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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

#411

Post by OkayPhysicist »

lordsauce wrote: post #159

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 diminis…

Having your friends refuse to refer you and a professor out-right reject a request for letter of rec reeks of there being more to the story.

(More helpfully: when applying for job's you'd be called over-qualified for, just lie. Especially jobs that don't require a degree anyway, just leave it off the resume. Had to do that for a bit during the pandemic slump).

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

#412

Post by senderista »

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?

Now it all comes together. Want the wrap-up?

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

#413

Post by kakacik »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #391
Tade0 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are what I've started to call "34yo Patrice". 34yo Patrice has a stable job, a fiancé and broadly speaking has his life in order. Nobody in his circle knows he dropped out of high school, got in the wrong crowd and, inevitably, did time. This archetype is a mix of several people I've met and I usually mention it when a younger person says this and that thing (e.g. dropping out of college) is the end of the world…

used to work with a dude -- who is probably on / posts here -- who copped serious felony charges for growing and distributing mary jane. some time in the slammer, but nothing crazy. couple decades later lives in the burbs, wife, kids, regular coding job, etc.

Growing some weed, what a horrible person. Do it now and its respected entrepreneur. Same person, 10 years difference.

Maybe folks should not just take passively morals from society or media but think for themselves? Society has been wrong uncountable amount of time, way more than it has been right.

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

#414

Post by paulryanrogers »

coldtea wrote: post #271
paulryanrogers wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Same with a car, just less so. So not the same? > Of course you could also stay at home, wearing protective bumper suit 24/7 Quite an extreme and useless comparison. There's a large spectrum of transportation and entertainment options between motorcycle riding and home bound bumper suit at all times.

> So not the same? Does it have to be the same? Do you discourage people from riding bicycles too, lest they be hit?

> Does it have to be the same?

If someone uses the word 'same' followed by a 'but' for a significantly different case then the word 'same' is losing its meaning.

> Do you discourage people from riding bicycles too, lest they be hit?

I don't, and my point is these things all have wildly different cost-benefit tradeoffs. So it's unproductive to jump to some extreme risk averse example that no one was suggesting or implying.

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

#415

Post by brailsafe »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #390
nunez wrote: post #379

> Working at Techtonic was the best possible early-career experience I think anyone could have had. They did contract development, a lot of which was greenfield Saas MVP launches, across various tech stacks. There was not a lot of time for mentorship so it a very "trial-by-fire" experience -- either figure things out and ship stuff, or get the boot. I *always* tell older people looking to switch into tech to start at…

> It doesn't pay well, and the work can be brutal (nights and weekends; on-call) but it's a great way to get the experience needed to get the job that does if you're starting from zero. sadly that's a non-starter for a lot of people in this economy. doubly so if you have kids.

> sadly that's a non-starter for a lot of people in this economy. doubly so if you have kids.

Seems to me like if it's the option on the table, and you have a family to take care of, then it would absolutely be a starter. If there are other options, then there are other options, but if you're just starting it's fairly likely that you need to prepare yourself for a battle. I don't see how "this economy" makes that anything but more true. I don't even have kids but I sure as hell wouldn't be picky if I did and was just getting going.

What would be a non-starter is no job or no pay for work.

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

#416

Post by ex-aws-dude »

carlio wrote: post #232
orthecreedence wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really great point, and shows a deep understanding of how consistently humorless HN users are! If you want, I can show several more examples of people knee-jerk downvoting things that are actually pretty funny.

There's always been a general pushback on HN against turning threads into a series of quippy oneliners. It tends toward having a serious discussion about a topic, rather than farming low-effort humour for upvotes. I consider this a good thing, as there are plenty of other places where that is rewarded.

