chirp's comments

"With enough determination and will, you will find a way"

This line of thinking is very dangerous and patently false. You need to bone up on how much one's socioeconomic class affect your chances at doing anything. Besides which, your suggestion does nothing about addressing how to enable people to be productive, it just says that you try and be better than those around you, which even if that works, still leaves all the people you beat to suffer and become a drag on society as a whole. It also completely avoids answering the question of why this is even happening in the first place.

Let me ask you this, would you have the same suggestion to someone who is homeless in India? If you've been to India you'd see how ignorant your thinking is. Why do you people think that the US is some magical place where dreams and wishes come true if you just work hard enough? It's the bullshit the politicians feed us to make you all think we're all millionaires in waiting. This is why we're all going to hell in a hand basket. You need to start taking more responsibility for our fellow citizens. You want to live a place where it's just up to the individual to "make it", go to the developing world and see how much you like it. The reason it's better in the West is because we all share, or at least used to, a similar standard of living. This homelessness in the youth affects you whether you like it or not. You won't like it very much when your town is crawling with them and unemployment is double digits. I can tell you now that your shitty advice and self aggrandizing will be of no help.

"I can't tell you honestly why my life fell into place so that I would be so driven"

Your arrogance is breathtaking. Maybe if the street people start sucking Steve Job's cock the way you do they'll get a clue and start really sacrificing so they too can get ahead.

My best wish for you is that you fail miserably at everything you do so you'll get the chance to put your money where your mouth is, and work your way up to the top as you eat out of a garbage can and sleep under a bridge. When you do that, come back and I'll issue an apology.

Yeah, I agree that learning Python would be a good first step. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Wow, thank you for putting so much effort into your response, I will pass it along to my brother.

Awesome links, thanks for the info!

He's trying to find a career for himself that will be interesting and be able to support himself and his family. But once he gets into programming I think he'll discover the creativity that comes with it. Thank you for taking your time to answer my question.

I can't say don't go back to get a degree, but I can speak from my own experience that I learned more in my first 1-2 years working than I did taking classes. CS is very centered around academia and the science of computing, not how to program and get things done.

You forget stuff too eh? Here's a simple solution that I think everybody should do, not just you. Take notes on what you do. Keep a little recipe book of things you've had to look up and figure out. At least you might recognize that you've seen the problem before and have solved it, then you can just go to your own reference to refresh your memory. If you're diligent you'll get a great resource in the end. Make sure if you do this to back it up.

Honestly, it sounds to me you read HN too much. There's a lot of shit on here about what everybody thinks makes a decent programmer and it can make anybody feel that they don't have skillz. Take it with a grain of salt. If you like what you do, you're always interested in learning more and you realize you don't know it all(this obviously is the exact opposite of your problem) then that's enough.

So learn about compilers and discrete math, and FFT, etc, if only to give yourself some familiarity with them for future reference. But please don't force yourself to learn about all of that unless you've got a keen interest, and learning about each subject is the goal rather than a chore that's in your way of being a "good" programmer. Learn what you need when you need it or you're liable to burn yourself out.

I too am sorry to hear about your dad.

Whatever you might think about you being a "cargo cult" programmer you sound like a good guy. Good luck!

We have an impending energy crisis and we're dreaming about taking our lazy asses around in flying car?! Jesus, instead of solving grid lock with fantasy of everybody flying to work (I'm sure the sky will be cluttered if it's really affordable to fly, so there goes solving your problem) why don't we concentrate on creating an efficient public transit system, something that would save us fossil fuel and help with traffic.

Awesome feedback, thank you. I appreciate it all and you can bet that I'll be incorporating your suggestions. I've been thinking about this problem for so long, and know the solution inside out, it is difficult for me to see it with fresh eyes. By the way, do you know of any similar features in the states where you can get unlimited calling to one number? Much thanks.

Hey, thanks for the reply! Hardest part is knowing what other people think, as I have a tendency to be biased towards my own ideas. Thanks for taking the time to check it out, much appreciated. By the way, I'm actually targeting Canadians (I know, it's sometimes hard to make the distinction). Maybe I should be a bit clearer on that point.

Thanks for the help! I'm new to HN and still learning how to post items properly. Did you get a chance to look at the site?