SAT: Getting the lowest score possible - <AUTHOR> http://www.colinfahey.com/sat/sat.html <comment><USER2> Spoliers (it's very long): he got one question correct, sadly.

I feel for him given the preparation and detail he put into it. I missed a few SAT questions my senior year but helpfully, The College Board decided to make the test easier the following year and magically recalibrate my scores to perfect. It was too late for colleges to care and the expected thousand girlfriends never materialized but it did make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

<comment><USER3> I didn't get the recalibration :-( one off perfect forever. same as my LSAT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I honestly don't know whether to be impressed or frightened by the level of obsessive attention to detail on display here.

<comment><USER5> I visited some of the article from his homepage. This guy is an all-around genius! He writes every page on his website in this manner, on so many different fields. Bookmarked.

I hope no one will only look at his SAT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is possibly the funniest thing I have read this year. As an aside, the amount of thought and focus this guy obviously can devote to a single topic is amazing. I really hope someone is paying him lots of money (or whatever he prefers) to use his talents for good.

<comment><USER7> It was funny, but in a somewhat disturbing, manic way. I skimmed much of it, but the reference to Weekly World News caught my eye and still can't figure out the point of the tangent even after going back and thoroughly reading most of the article.

Section 8.3.10 starts with possible numeric encodings for answers, but then jumps into a philosophical question about admission tests for religion and ends with the reference to WWN and the headline: "10 MORE COMMANDMENTS FOUND! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of the SAT-apologist comments here missed one of the most amazing parts of the post:

> "The correlation between [...] combined verbal and math scores and freshman > GPA is .52;"

.52! And it's pulled _straight from the College Board's Terms and Conditions!_ And later on, it goes on to explain that high school GPA's correlation is just .54! The graph he produced to visualize the scatter involved with a .52 correlation is both hilarious and horrifying.

<comment><USER9> Ideally, shouldn't there be weak or no correlation between score and college grades, when your sample is all SAT takers? My reasoning (not entirely non- serious) is that people who score high on the SAT get into hard schools and so get their GPA smacked down to average, whereas those with poor SAT scores get into easy schools where they can earn an average GPA.

<comment><USER10> Harder schools don't necessarily have harder grading. I taught at both Rutgers and NYU - if anything, Rutgers was tougher than NYU.

At Rutgers we failed people regularly. At NYU this would raise red flags and generate huge numbers of complaints (from students and parents).

<comment><USER11> I thought Rutgers was actually a harder/better school than NYU, at least for engineering. Rutgers is obviously better for film studies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I admit, I didn't read the whole thing, it was super long.

I personally think the ACT (and by association the SAT) is a better measure of intelligence than a GPA, and I would love it if companies used that more often as a filtering metric. Obviously, grades in general aren't the best metric, but they're simple and generally pretty reliable.

If I were hiring somebody, I'd look at a combination of test scores and personal achievements. If I were hiring a programmer, I'd filter by test scores, then look at examples of projects the applicant works on/is associated with. Grades aren't as important in my opinion.

If that's the premise of the post, I totally agree. If not, I'm not willing to read a forever long post that forces me to relive the horror of the testing I went through before I got into college.

<comment><USER13> You're looking for the canned tokenadult post which summarizes as follows:

[paraphrased] "Decades of research have established that the most effective indicators of whether someone will be a good hire are (on the one hand) a general intelligence test, and (on the other hand) a work sample. Outside the US, the use of intelligence tests in hiring is common; within the US, it subjects the hiring agent to legal difficulties. If you are hiring outside the US, use both. If you are hiring inside the US, use work samples."

<comment><USER14> Actually, the effective hiring procedures of either kind are rare everywhere, but, yes, that is otherwise a fair summary of my FAQ post on company hiring procedures,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4613543>

which I too thought seems to fit in with several of the comments in this thread. Regrettably, most companies miss out on opportunities to use the best available hiring procedures, preferring the traditional methods to methods validated by research.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This reminds of me playing Hearts on a PC. You can try really hard to get a good score, or you can get the worst score possible and win the round[1]. I didn't read the whole article, but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to know the correct response to every question. (A little less black & white for the essay section, but you get the gist.)

Colleges should have a lottery admission available to people who _can_ get a perfect score on the SAT/ACT. Students would inadvertently study harder and learn proportionally more than if they were to study hard enough to get a perfect score.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts#Shooting_the_moon>

<comment><USER16> > but it was pretty clear that to get the lowest possible score you have to > know the correct response to every question.

Not exactly. To get the lowest possible score, you only need to know a incorrect response to every questions. This is a very different thing, as it is not uncommon for a question to have some obviously incorrect answers.

<comment><USER15> Knowing an absolutely incorrect answer to every question is difficult to ensure. It leaves things up to chance since you cannot prepare for the exact questions you get. On the other hand, knowing all the correct answers is perfectly doable.

<comment><USER17> This is not true. For example you know that the result of 5.123.443 x 9.999.999 can't be 42. But you dont immediately know the correct answer, which is harder.

<comment><USER15> Making the answer hard to deduce/calculate is only one side of the difficulty. The other side is making the question hard to decipher. I don't think the SAT has any questions that are as straightforward as your example, but I could be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Isn't it considerably easier to get every question wrong than it would be to get a perfect score (every question right)? For each question, there is only one correct answer but four incorrect ones. If you're aiming for a perfect score, you have to choose the only one correct answer among the five choices. But if you're trying to get every question wrong, you can choose one of four different answers to get the outcome you want (much better margin for error).

<comment><USER19> That would be true, but you are in fact allowed to miss a couple of questions and still get a perfect score.

<comment><USER20> That depends on the section of the test. Critical reading you can get several wrong, writing depends on your essay score, and math you typically can't get any wrong.

<comment><USER21> I made 1 mistake and math and ended up with 790. I was quite annoyed with myself when I walked out knowing exactly which question I messed up too.

<comment><USER3> Did it hurt your future prospects?

<comment><USER21> Ruined my life.

Just kidding. It would be impossible to tell what, if any, effect it had. Do I feel like it actually had any effect? Not really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I had to laugh when reading about the Fantasy "Calculators" - included as a fantasy is a "Slide Rule" - when I took my grade 12 physics provincial finals in 1987, I didn't have a calculator with me, but that was not unexpected, so students were also provided with a booklet of log tables - a predecessor, of course, to the slide rule.

The log tables, of course, were more than sufficient for whatever complex multiplication and division that had to be done.

<comment><USER23> These are still used frequently in high schools across the world. For example, Indian high schools following the CBSE system do not allow calculators, but log tables are permitted for some courses.

<comment><USER24> Yep, at my high school in New Zealand we were required to learn how to use log tables, even though we all had calculators. I don't know if it was a compulsory part of the curriculum though, and I wouldn't be surprised if they don't do it any longer.

<comment><USER3> Sad. Learning to use of tables helps you learn the concept of logarithm. Way better than a calculator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Mostly off topic, but do USA schoolschildren get taught to use things like "number of degrees of arc", "measures in degrees" and "inverse logarithm" instead of just "degrees" and "exponentiation"/"exponential" (and the use of the last one is the geometric mean, which is a much pithier explanation and concept).

And, a correlation of .52 isn't the same as a coin toss: that would be a correlation of 0.

<comment><USER26> Yes, they do.

After 35 years teaching in Australia, my parents are now in NYC running seminars for teachers there.

They are constantly shocked at the amount of time spent in classes memorizing lexicon, dates, etc. without actually learning to apply any of it. The students can very confidently regurgitate what the "number of degrees of arc" means, but they have no idea how to apply that to anything. They'll also spit out the exact date of some war, but have no idea who fought, why, or what any outcome was.

<comment><USER3> I have never seen a teacher or student like you describe. The ones who don't know the (purported) reason for the Civil War don't know when it started either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Isnt amazing that at the time you apply to Harvard,Yale and other top schools,admission officials brag at just how many perfect SAT scorers they have turned down,yet a few years down the line turn back and claim to have sifted out the best and the brightest and gladly hint at scores as the measure of brilliance.I even remember reading an article about Harvard adcoms pointing out how they do not want to turn their school into an Ecole Nomale Superieure .Either they lie about inputs or the outputs.They cant have it both ways.

<comment><USER3> Can you praphrase? I couldn't follow all your pronoun referents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A lot of the comments here are related to the idea of whether or not the SAT can be regarded as being much like an IQ test. It can, and psychologists routinely think of the SAT that way. Despite a number of statements to the contrary in the various comments here, taking SAT scores as an informative correlate (proxy) of what psychologists call "general intelligence" is a procedure often found in the professional literature of psychology, with the warrant of studies specifically on that issue. Note that it is standard usage among psychologists to treat "general intelligence" as a term that basically equates with "scoring well on IQ tests and good proxies of IQ tests," which is the point of some of the comments here.

