mncolinlee

[flagged]

> It's my understanding that despite the high cost to run Meetups, the company itself has never been in a good financial position. They've been bought and sold multiple times.

Former Meetup employee here. A company being bought and sold multiple times is not a sign of being in a poor financial position.

2017: Meetup was first bought by WeWork for $156M.

2020: Meetup was then sold for a fire sale price to AlleyCorp as WeWork was trying to avoid bankruptcy from their unsustainable office rent deals. Watch any of the streaming shows like WeCrashed if you want to know what happened to WeWork.

2024: Meetup was then sold for a very nice multiple of their 2020 price to Bending Spoons after being profitable for several years. However, it had been profitable over those years by keeping it all together with only a small team. Bending Spoons moved operations to Italy, where most developers are cheaper.

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

SEEKING WORK - Minneapolis - Remote

Expert Android/Kotlin & Kotlin Multiplatform Engineer

Experience: Over 20 years in software development, specializing in Android for 11-12 years.

Notable Projects: Firefox for Android, Meetup, Amazon Relay, Microsoft Flip, etc.

  -   Skills: Android, Kotlin, Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), Jetpack Compose, Gradle, Java, Compose Multiplatform, some Swift/SwiftUI.
  -   Availability: Recently became available due to employer acquisition.
  -   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinmlee/
  -   Website: http://colintheshots.com
  -   Contact: mncolinlee & gmail.com

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

Prediction achieved: https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_s...

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

SEEKING WORK - Minneapolis - Remote

Expert Android/Kotlin & Kotlin Multiplatform Engineer

Experience: Over 20 years in software development, specializing in Android for 11-12 years.

Notable Projects: Firefox for Android, Meetup, Amazon Relay, Microsoft Flip, etc.

  -   Skills: Android, Kotlin, Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), Jetpack Compose, Gradle, Java, Compose Multiplatform, some Swift/SwiftUI.
  -   Availability: Recently became available due to employer acquisition.
  -   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinmlee/
  -   Website: http://colintheshots.com
  -   Contact: mncolinlee & gmail.com

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

I've been building a game in Compose Multiplatform and have been learning how to integrate new UI features across WASM, Android, iOS, MacOS, Windows. It's great new tech with a lot of promise even though it's still early.

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

Code quality has been plunging for years while we've become more dependent upon code.

Devin AI working Upwork jobs blew minds, but it succeeded for a reason. Upwork and similar sites are plagued by low quality contractors who do little more than glue together code written by better engineers. It was never a hard formula to copy.

Outsourcing programming work to the lowest cost and quality to third-party libraries is leading to inevitable results.

Obviously, the next leap will be sophisticated supply chain attacks based upon poisoning AI.

mncolinlee

2년 전discuss

SEEKING WORK – Minneapolis – Remote

Remote: Yes, please. I've been remote since around 2017.

Android/Kotlin and Kotlin Multiplatform expert engineer with over twenty years of software experience. I've been building highly successful Android apps as well as Android/iOS apps with shared business logic in Kotlin.

I've been building Android apps for ~11-12 years, including working full-time on major ones like Firefox for Android, Meetup, Amazon Relay, Microsoft Flip, etc.

You can benefit from the fact that my employer has been acquired and our acquirer has informed us they plan to let everyone go.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinmlee/

Website: https://www.colintheshots.com

Mail: mncolinlee at gmail.com

Technologies: Android, Kotlin, Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), Jetpack Compose, Compose Multiplatform, Gradle, Java, some Swift and SwiftUI, and many others that I use less often.

mncolinlee

3년 전discuss

I've been an organizer both pre- and post-pandemic.

I can say that my pre-pandemic programming Meetup group has been tricky to re-launch. We did decently in virtual Restream sessions during the pandemic, about 15-20 attendees and many more watching the videos. Afterwards, it's much tougher to find free venues. I don't have recent contacts with many speakers. Most sponsors aren't recruiting and aren't looking to spend money on free pizza. Some original members aren't getting emails and notifications because they stopped them during the pandemic.

However, my tech happy hour meetup is more popular than ever. We relaunched it after the pandemic and it's been hopping ever since. By starting over with a new group and new name, we were boosted by a New Group Announcement that put our group in front of lots of new Meetup members. Being one of the active Meetup events in our area, we get higher attendance than pre-pandemic. Also, it's a joy to host these events as I have almost no work putting an event together-- no venue, speaker, or sponsor discussions.

It's a tale of two event formats-- one that used to work well and another that still does.

My take on online events is that people attended during the pandemic partly to be social. However, Zoom creates a problem-- as the number of attendees rises there's a significant burden to speak and to take up space in the conversation. I used Restream to allow conversations in chat and to highlight various comments and discussions. I had great hope when trying gather.town, but it didn't work well because most came to watch the speaker and left without learning how to mingle and socialize in a virtual environment that should have empowered smaller, organic conversations.

mncolinlee

8년 전discuss

When I used to teach AP Computer Science, I'd have my students make paper airplanes on the first day.

I'd have them write down the instructions to make their airplanes. Then I'd follow their instructions in the strictest, most literal sense possible, resulting in some lopsided airplanes.

It was a great beginning lesson in algorithms.

mncolinlee

8년 전discuss

How long until they kill off Android, like they did with TestFlight and Buddybuild?

mncolinlee

9년 전discuss

There's actually one peer-reviewed study in a psychology journal. Granted, it's only one data point and might not be applicable directly to coding. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/can-alcohol-make-men-smarter-stu...

mncolinlee

9년 전discuss

There is something called the Ballmer Peak, which has even been demonstrated in one study. Up to a point, the theory goes, creative work benefits from mild intoxication. Beyond that point, productivity goes out the window. For me, I believe that point is around two drinks. For you, it could be teaspoons. Either way, I wouldn't generally drink before the end of the work day.

Personally, I find coding is hardest when you're blocked or stumped. Sometimes it helps to turn off the inner critic and experiment with code in a way that might feel unproductive during normal work hours. How I approach a problem outside of work is my business as long as the solution is solid.

This should go without saying, but everyone's physiology is different. While most people get drowsy from pseudoeffedrine, it makes me hyper. That's why even if one treatment works for most people, it might not work for you.

mncolinlee

12년 전discuss

This was how I learned to program BASIC at six years old.

Of course, I also figured out I could get my TRS-80 Model 1 to make sounds of various pitches by tuning an FM radio to its CPU and running loops with varying delays. I added sound to a pinball game this way back then.