I was taking programming classes as voluntary electives, my counselors thought I was insane and enjoyed pain

out of a 245 person CS graduating class, I was the only IT person that was taking classes alongside them

I unfortunately couldnt always take some of their prereqs so I REALLY struggled but the teachers gave me extra attention because I was passionate

Now look at me, a shell of the man I wanted to be. Pretending to be a real programmer amongst a Confederation of Dunces

My only remaining stay being my moderator position on this site... please SE, don't ever take this away from me :(

@maple_shaft I wasn't kidding about an opening here in Texas

We are struggling so hard to find people that are not awful

who sends a code sample where the entire functionality is in the main method

@durron597 Jesus christ...

what are they thinking? i mean, seriously

they aren't

@durron597 What kind of shop you run? Languages, frameworks?

i know my company will pay relocation for the right person, the problem is we don't have a lot of base salary available right now

it's a low base high upside type of position

we do high frequency automated trading in Java

NO CUSTOMERS EVER AGAIN WOOHOO

LMFAO!!!

In Java?!

my code is f'n fast bro

thank you hotspot

1 millisecond turnaround is standard, 7ms is slow

I believe you... that should dispel the the people that are always ripping on Java being slow

but happens once in awhile

yeah you know what else runs in Java? Twitter

It used to be written in ruby before it choked on demand

wired.com/2013/09/the-second-coming-of-java/all

I'm not logging at the nanotime level so i don't really have good benchmarks. The whole system uses Joda-time anyway

@durron597 Yeah I am kinda looking for high base, don't give a sh-- about upside

Joda-time is the best thing to ever happen to Java

define high base

I am making close to 6 figs bro

but look what I put up with

that is extraordinarily high for a Java guy in this area

you can make that here. by low base i meant under 6 figs but not under 70k

plus cost of living is way cheaper here

indeed, it is cheap where I am too. Big problem for me is I NEED my family right now

your extended family?

they are all here

my mother and father

yeah i ditched my whole family to come here. born & raised in NY

I can't do that

some people can

I cannot

you interested in 95% remote?

your company?

you open up a world of opportunity by working with remote

careers.stackoverflow.com/company/techemet-metal-trading

I'd have to talk to my boss

how's your skill at debugging multithreaded code (race conditions and stale data is the problem, not deadlocks)

It depends on what you mean by multi-threaded

woah this is a time machine back to earlier today in terms of convo :)

Are we talking like hadoop units of work being processed in a massively parallel way?

@enderland s/earlier today/two weeks ago/

but the turnaround time on that is probably unnacceptable. I feel like you are doing more "low level" thread management

@maple_shaft It's more like, algorithm has a processing thread which gets asynchronous updates from market fills

Are you doing anything with parallel computing using stuff like hadoop?

no

We have one fancy server with like 40 cores, that's it

Wow

scale up and not out

you need hardcore REAL programmers

the problem is that my boss and his boss believe in the project

working with volatile variables, using waits and checking the age of data

but HIS boss needs to be convinced

before the money starts to flow

the parent company has mucho dinero

@durron597 cost of living in TX is pretty awesome too afaik

Hmm have you performed a successul proof of concept?

yes

right now we are making a number about equal to cost including salaries

Staying alive..

that's risky for someone with a fam to support @durron597 (unless you have good savings)

Sounds interesting

this company is structured where they have a successful metals hedging business and one of the partners doesn't want to live in 1990 anymore

@enderland Yeah, sorry I am not interested. What enderland said

megacorp life is good if you can tolerate teh BS generally

startup culture is not for me anymore

we have lots of money

all the partners here (i am not a partner) are multimillionaires

@enderland I want the best of both worlds. No BS and have a stable job with a happy well connected family

@durron597 How did they become partners?

this is like the stablest possible startup

the parent company is a precious metals recycling firm

original founders?

people bring catalytic converters from cars and we throw them into a furnace

the CEO of the parent company wanted to be able to buy catalysts and give people cash right away

but the business was far too dependent on the price of platinum

so he started hedging metal, in other words we receive platinum from customers and sell it on the commodities exchange immediately to lock in the price

the partners in my company basically quote prices and do this hedging process, and they get a small cut of all the volume

hedging that precious metals will probably go down in value in the future

well, the idea is that you don't want to be at risk at all

if i buy 50 ounces from a customer and sell 50 ounces immediately

then i'm essentially flat

you wouldnt make a profit that way

we make a profit by giving them a worse price than the future's price

you sell it on a futures market then somebody is betting the value of platinum will go up

you unload your risk after buying on the cheap

there's a gap between the futures price and the physical price, it's called an EFP