<http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/koening2008.pdf>

"Frey and Detterman (2004) showed that the SAT was correlated with measures of general intelligence .82 (.87 when corrected for nonlinearity)"

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144549/>

"Indeed, research suggests that SAT scores load highly on the first principal factor of a factor analysis of cognitive measures; a finding that strongly suggests that the SAT is g loaded (Frey & Detterman, 2004)."

[http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/04/why- should-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/12/04/why-should-sats- matter/the-sat-is-a-good-intelligence-test)

"Furthermore, the SAT is largely a measure of general intelligence. Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on standardized tests of intelligence, and like IQ scores, are stable across time and not easily increased through training, coaching or practice."

[http://faculty.psy.ohio- state.edu/peters/lab/pubs/publicatio...](http://faculty.psy.ohio- state.edu/peters/lab/pubs/publications/2012_Peters_Beyond_comprehension_The_role_of_numeracy_in_J_and_D.pdf)

"Numeracy's effects can be examined when controlling for other proxies of general intelligence (e.g., SAT scores; Stanovich & West, 2008)."

As I have heard the issue discussed in the local "journal club" I participate in with professors and graduate students of psychology who focus on human behavioral genetics (including the genetics of IQ), one thing that makes the SAT a very good proxy of general intelligence is that its item content is disclosed (in released previous tests that can be used as practice tests), so that almost the only difference between one test-taker and another in performance on the SAT is generally and consistently getting all of the various items correct, which certainly takes cognitive strengths.

Psychologist Keith R. Stanovich makes the interesting point that there are very strong correlations with IQ scores and SAT scores with some of what everyone regards as "smart" behavior (and which psychologists by convention call "general intelligence") while there are still other kinds of tests that plainly have indisputable right answers that high-IQ people are able to muff. Thus Stanovich distinguishes "intelligence" (essentially, IQ) from "rationality" (making correct decisions that overcome human cognitive biases) as distinct aspects of human cognition. He has a whole book on the subject, What Intelligence Tests Miss, that is quite thought-provoking and informative.

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss- Psycholog...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss- Psychology/dp/0300164629/)

(Disclosure: I enjoy this kind of research discussion partly because I am acquainted with one large group of high-IQ young people

<http://cty.jhu.edu/set/>

and am interested in how such young people develop over the course of life.)

<comment><USER18> How do you reconcile the large leaps in SAT scores that people achieve through preparing for the test? For example, while I had a fairly respectable score in high school, after I spent a little time working as an SAT tutor in college, I was regularly scoring perfectly on all practice tests and recently release new tests. Surely my IQ hadn't jumped drastically. Just curious for your take on this.

<comment><USER10> According to studies not performed by a company selling test prep, there is no large leap in SAT score.

<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124278685697537839.html>

<comment><USER3> Yet practicing old tests clearly does increase scores, and token adult's comment above did not account for that. He assumed that everyone practices and so the measurements are unbiased, or that practice is highly correlated with IQ (which may be true)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Instead of points for correct answers the result of the test should be defined as probability of such set of responses to be achieved by chance only. :-)

</comment><comment><USER29> I've thought of doing this but never had the courage unfortunately. Maybe when I retire I'll have the time to go back and try this out.

</comment><comment><USER30> My high school required students to take the ASVAB in addition to the ACT (SAT wasn't offered, so I had to go to a testing center for it).

I know a guy who honestly tried on the math section. He got the single point for signing his name, but missed all the questions. The first question is "2+2".

</comment><comment><USER31> I have done this before on high school and college exams (not the SAT unfortunately), along with other similar experiments like writing answers backwards, using red pen to write my answers to muddle grading attempts, and writing essays on completely different subjects than the one assigned. The level of disbelief expressed by peers and teachers when you challenge their value system led to perhaps one of the most important lessons I learned in my time spent locked in the school system. Thinking outside the box means you are still stuck in a box.

</comment><comment><USER27> >Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on standardized tests of intelligence, and like IQ scores, are stable across time and not easily increased through training, coaching or practice.

That is interesting.How would you account for the fact that i increased my score by 130 points upon a retake without the help of a tutor(Too bad my new score was useless since i already had a fullride)?These tests can be gamed.Heck ,even iQ scores arent stable over a lifetime if anyone has bothered to read current research(Fynn Effect blah blah)

<comment><USER3> Flynn effect compared genereations, not individual's changes.

<comment><USER27> Arent generational changes just the average of individual changes in the same way that the character of a nation emanates from that of individual nations?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Tangentially related, on one of my (national) highschool math finals, I decided to bring an abacus instead of a calculator. The proctor gave me a weird look, I explained I was using it as a calculator, and he gave me no problems.

<comment><USER3> Did you use it? Aren't abaci rather loud?

<comment><USER32> No, it was just for show.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> While reading this, I slowly started to tune out and pressed the back button after realizing just how much material was on the page.

I realized that this must be what my friends go through when I explain stuff I'm interested in.

Ouch.

</comment><comment><USER34> For anyone wondering what is meant by the "12700-choice" questions mentioned starting in section 5.1, they are the questions in the "student-produced response" format analyzed in section 8.

</comment><comment><USER35> Collin Fahey has won the internet today in my book. Every single thing he wrote had amazing attention to detail and in many cases was charged with extra meaning. Genius.

</comment><comment><USER36> tl;dr: he got one wrong, discussed in section 14.2.4.

</comment><comment><USER37> The SAT is an important measure of a humans intelligence and performance in the real world, that's why the best companies always filter candidates and select the ones with highest SAT scores.

It's a good thing we have tests like these and pay large sums of money to the people who maintain it. Otherwise interviewing might be totally screwed up and completely fail at its intended purpose in this country.

<comment><USER38> The SAT is good for measuring how good one is at taking the SAT, which in turn is an indicator of how much the test taker took preparing for the exam seriously, which is an indirect indicator of the person's work ethic and attitude towards putting in effort for a means to an end (yes, despite the pointlessness of this exam). It does do a decent job at finding such people who strive to excel within the limits of a (flawed) system, whether or not they realize the pointlessness of said structure. If an institution is looking for an indicator for such people, the SAT is an acceptable tool.

Of course, what it's truly good for is to measure how affluent the student's family is.

<comment><USER39> Well said. Except I'd make the following corrections:

      s/[(]yes.*exam.//;
      s/.flawed.//;
      $d

I'd add that sometimes the "end" may be pointless, though you might not see it as such while working toward it; years later, in hindsight you might realise it was the "means", i.e., the process of working toward it, i.e. the "hard work", that was the point.

Interestingly, there's no "hard work" in taking a test you do not prepare for, e.g., an IQ test.

<comment><USER3> Everyone I know with a high IQ did plenty of IQ test practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Web Page

Making the ugliest one possible

Colin Fahey</comment>


Ask HN: Curriculum for learning JavaScript, JQuery, and Node? - <AUTHOR>

From recent posts, I'm concluding that Javascript is the next thing I should learn (employability, resilience, usefulness). There are so many resources, however, so I'm not sure where I should begin?
JavaScript: The Good Parts? Online tutorials and "classes?" Opensource Github projects? Other books? Should I learn CoffeeScript "instead" of pure JS?
My goals include learning Node and Angular (should I even go all-in on a framework at this point?) too.
I thoroughly know HTML and CSS and, at the sake of sounding redundant, I'm a beginning novice in Rails. <comment><USER2> I'm in a similar boat. For Javascript, I found [http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide- Activate-G...](http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Definitive-Guide-Activate- Guides/dp/0596805527) to be a good place if you have little to no familiarity of Javascript. For Node, I'm using the links suggested here [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get- star...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353818/how-do-i-get-started-with- node-js).

For Angular, I've just followed the documentation on angularjs.org and tried applying it to various web projects that I have already.

I feel that there are a lot more projects in pure JS compared to CoffeeScript that even if you did learn CoffeeScript, you can't avoid encountering pure JS.

</comment><comment><USER3> IMO, learn pure js but while learning the basics, get your hands dirty with some frameworks, small side projects or tutorials and workshops. This will help you find what framework you enjoy or really "clicks" with your personal preferences. Its also more fun then learning the syntax and structure of a new language. There will be another framework to learn next month but pure js is going to be around for a while.

Some good resources for learning JS from the ground up (pure js)..

Books (highly recommended):

\- Javascript: The Definitive Guide

\- Eloquent Javascript

\- Professional JavaScript for Web Developers 3rd Ed.

