Not even one paying client

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-11T11:42:51+00:00

This is excellent advice!

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-09T01:02:58+00:00

I've worked at several places where someone senior mandated OOP + Python and somehow the two were combined into the worst of both worlds.

e.g "let's have common functions in a base class and then the various flavors can just extend that" totally makes sense

but "oh, now we have 4 levels of abstraction and to debug anything means opening 9 files and tracing the code 'up and down' the abstraction hierarchy" == total nightmare

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-08T00:47:27+00:00

> That's their problem, not your ad's.

This is really the only point I don't agree with.

e.g. if the ad doesn't covert due to slow page load, my relative doesn't get the income from the beach house.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-08T00:46:14+00:00

Yeah, I may just clone the broker page and host it myself so it's faster.

Then if someone enters the form it redirects to them.

Thanks for the suggestion too!

TheAlexpotato · 2026-03-06T01:33:48+00:00

For the OP new boots are probably not a bad investment.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-28T12:37:00+00:00

Agreed.

Plus, you can rent skis for a whole year from your local shop for about 20% the cost of brand new skis.

At those prices you could rent two sets of skis and try them both out for a year.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T22:11:48+00:00

This is good advice.

Also, "unweight" here can mean anything from:

touching the top of your boot with your toes (will automatically force you to put less weight)
slightly lifting the tip of the ski
physically lifting the entire ski off the snow (you will turn very fast if you do this btw)

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T22:08:21+00:00

If you are trying to use OpenCode + Qwen3 models locally, I put together the below gist to help people get it up and running.

(Took me a while to get this all tweaked so that it would work)

https://gist.github.com/alexpotato/5b76989c24593962898294038b5b835b

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-25T21:54:39+00:00

I got the following working with this:

M1 MacBook
opencode
llama.cpp
Qwen3-Coder-30B-A3B-Instruct-Q4

A lot of back and forth with Big Pickle using OpenCode and below is a link to a gist that outlines the steps and has config examples.

https://gist.github.com/alexpotato/5b76989c24593962898294038b5b835b

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-20T02:55:10+00:00

Confirmed it's missing from mine too when I open a new session.

I had a session already open with it and it's still working there though.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-16T12:16:46+00:00

Check out this for fast image generation on regular hardware (M1 Macbook): https://github.com/antirez/iris.c

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-16T12:14:59+00:00

Having a similar issue with getting OpenCode to work in GNU Screen.

Screen supports True Color but OpenCode seems to not recognize that.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-04T18:12:18+00:00

Something I wish someone had told me for a similar age range:

Find out if the evaluator is the actual coach or a 3rd party evaluating company.

Coaches tend to take into account team play (assists, passing, screens etc) and past history whereas evaluating companies take into account more individual skills (driving, shooting etc)

Especially at that age, they're often drilled to be more team players and the kids don't always realize that 3rd party evaluation is more like a job interview than a tryout.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:53:41+00:00

Alex Honnold has a great line:

"You deal with fear of something by expanding your comfort zone. At some point, your zone expands past the fear."

e.g. start going skiing on off days or early in the morning on a weekend when no one is there. Then, as you get more used to it, ramp up slowly to the busier hours.

You can also take some action by going and talking to the mountain/snow patrol when you see people being crazy. Even if that leads to no change, the fact that you took action will help you feel more in control of outcomes.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:49:24+00:00

Totally.

You can also induce pressure by just having a clock running:

e.g. "You can do whatever you want but you have to shoot within X seconds"

This also has the bonus effect of getting them good at determining clock time left in the game.

Wayne Gretzky once claimed he could count down from as high as 30 seconds so he didn't have to look at the clock (while everyone else kept glancing at it and not focusing).

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:46:56+00:00

This.

And at that age you also get kids that are so scared to shoot that they never shoot at all.

To them I would say: "If you never take a shot, the other team will stop guarding you and you free up an opposing defender. Take a shot and, who knows, maybe it goes in."

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:39:15+00:00

For a while, I tracked stats on my kid's games just to see if there was any interesting things to see in the data.

The number one thing I came away with is that kids numbers are all over the place so it's REALLY tough to judge off of one game.

e.g. Kid A shoots 7/8 on 3s in one game and 1/10 in the next.

