aaron5

https://opendocs.to

It's web service that allows you to channel your google docs through a more human-friendly name. So, you link

opendocs.to/your-name/resume (an example link)

to your public resume at docs.google.com/dlkjbalksdfd

It's a simple redirect service, but it just looks nicer, and I think the opendocs.to sounds natural. Got to learn a lot with this one, using Vite/React, Node, Postgres all in Docker, with a local profile that builds nginx inside with the containers, or a prod profile on the server where nginx proxies into the containers.

Anyways, check it out!

Right now, only free tier available as I some last tweaking and checking.

Location: USA (citizen)

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: A bit of everything, lately beginning Docker, Terraform, AWS

Github: https://github.com/aaron5m

Started working career as engineer almost 20 years ago, then went off to explore. Always kept up technical interests: Mathematics, Physics, Programming, Embedded Software. But unfortunately not super deep. Glad to start at the very beginning and work hard to learn and come up to speed. Can sort of go anywhere, can sort of accept any salary - just eager to build stuff well, instead of being a dilettante.

Email: me@paaronmitchell.com

Fantastic! Thank you for explaining this.

Location: American in China

Remote: Yes, willing to travel throughout China for onsite visits

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies: PHP, Javascript, MySQL, HTML, React

Resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/p-aaron-mitchell-bb23b3253/

I'm a STEM teacher with a B.S. in Chem Engineering and several websites and apps online. Looking for more challenging, technical work; willing to learn your tools.

Thanks! For me #1 is really important too. I think just trying, especially with software, is so important. The language is one I'm thinking about - some of my students are self-studying AP CS which is centered on Java, but that language seems more difficult to start building things you can see (as opposed to just HTML/javascript) but maybe I'm just not as versed in it.

Thank you! Yes, I think tangible projects are a really strong approach - I'm trying to figure out a suite of realistic projects, so students can choose the one they most respond to.

I think this is a great idea.

nice work!

At first I smirked when I read your American bit... but then I wondered... what if those were design choices?

For example, what if someone figured out the average sit-time of gasoline in the jerrycan, the average fault rate and leak rate of the lesser seam, and the average production time and lifespan of the jerrycan - then decided the sometimes leakier version was better because it was lighter, more quickly manufactured, etc?

And then perhaps American soldiers were more likely to pilfer gasoline for joy-rides or bartering, or to steal and sell the jerrycans themselves to their liberated friends and lovers, or for some other reason these cans were more likely to be "lost" as the Wikipedia article vaguely mentions - thus, make the can useless without the spanner and funnel, so as to make it a little less tempting for an improper owner to run off with?

Maybe?

Just thinking out loud.

But these questions reminded me just how fascinating everyday objects can be.

the force of mentorship should not exceed the strength of pushing a canoe into a river

This is really good! Thank you =)

Daniel,

When I email jointheteam@stileeducation.com, my gmail times out.

Do you know why that might be? My gmail sends to other addresses.

(ps. Sorry if I've emailed like five times, haha - at least on my end it's timing out.)

Nice! I'm looking forward to going through some more of them.

Wow, thanks! Maybe I should just put some of this stuff on a resume and send it out - see what it turns up.

Congratulations on your success!

Got it! Just bookmarked Codewars, and thank you for the suggestion!

My company is having a hell of a time finding junior level people who actually know how to solve even the simplest of coding challenges.

If there's any small thing I could try to do for your company - something not too integral nor time-sensitive - I'd be happy to take a shot at it just for the experience. But I don't want to waste your time.

Anyways, thank you again, and best of luck to you!

Of course I'd love that FAANG salary, but I guess the only way I'll know if I'm good at algos is to give them a shot. I think I'm smart - but, hell, almost everybody on this site blows me away with how smart they are.

However, last night I opened up that leetcode stuff - and I got lost in it! Just like some of my old physics problems, they're so interesting to puzzle out. And, granted, interest isn't enough, but it's still a nice indicator. I just had fun, just fun, going over one of those algo problems last night.

Thank you again for giving me so much of your time!

Got it!

What's that old quote? "Half the work is showing up" or something like that. You just did what they asked and - boom - got the job. Well done! I'm tucking that one away under "life insights".

Thank you for taking the time to answer that question.

Yeah! It's fun using my brain to make a living, and most importantly, I work a lot less than I had to before, for a lot more money.

Congratulations, again!

Wow, these resources are great! Thank you so much. I have these bookmarked - I want to finish some other projects and then lay out a plan that will hopefully be best; of course, "no plan ever survives first contact" but it's still useful.

