flacaltenn
Diamond Member
I love these stories because they make an optimist out of this old pessimist..
Saw TV coverage of this story. Leo said he was always interested in science. Interesting deal here is that the "liberal" NY Times got a hold of this story and MOCKED McConologue to death about believing he could promote the skills of a homeless man. They joked about a laptop for sale in Times Square early next week.. Apparently the NY Times has a shitty view of human potential and a basic pessimism about lifting people up....
Homeless Coder - Business Insider
Homeless After Just Four Weeks, The Homeless Man Learning To Code Has Almost Finished His First App
Caroline Moss and Robert Libetti Sep. 26, 2013
When I first read Patrick McConlogue's post on Medium about a month ago - titled "Finding The Unjustly Homeless and Teaching Them to Code" - I'll admit I was skeptical.
McConlogue wrote about the homeless man he sees on his way to work each day. He has drive, McConlogue assures the reader. So the 23-year-old Manhattan-based programmer comes up with this:
The idea is simple. Without disrespecting him, I will offer two options:
1.I will come back tomorrow and give you $100 in cash.
2.I will come back tomorrow and give you three JavaScript books, (beginner-advanced-expert) and a super cheap basic laptop. I will then come an hour early from work each daywhen he feels preparedand teach him to code.
"I can go through $100 in a few days. In a week," Leo said. "But he told me I could have a laptop and learn how to do something and I figured it could turn into something more." He gestured to the city surrounding us. "It's not like I don't have the time to learn to do it."
Leo told me how each weekday, McConlogue comes to Leo's regular spot for an hour, usually around 8 a.m., and they dive right in. He started telling me about JavaScript and a site called Nitrous.io and how he can write 50 functions and maybe only two of them could be error-free. Leo spoke so confidently that I kept stopping him to make sure that he had only learned about coding in any respect just a mere four weeks earlier.
Most importantly, Leo wanted me to know that he wasn't miserable before McConlogue came along. Patrick, to him, was not a knight in shining armor, but rather a person who looked beyond the stereotype of homelessness and offered him a chance. He had never thought about coding, he admitted; he didn't even know what it was until a month ago, but "it's really hard to convince people that you are not a bad person, or a drug addict or a crazy. How are you gonna do that when you are homeless, and that's how the homeless are depicted? It's not always a negative thing but people don't know that."
Read more: Homeless Coder - Business Insider
Saw TV coverage of this story. Leo said he was always interested in science. Interesting deal here is that the "liberal" NY Times got a hold of this story and MOCKED McConologue to death about believing he could promote the skills of a homeless man. They joked about a laptop for sale in Times Square early next week.. Apparently the NY Times has a shitty view of human potential and a basic pessimism about lifting people up....