I'm a retired computer programmer so this is spur of the moment, but it occurred to me reading this thread that I'd like to help anyone using AI in the sobriety and recovery community on a volunteer basis. I've been using Claude Opus as a sponsor, sobriety coach and recovery therapist (CBT,DBT) to amazing effect. I'd like to share what I've discovered and formalize the process. If you know of any opportunities like this please let me know.
Location: San Jose
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: These days I mostly use C# and Python, but have used several others
Résumé/CV: I deleted my LinkedIn account because I'm retired, but resume available
Email: See Hacker News profile for contact information
I used a program called Monkey extensively in 1986 while performing final testing of Microsoft Works for the Macintosh to shake out the last bugs in the program. I found a quite a few bugs that would probably never occur in real life, but it made the program much more robust. Nobody ever complained about Works crashing.
They're doing that outside the city limits, in Live Oak for example, but inside the city limits, the Beach Flats is the only place I can think of until recently, when they started building downtown Santa Cruz. As unsightly as the downtown buildings are, if they revitalize downtown it won't be so bad. Maybe Logo's used books will come back.
But where? Therein lies the rub. Would you go up the North Coast? There's plenty of farmland there. Would you go into the forest, requiring felling a lot of trees? Please don't say you want to build out Lighthouse Field.
I'm not aware of any such plan. The plan was always to preserve open space such as Lighthouse Field and the green belt around Santa Cruz. I'm grateful for both of those. Property values would have risen even if they had built on Lighthouse field and the green belt. It just occured to me that I could think of them as the equivalent of NYC's Central Park or SF's Golden Gate Park.
I feel a certain kind of sadness about it. There's not a word for the loss of your home town in English that I'm aware of, but there's a song that comes close to it.
I'm 66, born and raised in Santa Cruz with family there and it's bizarre when your sleepy surf town turns into the hottest real estate market in California, which might make it the hottest market in the world, and none of your children, nieces and nephews can afford to live there. There's a adage in Santa Cruz that we all know well "Once you move from Santa Cruz you'll never be able to afford to move back." Many small towns across America are experiencing depopulation and poverty. Santa Cruz is the opposite, experiencing wealth and luxury. I have no further comment except to say it seems unusual.
Edit: I'm not living there. I'm over the hill in San Jose where rents are more affordable and I can't move back.
Edit2: The locals blame giving UCSC students a vote in local politics on our woes, because they are transients, progressive and don't understand local issues, preferring to preserve greenspace and the environment over growth. I'm happy with the greenspace and acccept the cost of maintaining it - I'm not complaining, merely sharing how strange it is to be priced out of your home town.
There's probably millions of tons of unused copper wire formerly used for telephone land lines nailed to poles unused. I wonder when we're going to start taking that down instead of despoiling natural wonders like the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska
I served on a US Nuclear submarine and my wife at the time served at a deguassing station demagnetizing submarines. I understood the purpose at the time was to remove any magnetism the sub might have so it wouldn't trigger magnetic mines.
I agree. Sometimes getting away from certain people can be beneficial. As William Gibson said "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." Then there's that other saying "Everywhere you go, there you are" which points to yourself as the problem.
Congrats on surviving. Your comment reminded me that I was suicidal on some of the trips so figured I'd see if I could get killed by putting myself into some very dangerous situations. I either had a guardian angel or it's not as dangerous to be out in the world as people think. I had to outsmart those who wished me harm and there were a few. I had some very close calls. I discovered I had a "spidy sense" that warned me off. I was amazed at how much courage I had when I didn't care if I died.
I totally agree with you, just leave and see if a change of scenery and getting away from people might bring a new perspective.