Spicy take: read the narrative non-fiction business books. They are written for entertainment and sit in the business section but you can learn things.
barbarians at the gate
when genius failed
bad blood
billion dollar whale
chaos monkey
liars poker
shoe dog
american kingping
broken code
soul of a new machine
and so on. There is nothing wrong with entertainment and since these are usually written by journalists or professional writers, the writing is often better.
[we were a thin-crust only type of place; we also used a little handful of cornmeal as it was placed in the brick oven to prevent the crust from sticking - it adds a little extra flavor and texture to the pizza :)]
In a pot, placed on medium-heat on the stove top, add:
- 2tbsp EVOO
- two twigs of fresh oregano, crushed or finely chopped (to express the oils in the plant)
- 1/4 white onion, minced very finely
- 1/4 yellow onion, minced very finely
- 2-3 squished cloves of roasted garlic (cut the top part from a bulb of garlic, add some EVOO and bake @ 400 for ~30(ish) minutes; be sure to do it in foil or the ceramic baking dishes for roasting garlic!)
- 1tbsp of salt mixed with black pepper and crushed red pepper flakes
Until onions are translucent and aromatic
Then add:
- 1 large can of Cento-brand peeled San Marzano tomatoes
Stir intermittently until sauce develops a deep red color and you can use it right away or keep it in the fridge!
- As it cools, add in a handful (1/4 cup) of freshly crumbled Parmesan cheese (you could see the cheese chunks as we applied the sauce to the dough so they weren't large pieces but little(ish) crumbles)
Yeah confusion between simulation and reality can be observed all over the place. Multiple runs can be needed if you're doing measurements of the natural world, but for a simulation that doesn't make sense (you can do Monte Carlo style stuff, but that's still replicable).
You could see the lines being blurred in other ways. Outputs of simulations would be referred to as "findings", for example, or referenced in ways that implied empirical observation without it being clear where they came from unless you carefully checked citations.
Here are some of the articles I wrote about what happened (under a pseudonym)
I don't write for that website anymore, by the way. Back then it was called Lockdown Sceptics and was basically the only forum that would publish any criticism of COVID science. Nowadays it's evolved to be a more general news site.
The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations still pay the tax but only individuals get the checks.
It would also be a very informative trial run for a UBI (though in this case the amount would be smaller).
The "problem" with this is strictly politics: a) It would actually work, so the fossil fuel energy companies hate it; b) There is no opportunity for graft because the money is distributed to everyone and not just the politically connected, so there is no special interest lobby trying to make it happen.
A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out.
†OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts.
I really wanted to make something creative for her, but I'm pretty terrible as an artist, so I instead applied a talent I do have: making 200 line Python scripts. Apparently the first to do this was an artist named Petros Vrellis, though I did come up with it independently.
Sadly, we've broken up since then, and we didn't remain friends. I do wonder what happened to it, I can't imagine she'd've thrown it out, but on the other hand it would be odd to have a physically quite large memento to a previous relationship hanging from your wall.
You can also bypass Chrome security warnings that don't have the "Continue anyway" link by typing `thisisunsafe` on the page (yes, blind). You'll know if it worked by the last `e`.
Not really a script, but a `.ssh/config` to automatically deploy parts of my local cli environment to every server i connect to (if username and ip/hostname matches my rules).
On first connect to a server, this sync all the dotfiles i want to a remote host and on subsequent connects, it updates the dotfiles.
Idk if this is "special", but I haven't seen anyone else do this really and it beats for example ansible playbooks by being dead simple.
You are not a shitty software engineer who's been "coddled." What you likely are is dissatisfied with where your career is going (and who amongst us is not in some way) and nervous about not having a name brand pedigree so you are turning it inward and trying to understand it in ways that imply the cause and effect are localized to yourself. That's understandable but I wonder if it will get you anywhere. Stop beating yourself up and start exploring what you really want.
Do you want a brand name? Go work at a FAANG. Trust me, they're hiring. You'll get there and like me you'll realize they too have their problems and maybe the "over-paid Rails shit solutions" you "know will eventually leak" maybe weren't so bad after all.
Do you want to level up as an engineer? Go work at a hyper-growth startup (probably series B) that is falling over from its scale problems. You will probably end up solving some oddly challenging and novel engineering problem along the way.
Do you actually not mind this stuff but hate feeling like you have to always keep up with the Jones and it gives you anxiety? Go find a therapist that you have good chemistry with and see if you can't work out why you feel this way and how to fix it. To be honest, the corporate rat race thrives at making people who are otherwise doing quite well with their career progression feel like they're not because that makes them easier to exploit. Life is not an exam to be min-maxed. You don't take that fancy career or lifetime earnings with you when you die, so unless you're doing it for the intrinsic joy of doing it, there's an argument to be made that becoming better at engineering has no guarantee of making your life better.
See this blog post for just what it is -- a breathless discovery of a hammer and an author who now wants to use it for everything but may not be at the point where they realize it might not be a great tool for everything. You the person are probably a lot more competent and capable than you're letting on here. And if that's the case and you're unhappy for reasons in your control, hone in on why that is and see if you can't make life moves to change it. There's never been a better time to make a career move.
