anthomtb

100%.

The best time to start studying mathematics was when you were 4, with multiple private tutors and supportive-yet-not-overbearing parents who are also math educators.

The second best time is right now, with whatever materials you have in front of you.

Please hire me based on how awesome I think I am, not how awesome you think I am.

That summarizes most of his hiring related grievances.

From the title and the first couple paragraphs I expected a deep dive into macroeconomics and the tech industry. Rather, its a rambling rehash of the complaints about interviews and hiring which have made the rounds on HN and Reddit over the last 15 years. Credit where its due, his lived experience is enough to make the article thought provoking. Just not educational.

Add data warehouse to this list too.

I spent much of my late teens and early twenties cursing my thin boned and uncoordinated body, wishing their was some sport in which I would not be the worst, let alone the best. I idolized athletes across all sorts of sports and wished I could become one.

Articles like this make me almost thankful for a lack of physical gifts. An obsessive personality combined with any natural athletic talent would likely have lead to a futile attempt to make a living from sport. Instead, my career is as unglamorous as described in the TFA but the wages are certainly better. And I am probably fitter and get more enjoyment out of recreational sports than most who were truly top-level athletes at some point in their lives. If there's a higher power out there, I am pretty sure they had my back here.

I'm going to be real which means asking hard questions and probably sounding like a jerk. So be warned.

> I just don't enjoy arguing about the structure of software anymore

Why were these arguments happening in the first place? Were you starting them? Did you dislike the arguments or did you dislike losing them?

>I'm tired of the personalities

There will be personalities no matter what you do for a living (or even in retirement!). Some will suck, some will be cool, most will be both at different times. But if you are tired of ALL the personalities, maybe your own personality is the problem.

> tired of the infantilization of the industry

What is "the industry"? How was it infantilized? I feel you are leaving some important detail out of this particular frustration.

This explains so much.

I am in the market for a new vehicle and did multiple test drives this weekend. One salesperson casually mentioned "our software is down and things are a little crazy". But other than a lot of waiting, things proceeded as I expected.

I figured that by 1000 this (Monday) morning I'd be fending off follow up texts and calls. Yet its now 1430 and not one outreach has appeared on my phone. This is not a complaint but it is a surprise compared with past buying experiences.

> build an intern program

I agree this is the best way to hire. Additional benefits are the chance to work on greenfield problems for low cost and creating leadership opportunities for folks with a couple years of experience.

The only downside I have seen with the intern-to-FTE path is a tendency to leave after a few years as an FTE. I never ran numbers, and didn't have the god-power to get the data anyways, but would guess that half the interns who came on as FTE's were gone within 5 years. It would have been particularly interesting to compare intern->FTE tenure versus college grad->FTE tenure.

Thinking about it more, moving on after a few years of productive work is not that much of a downside. Much better than not moving on after years of non-productive "work".

Out of curiosity, did you ever figure out the disconnect that caused:

> Excellent interview

to turn into

> couldn't even handle explorer.exe.

I had to deal with a similar situation. The size and scale of my employer at the time meant the employee stuck around for multiple years. They never got worse but sure never got better.

In our case, the problem was that our interview questions were based on algorithmic knowledge with some OS fundamentals. This person happened to be really good at those types of problems. But ask them to change a few lines of Python or Javascript and they just could not figure it out.

So the underlying flaw was assuming that anyone who could figure out algorithmic optimization in C++ (psuedo-code, we weren't looking for perfect syntax) under interview pressure would also figure out higher level languages, test frameworks, CI systems, etc, in an efficient fashion.

My simple solution was to push for a more diverse set of interview questions and interviewers. Actually, a "take home" style problem might have fleshed out these weaknesses but that was too radical, relative to the company culture, to even propose.

Awesome project with a great README. This makes me want to dust off my ancient analog electronics knowledge.

Does anyone know why the second stage op-amp cleaned up the signal so much? It appears to have removed a higher-frequency oscillation, leaving a very clean, nearly square-shaped wave.

> "lifestyle business" always being uttered in contempt.

This must be correlated with peer group and/or geography. I am in a mountain west city surrounded by skiers, cyclists and climbers. Lifestyle business is never mentioned in contempt, rather as a logical choice to support ones hobbies and outside interests.

I spent hours researching the various pro-sumer level brands when upgrading my tool collection this winter. And settled on Milwaukee. Because red. Ok fine, their track saw played a part. But mostly red.

You had not heard the phrase "second opinion" before this experience?

People should really use a mandoline rather than a knife while playing mini games. You'll slice both your cukes and fingers much more evenly.

Yes, thank you. Fixed it (in a still-clumsy way).

I have tuned mountain bike suspension (recently) and took undergrad control systems theory class (ages ago). And I am struggling with the PID analogy here.

