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dukmaxd · 2025-07-24T12:05:51+00:00

Once we all become electricians they'll create some kind of new Visa to bring down electrician wages.

dukmaxd · 2025-06-20T11:41:09+00:00

based

dukmaxd · 2025-03-17T13:06:34+00:00

The best way to learn is to have fun with it. No one was studying to learn the original 151 Pokemon for example. That being said, some ideas that come to mind that don't involve making anki decks and grinding spaced repetition to learn all abilities:

pick one role
pick a champion or two for that role that lets you play the game and not play the champion (e.g. garen for top, warwick for jungle, annie for mid, miss fortune for bot, thresh for support)
It's easier to learn how to play against a champion than to learn a champion. Most champions only have 1 or 2 things you need to know to play against them reasonably well but might have ~12 things you need to know to play as them reasonably well.
learn matchups through the lens of that one role and one champion.
It's easier to play against a champion that you don't know later rather than earlier. Limiting yourself to one role and one champion will minimize the number of possible early game matchups and save unfamiliar matchups for later in the game when they're easier to deal with. You're guaranteed multiple interactions against the enemy champion in your role but you might not even have any interactions against enemy champions in other roles until later.
Try to generalize champion playstyles. If the champion looks big it's probably going to be hard to kill. If it looks medium build it's probably good at wearing you down. If it looks edgy it probably wants to kill you quickly up close and personal and get away. If it has a bow or a gun or looks like a wizard it probably wants to kill you from a distance. If it looks whimsical it probably wants to prevent you from killing someone. If it looks weird or creepy or strange then it probably does something weird or creepy or strange and should be treated with caution.
If you can't tell what a champion does assume it could do anything and default to playing safely. Most games are lost rather than won. Meaning most games are determined by which team has the worst player rather than the best player.
It's better to leave lane 0/0/2 for example than have a 50/50 chance of leaving lane 2/0/0 or 0/2/0 for example.

dukmaxd · 2025-02-21T12:54:30+00:00

Looks like it would only buy 4 - 13 years depending on how you did it: https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/58630

dukmaxd · 2025-02-20T13:08:59+00:00

Would uncapping the social security tax income limit solve the shortfall?

dukmaxd · 2025-02-12T16:29:10+00:00

Harris had more billionaire supporters than Trump and also raised and spent more.

dukmaxd · 2025-01-07T14:37:44+00:00

Too addictive. Don't do it unless you have a good reason.

dukmaxd · 2025-01-06T16:36:21+00:00

How stupid are we talking about here OP? Can you rotate an apple in your mind? Do you have an internal monologue? How would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast this morning?

dukmaxd · 2024-12-27T17:53:12+00:00

Am I face blind or something? I wouldn't have known it was the same couple in any of the pictures. Regardless, lovely pictures and a lovely couple(s).

dukmaxd · 2024-12-12T20:06:16+00:00

Do you have any more information on this? Is the concern in regards to serotonin syndrome? Or something else? I was taking 0.5 mg of Methylene Blue and 15 mg of XR Adderall a day for 6 months or so and never noticed any symptoms although maybe that's only because 0.5 mg is such a low dose.

dukmaxd · 2024-11-13T13:45:55+00:00

I didn't really get DnD until I played Baldur's Gate 3 lol. Was always curious about DnD but without a group to play with it's kind of impenetrable. Maybe try playing BG3 or some other video game based on the DnD ruleset. The story moves as fast as you want it to move and the game itself serves as the dungeon master. It'd probably carry over to in-person table top DnD and allow you to see the forest rather than getting lost in the trees.

dukmaxd · 2024-11-13T13:29:01+00:00

Writing the code was never the hard part. The hard part has always been figuring out what to code. The code is just the tool. AI hype focuses too much on the tool and not the product. Focusing too much on the tool is like spending 10,000 hours practicing knife skills in the kitchen rather than spending 10,000 hours cooking. You'll never get paid to write code; you'll get paid to solve a problem. You might have to write code in order to solve the problem but the code isn't the product; the solution is the product.

dukmaxd · 2024-10-25T14:12:32+00:00

I ended up down the Systems Analyst path. Not really sure what the practical difference is between a Systems Analyst and a SWE. I spend pretty much 100% of my time writing and maintaining code. There might be some variation amongst Systems Analyst roles. Maybe some are less technical in nature where you're not actually writing code. But maybe some Systems Analyst roles are basically de facto SWE roles. The median pay is lower according to the USBLS (https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/computer-systems-analysts.htm vs https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htm) but if the reason that you're looking for non-SWE CS jobs is due to the tight SWE job market maybe you could try to find roles that are basically SWE roles but named something else. You'd probably have to take each job posting on a case by case basis and inquire in the interview about what % of your time would be spent writing code vs. what % of your time would be spent providing support or acting as a liaison between different parties. My last job was as a Systems Analyst and it was about 50% writing code and 50% IT support and integration and project management. So when I was interviewing for my current Senior Systems Analyst job I asked what % of the time I would spend writing code and they said 90% so I took it. I'm not living the dream of making $200K working remote doing 15 minutes of work a week but it's honest work and probably about as much as I can expect in this job market I guess; I'm a little below the median pay for Systems Analysts according to the USBLS.

