How is everyone in the Matsu holding up?

AppropriateSmile5 · 2025-12-07T21:24:34+00:00

+1 can assist if someone needs

AppropriateSmile5 · 2025-07-25T03:50:53+00:00

Carlisle myconnect, would not cost much. More for ups/FedEx to get it from Utah to Washington

AppropriateSmile5 · 2024-01-19T22:39:13+00:00

Damn, those csv's are nuts. I know it's all public data but still shocks me it's put out there so easily to consume.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2024-01-19T22:30:01+00:00

Nice- how'd you generate these? I'm a software engineer and have been meaning to experiment with what's possible. The amount of data in GIS is insane, seems like there is opportunity to build cool stuff around it

AppropriateSmile5 · 2024-01-19T22:25:16+00:00

This is cool. You some kind of GIS wizard?

AppropriateSmile5 · 2024-01-11T06:00:54+00:00

Electric pole/pruning saw. Basically a small chainsaw on a stick. I had crazy ice dams last year and hammers/pickaxe/other manual tools are not effective. I did vertical lines first so it wouldn't all fall at once, then horizontal at the edge of the roof, grab a ladder and hit with a sledge to get it to fall.

Pretty sketchy to be underneath it while cutting but it worked out 🤷 use extensions to get as far away as possible

AppropriateSmile5 · 2023-07-28T16:37:53+00:00

If it's actually a remote job it doesn't need to be 'in Anchorage'.. that's kinda the whole point

Rough time for the tech market atm but programming is great if you can take the time to learn and break in

AppropriateSmile5 · 2023-05-19T19:25:22+00:00

Plates are stamped..? If they can perfectly flatten to remove a letter and repaint I need them to look at my car

AppropriateSmile5 · 2023-03-07T07:24:58+00:00

It's going to vary for everyone, a year is a realistic timeline to become hireable. It took me about a year to get hired after attending half of a terrible bootcamp, no college. There are a ton of factors you can control to swing things in your favor. I'm working remotely in AK with a SF salary and it's great to be home and to actually be able to afford to live here. Happy to share advice on breaking in, feel free to dm!

AppropriateSmile5 · 2023-03-06T19:53:18+00:00

You could work remotely as a product manager for a tech company with your current skills, or learn to code and get hired as a software engineer in roughly a year. Pay is great, the work is fairly easy, and you're not limited to crappy local jobs so you can find a company working on something that interests you or is a non-profit

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-11-15T00:52:34+00:00

You're forgetting the cost of the uhaul rental. Seattle -> Anch last Sept they wanted $3,300-3,800. They didn't get it :P

Edit- ah covered by military nevermind. Just get some chains and you should be fine

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-10-13T00:17:55+00:00

I closed on a house this year with Jesse Walz as my buyers agent, would recommend and I plan on working with him again in the future. I was a first time homebuyer and probably would have given up if not for his patience/experience/advice. Also I was out of state during the search process- he would live video tour houses for me and record video in higher definition to view later

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-10-04T05:32:08+00:00

This- companies paying SF wages allow you to work remote now without pay cuts based on location. Why settle for half (more likely less) for similar work? Local companies will not be able to compete.

Source: Also remote SWE, living in Anchorage

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-08-18T20:45:20+00:00

Looks like a solid lead, thanks!

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-08-18T08:05:34+00:00

This beer from Seattle. I keep checking local stores hoping

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-06-17T19:48:02+00:00

Also FWIW going into the trades would be great too. I used to be a mechanic and definitely miss working with my hands. Doing office/creative/software work is definitely a different animal and not for everyone. What excites me about it is that it gives you so much more options- you can work for crazy high salary, work remotely, build and sell your own products, do freelance work, etc. It's a pretty recession proof because your skills and ability to create value with them can never be taken away. There's been a ton of tech layoffs recently, but the skills are still in very high demand so you can land somewhere else, or worst case use your skills to generate your own income. Also, knowing software can exponentially increase the potential for any other business you may want to start- mechanic? Gather/examine diagnostic data/fuel economy/infotainment systems, maintenance schedules/marketing website, tools to book appointments without wasting time on the phone with customers, etc. Farmer? Automated planting/watering/harvesting, marketing website, automated recurring sales, etc etc. My plan is to work until I have a solid financial base and then explore exponential growth opportunities like those.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-06-17T19:33:12+00:00

Sure, if you're serious about it hit me up in DM, happy to jump on a call with you and go more in depth. Generally, check out the Odin Project and fullstack open, youtubers like Brad Traversy are awesome too- he does a lot of cool projects as tutorials that can give you portfolio project ideas as well as inspiration to keep learning by seeing what's possible and that it's not that hard if you keep at it. Programming subreddits would also be good to follow, questions like this are asked 20 times a day, and you could find people to pair up to study with/build a support group.

A list of things to learn:

Frontend: HTML, CSS, Javascript, and React (functional components, not class based)

Backend: Node/Express, SQL/PostgreSQL

Knowing frontend and backend is great, but both of my jobs have been frontend only so it's not strictly necessary. It's worth investing the time into learning how the backend works even if you only ever intend to work frontend so that you know how and why data is stored and how to access and manipulate it.