Resources:

\- [https://learn.thoughtbot.com/javascript](https://learn.thoughtbot.com/javascript)

\- [http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript- properly...](http://javascriptissexy.com/how-to-learn-javascript-properly/)

\- [http://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/1oq8ns/lear...](http://www.reddit.com/r/learnjavascript/comments/1oq8ns/learn_javascript_properly_omnibus_post_for_the/)

\- [http://jstherightway.org/](http://jstherightway.org/)

For Angular ([http://egghead.io](http://egghead.io)) is a great resource for short/dense screencasts (from what I've heard/read)

</comment><comment><USER4> Eloquent JavaScript - Marijn Haverbeke

Effective JavaScript - Dave Herman

Functional JavaScript - Michael Fogus

Once you know JavaScript, dig into the codebase of larger mature projects by the most prolific/well-known developers in the JavaScript community, like TJ Holowaychuk, Isaac Schleuter, Dominic Tarr, Raynos, Marijn Haverbeke, Oliver O'Steele, James Halliday, Mikeal Rogers, SamuraiJack, Gozala, Creationix, Kritowal, Marak, coolaj86, TooTallNate, indexzero, hij1nx, pkrumins, John Resign, Douglas Crockford, etc.

Sorry if I missed any names.

</comment><comment><USER5> Codeschool as courses on all of these, and they are very good.

<comment><USER6> They are only good if you've never coded before.

If you have, they take at most a few hours to do and are largely a waste of money.

<comment><USER5> And as such they sound perfect for the poster of this Ask HN, as he stated he knows HTML/CSS and is a novice at Rails.

Thanks for your complete dismissal of my post because of your opinion on what works for you.</comment></comment></comment>


The darker side of Buddhism - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32929855 <comment><USER2> As a former Burmese monk and a long-term meditator, I will just say that labeling yourself a "buddhist" does not in itself improve your behavior or grant you special wisdom, even if you're wearing colorful robes.

E.g., s/Why are Sri Lankan Buddhists espousing racist ideologies?/Why are American Christians espousing anti-gay ideologies?/ and you understand the context just fine.

Even in Burma, a place where about 1 in 120 citizens are monastics, I met many, many monks with little wisdom or deep commitment to practice. Some were doing it because their family was poor, and joining the monastic orders was a way to get regular meals. Many liked having the respect of the community, but didn't really aim for enlightenment. Some are scholarly, and were essentially confusing the menu with the meal. Some people are super into self-denial, and joining the monastic order can be a great way to make yourself suffer like that. Some were earnest, but assumed that rebirth meant they didn't have to meditate _now_ , they could get around to that in a later life.

I even saw one monk in Thailand messing around on Candy Crush only minutes after joking to my gf that the one thing I hadn't yet seen a monk do was playing Candy Crush.</comment>


My Story as a Homeless Developer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jessehorne/my-story-as-a-homeless-developer-5874731c42ed <comment><USER4> Hey Jesse,

I'm also formerly homeless, and now the cofounder of [https://LambdaSchool.com](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 land a job. We've already seen multiple success stories (for example David [https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/homeless-man-handing- out...](https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/homeless-man-handing-out-resumes- in-bay-area-lands-software-engineer-job/1386955148), who is now making almost $100k/yr).

Generous donors have allowed us to continue to grow the fund after Lambda School's original $50,000 contribution.

I know how hard it is to focus on getting a job when you're just trying to survive, so let's try to eliminate that distraction. Hit me up at email@example.com and let's help you focus and get to where you need to be.

PS if anyone on HN wants to donate to the fund it's here - [https://www.gofundme.com/lambda-perpetual-access- fund](https://www.gofundme.com/lambda-perpetual-access-fund). Generally we can help someone who knows how to write code go from homeless to hired with a couple thousand dollars all-in.

<comment><USER5> Sorry about the thread highjacking! But do you work internationally, like all the way in the middle east? I'm one of the local dev community leaders in my country, and there is just so much space for proper training and education, also a huge supply of fresh out of CS school youngsters who have no idea what to do in a troubled country with an education system that's stuck in the 90s.

So I would like to ask you a few questions if you allow me to shoot you an email? :)

<comment><USER6> _who have no idea what to do in a troubled country with an education system that 's stuck in the 90s._

[https://clementecourse.org](https://clementecourse.org)

Years ago, I read a book about the program. It's designed to educate people in terrible circumstances. I am thinking you might find it a useful resource. Among other things, they designed a schedule that helped minimize the damage from missed sessions, iirc.

Best.

<comment><USER5> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As the author discovered, reliable transportation and a permanent residence are often prerequisites for many office jobs. However, I do know that in Iowa there are _many_ other kinds of jobs, lots of which would pay a wage sufficient to get back on one's feet, and have more lenient requirements. Perhaps the author needs to get _any_ job vs. a programming job? Establishing a place to live, getting consistent income, and _then_ going after the programming job would be a better idea perhaps? Sucks to take a step back, but sometimes that's the only way to go forward.

I have a family member going through this same thing and struggling with similar issues. The author is right, it won't be easy to rise above the situation they find themselves in, but the key thing is to stop making bad decisions and take small but incremental steps to improve. Big bang "remote programming job" might not be in the cards. But farm laborer could be. Which may be a step in that direction.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by _many_ jobs. Outside of standing outside of home depot I don't know many jobs that don't require a permanent address and a phone number and an email. Entry level employment is like 99% massive corporations that make no allowances for the realities of hard lives.

<comment><USER7> You sound pretty out of touch. In Iowa there is an enormous agriculture industry - an industry not known for asking a lot of personal questions about origin or current status. If you can show up and do the work (and maybe pass a drug test), you're hired. And often paid cash.

Outside of agriculture, there are the usual suspects. Bars, restaurants, cleaning jobs, roofing, painting, other forms of low skill construction, landscaping/yard work, and with the unemployment rate so low, other jobs are becoming available as well. Many of these jobs have someone who drives, and a passenger or two to help with the work when they arrive. I know several folks who do not have licenses due to DUIs, and they are gainfully employed without owning a car, in places where cars are almost a necessity.

I never said it would be easy - but it certainly is doable.

<comment><USER9> 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.

Cleaning jobs are usually cornered by some immigrant class . If you're an immigrant and have friends/family with the hookup or maybe can speak their language, congrats, you're in (not making minimum wage). If not, move on.

Roofing - you need to bring your own tools. Speaking from experience. Also, this isn't just a "show up and do it job," the shysters that manage to sell shit crews to homeowners never last long, so you'll have to get on with a crew that know what they're doing, and they're not going to want to bring someone on that wants to just do it long enough to "get their feet under them" and then bail. Decent pay, sure, but it's a "career."

Painting - this means standing outside of home depot, just like OP said. Not minimum wage.

Other forms of low skill construction - like what? It's not "low skill," the immigrants you see doing it get trained up by their cousins on the job, and once again, it's bring your own tools.

Landscaping/yard work - market cornered by immigrants and highschoolers. Nobody wants a random hobo mowing their lawn. Maybe you can get on with an immigrant crew. Non-minimum wage.

>unemployment rate so low

Yea, because people are being paid like it's still 1991 (the 2009 raise was putting a finger into a ten meter diameter hole in a dam).

This guy didn't have a family to support him. That's how the immigrants do it, in case anybody is wondering - they stay with families, get jobs due to families, and afford life here because they're all supporting eachother. Random hobo programmer dude is going to have a MUCH harder time scrabbling out of the hole.

Yea, you can scrabble a life, but you're not building a ladder out of the hole for yourself. I'd argue, if you can program, the 3.75/hr you'd make for 3 months is meaningless if you can instead spend that 3 months homeless but then pull a programming job for even a month.

<comment><USER10> At least in CA there is literally no such thing as a 'bartending license'. The requirements for getting a job as a bartender in california start and stop at convincing a bar owner to let you tend their bar.

<comment><USER11> Even if there's no license, there no way someone can just walk into a bar and get a bartending job. I should know, I went to bartending school. Bartenders are almost always hired from lower level employees. Usually you start by cleaning tables, then you work your way up to a barback, and then you can move up as a bartender.

<comment><USER10> Hence my caveat about needing to convince a bar owner to let you be a bartender. Never said it was easy, just that there is no such thing as a bartenders license.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks like this was written today. He's apparently still homeless and he closes with a request for feedback.

So I'm just going to leave these links here (disclosure: they are my sites):

[https://www.pocketputer.com/](https://www.pocketputer.com/)

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/) (Same look, but different site)

[https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/](https://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/)

This is listed on the _Links_ page of PocketPuter.com, but I'm going to put it here on HN for maximum exposure (not mine, just an awesome resource):

List of Remote Jobs and Gigs Platforms

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15GJtJ5qpk7H9Cl3xTBwv2FR8/htmlview)

Best.

