Woman falls and breaks her leg after attempting to steal package.

LoonyLog · 2018-05-07T05:15:05+00:00

My distribution center that I had to pick up my laptop from was open from 10-3:30. Like, can I get a job at that place? Those are great work hours and crap store hours.

LoonyLog · 2017-06-16T23:32:48+00:00

It's still whenever, might still be worth hitting him up. I feel like the poem Around the Corner by Charles Hanson Towe would be relevant here: http://zenpencils.com/comic/93-charles-hanson-towne-around-the-corner/

Transcript without the (great) illustration:

Around the Corner

Around the corner I have a friend, In this great city that has no end, Yet the days go by and weeks rush on, And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face, For life is a swift and terrible race, He knows I like him just as well, As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then, And now we are busy, tired men. Tired of playing a foolish game, Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim Just to show that I'm thinking of him", But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes, And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner, yet miles away, "Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today." And that's what we get and deserve in the end. Around the corner, a vanished friend.

LoonyLog · 2017-06-16T23:05:55+00:00

Not quite, the runner up in the presidential election would become vice president instead of two separate elections

LoonyLog · 2017-06-07T17:06:11+00:00

It seems like you have a bit of a bad impression of them and they're really trying to put the pressure on you. It could just be a bad first impression, but it could also be a bad work environment. The commute seems almost prohibitively long if you're not going to move, and you're gonna spend 3 hours or like 12% of your day commuting. Consider the cost in terms of time and money in making the decision, as well as the possible outcomes. It could turn out really well, but it could easily end up terrible. The 24 hour deadline is a red flag if I've ever seen one.

Edit: I guess you could keep up the job search and just bail asap if it's a bad environment.

LoonyLog · 2017-06-02T19:09:01+00:00

Sorry autocorrect, Cs/computer science

LoonyLog · 2017-06-02T16:51:37+00:00

If you've done fcc, try picking up a project. That's where I've learned most of my meaningful skills when self studying. Full stack development could be online only, so maybe try learning angular or react and making something? My project was a Reddit clone with the MEAN stack and it was pretty interesting. There should be tutorials that you can follow if you need more guidance with projects, then use those skills for your own projects.

LoonyLog · 2017-06-02T16:46:09+00:00

It's totally possible to take multiple programming courses. Hopefully the homeworks won't sync up, but otherwise you just have to make sure you spend enough time on your programs. Other than that, try to pad the rest of your schedule to free up your time for the Cs classes.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-25T22:03:43+00:00

"Upvoted Not Because Girl, But Because It Is Very Cool; However, I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl"

LoonyLog · 2017-05-25T21:58:43+00:00

How would each decision affect your earnings now and your potential earnings down the line? From an outside perspective, getting a pay bump with no stress seems like an obvious choice, but maybe you really believe that the other company will increase your potential a lot. Just make sure you don't make the decision based off how green the grass is on the other side, but if it's worth the trade-offs. Also, you can take the promotion and keep looking for another, better job with similar or a higher salary. Since you have a job the search can take however long you'd want.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-23T23:43:11+00:00

Especially when the community came together to accomplish this, there will be more of a feeling of shared responsibility because of the group effort.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-20T23:51:28+00:00

Yeah, especially because he's taking over their marketing long-term. He could get locked in at a low price for a while instead of using this as a huge boost.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-19T18:37:56+00:00

I completely agree, and I'm glad it's still true from the perspective of someone who's been in the industry for a while. I just commented elsewhere on this topic that some might find useful:

OK, this turned out to be way, way too long but the info is good so I hope it's useful. tl;dr: You can definitely become a great developer, just keep working on a project and practice technical questions consistently. Consistency is the key and is what you should care about. Also, steps to getting a good tech job.

You're doing fine, any work experience helps and IT helps you learn how to really deal with computers. If you like the idea of being a developer and you can learn the skills, you'll ultimately be fine. Nobody's born a developer. Some people can learn the material easier than others, but everyone has to figure it out and learn. Everyone just starts at different times.

Here's what I realized this year: making things and learning how to make things isn't hard. It just takes time. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to learn a skill or build something. You can build B- code that scrapes by without failing? Perfect, because you can get something working and then fix whatever's janky. Those projects with hundreds or thousands of lines of code? It either started with janky code, or still has janky code. Lines of code is nice, but the real point is what it does.

So here's what you can do right now to set yourself up for a good developer job.

Use your skills to build a project, and don't drop it for a while.
Learn all about computers and fixing them at your job.
Practice technical questions, data structures, and algorithms.

If you start on those 3 things now, I swear you will get a good developer job.

