But there’s no test suite that fails for a story about rallying 6 others, or having impact all of which cannot be verified and thus easily embellished - leetcode, and subsequently your candidacy, either passes the bar or it doesn’t.

“Industry veterans hired to patronage positions in high office, who then push the government into a war that will benefit the industry or company.”

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney seem to fit this mold squarely

To take some artistic license with a well-known aphorism:

If all you've ever used is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

How many majority black countries were afforded the opportunity to grow up unmolested by great powers during their formative post colonial years?

How many once in a generation leaders were assassinated or deposed in favor of brutal yet capital friendly regimes?

America, with all its cultural heritage of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson and Lincoln barely survived the 1960’s due to political assassinations. It’s hard to expect younger nations to fair better.

No country has ever been unmolested during their formative years except maybe the USA.

While true that all countries had conflicts, most (maybe all?) of the developed world was never pillaged to the extent Africa and South America were. Not to mention a lot of the conflicts between those nations happened "voluntarily" between the fighting countries.

Africa especially, the current country borders were designed based on the division of property between all the European countries invading the natives' lands. That meant several tribes and groups were divided/grouped together, leading to wars that hold to this day. If I'm not mistaken the Rwanda Massacre is the major example of that coming to fruit

Nope. Check how Frenchness came about (there used to be many languages in the current French borders). Check all the various wars (Napoleonic Wars, Finnish War, WW2, much further back we have Mongol War...).

Germany didn't exist 200 years ago.

Welsh nearly went extinct.

Poland moved hundreds of miles.

The thing that differentiates those European countries from the African ones is mostly age. And even then its not always one-sided.

There's also countries like Vietnam or empires like India which got pillaged just as hard as South Africa or Rwanda.

Also, are you trying to make the point that multi-ethnic societies result in civil war? That goes pretty strongly against current public sentiment.

Each one of those could be an insurmountable challenge for most people. I’m glad you were (seemingly) able to pull through.

My sincere condolences on the loss of your father. Please take care of yourself.

This 1000X's.

At this point React is mostly a jobs program. Whatever useful abstractions it initially provided has been eclipsed by bloat.

I struggle to reconcile the unnecessary complexity with the fact that it has translated into so many well paying jobs.

Please do. Having lost my dad somewhat unexpectedly I would have loved something like this. I have 2 kids now and think besides financial security, journals, letters etc might be one of the most valuable things I could give them. That way they know me whether I’m here to tell them or not

Yes, it would be a primary motivation for me to memorialize my life for my children. It's tough losing a parent; my condolences on your father's passing. A friend I've known for 39 years is currently dying of ALS. It's crazy how fast it is taking him. He was just rennovating a house a year ago. He started a second family before being diagnosed, and he has a three year old. I remembered the Michael Keaton movie, My Life, where he makes videos of a bunch of things to teach his child when he is gone. I am horrible at the whole photo/video thing of myself. I guess it's the focus of being in the moment, and not sufficiently planning for it, so I am grateful my wife takes photos and videos once and a while with me in them.

Not sure if mint means the cameras were never used or just well maintained?

But if the father was able to take a lifetime of great photos in addition to the cameras increasing in value - I think I go with the camera 100/100 times.

I agree that if he used the cameras a lot, they were worth the money. The same for any other collectible.

But as monetary investments, they're terrible.

i lost my father a year ago, and was there as he passed away. society/hospice tells us that it brings comfort to the dying to be surrounded by family - who knows (and is the least i could do to support him after all he did for me). what i do know is that watching someone die is not for the faint of heart - its brutal. thank you for sharing your story and articulating/validating how i've been feeling about things. i wish you peace on your journey.