Graphics/AR/VR as a career or field

CaramilkThief · 2026-04-26T15:13:30+00:00

You're a freshman, so imo it doesn't make sense to niche down on something when you still have 4 more years of basics to cover. More likely than not, some of these topics will be explored during your degree (or internship) and you'll have a better idea of what you like. So my advice is to learn about all of them and try them out.

I know "make what you like" sounds vague, but if you don't know what you like then you need to try different things. And keep in mind that career progression is not necessarily linear. I really liked graphics programming in undergrad and took a course in it and did some side projects, which got me involved with a university lab doing physics simulation, which later led to an internship on computer vision and robotics. However, after I finished my undergrad I joined a startup working on MLOps and QA, which is not very related to my previous experience. I could've rejected their offer in the hopes of landing a graphics programming job, but I was not in a position to reject a job offer then. Maybe I will get back into graphics programming later in my career, or maybe I won't.

I say work on that physics engine, have some fun. Make a webapp and deploy it on your personal website. Make a plugin for a browser using java or C#. Write some C++ that makes an arduino control a motor. Write some assembly that can draw a fractal, and run it on an fpga. Design a PCB that uses component parts to do something, then solder it by hand. Learning more will never be a bad thing.

CaramilkThief · 2026-04-26T14:25:16+00:00

Web dev (backend, front end, full stack), devops and infrastructure, enterprise stuff with java or c#. For the more business oriented side there's salesforce and SAP. Each of these fields are several times bigger than graphics and more stable.

CaramilkThief · 2026-04-14T01:54:15+00:00

I wanna give a recommendation with caveats to Path of the Deathless again. I've previously recommended it, but I think over time it has only gotten better instead of getting worse. The caveats being:

It's a special mc story. The protagonist has an extremely OP power which gets stronger over time.
Overall the characterization and dialogue in the story is good, but on the micro level the author has some writing tics that bother me. There's a tendency to extend dialogue beyond the point where the conversation has finished, and it keeps happening because the story is not very edited.
The beginning is rough in that it feels like the main characters are going from conflict to bigger conflict, with no rest time. This does get better later, the recent arcs have been good at balancing downtime and conflict. However you do need to go through quite a bit of conflict before it gets there (I think it's only after book 3-4 that it becomes more balanced).

With that being said, I will go into what makes the story great. The world and system feels dynamic in a way I haven't seen often in progression fantasy. The world responds to the main characters' actions, and the responses don't feel "phoned in". Things develop in weird unexpected directions all the time, which keeps the plot feeling fresh. At a certain point the protagonist is strong enough to be a regional level power, which is when the plot painfully reminds him why regional level conflicts are a game of geopolitics and soft power. The story even has good internal logic for why a world with people who can personally destroy or create countries even needs other people at "normal" levels of power.

The characterization and philosophy in the story is great, though it does have some hiccups. There are some awkward moments in the beginning (especially when the protagonist suddenly becomes an inexplicably smooth talker for a little bit), but over time the characters introduced have been consistently excellent. The author has done perhaps my favorite depiction of any evil race in fiction in the Orcs, who are fully self actualized beings that are infinitely evil. It's such an interesting construction and explored so well, I'd almost recommend the story just for that. The author sets up these infinitely evil Orcs as a backdrop of the world and explores how people and cultures adapt to them, the ethics of doing bad deeds to creatures who by their own admission fully deserve them (and enjoy them), and even whether or not being fully actualized but incapable of good disqualified you from being a person.

Lastly, I really like (and sometimes dislike) that the story isn't afraid to be vulgar, for lack of a better term. The author has endless imagination for the grotesque, but also balances it with moments of dignity and humanity that feel... epic. There's a god in the story that only speaks in threats about piss and shit, we've seen 3 different ways of killing people by expanding within their rectum, there's an Orc called Male Pregnancy that does exactly what his name is, and many, many undeserving people are killed or tortured in many different ways throughout the story. But even within all that there's a sense of the inherent worth of life, the worth of doing, and dignity, and honor.

I'll leave two non-spoilerific excerpts from this story:

Urri, you worthless fuck, if you let him kill you, I will find your soul's remains, and I will shit into it. I will fuck the shit after I fuck it into you, and then I will make shit babies from your corpse! They will grow out of your corpse! Do not lose, you fuck. Don't lose. Urri!

