• 10 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 4th, 2023

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  • Sorry, but this country fully deserves where it ends up.

    I shut off all news and social media, stopped checking newspapers, TV, and podcasts, and unsubbed from all politics and news mailing lists and communities. Told family and friends and they’re being cool about it.

    Dove into 60’s detective novels. Anything by Ross Thomas, Donald Westlake, and Lawrence Block. Have stocked up on at least a year’s worth of out-of-print epubs. Will reevaluate once they run out. Mixed with a lot of outdoor walks.

    It’s been glorious.













  • Ask about ‘Independent Study’ from your faculty adviser. If you don’t have one, go to your Department head. If you don’t have that, ask the Registrar.

    Independent Study means you get to propose your own coursework and, if approved, get to do it and get credit for it. You still have to deal with faculty supervision but the subject is specific to you. Think about what you would love to learn and propose a way to get there.









  • Interviewed at two big, well-known tech companies. Had done a lot of mobile dev work at the time, but really wanted to switch to connected hardware and told the recruiters.

    Showed up for the first on-site interview. Guy walks in. Explains the actual first interviewer couldn’t make it so he was a last-minute stand-in. Goes: “So, it says here you are intererested in mobile. That’s good. My team is looking for someone like that.”

    I explained it was actually the other way round. What proceeded was an awkward hour of bullshit questions about train schedulers and sorting algorithms. Repeat five times that day. Every. Single. One.

    Second company a few weeks later. Same thing. Except this time, 2/3 of the way through, a manager in HW group walks in. Grouses why he was asked to talk to someone, checks notes, about mobile. We had the greatest conversation after I set him straight. He wanted me to come back and do another loop just with his group. Except a week later, they announced a hiring freeze and I never heard back.

    In retrospect, it was a good thing. I would not have been a good fit.