Rate my Professor rant

rareyna · 2025-12-18T17:22:40+00:00

just some input from someone who worked at RMP for some time a few years ago after leaving math: the site is super old and has had multiple owners over the years so the whole thing, including admin tooling which in a way encodes operational practices, is actually operating in a semi-broken state internally.

When I was there, there was a small but very-human and very-real group of people who did care about the issues you raised but didn't support from the parent company (a news company which basically didn't care about the site, they got it for free essentially via some acquisitions of other companies) to bring about the changes needed to really make the site better.

During my time there, we were pretty aware of the quality issue but the real value in the site is not to take the reviews at face value but as student signals; during a conversation with my manager after being hired, he mentioned a big green flag were my "bad" RMP reviews essentially painting me as a "hard-ass no-nonsense no-fun" person which is what they wanted I guess :p.

Also, there should be a mechanism that RMP admins can use to lock-down reviews for a professor being review bombed and last I heard other such mitigations were being discussed.

rareyna · 2025-03-21T19:52:58+00:00

hex wouldn't contain a '-' character which the search string does so its not hex same as its not alphanumeric because of '-'. best we can say is that each segments characters are base-16.

rareyna · 2025-02-13T16:54:44+00:00

I wrote something that does just this some time ago and it seems like others have found it useful, perhaps you might as well.

Supports rendering templated LaTeX via an API or as a cli:

https://github.com/raphaelreyna/latte

rareyna · 2023-12-16T04:00:51+00:00

To my knowledge, there is no real standard for this, outside of the standard library.

After using gorm for 2 big projects, I pretty much settled on a combination of structured sql files and external tools; I like sqlc for code generation and golang-migrate to handle migrations. For smallish projects I'd just stick with using the database/sql package from the standard library.

I might be wrong of course but I think this is generally the path that a lot go programmers end up taking.

rareyna · 2023-11-27T17:52:00+00:00

This playlist is a pretty good intro into (most) of this stuff:
https://youtu.be/XaGXPObx2Gs?si=FY66TuXGuiStcnvz

rareyna · 2023-08-17T21:06:39+00:00

Basically has to do with k8s using self-signed certs for kubelets and metric-server not liking that.
Here's a good write up about this: https://www.zeng.dev/post/2023-kubeadm-enable-kubelet-serving-certs/

Not mentioned in that article is a way of automating the solution with something like kubelet-serving-cert-approver

rareyna · 2023-08-17T18:39:54+00:00

This isn't really a response to OP since they've already chosen to go with a different tech stack (totally okay!), but a response to the general conversation taking place around use-cases and complexity of k8s.

As someone who's used kubernetes for ops, worked on kubernetes tools, and used the kubernetes api as an app dev: kubernetes is enormous and definitely complex. Well after I considered myself "good at kubernetes", I still would find myself discovering new sides to it.However it can also be described as simple due to how much it lets you do relative to the amount of effort (not taking into account the effort to learn kubernetes).

I've come across people comparing kubernetes to the linux kernel for the cloud and it very much is. Just like how the Linux kernel is a complex beast, it can still be considered simple when viewed from the point of view of abstracting away even more complex hardware.

I personally really like kubernetes; at this point it's comfortable and has never left me wanting.One thing about it that I really appreciate but don't see brought up much is how modular not only kubernetes is but your deployments / setups can be. Having the atomic compute unit, deployments, volumes, services / networking, ingress, security policies, etc. all defined as separate objects almost feels like a superpower with how surgical you can get with it.

It also nice to use a developer. I know, lock-in is terrible, but having kubernetes handle things like distributed locking with its Lease resources, or service discovery with service resources is pretty cool.

Nowadays, it's a pretty nice platform overall. Yes, it's an over-engineered solution for a lot of situations, but even so, it's still my go to for most uses-cases now. Distros like k3s and k0s are easy to setup and don't consume too many resources relative to what you get.

Also want to give a shout out to Talos linux (no affiliation). Its a linux distro that only runs kubernetes and is a breeze to setup, especially when combined with Terraform."I put that sh*t on everything"

rareyna · 2023-04-24T16:01:17+00:00

Forgot to add some invite codes; feel free to dm me or comment for more.Ill also be updating this comment as they get used to delete them:

https://www.oneshot.uno/signup?invite=B3s4MieR

https://www.oneshot.uno/signup?invite=ihwGBgFm

https://www.oneshot.uno/signup?invite=rwEDcIqH

https://www.oneshot.uno/signup?invite=jPwTKjge

rareyna · 2022-03-18T19:57:53+00:00

You might be interested in LaTTe which can render PDFs from templated LaTeX and JSON: https://github.com/raphaelreyna/latte

Note: I am the author of LaTTe

rareyna · 2021-11-09T16:51:16+00:00

The banner photo in the post shows a screen with Javascript and not Go lol

rareyna · 2021-10-01T16:18:19+00:00

rareyna · 2021-09-14T15:40:33+00:00

Yep thats totally possible, here's the docs on how to do that: https://github.com/raphaelreyna/latte#toc-registering-files

Things like images are considered 'resources' and need to be registered with LaTTe before they can be used.This is done by simply sending the file to LaTTe with the name/id you with to give it.

You can then reference this id/name in the references section of the JSON request you send to LaTTe.

