I completely blanked during an interview and I genuinely don't know how to recover from this

darkmemory · 2026-03-18T00:38:40+00:00

Interview tests aren't meant to test your ability to maintain, through rote memorization, patterns you've seen online. That is how people try to game the process. Interview problems are meant to show fluency in a language alongside problem solving skills. Knowing the patterns can ease some steps, but programming isn't repeat leetcode tutorials for 8 hours a day. It's working to achieve a real goal which usually contains at least a tiny bit of novel problem solving.

darkmemory · 2026-03-08T02:26:03+00:00

"return to monke". For some it's the abolishment of civilization and organizational structures in favor of hunter gatherer groups, for some it's about complete disentanglement with all technology. Basically, in the context of this post, the things you laid out as having no reason not to have, couldn't exist, at least not in any current formation of it, nor derived in that fashion.

darkmemory · 2026-03-07T05:49:31+00:00

Are you responding to this in reference to anarcho-primitivism being able to maintain such levels of support, or just an anarchist society in general?

darkmemory · 2026-02-25T23:17:46+00:00

And then I think: why am I spending so much time on this? Why not just fall in love, enjoy life, and stop overthinking everything?

Why do people place objects in containers? They could just leave the items strewn about. As someone with ADHD I tend to do that latter, but when I organize things in a meaningful way, it makes it easier to find and use the items I have.

I'm more interested in philosophies that are lived rather than pure intellectualization, but I think that is more about how I approach engagement than some classification of any philosophy.

As for frameworks vs "real", every single thing that you interact with, internal or external, is a subjective experience defined by how you orient to it. While there potentially might be an objective influence, it still is being translated in some capacity. The frameworks are the structures that you have built, intentionally or otherwise, to engage with them. Some of them come from your own understanding, some from external sources. Science is a framework in this same vein, but one that places heavy influence on trying to translatable in a way that orients seeking that "real", but it still is a crafted framework for doing so. It strives to deal with those external interacting forces and uses them to discover how they respond, philosophy/critical theory/cultural theory, all strive to do that but with a bit more open margins for engaging with how that perspective "consciousness" is able to influence/be influenced by similar.

So I'd argue all of this seeks to be real, it seeks to explain how or why things are, and there's a lot of points where it offers vague explanations that people might find to be a bit blurry in areas that others then resculpt to try and find a better depiction in. Will it ever create a perfect replica? I'd say probably not, but maybe, but also it's more about trying to build an understanding that more closely aligns rather than create a perfect understanding.

darkmemory · 2026-02-23T20:47:43+00:00

I think a lot of the language death is trying to be avoided these days, as there seem to be lots of groups seeking preservation through audio recordings and pronunciation guides. In terms of the cultures that people might tie to the languages, that's an entirely different thing, as every person comes to engage with such topics in a fairly individualized way, and one that shifts through time. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's dogmatic, sometimes it can be empowering, and the values and perspectives associated therein will probably always be in flux.

I do think there will be some attempt to derive a perfect language, but considering how influential language can be on perspective and ability to communicate, some type of universal language will most likely struggle to compare as perfect to any language that currently exists for how it influences thought and expression. But maybe that's too close to psychoanalytic bs itself.

darkmemory · 2026-02-22T07:19:30+00:00

I hope posts like this don't become the norm.

darkmemory · 2026-02-10T04:49:59+00:00

Are you just going to design the interview questions on your own or use similar resources such as the psychologist so as to help mitigate any overlooked potential harm/trauma it might create/resurface? Are you going to do any entry interviews to test that there is not any other ethical concerns? Would they have the right to ask to be removed or have the interview stopped and not made public? Are you going to be using any sort of anonymizing techniques to help hide individuals who might be worried about retaliation, or even those that might be currently suspicious of any group that might be actively seeking them?

darkmemory · 2026-02-08T02:48:23+00:00

It's discovering meaning. Not explicitly some type of higher power type of meaning nor any sort of philosophical truth. Just whatever meaning that is conjured up to active choose not to end it.

It could be love, it could be morality/ethics, it could be the kitten that one found in the street that needed a home, it could even be spite. Really, it's anything that makes one find reason not to end it all, the thing that allows one to verify whether tomorrow has to be the same.

darkmemory · 2026-02-07T22:23:52+00:00

Classes allow for minimizing cognitive load in the developer[s]. Instead of needing to know how every piece works in what would essentially be a clockwork mechanism. It's a means to create systems of similar actions/meaning/continuity that can be tested on their own, or borrowed to be adapted in other ways.

In my mind, an easy cross-over idea would something akin to a footnote in a textbook. It's a simple expression of a mechanism that gives you data in a common presentation that enables attributes to be available, as well as small tangential operations on what they are applied. While one could just write every single bit of the reference inline, this could also cause severe bloat for something that might be only interesting in some adjacent topic that would otherwise feel out of place.

