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/s Does anybody see a link to this guys github profile? I wonder how far along he is on any side projects that he's working on. Surely he must hang out at an

by blhack 13y ago

/s Does anybody see a link to this guys github profile? I wonder how far along he is on any side projects that he's working on. Surely he must hang out at any of the many coworking spaces in SF on the weekend, right? I don't mean to be crass here, but...there are SO MANY programs available for this guy to learn to code, and then get the employee benefit of taking home free food from his employer (seriously? He's upset they don't let him take free food?) I don't really buy the excuse anymore that people are just being held down by "the system", especially in tech. I've tried with /so many/ people who are in similar "woe is me" situations to teach them to program. I've bought VPSs for them, I've set up curricula for them, I've invited them to hackathons, offered to work on projects with them, etc. etc. etc. And they don't take it. One friend, who I got a job with my employer as a part time support person, needed help building his resume. At the time, I was building a new mail server for us, and I told him I wanted him to help me with it so that he could add some linux sys admin work to his resume. Did he accept it? Nope! He spent his time at home watching Netflix and playing WoW, or age of empires or something. A month later these people are on facebook complaining about how the evil wealthy people are holding them down. -- He's working 30 hours a week, and lives with his mom. C'mon, man, you're being handed the ability to learn to code and build a github profile of a freaking golden platter. Get to it! Or...stop complaining about making $18/hr and only getting to /eat/ the free gourmet buffet, when you wish you could take it home. -- Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living. The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live. I'd love to have sympathy for a guy making $18/hr and living the San Jose, but I just can't bring myself to.

discreteevent 13y ago
Fair point but remember its possible that he knows he will never make the grade at programming. He can know that from trying similar things before again and again. Some 'nerds' will never make the grade at football. They don't need to keep trying in order to know that and if you keep pushing it on them they find it insulting and possibly even humiliating.
schmichael 13y ago
If your solution is for all of the security guards to become programmers, who will be the security guards? Or perhaps you just want enough poor people to move away/up until there's high enough demand for low skill jobs that their income increases. Sound Economics 101, but much more nuanced in reality. Update: I was just informed "/s" means sarcasm. Mea culpa.
grecy 13y ago
> The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live. It's unfortunate you believe the hype so completely. Hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries wouldn't move to the The Bay if you paid them to. You might not know it, but most of us think living in the USA sucks. (I'm a Software Engineer - I lived in CA for a while. I would never, ever want to have a family or buy a house in the USA. Life there is not very nice.)
WildUtah 13y ago
Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Whenever I see these articles, I think about what makes the Bay Area expensive. The key factor is housing prices. There's a limited amount of land available near the centers of SV because of mountains and natural areas. Supply is strictly constrained and demand is very strong because of industry growth. The result is spiraling prices far above what would seem reasonable elsewhere. Supply constraint isn't really a natural limit, though. Bay Area housing is spread out, low density, even sprawling. Even San Francisco is only half the density of Brooklyn. San Jose and San Mateo county mostly look like a suburb of Omaha. Market demand would indicate big profit opportunities for anyone who can buy up a subdivision and build a neighborhood of three story flats on wide sidewalks and two lane streets. That would be over double the density of San Francisco and ten times the density of a typical San Mateo subdivision. You could easily afford to buy up property, knock down current buildings and carry away a huge profit. But you can't get permission from planning boards. Or you could build like Tokyo, which is a little less dense than Brooklyn. You'd make free standing two or three story single family homes with very little yard on 15' single lane streets and small blocks. That's the same density as Brooklyn, 2.5 times San Francisco. Or you could even build like San Francisco, but in San Jose. That's efficient enough in land per housing unit to make big money. But it's all prohibited. The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. The result of bad public officials is an unhappy public.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. You seem to confuse "high density" with "livable" or "pleasant". I don't think that makes a lot of sense. > Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. San Francisco -- whose development policies you suggest would make San Jose more affordable -- is more expensive to live in than San Jose. Tokyo and New York City -- your other comparators for the Bay Area -- aren't exactly bastions of affordability. The profits for developers if your proposals were adopted are, of course, clear. The mechanism by which "affordable", "livable", or "pleasant" come out of them is far less clear.
chinasmith 13y ago
>The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live Hahahhahahahahahaha, keep drinking the flavor-aid as long as it let's you keep hilarious opinions like this and the abhorrent ones above it.
jonknee 13y ago
> Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living. Yea, he should probably abandon his daughter. Not everyone is a programmer and even if everyone could program well, there wouldn't be a market large enough to support it. Communities need to be able to support people in different occupations and income ranges.

