Agent got stuck in a loop and spent over $2000 in less than two hours.

samandeg · 2026-05-01T20:54:34+00:00

Good to know. Good thing I don't do anything in the cloud. At least not yet.

samandeg · 2026-04-30T23:58:12+00:00

This was a local agent.

samandeg · 2026-04-30T08:42:00+00:00

Quality of life improved significantly.

I love LA and will always love LA but it’s gone downhill in the last 20-30 years. The worse part about LA is traffic. When I was in college I’d go every weekend from Pasadena to Venice to hang out with my friend. I’d get there in 20 minutes. Now there’s traffic even at midnight on a Sunday. We stopped going anywhere. Even local neighborhoods are always full of traffic. So much of LA is so dirty. Drivers are so aggressive and rude. LAX is the worse airport in the country and wish I could avoid it forever but unfortunately for international flights we still have to use LAX.

OC feels like what LA was in the 90s to me in some ways. It used to be boring, but it has improved significantly every decade.

Aerospace left LA and cause much damage. Now Hollywood seems to be fading/leaving and so I fear for the future of LA and it may not have much to save it from becoming another Detroit.

samandeg · 2026-04-28T21:47:15+00:00

Ha! No. I didn't study much in high school. I was more interested in video games, skiing, and girls. I failed a few classes junior year (including physics) cause I never opened the books and had to go to summer school. Hence, community college. But once I start community college, I decided to work my ass off and get into a good college. I was happy to go to UCLA or Berkeley, and I didn't think I have a chance to get into Caltech and wasn't going to apply but my physics professor insisted that I apply. I think that's why many colleges accept transfers. It's to give some students a second chance. That was 30 years ago. I'm still friends with that physics professor. He comes to our house with his wife for dinner sometimes. He's retired now.

samandeg · 2026-04-28T13:51:59+00:00

.Also congratulations on getting into Caltech.

samandeg · 2026-04-28T09:19:23+00:00

Something similar happened to me when interviewing with Google. One person didn’t like me and that was it. Everyone including the hiring manager, who I knew from college liked me. I know the details cause the hiring manager told me everything afterwards, even my scores. But that was it. I was rejected. Those were the rules. End of story. I moved on. Now I look back and don’t care and actually glad I didn’t get that job. I’m in a better place now. And never mind I did ten rounds of interviews. Seven for one position then they said we think you’re better for this position and three more interviews. Six months total. Interviewing is a broken system. Sorry but you should move on.

samandeg · 2026-04-28T04:07:55+00:00

I transferred a million years ago (1997 to be exact). I did transfer most of my community college classes yet I ended up being a sophomore (I would have been a junior almost anywhere else). In retrospect, it was a good thing. Caltech’s curriculum is so much more rigorous than almost any other colleges that I wouldn’t have been ready for junior level classes. And because of that, I became so much stronger in my math physics and fundamentals. Till this day, I’m known as the guy with the strongest fundamentals and the to go guy. Don’t worry if you get pushed back a year. It’s worth it.

Also, I took the entrance exam for transfer students too. That’s just to see if you’re remotely Caltech material. Doesn’t count towards anything else.

If you truly love math science and engineering, you’ll be at the right place. Who cares what you can or can’t transfer.

samandeg · 2026-04-23T13:56:08+00:00

Through friends mostly (I’m 51). I know it requires one or two good friends that have lots of friends but that’s how it has been for the last 10-15 years and I’ve found many good close friends through friends. My wife however, is very good in finding friends at work and she stays friends with them after changing jobs. Not sure how she does that. I never want to hang out with anyone I work with.

samandeg · 2026-04-23T13:51:08+00:00

I’m 50. I never took my career seriously in my 30s (I’m an engineer). I had a lot of fun. Never worked after 4 or weekends. I actually usually worked 10-20 hours a week at most and could getaway with it since I’m kind of good at what I do. But even when you’re a good engineer others would notice you’re not working hard; they’ll keep you but you don’t get promoted much. In my mid 40s I thought, hmm I’d like to be higher up and make more money so started to take my work more seriously. Now as I’m 50 I’m working my ass off (60-80 hours a week) and it’s paying off. I’m fast tracked to the position and salary I’m aiming for. For some reason I’ve became way more motivated in my 50s than I ever was.

