Happy New Year!
My first New Year’s resolution is to finish up my slightly belated Big Year End Review of Manosphere Greatness in 2013. But in the meantime, enjoy this cat, and this open thread.
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OK it is New Years and I am drunk. But before I go and just drink some more I have to tell you that I have learned a lot from you guys and I am really thankful for all of you. You have been very instructive and made me a better person and I thank you all. I used to think I was alone in my mocking of misogyny but now I know I am not alone. Thank you guys. I wish you all the very best for the New Years.
And let us all pray to whatever gods you pray to that they don’t fuck up that next Godzilla movies that is coming out in 2014.
Amen.
Good to have you with us, Robert! 🙂
May 2014 suck less! Particularly for you cloudiah, you have had one shitty fucking year that should keep its shit in 2013!
Happy New Year, everybody! 2013 wasn’t the greatest year for me either, but it’s looking up going into 2014. I hope it’s a better year for everyone.
Happy NYE! And OMG, new Godzilla movie!?!?!? 2014 is going to be awesome!!!
One positive thing for me in 2013 was that I found this community. Thanks. 🙂
Dear lard, the Texas cedar fever has landed on me with both feet. The pollen is really bad this season because of the rain, and I’ve avoided the allergy for years up until today. I’m a snotty, itchy-eyed, sore-throated mess. Ah-choo.
New Years hugs and kissed to everyone! Just waiting for Mr C’s hair to dry so we can go out.
OK – 2013 finished up alright with daughter’s wedding. A great day. But most of 2013 was shit squared-cubed-exponential once mrmagnificent collapsed and went to hospital.
Things now are better / easier, but I’m still going to talk to doc about depression or anxiety meds at next week’s long consult. (And there’s nothing so conducive to talking about miserable stuff as having a pap smear.) Mr is doing better all the time, but may never be back to his old self – I’m certainly not doing all that well.
So roll on 2014. The only way is UP!
@Ally s
::offers internet hugs:: And good luck on your new years resolutions.
For me 2013 was rather not good :/ Had a job the first few months, then it ended (it was temporary) and my depression’s been acting up since…idk, at least July. NEway. Not a good year.
Happy New Year (or soon to be New Year) Manboobzers! 😀
Happy New Year, and I hope that each of you finds 2014 to be peaceful and full of joy. May your needs be met and your wishes come true.
That’s a lovely new year’s wish, oraclenine.
… I just realised how to pronounce your nym. Only taken ::mumblemumble:: months.
How embarassment.
I initially pronounced it as “oracluh-nine.” X_X
To paraphrase a friend, I wish you all ‘enough’; enough love, energy, inspiration, and stubbornness (especially this last one!) to get through 2014.
OK, heading out now. Love you all, and hope the next year is better for everyone!
I hated 2013. I hated it so much.
I got a great new job, I met some new people, and I adopted a cat. But my brain just wishes I were dead over and over again and I hate it 🙁
Have a great evening, Cassandra!
Ally – that’s much how I pronounced it. Orac-leh-neen.
Geniuses, us! 😀
deniseeliza – hugs for you and brickbats for jerkbrain! 🙁
Just as important as credentials is contacts. Before I started freelancing from home, I did some contract work at a digital media agency. I worked on projects with programmers, designers and project managers. After that, I was always getting emails about new freelance projects.
Also, don’t be afraid to specialise in something. If you are the person to call for whatever niche technology everyone wants/needs to use on their projects you’ll never be short of work. What area do you want to work in, if you don’t mind sharing?
@Kim
Yeah, I’ve been trying to see how I can gain contacts, especially fellow trans people. A while ago I tried to see if there were any fellow trans women programmers I could get in touch with, but my efforts were fruitless. Oh well. I’m not really sure where to start looking for contacts.
Anyway, to answer your question: I was introduced to coding through web development, and my previous (and first official) job involved me working with my cousin on a Ruby on Rails web application. I gained some marginal experience with SQL and server-side functionality. So basically, I’m on track as a full-stack web developer. But ever since I’ve learned basic Java and more advanced Ruby, I’ve been wanting to focus on coding projects that aren’t solely web-related.
