I was making 50 per hour doing freelance programming two years ago but I've had trouble finding clients and then I didn't have a place to work from, making it even harder. That's my biggest obstacle. I've got 10+years experience with PHP, JavaScript, laravel. etc...

Is there a reason you're hooked on the desktop computer? Maybe you invested a lot in it as a gaming setup? I'd offload it, get a laptop and you're then capable of charging at a library, working there or in the car, in a park, etc. If you're on the cusp of a worsening situation, gaming might be the least of your worries.

Lots of people live in vehicles quite intentionally. It's harder and very often not ideal, but I don't think it's your biggest issue here.

You could consider looking for a job at a software development "agency" that specialises in those technologies. There should still be plenty of such jobs for an experienced developer (especially if you're willing to accept a lower-then-"big tech"-but-still-good salary).

They'll not only provide you with a regular income (no need to find your own clients), but will likely provide you with a work computer and an office space too.

I've got 10 years experience with laravel, lots of PHP, JavaScript, vue, react, MySQL, Python etc...i just don't have a computer unless I can find a place to set up my desktop... that's my biggest hurdle.

While all those skills are great to have, you're now competing with every unemployed junior, fresh grad, and old coder on the market. You need to update your skill set, and ideally focus on skills that are in higher demand and with higher barrier to entry or with a captive audience/market.

Vue/React/Python are all still huge but they're commodity skills today. Differentiating will help with the jobseeking.

None of those skills are really out of date. Laravel is also still huge. And almost everyone is still using SQL.

And just because these are areas in which there are many juniors devs have doesn't mean that senior devs are competing directly with them.

Apply to jobs. Go to library and review some of these languages before interviews, you can use the library computer.

Have you been trying to get a stable job as dev or data guy? As this is where you should start. You really just need a stable income, so you can get an apartment and space to live.

Once, you have stable situation you can figure out the rest.

Archive.org has a PHP Software Engineer position they posted recently, may come in handy once you have a more stable setup with your computer

https://workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/default/mdf/recruitment/...

Best wishes and good luck with everything

I worked with this particular "team", in this exact position, for over a year and I cannot recommend strongly enough against it, especially for someone that has just regained their mental health.

Those two people should not be in a supervisory role over any other engineer, ever.

I'd trade down that desktop into an old Thinkpad circa T430 era, which you can get for less than $150 and slap Debian onto. If you need more processor for something, rent it from the cloud and work through ssh (or set up a VPN.)

With that, a cellphone, and wifi, you actually can work from your car. Certainly from a coffee shop.

I only have a desktop. I thought about getting office space from the chamber of commerce for 250 per month... and I can use their fridge to save money on food (Greek yogurt, Jimmy Dean sandwiches, and string cheese is all I need)...

Don’t rent an office space. You dont have the runway to make that work given the current tech market. Focus on getting a solid enough job to get you actual housing. Temp agency, county jobs program, take anything that will pay you a living wage and provide stability.

> I only have a desktop.

Sell it. It's a paperweight for you right now. You can find a really nice open-box/used laptop for $300-400 that will allow you to work from anywhere. You can charge the laptop at a cafe or a library. $5 for coffee and you have a working space to take calls and work.

DC-AC Inverter will let you run the laptop from the car as a last resort..

Usually there exist also dedicated car chargers for the lighter socket.

Chamber of Commerce is swimming with other hungry sharks. You'd be better off finding a coworking space (NOT a chain one like WeWork). Talk to the owner and explain your situation, ask for a month or two discount while you get your bearings and attend every meetup they have. Meet everyone, tell your story, share your skills. A small community will help take care of you in ways a CoC will not.

I'm in Medicaid in Utah. I'm taking 70mg in a hospital setting once per week for about 7 to 10 weeks combined with therapy.

Medicaid copay is only $20.

I'm living out of my car, door dashing and Uber in Southern Utah. Saving up to rent office space for my computer (I don't have a laptop)...

