similar argument for bicycles. Apparently the numbers for bicycles are a bit better, even in adjusted terms, but still. They're very unsafe in general.

In both cases the reasons often come back to the average motorcyclist and bicycle rider abjectly REFUSING to learn or respect road laws. I live in a non-California state and I'm shocked whenever I see a motorcyclist who doesn't illegally lane split, who maintains a standard following distance (ideally 3 car lengths on an interstate), etc. Plus, most of them aren't even good at choosing leather jackets (not enough sch…

Yeah man, it's the cyclists who are the problem, right? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39986875/
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