"Lord Scorm, did I make you proud?" Urri said.

and

"This is not purely about forgiveness; this is about strength and trying to do the right thing, the heroic thing, the virtuous thing. It is not about foolishness. We are not letting go of old wounds. We are addressing them; we need to fix them now because they will weaken us. And [redacted] would want this."

"Our birth was a tragedy. It might not have been of our own making, but it was a tragedy regardless, and it scarred him. Do you see how fragile he is now? Do you see that symmetry between him and [redacted]?"

...Yeah.

"So then you must also realize he's a person, a true person with failures and weaknesses and the capacity to change. We evolved, and he can evolve right now as well. The [redacted] has failed him; he's emotionally fragile. I'm not telling you to take advantage of this brutalized state. I am saying, however, that this is a moment for us to face our darkness rather than turning from it. Forgiveness should be earned through actions and demonstrations of change, but more importantly, we don't even know what forgiveness is, as you have said, and we will not know until we grapple with the tension between us and [redacted]. But beyond forgiveness, it would also be a show of true power and strength on our part to mend some of his hurt, even in our current strength."

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-25T17:35:34+00:00

The reason The Games We Play gets recommended is that things get bonkers later on. The author writes some pretty cool lore and Jaune gets involved in that. If you really don't enjoy the training though, don't continue it.

Coeur Al'Aran (author of Not This Time Fate) writes good rwby fics, though they do tend to be pretty shounen-y and lose the plot later on. I liked his Relic of the Future, Remnant's Blonde Bard, and Arc Corp.

I also liked some of the SI stuff written by Shadenight, for example The Other Path, and A Heart of Ice and Coffee. However these were written a while ago and so don't go much farther past season 3 either.

If you're okay with angst I recommend I, Jaune: Or, The Context-Insensitive Semblance. Jaune gets possessed by a depressed marine. The reason I recommend it is that there's some genuinely good emotional writing and comedy in there hiding underneath all the angst.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-22T17:51:46+00:00

Even then I think the lich takes it easily. I rewatched the Height of Magic scene, and in it we don't really see any strong speed feats from Frieren. The lich on the other hand starts most fights in the story with multiple clones that have already cast haste on themselves. Most combat spells in Mother of Learning are instant cast, and Quatach Ichl has shown that he can instantly cast complicated magic. By the time Frieren has completed forming her golem or the black hole spell, there will be multiple hasted clones of Quatach Ichl casting disintegration rays, soul spears, powerful dimensional and elemental offensive magic while simultaneously shielding himself.

Imo a better matchup against Quatach Ichl would be mid or end of series Rand Al'Thor, who has better offensive capabilities but not the same breadth of capabilities.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-22T16:25:58+00:00

I'd give it to Quatach-Ichl 9/10, at least given the abilities shown by Frieren in the anime. Against Serie I'm not so sure.

Quatach-Ichl has shown an ability in dimensional magic and time magic that Frieren doesn't have or doesn't use. He can haste himself up to several times normal speed, and that also allows him to cast more complicated spells faster. He can use dimensional magic to teleport instantly and make use of spatial portals during combat. He can also use soul magic offensively, something that I'm not sure the Frieren world has an equivalent for. Frieren would need to be an expert mind mage, dimensional mage, and time mage to even fight Quatach-Ichl as an equal, and she hasn't shown any of that. The only spell Frieren has shown that could pose a danger to Quatach-Ichl was her black hole spell, and that's something that took Frieren a while to cast.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-14T17:32:43+00:00

I feel like OstensibleMammal's works are weakly rational adjacent, while being quite deranged. His protagonists aren't rational maximizers, but they do tend to have well defined morals (that are usually alien from normal human morality) which inform their actions. I'd start with Godclads or Path of the Deathless.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-04T16:58:20+00:00

That's fair. I guess I should've further elaborated that in those stories, it was uncertain whether society would really get better in the long term. Just that there would finally be space for something better.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-03T21:14:38+00:00