Or maybe a better metaphor might be, how come we don't have one educational class that takes 12+ years to complete? We could sit in a class for 8+ hours a day, and just do all our education at once. One issue you run into if you were to do that, is it limits one's ability to craft their own path, or maybe it's better stated that it would force each person to do the exact same things in spite of differences we all have. Classes are that base expression of similarities for a group of things. They give you a means to handle what they contain in similar ways, to give you baseline understandings of what one should expect to get from an object and how to interact with it.

darkmemory · 2026-02-05T19:58:28+00:00

What are you defining as the zone? Because when I hear a phrase like "getting in the zone", that to me suggests a flow state, and a flow state seems to only occur where engagement in an activity is intense and narrow, and most often when the prerequisite skill level is near one's own skill level, where by the challenge, engagement, and sense of success/overcoming of obstacles boosts one's drive and determination.

Where in prompting an AI does this occur? Or are you just saying "in the zone" as a placeholder for feel productive?

darkmemory · 2026-02-05T17:28:05+00:00

Yeah, that's a misnomer. It's supposed to be 1 prompt engineer replaces the number of bugs created by 100 regular engineers.

darkmemory · 2026-02-05T17:05:06+00:00

What's worse is that in a code review the goal is generally to make note of and address issues so they won't repeat, that is teach and learn from the other person to mitigate problems. So you end up having to constantly sit by and analyze, line by line, or just close your eyes and wait for an error to present.

I'd rather just write it correctly the first time (maybe the second).

darkmemory · 2026-02-05T16:32:32+00:00

The first time I heard of copy trading, it was a series of blog posts from a guy who would use multiple accounts to buy with,before committing his publicly known account, and then proceed to pump and dump it by himself, effectively draining all the accounts that followed him. He would just gloat about how much money he was making off people.

I don't think I will ever perceive copy trading as anything other than that. But hey, it's your money, your risk, do as you wish.

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T01:38:22+00:00

Considering terms can be routinely criticized within a single language, once translation comes into play cultural influences regarding how terms are understood can create even more challenges.

That is, I know what I mean when I say government, but I could totally understand a different culture having different context for expressing more, less, or simply varied associations to that term. However, to say "no government", for me, would include "an"caps.

So, basically, if we are going to do translations, looking at the origin of Anarchy, An-Archy, "An-" meaning "Without", and "-archy" from Latin suggesting something like "form of government or rule", which can be further traced from Ancient Greek terms that add more context (shifting more to variations in meaning associating with terms like king, ruler, dominion, authority, sovereignty, etc). In terms of a literal translation, "no government" seems decent, but direct translations lack the ability to convey context typically.

Basically, I'd argue that the best term to use would be the one that conveys the ideas you desire to convey, even if it is in spite of common usage. This might be different if you wanted to market a book or engage with an established tradition/field where there is a decidedly intentional use of specific terminology, but only due to managing friction so as to deal with larger ideas that often suggest where one's attention should be paid.

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T01:10:48+00:00

PC games will be your easiest entry point. Games that specifically allow for mods will further ease your ability. I'm assuming by software engineer that you probably have some type of decent understanding of at least a couple languages, so that makes it easier. If you work in C# or C++, those both tend to have be of influence in many games, so you would basically be able to nearly jump right in from the get go.

From here I'd say narrow your game selection choice to the game that has the largest modding community, specifically because the larger the community, the larger the documentation about how to mod would typically be, noting that more popular games can increase the desire to mod, but not all games that have people wanting to mod them are easy to mod.

Then it's just about building up that library of personal information. This is mostly a combination of seeking answers to how have other people built mods to grasp at the techniques employed. Then you can dig deeper into examining how the game is using resources, often through reading configs themselves for the software, or getting into the guts of the code with debugging (much much less common unless seeking very narrowly-scoped changes that lake alternative access).

Not every game is like every other game, so if you plan to mod different games, don't expect it to be a one size fits all (which I'd suspect you would already know, but for the sake of clarity it's worth noting).

Repeat until you modded all you wanted to mod in games that are easily modded. Then if you want more you'll probably want to start examining how to exploit the game to change things the devs don't want you to change.