<comment><USER12> It seems like the biggest issue is not that he doesn't have the skill set to find a job but his (admitted) mental illness. He needs someone to help him through that first. No, I don't have any answers, but I do know how hard it is to do well at a job if your mind isn't clear.

<comment><USER6> I spent nearly 6 years on the street. Practical solutions for helping me solve my actual problems was the best thing for my head space. I wrote some of it down. Most of that can be found in the above blogs of mine.

I'm not at all unfamiliar with mental health issues. This is what I deeply and sincerely believe works.

If you disagree, perhaps you could hook him up with a better solution instead of raining on my parade.

<comment><USER13> You can disagree without offering a solution. His comment was with the aim of addressing the underlying problem. OP could get a dev job tomorrow and lose it within a week if mental health issues impede his ability to function on a team. Your parade isn't as important as OP's predicament.

<comment><USER6> These two claims conflict:

 _You can disagree without offering a solution._

 _Your parade isn 't as important as OP's predicament._

You and the other commenter are offering nothing of help to the OP. Your entire focus is on taking me down for some reason.

Meanwhile, my opening comment offered actual resources to try to help the OP. If you think that addressing his problem is the most important thing here, then you could do the same thing I did and leave comments aimed at being helpful instead of comments aimed at shooting me down.

<comment><USER14> Hmmm, my reading of Scarface's comment was that it's more just trying to be constructive "He'll need to work out the mental health issues too..." kind of thing, rather than negging your comment.

But, maybe I just need more coffee. :)

<comment><USER15> I think this is a perfect illustration of what happens.

The (mentally ill) person does something which they intend as a benefit and people react. The (mentally ill) person feels attacked, often where no attack was intended.

This is the problem that needs to be addressed, as has been stated.

The reason (mentally ill) people don't have jobs is because they can't keep them, due to their illness, not that they can't find them.

I'm not trying to attack anyone in this thread by using the term mentally ill.

I suffer from something that has been variously diagnosed as aspergers/bipolar/borderline/crazy/mentally ill and I understand this pattern completely.

I was homeless for 3 months when I lost my job because of problems interacting with other employees. I seem to be too sensitive or maybe I'm imagining slights. Whatever the cause, the result is I have serious problems maintaining any relationships with anyone, even my family members.

I can be highly functioning for months at a time and I did have a 10 year relationship with someone, so I'm not beyond help and I'm not an awful person (though I feel like one despite my best efforts at positive affirmations!) but something seems to build inside me until it erupts in a stream of negativity that most people would rather not have to deal with, and so they don't.

My parents were both alcoholics, so I'm sure that is part of it, but being a slave 8 hours a day is very difficult for me, and always has been.

I'm 54 years old and on the verge of homelessness again after working IBM and Intel, among other industry giants.

There is no safety net in the US for unmarried males without dependents. It is assumed we are immune to struggles and should be able to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps.

I applaud the efforts of people like AustenAllred who are attempting to find market solutions to problems like homelessness. Bravo!

<comment><USER16> I can relate to this as I'm quite sensitive and when I was younger had an incredibly hot fuse, largely related to being socially awkward, getting teased in school, and not knowing how to deal with it. That carried on into the work environment and left me adversarial and feeling isolated.

For me the problematic dynamic came from having things upset me and build up until I would get so angry it would explode outward. I grew up learning to hold it in, so I had no idea I could talk about problems with people. It wasn't so much letting go of the anger as talking about feelings and difficulties with people allowed me to avoid hitting that breaking point and over time, the anger and resentment has faded. Additionally, those conversations led to a level of trust where I feel like I can reach out to the person when something comes up or even strongly supported by them.

Coming from alcoholic parents, you might want to check out Al Anon. I found that and Codependents Anonymous invaluable as places where I was surrounded by people struggling with many of the same social issues I did. Also, it was unique in that it's an environment where talking about these sort of things is encouraged and invited, in public I tend to find that people find these topics uncomfortable and unwelcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The calls usually go something like this.

> Me: "First thing, is I am looking for a remote position just long enough to > allow me to save for a vehicle."

> Recruiter: "Sure. _spends 20 minutes gathering as much information about me > as they can_ "

> Recruiter: "We'd love to move forward with a position but you do not have a > vehicle and the position requires you to have reliable transportation."

Why would do you that? The recruiter and employer don't care if you unicycle, hitchhike, swim, or teleport to work. The conversation should be about your skills, experience, professional goals. The recruiter won't feel good about shopping you around if you make it sound like you're going to quit once you've saved a couple grand for a used car.

<comment><USER18> Or maybe driving to different locations is part of the job requirements?

<comment><USER15> Most jobs in the states ask if you own a car because if you don't then the likelihood is that you will either be late for work because of unreliable public transportation, or you would miss work because the person who is giving you a ride can't do it every day. So if you don't have a vehicle, you simply aren't hired because they predict you'll cause them problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good news for op. I know a homeless developer who is not so lucky (yet?).

Emmanuel (we call him Mani) is a 50 (or 60?) year old homeless man who would smile and shake our hands every day when we showed up at our local library to hold coding hours. He came in to every single office hour from (4-8pm) to learn as much as he could and literally never missed a day in the 3 months pilot that we were there.

We learned from the librarians that for the past year, Mani has been coming to the library right when it opened (9am) and stayed until it closed (8pm) every day (including the weekend), trying to teach himself how to code. He was hoping to launch his website so he could make some money off ads. With a notepad++ on his usb drive, he coded every day piecing little things together. We taught him basic JavaScript and simple server stuff and helped him get his website up! [https://newsgusher.garagescript.org/](https://newsgusher.garagescript.org/)

Our office hours has ended, but Mani is still plowing away at the library. If you want to meet him, you can find him at Downtown San Jose Public Library on the third floor.

<comment><USER20> Wow that website loaded so fast. It kinda grows on me. Reminds me of the web back in the 90s when all HTML was coded mostly by hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The author kind of glosses over a lot of conflicts with friends, family, employers, and briefly mentions mental health problems. It sounds like that could be contributing a lot to his struggles.

I burned out of my first job because of poor mental health, which I didn't prioritize because work was all-consuming and being sick makes it hard to seek out help. I took a few months off before interviewing, and realized that I needed to get a job and really fight to break the cycle I'd been trapped in.

I don't have any great suggestions for the author getting back on his feet, but once he does he should prioritize building a 6-month safety net and working through whatever he's struggling with. Yoga, running and medication all helped me.

</comment><comment><USER22> Get a job: don't tell or show recruiter how desperate you are. Don't tell recruiter you're homeless. Work on portfolio of projects. GitHub.

Shelter: Get a van. Live in it. Boondocking is better than the cardboard box or couch surfing.

Food: Noodles. Vegetables. Rice. Chicken.

Tech: android tablets can run Linux and can support mouse and keyboard. Tablets are easier than laptops to charge. Laptops can do more. Trade offs.

Security: get some money into bank account ASAP. Make it a regular habit. Any money you'd put into alcohol etc put it into bank account. This is your safety net. Start from zero.

Street address: get a mailing address. Parents/friends may be able to help. You only need to visit. post office box can help as well but costs money.

Relationships: be careful. Your safety net is likely not strong enough to tolerate much failure. Counter argument: having someone else around can help in little ways.

Decisions: think critically. Need versus Want.

Mental health: read autobiographies. Read fiction. Read. Improve all gaps that seem easy to fix. Understand that homelessness is a hole you can dig yourself out of.

Health: teeth, hair etc hygiene is king. Drop any kind of drug other than coffee. Alcohol etc will make you an easy target.

Small steps.

</comment><comment><USER23> This may sound a bit harsh, but dude you need to lower your standards. In the coding and startup world we created a cult like impossible dream to fulfill.

I have a startup that went through some very low lows. I had just quit my cushy job and had saved enough money to last for 2 years, but not my co- founders. When we ran through our funding, things became harsh. I funded everything out of my pocket.

The CTO couldn't afford his apartment anymore so I paid for his rent. Not long after, I got a family emergency and couldn't afford it anything anymore. I told him to get a part time job to help out. He squarely told me no. "Every successful startup founder lived in a van and dined on Ramen."

I stopped paying his rent. He moved into the office. I urged him to get a job because I couldn't afford it anymore. He refused. I stopped paying the office rent. He went homeless.