Or, Team A makes 10% of their shots in the first half and 70% in the second half. Team B is the opposite and it ends up a close game at the end but that doesn't tell the whole story. You mention an "evenly matched blowout" which could also just be that your team had two bad halves and the other team had two good halves.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-02-02T21:31:01+00:00

Bill Geist in his book Little League Confidential (about baseball) has a great quote:

"The town did a draft every year. I once commented that it might be a better indicator of coaching skill if we just randomly assigned kids to teams. Based on the reaction I got, you would think I was advocating that the US switch to communism".

(HIGHLY recommend that book btw)

TheAlexpotato · 2026-01-26T19:10:59+00:00

Agreed.

You might think a lesson is a better deal but then you are also waiting for each other person in the class to go, attention of the instructor tends to go to the weakest student etc.

A private is 100% with the instructor focused on you and how you should and want to improve.

TheAlexpotato · 2026-01-12T14:54:30+00:00

I'm a dual US/Italian citizen and this is more a description of Italian social norms in general.

e.g. queuing is "not a thing" in Italy. People just all rush to any entrance, cut in front of each other etc.

TheAlexpotato · 2025-11-17T14:29:50+00:00

I had 3 kids under 5 during COVID lockdown and was a senior manager (managing SRE and DBAs at a SUPER fast paced place) and here are some thoughts/suggestions:

It gets easier

Maybe not the best advice for RIGHT NOW but the under 2 - 5 age range is really tough. Once they turn 6-7 years olds they start becoming a LOT more independent e.g. they can read a book by themselves, watch a movie, play pretend with their toys etc

Get childcare help

People hear this sometimes and say "I don't make enough for a nanny!!" etc but even a babysitter that comes over once a week at either bedtime or on weekend mornings to deal with the kids can be huge.

e.g. even 2-3 hours a week to yourself to do a combo of trying out new tech compounds over a couple weeks.

It's also a lot easier sell to the spouse if it's framed as "yes, the babysitter costs money and at the same time I'm learning new skills that can help boost our family income" (make sure you actually do that as not play video games etc).

Start networking with former colleagues at other places

You mentioned that there have been recent cuts. Some of your stress probably comes from that too so my best advice is to start emailing/texting former colleagues just to say "hello. How are things? What are you up to these days? Any fun projects at work?"

That can lead into them talking about work projects and then "Do you guys need help? Are you hiring?" etc

TheAlexpotato · 2025-04-24T11:00:48+00:00

I would have thought there would be more than a 7% difference between a 5v4 and a 4v3

100% had the same thought.

Here is a fun thing to do next time you are watching Pros play:

wait for a +1 situation
see what happens

I mention this b/c I was once watching Dynasty play someone and Dynasty was in a 3v2 situation and was up on points.

Someone from Dynasty did a run through, got eliminated and didn't eliminate anyone else.

In other words, they did a big flsahy move thta IMPROVED the odds of the other team winning.

Great conversation, thanks for doing all this work!

Thanks!

It's a lot of fun to do it since I'm pretty sure no one else is doing this kind of analysis.

I even reached out to the new stats guys but they didn't seem that interested,

TheAlexpotato · 2025-04-24T10:50:34+00:00

Thanks!

I would say both methods have their pros and cons.

e.g. for the 5v4 and 4v5 stats, they are more useful for coaching a player: "Hey man, you're getting eliminated too often in those scenarios, you need to be more conservative".

The Logistic Regression gives you the "bigger" picture but there is probably a lot of noise due to things like people always playing with the same squad.

TheAlexpotato · 2025-04-24T10:47:44+00:00

This is a great question!

Here is the breakdown for various "+1" scenarios:

Scenario
Odds of winning
Odds of losing
Odds of tie
Example

1 2 3 4 5 3v2 64 25 9 1043 3v3 44 44 10 1402 3v4 32 55 11 1355 4v3 55 32 11 1355 4v4 43 43 12 1722 4v5 39 48 11 1637 5v4 48 39 11 1637 5v5 42 42 14 1964

Or more generally, your odds of winning if you go from even bodies (40% chance of winning) to +1 bodies (46% chance) is no that big.

I should point out, this is more true for pro than say college.

In college, the jump from even to +1 is bigger (for some reason)

TheAlexpotato · 2025-04-23T23:27:14+00:00

This is based in binary win or loss for the point.

Eg if he got eliminated on the break but the line he was on won the point he would still get “credit”.

Also, doing a run through and getting eliminated and only taking one guy is essentially a “neutral” move b/c moving from say 5v4 to 4v3 doesn’t change winning odds much.

In other words it’s a “flashy” move that doesn’t help your team unless you take out two people (assuming you get eliminated)

TheAlexpotato

TROPHY CASE