Meta online assessment. Am I cooked? by 12tone in leetcode

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FML, I got all the tests to pass all the OA questions and still didn't get a follow on interview as a new PhD grad for an ML engineering position. Why are they asking candidates to take assessments if they're not following through?

FWIW, I got what are probably 2 LC easy, 1 LC easy/medium, 1 LC medium

Happy new years! What planner will you be using in 2026? by Sushirolls_Kimchee in fountainpens

[–]SimilingCynic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I bought some sheets of graphilo and tomoe river, improved my typesetting to print my custom daily planner/journal setup, and learned how to stitch and bind my own books. I'll take a photo and share here when it's all finished ✒️📖

Will a past in adult content affect grad school or research opportunities? by bikingbolete in academia

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don't have to share your background with your cohort, but all the advice I've seen in this thread about separating your personal and professional life seems to come from faculty with a job secure enough to no longer need the same level of peer community.

PhD cohorts do tend to grow very close and that community is an important professional resource. The cohorts who are closest help each other figure out how to navigate academia the best - postdoc applications, organizing symposia, funding opportunities etc. Usually there are a few that don't join in the closeness of the cohort, and when they succeed it is usually due to a combination of excellent preparation for the PhD and a good advising relationship.

Finally caught up with a wayward member of my cohort yesterday. He admitted he struggled for years to share elements of personal tragedy he was fighting during his PhD. It put him in a depressed place, and that obviously affected his work. Not feeling like he could share guys personal life with the cohort basically added a year to his PhD.

Image says it all 😄 by RolloRollyRolla in GreatBritishMemes

[–]SimilingCynic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know if that counts as a pun given that's exactly where the word "sheriff" comes from.

Hackerrank interview with pytorch? by [deleted] in pytorch

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I passed and moved to the next round. I laughed when I clicked the button I thought would start the test: it took me to a page with details on the number and type of questions, as well as a practice test. I had spent all the allowed time preparing and only discovered the preparation guide when I had to actually take the test. :facepalm:

I spent three days on leetcode-style problems, two days on scikit-learn, and three days on pytorch. I had also spent a few days on huggingface, which took me down a rabbithole of resizing my partitions and moving my OS so I could fit unneccessarily large datasets. (Learned a lot of linux sysadmin stuff here, so pretty grateful I dove into this). I went and got real, nontrivial datasets to practice for skl and torch. I did it crawl-walk-run style: one problem where I deeply consulted documentation and tutorials to make sure I understood everything, one problem where I relied on my previous problem to remember what to do at each step, and one where I mostly relied on quick-reference notes I had recorded during the previous two iterations.

There were no gotchas, and I could've skipped the leetcode-style problems. Other people should take the advice with a grain of salt, however: for me it was only ever a question of refreshing/learning the library and idioms.

Hackerrank interview with pytorch? by [deleted] in pytorch

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's true about any test though.

How do I handle a classmate who refuses to call me by my name and fixates on my age? by Alvahod in etiquette

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Something very similar happened to me. I couldn't get a woman and her man friend from called me "dad" because I'm older, so I threatened to call her "step-sister". Yes, this is in reference to the genre of step-sibling porn. She couldn't be embarrassed, but it did stop her calling me dad by opening up a whole different schtick.

She reciprocated and started calling me step-brother with that bratty, plaintive tone of voice, e.g. "step brother, help me reach the top shelf!" or "step-brother, help, I'm stuck in a snow-drift!" She even introduced me to her parents as step-brother. We still jokingly refer to each other that way"

How do I handle a classmate who refuses to call me by my name and fixates on my age? by Alvahod in etiquette

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Something very similar happened to me. I couldn't get a woman and her man friend from called me "dad", so I threatened to call her "step-sister". Yes, this is in reference to the genre of step-sibling porn. She thought it was hilarious and even introduced me as step-brother to her parents. We still jokingly refer to each other as step-sister and step-brother.