(Exchange of Futures for Physical)

physical is always cheaper

really?

so if the price of platinum is like $1300 per ounce, we might buy it from you for $1292

yeah, because if you have physical you actually have to do something with the metal (ship it, store it, etc.)

whereas the futures you can just call your broker or w/e

Yeah but the broker is buying it because well people are betting on the "future" value of that metal

Maybe I completely misunderstand how commodities markets work

nobody actually takes delivery in the futures market

People MIGHT think that the future value of platinum will be $1,100 and not $1,300

well, not nobody

usually no one

maybe they discovered a new platinum mine or something

in order for platinum to be traded on the commodities market it needs to be certified as pure and stamped

if i discover platinum in my coal mine or whatever, i can't just sell that platinum dirt tomorrow

i'd have to find a way to get it purified

or, i can just sell it to Johnson Matthey and let them do it

Yeah but an ore processor can "create" this...

those processors buy FUTURES

the chemistry involved there is a lot harder than you think. plus the EPA makes it impossible for any new players to enter the market

no

sorry I meant sell physical

we're a "producer" too, as a recycling firm

anyway, the part that matters for you is that the partners here have plenty of money coming in from taking their cut of the futures hedging

so the job is very stable

... until...

the futures market for platinum goes down :)

no

I could never work for your company @durron597 :P

it happens

we make money regardless

we're the bookies, not the gamblers

OOOOOOHHHH

lightbulb

I get it

if the price of platinum is $1100 we buy it from customers for $1092

@enderland why not?

if the price of platinum is $1300 we buy it from customers for $1292

your profits are on the margin

I get it now

bingo

for some reason I thought you were doing HFT to make pennies on big gambles

like how HFT systems work in stocks

we exist so that the parent company DOESN'T go broke if the price of platinum craters

because without us, they would

lol perfect

it makes sense

@Ampt I am pretty opposed to companies that essentially exist as middlemen ;)

anyway, the HFT project is unrelated to the hedging

@enderland you know soviet russia tried to get rid of them once...

but our risk is very low there too for reasons i won't discuss in an open forum

but suffice it to say, we trade pretty intelligently

@enderland They really arent just a middle man. People who hold physical platinum need a buyer

They make that easy and convenient for people selling physical platinum

@enderland if a car gets totalled and honda needs to make a new catalyst

who's supposed to recycle the platinum in the converter?

honda or the town dump?

@RobertHarvey would appreciate if you check whether these users are blocked at SO: 165541, 165547. They "suddenly" started dumping at us questions similar to ones previously asked over there

@durron597 whoever makes the most off of it, I would assume

Middlemen connect buyers and sellers. They improve liquidity in a market

@Ampt The answer is neither. The middleman does it

We buy the catalyst, create platinum sponge (basically powder) which honda can immediately use in their factory

@maple_shaft they're also better at predicting the market

which is what I was getting at with the soviet russia problem

that was a huge problem of communism: knowing how much and of what to make

i g2g

@Ampt In Soviet Russia, middlemen liquidize you!

you'd end up with 8 billion tires for a million cars or vice versa

nice talking to you all

later @maple_shaft!

@maple_shaft Good luck!

@durron597 I knew that was coming O_O

we're all sitting over your shoulder

in your head to be specific

I suppose you guys are more of a distributor than middleman

@enderland Actually one of our other big projects is to remove middlemen

As much as possible

right now middlemen go around to all the town dumps etc. etc. and buy catalysts and sell them to us in bulk

Right

I think I misunderstood what you were describing initially

we'd like to do more buying from the dumps directly

scaling isn't free though

the middle men do provide a service

that's actually the CEO of the parent corp's #1 vision for the next 5-10 years

they just likely cost way more than it's actually worth

correct... and we pay them for that service

our margins would be better if we could cut them out, but we can't.

yet.

see what you do is very interesting. you're almost exactly in the ideal free market area

well... I assume anyway

LET ME PRETEND OK

There are a lot of middlemen that provide no value and simply add additional steps into an otherwise pretty optimized process (such as mutual fund brokers and salesmen)

well, the mutual fund brokers and salesmen are there to provide insight

and hopefully knowledge

of course most of the time it's overpriced knowledge

but there is a value there...

