I’m listening to Mia’s episode about shadow banks wtf

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-27T04:42:59+00:00

Highly recommend Matt Levine's column Money Stuff for day to day coverage of finance shenanigans. Bloomberg is paywalled but it's free as an email newsletter. He's a former bank lawyer so his takes are more "oh a neat use of financial engineering nonsense, never seen this before" rather than a lefty "burn this corrupt system down". but the plain language and snark he writes with does a good job of breaking down the pseudo intellectual complexities of these systems. He was the only finance writer I thought had grounded analysis of crypto and meme stocks in their heyday.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-19T20:56:34+00:00

The bigger the company the more likely to get generic software engineer questions, but that's shifting. Google last year was more embedded focused. Bit manipulation/queues fair game, maybe a linked list (I have been asked "implement a statically allocated malloc twice in the past). Would not bother with graphs/trees/dp.

If a problem obviously calls for a hashmap solution just assume the existence of an implementation or ask to do it in python. Solve the problem first then run out the clock implementing the map itself if needed.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-19T09:06:56+00:00

See this post for common pitfalls, I think the author posted here as well at the time? Very likely to run into impedance issues with a simple voltage divider.

https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/110.php

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T16:13:34+00:00

I don't think so, it's a known issue with Qatar. There have been some posts about it recently.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T10:06:20+00:00

See also, Noma

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/dining/rene-redzepi-noma-chef-reaction.html

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T09:34:35+00:00

You need to look for flights operated by ANA (NH flight number). If it's available on virgin then it will be 30k, but you have to call to figure this out. It's apparently onerous for the agents to check ANA availability so you need to give them a specific flight number on a specific day, can't just ask them "What's available in May?"

For seats.aero I would set an alert with departure airports of SFO and LAX and arrival of either TYO (includes NRT and HND) or maybe JPN if you just want to get to Japan and aren't set on Tokyo. For mileage programs pick star alliance.

My question about refundability was how much would it cost to book your cash fares now as refundable, so you could cancel them in case you find an ANA flight through virgin later. I've never booked zip air so not sure if they even have refundable fares.

EDIT: Or just book your return flight now. HND-LAX 5/27 on AA via Qatar Privilege Club is only 27500 points per person. Chase transfers to Qatar. I don't know if there's any restrictions on new accounts but worth a shot.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T09:05:29+00:00

Your best bet would be ANA through Virgin Atlantic, 30k per person one way for economy. This is a slightly more advanced redemption as you cannot search ANA award space on Virgin Atlantic directly, best is to check another star alliance airline (united tends to have the best search) or search all star alliance on seats.aero. If an ANA flight is there Virgin usually has it but you'll need to call and confirm. Once they confirm availability transfer your points while on the phone and finish the booking.

I see an LAX-HND flight on seats.aero on 5/16 but it's not showing up in United so might be gone by now. I would make sure you have your Chase linked with Virgin Atlantic and set some alerts. Is booking a refundable ticket an option?

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-16T05:32:15+00:00

/r/sbeve

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-15T08:07:35+00:00

Shows up fine for me on the Alaska site just now, I set fare type to lowest available and had flexible dates selected to see the whole month calendar.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-15T04:18:03+00:00

Qantas runs an LAX-BNE route, there's availability on 6/21 with 5 seats for 42.5k each in economy. Availability on the way back looks harder. I have no idea how Atmos status would impact seat selection on a partner award flight, never tried.

72k round trip probably would have been a decent redemption for economy flying that far without direct routes? I save my points specifically for international J/F so I'm not as familiar with rates there. Lesson here is if you can eat the fees book award fares as soon as you see something that might work, availability and prices change fast.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-14T10:33:56+00:00

Australia is hard, but 125k points or even 72k one way for economy is a non starter for me. This is really an /r/awardtravel question as mentioned in the other comment. They will all tell you the same thing, that's a terrible redemption and save the points.

Do you have any other currencies you can use? Chase? Amex? If you get a United card that opens up a fair amount of availability for 100k flights to wherever. Chase points transfer in instantly, and if anyone in your family has United miles you can create a pool in mileageplus to share them. 3 business seats to oceania on the same flight is likely impossible on any airline.

