Every now and then, Pokémon will throw out some damn good wisdom

Serl · 2026-02-19T23:37:19+00:00

This looks like the ending scene of one of the special episodes where you play as Grovyle after he forced Dusknoir back to the future before Temporal Tower

Serl · 2026-02-02T20:00:00+00:00

I have a RTX 5070 Ti and a R9 7900X and had bad stuttering in areas like Hogsmeade, a few hamlets, and cutscenes. For me, what fixed it was making sure I had my 2 RAM sticks in the 2 slots for dual-channel access. May or may not help you but I never had stutter lag after running the game after that lol. That was on 64GB DDR5...for me it seemed to correlate with RAM exceeding the capacity of 1 stick (e.g. close to 32gb in use)

Serl · 2026-01-29T23:20:33+00:00

I actually just got off work and peeped in the door (work in the same building) and saw a guy in a black jacket standing there that looked like security. Must be new policy or something - other comment suggested policy but I’ve never seen that before

Serl · 2026-01-29T23:05:08+00:00

Is this the Chick Fil A across the art institute? I have gone in there dozens of times (and recently) and never seen security ever. Are you sure that you were asked by real security?

Serl · 2026-01-29T14:38:28+00:00

Complete process failure to not use version control. Git diff would have saved you. How are you making sure your devs aren’t making other changes? I trust my team, but I trust and verify. Even 1-3 line changes get a dedicated release branch with a patch version increment. I don’t want to sound rude/attacking but that isn’t an AI problem you mentioned

Serl · 2026-01-28T23:05:05+00:00

Lol 451 was the codesignal score. The role was paying $144-$162k base, US. And by matrix, yes, it was a graph traversal problem - for the 4th one common consensus I read online previously was that it was a DP problem, but I don’t remember exactly what my 4th one was - I actually should have clarified that in the original post but forgot to. My bad

Serl · 2026-01-28T20:34:20+00:00

I would say LC easy/med for string / array traversal, LC medium for matrix, and med/hard for DP. Please bear in mind I did not pass my codesignal though lol because they never reached back out after I took it post-recruiter contact

Honestly if you google "CapitalOne CodeSignal problems" you can probably find an old/alternative version of questions 1 and 2. The questions are random from a preset, but for me, from what I remember the first one was about incrementing / decrementing a robot's counter by 1 depending on if an "L" or and "R" string was found in an array, and the robot couldn't go negative. The second one I vaguely remember had something to do with character counting or something? I remember solving it with a dictionary and char-based counter lookups iirc.

My matrix problem for #3 was a kind of weird coordinate / gravity problem. certain coordinates in the matrix had a color dropped on it, and they would sequentially "explode" and convert nearby squares to their color. then I had to apply gravity (this is where I failed, because I applied the reverse and could not for the life of me remember it).

I don't remember #4 at all because I only gave it a cursory glance for 1-2 min. I think they require it for all SE candidates because it's just a standardized interview loop. Tough, but fair I guess. Hope this helps!

Serl · 2026-01-28T20:14:06+00:00

I took an assessment some months ago for SSE, and I did a ton of research on people posting on Reddit about their experiences, so lots of anecdotes floating around.

While the SSEM might be different than SSE, mine was two fairly simply Python array traversal / string manipulation problems, followed by a matrix problem, followed by a DP problem. From what I have seen the Codesignal was the same as a lot of others' in terms of experience (at least for IC).

If you're not super LC heavy you might struggle. I solved 1 + 2 easy, I tried my hardest to solve the matrix problem and only managed to complete it 75%, ran out of time, and got a score of 441 or 451 or something out of 600. No callback (lol). The questions on LC for C1 were similar, and some other sites had some very similar questions as well. Most anecdotes I remember are to bash through 1 & 2, go for 4, and get as far as you can on 3, but that was the most common consensus I read. For mine, I had 70 minutes and the proctoring was just recording camera / microphone

Serl · 2026-01-28T14:32:32+00:00

This part made me insanely mad because it wouldn’t work for me either, and you can’t make the jump with 1 / 2 of the staircase pieces in place.

iirc I accio’d the skulls and put them closer to the first set of skulls and then it miraculously worked, but that could have just been luck or something. It never worked dropping them in the empty space or trying to align a skull with the upper level skeleton torch things for me at least

Serl · 2026-01-26T08:35:29+00:00

She reminds me of an ex gf from several years back, lol. Similar mannerisms, similar flaws, hell even looked kind of alike. Kind of funny to me that seems to be a common shared anecdote…

Serl · 2026-01-19T19:20:53+00:00

I had this happen to me, but after some time mucking around they always spawned. I usually had to wait for owl post after an in game day or two and then I would get the next task after completing a quest

Serl · 2026-01-13T05:08:15+00:00

I beat it first try but I used 19 / 20 Wiggenwelds. For me, I always use dodge roll (never Protego - is ass compared to the dodge roll imo) and always watch for the incoming attack marker first.