and of course it's worth whatever people will pay for it

It's all overpriced, index funds are strictly better than managed mutual funds

yes, they are outdated now

at one point they were worth something

they have been for about 40 years

enderland is going to get on a soapbox

yes, there are a lot of middlemen who are there to squeeze out your money. in my opinion, the only problem that I have with them is when they are legally obligated to be a part of the process (I.E. Car dealerships)

if you can bypass them and save yourself money, then everyone else is paying a stupid tax by using them

Right. That's why I own only index funds

I'm not saying that I support middlemen

There are some middlemen services which add value, such as large distributors such as Walmart/Target/Amazon which do provide me as a customer with value

but the only way to combat them is to educated people

Most however remove value (such as car salesmen and fund brokers) on the whole

What are you going to do? Buy a car from Honda corporate?

@enderland the reason all of those places you just listed are valuable is because they remove middleman. They have far director access to the factories than the vast majority of other sources you might use to get the merchandise you get from them.

@JimmyHoffa Right, exactly

@durron597 in a lot of places, you legally can't

@durron597 Sure - ordering directly from producers can eliminate TONS of middlemen/waste

The mattress I recently bought was online, think how much wasted overhead goes into mattress retailers/stores/salesmen

and is often illegal or regulated out of existence. Perfect example is buying a house- these days the entire job of a realtor who you're buying a house with is to setup some alerts on a website to notify you about houses registered with the MLS that meet your criteria. Anybody can do that themselves however, they also call the realtors and schedule time for you to view the houses and submit any offers you might make -> Because the realtor selling will not deal directly with people.

It's agreed upon middlemen for no reason. A normal person could call the owning houses realtor and submit the offer themselves, but as it is the realtor won't accept communications from anyone who isn't represented by a realtor because it would be bad for their industry

so you submit your letter to your realtor who just sends it off. They do practically zero work.

a selling realtor does a bit of work, but a buying realtor just wastes time because viewings have to be scheduled when they can be present

all communications have to go through them and they do nothing with those communications but literally pass them off to another realtor. And then they take thousands and thousands of dollars from the sale just for being a communication proxy.

(I don't like real estate agents)

yeah, real estate agents are another good example, though they can at least provide some value in terms of "research" or otherwise providing you with experience

agreed, thats another good example where the middleman has regulated himself in

Nah, more that the internet has removed the need for them

Information is far more accessible now than ever before

I bring it up because it's a concrete example of where middleman do exist, are held in place by nonsense for their own good, and provide zero value. One example to point out it does happen, and you can elaborate on the likelihood of other such examples.

lord knows recruiters in our industry are worse than middleman, they'll screw over both sides of a recruitment- candidate and potential employer by telling the employer the candidate's thinking it over, and then telling the candidate that they haven't heard anything from the employer but have another interview available-> Because another employer pays a bigger commission.

In our industry recruiters are worse than a wasteful middleman layer, they're outright deleterious

they create downward wage pressure across the industry which is totally artificial as well, while employers are willing to pay X for skills, due to recruiters and constant contractors, employees only get paid Y which is not commensurate with actual market value for their skillset

Yup, like I said, I strongly dislike middlemen who subtract value

@enderland which is the vast majority of them

just about anyone who's job isn't production or servicing is just trimming cream somehow. And a vast portion, likely the majority, of jobs are neither of those things.

@JimmyHoffa You took finding a loophole kind of literally there.

@psr You dare criticize my manifesto???

I shall criticize your formatting instead

@JimmyHoffa On the other hand they do pressure buyers and sellers to close deals ASAP so they can collect sooner and do even less work.

@JimmyHoffa ... So long as you don't got sulk in the woods for a few years...

@JimmyHoffa Give me a minute to remove it from my intestine first.

@Ampt let me guess, you wrote your manifesto in letters carved from strawberries and dried just after molding? Pfah, that's so 90s...

Speaking of useless companies

Did you know there is a company who's entire existence is to find people on welfare rolls (paid for by states) who can be moved to disability (paid for by the federal goverment) so the states don't have to pay for them anymore?