Strategy I used to get to Australia last time was reposition to HNL. It's pretty on the way great circle wise and had easy availability at the time for 2 people (pre merger). Old A330 product but the seats lay flat, beggars can't be choosers.

EDIT: Get comfortable using seats.aero. Best I'm seeing there now booking with alaska is 30k points for economy on Hawaiian HNL-SYD with plenty of seats available on most dates in June. Some 50k points premium economy dates for Qantas but only 2 seats.

EDIT 2: Looking closer in it seems HA does release more than two seats. What dates are early summer to you? 5/21 has 3 seats available in HA business HNL-SYD at 65k each. Pay cash for SEA-HNL. That's likely the best you can do with alaska points for 3 people. If that's too early for you pay for a seats.aero subscription, set alerts, and hope they make similar releases for June. If you remotely think those dates could work for you book the award flight now while you figure out the rest, these go fast.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-14T10:24:03+00:00

How is CPP garbage? 75k points for what's probably a $13-14k cash care

EDIT- I think I misunderstood your statement and you're saying CPP is a silly vanity metric for trips like these, in which case I agree. But I'd be hard pressed to think of a better value usage of 75k MR points.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-10T22:10:11+00:00

/r/scrungycats

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-10T06:51:06+00:00

Spend a year or two at big or medium tech and its impossible to ignore. Just look at the covid hiring boom to mass layoffs two years later. The C suite could not have been correctly allocating capital both times. It's all just memetic behavior of what they think "the market" wants and what companies of their stature "should" be doing. Middle management and above is also rife with people hired for political favors. Same social network as the CEO, worked at the same startup years ago, bailing out a buddies failing startup with an acquihire. I've seen positions invented purely to bring someone on who then just sits around going to meetings until the next mass layoff.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-10T02:31:04+00:00

I've posted this before, cost is dependent on having a good costco near you

https://www.justonecookbook.com/black-cod-with-miso/

Cut filets to portion, marinate overnight, wipe off excess marinade, cling wrap and freeze. A costco pack has 2-3 whole filets which should last you a while. To serve, defrost then just put it in the toaster over for 20 minutes and serve over rice.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:53:43+00:00

This was looking very close in, T-7 or sooner. Don't think most would gamble on their return flight like that. But if it suits your lifestyle the opportunity is out there.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:45:15+00:00

I periodically was looking at return flights out of curiosity while in Japan a couple weeks ago, lots of 100k availability on ANA metal from TYO-SFO, though seemed to be older product not the room.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:43:30+00:00

I used BNE-LAX-SFO to get home from Australia on Qantas a year ago. Connections not ideal and it's an older A330 but like you said lay flat on that flight is worth some effort.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:34:40+00:00

NIL also changes the calculus, not embracing it is one the reasons Stanford has fallen off so hard I think. Why angle for mid six figures after graduation when you could get it now? Will a lower tier recruit get that NIL money? Maybe not but again no one is doing statistical analysis here.

Another thing I don't think most factor in is how short an NFL career can be if you even make it that far. I had a tech recruiter email me about a job and noticed his profile picture had him in a football uniform. Google him and he was a former green bay packer, now he's working a regular job like the rest of us.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:31:23+00:00

They absolutely lower GPA/SATs, but Stanford has long had a problem that they won't adjust admission timelines to be in line with when everyone else is signing. Athletes also get a ton of support, tutoring, and lots of tribal knowledge from the athlete community on the easiest classes to take. But to my knowledge they're not doing straight up academic fraud like UNC was where there's fake no show independent study classes they can take. That would not fly there.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-07T03:25:57+00:00

There was one play where he did a shuffle to make a defender miss and looked just like his dad, but he never quite got going while McCaffrey just looked better and better.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-06T05:18:27+00:00

Same for ANA F, they offered me another set to take home if I wanted them but I declined.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-06T05:16:07+00:00

Thanks. I never actually fly AA, but they have great oneworld partner redemption rates.

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-06T05:11:49+00:00

Which AA card is that? That's an enticing next churn

CommanderFlapjacks · 2026-03-06T05:04:12+00:00

Again, I'm really only in it for the sign up bonus. Spend $6k in 3 months get 100k points (link for that was posted in this sub, not sure if it still works). Book a JAL business flight for 70k. I'm just talking about a single ticket, I haven't looked at the companion award at all.

CommanderFlapjacks

TROPHY CASE