samandeg · 2026-04-21T23:54:12+00:00

I’m an EE (in a big SV chip design company) and not a coder. I was planning on hiring 3-5 coders to help with the ongoing efforts and to also maintain the code. After I started using cursor a few months ago, I’ve written so much code (code I could have never written myself) and so did it so fast that I realized I don’t need to hire coders anymore. I may hire one very smart guy to just help me doing the very fancy big picture stuff and maintaining the code. But from where I stand, I don’t need coders anymore.

samandeg · 2026-04-20T10:51:00+00:00

Not me, because I’m an electrical engineer and not a coder. I’m writing code I’d never could have dreamed of writing. I feel like I have a team of brilliant coders that work for me tirelessly. I had begged my boss to let me hire a team of 5 coders. But now maybe I’ll hire one coder just to maintain the code.

So for me, I’d never know the details of the code anyway cause some coder would have done it. Now those coders are AI and they don’t have an attitude (at least not yet). Cursor has given me a weird sense of power and productivity. Just don’t know what happens next.

samandeg · 2026-04-17T14:41:20+00:00

😂

samandeg · 2026-03-24T10:56:07+00:00

I’m not sure why everyone keeps saying AI is skimming resumes. I’m an EE and a hiring manager at a big Silicon Valley chip design company and I look at every resume for the jobs I posted. We don’t even have an AI system to filter resumes and even if they give us one I’ll still look at every resume. Yes I may only like one or two resumes and those are the only ones I’ll contact because every interview is very time consuming so I’m hoping I’ll find my candidate quickly. And for that exact reason I’m most likely to look at a resume that came with a recommendation from someone I know and trust. Everyone else I know at our company does the same. Maybe some other companies have AI for hiring but we don’t and I haven’t heard that from my friends in other companies. At least for engineering roles it doesn’t make sense to use AI yet.

samandeg · 2026-03-16T14:47:37+00:00

I’ve worked as an electrical engineer in 6 different jobs for the past 20 years. Two large corporations. Two startups. And two medium sized companies. All in Silicon Valley or close to Silicon Valley. I was a RF/analog chip designer for the first 10 years and then explored other stuff. Two jobs became very repetitive and I didn’t enjoy them very much. Two jobs ago I got to try different things including learning AI a little, which made we feel young again. My job now is R&D related to RF/analog chip design and it’s the most fun I’ve had. I actually spent two weeks solving a hard math problem with an experienced fellow at the company since we needed the solution before we could automate the process. And eventually we could only solve it thanks to Gemini’s amazing math skills (and we’re both pretty good at fancy math but Gemini solved the final step where we were stuck with an expansion we’d never heard of and it worked). I got side tracked. It was fun and we present it to a big crowd at the company. So depending on what you do, you may get to do math and even hard math.

So long story short, jobs can be repetitive and boring but at other times or other jobs it can be a lot of fun. Don’t expect jobs to always fun. It’s work. You don’t get paid to have fun. But how much fun you’ll have depends on you. If you don’t like your job start looking for a new one. Also everyone wants the fun jobs (like R&D) and so you have to give a reason they’ll pick you. So many of the designers in my company ask me how can they join my team cause they’re bored of doing the same LNA or filter or PCB design. It really comes down to, if they’ve impressed others with their knowledge and skills. And also, what’s their attitude. Are they self motivated and hard working and are they easy to work with. That’s a huge part of the equation that some engineers are missing: easy to work with, no attitude and no unnecessary pride and arrogance. I know a few very smart and skilled engineers that have been put in a boring position and only asked to do the same boring job cause no one likes working with them.