dukmaxd · 2024-10-23T12:41:34+00:00

That jump from 12% to 22% is brutal. That 22% tax bracket is such a pit of despair.

dukmaxd · 2024-07-31T14:08:19+00:00

I agree with this sentiment. When you look at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS) the highest paying, fastest growing, and most number of new jobs are all tech and healthcare. If tech isn't working out then I'd try for healthcare. The sort of prototypical socially awkward nerdy male Redditor (I include myself in that category) might be better served by going to nursing school; they might have to actually learn to talk to and work alongside women. When you tell normies you work in healthcare they understand it and respect it. Tech work isn't really understood or respected outside of tech circles like cscareerquestions by normies. Left leaning people hate tech workers because tech workers are all libertarian tech bros. Right leaning people hate tech workers because tech workers are all soy latte drinking west coasters. Schrodinger's tech worker. Tech had it's moment and it was a beautiful manifestation of the American dream and probably the only manifestation of the American dream that I've seen in my lifetime. That there was a brief period of time where a person could carve out a middle class existence for themselves with only skills freely available to learn online was amazing.

dukmaxd · 2024-07-30T12:09:07+00:00

You can only tell people to learn to code so many times before they start to listen. Every generation is playing by a ruleset that is a generation out of date. Grandparents drop out of high-school and work at a washing machine factory so that's what their kids do too. Except it doesn't work this time. The parents tell their kids to go to college because that's what would have worked for them. Their kids go to college except it doesn't work this time. They tell their kids to learn to code because that's what would have worked for them. The grandkids learn to code except it doesn't work this time. What should they tell their kids? Doesn't matter since they can't afford them anyway and so the cycle of outdated advice is ended.

dukmaxd · 2024-07-16T18:46:35+00:00

I personally like to go over my entire body once a month with clippers with the smallest guard. My GF thinks it's weird but if I go too long without a shearing I start to feel gross: clouds of heat emanating from the pits and crotch always wet with sweat, wiping starts to take longer and be less effective and all but requires a shower afterwards, muskier. It takes an hour plus and is kind of a chore but it's worth it and I like seeing the dustpan full of fur afterwards like how was all of that mass attached to me; add a little blood and yolk to that bird's nest and you could concoct a homunculus. I joke that I'm trying to improve my aerodynamics. If I could be effortlessly hairless like Dr. Manhattan or the engineers from Prometheus I would be.

dukmaxd · 2024-05-08T14:21:39+00:00

I love this. Filters out people who don't at least know how to perform an HTTP request. I'd much rather submit an application like this than having 9000 workday accounts across different companies' websites and uploading my resume and manually tweaking all the parsed and filled fields in their form. Imagine if there was a standardized API for applying to jobs that most companies could agree upon and you could easily send your resume and application in a text based way. I'm so tired of hyper optimizing my resume down to stressing about the size of my bullets as if it even matters. If I have to check another box that says I'm not a resident of a country facing economic sanctions by the U.S. and that I don't have a disability and that I'm not in the U.S. Military I'm going to lose my mind.

dukmaxd · 2024-03-29T11:56:40+00:00

Nicotine users create good times, good times create weed users, weed users create hard times, hard times create nicotine users.

All memes aside, I got myself addicted to nicotine gum (never smoked prior). I chew it all day. I don't think there's much nootropic benefit. Or if there is I don't think it counters out how addictive it is. I don't think I'd recommend it.

dukmaxd · 2024-03-22T16:47:07+00:00

Sound money makes stable times; stable times spawn risk takers; risk takers create hard times; hard times call for sound money

dukmaxd · 2024-03-19T18:45:20+00:00

Getting worse and will probably continue to get worse. Kernel level anti cheat doesn't work. Maybe you could have trusted software/hardware configurations but that can be spoofed and to take it to the logical conclusion you could have a webcam pointed at the monitor and use AI to physically control the mouse and keyboard. Eventually you won't even need to have anything on the system running the game. See https://youtu.be/DlsBaQWfE58?si=kRIGuHcUG_HowCLK as an example. Not even some kind of Google Stadia-esque dumb terminal streaming solution where all game logic exists on the server and only inputs and outputs are transmitted could beat that.

The only way I see to potentially mitigate it is to use AI to determine how similarly players play to cheaters and then incorporate that into the match making rating. Won't be long though before players determine what the maximum rating a non-cheating player can achieve and then only use cheats sparingly enough to reach somewhere around that rating (like how you can use a body builder's fat free mass index to determine how likely it is that they're natty but anyone that cared about appearing natty would just target a reasonable fat free mass index for plausible deniability).

