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My Story as a Homeless Developer

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Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#261

Post by justaaron »

code_duck wrote: post #114
komali2 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication is that the majority of homeless are just lazy, yea? Just pick apples! I've been exactly there. You're not making minimum wage when you show up to the farm to pick apricots all day. Bars - need a bartender license. Yes, you do, nobody is risking it in 2018. Restaurants, sure, but again, you're not making minimum wage, and if you whiff of hobo you're not working front of house and getting tips. Cleanin…

I don’t think the intent was to say that it’s easy to get a job or that people without work are lazy - just that an address is not a strict requirement.

Nonsense. I was homeless exactly once for a few weeks in San Francisco.

It took a loan from my sister (hey, lucky I had a sister with money to loan me!) to get one of those rooms in a shared building where you aren't allowed to have guests and the kitchen cupboards have padlocks on them.

You NEED an address to get anything more than one-off day work that you can't count on to pay the next months rent with. It's not optional.

I did the one-off "go to a construction site, ask if they need help, get 20 bucks for cleaning the work site" thing and that's fine for EATING but that's about it. You can't send resumes out or get back to recruiters during that time, etc. It's enough to keep eating, that's about it.

At that time the rent was like $380 for the room (this was in the Multimedia Gulch days...) so that's like 11 bucks a day for rent, don't miss a day.

So, in one day of programming, I would make rent for the month and then some, but I needed to have a place with a computer to program.

So today, you have laptops, but you still need electricity and internet. You need a stable place where you can plug your stuff in, keep it safe, and work.

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#262

Post by agumonkey »

newnewpdro wrote: post #250
agumonkey wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not absurd, it was to measure to minimum amount of daily water one needs to maintain hygiene. Some homeless people rely on public bath house which are disgusting and not always available, I know now that I only need two cup of water (and a shower mitt) to do so.

It's irrelevant to the requirements of a homeless person. You're basically not dirty at all living a typical domestic western life spent mostly at a keyboard and indoors.

I'll try it on my next forest week

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#263

Post by ido »

clarry wrote: post #259
ido wrote: post #241

One thing I found interesting straight off - by the cartoons and tech described (Pentium ii as a hand me down computer, internet connections at school and at homes) the author is at least 10 years younger than me - yet they started using the same language I did: qbasic. Being poor rather than middle class put them about a decade behind on the tech curve.

At least in my part of the world, qbasic remained a popular beginner language through the 90s to the early 2000s. It was easy to get, and there was plenty of tutorials available for it. Visual Basic didn't have the same appeal unless you wanted to do desktop applications, and I guess it was harder to get your hands on. C and C++ were not considered too beginner friendly. I don't think there was much competition for Q…

As they have gotten the pentium 2 (the top of the line, most expensive CPU in 1997) as a free hand-me-down computer & considering ubuntu first released in 2004, the author probably got started at the earliest in the mid '00s - by then you'd probably get started with something like flash.

But I agree QB was surprisingly long-lived, this 80s era tool probably lasted as long as Windows 98 (i.e. till XP became the "default" windows version).

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#264

Post by rurban »

austenallred wrote: post #140

Hey Jesse, I'm also formerly homeless, and now the cofounder of https://LambdaSchool.com (YC S17). We have a nonprofit fund designed specifically to help out homeless software engineers looking for a job. I'd love to put you in a cheap airbnb or apartment, hook you up with Lambda School's career services team who will help review your resume, get your github and portfolio in shape, practice interviewing, and help you…

His github portfolio is in perfect shape already. He is an expert Lua coder who created his own language interpreter.

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#267

Post by chrisseaton »

user5994461 wrote: post #172
swyea wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. In my experience there are many Russians moving to London for software positions. The parent is also not Russian from what I understand.

The company could sponsor a working VISA. It takes a fair amount of paperwork but it's doable. Remember that you're competing against 300 million Europeans who can move to and work in London overnight. You better have a great profile to be worth the hassle. Forget about low level roles and smaller companies. Let's ignore for a minute that the parent was not Russian. Having a Russian number is a red flag that the cand…

Why do you capitalise ‘VISA’? What do you think it’s an acronym for? It’s just an English word.

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#269

Post by JAdamMoore »

austenallred wrote: post #140

Hey Jesse, I'm also formerly homeless, and now the cofounder of https://LambdaSchool.com (YC S17). We have a nonprofit fund designed specifically to help out homeless software engineers looking for a job. I'd love to put you in a cheap airbnb or apartment, hook you up with Lambda School's career services team who will help review your resume, get your github and portfolio in shape, practice interviewing, and help you…

I need this. What a great alternative to suicide! Amazing. Bravo. I wish more people were helpers.

Re: My Story as a Homeless Developer

#270

Post by leandot »

Hey Jesse, I am throwing a couple of random ideas here:

- https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/how-would-you-make-an-ext..., most interesting I found the "teach chinese kids english"

- Small freelance gigs, as a native english speaker you have distinct advantage - https://www.upwork.com/, https://www.fiverr.com/

- Probably not an option because of initial costs but there is a huge shortage for developers in Europe, especially CEE where costs are low and wages growing fast. Even call centers would gladly pay $1000+/month just for your english.

- Drop me a line (email in profile). I don't have anything right now but sometimes I'm looking for some help for side projects.

Good luck!

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