People keep asking the OP about his apps, and their answer is very a very vague "the account has 2 droplets which serves 2 mobile apps and does crawling 20-30 sites hourly".
My question is what do the apps do? That could easily be where the violation of the TOS is happening. Child porn? Fraud?
The lack of clarification is making the OP seem shady. Whats to hide?
Im no neuroscientist or psychologist, but the stress of being sized up by other monkeys based on superficial first impressions that you know you dont happen to be very good at making, is WAY different than the stress that gets produced when a "cryptic" system needs fixing.
For me the former situation leads to lots of bad feelings including irritation and incredible anxiety. I have often considered the latter type of situation fun times. For a lot of programmers difficult puzzle solving stress is good stress.
From what I have witnessed from current in-the-box hiring practices is a lot of extroverts get hired who are good at spin and presentation. Quite a few managers never detect that they are actually not great programmers because they are brilliant at sucking up and putting on a show. Those skills dont always hurt, but they shouldnt be considered a deal breaker for a programmer who actually gets good work done.
Best practice I have ever encountered is when interviewers give out interview questions in advance to allow to the interviewee a while to think about the problem in quiet.
I love the idea of short term contracts for both parties to suss each other out.
I was only in India for a month and I am not joking or exaggerating that the constant threat of sexual violence also gave me what people could call PTSD.
Even making eye contact with men was perceived as an invitation. I could do nothing right. I tried adopting local garb, covering, being a shadow basically. I wasnt even alone; I was with my boyfriend the whole time!
I dont know how to talk to people about my experiences there without sounding like a complete grump. I would never have been able to imagine how brutal India was for everyone, including women, without going. Thank goodness I could leave!
Just some first impressions about your pricing. Seems steep to me for something that I can whip together fairly fast myself (and I imagine most with JS skills could). Maybe I am not your target audience though. Its a great idea nevertheless!
1. Dont rush into anything that costs you a ton of money
2. Spend as much time learning about yourself as you do about different career fields
3. Dont take advice from career counsellors or program advisors. In my experience most of the time they are sales people in disguise.
4. Talk to seasoned adults who have been doing what they are doing for a while (lets say at least 5 years). In most professions it is not weird to ask for an informational interview, and they are super useful. A lot of the time people you interview with will try and find you jobs or other leads.
5. Remember it is your life, not your parents. Making them happy wont necessarily make you happy and you have to live your life.
6. Volunteer (if you can afford to)
7. Travel (if you can afford to). check out youth/student working visas in foreign places.
8. consider if your personality and lifestyle is compatible with career fields you are considering. For example, if you like stability and routine, Film might not be your thing. If you like to move about and use your body as well as your mind, computer stuff might drive you batty. If you want a life outside of work, and dont want to be working all of the time, dont become a nurse, etc
9. Check out trades apprenticeships. Trades are high in demand, you get paid while you are in school (in Canada at least), you have a job most of the time, and at the end of it you make way more money than most people. If you decide the trade you have chosen isnt for you, you will at least be making enough money to put yourself through school again.
10. Meetup.com. Find a group that meets about something you are interested in and join it.
After 5 it becomes unmanageable for me. I typically have a little more than that. My remedy is similar to my data management strategy: If its junk deal with it now. Delete/close the tab now rather than filter through it later. Anything I think I might need later gets tagged into Delicious.
Who cares if they showed up as a swat team or as one 'friendly' sheriff. Thats not the point. The point is that we are being surveilled in the most creepy way.
Mount your ipad on your wall and start calling it a telescreen.
14" T430s here. I love it and it weighs nothing. It plays excellently with Linux. The battery life is supposed to last 5hours, but only lasts 2-3. I might have a lemon battery though. I still recommend it.