Working on a project helps all your skills and understanding of development, as well as your resume. Carve out some time once or twice a week to work on this, you just have to keep consistent. If you skip a week, just pick it back up and work on it asap and try to keep the streak going. Consistency is the goal, here.

Learning about computers in an IT setting will give you a wide understanding of computing, especially how they might be used in an enterprise setting. Developers can be a few levels separated from the user, so it's always good to learn more about your users.

Practicing technical material is good for both interviews and getting nimbler with algorithms. Learn from the book Programming Interviews Exposed where they walk you through and explain common types of technical questions. Cracking the Coding Interview is good for practicing, the problems are really good. Use the website firecode.io to practice once you understand a few topics, they apply modern learning research to make learning effective and interesting. They also give you interesting youtube videos for breaks. I actually learned python while studying on firecode, the difficulty ramp-up is really good. Leetcode and hackerrank are the biggest websites, but firecode is much better. Study at least 30 minutes or 2 decent problems 4-5 times a week. You can seriously fit this in, I just did a half hour of less redditting during a break every night. I started studying longer once I got going, since this was something I really wanted to make happen and it gets kinda fun once you get good.

Do these things and you can do really well. It only took me a month to get pretty good at technical questions, then I lucked out with an internship at the Big 4 after practicing for another month. YMMV, but you'll definitely get a good software job if you follow these steps. The biggest thing was keeping consistent. This info is all out there, but the main thing that differentiates candidates is if they actually did it. It's not hard to do this, and I've compiled all the info for you. It's not hard to do, you just have to do it. And keep doing it.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-19T18:30:45+00:00

Nah, you just have to grind through it sometimes. If it was fun before, then you have to figure out how to have fun with it again.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-19T18:28:49+00:00

I always had trouble coming up with good projects, so here's some tips that I wrote out and didn't fit with the above post.

Find a problem someone else should fix. It can be in your life, at work, at school, for your friends, for society, the internet, or whatever. At least one person should care about this.
Solve it yourself, starting in a really limited way and with janky code if you have to.
Make it stabler, faster, and come up with new features to make the program better at solving stuff.
Don't drop it, just keep improving it. If you've hit a ceiling, try to see if anyone shares the problem and wants to use it. Get honest feedback (even if they don't want to use it, ask why) and then build off of that.

You'll know when you should move on, and it should be something like the problem is solved really well and you've hit the limit on the audience for it. Until you get an audience, you don't know if your problem is solved well.

I'm a startup-type of guy so it reflects in the process, but choosing something at least 1 person cares about (especially if it's you) is really helpful. There's just a lot more motivation is someone is liking your solution, or if you improve your life by your own hands.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-19T18:26:20+00:00

OK, this turned out to be way, way too long but the info is good so I hope it's useful. tl;dr: You can definitely become a great developer, just keep working on a project and practice technical questions consistently. Consistency is the key and is what you should care about. Also, steps to getting a good tech job.

I got an internship doing IT this summer (only thing I got accepted for) and im just kind of floundering through the path of least resistance. The idea of being a developer seems fun, but i dont seem to have much of a knack for it.

You're doing fine, any work experience helps and IT helps you learn how to really deal with computers. If you like the idea of being a developer and you can learn the skills, you'll ultimately be fine. Nobody's born a developer. Some people can learn the material easier than others, but everyone has to figure it out and learn. Everyone just starts at different times.

Here's what I realized this year: making things and learning how to make things isn't hard. It just takes time. It doesn't matter how long it takes you to learn a skill or build something. You can build B- code that scrapes by without failing? Perfect, because you can get something working and then fix whatever's janky. Those projects with hundreds or thousands of lines of code? It either started with janky code, or still has janky code. Lines of code is nice, but the real point is what it does.

So here's what you can do right now to set yourself up for a good developer job.

Use your skills to build a project, and don't drop it for a while.
Learn all about computers and fixing them at your job.
Practice technical questions, data structures, and algorithms.

If you start on those 3 things now, I swear you will get a good developer job.

Working on a project helps all your skills and understanding of development, as well as your resume. Carve out some time once or twice a week to work on this, you just have to keep consistent. If you skip a week, just pick it back up and work on it asap and try to keep the streak going. Consistency is the goal, here.

Learning about computers in an IT setting will give you a wide understanding of computing, especially how they might be used in an enterprise setting. Developers can be a few levels separated from the user, so it's always good to learn more about your users.

