kerpal

There's a lot of things you could attribute it to: AI, the economy, career transitions. For me personally, more interested in freelance/consulting work at my stage of life vs. full-time gigs.

AI is definitely disruptive to technical work though but how do you attribute it without confounding it with the economy weakness or just people transitioning in their own career? Not an easy task.

Good screw them. They put a god damn button on the keyboard for their crap AI. Everyone just uses the smartest AI and has zero loyalty to your garbage AI. Look how quickly Meta abandoned open-source AI when they got behind.

Windows 11 is bloated, loaded with telemetry, won't stop nagging you about OneDrive and Office365 and now mandates sign-in with a Microsoft account while forcing 400+ million devices to not have security updates.

I'm willing to bet most of Microsoft's engineers are using Claude, not their own garbage.

Yup exactly this, I had to look it up because I don't even remember what they were called but I vaguely remember seeing them in the 90s.

SEEKING WORK | California, USA | Remote Fractional CTO specializing in cloud infrastructure, full-stack development, and payment systems. 15+ years transforming complex technical challenges into scalable business solutions.

Core Expertise: Payment Systems: Stripe Connect marketplaces, PCI compliance Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Azure deployment and optimization, Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code Healthcare Tech: HIPAA-compliant architectures, API Architecture: 3rd-party integrations (Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, Calendly, DocuSeal) Full-Stack: Modern web applications, system architecture, 99.9%+ uptime SLAs

Technologies: Python, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP/Azure, Stripe Connect, REST APIs, CI/CD pipelines

Recent Work:

Built healthcare SaaS platform with Stripe Connect marketplace infrastructure Reduced infrastructure costs by 40-60% through cloud optimization Deployed production Kubernetes clusters with automated CI/CD pipelines

Ideal Projects: Healthcare/HealthTech, Professional Services, B2B Marketplaces. Particularly interested in high-automation tech stacks, rapid scaling challenges, and technical transformations. Availability: 10-15 hours/week Rate: $250/hour Email: adamel { at } {g mail dot com}

The product/website itself is interesting as a founder who believes heavily in implementing simulations to rigourously test complex systems. However I noticed lots of screenshots and less substance about how it actually works. If your ICP is technical, the frontend and marketing shouldn't be overdone IMO.

I need substance and clear explanations of models, methodology, concepts with some visual support. Screenshots of the product are great but a quick real or two showing different examples or scenarios may be better.

I'm also skeptical many people who are already technical and already using AI tools will now want to use YOUR tool to conduct simulation based testing instead of creating their own. The deeper and more complex the simulation, the less likely your tool can adapt to specific business models and their core logic.

This is party of the irony of AI and YC startups, LOTS of people creating this interesting pieces of software with AI when part of the huge moat that AI provides is being able to more quickly create your own software. As it evolves, the SaaS model may face serious trouble except in the most valuable (e.g. complex and/or highly scalable) solutions already available with good value.

However simulations ARE important and they can take a ton of time to develop or get right, so I would agree this could be an interesting market if people give it a chance and it's well designed to support different stacks and business logic scenarios.

This is so absolutely fundamental to US strategic advantage.

A huge reason we have so many unicorns is because doing business and scaling in the US is easier than EU or other places.

A huge part of why the Manhattan Project was successful was also because of substantial brain drain from Europe. I think Scott Galloway wrote about this or may have popularized it.

Same, the desktop app worked great. Probably for the best though, ideally you want to pull your codes from a phone and password from your desktop device.

Use a password manager and use a SEPARATE second factor authenticator not tied to the password manager. I personally use Authy (though I think it's been deprecated) and Bitwarden.

I recently got a Google scam call from someone using Google Voice in the bay area (650 number) claiming to be with Google and that an unauthorized device was trying to access my account. Eventually realized they were just trying to get my to unlock my account probably to drain bank accounts.

Tried codex but so far feels a lot slower than claude code. Perhaps because I'm on the basic plan?

First time I was able to install Codex with no NPM errors. Gonna give it a shot, seems a lot slower than Claude Code but I'm only using basic Pro with ChatGPT vs. Max 100.

Author makes some good points though, I think many of us are feeling a bit of AI fatigue. There's so many platforms and services available now, and a large group will likely be vaporware soon as the market battle plays out.

I'll admit these "far right" labels don't hold much weight, usually just a way to expose yourself (the author here). But I agree with much of the overall sentiment of the article. The AI hype feels a bit dystopian and I say that as someone who has been heavily using LLMs since 2023.

They're very useful but we also have to ask ourselves what the world will look like if we automate everyone out of a job.

Claude/Anthropic is more focused on productivity (Coding, Spreadsheets, Reports). ChatGPT seems more focused on general-purpose LLM (Research, Cooking, Writing, Image Generation).

Makes sense that MS would partner with Anthropic since their tool-use for productivity (Claude Code) seems superior. I personally rarely code with ChatGPT, almost strictly Claude.