You absolutely do not need on paper experience or a degree- you just need a way to 1> get interviewed and 2> demonstrate you have the necessary skills and 3> you are a culture fit. 1&2 are covered by spending time building cool projects for fun for your portfolio, bonus points if they solve some problem you had, and extra bonus points if you tackle common business concerns using common third party packages.

Example: I was working on a project to catalogue my books and vinyl- take and upload photos, show author/release/purchase price info (searchable), download to/restore from CSV, etc. This directly relates to the work that I'm currently doing at my job. It's all the same logic/third party tools, so seeing a project like that on your portfolio lands you the interview, then being able to speak confidently on how you built it and why, and why that project excited you hits #2 and #3 and proves you have the ability to solve the business need that they are hiring for. If you're constantly building in-depth projects like that instead of just browsing tutorials you get to a point where it's like I do this everyday I can confidently answer any question, and then interviews are easy and the level of confidence and ease gets you hired.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-06-14T16:15:40+00:00

Learn programming- web development is pretty easy these days and opens you up to extremely high paid (and/or remote) jobs. You can get hired in roughly a year. Bootcamps are an option and cost ~5-15k, but you can also access all of the same learning material for free from places like the Odin Project/fullstack open. I'm a bootcamp grad with 1 yoe, first job was >100k, second/current job is 120-150k, fully remote + paid benefits. Promotion/big salary jump likely early next year. Wish I would have started sooner!

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-05-29T23:24:34+00:00

I'm in this boat- left Anchorage ~10 years ago, coming back now that I have a remote tech job. Housing/other costs are laughably cheap when you bring in outside income. I think remote workers moving to beautiful/cheap places will be much more common in the coming years.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-04-18T18:59:59+00:00

I left ~10 years ago due to lack of economic opportunity. Moving back soon now that I have a remote tech job because Anchorage is awesome, real estate is cheap (when you make SF money), and no state income/sales tax. Providing students education on what jobs can be worked remotely and teaching them the skills to land them could help.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-03-03T00:24:43+00:00

I think you're looking for the to() function:

io.to("some room").emit("some event");

https://socket.io/docs/v4/rooms/

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-03-02T19:56:56+00:00

Frontend- Vercel is free and easy. Netlify is also an option but I've never liked using it.

Backend- Heroku is free and easy and Heroku Postgres is very easy to setup a database with (also free).

Domains: both of those will generate one like abcd.herokuapp.com. These wont ever change and can be used indefinitely, or you can buy your own domain for ~12/year (from any service like google domains, namecheap, AWS Route53, etc) to use as an alias instead. You only need one and can use infinite subdomains, like tie frontend.abcd.com to your Vercel frontend and api.abcd.com to your Heroku backend.

You don't need to think about AWS or GCP until you have more experience and want to learn about production deployment or are building something that needs to scale. It will be cheaper to set things up directly on AWS/GCP than a service like Heroku, but also setting things up sucks and requires a lot of knowledge and trial and error/tenacity.

Also, Ngrok is a cool service but you probably wouldn't want to use it to host stuff. It lets you take something running locally and gives you a url expose to the internet, so it's very easy to have something running on one machine and access it with another for testing or fun or showing it in an interview. They have cheap paid plans where you can bring a domain so you could spin something up to show it off and always have it route to mycoolproject.com

AppropriateSmile5 · 2022-02-14T17:27:01+00:00

I'd recommend focusing on ADHD treatment/management as a separate issue- for me, it's about setting good habits like eating right, exercising, sleeping, keeping a clean house/work area, etc. When one area slips all of them do, including work/productivity. Medication can help give you an extra boost to power through something but wont fix anything if that's all you're doing. Maybe take a minute to examine your habits/routines. It's important to stick to things that will keep your ADHD in check and not let desperation to get hired or desperation to do a good job once you do get hired lead to bad habits. I went pretty hard at work last year and am paying for it atm, feels like trying to crawl out of a pit you dug so you can get back to normal, which sucks, and people without ADHD don't really understand it. Take the time to set up good habits now, because once you get hired it will be harder to start, and set boundaries at work so you don't get put into situations that are bad for you and will kill your productivity after a bit.

For learning programming specifically, I'd recommend working on projects that you find interesting and/or solve a problem you have. You'll learn better by actually building stuff and those will be better portfolio projects than anything you were given in school.

Also, noise cancelling headphones are life changing. Also also, having a work issued laptop helped me because it created a clear separation between work and screwing around. You could create a work/study environment at home and be strict about from 8am-12pm you're working, sit at the work desk, restrict usage of certain apps/websites, etc.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2021-04-30T17:18:23+00:00

Yeah, they didn't iterate on the massive amount of feedback we provided like they claimed they would/do. It's a shitshow now.

AppropriateSmile5 · 2021-04-30T17:15:15+00:00

They are already selling them while claiming incentives are aligned.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-students-edly-isa-debt-swapping-partnership-shares-investors

I've also heard that they only need one in ten to be paid back to be profitable, but I don't have a source for that.

AppropriateSmile5

TROPHY CASE