by blhack 13y ago

discreteevent 13y ago

Fair point but remember its possible that he knows he will never make the grade at programming. He can know that from trying similar things before again and again. Some 'nerds' will never make the grade at football. They don't need to keep trying in order to know that and if you keep pushing it on them they find it insulting and possibly even humiliating.

schmichael 13y ago

If your solution is for all of the security guards to become programmers, who will be the security guards? Or perhaps you just want enough poor people to move away/up until there's high enough demand for low skill jobs that their income increases. Sound Economics 101, but much more nuanced in reality. Update: I was just informed "/s" means sarcasm. Mea culpa.

grecy 13y ago

> The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live. It's unfortunate you believe the hype so completely. Hundreds of millions of people living in developed countries wouldn't move to the The Bay if you paid them to. You might not know it, but most of us think living in the USA sucks. (I'm a Software Engineer - I lived in CA for a while. I would never, ever want to have a family or buy a house in the USA. Life there is not very nice.)

WildUtah 13y ago

Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Whenever I see these articles, I think about what makes the Bay Area expensive. The key factor is housing prices. There's a limited amount of land available near the centers of SV because of mountains and natural areas. Supply is strictly constrained and demand is very strong because of industry growth. The result is spiraling prices far above what would seem reasonable elsewhere. Supply constraint isn't really a natural limit, though. Bay Area housing is spread out, low density, even sprawling. Even San Francisco is only half the density of Brooklyn. San Jose and San Mateo county mostly look like a suburb of Omaha. Market demand would indicate big profit opportunities for anyone who can buy up a subdivision and build a neighborhood of three story flats on wide sidewalks and two lane streets. That would be over double the density of San Francisco and ten times the density of a typical San Mateo subdivision. You could easily afford to buy up property, knock down current buildings and carry away a huge profit. But you can't get permission from planning boards. Or you could build like Tokyo, which is a little less dense than Brooklyn. You'd make free standing two or three story single family homes with very little yard on 15' single lane streets and small blocks. That's the same density as Brooklyn, 2.5 times San Francisco. Or you could even build like San Francisco, but in San Jose. That's efficient enough in land per housing unit to make big money. But it's all prohibited. The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. The result of bad public officials is an unhappy public.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> The Bay Area has chosen to be unlivable and unpleasant by its choice of public officials. You seem to confuse "high density" with "livable" or "pleasant". I don't think that makes a lot of sense. > Those city officials have prohibited the practices that make city living affordable. San Francisco -- whose development policies you suggest would make San Jose more affordable -- is more expensive to live in than San Jose. Tokyo and New York City -- your other comparators for the Bay Area -- aren't exactly bastions of affordability. The profits for developers if your proposals were adopted are, of course, clear. The mechanism by which "affordable", "livable", or "pleasant" come out of them is far less clear.

chinasmith 13y ago

>The Bay is one of the most desirable places in the WORLD to live Hahahhahahahahahaha, keep drinking the flavor-aid as long as it let's you keep hilarious opinions like this and the abhorrent ones above it.

jonknee 13y ago

> Furthermore, move out of the bay area, man! That's one of the most expensive places to live in the country! Go move to Iowa, or North Dakota. Those places have high qualities of life, good wages, and low costs of living. Yea, he should probably abandon his daughter. Not everyone is a programmer and even if everyone could program well, there wouldn't be a market large enough to support it. Communities need to be able to support people in different occupations and income ranges.