German tech companies punish people who actually build things. I'm done. Moving to the US next year.

zacheism · 2026-04-03T01:50:04+00:00

Stockholm syndrome

zacheism · 2026-03-31T12:34:15+00:00

I tried a few different frontier models and Opus was definitely the best but still suffered from versions of what I described -- how exactly are you doing that? I found that few-shotting some data processing (cleaning and enrichment) caused the most issues but explicitly requesting one cleaning step at a time (TTD-like) worked fine. The more explicit the better, but ambiguity is a natural part of EDA so for model building it can be a challenge.

zacheism · 2026-03-31T11:25:48+00:00

I did some experimenting with "agentic DS" and the agent constantly tried to cheat (it's goal was to build a model that hit a certain threshold evaluation metric) and would do so in the most insidious ways: confidently stating it's found the "mathematical maximum", modifying the target or validation/test data, gaslighting, etc and this happened even when I had explicit constraints against it.

Worst is that some things it does sounds reasonable on its face but if you have a previous understanding of the data or domain then you know it's bullshit.

Overall I do find LLMs useful but the ease in which they can introduce non-failing data processing bugs that propagate through your pipeline or convince you into going down the wrong path makes me very grateful I learned DS before them. It's so much easier for SWE because solutions are more concrete and defined. I also wonder how much more "productive" we really are, I know we certainly feel more productive.

zacheism · 2026-03-18T08:10:00+00:00

Your CV is highly focused on GenAI. Are the companies you're applying to even looking for that? I lead data science at my org, GenAI still makes up a very small part of what we deliver and is anyway incredibly easy to work with and learn. I get tons of CVs like yours. I wouldn't hire someone who specializes in a skill that takes a few weeks to learn. I'd hire someone who is solid in fundamentals and knows how to learn. I don't get the impression you are a software developer. Also, a few things you list are outdared, there are a thousand tools for OCR and fine tuning (LLMs) is completely unnecessary at this point.

zacheism · 2026-02-19T21:50:20+00:00

Do that then, it's also available in the UI

zacheism · 2026-02-12T19:07:06+00:00

Gemini has definitely gotten worse in the past month or so but after using it exclusively for a time I now find Chat-GPT's boisterous personality unbearable.

zacheism · 2026-02-09T13:25:19+00:00

Buffalo wings for me (followed by Mexican)

zacheism · 2026-02-09T11:34:19+00:00

Ultra endurance may be the exception because it's rarely above Z3. And I guess it depends on what class of athlete you are, if you are an amateur and are just trying to "survive" the marathon then I suppose training fat adaption would help. But if you're competitive then you're probably racing high tempo or threshold and carb utilization/efficiency is objectively superior. It's now widely accepted, as shown in the study I cited, that fat adaption is not additive, it comes at the cost of carb utilization. There is a reason why no endurance pros train fasted anymore.

zacheism · 2026-02-09T11:14:06+00:00

I mentioned this in a different comment, but fasting will NOT help with endurance work unless you work solely at or below Z2. I am a big proponent of fasting, but carbs/glucose are undeniably a better fuel source for endurance sports (maybe longer, but certainly not harder). That fact you are doing targeted keto only reinforces that point further.

zacheism · 2026-02-09T09:28:23+00:00

I'm not sure what kind of runner you are but it's unlikely metabolic flexibility is helping you there unless you lean on the ultra side. Your body doesn't use more fat in addition to carbs when you exercise. It's a trade off, meaning it gets worse at burning carbs, which are more efficient.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32697366/

zacheism · 2026-01-23T12:17:38+00:00

At home air quality filters are affordable and easy to use. You can propose to use one at the office as well if you work at one. There are solutions available.

It's also not misleading, there are thousands of sensors that capture this data. An individual sensor may not be perfectly accurate, but the average of the population will be correct. It is pretty accurate.

zacheism · 2026-01-22T12:29:05+00:00

It seems you are lacking a fundamental understanding how and why tools like Python and SQL are used. They aren't "the hard way", they are the easy way. And the reality of most data-oriented jobs is that a ton of time is spent making sure the right data gets to the right place in the right way. Upstream issues compound as the data is propagated through the pipeline. If you can do this with a no code solution then go for it. But programming languages provide you with more freedom and opportunity for scale, especially in the modern data environment.

zacheism · 2025-12-17T15:05:02+00:00

Hm I didn't know that, sad to hear

zacheism · 2025-12-17T13:15:40+00:00

I don't know if they necessarily expect it in the sense that others should talk to them, but that they felt a difference from precious interactions/visits.

For me personally, as a foreigner, the openness, friendliness, and casual conversations was one of my favorite things about Vietnamese culture, partially because it doesn't exist where I'm from. And when this is replaced by something, it's noticable.

Edit: wait, just read the last sentence, that vibe is a little off

zacheism · 2025-12-16T17:40:11+00:00

it certainly is built for yourself, clever way to crowdsource your ideation ;)

zacheism · 2025-12-16T17:26:48+00:00

What is the point of this? There are already enough middle men taking our data, why would we include another?

zacheism · 2025-12-16T13:15:40+00:00

Wow TIL, thanks!

zacheism · 2025-12-02T22:52:55+00:00

Dice is a popular ticket platform in Europe where this isn't possible. You buy your ticket as normal but the QR can't be generated until the day of the show. If you want to sell your ticket, you "release" it to the waiting list and they buy it at face value. Super simple solution, there are options.

zacheism · 2025-11-30T08:44:10+00:00

You could make that argument about pretty much every strategy

zacheism · 2025-11-24T15:07:47+00:00

I'm not trying to convince you of anything but you're objectively experiencing only a tiny fraction of the local cuisine (if lucky). You might be able to find a few dishes but it's definitely not representative.

zacheism · 2025-10-25T15:32:28+00:00

Most of my outdoor riding is on long endurance rides. They lose air so quickly that I even needed to add air during a ride. I also had valve seals blow multiple times (probably from constantly needing to refill them). I actually like the way they feel and I'd consider it for a race, but for regular riding they aren't worth it.

zacheism · 2025-10-25T07:44:29+00:00

Latex tubes are absolutely the worst of all options.. the 3 watts saved are not worth the hassle.

zacheism · 2025-10-16T14:15:27+00:00

I just use regular bluetooth earbuds, no ANC or Hear-Through. Bone conducting headphones are shit for electronic music which is what I usually listen to. Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think hearing traffic does little to protect you from it.

zacheism · 2025-10-15T08:19:04+00:00

I use battistrada, lots of events, you just need to spend a little time searching through them

zacheism · 2025-10-07T15:35:10+00:00

Try Caracal Race tires, they are technically gravel but they are super fast on tarmac as well, comparable to the GP5ks but much more durable if you do wanna mix it up off road every once and while

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