caddytodaddy

I have a feeling the “spare tire” chips are chips they’ve been ripping off from Qualcomm et al, and now they have an excuse to make them. That would explain why he is framing it that they were just for a contingency, they never planned on using them.

They’ve done that many times in the past, but they’re too big to get away with it so easily now.

The use case was server side data analysis. If it’s important work the researcher should get the much much more powerful server and run Linux like most sane people do. Who cares if your server can pair with your Apple Watch or use WhatsApp.

There was a point made where an opposing lawmaker said that foreign companies like Facebook would not bother to comply. Ha! They will all love to have your real name and address confirmed, they will be more than happy to oblige. It would make many things easier, and allow them to monetize you much better.

So strange, this seems to be the exact opposite of the trend in the USA where the public desire is moving towards requesting these companies to allow us to be anonymous. Just like...Europe? What’s going on in Austria?

They didn’t help much at all, but the program was still new. Their support might be better now, not sure. I do think taking the program highly highly increased my chance of employment. I would not have made the right choices about what to take, my pace would have been much slower, and my self confidence for actually applying for jobs would have been way less. I am confident about this because I was taking Coursera courses and online tutorials before the AppAcademy program. Coursera is awesome and I learned some great stuff. I also realized that I was good at programming, which gave me the confidence to apply to AppAcademy. But AppAcademy was truly a boot camp, very intense, and pushed me through everything I needed to get a job. And I was also contractually obligated to at least try to get a job.

There’s lots of things to reasonably debate about this. This is already an accepted practice for coding boot camps like AppAcademy, which I attended. At the time I couldn’t get a good job and was running out of savings. I was an adult cleaning golf clubs with high school students. Couldn’t get anyone to even look at my resume. AppAcademy’s application was purely merit based, they just wanted to know you could solve problems and think. After the program you pay 15% if your income for the first year, if you could get a job that paid over 50K a year.

I got in. I remember I was telling some millionaire member of the club what I would be doing and he told me that he thought that was illegal and they were ripping me off. I genuinely liked most of the members, but I really wanted to tell that guy some very rude things.

It changed my life. By the next spring I had a great job I loved that was paying me way way more than the golfing club. I had to pay 30% of my first 6 months instead of 15% over the full year, which is tough after taxes. Take home pay was like 45% of my paycheck. But even during that first 6 months I was making way more than I would have otherwise. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Bottom line, I got a chance I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. There’s plenty of ways to take advantage of desperate people. The term could have been longer, the rate higher. It could turn into a type of slavery. But if these things are limited in some way they can be a good thing. Especially if they time out, and are subject to you actually being paid. Then they are better than most other loans, and the people who you owe have interests that are slightly more aligned with yours.

That program has changed a bit since I went through. Also, I think the biggest drawback was I was expecting them to really help me get a job, but it was more throw us all out there and see who sticks. So, probably much less ideal in fields without the same insatiable demand for workers.