He lived on the generosity of strangers, though he went days without eating. He refused to get a job. As long as someone was helping him, he wouldn't work. We had to trick him to help him, a friend gave him some space to live together, then later told him that he needs to participate on paying rent. Only then he started looking for work.

There are a lot of conflicts the OP only mentioned in passing and didn't go into details. There is a lot more to this story, maybe the mental health issue nullify anything I say here. But thinking your story is like that of every unicorn tech founder can lead you to make terrible decisions.

Sometimes you have to be humble and make sacrifices to be able to move forward.

</comment><comment><USER24> I was 'homeless' for a few months (in the sense that I didn't have a home) but for most of that time I had a high enough income that I could afford to stay in AirBnBs. It was a scary experience. At one point I had lost my job, I was about $6000 in debt, in a foreign country, with a 'dependent' spouse (also without job) and I only had about $1000 left on my credit card.

When I hear entrepreneurs talk about how much they risked to build their startup, I roll my eyes.

Once you've had to to do whatever it takes just to be able to afford to keep a roof over your head, what a lot of people call 'risk' actually doesn't seem risky at all. Would they have ended up sleeping on the streets if it didn't work out? It doesn't seem like it.

I understand now that difficulty and hardship are highly subjective. Probably some people would look at my experience and think that I had it easy.

<comment><USER25> No house and staying in Airbnb's isn't "homeless."

<comment><USER26> You are objectively wrong.

A homeless individual is defined in section 330(h)(5)(A) as "an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family), including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing." A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non- permanent situation. [Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C., 254b)]

And even if you weren't you should show more kindness to those that experience hardship - because that's what good people do.

<comment><USER27> In the US, different government departments define homelessness different ways [1]. How and why they came to do that would be a very interesting read. I had looked into this to see what it would take to legally check the "I'm homeless" box on the ACA exemption form, which I believe was under the HHS rule you posted. But that's different from what it would take to get housing assistance from HUD, and that's probably even different than how the average person would define "homeless".

[1] [https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition- homelessness/](https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Been there done that. Worked a lot of other jobs too to survive (driving forklift, welder's help, construction) - got too injured to continue that so went back to fighting to work office jobs. Eventually succeeded. I spent 20 years in that half way world of not enough to survive, not enough to stay off the streets but I'm off now and have been for 7+ years now.

The first employer that got me off the streets I didn't tell I was homeless. I worked for them for a month crashing out in friends' couches until I could move into a tiny apartment walking distance from the job.

(there's levels of homeless. I only spent weeks on the streets themselves and about a year living out of an old beater car I could keep functional)

I don't really have anything to add, other than try to work other stuff. Unless you live somewhere ridiculously expensive (like - oh - my last city of Vancouver BC) - you'll probably be able to drag yourself out with even a minimum wage warehouse job or the like, and get yourself set for going back into main career.

My favourite warehouse job I worked for a year. Every day saying how great my vacation was going ;) (half of that was living in a car. But I made it)

</comment><comment><USER29> Op First thing, I dont think I can ever understand the pain you are going through. I just wish you the best , remember you are in one of the high demand field and it would be very easy for you to bounce back.

Next I would suggest you stop looking for remote jobs and temporary gigs. Those things are only useful when you already have roof over your head and food to eat. Based on maslow hierarchy of needs, your number one focus should be to get roof/food etc. I see you are creating side projects but I would ask you to focus on getting a full time job which can give you reliable salary. This may require mind shift but its not written in stone.

Third thing I would say is that past is gone. Its literally gone, it only exist now in your memory so hopefully you can let go and create path forward. Seems like you are already step ahead because you are taking responsibility for all that has happened. I would also suggest you try to change your environment and get to a bigger city where you can find more jobs and some better city resources.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER30> Hang in there, you're still young and healthy. It gets better. You can become a programmer, and there are jobs out there.

Now, some harsh advice: You are being completely unrealistic in your expectation of a remote position while you live in rural Iowa.

Problem 1: Where you are located

_____________________

Get out of Iowa. Seriously. The tech-hub effect is real and Iowa has very few job opportunities for programmers. Source: I grew up in rural Iowa and I know how to use Linkedin.

All of the places I've chosen to live in my life have been VERY foot-traffic friendly. Examples of such cities: Denver. Chicago. Portland, Or. San Francisco. Austin. Columbus. Kansas City, MO. Minneapolis. Somewhere you can walk and live without having a car. Places that have companies hiring programmers. You can save a ton of money by not having a car and just using public transit and walking.

Problem 2: Transportation:

___________________________

I have NEVER owned a car. I lived in Chicago for 10 years. I took public transit or biked. Saved me thousands of dollars over the years. Why do you want to spend $300/mo on car payments for an asset that is constantly deprecating and has poor resale value while you are struggling to keep a roof over your head?

Problem 3: The Remote Position

____________________

Some harsh advice on this remote position notion: You need to look for another job while learning coding on the side if you want to stick to your guns as a remote developer. I'll enumerate the reasons below:

1\. Nobody wants to take a chance on an unproven 20-something programmer for a remote position. Remote positions tend to be for people with a proven track record.

2\. Your Linkedin is not filled out enough to compete for remote positions. You don't seem to have had any real programming positions for an extended period of time. You should be going for entry level positions currently.

3\. You have no formal education, which can often be substituted for actual work experience. Google touts that they hire TONS of people with no formal degree. Almost 15% (on certain teams)! Yep, degrees don't matter if you're willing to roll the dice on being part of that lucky ( Or extremely brilliant ) 15%!

4\. Remote positions are still relatively rare. By limiting yourself to remote positions you are excluding yourself from most possible jobs.

Edit: On the list of great cities to move to, Des Moines is also a viable option.

<comment><USER31> Des Moines has a significant tech footprint now.

<comment><USER30> Great point, updating

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> 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 - <USER2> 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.

<comment><USER33> 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 QBasic on its merits, at least in the Microsoft world.

To me it looks like a lot of hobbyists here started their dabblings with QB until web development (read: PHP) took over.

<comment><USER32> 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 - <USER3> 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).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> One thing that could help is using youth hostels, when I lost my apartment I was able to find a $25 a day youth hostel where I stayed for 3 weeks but I was able to hold on to my office job without anyone finding out I no longer had my own place.

</comment><comment><USER35> Every government should be addressing homelessness with "housing first" approaches.

[https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing- first/](https://endhomelessness.org/resource/housing-first/)

Being homeless is HARD and does not make it any easier to address any of your other problems.

We should all be telling our elected officials we want a "housing first" approach.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hey Jesse, I can sympathize with your situation, and I've seen you get some really solid advice in other comments here so I'll just add my 2¢ about presenting yourself.

I have a couple of probing questions, and I mean no offense, just to provoke thought:

1) What good is atheism as a worldview if it prevents you from communicating, and even receiving help you desperately need?

2) Why would a recruiter or potential employer care about your past, living arrangements, or financial troubles?

You sound like a smart, driven guy, but I think you're letting your situation and your beliefs cripple your potential right now. You don't have to _change_ those things, they're real, but you might want to limit who you share them with, or in what context, especially until you can find the help you need.

Wishing you the best!

</comment><comment> gm-conspiracy There was a PDF I saw many years ago, posted to craigslist, that was written by a homeless man, but consciously choosing to be homeless.

It had an interesting description of various strategies used.

I think he lived in Hawaii and would eat "free" Burger King by rummaging through the trash during a sweepstakes and finding the coupons for free food.

He also rented a small storage unit to keep his possessions (including a laptop), and had a gym membership for showering.

Anybody else come across this?

<comment><USER37> Yes.

One root motivation is just wanting to be lean. Needing to generate X per month can be something people do not want to do. Or cannot do.

If high expectations are not set, what remains can be met.

Meeting low expectations is definitely a choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thanks for sharing man, I hope it gives you hope that so many people are engaging with your story. I'm from Iowa so I know how brutal the winters can be, can't imagine what it's like without a roof over your head. Fortune landed me in San Francisco at the right time, but it wasn't so kind to my brother. He's making ends meet back in Iowa, but just barely.

The advice I would offer is self love and hustle. Anytime you hear that voice saying you fucked up, acknowledge it and let it go. Today is a new day full of opportunity. Have you tried grabbing gigs on Upwork or Freelancer? If you've got the chops, most gigs would pay well enough to get you rent in Iowa pretty quick. Keep your chin up, and keep hacking!

</comment><comment><USER39> Being homeless can also drive people mad up to a point when they cant get back to normal life, it may be some sort of PTSD.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sounds like you never learned how to do anything outside of coding. There is more to succeeding in life than being able to code.