Ya otherwise the one-liners/jokes drown out actual discussion since they attract a lot of votes

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

#417

Post by hnlmorg »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #407
hnlmorg wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an impossible to prove opinion without changing the laws of physics. But there are some precedence we can refer to as a counterargument. 1. There have been plenty of other substances that have been banned which were legal and widely taken since before such laws existed. Demonstrating that governments are willing to control substances that were previously legal. 2. There have also been other drugs that have bee…

> 3. And your augment about alcohol specific actually did happen in some places. It is commonly referred to as "prohibition". And that decision never stuck. sticks pretty well in muslim areas.

Not as well as you'd think:

1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68085190

> Saudi Arabia to get first alcohol shop in more than 70 years. [...] Saudi officials said the shop would counter "the illicit trade of alcohol".

2. https://www.rferl.org/a/farda-briefing-fatal-alcohol-poisoni...

> Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, alcohol has been strictly banned in Iran, where consuming, producing, or selling alcohol is punishable by prison, floggings, and fines. Despite the official ban, Iranians still drink foreign and homemade alcoholic beverages that are sold on the black market. Over the past year, there has been a spike in the cases of fatal alcohol poisoning, according to medical officials in Iran.

And I'm pretty sure few Europeans nor Americans would want to mimic the laws seen in those Islamic countries. Even putting aside the depressing rise of nationalist parties in the west, Saudi and the US and EU are just culturally very different. So what works there isn't necessarily going to work here.

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

#418

Post by LtWorf »

carlio wrote: post #402
aquariusDue wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree though from my experience on HN people tend to upvote these funny quips instead of abstaining. Yet generally when I write something meaningful I get meaningful replies in return sans upvotes and I treasure those much more.

I still cling on to the quaint idea that "upvote" means "adds meaningfully and coherently to the discussion", while "downvote" means the opposite. So not "I agree with this" or "that made me chuckle" but rather "this enhances the conversation" - and especially if it's a well written argument I disagree with because that might make me learn or rethink my position. Humour in a well argued point is very welcome, of cour…

That's not how it works at all. In general I've noticed that many of the things I say might remain neutral or get some upvotes, and then get flagged and downvoted as soon as the USA wakes up. So I think here it is very very much based on agreement.

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

#419

Post by smithoc »

zuzululu wrote: post #404
yurishimo wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "fraud" they are likely referring to is working 3 jobs at the same time as a software developer. Do all of the jobs know you have 2 others in the same line of work? If you're a consultant and advertise as such, no big deal imo, but I do think there is something to be said if you can't be honest with all of your employers about what other work is on your plate. Programming is by definition technical work t…

No they don't know and if they did I would get fired obviously. Thus 3 laptops and sometimes there are meetings which can overlap and that is always a challenge. Yes nobody is complaining about the output and they are getting their money's worth. I just think that as a modern day salaryman its silly to rely on one employer now or have any sort of loyalty. It's okay to ** over the average working guy but not okay when…

> No they don't know and if they did I would get fired obviously

And yet, above, you're still asking where the fraud is. You clearly know you're violating the terms of your employment agreement. That's the fraud. It's not complex.

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

#420

Post by ivell »

zuzululu wrote: post #404
yurishimo wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "fraud" they are likely referring to is working 3 jobs at the same time as a software developer. Do all of the jobs know you have 2 others in the same line of work? If you're a consultant and advertise as such, no big deal imo, but I do think there is something to be said if you can't be honest with all of your employers about what other work is on your plate. Programming is by definition technical work t…

No they don't know and if they did I would get fired obviously. Thus 3 laptops and sometimes there are meetings which can overlap and that is always a challenge. Yes nobody is complaining about the output and they are getting their money's worth. I just think that as a modern day salaryman its silly to rely on one employer now or have any sort of loyalty. It's okay to ** over the average working guy but not okay when…

> No they don't know and if they did I would get fired obviously.

This already shows the problem. They assume they are paying for your time exclusively, while you are doing just enough to satisfy them.

The fact you go such lengths to hide the fact that you are three timing them also shows that you know what you are doing is not acceptable.

Most likely you are in breach of the employment contract.

You are also somehow justifying this to yourself. The problem is that such behavior causes loss of trust and makes other 95% of honest peoples' life painful.

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