That's always the issue with these directory indexer services which try to scrape lots of data. The quality is always questionable. If users actually adopt it you can have them report or fix the data based on consensus but users won't even bother if they find 1/3 of your listings are complete junk and your platform actually wastes time.

SEEKING WORK | California, USA | Remote Freelance engineer specializing in cloud infrastructure, full-stack development, and payment systems. 15+ years transforming complex technical challenges into scalable business solutions. Core Expertise:

Payment Systems: Stripe Connect marketplaces, multi-party payment flows, PCI compliance Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, GCP, Azure deployment and optimization, Kubernetes, infrastructure-as-code Healthcare Tech: HIPAA-compliant architectures, EMR integrations, telehealth platforms API Architecture: 3rd-party integrations (Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid, Calendly, DocuSeal) Full-Stack: Modern web applications, system architecture, 99.9%+ uptime SLAs

Technologies: Node.js, Python, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS/GCP/Azure, Stripe Connect, REST APIs, CI/CD pipelines

Recent Work:

Built healthcare SaaS platform with Stripe Connect marketplace infrastructure Reduced infrastructure costs by 40-60% through cloud optimization Deployed production Kubernetes clusters with automated CI/CD pipelines Integrated 10+ EMR systems into unified data model

Ideal Projects: Healthcare/HealthTech, Professional Services, B2B Marketplaces. Particularly interested in high-automation tech stacks, rapid scaling challenges, and technical transformations. Availability: 10-15 hours/week Rate: $250/hour Email: adamel { at } {g mail dot com}

FBI is shooting itself in the foot with these sort of policies. I can understand not wanting to hire someone smoking weed on the way to an interview, but in your spare time? What about all the law enforcement staff who abuse alcohol? Alcohol's been proven to be a more dangerous substance but Congress and the scheduling system are still opposite of the data.

They act like hiring those who occasionally partake in cannabis is somehow the equivalent of the army laxing physical requirements to enlist.

What I always wonder is why strive for productivity at all? I see all these self-help blog posts about boosting productivity, getting more out of your day, etc. They all seem to eschew the virtues of productivity in lieu of hedonism. Can't we have both? Or is the problem moderation? If we don't balance productivity with enjoyment and relaxation we oscillate from each extreme. I confess I've been a bit obsessed with self-help books and websites. With that said, when I compare my more productive self to my time-wasting, hedonistic side, I prefer to have a mix of both. Striving for the extreme hacks to maximize time to be more productive seem pointless if you aren't having fun or enjoying yourself. Strive for achievement sure, but also enjoy life.

You may be able to find the Ikea Jerker on craigslist or other classifieds. I got mine from a college student for relatively cheap, I think around $40 or $60. It works great as a standing desk but you don't have any motorized mechanism to lower or lift the desk. This is probably a good thing if you are trying to stand but an alternative solution is getting a high-rise stool/seat. I alternate between standing and sitting now.

Thanks for this write up. I didn't know about enumerate. I never thought of swapping variables as in example 4 either.

I noticed one small mistake in section 9:

  d[keys] = values[i] 

  d[key] = values[i]

This is stupid. The article claims the term gamer itself isn't appropriate but the examples it provides are wrong. People who enjoy films may often be called film buffs or even more generically movie goers. People who enjoy reading may be referred to as book worms. Deciding to reject them doesn't really mean anything. The term gamer is not the problem.

If this article was more about rejecting sexist and racist language and behavior in gaming I'd agree with it. However I think these problems are more a factor of age and maturity than anything else. Play in a gaming community where the average age is 20+ and you'll find a more tolerable environment.

I was just reading an article yesterday stating that Windows 7 had twice the growth rate in market share of Windows 8. Pretty dumb of Microsoft to alienate their customers but I suppose its nothing new.

This is exactly like 99 Gamers, which is also free. It was started about a year ago too, according to the original launch post on reddit. I recently started using it to get rid of Xbox games collecting dust. The experience has been painless and is an excellent way to try out other games.

Interesting to see there are other video game trading websites out there.

I never actually tried their warehouse fulfillment service but I swear by Amazon for selling used gadgets. Amazon gets a lot of traffic from consumers making it a great way to sell something quickly. I remember listing an used Android phone that was maybe two year old technology at that point. I went to list it and within a few hours someone snagged it at like $90. The only other route I've ever tried is Craigslist, which has worked out pretty well too. Asking for the same price you can usually have someone pick up the item locally and get every cent you are asking for if you're reasonable. I always price things about 20% more than I think I will sell through CL.

This seems kind of absurd. What are they doing, looking at an IP block belonging to the DoD and then laying claim that the DoD doesn't know their geography because a couple of people on their network did their quiz incorrectly? Give me a break.

Actually Sierra published the original Half-life game but didn't help develop it or Counter-Strike. CS was created by Gooseman (Minh Lee) and is arguably the most popular Half-Life mod ever. I played that game for thousands of hours too starting back in middle school.