story
Last year in college, a neighbor came to my door freaked out because somebody was peeping on her. Called the local police.
Police officers came to our door told us that peeping toms and flashers had statistical likelihood of escalating their behavior to more and more extreme acts including rape. They already knew the guy based on the neighbor's description. Also said not to fuck around if we saw him again. Any indication of a fixation was a really bad sign.
So should submitter be subject to legal scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint on behavior after that single event? Absolutely. Bad behavior for some, begets worse behavior later. Should submitter be subject to scrutiny, monitoring, and restraint decades after a single offense? Probably not.
We have sexual predator laws for a damn good reason: some people are guaranteed to violently reoffend unless prevented from doing so. Use of those same laws to ensnare teenagers who sext, Romeo & Juliet lovers, and the legitimate one-time offenders, is outside the original law's intent. The issue for the last category of offender is having a legal path to redemption. This piece seems to be missing. Arguable that for a lot of ex-convicts, a path to redemption and unrestrained participation in society is missing.
Having caught the post while it was still up, a second, identical incident happened four years after the initial occurrence.
It's interesting to look at both of my HN accounts. I can actually see my gradual mental deterioration and then gradual recovery.
A couple of additional thoughts... 1) I do wish for your career and employment success going forward - society is better if you and your wife are successful in life, and 2) there is something "hinky" about your writing style and the way you describe your sexual & criminal indiscretions and employment difficulties. If you went around flashing 30 year old women, your behavior was still wrong and the type of behavior that indicates possible escalation to even more criminal and violent behavior. Not sure from your post whether or not you realize the age of woman does not matter.
I have to wonder if that sense of strangeness is also apparent in your face to face demeanor. The type of strangeness that, in conjunction with a negative criminal background check, would eliminate a candidate for me. I've been threatened with physical violence and followed from time to time. I do not want to associate with people that cause me to seriously consider concealed carry.
What do you mean that you weren't "qualified"? For all of your legal issues, you sound like a brilliant and productive programmer. Have you seen opportunities (e.g. requests from people) to be an online teacher/tutor for programming, perhaps being funded through Patreon?
Even if I were qualified, I don't think anyone would like to take online tutoring from a sex offender, and I doubt even more that people would like to fund a felon and sex offender via Patreon. But I really do appreciate the idea.
The amount of software you've produced and published using a variety of stacks -- Objective C, Cocoa, Swift, JS, Node, Clojure -- and APIs is really impressive. Most people haven't even tinkered with that many things, nevermind publish stuff out for the public to use. That last part is an extremely high hurdle, especially since it requires UI/UX skills and user empathy.
Hell, even your portfolio website is far-above par for any software engineer. Not just in content, but the well-considered layout and visual design.
I don't want to downplay your situation, you indeed have an uphill climb. But you do have skills and actual experience that put you in higher probability at success with software publishing, compared to most software engineers who were to find themselves forced to find employment without the ability to network or get recommendations. Hopefully you can find success again in iOS publishing. I think many if not most iOS developers would be envious of the variety in just your iOS portfolio.
That stack takes quite a lot of twiddling configuration files and piecing together disparate libraries and unrelated tools, at least on the frontend, and especially so if JavaScript UI frameworks aren't your area of expertise. 3 days is not that surprising.
How about starting a SAAS lifestyle business? There are a number of threads on this site of the "tell us your one-man SAAS success story" variety. Might want to look to them for inspiration.
Dude... we have the most powerful tool invented: Internet.
If you are good, and you say you are and I have no reasons to doubt it, you'll get a job.
I might get downvoted... but that is the truth.
In terms of getting a job, yes, I could get a name change, but I feel like that would be unethical. If a company wouldn't want to hire me knowing my past, then hiding it from them so they would hire me seems really wrong.
I get the ethical concern about hiding something that would be a deal breaker, so don't do that. But also don't create an unnecessary PR issue for a potential employer.
Also, like... don't side yourself with a rapist, man. "Me and Brock Turner, totally the same!" is not a good way to market yourself.