<comment><USER41> Have you looked at the GitHub profile? Don't want to be harsh, but it looks like he never really learned how to code either, which is kind-of sad. I'm not a stickler for education, but there's something to be said for at least finishing highschool; you learn how to learn if nothing else.

<comment><USER42> I'm not sure how to efficiently parse a GitHub profile but in what way does it indicate he never learned how to code?

<comment><USER41> Most of the projects are straight forks with no additions, or puerile flatline dumps of boilerplate - generated structures with little to no meat. I don't want to put anyone down, he's obviously in a tough situation, but I maybe would've left the GitHub link out, it doesn't add anything (positive) to the story.

<comment><USER42> The GitHub may be insufficient evidence that he is a good coder, but it doesn't strike me as evidence that he "never learned to code", yet that is what you said, and that is the impression people will be left with if they do not check for themselves.

I looked at the GitHub expecting to genuinely find actual examples of really bad code due to your statement, but that is not what I found, mostly I found a pretty empty GitHub, which is not too interesting, I know lots of perfectly good coders with empty GitHubs or no GitHubs at all.

> maybe would've left the GitHub link out, it doesn't add anything (positive) > to the story

That is another matter, unrelated to you saying they "never learned to code" without, what it looks like, any evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This guys code on GH is quite a bit better and broad than plenty of actual hires I've been part of. Kind of ridiculous someone who's gone as far as understanding and playing with cellular automata off their own back can't find stable work. Also someone presenting code in Lua, PHP, Python, JS and Ruby... you're lucky if someone has 100 lines of pure copy paste Python on GH.

</comment><comment><USER44> Hey dude Just read your story. I'm sorry that it ended how it did but I am really amazed of your strength and determination! I mean, wow, to go through that and still keep on fighting? That takes character! I'm certain things will change to the better. Our industry need more people with your determination. Keep up the hard work, Jesse.

All the best from hopefully a future colleague

</comment><comment><USER45> I recently quit web development and decided to get regular work. It just wasn't working out for me in my town/country (not in the US). My catch 22 was no experience, no chance. I couldn't even offer my services for free to get that experience, because companies just didn't need/want me.

I could have easily been homeless during the 2 years after I graduated, but thanks to the social welfare system, I was taken care of as a job seeker.

I'm now interested in something I call self startup ideas, which is currently making games for (mostly) mobile that might take off. This is only a hobby I allocate a couple of hours a day to though. Otherwise I'm doing unskilled labour for minimal wage.

I've had mixed feelings about my experience as a web developer. It was something I had so much passion for (even before I went to study it), but now I'm kind of glad I've walked away, as it has been a source of so much toxicity in my life recently. Kind of like kicking a really bad habit.

</comment><comment><USER46> Hey Jesse, I am throwing a couple of random ideas here:

\- [https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/how-would-you-make-an- ext...](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum/how-would-you-make-an-extra-500-in- one-month-97a9a74efc), 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.upwork.com/), [https://www.fiverr.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!

</comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like he just needs to learn how to lie better in a job interview.

</comment><comment><USER48> Look at the bright side: at least he can pass background checks, there's no mention of a criminal record.

There's a guy in his 40s on freenode/#SDL who is constantly ranting about being unable to find work because he was involved in some gang stuff in his youth giving him a criminal record.

<comment><USER49> I have a felony record. Unless your in fintech the tech sector doesn't care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Hang in there. More of us have been in this situation or close to it than you know. Hopefully at a developer meet up you will find that first rung of the ladder.

</comment><comment><USER51> Becoming homeless is one of the greatest fears of my life.

</comment><comment><USER52> Hi Jesse,

I want to recommend two books for you to read. One is about developing your monetary power. The other is about developing your career capital.

"Early Retirement Extreme" by Jacob Lund Fisker.

"So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport.

You might be homeless right now because you haven't been protecting your personal power. The personal power to command a good salary. The personal power of having money in the bank.

You might have been giving away your power and depending on other people. Try to watch out for that.

The more you build your career capital, and the more you build your bank capital, the more free you'll be.

Imagine having money in the bank that lets you walk away from a shitty job. Imagine having the savings that lets you take a few months to find a new & better job.

We know you have skills. Your linkedin profile could be improved, some more detail on what you did at each job, and include some of your portfolio in there.

You can find work on upwork.com or other sites. Setup a profile on there, set your hourly rate at $20/hr, and start from there. On your profile, highlight the fact that you're in Iowa and fluent in english.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'm not from the US but can't the state help you with money and a shelter? If you have problem in the US the streets is your only option?

<comment><USER54> Pretty much. Shelters are either provided by charity or the local government, and state/federal money is only for very sympathetic classes like women with infant children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> > I was still stubborn and would not agree to believing in the almighty > bearded creator in the sky, so one of the two shelters would not help me.

I know it's really common but it still shocks me when charities make receiving support contingent on believing whatever they happen to believe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was incredibly humble and polite when I walked into that shelter. My past activism with the Catholic Workers which were a couple blocks away flagged me as a dirty communist liberal, in their eyes. I volunteered there in several different ways. When I asked that the other shelter let me become a member, I was brought into a room with three larger males and pretty much trash talked and intimidated. The guy that ran the place said something like "You think you're better than us?". I was almost crying at this point. I was hungry and tired. My knees ached. They thought I was a drug addict. I had just walked a couple miles from the library. He told me that if I didn't believe that I would die on the streets with no help. I politely declined to be subject to that sort of treatment and I walked out of that door nearly sobbing knowing that I may have to be cold again that night. But I will risk pain any day over giving power to people like that. Being content is the problem. I was thinking bigger picture. It may have helped me to conform in that situation, but it would be doing the next person in my place a disservice. I'm happy I was strong that day but many other times I was weak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Someone hook this human up with some gainful employment and attempt to assist him in auto-stabilizing. He sounds like he would be a real asset given a relatively small investment.

FWIW, I can't think of any other country this is possible in besides the USA.

</comment><comment><USER57> Why not work any job first and get your life straight? McDonalds, cleaning, Kirchenhelp whatever.

Than with a small flat, internet and a computer you have enough to try again a career in it.

</comment><comment><USER58> This article makes no sense to me. It feels like there is something wrong with this dude and he still hasn't figured out what yet. I guess this article is for soliciting pity. But his real story seems extremely juicy. He should write about the details there. All of the interesting decisions and events that got him to where he is was glossed over in this article.

"My interest in computers and programming was more like an intense obsession. It affected my ability to focus at school." <\- this makes no sense. To me, programming is an exercise in formulating a plan, executing the plan, and verifying the outcome. Every step requires focus. How do you "study" and "program" without being able to focus?

"Undiagnosed mental-health problems led to some fairly poor decisions." <\- what health problems? what decisions?

"Relationship issues for a now twenty year old developer proved to be too much. Emotionally I was devastated when that relationship ended. It affected me and I had no one to help me through the emotional stresses of the situation. It affected my work. It affected my activism." <\- Every sentence here is interesting. If he went into detail and wrote about this, it would fit the title and it would grab my attention.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am thankful for your response. The longer story would be fairly juicy, I guess. I want to write more on it but it is painful and I am embarrassed by many decisions that I have made. I've been to jail several times for activism and for someone else, for example...but I've never been because I did something considered immoral, I guess is the right way to put it. I want to write on these things and your response motivates me to do that. I will think on it a bit and figure out how to approach this.

<comment><USER58> "painful and I am embarrassed by many decisions that I have made."

This I get. One of the hardest mental blocks that I had to get around was thinking that it would be deeply embarrassing and triggering if I talked about my decisions and experiences. That I would be "found out" and "be exposed as a fraud".

It is quite the opposite. Talking about your experiences is extremely liberating. You can be who you are, you don't have to make anything up to fill in the gaps, and it is just in general much easier than worrying about conforming to some expectation. AND you will be much more interesting, because you have lessons to pass on that somebody else may find valuable and apply to their own lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> A similar story is pdxHomelessDev from last month. Some people on HN helped him out but I never heard if he got off the streets. His gofundme hasn't updated. [https://www.gofundme.com/homeless-dev- support](https://www.gofundme.com/homeless-dev-support)

</comment><comment><USER60> Moving to a larger city with a tech focus will allow him to sleep in a rented tent on the sidewalk. This is a lot more economical.

</comment><comment><USER61> So it sounds like you'd rather be homeless and not lie to others than stay in the religious-affiliated shelter and lie to them about your belief.