States pay $2600 per person for this service.

apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work

@durron597 that's cheap, people themselves often pay far more to get on disability, unless they're fraudsters then they just lie and get on for free

@durron597 Lots of this is due to the higher requirements for jobs these days because industry efficiencies have reduced employer needs significantly so since they need a tenth as many employees as they used to, they're willing to be 10 times pickier - if they needed many more they'd have to be less picky. In the 70s a high school diploma could get you a middle class job, nowadays a college degree is practically mandatory-> Guess what makes getting approved for disability really easy ?

Lacking a college degree.

I don't say that to disavow the claims of uneducated people on disability, I say that to point out how much it sucks that if you have a college degree, try hard to do well despite your troubles, and don't lie on the applications - There's very little chance you'll get disability without getting a lawyer to argue it all through for you.

Willing to lie through your teeth like a fraudster? Welcome to disability. Uneducated? Hop on in. Haven't been willing to even try working for the past few years? Step right up. Educated, not willing to lie, and having attempted to work regardless of a debilitating problem? Get a job ya bum.

Even private disability insurance often covers working in your current field of occupation, and if so rates for programmers (per $ of salary covered) are comparatively low because you have to be relatively more sick or injured to not be able to work at a keyboard. Since disability is about ability to work it's not unreasonable for it to be related to what kind of work you are normally capable of.

> In practice, it's a judgment call made in doctors' offices and courtrooms around the country.

^-- often stated, never true. Doctors do not choose who get's disability. They lend a minimum of help.

They can write letters for you but ultimately those letters mean nothing to the government unless those letters are outright diagnoses that fall into the lists the government has decided, regardless of doctors.

friday afternoon foosball ftw

^-- completely ignores the fact that back pain is subjective and has grown in large part due to constant denials for so many other things thanks to the many medical improvements in dealing with the objectively measurable things

it's easy to deny people for objectively measurable things where medicine has had measurable benefits towards, there's no objective measurable improvements that you can find for subjective pain

@JimmyHoffa A college degree is worth less than it used to be because everyone has one these days. Pell Grants and federally subsidized education loans have oversupplied the market, forcing everyone to go to college now

It's also sent tuition prices through the rough, because people don't see the costs themselves when they're 17

fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/…

@durron597 the degree profers less benefits than it had, but the lack of a degree profers far less benefits than it had as a side effect.

@JimmyHoffa Agreed.

Because everyone has one now, everyone has to have one. Thank you government

No, worthless college degrees are what has caused the cost of them to go up - technical degrees can still be financially viable

you're welcome

(Note: as usual when I talk about politics in this chatroom, I'm not blaming either party alone. Both are complicit)

lol

Education being a for-profit entity is the chief culprit here

as a recent grad, I agree. 75% of my friends with degrees have fancy toilet paper

@enderland Why?

I got a degree and had a job lined up 5 months ahead of graduation

That and having student interests tied inextricably from professor, research, and very much conflicting interests

@durron597 Because the goal of universities isn't good education for reasonable cost but rather profit

Well, many

But research grants at larger state schools normally has a similar interest too because professors want to make "money" ie secure more grants

The goal of most businesses is to try to sell you something that you want to buy

Cost is only one component

If there weren't cheap education loans available everywhere, no one would be able to afford these prices, so the demand would plummet, and then the tuitions would plummet to match.

I'm not sure what that has to do with "being a for-profit" entity

Amazon is also a "for-profit" entity but they deliver a product people want to have and it works

@Ampt that's as anecdotal as WorldEngineer's experience. There's so much variability in people's experiences in this regard it's hard to point at what's an 'average experience'

@durron597 this is only one and I'd say not even the most common model. Currently with our economy being such a services focussed one, I'd say it's more common that the goal of businesses is to convince people to pay them for something, with a strong focus on the convince.

@JimmyHoffa an average experience for what?

a recent college grad or a recent engineering grad?

or both?

The verbs doing, producing, or improving are ones you could claim many businesses are modelled around, but at least as many if not more are modelled around convincing, selling, and in a sadly large number of cases; tricking (spam snail mail is ages older than spam email, and much of it is truly attempting trickery, that's not a small industry)

@JimmyHoffa I agree, I was using a definition of the word want that makes my sentence fit with yours

perhaps I should have said "that you think you want to buy"

@Ampt both. Like I said, look at WorldEngineer's experience. I know many people who've had similar experiences to his and some with similar to yours, but more than anything there's huge variability in the stories I've heard from people around that

have a good weekend everyone!