It seems to me that a suspension system has two separate PD controllers which share the same P factor (spring rate), but have the sign reversed in one direction. Then independent control rates on the velocity, as all suspension systems with which I am familiar allow separate rebound and compression damping control. That is, the compression side would be something like P + CD * dp/dt and rebound of -P + CR * dp/dt. (little "p" is position).

Maybe I just need to stew on this one a little longer though.

Since you seem to have some broad international experience, outside of the subcontinent, which countries have consistently good vegetarian cuisine?

> a tremendous disappointment

You were expecting better? Every European who comes to the US complains about the food. Edit: Now that I think about it, so do a lot of the Indians.

> very few people would come. And then I'd get feedback at the end of the semester that I "was never available to help."

My guess is that when they "needed help" was 2 hours before the exam, upon realizing that 10 hours of cramming was not going to make up for 12 weeks of slacking off (source: I was one of these types). IOW, their deficiency not yours.

> They stored the liquid manure in a big bag. I stood on it

I am certain its a sturdy bag but why risk it?

TAS: Tool Assisted Speedrun

Took more googling than expected to figure that one out, probably should have gone with a GPT.

I recently put shelving up in my garage and could not convince myself to use anything other than OSB. It was just so damn cheap - half the price of any plywood for the same thickness. The only cons are the appearance and screw holding ability (but its sitting on brackets so the latter doesn't matter much).

Baltic birch would be stronger, no doubt, but that's 3 times the price and I am not exactly storing a geode collection up there.

I had ostrich several times during peak Mad Cow Disease* mania.

I cannot recall appreciating it, probably because 1) its gamey flavor was a poor substitute for beef 2) my teenage palate was not appreciative of such "interesting" flavors.

But perhaps it would be worth re-visiting with semi-refined tastebuds?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...

Maybe its my grug-brain showing up but could you not:

1) Clone the latest version of the tool

2) Apply the patches needed for this feature

3) Profit.

Or is there some reason why the change has to live in the "main" branch for the official project on github?

I agree with all your bulleted points. Especially the "at most an hour". Maybe its age or outside responsibilities, but mental fatigue is a real thing for me, and spending more time than that on technically-challenging materially brings rapidly diminishing returns.

> Very few of these work as ebook (Kobo) for me. The formatting of code is poor and diagrams unreadable. Prefer paper or PDF (but read on a computer or tablet without network).

My ancient (2011) Kindle is borderline useless for technical material but the iPhone app renders diagrams and equations acceptably well (my experience, of course). The small form factor of the phone is helpful too - more desk or table space for notebooks. Mind you, I make heavy use of app limits and downtime so its not the distracting experience of typical smartphone use.

Are you reading programming books the same way you would read a fiction book? If so, stop doing that.

Programming or any technical learning is a hands on experience. Take notes and apply techniques, using pen-and-paper or the keyboard, as they are presented.

If you really have to just "read" a technical book, IME a less-is-more approach works best. 5-10 minutes at a time, not even a chapter at once. Maybe a few paragraphs if its something really information dense. Funny aside, I find my morning "business" is the perfect time to this sort of reading using the Kindle app on my phone.

To clarify - you were able to run the FIR filter on the codec chip because the main CPU didn't have enough <somthing - clock rate?> to handle the 48kHz input?

Nifty story, just wanted to validate my understanding.

After some reading I have come to two conclusions:

1) I have written many functors in my life without describing them as such

2) "Pure assembly" functor doesn't make much sense. Functors, both in the CS and mathematics sense, require the concept of type. Which is absent once you are dealing with stacks and registers. My best idea is something when you have mixed-width registers - eg, say you've got some 128 bit and 256 bit registers. Your functor could apply a mapping from one to the other (and would probably be nothing more than a move instruction with the appropriate sign extension).

> You end up with people that can write assembly but have no idea what a functor is

New challenge to self: write a functor in pure assembly.

I can see the opposition here if a via ferrata is built such that an existing climbing route is altered or reduced in difficulty.

> would actively destroy such installations if anywhere close to existing routes

"anywhere close" implies visible but not interfering. Would it really ruin the climbing experience if the 5.12b route you are attempting happens to have an accessible option within view?

I am neither a climber nor someone who would use a via ferrata, but I do see parallels to my mountain biking hobby here, where skilled riders (and more often "expert beginner" types) are threatened when newbie-friendly trails are created.

When using hot peppers I remove some of, or all, of the seeds and pith. You can greatly control the amount of heat this way since the seeds and pith have the most concentrated capsaicin.

Maybe habanero is too potent for that strategy but it works well on jalapeno, serrano, and whatever they grow in Hatch, NM.

(and it should be obvious but wear disposable gloves if you do this, unless you want the worst wank of your life).