gaustin

I met you and James at my first Ruby conference. I didn't ever get to know James well but that was the start of a sea change in my career.

I never heard that interview but I'm smiling imagining the interaction.

Angry Birds was that way at some point, IIRC. Haven't looked in a long time though.

I dabbled with the Red Book aeons ago, but never got very far with 3D programming. What would you suggest for learning OpenGL? Or is there some other tool you'd recommend learning?

I worked at a place where 50% of our time was supposed to be refactoring/boy scouting/cleanup work. The codebase was so bad and delivery so painful that management endorsed it. But the pressure to deliver never let up and so that policy is now a running joke.

I don't get much out of simply reading code. I have to get my hands in there and see how it works.

I load it into a repl and play around. See how changing little things effects tests. I add print statements to give a narrative. I draw diagrams of the code flow, especially startup, shutdown and sometimes error/exception handling.

People found it an interesting topic and started discussing it.

I'd suggest adding contact info to your profile and talking about your problems here. Hopefully you'll pique some interest and have some email waiting later.

I know people already do this. My intent was to ask why it's not the default for people who would save $1-2k every month. It seems the assumption is working in SF means living in SF for software developers making > $100k/year.

Why don't people live in Oakland and commute?

Google Maps gives a < 1 hour each way commute (BART or bike + ferry), which I don't think is horrible. Is Google Maps just super optimistic?

"for ever" is consistent with British English usage. It's a UK site.

Edited to add: Sure it's on the "US" section of the Guardian but they don't appear to change any other spellings to match US English.

Re "DOWNSIZE". I have the opposite problem. If I have too little on my plate I procrastinate. If I am obviously in over my head I have no problem lining up the tasks and working hard on them until completion.

I was skeptical of contract-to-hire situations until I did one myself. I got a significant increase my salary in the contract phase (even including what I paid for benefits) and got an increase on top of that at the time of hire (not counting benefits).

I was toward the top end of what I could make being traditionally employed locally (Helena, Montana). The remote contract-to-hire opportunity put me on par with folks living in cities, save places like NY and SF, or those working for huge companies.

Definitely a good deal for some of us that don't have professional networks that would support consulting. And whatever you might think, I'm not a coaster or I wouldn't have been offered full-time employment.

It is actually a good way for some employees to go from proven track record with tech X to building a proven track record with tech Y. Especially for those that don't dedicate a lot of free time to building demos/products.

Climate plays a big role too. Ticks have a pretty narrow band where they are active. We have ticks in my area for a couple of weeks in the damp, cool spring. After that it's too dry and hot.

Unabashed racism, homophobia and jingoism. Most people I've gotten to know there start out super friendly and then repugnant beliefs start to emerge as we've become more familiar. I've heard similar stories from other transplants.

eta: I'm not saying this is a universal problem with the south. I'm just saying that I've noticed it there far more often than in other places I've lived and traveled.

> - deep south, means you can't really be a foodie or god forbid vegetarian

Really? I just spent two weeks in Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina. There was no shortage of decent restaurants in the cities. Rural areas were as devoid of decent options as anywhere else in the US. Maybe my perspective is warped, as I live in the food wasteland that is Montana. I know of about 5 restaurants that are what I'd call good and they tend to be expensive.

My brother is a big foodie and has had a great time exploring food in the south for at about 6 years so far.

A firetruck ride might convince me to make the trip over for Barcamp...

I don't see anywhere that he is displaying an exaggerated sense of his abilities. He says look at my history and judge my capability from that.

What exactly strikes you as arrogant? Is it the fact that he says to recruiters "go read this before we talk further"? The fact that he calls out bad behavior?

How is it arrogant to state your minimum requirements up front? To me it shows respect for everyone's time and attention.

I'm glad you appreciate it.

I thought about deleting the posts. I'd really rather practice not worrying about what people think about it. It's a part of me and if others can't accept it, that's okay.

First I have to say that my symptoms have been pretty well-controlled for years. After my diagnosis I lost a lot of weight and became very physically active. This seems to have helped in a miraculous way (according to several doctors). Managing stress, sleeping well, eating well and keeping active seem to work as good or better for me than medications.

I have mild hallucinations. Pretty regularly I have odd physical sensations, like the skin on my legs is sloughing off or very convincing body dysmorphia. Stuff like this is worst when it keeps me awake. Exercise or a hot shower tend to fix this.

