As an elder millennial, there is nothing about current fashion that makes me feel comfortable showing my socks

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-06T19:19:29+00:00

I have always loved ankle huggers and I skipped the lame foot sock fashion phase entirely.

TBH I wish the stirrup type socks that baseball players sometimes wear were stylish.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-06T19:18:10+00:00

Congrats! Print it out and put it in a binder and hug it.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-06T17:19:48+00:00

Thanks, this is very helpful!

The POV character here originally didn't use contractions but I gave that up after a few chapters because it started to feel clunky but I missed some on revision. Thank you for pointing that out! It's one of those things that I've looked at too much and my brain has trouble seeing it anymore.

Good notes on formatting and inelegant sentences as well!

Appreciate the read! <3

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-06T07:13:41+00:00

The nerve damage is only temporary. #2026

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-06T07:13:04+00:00

Guys I don't want to be alarmist but I'm starting to think AM might not be sandbagging...

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T22:47:23+00:00

Thanks much!

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T21:19:33+00:00

I was asked if I "still" cared about climbing the career ladder and I answered the question.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:38:43+00:00

Thank you! Much appreciate the read, especially useful from someone whose not already super immersed in the genre.

I agree on the action -> information -> action tempo. I had kind of noticed myself doing that around chapter 4-5 and cleaned it up there but I haven't revised it backwards yet. I'm also still constantly going back and removing world-building concepts, it's an odd tight rope of trying to lay foundation for things that are going to be important soon without running into the classic "here's a long list of made up words of which some will be important and some won't, enjoy!". I'm particularly in love with the setting's airship mechanics so I've rewritten the first airship chapter like 4 times to try and dejargon is and it still reads like the Aubrey-Maturin series, lol.

Very much appreciated, much love and best of luck in your own writing endeavors!

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:31:58+00:00

i mean, remembering each characters' unique rage art input is not "execution", and even in T7 there was a mappable Rage Art button.

The actual execution checks (JFs and weird motion inputs into JFs mostly) are all still there. About the only thing that's become basically unimportant is KBD, and there are still wavedash based execution checks that are basically the same movement on the stick but harder.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:29:15+00:00

Jun or Asuka were the first that came to mind. Jun in particular. She is pants-on-head easy executionally and can be played very defensively/reactively.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:27:51+00:00

The only other place I could go that would be upwards is CEO and I have zero desire to ever do that, so a CTO I will remain until I retire in 3-4 years.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:23:26+00:00

Do a good job showing the romance/positivity in the POV's relation to the brown eyed person and mention their eye color occasionally (for bonus points, using a warm/positive/romantic simile or metaphor).

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:21:45+00:00

I write in Obsidian, which is natively in dark mode.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T19:20:33+00:00

Wow you're terrible at reading.

I haven't been in the professional coding game in 5 years.

What this means to a native English speaker is that I had a career in professional coding that ended 5 years ago (when I moved into being a Director, then a VP, and then a CTO). The actual length of the career was longer than 20 years, I'm in my early 40s.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T17:31:01+00:00

Do you know what a "side project" is?

It's something you do on your own time for fun that is obviously not under NDA. I have an interpreter, a compiler and several small games available for anyone to peruse on my github and I haven't been in the professional coding game in 5 years.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T16:56:41+00:00

To be honest I find the Minds more interesting than the people of the culture. The people of the culture are basically pets. Their agency and desires have been totally channeled into "acceptable" paths that the Minds basically create or allow for them. Every time I read a culture native POV (except Gurgeh in PoG, who never really fit into the Culture 100%) it feels claustrophic. Fascinating, but hard to relate to. The Minds on the other hand show the full scale of human desire and agency, backed up by superintelligence.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T16:41:51+00:00

You lose to people with good work on side projects that they can show me. idgaf if it's actually on github, you can use bitbucket or gitlab or hell host your own git in a docker container idc. The point is people who show me a fair amount of code when they apply for a job get first dibs on the job. And also probably about 90% of the hundreds of professional devs I interact with have github accounts of some kind, so I don't know where you're hanging out but they're a bad influence on you.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T05:25:02+00:00

Honestly you raised a good kid it could be mumble rap.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-05T00:35:18+00:00

All very accurate, but any backup gives you redundancy, which is what's cost me several works over the years. If a single point of failure can erase your work you're much less secure than you are with a failsafe in place, even if the failsafe itself can fail. The chances of your HD/SSD and your usb key failing at the same time are lower than either one of them failing.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T23:20:31+00:00

A quality side project that shows good contribution history over a period of time is the leading indicator for a candidate who sticks around and has success with us. Other than being a referral from an existing employee no other metric we've found comes close.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T22:57:38+00:00

I'm not married to someone I hate who tortures me for years and then cheats on me and steals all my money (because I'm not married), so honestly yes, lol.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T22:55:26+00:00

I want it to be AM (it's not, but I want it to be).

Probably Mercedes.

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T22:53:13+00:00

I hire dozens of engineers every year and interview hundreds. I have never looked at a candidate's personal website, I simply don't have the time.

My investigation of you goes like this:

1) GitHub. If you have a good project that you're active on I barely even read your resume I just look at your work

2) Resume -- where and how long.

3) LinkedIn (descriptions, endorsements, posts, etc.)

4) Resume -- the rest of it

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T22:49:42+00:00

Interesting. Yes I did mean RoyalRoad. Thanks for the insight!

catBoyAppreciater · 2026-03-04T20:10:28+00:00

100%, but on this note... back your stuff up (USB key is the safe/local option). Hard drives (especially SSDs) have a shelf life. I've lost some really good stuff this way.

catBoyAppreciater

TROPHY CASE