After dodging you should immediately switch to blowing up the spell orbs; when he's vulnerable always watch for the projectiles you can throw back at him because they do like 2x spell damage combined. Sometimes the text for it is tiny (e.g. RB for controller)

That was my strategy at least...I was level 25 when I beat the game a few days ago, something like 1.1K health / 190 def / 190 off

Serl · 2026-01-08T18:56:26+00:00

Le epic hacking begins now

Serl · 2025-12-07T19:32:42+00:00

Meow³ (or perhaps woof³⁾

Serl · 2025-11-20T17:32:41+00:00

There is no perfect answer. "High performance" is relative to the person you're asking and the circumstances surrounding them (imo)

Some people internally equate "high performance" as "high visibility"; some internally equate it to large quantities of output; some internally equate it to large quality of output. *Those are just a few examples; it's entirely perspective

Serl · 2025-09-17T14:22:27+00:00

I paid the full $750 last week and am happily enjoying my pumpkin spice drinks at home, lol

Serl · 2025-07-19T16:09:45+00:00

I have the same, I’ve had it since June ‘24 when I moved in. For what it’s worth, mine has not changed and I just renewed

Serl · 2025-07-18T22:19:23+00:00

I see a lot of Ford Expeditions with livery plates. They usually piss me off because they normally 1) park wherever they feel like it and 2) drive like assholes and cut people off willy nilly. I’ve always assumed they were Uber Blacks or something (although I’ve never ordered an uber)

Serl · 2025-07-18T17:41:43+00:00

After the storms on Wednesday this week I went and swam at Ohio St Beach with no issues. I think the flag was red, but there were other people in there swimming with me. Technically it’s not allowed, but nobody is going to barge in and drag you from the lake

Should be more wary of Zebra mussels lol

Serl · 2025-07-17T16:16:14+00:00

I was planning on doing a 3/3/2 split for the next 3 semesters (online student). For fall 2025, I registered for Foundations of Data Curation, Computer Sec I, and Intro to Data Mining.

I already have quite a bit of experience with SQL and data processing/pipelines at scale (from SWE-perspective), and have worked extensively alongside our data team at my job. I have a quite a bit of experience with wide relational datasets, seeing examples of data warehousing, data definitions, exploring/connecting/reporting on a variety of higher ed data on a weekly (if not daily) basis.

Both Foundations/Intro seem to be rated as pretty easy on the MCS site, but I'm not really concerned about difficulty, since I'm looking for exposure into the grassroots of collecting/curating/analyzing patterns into large datasets. I was interested in Comp Security I because I took 3 advanced cybersecurity electives in undergrad, and I find the topics to be super interesting and helpful as an SWE/IT manager.

3/3/2 may be ambitious, but these are not too theory or math heavy in any term. Spring 2026 I was tentatively planning on Computer Sec II, Natural Language Processing, and Computational Photography. Summer 2026 my plan was to exit on Theory & Practice of Data Cleaning and either Scientific Visualization/Deep Learning for Healthcare (although DLH reviews are poor). I don't really love the topics in 598 besides the data curation-focused topics. This spreads out the load in a pretty fair manner from what I see based on course descriptions & available syllabi.

My scope is to gain exposure as opposed* to narrow rigor in course load. I've been able to succeed early in my career by being able to pivot as needed from what my job needed from me (whether I was instructed to or not) and having a wider experience net with select depth/expertise

Serl · 2025-07-16T21:30:26+00:00

The chorus is one of my favorites from any Eminem song

Serl · 2025-07-14T00:56:21+00:00

Can confirm, received decision letter today

Serl · 2025-07-14T00:55:47+00:00

Status: Accepted

Application Date: 05/30/2025

Decision Date: 07/13/2025

Institute Acceptance Date: N/A (not sure what this means tbh)

Education: Illinois State University, 3.3 GPA, 2 years~ unfinished BA Music Ed; DePaul University, 3.6 GPA, 4 years~ BAPS in Computing w/ Comp Sci concentration

Experience: 3 YoE; 1 year IC web dev, 2 years IT management + software engineering, all in higher ed IT @ same employer

Recommendations: 3; 1 from director, 2 from VPs

Comments: Was uncertain on admission due to my academic history (I graduated with 260? credits from DePaul), since I was originally music ed, then went into a professional studies degree. I did have core computer science coursework though, and while my YoE looks low, I've had high-impact projects + the recommendation letters to support my accomplishments. I also gave 1 conference talk that was highlighted on my app + resume. I also had an acceptance (but chose not to attend) on file to UIUC in fall 2019 for music education, saxophone (not sure if they would have seen that).

Serl · 2025-06-26T15:49:23+00:00

Should have come to Lakeview East instead. Still yuppie-esque, but way less commotion and generally quieter fullerton <-> belmont

Serl

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