jsqu99 · HackerTrans

not OP but as a native, that's a speech-to-text error 100%

i'm 55 in 10 days. I get a discount at the golf course!

Serious question...where is this happening? I've been a job-hopper all my life. I'm 54, and i've never felt i was being discriminated against. I keep hearing about agism...is it more in SV? I'm in south carolina

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

I'm in my 4th week of my first class. I'm 54. I have a CS undergrad from 1996. I too caught the ML bug and...this first class is kicking my butt but I'm LOVING the experience. Quality education, very inexpensive, and I can quit any time. I'm doing it for the love of learning and don't need to do it. It takes $100 to apply. Just go for it and try a class. I will warn you without a tech background this particular program will be tough I think. I'm struggling catching up w/ Math

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

i've been all over the place. khan academy was really good for calculus, but man, the linear algebra lectures are really long, w/ no quizzes to keep you practicing. Have read parts of multiple textbooks. Have watched 3blue1brown's excellent series. I've gotten stuck a lot and keep looking for one resource that's 'got it all', but haven't yet found it.

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

ha! glad i can put a smile on you young whippersnappers faces :-). Man, your whole life you are called a young man over and over again, and then you stop getting called that, and then you find yourself boasting about how much hair you have, then your wife takes a picture of the top of your head (seriously) to prove to you that you no longer had hair up there ( i swear you never get to see the top of your head )...and then...you still don't give up and you enroll in a masters program!!!! :-)

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

I'm actually mostly relying on textbooks, and only when i get stuck i'm trying to see if i can get unstuck w/ chatgpt. So far it has worked. I'm only using it b/c i don't have a teacher to task. I do appreciate the warnings you are giving. They are noted for sure.

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

yeah my approach so far has been: try 3.5 until i am disappointed in the results (hasn't failed me yet), once it does, pay for the upgraded version and see how that goes (totally will to, but 3.5 has really been great so far, and i was blown away when i asked about 1 equation that didn't seem right, and it did realize it's mistake and corrected it...i don't know...just seems more than adequate so far. i realize it's not perfect...i just haven't been let down sufficiently yet).

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

totally valid question. tbh, i think i need my head examined :-)

the main points here are:

1) i've been pulling things out of DBs and putting them on web pages for 30 years, and along comes these breakthroughs in AI which...my apologies to the naysayers...i'm just blown away by what i'm witnessing, and i just _must_ learn more about how this works.

2) discovering the OMSCS program was an a-ha moment for me: it's prestigious, inexpensive, and I don't have to jump through a lot of hoops (GRE) to enroll. It only cost me < 1 hour and < $100 to apply.

3) There's no pressure on me to complete the program. I can do it one course at a time, and as long as i'm getting something out of it, i will continue. Each class is...$600-$700 or something like that. I fully am ok w/ stopping if it takes too much of a personal / marital toll on me.

4) My imposter syndrome is pretty terrible right now...part of me wants to know if i've 'still got it' (i did really well at U of MD CS).

5) I loved the Rodney Dangerfield movie "Back to School" :-)

EDIT: 6) Also i wouldn't mind converting to the MLE role at some point.

EDIT 2: I blame Paolo Perrotta for writing such an inspiring book (https://www.progml.com/) that ruined my cruise in september (kept rereading the book at the pool) and starting me on this path ;-)

jsqu99

2년 전discuss

I am 53 and cramming while relearning linear algebra, statistics, and calculus, after a 30 year break from college, in preparation for my first semester at GA Tech's online MS CS program in the fall. I love this! But...before I check it out, I'm going to be surprised if it competes with the already-incredible free help i've gotten from chatgpt-3.5. Recently I asked it the following (where it made a mistake that confused me!), but i followed up w/ a question about it, and it corrected the mistake and re-answered the question, all with no wait at all, and free:

```Given a new 3x3 matrix A having columns (4,2,2), (-1,1,-1), and (6,6,8) and an eigenvalue of 2, help me find a basis for the corresponding eigenspace. Also, given that I is the 3x3 identity matrix, why does the equation (A - 2I)x = 0 having free variables make it obvious that 2 is indeed an eigenvalue.```

I'm still going to check out your site, and I do wish you well, but i'm curious how it will stack up against AI tutors.

jsqu99

3년 전discuss

we spend so much time w/ our co-workers. If i can make some genuine friendships by being myself, that's far more valuable to me than 'keeping my job'.

jsqu99

3년 전discuss

i had an anal fissure for some time (6 weeks) and it was also unbearable. opiods didn't help at all. the drs told me something about them not working in that part of the body. hot baths several times a day. they wanted me to insert some cream up there using my pinky, which just make the pain worse by re-aggravating the area. I'm still not sure how it eventually healed, but I really started to understand why people in chronic pain would consider suicide.

jsqu99

4년 전discuss

that was fantastic, but i feel it's cheating a bit when you just make fun of yourself for being fat for 3 straight minutes. If you took away the obesity, i wonder if it'd have been as easy for him to get laughs. The same thing happens when people harp on their ethnic quirks constantly in sets. Take that away and what else do you have?

jsqu99

4년 전discuss

are you allowed to show up armed, in case they are waiting for you? If you end up in a shootout, will you be considered the aggressor? Seems dangerous to me

jsqu99

4년 전discuss

I'm with you. In my 20's, I was crippled with anxiety when trying to talk to any female I was interested in. After two marriages (very happy in my second), I feel like I could go out do pretty well if I were single. I wish I had my present personality/confidence w/ my better-looking younger self (i'm almost 52 now).

jsqu99

5년 전discuss

I'm curious why one wouldn't just move 100% into cash if you are expecting a crash. The S&P500 index fund would go down for a while in the case of a crash, right? I'm struggling with this now so any insight would be helpful.

jsqu99

5년 전discuss

Coober Pedy was highlighted in an episode of Instant Hotel on Netflix here https://www.netflix.com/title/81023011

jsqu99

6년 전discuss

Pro Tip: keep the deceased's phone active as long as possible so that, even if you have all their passwords, you might still need it for 2FA.

My father was murdered last year, and his iPhone X will be kept forever in evidence.

It has made dealing w/ all of his affairs very challenging as Verizon gave away his number as soon as we informed them about the situation.

jsqu99

6년 전discuss

  Location: Charleston, SC, USA
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No, but occasional travel to the home office is fine
  Technologies: Ruby/Rails, React, AWS/serverless (Lambdas, API Gateway), 
                git, Docker, SQL
  Résumé/CV: https://tinyurl.com/sdug28t 
             (outdated, but working on updating)
  Email: see my resume

Looking for a long-term senior-level technical role.

I'm a generalist with lots of exposure to different technologies including python (current), kubernetes, a year of Go (2017), 6 months in elixir (2016), and 10+ years of Java/C.

I'm competent in Javascript and actually enjoy working in React.

Books I've (re)read recently (last 2 months):

  - Metaprogramming in Ruby
  - Ruby Under a Microscope
  - Programming Machine Learning

I've recently gotten quite interested in machine learning and have been going back through khan academy to brush up on my math.

I'm in no hurry but will act immediately if we are a good fit!

jsqu99

7년 전discuss

I did!

I can't tell you how exciting it was to be hired to help a company enhance the https://github.com/spree/spree extension I authored.

It was the most rewarding phase of a 20+ year career.

Bottom line: if you make yourself known/valuable in a community, opportunities will pop up. Go for it!

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