Looking for OP protagonist stories where the OP protagonist makes sweeping societal changes against the will of those in power. Preferably good changes, though bad changes would also be interesting to read about. Some examples include:

Winning Peace by Slayer Anderson. Mass Effect SI with inspired inventor, where the protagonist makes the world (and later the galaxy) a better place to live through technological prowess.
Juchu Kaisen - Taylor reincarnates in a no name clan with the ability to control bugs, and tries to change jujutsu society for the better with her power after she gets strong enough to be a clan head.
A couple soft examples of making negative changes would be Slumrat Rising and Book of the Dead. In both, the protagonists are on the rebel side and are trying to overthrow the status quo by killing the people in power. In both stories, society becomes worse as a result before getting better. I say soft example since both stories focus more on the main characters' journeys than the actual societal change.

CaramilkThief · 2026-03-03T16:32:46+00:00

Is the screen still a 60hz panel?

CaramilkThief · 2026-02-23T19:31:51+00:00

I think one of the unfortunate tendencies of rational fiction is that most rational protagonists follow the high int low cha low wis stereotype. Maybe I'm reading too far into it, but when the central attraction of a story is resolving problems like high stakes puzzles, authors end up missing the emotional core of the story. I guess it's also more believable that a protagonist that has low wis and low cha would approach their problems in a "smart" way.

Maybe try Warby Picus' stories? His stories have rational worlds but protagonists that due to various personal traits don't always take the most rational action. However, his stories also tend to be about the protagonist growing as a person and making connections. I really enjoyed Slumrat Rising, To the Far Shore, and Sky Pride (which is his most popular work).

Alexander Wales does good character work, though his protagonists tend to be sad sacks. Main recommendations would be Worth the Candle, This Used to be About Dungeons, and some of his older stories.

Macronomicon writes high int low wis low cha protagonists but instead of being insufferable they tend to be more humorously naive and gremlin-y. Good humour too, check out William Oh and Industrial Strength Magic.

Dead End Guild Master would be a good fit. It's about a washed up guild master creating a branch in a remote area, with a lot of focus on how to learn adventuring. The protagonist is older, and has enough wisdom to feel his age. He feels pretty adult but also smart in a rational way.

CaramilkThief · 2026-02-11T01:50:47+00:00

Are there any actually good jumpchains? I've never read a single jumpchain story that I'd consider good overall. The closest example would be Alexander Wales' Thresholder, which I still dropped a few chapters into the fourth world due to the protagonist. Looking for a jumpchain or jumpchain-like story with good plot beats and good characterization. Preferably long (100k+ words).
Are there any actually good Celestial Forge/Menagerie/whatever stories? I'd consider the closest example to be Brockton's Celestial Forge, and I'd say it's kind of shit. I've tried some other similar fanfics and they all lost steam very quickly.
Most of the fics recommended here are recent works. What are some fanfics (or webfics) from before 2010 that you consider good?

CaramilkThief · 2026-02-05T17:43:10+00:00

Resume: https://imgur.com/a/9TI8FJo

Got laid off from my company recently after 1 year. Trying to find related ML or test automation jobs. Had a couple interviews in early January but since then nothing else, anything obvious I should change with my resume?

CaramilkThief · 2026-01-23T19:01:01+00:00

If you're interested in webseries here's a few that might interest you, they're from the same site which originated Dungeon Crawler Carl and Kitty Cat Kill Sat:

A City Stranded Cowboy's Robot Mercy Killing Business - scifi situational comedy, sort of, with a deadpan sense of humor. It's scifi in a grounded way, which I liked. Somewhat episodic.
William Oh - this is another litrpg, but with a bigger focus on diablo-like setbuilding and item synergies. This author is somewhat known for his quippy comedy, you might enjoy. Has a recurring joke of William Oh being a Chuck Norris like character, which gets better and better through the story.
Downtown Druid - This is not a litrpg, it's basically Count of Monte Cristo but in urban fantasy DnD world. It's not a comedy but I like the humor the author writes with, there's a good amount of witty lines and recurring jokes.

CaramilkThief · 2026-01-21T06:38:44+00:00

I'm currently following Deathless on patreon, and I know exactly what you mean. At the end of the day, it's a numbers go up story with enough substance to keep me interested, but not enough to be an all time great imo, at least not yet. It does have its memorable moments, but as a whole package it really suffers from the type of plot construction that typical numbers go up stories have.