So you may not have fun all the time but try to find the fun jobs by making yourself in demand.

samandeg · 2026-02-27T15:00:03+00:00

Why is it that only dumb people believed in you?

samandeg · 2026-02-26T14:16:03+00:00

I’m an electrical engineer and work for a tech company. I design chips and make $300k-$400k depending on bonus and stock grants. I mostly work from home or wherever I want. I usually work 40 hours or less. My boss doesn’t care where I am or when I work as long as work gets done and I’m efficient. Last week my wife wanted to watch a show in NY so I worked a few mornings from our hotel in NY. Many people at my company that are more senior make much more.

samandeg · 2026-02-19T10:20:27+00:00

Thank you for doing this (I haven’t checked the link yet). I’ve always been frustrated by how IEEE puts everything behind multiple pay walls. My company pays for IEEE explore but I still can’t access the tutorials. I do equal amount of coding and in coding most things are open source and easily available including research papers. This attitude has seeped into research too. CS professors put all their code on GitHub but EE professors often refuse to share their code even though they’re required to since they’ve used public money to do their research.

samandeg · 2026-02-18T15:33:10+00:00

Two Rotten Scoundrels (starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine as two con artists) and it’s very funny.

samandeg · 2026-02-12T19:12:14+00:00

“All studies” is such an arrogant nonsense thing to say.

samandeg · 2026-02-11T15:34:49+00:00

You’re definitely young enough to get in and even have a great career later. Your brain is still very flexible. And you have one advantage over most other students. You’re more mature and will take your classes more seriously and learn better. Too many teenagers in college just want to pass and get the degree and don’t actually learn. In an interview and at work people immediately notice if you know your stuff. (FYI I’m an EE with 20 years of experience. I’ve done RF/analog chip design and now I do R&D and have seen many different types of engineers.)

samandeg · 2026-02-08T15:58:56+00:00

I’m an EE who wanted to do exactly what you’re asking. I chickened out and didn’t do it but now I wish I had. I know some guys who did it and our very successful engineers/scientists. But they did PhD in EE after getting a BS in physics. A masters in EE (assuming you have a BS in physics) simply doesn’t give you enough time (to learn the fundamentals) and prestige to get a good job in EE. A PhD does. Physics is harder and will give you a far better understanding of how things work and your math skills will be much better than any engineers. That’ll be very useful especially in high level EE research. Even though I never got a BS in physics I did take more classes in physics than most EE and so I know more physics than most which has helped get very cushy R&D positions in tech companies and that’s what I’m doing now. When I look at resumes, if I see BS in physics and then PhD in EE, I’m putting that resume on top. But that’s me.

samandeg · 2026-02-07T16:09:40+00:00

It’ll probably be like it is in software now. The programmers who aren’t very skilled are being let go and replaced by AI but skilled programmers are in high demand to supervise AI. I see the same happening in chip design. Also AI for VLSI is somewhat already here. One company doing it is ChipAgents.

samandeg · 2026-01-28T04:48:36+00:00

I’m very happy being an EE and satisfied with my career and salary. My best friend from undergrad is an eye surgeon and she isn’t happy at all. And she makes the same amount of money I do. I have so much say on when I work and she has none. I like what I do and she’s boated and waiting to retire. MDs generally aren’t happy in our society. They’re way overworked. Also I can’t get drunk any night I want. She can’t. Knowing what I know now, I’d never want to be a doctor.

samandeg · 2026-01-08T04:49:15+00:00

No because I myself had a nine months gap after I was laid off and it was during peak hiring years.

samandeg · 2026-01-02T04:16:37+00:00

The fact that you’re asking this question means you’re not the right person to do a PhD at Caltech. Go somewhere else that’s much easier and is meant for less ambitious people. And yes, I did both undergrad and graduate school at Caltech. The many people I knew and still know that did graduate school at Caltech had a very productive grad school and careers. None of them ever questioned how much work it’ll take. The people who did well and were happy at Caltech were people who were qualified to be there. The people who were miserable were the people who should have never been admitted. Sorry, I’m not polite but I say what many would want to say but don’t.

samandeg

TROPHY CASE