Have you thought about this deeply? Seems like perhaps the experience of being kicked out by grandma because of your atheism has perhaps poisoned religion to you to the extent that now you're so headstrong about denying it that you are missing a huge opportunity to get some stability by simply nodding your head and saying what they want to hear at that shelter. Might be worth sacrificing your principles temporarily to find a place to stay. If you can't do that, try finding a church that will you help you if you agree to at least hear them out - maybe you don't need to profess faith but they'll at least accept you listening to their beliefs (even if deep inside you know nothing they say or do can change your mind, letting them feel that possibility and try might be enough for them to shelter you).

The truth is that small towns are probably one of the worst and best places to be homeless, but a lot of that 'best' comes from churches. So if you're going to lock yourself out from their help, you probably would be better off street begging or something in SF or NYC or some larger city with government assistance for homeless and staying in a non-religious shelter there. Because small towns don't have that government infrastructure, but they do have churches with foodbanks and religious families looking to get someone back on their feet if they can feel that they've turned that person into a Christian.

If you're so passionate about secularism - you could lie about believing, live at that shelter, get your life together, and in 10 years use the income and resources you have then to advocate for secularism or atheism.

My other piece of feedback is remove the secret keys from your GH account (I saw some on your IRC bot), you may be missing out on lots of potential work because that's a huge security flaw (or some other word greater than flaw) - no company will want you to work for them if they think you could expose secrets to the world wide web.

Last - try to do less experimentation with code and more experimentation with your job application process.

If you are repeatedly starting phone screens with your story about needing a car and it isn't working, try something different. You're not going to find many articles on the web telling you to lie about yourself, your history, your reasons for resume gaps, or your home situation. But most people aren't as desperate as you are. Maybe get creative with the truth and sell yourself as something you aren't.

Have you considered just making up an address or choosing a random house address when you put down your place of residence on an application?

<comment><USER62> It seems wrong that faith-funded organizations are allowed to discriminate based on religious belief. This also seems like a different scenario than, say, paying for birth control.

<comment><USER63> > It seems wrong that faith-funded organizations are allowed to discriminate > based on religious belief.

Not that I think it's morally acceptable for faith-funded charities to turn away some people based on their lack of faith, but:

a) Individuals acting on their own founded and run the organization. It would be a violation of several important rights (theirs) for a _government_ to regulate how they choose to run their charity, or whom they choose to help.

b) I have a hunch that a lot of these anecdotes attribute discrimination incorrectly -- i.e. I suspect the person in question was more than "not a believer". People who get turned away because they're chronically abusing the system (or for similar reasons) tend to infer malice where there is none, and level accusations accordingly.

That being said, I strongly disagree with any open-to-the-public charitable organization discriminating on the basis of religion or any other categorization, beyond the "this person is abusing the system and we don't want to hurt them further by continuing to enable this destructive pattern in their life -- so we can't provide further X to them until they do Y and Z".

<comment><USER64> > It would be a violation of several important rights (theirs) for a > government to regulate how they choose to run their charity,

They formed a charity to get the tax relief from that same government. With that relaxation on taxation comes a restriction on activity.

<comment><USER63> > They formed a charity to get the tax relief from that same government.

Not at all. They formed a charity because they wanted to make a positive difference in the world.

That US law originally recognizes charities, churches, and other non-profits as tax-exempt is a a recognition of the solid, positive contribution to society that such organizations make. Their tax-exempt status was originally granted as such, and _not_ with any idea of using it to stipulate how they should do things.

So I strongly disagree that tax-exempt status somehow grants the government authority over an organization's affairs. It would be better to revoke _all_ organizational tax exemptions than to begin to use it as such leverage.

<comment><USER65> > That US law originally recognizes charities, churches, and other non-profits > as tax-exempt

...Is a false statement. It doesn't "originally recognize" any such thing.

It _permits_ charities, including churches and some other non-profits with specific functions, to voluntarily apply for status that includes tax exemption, a public subsidy via tax deductibility of donations, and _a wide variety of restrictions on behavior_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Homelessness needs to be addressed nationally. Doing it on a city and county level is not effective enough at addressing this national crisis. The problem is deep and all American cities are impacted by it. We need to look together at it and come up with solutions that address housing affordability, addiction, mental illness, medical disease and insurance issues, and a basic standard of living. We need a central place where all homeless can have these issues addressed and can work to help advocates and other homeless people in the community to recover. The solution is needed now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this response. It reminds me of the problem of organizing in Anarchist circles. There's two big camps that exist. 1\. Insurrectionism 2\. Platformism Insurrectionary Anarchism promotes distributed affinity groups and a sort of anti-organization methodology. They are the types to start community farms or food not bombs in their community and worry less about things they aren't directly connected to. It overlaps a bit. Platformism is basically the belief that an organized structure of representation, where affinity groups across a region elect representatives to make decisions for all of them if the decisions follow their "platform". I definitely have had ideas and tried to implement a few, to address homelessness, in both of the cities that I was homeless in. The projects did not get far as I was struggling to survive, but I hope to continue that work later on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> my boss is hiring and i have a spare room to let. only half a world away.

<comment><USER68> Is the offer still up?

<comment><USER67> yes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> .

<comment><USER70> wtf is this women advice... (i don't actually want to hear how you justify it)

<comment><USER69> That's too bad because it's my opinion, not yours. The purpose is that people in hard times need to focus on getting one's life in order before bringing anyone else into theirs, not on love as a panacea or escape because the drama and chaos will lead nowhere good. The overriding principle is no one else can save them and it's an unhealthy mindset, they must be their own "hero."

<comment><USER70> that has nothing to do with gender, so you've brought that in why?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> >keeping a charge was almost impossible

Hey Jesse, pick up a solar panel. You can get waterproof two usb port that'll crank out 20-30 watts ~$50. I'd recommend an ARM laptop too. They're cheaper and Intel is generally too power hungry anyway. A Samsung Chromebook Plus used on swappa would be really nice. It has a really bright display so you can still see it outdoors in the sun. For data, T-Mo is unlimited for $30/mo pre- paid.

Put your panel in the sun, sit in the shade at a park, tether your phone for internet, and you're golden. You can strap the panel to your backpack and charge on the move too.

<comment><USER61> Any link or suggestion for laptop solar chargers? I want one.

<comment><USER71> Here's a few choices,

[https://www.amazon.com/SOKOO-Portable-Efficiency- Reinforced-...](https://www.amazon.com/SOKOO-Portable-Efficiency-Reinforced- Waterproof/dp/B01HJKJVG2/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Foldable-Waterproof-Efficiency- Cellph...](https://www.amazon.com/Foldable-Waterproof-Efficiency-Cellphones- Flashlight/dp/B07537SR48/)

[https://www.amazon.com/Balight-Outdoor-Foldable-Powered- Char...](https://www.amazon.com/Balight-Outdoor-Foldable-Powered- Charger/dp/B01N2RJJ46/)

28W basically gives you an fourth panel, but your backpack is probably 3 panels tall.

<comment><USER72> Most of these don't provide anywhere near the advertised wattage. And when they do, it's usually in direct bright sunlight (i.e. depending on where you are and what season it is, it can be that efficient only for a few hours, and sometimes none at all).

If you want a decent portable solar panel, get the non-flexible monocrystalline one.

<comment><USER71> Any suggestions on models?

I like the flexible one because it's lightweight and not easy to break. I'd be open to other options though if you have suggestions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Multi-Cloud Is a Trap - <AUTHOR> https://bravenewgeek.com/multi-cloud-is-a-trap/ <comment><USER2> "Lock-in" comes because others depend on the benefit from your services, not because you're completely in control."

\- this is hopelessly naïve. Lock-in occurs when you no longer can generate the capex to resolve the opex drain that a vendor squeezing you has created. If any vendor realises that you can raise the capex to get off them then they will raise the opex demand to the point of financial viability to maximise their returns and to ensure future returns (because by doing this they underline their control)

Vendors can't help doing this, it's natural. Also it's their duty to their shareholders.

Our responsibility is to NEVER get into this situation.

<comment><USER3> Small companies are terrible at working together, even when it's in their best interests.

Can any single customer smaller than the US government get a policy change at Amazon by threatening to walk away?

<comment><USER4> I'd put Netflix up there as a first candidate...

<comment><USER5> Are they still a pure AWS house? I'd expect that, at their scale, they'd have boxes and VMs everywhere the round-trip time justifies.

<comment><USER6> They use AWS for everything except content delivery which is handled by their Open Connect content delivery system that they built and operate. [https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/](https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/)

<comment><USER5> Interesting. For a moment I thought they would aggressively optimize encoding for frame cost but then I realized that's probably a rounding error compared to their costs in storage and co-located infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are some good arguments about the technical complexity of using multiple clouds. But the author seems to be naive about the power of competition, or more appropriately, the problems associated with having no competitive pressure on vendors. #1 priority of any business should be to have as few sole-source suppliers as possible.

