therealdavesky

The Grateful Dead Movie, don't know if it's online. A in-depth look at GD shows mid-70's, near their creative peak. Lots of backstage footage, fan interviews, and some pretty neat animation.

Tiare F.M. in Tahiti. Mostly Jawaiian / Jahitian music but with a lot of weird euro, country, and retro pop songs mixed in as well.

Your story is sadly not unique: being broke and unemployed is awful, and there are millions in the same situation. You are not alone! Firstly, this post you made right here and now may be the turning point, at least your story is known by others and maybe the right person will read it. Secondly, although it may sound a bit trite, perhaps now is the time of your life to really decide what matters the most to you, and focus just on that. Whatever it is that you really love, try to make it your primary thing. And the better you get at it, the more likely there is someone out there who needs your help. It is a big world and no matter what your skills are, there is someone who can benefit from them if you are an expert. Keep putting your name out there and make sure people hear from you. It sounds as if your mind is still working just fine, and it is your greatest resource, and can be a source of wealth to come!

As a recent poster to "ask HN" who can't get hired for anything in SWE due to my age, to me it seems you should count your blessings if employment is so abundant in your life that you can turn down jobs based on their motivation. Some day things may change and jobs may not be easy to find. Be happy that you are needed anywhere for any job!

dont forget graph theory. FB caught me off guard on a takehome project which involved contact tracing (very timely in 2021) Dyjkstra's algorithm (spelling?) and backward tracing through graph nodes

Also the 'metrics' being used to make the final decision are secret, most likely not known even by the interviewer. This prevents gaming the system but the lack of transparency makes it easy to imagine that MANGA companies choose new hires the same way that South Park depicted the FED making economic decisions: with a headless chicken running around and finally falling down on a big diagram.

I spent 6 weeks doing Leetcode problems, mostly medium-level ones. However when the take-home project was assigned, my submittal crashed on their end, even though it ran on my end on two different simulators and my phone! That pretty much canned my application there and then, even though the engineer agreed with me that the crash was VERY weird... it involved iOS crashing while adding a valid string to a Set, which was non-null! Given the opportunity, I could have quickly changed the Set usage to an Array, but that wasn't put on the table. In other words, a real-world fix didn't make sense to them!

Damn Straight. It amazes me how little interviewers seem to care about how_much_code_you_have_delivered... honestly, what else is there?

hawaii is only a nice place to live if you have lotsa $$$ i am willing to relocate tomorrow. just send me an airline ticket.

please email me at [email protected] thanks!

thanks for the links. leetcode is already familiar to me but i will study the others

thank you. my thoughts exactly!

I am open to contract positions or permanent positions, no problem either way. It sounded like I was just a corporate developer from my original post, so I may have confused some of you, sorry about that. I thought putting out a whole life's story was too much me, me, me! stuff...

A Jr. Developer job is just fine for me, however the last time FB talked to me they said they were looking for a particular job role (it was lead Developer) and would'nt bump me down... how do you look for a lesser role if you cant be hired for a bigger one?

Here are answers to some earlier questions, so my situation may become a bit more clear:

“Tell us more about what you want to do.”

It didn’t seem on-topic to mention goals and such in my original query, so here is a short list of software goals and answers to a question above:

    creating a “killer app” :  Since the 80’s. many many tries.
     was lucky enough to work on CineLook for several years,
 
    synesthesia: the merging and mixing of different types of media : this has been a fixation of mine for decades

    making UI’s that look good AND are easy to use

    data visualization:  good data visualization can really help 

    game development: my first app that sold was a math game

. . .

“Do you have anything you want focus on or do you pride yourself on being a generalist?”

It seems to me that AR will become the de facto standard for UI/UX, and most software will need to adapt to that new metaphor. That includes multimedia and musical software. It would be great to help out in that area somehow. In the 90s I wrote lots of in-house tools, which required me to think like a generalist. This sort of work is fine for me but I would place it as a second priority desire in a perfect world.

. . . “Architect, team lead, or pure development of a system from day to day?” Have led a team on a few occasions and was able to handle it but it would depend on the team. Have done pure development for decades but it doesn’t have to be the only thing I do.

. . .

“And business domains that you’re especially familiar with or interested in?”

Anything involving new uses of media and trans-media. Some things being done in aerospace are very appealing, such as the concept of a 3D-printed rocket. Financials are interesting also, as would be supporting research in astronomy, physics (especially superconductivity) or perhaps infrastructure. Education is also a great field to do work in.

thanks once again for all the info and support!

great observation wrt using your own keyboard to enter stuff...

it has to be remote for me for now because i am stuck in hawaii due to $$ probs

they bay area would be a great place to live, but its hard to get there and i know about the networking prospects when you "just show up", i was in berkeley for a few years back in the 80s: you never know who you will run into over there.

big island? welpers, larry ellison has a huge house over here but he doesnt show up at the supermarket very often...

swift seems like a good choice for me, and i am about to release an AR app in swift that produces algorithmic music ... what do you think about swift?

thanks. i hear you on the desperate employer thing, that got me a job in 2001 working for DigiEffects when their code broke going from iOS9 to OSX

you are right, but maybe if they asked me "whats your best area"? and then asked me to do something imaginative in that area then perhaps that would reveal more of a developer's talent than mere algorithm testing...??

thanks. that is a good observation. tomorrow i will be talking with a meta recruiter who has already emailed me that i am "100% what they are looking for" ...but ... maybe would you like passing these coding tests first???

absolutely on the skills evaluations! delivering code cant be summed up on a spreadsheet

ummm. also i have an iterview with meta tomorrow morning.

that was a great way to describe the jobs paradox right now

here are two side projects, please let me know what you think:

huedoku.com (and the app on itunes)

oogiecam (on itunes)

thanks!

forgot to mention, i am weak in react, i like it because it is similar to swiftUI but havent been able to come up with a good project involving react and the types of multimedia apps i am currently developing... if a good idea came up to me involving react and multimedia that's different.

if anyone wants a lead engineer on a X-style project, something that is out in the fringes, a project with legacy code, unusual multimedia/3D projects, ATE (automated test equipment) projects i may be able to help you

also can help in most multimedia projects involving studio equipment, audio sampling, video processing, MIDI software, and old-school graphics.

obviously i havent applied enough. it is usually about 10 per month.

i forgot to indicate where I am. if I was in silicon valley it may be a bit easier to get references, currently i am in the rainforest on the big island and they sub out all their tech to the mainland here.

i did that for the first FB interview, spent 6 weeks writing leet puzzles down by hand, thinking them over 3X before coding, and then solving the problems.

But then the interviewer hit me with a topic i didnt cover. wups!