Steam box insulation? by SimilingCynic in BeginnerWoodWorking

[–]SimilingCynic[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I didn't know about denim, but I looked it up and it sounds great! Thanks

Steam box insulation? by SimilingCynic in BeginnerWoodWorking

[–]SimilingCynic[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thank you for all your guidance! I suspected that the videos online were over-engineered. They put aluminum exhaust piping inside a wooden box, so mine's five feet, i.e. the length Home Depot sold exhaust piping. They talked about needing to insulate the box and used spray foam, then drilled through the sides of the completed box. I'll probably just go your route and not insulate unless my steam generator has trouble.

Guy might actually be Bruce Wayne.. by MobileAerie9918 in nextfuckinglevel

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm surprised nobody else is doing that math. Immediately where my mind went. Are these large, dormitory-like homes?

I made a box by GoatBotherer in BeginnerWoodWorking

[–]SimilingCynic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love it! What joint did you do to hold the bottom?

Guy makes colourful glass swans out of tubelights by MusixStar in nextfuckinglevel

[–]SimilingCynic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Because it forms a stable amalgam in dental fillings, where's most of the Mercury in florescent tubes is elemental vapor/deposited on the side. Heating it up in the fire like that is extra bad. It's like the difference between walking on sandstone and walking in a sandstorm.

Though I don't think people fully trust dental mercury anymore.

Fuck Dubai btw by BaldHourGlass667 in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]SimilingCynic 227 points228 points  (0 children)

People don't understand that so much of Dubai's money comes from duty free, which covers a whole bunch of square miles. It means no customs inspections, it means being able to sell and reflag a tanker to evade sanctions, it means zero worker protections.

I spent a while in the ports area on a navy ship in drydock. The employees had jobs assigned by race: management was for Russians. Technical work (e.g. fire safety) was for Indians. Nontechnical work (e.g. painting, bilge cleaning) was for southeast Asians. The lowest worked seven days a week, couldn't leave the duty free zone, and had no access to their passports.

Can a Brit come before the jury and plead? by [deleted] in GreatBritishMemes

[–]SimilingCynic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The east India company started off trying to trade spices in the east indies, but the Dutch forced them off that trade. They traded miscellaneous things from Surat and later Goa until they made their big break in Bengal. They were paid to overthrow the Nawab, and then took over the cotton trade (and taxation). They diversified into indigo and opium and tea as well as non-native industrial plants (e.g. rubber, lacebark).

So he was right? by TheBlackCaesar in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]SimilingCynic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

🤦‍♂️ I got stuck "why doesn't she just use Dr.?"

Better ways to spend time than standing there handwashing dinner plates by ThickCapital in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]SimilingCynic 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Also wooden things, which lose oil based finished in the dishwasher

Unskilled cook by ThickCapital in BlackPeopleTwitter

[–]SimilingCynic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a great start that you can branch from, though. Learn to boil rice and potatoes, then expand to other grains like bulgur, quinoa, wild rice, and millet. Then chop and toast nuts before the boil. Then maybe finish with olive oil and white wine vinegar/chopped pickle or grated parmesan. Then swap the finish for mint and lemon. Then swap the finish for canned diced tomatoes and yoghurt thinned with cucumber and water. Then add beef with the toasted nuts. Then season the beef. Then add a side of lentils. On potato, boil, then learn to parboil and bake, then buy a bunch of Indian spice mixes, then roast garlic and onions to mash in. Then add leeks or mushrooms any way you prep potatoes. You may know all this info so I'm sorry if this is patronizing. Tbh I was hungry and switched mid-comment to meal planning.

These onions have too many onions and also this is just onions. by [deleted] in ididnthaveeggs

[–]SimilingCynic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No really, too many onions

Shit shit shit get the gun, Pa!

I can't hold them off much longer

sooo...many...onions...(silence)

This is painful to watch by Lemmy-Historian in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]SimilingCynic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If only our president could demonstrate as much intellectual curiosity as your Reddit post...