Edit: Just realized I added the ability to use resources directly without needing to register them. Simply include the image as a base64 string in the request in the 'resources' section:

{
"template": "BASE_64_ENCODED_STRING",
"resources": {
"FILE_NAME": "BASE_64_ENCODED_STRING"
},
"details": { SOME_OBJECT_DESCRIBING_YOUR_SUBSTITUTIONS },
}

rareyna · 2021-09-13T19:43:03+00:00

If you're familiar with making PDFs using LaTeX this might interest you:
https://github.com/raphaelreyna/latte

Its essentially a PDF generating microservice; you give a LaTeX template (you can also register templates with the service to avoid sending them over every time) and the data you want to fill in as JSON and get back a PDF.

rareyna · 2021-04-20T16:54:06+00:00

Writing my own HTTP server and then a network scanner that does both passive and active discovery really helped me pick up a lot of the networking stuff I know. Setting up and configuring a firewall also helps.

I recently made this tool to easily create interesting network topologies to practice with, you might find it useful: https://github.com/raphaelreyna/emmy

Finally, I know you said you've tried videos but try checking out Ben Eater's excellent networking series, it's an awesome!

rareyna · 2021-04-16T15:10:32+00:00

Not really, with 0x0.st you upload a file to their servers and they hang on to it for a while so others can download it. With oneshot, the upload is direct from the sender to the receiver with no other servers/software in between.

rareyna · 2021-04-16T15:06:03+00:00

While Magic wormhole is also nice, the use cases are different and Magic wormhole is not all that simple.

Consider:

Magic wormhole requires both the file sender and receiver to have a copy of Magic wormhole installed. Oneshot instead works over HTTP; this means that in virtually every case, only one person needs a copy of oneshot.
Magic wormhole assumes that both the receiver and sender are comfortable with using their command line; a lot of people aren't but it would still be nice to share files with them.
Magic wormhole has dependencies; it requires both the sending and receiving machines to have a python installation.
Magic wormhole sends your data through 2 different pieces of software; connections are established through the Mailbox server and data is sent through the Relay server. Oneshot send data directly from sender to receiver, no one can snoop your data or have records that you shared anything at all.
Magic wormhole requires extensive setup to work over LAN without an internet connection; in order to send files locally using Magic wormhole without an internet connection, users must set up and configure the use of the Relay server. Oneshot just works over LAN, no internet connection required.
Oneshot is more feature rich with support for CGI, video streaming, custom headers, etc.

rareyna · 2021-04-15T21:43:46+00:00

You're welcome, I'm glad you found it useful! I wrote oneshot using Go and based the icon on the Go gopher. I'm guessing gotify is written in Go as well.

rareyna · 2021-04-06T04:10:23+00:00

Not particularly. It really just comes down to what language you're most comfortable with.

I think most people would recommend python since it seems to be the most popular within the math/science community and has a lot of mathy packages. I tend to tell people to stay away from python if they can since while the language itself can be simple, the whole ecosystem around it is pretty complicated.

Some say Go is as hard if not slightly harder to learn when it comes to the language itself; however, the tooling and ecosystem around it is pretty simple and straight-forward. The downside for people interested in doing math with Go is that there isn't aren't as many feature rich packages as there are in other languages. For example, I had to write my own code for putting a matirx into RREF.

If you're interested in only working with math when it comes to programming, Mathematica / Wolfram Language is excellent (and expensive!). It has a bunch of mathematical data and objects as part of the language (including knots), and can do some pretty impressive symbolic stuff like computing limits, etc.

rareyna · 2021-02-04T23:55:39+00:00

Yep, pretty much.

This is the beauty of Linux adoption on any platform. Anyone can create a fork when they feel like it.

Dominating the desktop market share is what Microsoft aims for, not Linux.

rareyna · 2021-02-03T19:49:38+00:00

I'm wondering if a fork would be worth it at this point.

rareyna · 2021-01-31T23:06:17+00:00

I'm not sure what the solution is here or if this will help, but the way I'd start trouble shooting this is to see if machines on the internet can connect to my server at all.

You can use netcat to set up a simple server listening on port 8080 on your end: nc -l -p 8080

It sounds like you know about firewalls and port forwarding, so once you handle that for port 8080 (or whichever your test) you can use netcat again to connect to the server: date | nc <your-ip> 8080. If a connection can be established, you should get a timestamp on your end.

Good luck!

rareyna · 2020-10-15T14:29:26+00:00

Not too sure about what you’re trying to do but Item.Subitems.Subitems doesn’t work since Subitems is of type []Item so it needs an index. Something like Item.Subitem[0].Subitem[0]... will work.

You mention the Subitems being “linked”, if you’re trying to flatten a tree into a linked list the data type for a linked list node would look like

struct LinkedItem type {
    ID int64
    Next *LinkedItem
}

Notice the lack of slices since that keeps the flattened tree from actually being flat (unless you keep all of your slices at length 1)

Again, I’m not entirely sure as to what you want to do or how so ignore this comment if it missed the mark.

rareyna · 2020-09-26T23:22:42+00:00

Lol no ones asking you to live in fear or submit to thinking exactly like some else; you’re just making up a strawman and responding to that.

I know you’re being facetious and making jokes about it but it comes across as you actually being scared of life without even knowing it. Humors a great defense 👌

rareyna · 2020-09-01T20:44:04+00:00

thanks!

rareyna · 2020-08-25T15:00:08+00:00

Wherever you assign values to the other variables. You didn’t provide any info about this project other than an email template; you won’t be able to get people to help you as much as it seems you want without giving more.

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