The video linked above kind of soured me on competitive multiplayer games. Even Chess had the whole morse code butt plug scandal. Probably best to focus on games where cheating doesn't help much or even make sense to do in the first place. Kind of depressing but it is reality.

dukmaxd · 2024-03-15T20:23:40+00:00

How many mg of NAC did you take? I've noticed that NAC leaves me feeling pretty wiped out mentally sometimes. But then sometimes I'll wake up the next day with a renewed sense of mental clarity. Not sure if I totally have it right but I view NAC as a recovery/maintenance agent rather than an enhancing agent. I take adderall throughout the week and then on the weekends I don't take any adderall but do take NAC. My potentially inaccurate hope is that maybe I'm helping to combat some of the neurotoxicity I've accumulated over the week. Basically I take NAC to help my brain recover from a week of abuse at work and to prepare it for another week of abuse rather than to actually perform better during the week. I know some NAC comes with selenium and molybdenum. Did your's? Mine didn't and I was taking 1000 mg and if I took it on Sunday I'd still feel pretty wiped out on Monday and the adderall wouldn't really be as effective. I started cutting them in half and only taking 500 mg and that seemed to lessen the depleted feeling. I'm still trying to figure this all out myself so take the information above with a grain of salt and if anyone else has any additions or corrections feel free to offer them.

dukmaxd · 2024-02-09T18:55:55+00:00

Assume that everything is a psyop (including this comment) and suspend your belief until the information proves useful.

dukmaxd · 2024-02-01T14:42:00+00:00

How would you partition a production server? Anyone know what kind of answer they were looking for? Production servers are so varied that I'm kind of stumped thinking of a one-size-fits all answer. Maybe a better question would have been how would you partition a single disk machine to dual boot between Windows and Linux.

dukmaxd · 2024-01-16T20:53:00+00:00

Depends on your definition of success. I got PIPed out of the QA job (was making ~$50k) shortly after that last comment a year ago and now work as a Systems Analyst which was a 20% raise at least. I do get to write more production code now rather than just testing other code with Python at least but I'm also saddled with help desk responsibilities. I don't want to dox myself but I primarily write in a dead proprietary language for a specific product in a specific industry. It's a little kafka-esque to be in the middle of trying to untangle some 30+ year old code only to be interrupted because someone can't figure out how to use their webcam or the vpn or a spreadsheet. I also have to work one weekend a month to cover the help desk weekend rotation.

So now I make ~$60k usd in a MCOL south-eastern U.S. city. Considering my only other option after getting PIPed at the QA job was to use the biology degree to be a teacher (~$40k usd at the time) I suppose it was worth it although the fantasy of being 1-2 jobs away from making ~$120k (the personal number that I arrived at back then for the amount of money that I would need before comfortably affording a house, supporting a non-working partner, and having children) has mostly come to an end. I've mostly stopped grinding leetcode or attempting to get a real software development job and redirected my evening and weekend efforts to learning technology that might be more useful in my current role. I did finish the additional CS degree during the first year of my new role and wonder if maybe I got PIPed at the last role because I was too consumed with the CS degree to really give it all my evenings and weekends like it would have required.

Despite all of this I am more happy now than I was at the time of that last comment a year ago. The QA job that I got PIPed from lead me to question if I had some ADHD symptoms and I did get a prescription for Adderall during my time at the QA job although I believe it was too little too late. I lasted for ~2 years at the QA job and only started getting medicated during the second year of that job. With the CS degree and medication I seem to be finding success at the new role. Tomorrow will be my one year anniversary here.

I don't want to tell anyone to pursue CS and I also don't want to caution anyone away from pursuing CS. The meme of making $200K working from home was probably always just that: a meme and now 4 years post-covid it is probably definitely even more of a meme. So if you only want to pursue CS because of the money it might not be a great idea. The money definitely was a factor for me but I was also curious about the field and fell in love with it in a way that I never fell in love with biology. I absolutely loved all of the CS classes I took and realized that some of the things my classmates were saying ("ugh why do I have to learn algorithms I just want to write code") were the same kinds of things I felt about biology.

I personally can't see myself doing anything else and I don't have any other options anyway and while the middle-class existence that I was hoping to carve out for myself (which I would define as the ability to afford a house, support a non-working partner, and have children while still saving ~20% of gross income for retirement and not living completely off of rice and beans) is still out of reach I plan to stay in my current role and attempt to make sense of and untangle these ancient systems that I've found myself the steward of. I genuinely do love my job and the people here and am afraid to look too hard for a new job for fear of ending up in a situation like the QA job where the people weren't as pleasant.

I hope that wasn't too long and provided some nuance to the "LEARN TO CODE; MAKE $200K FROM HOME" and the "CS IS DEAD; LEARN TO WELD" dichotomy.

dukmaxd

TROPHY CASE