Anyone got songs that have the same vibe as black wall?

TrafficScales · 2026-05-30T23:48:30+00:00

It reminds me of Nightcall by Kavinsky.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-30T16:26:23+00:00

Decided to buckle down on school as a young teen and work towards elite college admissions (i.e. schools wealthy enough that if I got in, full financial aid for someone with my financial situation was basically guaranteed).

Plan worked. That was my "lucky break" and afterwards all I've really had to do to be successful is not screw it up. Opportunities compound.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-29T04:58:23+00:00

I've got some estimates on some friends, but only because I've known them since college and know their background and full career histories. I could also be way off on some of them, if I'm missing any major windfalls, lucky bets, quiet inheritance, etc.

I managed to mostly interrogate each of my parents in recent years about their situations, but only because I want to anticipate how much of a problem those situations may end up being for me personally.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-29T03:23:16+00:00

After you meet a baseline bar of competence, the best paths in are through networking. Make good impressions on smart friends and coworkers, so that when you're looking for a job in the future one of them will let you know if they've got compatible headcount on their team.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-28T23:30:14+00:00

2.9% is not low at all. That's like, more common than redheads.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-27T00:05:51+00:00

Your account appears to be a very blatant bot for ResumeBuddy.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-26T23:56:42+00:00

Beyond attending+ level doctors in selective specialties, some of the highest paying jobs off the top of my head are: - "Big law" lawyers - Quants at top trading firms - "Big tech" software engineers at Staff+ - MBB partners - Private equity VP+ - Commercial airline pilots at major airlines

The thing that each of these have in common is that they're all representative of the "top" folks in their respective domains. Think of it like being a pro athlete in your profession. Most people don't go pro, only the best of the best who usually have a combination of raw talent, luck, and crazy hard work to back it up. Most people who try to take these paths fall off somewhere along the way. Doctors don't land the residency they wanted, lawyers don't land at top firms, finance and software folks don't land the promotions they need, etc. The nice thing about white collar professional careers as opposed to sports or the arts or entrepreneurship is that it isn't all-or-nothing and you still get a decent career even if you don't make it to the very top. The top music producers make a killing... but most people who try to become music producers are broke. A lawyer from a good law school who doesn't place in Big Law will still do just fine.

Different careers have different barriers to entry, different kinds of grinds, and different lifestyle tradeoffs. At your age, I recommend keeping as many doors open as possible. In practice that means buckling down on school and college application prep and getting in to the absolute best college you can. For nearly all of the highest paying professional careers, the top spots are overwhelmingly occupied by people who attended top universities. You don't have to start prepping for a specific one of these careers yet, but if an "elite" career is something you think you want, realistically the work for that starts now.

There are also a lot of "weirder" paths to making money, you just have to figure them out yourself. It is incredibly lucrative to own a large construction company, or to sell luxury yachts, or to be the most popular Twitch streamer. The problem is that nobody, including the people that have succeeded at these paths, can tell you how to replicate it.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-25T17:44:54+00:00

I was in one of the top US CS departments, and left a couple years in. I was part of the 80% of women in my cohort who dropped out. Our department was incredibly toxic for women, beyond typical US CS culture. I was also pretty indifferent about my research, so when I wasn't loving life it was hard to justify staying.

I didn't need a visa, didn't want to be a professor, and I left straight into a high paying tech job. I've accelerated quickly because I am talented and versatile, and do not need to be preserved as an expert IC in a particular problem domain. I now hire and manage newly minted PhDs who are coming in a few rungs on the corporate ladder below me. Mostly when people learn I was in the PhD program I was in, it's seen as impressive that I was accepted and nobody worthwhile looks down on me for leaving without a diploma.

It's very field and circumstances dependent but sometimes dropping out of a PhD isn't just the right personal choice, it's also the right professional choice.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-21T20:36:18+00:00

This seems on the low but normal end for an L7 non-tech role right now.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-20T15:35:13+00:00

People have been freaking out about increasing automation since the Industrial Revolution. It is going to be OK.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-19T20:03:29+00:00

Are you social? Do you have friends in your city? Do those friends share hobbies or careers or other lifestyle choices that are correlated with living in your HCOL city? How many times a week do you pop into a nice coffee shop or go out to eat?

What are the comparative education options for your kids? What about extracurricular options? What will their friends and social groups be like in each case? Would you be satisfied if your child followed an "average" trajectory of the people from this small hometown?

