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nonotreally's comments

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

I'm not suggesting that I've stumbled into some new idea.

I'm trying to understand what people mean when they say "free speech platform".

It seems to be a get out of jail free card of sorts.

"Free speech" without any limits obviously doesn't work. Where are the limits of the parent comment? The devil is in the details.

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

Sounds like we agree on this. I want to push you here though.

Did twitter contribute to the events on the 6th? Do they have any role to play?

Do you have to use the words "go and kill them" in order for it to be violence?

I'm trying to be genuine here, because I don't know. I will say it certainly feels like we saw the violence being induced for months ahead of time on twitter without explicit calls for violence.

Should we just allow this?

It's happening still. We have members of congress calling the election stolen. This is how more violence happens. It's a slow burn, but it's a burn.

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: Calling for public input on our approach to world leaders

My gut says that you are right.

I think the election fraud nonsense suggests it might not be that simple. Bad actors in positions of power are abusing these services to the point where we have real conflict occurring.

How do we account for these edge cases?

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: I self-learned to code at 30

Networking IRL.

Most people think networking is trading business cards. Don't do this. It's pointless and doesn't work.

Talk to people. Talk to everyone. Be interested in what they say. Be interesting. The best way to be interesting is to do interesting things. You can do interesting things by being interested.

I met my mentor at the gym. We were talking about gym stuff and eventually he said something I recognized as technical. I followed up and kept asking _good_ questions. I respected their time but made it clear I valued their input.

We developed our relationship overtime and eventually formalized it. I asked him directly to help me and he was excited to help. We all love helping people. It feels good.

This is also how I got my first tech job (different people, same process).

Talk to people and be interested in them and their lives. Sometimes this will provide opportunities. Don't do it with the intention of creating a transaction.

If I _needed_ a tech mentor, I would hang out with tech people. Tech people hang out with other tech people. Go hang out there (this is obviously harder due to covid, but we're almost through it).

Gyms, gun ranges, music stores, libraries all attract these people.

Saying "Hi" is the hardest part.

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: I self-learned to code at 30

I learned to code at 33.

I am now working full time in the field. Before that, I was a sysadmin. I worked as a sysadmin from about age 20. I understood ops coming in and this let me punch above my weight.

It took about a year for me to get good enough to apply for jobs.

I would now be considered a good developer by most standards. This only happened because I found a fantastic mentor. He took me under his wing and pulled me up.

I have since introduced my non-technical brother and encouraged him to start learning to code. After about a year of effort he is starting his first full time job in the field next week.

It is possible and very doable.

Find a mentor early though to fast track the learning process.

Other notes based on other comments:

- My brother and I both value critical thinking and apply it naturally. We didn't work in creative fields previously.

- We both settled on early mornings to study while managing our other lives (work/family) (5am).

- I don't have a post secondary degree. Brother does in unrelated field.

- Don't get hung up on "which language and ecosystem to learn". Pick one. Your work will ultimately dictate these things to you and you'll need to adapt. You can pick up a new language quickly.

- Get good a networking (people to people). If you can talk to people, you can get a job in tech.

- Find a mentor or a friend you can talk to about programming and computers. It's more fun and keeps you thinking about it.

- Open your editor every day. Even if you're just reading code for 10 minutes. It sucks coming back two days later and realizing that it's slipping.

- Be kind to yourself. This stuff is complicated.

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: Facebook and Twitter algorithms incentivize 'people to get enraged'

> "I acted like an idiot because an Internet Website made me feel things and I couldn't control myself. Now I need Someone Else to make decisions on my behalf".

I don't think this is crazy. We're products of our environment. Our environment now includes TikTok and Facebook.

This isn't a question of "is this how it should be", rather a statement of how it is.

If you're a man, ask yourself "why don't I wear a dress?". I assume it isn't because you weighed the pros and cons, but rather because of the environment you're born into and inhabit.

Personal responsibility for an individual is great. But if we're designing optimal societies, we should pay attention to how incentives are being used to manipulate us.

If your claim boils down to "I am strong enough to control myself" it reminds me of "ads don't work on me".

_I just don't buy it_. If that were true you wouldn't eat Oreos, or use Bounty paper towels, or own a Song or Samsung tv.

The truth is that we are all heavily influenced by our peers, our environment and now, social media.

nonotreally | 5 years ago | on: “I saw that you spun up an Ubuntu image in Azure”

I dunno man. I'm struggling to see how this is catching anyone by surprise.

I'm not endorsing more ad spam, but I'm really caught off guard that using a service with a real name/email and getting added to a CRM is generating this level of indignation.

Do none of you guys work in corporate? I get Linkedin/email/phone spam all the time. This isn't new. The only interesting thing here is that the trigger and the response time were so short.

Again, I'm not advocating for more of this or even saying I like it. I'm just saying "why are we all of a sudden upset about this?"

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