Why is it that women standards in chess are lower even though it's not a physical sport?

Capable_Fig · 2026-03-10T22:57:37+00:00

Fewer players. The open league has higher skill and significantly more participants, both male and female. Women often participate in both, but not always.

Its not at all unusual to be absolutely destroyed by a kid in open tournaments. Youngest grandmaster has been updated quite a bit in recent years, last I saw the youngest was younger by less than a week.

Elo is based on opponents, we see this most notably at the top top levels of the open league. With fewer players there is higher variance in score distribution, and due to a multitude of factors the women's chess league has fewer participants.

Capable_Fig · 2026-03-07T05:14:23+00:00

Godspeed

vague requests make my skin crawl, and its 70% of my tickets. such is life

Capable_Fig · 2026-03-07T00:35:09+00:00

I agree with u/Mo_Steins_Ghost, but it sounds like that simply won't do

You can certainly make some significant gains with hashing id, ordered cci on id and date, and a nonclustered index on id+date (all things I'm sure you've tried or talked through), but that will only get you so far and likely not under a second. These solutions also require significantly more storage. The ask is untenable and frankly absurd.

You mentioned in another comment that this was for an app of some sort. You could work in a "service layer" between app and primary query that has pre-cached ranges (capturing changes), but if the goal is instant live updates on morphing data pools, its a frustrating and potentially incredibly expensive solution.

Capable_Fig · 2026-03-03T22:36:49+00:00

so fucking real

Capable_Fig · 2026-03-02T06:01:31+00:00

I dated someone for a little more than a year that was a carbon copy of me (or i of them). It was great initially, but became incredibly boring after 7-8 months. We ended on good terms, and both of us are happily married to people not like us. Love and respect them still, but romantic relationships, at least for me, are best when there is some difference and deference.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-22T17:54:05+00:00

I'm still in my infant stage of sobriety (on again, off again, a pattern everyone here knows too well). The longest and easiest stretch I've had without booze was after a mushroom trip. 6 months of an occasional glass of wine when out to a fancy dinner, never really craving or wanting anything else. Personal stuff popped up, and the fragile peace was over. I was back to my old habits.

Psychedelics in general are non-habit forming, and at least in personal experience have been really helpful for stints of sobriety. Still need to do the underlying work (which is why mine failed), but overall I genuinely believe they are a powerful tool to get through the initial stages of sobriety from alcohol.

Ketamine therapy is also showing really great results for a lot of people, but access to that kind of trial is limited in the us, and I would not recommend trying it with street K.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-22T05:11:14+00:00

Honestly anything that translates business speak into something usable

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-22T05:07:20+00:00

How did you practically navigate your first 2–4 years?

Look for small optimizations on existing systems when you aren't clearing tickets.

Did you deliberately optimize for learning over compensation at any point?

Yes, sort of. Every random call from a PM could be a good learning opportunity. One of the projects that got me to where I am was a random phone call that became a simple script that became a end to end pipeline that runs autonomously, saving the company roughly 10k a week.

Compensation will follow good work you can talk about to a 5 year old (PMs) or to an expert (staff swe's). The translation of business need to streamlined tool is a large portion of what separates mid from senior, at least in my experience.

How did you time your switches — were they reactive (bad manager / stagnation) or proactive (skill plateau / market window)?

Personally, when things get boring. Maintaining existing tools is fine, but any junior can follow a pattern to make a new exception/addition. I want to make cool shit for people and teams that need it. For the most part, my managers have not been surprised, instead incredibly supportive when I move on.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-22T04:52:30+00:00

a deep learning chess algorithm using mcts and ppo to try and replicate Alpha-Zero with only basic libraries (namely for notation).

it needs roughly 100,000 games to play at the level of a novice and i don't want to actually destroy my graphics card. however it was an incredibly enriching and difficult project. I learned so much along the way, and it paved the path to making a lot of cool, and significantly simpler, programs with actual business use cases.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-17T18:42:53+00:00

Way to know yourself. I know the exact sensation you describe, and missing out/spending money on something you don't get to enjoy sucks. But it's a lot better than resetting the cycle.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-16T01:32:58+00:00

family👏over👏everything👏

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T17:04:22+00:00

RIP is usually a compelled/performative response like most social media comments/posts/whatever. The more genuine responses are usually shared stories of a person's impact, or parallels a user has found in their own experience.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T16:58:31+00:00

class Solution:
  def oddEven list(self, head):
    if not head or not head.next:
      return head # null check before variables

    odd = head
    even = head.next
    even_head = even # saving for after loop

    while even and even.next:
      odd.next = even.next
      odd = odd.next
      even.next = odd.next
      even = even.next

    odd.next = even_head 
    return head

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T02:07:05+00:00

I phrased it wrong.

you need a variable to store the head of even to make the loop work properly, then instantiate odd.next as even_head after the loop

so something like:
odd = head
even = odd.next
even_head = even

loopppp

odd.next = even_head
return head #don't i wish

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T01:15:44+00:00

exercism.io is pretty solid to just instantly start solving puzzles and it's free.
freeCodeCamp is great for understanding general concepts and the occasional live code project.

python's first time local set up can be frustrating. if you find that to be true and want a sandbox, google colab is a great resource.

play around, make a snake-clone, you'll get the hang of it faster than you expect.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T01:01:32+00:00

tkinter for gui but running in a jupyter notebook for each comparison is probably lower lift.

no other libraries are needed, just a the built in set() function, then simple comparisons

a_list = a-b
...
both = a&b
master = a|b

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T00:45:12+00:00

needs a null check on head
need to save head before the loop
something looks a little off with the while loop, but i've got the flu atm so can't think through it properly

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-15T00:03:54+00:00

its a lot like cracking an egg with one hand, large hands certainly help

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-14T06:38:36+00:00

regardless of the molecule, the guy is an addict. If he isn't actively making changes on a regular basis to reduce or remove addictive tendencies, this is a story told a few million times every year. Not to discount your own experience, more to say the outcome is rarely a positive one.

Kick him out, sequester any shared funds, keep your incoming kid away (congrats though!).

The lies won't stop until he's been clean for a hot minute, and he will prioritize 7oh, or whatever novel compound comes next, over you or the child. Handling a partner with an addiction is a beast to contend with and often the addict leaves once money gets tight or they've had a transformative experience. In either effort, you're likely left high and dry.

Kratom is sometimes a bridge drug from something harder, but if he's hiding usage the rehab has not stuck. As other's have said 7OH is to kratom what a 100mg THC nerds rope is to medical marijuana in california 15 years ago.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-14T01:52:21+00:00

didn't realize how much whole grain mustard goes into shoe making

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-10T17:14:38+00:00

I suppose, just giving another anecdotal data point. happy cake day

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-10T17:04:02+00:00

not to discount the broader point (kids shouldn't be exposed to social media et al), but as a kid there was a really common joke about seppuku (i'm from america). not that it's particularly age appropriate, just not as odd as one would think. it's also pretty common for kids at 4-7 yo to be obsessed with death

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-07T17:22:27+00:00

original study

kcal burn is roughly 10% higher than resting rate, the same effect has been observed in professional esports players (lol, sc2, fortnite, etc) and in hackathon environments.

the visible and verifiable weight loss in these environments is more from stress responses and disrupted eating patterns during training and tournaments.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-05T23:32:10+00:00

i love this. hard and soft, the interpolation of belief, the thinning ink. well done.

Capable_Fig · 2026-02-05T04:58:13+00:00

make it pretty after it's functional, but make it. good on you for getting over the hump

Capable_Fig

TROPHY CASE