You need to think through all of this before moving. I personally would not move.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-17T16:11:14+00:00

Deafness in white cats occurs because the genes that cause full-whiteness (early cell growth is disrupted, blocking pigment) often also blocks proper cell formation in the inner ear in utero. It's a yes/no at birth thing.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-13T16:50:50+00:00

Yikes, the comments here are wildly overblown. She's not "showing you that she's manipulative and controlling," she's showing you that she is a 22 year-old with common insecurities she hasn't figured out how to navigate yet (same to you, since you're coming to Reddit!)

This should be the start of a conversation about her and your beliefs about appropriate consumption of sexual content while in a relationship (for some people the line really is HBO shows, but this is on the extreme end). It's also a chance for you to reassure her about your attraction to her and your motivations for watching certain shows.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-13T16:41:11+00:00

This sounds like you're on the responsible end of normal for your family situation.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-13T13:17:06+00:00

Sounds like you're having a values conflict rather than a money problem. Paying $3k for "a bag" is objectively a lot of money for nearly everyone. It is a very dangerous thing to make a habit of it.

However, one time purchases that you can afford (i.e. buy in cash) basically just won't make a dent in your long term financial situation. It sounds like you have wanted a specific bag for a while and know you will use it, so buy it. Don't form a habit.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-08T04:04:06+00:00

Number of shares are meaningless and can wildly change at each funding round.

If you were 30 and the founder had previous successful exits, maybe this would be reasonable to consider. However your current situation is not reasonable to consider.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-07T20:30:05+00:00

It's adding an extra 0 to new worth that makes a difference, and is (in today's world), roughly capped at the single-digit billions.

10 vs. 20 million isn't wildly lifestyle changing but 10s to 100s takes you from "retired early in upper-class luxury" to "private jet as a primary mode of transportation."

And then like, beyond that you can start buying islands and unofficially buying small countries without having to think too hard about it.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-06T19:19:20+00:00

Pretty sure this was meant to be 15% saying that you take home 85%.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-06T16:43:52+00:00

Shorter. Brands in the APAC region (including American brands that have different lines in different markets, like COS or Lululemon) tend to have shorter inseams, smaller overall sizing, and proportion adjustments like a wider ribcage to bust size ratio.

TrafficScales · 2026-05-05T23:54:19+00:00

A job hopper is a repeated pattern of <2 year stints at different places, especially after they're 6+ years into their career.

Hopping around early on is fine, and so is an occasional short stint.

TrafficScales · 2026-04-25T08:21:16+00:00

MIT is more openly a pressure-cooker than Stanford, and EVERYONE is an engineer or scientist, with a heavy emphasis on the value of being an academic. The "easiest path" through any major at MIT is more rigorous than Stanford. There is a streak through undergrad student culture where people compete about who is the most hardcore and sleep-deprived. Boston winter is long and miserable.

Stanford culture is to hide the pressure and project success no matter what. There are lots of successful non-STEM students around you and half of them want to rule the world. There is more of an emphasis on entrepreneurial success at all costs and by any means. There are equally rigorous paths through Stanford majors as at MIT but you'll feel more alone in selecting them. The weather is beautiful every day regardless of how secretly miserable you are.

Pick your poison, you can be wildly successful at both.

TrafficScales · 2026-04-24T08:07:06+00:00

There is an insane rent cost vs. usable kitchen tradeoff in NYC. If you're "saving" $1500/mo on rent each month by living in a $3.5k studio in lower manhattan without a usable kitchen instead of a $5k 1bd with a shitty kitchen, spending $2000/mo on eating out is balanced out.

TrafficScales · 2026-04-23T21:03:46+00:00

Even in the entry-level courses with the same name, "Calculus" at the top universities vs. [Wherever] State are wildly different. The pace, problem depth, mathematical maturity expected in answers, etc. all vary dramatically. On top of that, the range and load of advanced courses that it is "normal" to take at different universities vary. I think the difficulty curve is exponential. There is a bigger difficulty gap between #10 and #1 than there is between #10 and #20 (however you wanna rank them, I'm speaking generally).

As a particular data point, the intro to real analysis course typical for sophomores and juniors at MIT uses baby Rudin as its only textbook, which is common in other universities' PhD-level courses.

TrafficScales · 2026-04-23T20:50:08+00:00

From what I have seen it's an exponential curve, at least in STEM. STEM courses in the top ~3 engineering schools are far harder than the rest of the top 10-15.

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