When I am really stressed out I have some auditory (usually more or less ambient noise) and visual (usually motion at the corner of my vision) hallucinations. The visual/auditory hallucinations usually only kick in when working 50+ hours a week for extended periods and worried about personal things. To minimize these periods, I work super hard when I am working and try to keep complications to a minimum. I'm sure it has held my career back somewhat not to have the same capacity for work hours as others. (Yes, 50+ hours a week is minimal for a lot of people, but for me I need that extra time to relax and recuperate.) The last visual/auditory hallucinations I had were pretty recent. The past couple of months required some 60ish hour weeks, I had a good deal of disrupted sleep and my wife had some health problems.

I have strict routines. When they are broken I tend to get upset. For example, I have a rigorous exercise routine. When it snows and it makes it harder to get to the gym or out for a run, I get disproportionately angry. I eat things in a very particular way, if someone disrupts this I get angry and will probably tell them about it.

I don't like it when people repeat what I say unless I explicitly give them permission. An example is that my wife might discuss something with me and then discuss that with someone else, and include my view on the subject. That upsets me.

I do not struggle much (at all?) with paranoia or catatonia.

There is some more, but I'm not super comfortable sharing in a public venue where potential future employers are likely to see.

I recognize all of these things are not normal. Over the years I've built up a good set of filters that keeps most people from even noticing. That's not to say I bottle up the reaction, it's just that I've built in some mental processes that help keep the keel even.

I was diagnosed with schizo-affective and bipolar disorders when I was 19. I was on disability until I was 26 (I am now almost 31), even though I worked part time as a software developer through that entire period.

I've managed to live a pretty "normal" life so far, even with my health issues. I have both Bachelor's and Master's degrees. I've been with my wife for 5 years so far. I've held down jobs pretty well, with ever-increasing levels of responsibility. I have healthy hobbies that take quite a bit of attention but do not become overriding obsessions.

My wife and I have different struggles than most other couples. She is most definitely not with me because it's novel, nor to "save" me or any other sort of co-dependent nonsense.

Schizophrenia may not be fixable, but it is controllable to a degree and with care it doesn't have to mean a life in institutions or a life without a satisfying career.

It doesn't sound like he was filling out an application. It sounds like he had the job and was just filling out HR paperwork for benefits and taxes and such.

A good diet does not imply being calorie deficient.

What is more interesting to me is the way that the SOLID principles are expressed in functional languages. They are all still relevant.

Have you been to any small regional conferences?

I've gone to MountainWest RubyConf a couple of times, on my own dime, and gotten way more out of it than I paid for tickets, lodging and travel. I'm pretty shy but I push myself to talk to a handful of people every day. Just being around people who are really passionate about what they do, and good at it, is pretty valuable.

But I do live in the middle of nowhere with very few programmers. That might skew my perspective.

SEEKING WORK - Helena, MT / Remote / Freelance or Full-time

Currently employed full-time on-site. Working to transition to remote. Happy to travel to client/office occasionally.

Ruby and Rails (on the JVM or otherwise), Heroku, Javascript, and (if you have an incredibly interesting project) C#. I prefer MooTools but am comfortable with JQuery or raw Javascript. Just looking for an excuse to try Coffeescript.

I'm deeply involved in my local programming community and am watching it flourish right now. It's very exciting and I'm proud to be a part of it.

code: https://github.com/gaustin email: gaustin@gmail.com

Some cool stuff, but not much I need with any regularity. Other sources are more than fine. I'll be excited when they stock the types of high-carbon steels that Aldo Bruno[0] sells.

I'm still waiting for someone to disrupt the hard to search supply shops like Jantz: http://www.knifemaking.com/Default.asp

0: http://njsteelbaron.com/

I think another subtle thing some might overlook is that you specifically said "serving." That is something like 2 oreo cookies or a handful of baby carrots. It would be a different story if you ate two baby carrots and then half a package of oreos.

Most people would probably make themselves sick before getting too many calories under a reasonable interpretation of this hierarchy.

Looks like you live in Calgary, based on the website in your profile. Definitely a lot of blacksmiths up that way, but you might have to get out of town a little bit.

Blacksmiths are always having hammer-ins (hackfest/demo day analog). If you can get to Brooks, AB, CA in June there is a forged knife hammer-in. Email me (in my profile) and I'll get you details. Abana.org is also a great place to find smiths.

The cool thing about hammer-ins is that newbies or people with only a casual interest often get to play with the toys (with careful instruction).