shakycode

Yup.

Agreed, I wouldn't work for Amazon even if I was without a job and they offered me a 250k salary. My experience with them was negative x3

My worst failure was a 3am production database drop half-asleep. We had backups but we lost an hour of transactional data. My worst IT failure to date.

This is a good article, but I've found that using swap is a bit expensive and slow. Why not just purchase a cheap VPS from bitkumo.com and then use the swap only when necessary. Swapping is never a good thing unless it's absolutely necessary (IMHO)

Stick with what makes you happy. If you want to work in Ruby, target jobs that are Ruby/Rails oriented and keep on coding in Ruby. Unless you are interviewing for an engineer position that require C/C++ you're most likely better off sticking to Ruby jobs.

On the other hand I've had job interviews where they used a language I wasn't proficient in (Python, Scala) but they allowed me to craft the solution to problem in Ruby but expected me to port it to the other language. Employers these days seem to be flexible, especially when the candidate is intelligent and picks up technology easy.

Technical books: via paperback/hardback Any other book: Audible

I've only been programming for 5 years and some of the original code I first wrote 5+ years ago has survived and somehow is still running. I'm tempted to go back and refactor it to make it more performant though.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm hosted out of Canada so we're outside of the reach of US laws, however I will be adding a ToS and AuP to the service which people have to agree too. For me this was a fun service to build and I'm hoping others will find value in this. Cheers! -shakycode

This is in beta right now but pretty much everything works. Would love to get some feedback on this to see how I can make it better!

Not yet. That feature hasn't been implemented. For now it will send a message from a random burner number. But I'll put the santa claus feature in the queue :)

Built with Rails and a fun idea to do something different from the regular crud type app. Would love feedback, suggestions, etc to make it better.

This is pretty impressive. Apparently, I can buy a meal in 6 minutes of work.

I've played with the new Macbook and really like it but haven't actually made the purchase. I have a 2014 rMBP, 16GB and it's a beast. I do a lot of programming and run a lot of builds/test suites and CPU/Memory intensive processes so having the horsepower available is important to me.

The 2015 Macbook pack less of a punch in the name of portability and a sleek design. I think if you are not doing anything "heavy" like running a bunch of VMs or doing heavy computation/builds you should be fine for day to day usage as an average coding folk.

It's my opinion that the new Macbook is a way to get a higher-end machine into the hands of many. It also looks like the Macbook with it's slim design and lighter weight could put some pressure on the MacBook Air line to up its game or could possibly eliminate it entirely.

The 12" Macbook is nice and if I had the money I'd probably buy one, but I'm spoiled to my rMBP 15 even though it weighs a metric ton.

Your guess would be way off. I am neither of those things. Simply a person looking to share his experience. I have much better things to do with my time besides fabricating elaborate stories on the public Internet. Not trying to be defensive, but just saying that not everything on the Internet is rubbish.

I do however respect your opinion and view as an individual. That's your right, of course.

Keep on working smart and doing your best to save. I have learned my lesson the hard way. Nothing is permanent and everything is subject to change. The anxiety that occurs when you are faced with financial issues and/or a job loss can be crippling. Even to this day after all of my lessons learned I still worry about what would happen if I lost my job again and had to go back to square one.

I also use S3 for application storage of static assets. For internal use we use Dropbox all over the place.

Awesome! I've read both. This is really sound advice. Where were you a month ago? :)

Would love to get some hints/tips on a refactoring for this. This is something I came up with a while back and I'm sure it could use some improvement.

I'm not sure if it will make you smarter, but I find that nicotine really helps to keep me focused when I'm working on tough problems. Unfortunately I smoke, but am considering getting on the patch.

Wow, this is great advice! I really appreciate your candor and modalities. I'm going to try and put this to work, immediately :)

Thanks for reading, everyone. I'm hoping to gain some insight from other IT folks out there as to where I can go from here. I'm really burning out and could use some solid advice.

Cheers!

Exactly. I am not monetizing my blog, looking to become famous, etc. I'm just a techie guy who wanted to tell his story. People will be skeptical and I encourage everyone to form their own opinions. In the end I was there and lived it and am so glad it's over.

I appreciate all of your taking time to read and comment whether positive to negative.

Be well and carry on!

I can appreciate your skepticism but it happened. I could have done a better job adding more detail to explain my story better so it made more sense to others. But I also didn't want to turn it into a small book.

I really don't care about attention, just figured others might want to read about a really rough spot in my life and might be able to relate somehow. HN points really don't matter to me, I just wanted to get this off of my chest after 6+ years.

Thanks for reading.

The car was already behind on payments, that part I omitted from the story. As well the house was behind on payments so I let it go to foreclosure. Not the wisest idea, but it happened.

32 at the time.

I applied at several places but due to my age and experience I was deemed "overqualified". So I resorted to other means to eat and survive during that time.

I think I answered this before, but I didn't qualify for government assistance as I had made too much money that year. I couldn't even obtain food stamps. The American welfare system is focused on the long-term poor/destitute versus those who fall on hard times.

Trust me, I've learned all about financial responsibility. Over the past 6 years I've made great strides to save and live a very minimal life now. The lesson has indeed been learned.

There were some details omitted from my post regarding my finances as I did not want it to turn into a book. But long story short I had just started making that level of income the beginning of the year and I had a lot of expenses and debt I was paying off ergo why I had not had much saved. Selling the home was attempted but the house was tore up so bad from the renters that I didn't have the money to make it "sale ready". Selling the car was not an option as I was living in it at first.

1. I didn't own a revolver as I always favored semi-autos 2. Yes, looking back it now almost 6 years later it wasn't as bad as when it was happening. Yes I was on the brink of dying but I came out a stronger person and have learned to look back at the situation as a life lesson. If I let it haunt me to this day I'd be right back where I started.

I was just beginning to make 100k/year. I had the knowledge but was irresponsible with not putting enough away. It was a mistake which I will not incur again.

I wasn't clearing 100k I was grossing it. After taxes and overhead it was more like 50-60K. But I understand where you're coming from. I had just started making really good money and my expenses were pretty much equal to my intake. I've since learned to not live beyond my means and am much more frugal in my older age. (38)