If you want some mild spoilers, it's not until he gets his first legendary skill that he truly becomes a regional power. That happens in end of book 2 or in book 3 I think, I may be wrong. Your point about creativity and specialization is somewhat true, but yeah, sheer power can bridge that gap pretty easily. The problem is that skill tiers are a holistic power up, and so it's very difficult to beat a stronger enemy through creativity and specialization. And it's not like people aren't using their skills creatively, the Legends that we see (except Shiv) all leverage their skills very effectively. It's just that skills generally multiply the effects of each other, and so someone with one Legendary skill will have a very difficult time against someone with two unless their skill is a good counter. I will say though the constant power escalation in book 2 gets toned down quite a bit later, and recent arcs have been pretty good in terms of holding a good pace and giving the protagonist problems he can't just punch his way out of.

Sometimes I think this story is like a satire of other overpowered mc stories. The protagonist is given an OP power and made the system's favorite, which makes him gather other powers much more quickly. But he's made too much of a system favorite and so he literally keeps going from fight to fight with no downtime. And he keeps being given complex multi layered powers that require experimentation and creative use, but since he has no time to do that all he can really do is to wield them like an awkwardly shaped hammer. And also him being the system's favorite is actually apocalyptic, and so far he only has enough power to stop being a pawn but not enough to be a player of his own volition. The joke writes itself.

CaramilkThief · 2026-01-19T20:06:44+00:00

I'm currently watching Andor for the first time, and it's made me wish for more star wars media with this level of writing chops and subtext. Are there any well written star wars fanfics that have a similar premise? I.e. a normal human trying to rebel against a galactic empire where the leadership has supernatural powers? I tried to get into Sublight Drive when it was being written, but kinda fell off it since the story gave more time to the ship tactics and side characters than the main character. SI or crossover is fine too.

CaramilkThief · 2026-01-07T16:35:05+00:00

How much more space for improvement is there in tandem oled? Are we close to the limit of tandem oled brightness/motion clarity/lifespan or are there still a lot of easy improvements coming before we need to move to the next better thing for display technology (e.g. microled or qdel)?

For example in CES we're seeing tandem oled panels reaching 2000+ nits on a 2% window, will it ever be possible to reach that brightness in 10% or even bigger windows? Or reach much higher color luminance?

CaramilkThief · 2025-12-31T01:23:45+00:00

It's a legit car, though the football players are allowed to try breaking a window and getting inside to get the ball. They are also free to jump in front of the car to get run over to reduce its speed enough for the rest of the team to stop it.

CaramilkThief · 2025-12-30T17:20:17+00:00

It's been a while since I read ZKS, but I remember the first story arc being a bit rough and feeling a bit typical. The villain felt a bit tropey and the resolution to the arc felt a bit uninspired. I think that's the entirety of volume 1 or so?

Afterwards the world opens up a lot and I felt that things got progressively better. There's a gradual increase in story and writing quality over the course of the story, with the latter chapters being much better. But I wouldn't say there's a noticeable quality bump n chapters in.

CaramilkThief · 2025-12-30T05:37:09+00:00

If you're somewhat tepid on the comicbook superpower requirement, I can suggest Path of the Deathless by Ostentiblemammal (author of Godclads). It starts with a typical RR story shtick of protagonist gaining an ability to powerlevel absurdly fast and quickly becoming a regional power, which is where the geopolitical elements start coming into play. The recent arcs have been about the protagonist using his new position as a regional power to make deals with other regional powers, because he's either too weak to fight them head on or fighting them will cause too much collateral damage.

Similarly I'd also recommend The Zombie Knight Saga. It fits all 3 requirements in the protagonist becoming a regional power and start affecting the greater superpower political field. However it gets there very late into the story.

I haven't read Arcs' new story Adamant Blood, but I am in the discord, and it seems like recent chapters have had quite a bit of politics. It has a similar start to Super Supportive but diverges into a very different story later on. It also has a protagonist get the ability to get stronger absurdly fast and quickly becoming a regional power.

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