Did you put together the github site for "AI from scratch"? I can't find an "About" page - whoever's work it is, I love it.

Thank you again for pointing me in this direction.

What an encouraging comment - and thank you so much for looking at that RLC repo! It's riddled with mistakes, to be honest. I took it on as a learning project, speaking of which...

Instead I kept practicing and studying until I was good enough to hire for a mid-level position.

May I ask how you demonstrated how good you were to the hirer? I mean, when you were studying were you producing side-projects, contributing to github repos, going through a course that gave you grades? I hope this question isn't rude. I'm not sure how to jump over the junior dev role without my resume being auto-filtered out because of lack of experience, if that makes sense.

Anyways, congratulations! I hope you're liking your work in web development, because your story is really encouraging.

Thanks! The idea of one website to best showcase all of one's web programming skills seems like a useful puzzle - I'm going to mull over how I might do that. Thank you again!

Thank you for being so specific! Numbers and time-frames are really helpful for me - even if I wiggle them, or miss them, they are bench-marks in my mind. For example, I would have no idea how much leetcode to practice; but you've given me a nice ballpark and a book to start from. I'll see if I can get my hands on that book while here in China! Thank you again

Hey, thank you so much! I like that backend path you laid out.

And I think you're right that I need to read code other people have written - mostly I've approached building stuff for fun, figuring it out as I go, instead of really investing in understanding. What a great suggestion.

Thank you again!

Thanks! I'm slightly busy today (reading papers) but I skimmed your link and bookmarked it. Useful! I'll definitely get back to it for a more thorough read.

Thank you again.

haha, great answer! thanks for your work on this :)

I've found this for myself, too, seemingly.

And it helps to have "work" that is hard but enjoyable. Then when you're working hard, you're looking forward to rest; and when you're resting, you're looking forward to work. And you throw in a lot of "play" too, if possible (for me, sport, relationships, etc.). So, whatever you're doing, you're enjoying what you're doing AND you're looking forward to something (work, rest, or play), which adds enjoyment to the present (work, rest, or play).

My anecdotal data-point.

I really like this: "we should [develop] the discipline to realize that the people carrying the flag of anything are the least likely to be the true representatives of the thing."

What other examples are there? Am I one of these people in ways I don't even realize?

I would love to be eating a meal with someone who says this, and then have a really fantastic conversation spring from it: Does this help me feel out my own blind-spots better? Is this always bad? Is this always true?

Great statement, well articulated. Thanks!

had to laugh at your second point - same for me. i was like, "but periods go after sentences, right?" but now i don't do it

the super weird one is (i live in china currently) that there's a smiley face that is not a smiley face. i always used it. i was hip. i was fitting in. my emoticon game was making progress and then apparently i found out i was doing the equivalent of a reddit /s at the end of all my messages: "that smiley face is a fake smile" how could i know that? it's a yellow smiley face! haha

Those headers are a biscuit(<-euphemism).

what an interesting question! i'm trying to think of another example...

When I talk about writing I call this a bump-bump, a quick pairing of ideas; good ones often exhibit parallelism in syntax or sound.

To be, or not to be (parallel contrast, Hamlet) light of my life, love of my loins (allteration, Lolita)

Rise and shine (assonant i) Rinse and repeat (alliterative r) Lock and load (alliterative l) Wax on, wax off (parallel contrast)

Don't know about Netflix and chill - I want to say there's good assonance and consonance there, but I might be pushing.

In spite of my clumsy word (bump-bump) I actually think these are highly memorable:

e.g. Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.

I have one that I think helps - of course I made it up, so I'm biased.

Take a passage from a book you think is written well. For each sentence, ask yourself what, in your own terminology, the sentence is doing - what's the function of the sentence. For example, "a person reacts bodily" or "a decision is made involving time".

Then write your own passage for an entirely different story, wherein each sentence accomplishes the same function as what you encoded from the other passage.

For example, I did this to begin a children's story, taking my template from the first page of The Reader by Bernhard Schlink.

THE READER by Bernhard Schlink

When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis. It started in the fall and lasted until spring. As the old year darkened and turned colder, I got weaker and weaker. Things didn't start to improve until the new year...

LULLABYE by P Aaron Mitchell

When the moon first appeared my little Zienna hid from it. The moon waited to see her for about 18 minutes, which is a long time for the moon. The moon felt for her with its beams but she just hummed to herself in the molasses jar. When the moon looked the other way she climbed out...

Maybe the relationship isn't obvious to anyone else, and that's okay. It's still good practice - you force yourself to tell your own story in a cadence that matches (at least to you) that of a strong writer.