cyrialize

I've just been using LLMs (specifically DuckDuckGo's chat) to help find research and articles to dive into.

I don't really see the point of asking LLMs to summarize something for me when I can just read about it myself.

I will do chats back and forth about specific topics, but then always ask for follow up resources I could dive into.

This isn't fool proof - I'll sometimes get resources that aren't really what I'm looking for - but it feels better than searching the web.

Especially when I don't have a clear idea of what search terms to look for.

I haven't tried things like the Socratic method though or having LLMs teach me something! I've really just been focused on reading lately.

My last laptop was a used 2012 T530.

My current is a used M1 MBP Pro with 16GB of ram.

I thought this was all I was ever going to need, but wanting to run really nice models locally has me thinking about upgrading.

Although, part of me wants to see how far I could get with my trusty laptop.

Oh hi! I'm a huge fan of your work! I've watched so many videos breaking down Doki Doki Literature Club.

Thank you for all that you do.

The Wii is very moddable. I've modded my Wii in the past just for playing modded versions of Super Smash Brother Melee (mainly training packs, like flashing a red light when I miss an L-cancel).

I'm a fan of ambient and instrumental hip hop for programming.

My personal favorites are pretty much anything by Nujabes (including the soundtracks for Samurai Champloo), Fat Jon, and DJ Okawari.

I also like some classic albums in the genre like Donuts by J Dilla, Dr. No's Oxperiment by Oh No, and Endtroducing by DJ Shadow.

I will sometimes go through essential charts I find to dive into new genres, and other times I'll pick a random artist and go through their entire discography start to finish.

I highly recommend doing that with Talk Talk, their transition from 80s pop to experimental is phenomenal.

Thank you for mentioning this, it was the first thing I thought of in this conversation thread!

Another way to frame trade deficit (sometimes) is using the phrase "investment surplus".

Many top economies have trade deficits. China is a unique example that goes against that, although I believe China is trying to have their population spend more rather than save.

If you drive a truck because you like trucks, then a Cybertruck works.

If you drive a truck because you need a truck, then Cybertrucks don't really work.

That being said, I think a lot of people are in the first category.

The second category people have things that can be fit in a normal truck, but not a Cybertruck.

Fastmail is awesome! I've been a happy user for a long time. Everything just works. The UI is great, nothing gets in my way.

I'm a fan of the randomly generated emails as well. That service integrates with 1Password too.

Dang, and I felt like I wrote up a good response lol

I'm sorry that you are going through this.

I haven't gone through something similar, but I think something that helped me out the 2nd time I looked for a job was how valued work experience is.

As a new grad, personal projects are useful because it adds to the pile of things for an employer to look at (along with internships). After that though, personal projects matter less and less compared to real world experience.

(There are exceptions to this though. Personal projects matter less because you don't face real world problems with them. If you have a personal project that gets users, that is definitely something worth talking about).

I recommend just applying to smaller, lesser-known companies just to get some experience. My 1st job was at a small financial tech company that no one ever heard of, and they hired in a lower-cost, non-competitive area. We used a very old tech stack, and had custom everything - that didn't stop me from getting hired at other places.

You should check out: universities, banks, insurance companies, and marketing firms. Applying to companies that are tech companies is pretty rough right now, but you can find non-tech companies that are hiring.

(There's no such thing as a "non-tech" company, but I really just mean companies that don't advertise themselves as tech).

You could also do something like use Indeed, pick a smaller town, and then minimize the miles.

Oh wow this looks really awesome! I'll have to check it out.

I unfortunately primarily use Firefox, but still this is great. I've manually tried to keep track of bookmarks via org, but of course I'll always forget to update it.