I lost my mom, marriage of 18 years, Grandma, and sanity a bit last year... but I'm doing great mentally now, just need financial to align, I'm trying to enroll in WGU for CS and then ai/ml masters and I want to double major with psychology...I want to work with therapy ai things as I've hacked my growth with ai to amazing results...

I'm going back to school to get higher paying jobs and be more sought after... and loans can float me rent for the duration of school...

I've got an RV I can live in (loaner from a friend) but nowhere to park it...I want to outfit it with solar panels but that's pricey.

That resilience you're building up is going to pay dividends.

Wishing you the best.

yeah, I think it will. I didn't know how strong I could be until I lost everything and built my life back up and even with my financial struggles it feels more fulfilling than it ever was before...

Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to just buy a laptop?

the person you're replying to is absolutely unhinged, sadly

You found this out by reading nearby comments? Or is there more lore from other HN threads?

you sound like a person I used to date who my therapist says is definitely a clinical narcissist... love bombing, devaluation, isolating from family members, transactional and conditional, and discard.

edit: I ask because I used to have the domain zvive and use that username... so a little personal for the user to use zvive2.

Solar panels are really not very expensive if you shop around. I got some 180 watt panels for $80 each recently.

$80 is a lot of money to a homeless person.

Yeah, it's probably two full days of collecting and recycling aluminum. (Not trying to belittle the homeless, I only mention this because it is how the homeless people in my old neighborhood would earn a little bit of cash. They don't deserve all the scorn they endure and I help them out every chance I get.)

> I've hacked my growth with ai to amazing results...

Would love to hear more about this if you’re willing to share

I'm posting my journey on IG: therapeutic.ai (username not a domain)...

I'm planning on adding a bunch of prompt examples and outcomes... my favorite thing is like I'll have tough feelings and I'll ask chatGPT to ferret out the trauma behind it and help me release the things... use RTT, DBT, and CBT to reprogram my brain, ask I've question then follow up questions based on answers...

this is with a custom gpt that has a bunch of self help bullet point PDFs as well as a bunch of journal entries and previous therapy chat threads (got too long)... major things I break out into their own document or PDF as a source for the gpr.

Best of luck mate. We're all rooting for you.

recently divorced I'm finding dating is so much harder these days...

I needed to grow up a lot, learn about situationships, attachment styles, co-regulation better emotional IQ, etc... things maybe I should've already known but not something taught....

I think schools should teach psychology classes that prepare people for being successful in relationships romantic, business, or platonic...

Same situation. So I'm going back to marketing (what I did in 2010 before dev). I'm deciding to start a digital agency with my target niche being drone operators.

I'm working on the best model like a productized service or revenue share agreement etc... my primary service is cold-emailing mixed with online presence and branding.

Cold-emailing doesn't really fly if your business doesn't at least seem legit and have a website etc ..

I thought about starting a drone company myself doing aerial surveys but figure I can get a lot of experience around the industry by servicing existing drone operators and maybe someday I'll start my own drone business as well.

email in profile if anyone has referrals I could really use them.

Also I can help with cold-emailing campaigns for other industries and niches, that's just my primary target.

you get wrong answers from either source. When ai builds in fact checking that's accurate to validate it's answers then it's game over and that wouldn't be too hard to implement and future versions will have a lot less hallucinations and faulty facts.

We're in the early stages here.

Why not create a pooled incentive if you keep 3s under x, you get 5 million that game either to split or just for the coach since they lead the plays and shit.

Money talks and the NBA is all about money. So just throw money at the problem.

I think maybe having a goal tending timer could work too... like 5 to 10 seconds after the ball enters the half court, goal tending is allowed on 3 pointers. So they'd have to take the shot quicker or do it around goal tending.

Make your local hospital -- be your primary hospital, this is ALSO you're insurer. They tell you what doctors to go to, etc...but they pay for things when you're traveling too...so its in other hospitals' best interest to have okay rates so they all pay about the same and not crazy.

The hospital benefits because: Nearly guaranteed and predictable MRR based on monthly premiums (income based maybe 4% or something)...a lot less billers all around, etc.