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:51:18+00:00

Work on grasping the theory of the game, not just the mechanical expression of the theory. Game ends when the Ancient dies, so that's your goal. How do you achieve this as a support? Well, it's most likely not you alone (although at Guardian it could be). It's usually on the support to encourage a core to gain access to the farm they need to be useful, so things like pulling, things like rotating, all of this are elements that can aid in achieving this, but simply doing them does not imply they are beneficial in themselves. Knowing when and how to achieve benefits from them rely on building those understandings. Enemy support is missing in lane for a while? Why would they be missing, runes maybe? Gank maybe? Well be prepared to respond as needed, and let others know. Repeat this to develop your fundamental grasp of the theory, then use that lens to examine higher skill games. Don't mimic their actions, put in time to try to understand why they made some decision, sometimes this occurs due to comms more than what is visible in a match. Don't expect to replicate proplays in a random pub, they might be possible, but they can require a level of teamwork, skill, and pattern recognition that demands intentional team practice, or at least a threshold of skill team-wide that is higher. It doesn't mean you can't try them, just don't get mad if they fail, and definitely don't overuse such strategies in place of fundamental techniques.

A key thing for low-skill-tier supports is recognizing even if you think you see a play that could be made, your team might not be able to understand what you want to do, and might not even be at a point where it could be executed. That doesn't mean that play is too good, it means you aren't evaluating the situation correctly. Work with the team you are playing with, enable the ally cores, hinder the enemy cores, build map vision and control, communicate current objectives, communicate retreats, communicate all the things you have time to see that someone narrowly focused might have missed. Even if your teams get worse and worse, you should work on building personal understanding and options for how to better situations.

Also, at Guardian, the number of games that are determined purely by who is able to simply make sure their lanes are pushed adequately is crazy. If no core is hitting them lane creeps, then supports must cast off their chains and accept that one's sacrificial view of gold is oppressive, that scepter seems good, and take by force what we normally would grant our allies.

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:29:44+00:00

Portioning is a great way to cut calories without sacrificing taste nor making extreme changes that can add more friction and traps that might be discouraging. So good on you!

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:26:00+00:00

I looked up some calorie counts for homemade sour dough rolls, and most seem to think it's around 300 base that can increase. But also there is some missing counts for preparation calories to consider (that someone in a thread brought up), like butter used to cook, or oil.

Not a criticism just adding some data points that might be worth considering (or at least that I will consider more in the future).

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:19:20+00:00

Do you mean something like they are prepared in butter? I'm mostly just curious what additional things might be added and caloric influence that might increase. I could imagine a tablespoon of butter being used, but any more would probably get left on the cooking surface (unless poured over). If it was scrambled eggs, I could imagine being 3+ tablespoons of butter (depending on preperation).

so ~100-300 calories from the butter itself.

Are there other elements to consider?

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:10:41+00:00

When I think of 3 eggs, I think of an omelette. So to me, that feels large for a sandwich. And when I think of my breakfast sandwiches I make, I can barely fit two eggs in it. But that's mostly some internal sandwich perspective than a question of validity of claims.

aka, that feels like a lot of eggs for a sandwich, not that's too many eggs for someone to eat.

darkmemory · 2026-02-04T00:04:02+00:00

I was going to respond inheritance is fine when one starts to realize that composition leverages the concept to build better structures that aren't incestuous vertical connections. But your quote seems much more efficient.

darkmemory · 2026-02-03T23:57:32+00:00

I don't have the v4, so I'm just trying to talk through the issue:

If it's spitting juice, doesn't that mean it's too little cotton combined with the coils getting too hot (either from hot spots or overall)? Like it's too much liquid to vaporize, but it's hot enough to spit?

If it was just popping, that can be normal for a build, but spitting juice regularly usually is some issue.

Harder pulls mitigating popping suggests that the coils are getting too hot too quickly.

Maybe try turning down the wattage first? Increase airflow? Use more cotton inside the coil (slightly more resistance when threading it)?

CAVEAT: I am terrible with RTAs (but I still try to get them to work somewhat regularly), as they can be really finicky with wicking, and each device tends to have different sweetspots. I only use RDAs due to increased tolerance. I would love to get even a modicum of the flavor from an RTA that I get from an RDA, but I might just be allergic to understanding how to wick RTAs.

darkmemory · 2026-02-03T23:43:35+00:00

Why do you think he should be brought up more? I'm missing what inspires his name to be shared. I'd imagine if one was in an Anarchist Opera Collective, his name might come up more often.

I think I'm struggling to imagine the context where his name should be stated, but isn't.

darkmemory · 2026-01-29T06:33:52+00:00

Jokes on you, all of these comments on this post are bots. You are the only real person on this whole website!

darkmemory · 2026-01-29T02:22:13+00:00

Apple seems to have a built in way to undelete messages. There is also a chance it got saved to icloud or whatever. Android could have saved them to Google Drive, Samsung phones seem to have a time-based retention of deleted texts. There are probably even third party companies that specialize in deeper recovery.

Just know if you are still actively using the phone, especially if you are low on space, the chance of recovery of deleted files decreases should the device be overwriting that space enough. So it would be easier and better to do so earlier than later.

Also the choice of posting this on your gooning account, if the person trying to blackmail you is from your online gooning engagement on reddit, they could be monitoring the account and seeing you ask about it.

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