It seems cleaner to go all-in on AWS/Azure/Google/Your Datacenter/something else. But the reality is, if you have a significant spend, and are dependent on one vendor, you are truly fucked. You won't get good terms, you won't get good pricing.

This industry goes through this cycle again and again. 30 years ago, people bet the business on Oracle/Informix/DB2/Sybase. Oracle is the king of that hill, and we all know the stories about how great they are to work with. 10 years ago we started with Office 365 and it's predecessor. Ask a big Office 365 customer how their subscription renewal process went.

Cloud is no different. Unless you can tell your AWS rep to go fuck himself and move workload elsewhere quickly, you are giving up valuable leverage.

<comment><USER8> Don't forget that it's easy to get killed on bandwidth costs when you suck your data out of one cloud and into another. Also, you have to be big enough to justify the spending money on engineers to make you multi-cloud, as you'll be implementing many features yourself, which takes a bunch of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think many people coming up these days never really felt the effects of Vendor Lock-in. Everything is either an open enough standard or dominated so thoroughly by one player that there is no option anyway. I remember my printer not working, and saving my report that I wrote in MS Works on a floppy disk. I assumed that the computers at school would be able to read it. They had Word Perfect, and MS Word, I mean one was the _same_ vendor, and it still didn't work. That was over 20 years ago, but I still cringe whenever I see someone using any kind of closed standard.

The idea of starting out with a single provider until you actually have things working is probably a good idea. But, I'm surprised that more companies with a certain level of steady traffic don't run their own hardware and spillover to the cloud for spikes.

<comment><USER10> Open standards doesn't magically solve compatibility issues for very complex software: I remember ODT files having their layout completely messed up when opening them with a different version of Open Office. And this was minor version changes, not major ones. I had way less problem with modern variant of MS Word. That being said, I'm all for open formats.

<comment><USER9> _Open standards doesn't magically solve compatibility issues for very complex software: I remember ODT files having their layout completely messed up when opening them with a different version of Open Office. And this was minor version changes, not major ones. I had way less problem with modern variant of MS Word. That being said, I'm all for open formats._

Absolutely. The major difference is that one is a technical challenge, and the other was a marketing decision.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Multi-Cloud isn't a trap any more than any other practice is a trap. Any practice is a trap if it takes away from your core mission too much or requires resources you don't have. I call such things "engineering bikeshedding" \-- solving _some other problem_ instead of your core problem.

I think doing multi-cloud for something "normal" and mundane is probably over- engineering. If you want to avoid vendor lock-in just avoid using the most proprietary features of your cloud vendor, or use them in ways that would not be terribly hard to port later (e.g. it's not hard to swap something else out for S3). Yes your DC or cloud provider will have issues every once in a while, but in the grand scheme of things it won't matter unless your service is one that demands damn near 100% uptime as a strict requirement.

Multi-cloud makes sense when you need near-100% reliability. There are few things where reliability requirements are this stringent. It can also make sense when you need a great deal of geographic diversity or portability.

<comment><USER12> It's hard to migrate data off of S3: once you drop petabytes in there, moving to another service will cost you a lot of cash.

<comment><USER13> Migrating petabytes will always cost lots of money, no way around it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My company is was full on into GCP and after a year of terrible support management suddenly decides to go all in into Azure. We use every managed service from GCP including BigQuery which is nearly impossible to find a replacement of in Azure. Appengine needs to be converted to Azure Kubernetis Service. So its not a technical decision completely, just that company signed a bigger deal with Microsoft and wants to pay a single bill. Based on feedback from other teams company feels Azure support is way more professional when it comes to production outage. Now all of 3 years work sing Google services needs to be re-written in "cloud agnostic" way.

</comment><comment><USER15> For those that avoid the "cloud-native" hype, this is one of the reasons you should -- while this article rails against multi-cloud, as other posters have noted, it's important for preventing lock-in and keeping competition alive and prices down between providers.

I'll go one step further in saying that it's an inevitable future. The likelihood that one cloud will have the best price, best components, best qualities for every use-case is just not very likely. People _will_ trade complexity for price eventually, once the price gets big enough.

The good news is, kubernetes is fast appearing to be the winner of the race for a multi-cloud substrate. The bad news is, kubernetes is complex (IMO necessarily so), so it takes quite a bit of investment and mindful practice to learn.

I just thought of it, but you know what would be nice, if people started posting their AWS/cloud provider costs.

<comment><USER16> Don't worry, they're doing everything they can to lock down Kubernetes as well. EKS, GKE, AKS... and the managers look at this and go "it's a managed service, we don't need to pay an engineer, buy it!"

Of course, the whole "not needing engineers" bit is a lie of the highest magnitude, but the marketing was really well done.

<comment><USER15> Could you expand on this? what do you mean by locking it down? EKS, GKE, AKS, and OKS (Oracle has their own now) and IBM's CKE are all wins to me. While I personally don't think people should be trying to tune Kubernetes into heroku (IMO you should build a layer _on top_ of kubernetes for that), people are trying and succeeding in making it way easier to run applications on it.

Dumb managers are gonna do dumb stuff no matter what, but judging by how the widespread use of AWS did not in fact mean hiring _less_ developers, it just changed the kind you needed to hire. I feel like the job posting just changed from sysadmin to sysadmin (for actual in-company computer management) + devops (for tech-side server management)?

That said, I'm also kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop on Kubernetes, it just seems too good to be true (minus the complexity of learning it of course). Well, thinking about it, I use gmail so maybe I traded my privacy in small part for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Multi-Cloud can be hard to do right and there are plenty of traps along the way. It sure doesn't make sense to go that way just for Disaster Recovery, unless you need to be prepared for the unlikely event that Amazon or Google will suddenly get wiped out of the planet.

That said, going Multi-Cloud is indeed unavoidable in a growing number of settings. So, instead of looking at it as a source of troubles, it can be leveraged as a way to extract the best features out of each provider, to avoid lock-in wherever it makes business sense and to minimize costs by distributing workloads accordingly. That introduces new issues regarding access control, cost analysis, auditing and governance which are best managed by a Multi-Cloud Management Platform.

If you're looking for such a tool check out [https://mist.io](https://mist.io)

It's an open source CMP that supports most popular public & private clouds, as well as Hypervisors and container hosts. It takes care of provisioning, monitoring, RBAC, cost analysis and automation/orchestration. It can also be used to deploy Kubernetes clusters on any supported cloud.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders.

<comment><USER18> There, open source, that's the key point to avoid lock-in.

There is no problem with going with any single provider, as long as you "can" replicate any functionality you're using. You may never actually replicate it, but that ability is what makes me trust a provider... because even if they fail, I know it won't be too much of a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a naive point of view. Cloud providers can and do raise prices when it aligns with their objectives. Especially Google has the history of doing this. Make a very strong product, offer it very cheap and then when all the competition has died, raise the prices. Google Maps is one recent example.

</comment><comment><USER20> Excellent, excellent point. This is a drum I'm starting to beat more and more as companies start viewing multi-cloud as some sort of ridiculous best practice.

</comment><comment><USER21> My understanding is that some institutions i.e. banks, governments etc. have requirements to leverage multiple public clouds.

<comment><USER22> Yep, at least in the UK. If you want to leverage the cloud as a bank, then there are regulatory requirements to go Multi-cloud - it's not a choice.

<comment><USER23> Out of interest, do you know more about those requirements?

<comment><USER21> Sorry I don't. I've just heard that these requirements exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've found virtually every vendor I deal with starts abusing their power until they receive an RFP that lets them know they're in competition. The cloud salespeople I've met are no different.

</comment><comment><USER25> Do people honestly do this? If they do, do they not take advantage of the platforms' services or do they rewrite all their code to the use each cloud's specific service (e.g. Kinesis vs Pub/Sub)? Or are they use using compute resource and running the services themselves? If it's the latter, isn't that as close you need to get to get to prevent vendor lock in? Deploy your code on any cloud and you're going...

<comment> a-saleh Does partial on-premise count?

In my previous work, some of our clients wanted to self-host our saas service. We allowed this by migrating our infrastructure on top of kubernetes (previously it was tightly coupled with aws). For some technical reasons, some of the services were still hosted, i.e. even for customers that had on-premise deployment, we provided access to our saas mobile-application build-service.

</comment></comment><comment> a-saleh Does using both internal openstack as well as aws externally count as multi- cloud?

<comment><USER26> That's "on-prem & cloud", definitly not multi-cloud. You're only in the cloud when there's multiple datacenters providing high-availability scaling services.</comment></comment>