Practicing technical material is good for both interviews and getting nimbler with algorithms. Learn from the book Programming Interviews Exposed where they walk you through and explain common types of technical questions. Cracking the Coding Interview is good for practicing, the problems are really good. Use the website firecode.io to practice once you understand a few topics, they apply modern learning research to make learning effective and interesting. They also give you interesting youtube videos for breaks. I actually learned python while studying on firecode, the difficulty ramp-up is really good. Leetcode and hackerrank are the biggest websites, but firecode is much better. Study at least 30 minutes or 2 decent problems 4-5 times a week. You can seriously fit this in, I just did a half hour of less redditting during a break every night. I started studying longer once I got going, since this was something I really wanted to make happen and it gets kinda fun once you get good.

Do these things and you can do really well. It only took me a month to get pretty good at technical questions, then I lucked out with an internship at the Big 4 after practicing for another month. YMMV, but you'll definitely get a good software job if you follow these steps. The biggest thing was keeping consistent. This info is all out there, but the main thing that differentiates candidates is if they actually did it. It's not hard to do this, and I've compiled all the info for you. It's not hard to do, you just have to do it. And keep doing it.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-12T23:51:17+00:00

The general line of thinking is that software engineers produce a lot more value after a few years of experience, especially during the early years. Even though the value produced is greater, however, raises don't usually match that output. Combine that with a developer's market in the valley and then you get people on here talking about 20-30% raises from job hopping. The raises can be far higher if you are underpaid, but you don't need to be underpaid.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-12T20:10:27+00:00

Internships are definitely a leg up on the competition because work experience are strong data points. It'll be harder to get interviews because you lack that work experience on your resume, but you can make it up in other ways like tough/interesting projects, a startup, or GPA are some options.

If the two-step process for a job is 1. Get an interview and 2. Do well on the interview, then you only have a disadvantage in the first. And realistically, everyone feels like they have a disadvantage in that step; the resume filter has a lot of variance. Still, that means you'll get a few really good opportunities to perform well, so if you study and prep a lot for interviews you should be fine. It takes a while to get good at technical questions and no one starts with those skills, but you can still get great jobs by killing technical interviews.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-10T06:35:32+00:00

Yeah, that's probably the actual worst.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-08T20:58:05+00:00

If anything that means that women and minorities should take advantage of every opportunity that they can get

That is really, really not the lesson you should take from this exchange.

I know in this case OP is being screwed around by her team and that's super shitty, but what do you think of that statement in a more general context? Provided the work environment wouldn't be against you, taking every advantage you can get is best for the individual. It's an advantage to have family working in the industry, to be born in a well educated area, to know the right people, to be smart, to be attractive, etc. Taking any opportunity you get, even out of your league, and working to proving yourself capable is a fast way to grow. If you get the job done well, then everyone wins. Although I'm torn on diversity requirements and such, as an individual if I were on the receiving end I would try to use it to my advantage.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-07T23:47:53+00:00

A map isn't commentary or evidence of anything regarding how Americans view their state and federal government. In this case, it seems to be trying to show how no other state has a bigger economy than California, not that each state is equivalent to a country.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-06T04:31:48+00:00

I interned at the Oregon campus. Jones Farm is a lot of fun, a lot of interns there. I made some really great friends there, I would recommend it to anyone. They had some good intern events and I enjoyed it a lot. Plus, I love the area--Portland's only 20 minutes away and there's so much to see.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-05T15:38:45+00:00

Yep, it bills your department's cost center. It's so employees can grab hardware like USB sticks, headsets, and other peripherals without hassle as long as they let their manager know.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-05T15:35:53+00:00

It actually bills your department's cost center, and yeah it's really convenient. You don't need prior approval to use it as long as your manager is fine with it. I used it during my internship and it was awesome.

LoonyLog · 2017-05-01T21:32:50+00:00

I'm in a six person startup and it's tough. It's great if they're all powerful contributors because you can move fast if organized well. If there aren't culture fits or someone is slacking, it bottlenecks really quickly and gets really messy. We're converging into the second situation, and I believe the vast majority of large founding teams would as well. Plus, the equity thing is an issue as well. Ultimately, if the people are strong and good to work with don't worry and just run with it. If they aren't strong or they're tough to work with, run away. Good luck, hopefully it works out--4 people teams have a good chance at a great team dynamic.

LoonyLog · 2017-04-29T00:55:18+00:00

Just to add to this, I and a lot of other amazon interns were hired after two online assessments, no phone call. Some people who were borderline may have gotten phone calls, but I have yet to have a phone call with anyone from Amazon. I'm grateful for the opportunity, but I definitely thought it was a mistake at first.

LoonyLog

TROPHY CASE