So I’m not entirely sure what to specialize in. I might even just try getting better at designing web pages so that I can specialize in web design, which seems to be much easier than full-stack development and is a valued skill. I wish I weren’t so confused. X_X
Happy New Year. 8D Many happy returns. Also, lots of chocolate.
It is officially 2014 here in San Jose. Happy New Year, Man Boobz! ^_^
Don’t forget that the best contacts are ones who don’t do the same thing as you. For eg. I mostly do front-end web dev, so I’ve gotten most of my work from designers and back-end developers. Though admittedly I do get some work from people who do the same as me, but pass on my name because they are too busy for a project.
One thing you could do to get some experience/contacts, if you wanted to do some unpaid work is to offer to build or help fix websites for non-profit groups. Most small ones have terrible websites, would appreciate some help and don’t have deadlines. Most of that would be front-end and designing obviously since they generally don’t need anything fancy.
Oh, and something I’ve been doing to expand my skills is to see what job ads are asking for. I spent some time researching and learning some of the things that are popular atm. Like LESS and Bootstrap (horrible btw) and Codeigniter (a MVC framework). And I made a website using the Flickr API, AJAX and XML data imports just for some practise. My site of which I am quite proud 🙂 http://www.scientifickr.com/
And unrelated (sort of – video editing is a useful skill too) my new birds, Flash and Crash, having a shower.
@Ally: Unfortunately, there just aren’t many women in programming in general, let alone trans women. If you want to get a career in programming off the ground, you are going to have to get cis male contacts. Yeah, it really sucks, but that is the unfortunate situation in this industry. D:
Anyway, if you are looking for ways to get some contacts in the industry, posting on software development forums is a good way to start, as well as the aforementioned open-source projects. Also, you might want to look for developer meet-ups in your area. They should be relatively easy to find if you live in Washington, California, or Texas.
Also, if you want to work on projects that aren’t solely web-based, you are going to need to bulk up on your Java and C/C++ skills. Maybe Python and C# as well, but definitely Java and C/C++. Getting a book good programming book that explains the fundamental algorithims and data structures is also a must.
Note: I have a bachelor’s in Computer Science, and have worked for amazon in a development position. So, I tend to know my shit when it comes to programmer and computer science stuff. 🙂
@Kim
You hate Twitter Bootstrap, too? Yay! I had to work with that on my previous dad, and holy fuck it’s so overrated. It’s so damn non-intuitive. And it taught me almost nothing about styling web pages. There is no replacement for learning how to do things the hard way in CSS, as far as I can tell. And yeah, I’m trying to learn things based on what I see from job offers. That’s why I’m trying to learn a lot of JS, Ajax, Java, and perhaps even PHP because they’re all in high demand.
Thanks for the non-profit organization idea. Besides the economic utility of that suggestion, I’d love to work on websites for non-profit organizations I care about.
@BreakfastMan
For context: I’m also planning to finish a B.A. in computer science (at UC Santa Cruz). Right now I live in the Silicon Valley, which is of course a hotspot for my kind of work but I need to get away from here because I’m getting out of an abusive household. (My dad can stalk and harm me if I work close to him.) I’ll be staying with one of my friends here for just a little while. And then in a year I’ll probably go back to UCSC and finish my degree.
Anyway, I have a very nice Java text (although it’s probably not enough) I can use for reference, and I’ve already learned some basic C/C++. And of course there’s Derek Banas’ channel and this one PDF book I have about C++.
And I have considered going to developer meet-ups (like the SF Ruby Meetup) but I’m really shy especially since my programming skills aren’t very advanced. :< I'll just have to get over my fears. Speaking of fear, I'm not necessarily afraid of cis men – it's just that I'm far more likely to find supportive contacts who are trans. I'm a trans woman of color and so I understand that I'm not likely to be treated fairly in many work environments and so on.