itqwertz

Anecdotally, I’ve heard that some big box stores like Target and Walmart allow shoplifters to get away with petty crime but save all evidence of these crimes to one day prosecute once the total shoplifted goes above the threshold of petty crime. Sometimes, these people would be goaded into this lifestyle by people who have agreements with Loss Prevention teams. Everyone wins except the shoplifter.

Some people moonlight other gigs (overemployed) and put unusually high levels of pressure to perform in themselves. So, 2/3x-ing that normal output is unsustainable but profitable. Context switching does take a toll when you’re putting out fires that have meetings attached. This was just an anecdotal example of a person who is running themselves into the ground. Startup culture of the 2010s fostered a lot of the myths of ultra-productivity and wealth without the backstory of drug abuse.

I’ve seen a few friends and coworkers go down this path, usually as a result of work stress or hustle culture. They start on neutropics and energy drinks, then get scripts for Adderall or Vyvanse to handle the perceived insurmountable workload, stabilize on those after an initial euphoria, then build up a heroic tolerance to (dextro|meth)amphetamines. Withdrawals from that high level of addiction leads to anxiety, insomnia, delusions, mania and all sorts of craziness (I suspect the lack of sleep is the culprit).

Eventually this sends the patient to a doctor/dealer to escape their misery of detox/relapse cycles. The gates to hell are finally opened once a benzo is prescribed.

One entrepreneur ended punching a bouncer and attempting to flee on a bus to some random city, spending more than a week in jail. Another fled the U.S. after making a lot of crazy purchases and life choices, he is now living in a war zone voluntarily. The amount of DGAF/YOLO these drugs give the user are very understated. The withdrawals were much worse. I’ve never seen someone down almost a whole handle of bourbon just to get “normal“. The brain zaps and the tics/twitches were very noticeable.

Stevie Nicks has also spoken publicly about her struggles with Klonopin withdrawal. BEWARE!!!

Great name

I also live in a "democracy" as well, but the U.S. has as much corruption as any banana republic or former Soviet bloc state. We just haven't reached ostensible, Mexico-tier levels that irk the average citizen. Democracy is just the story you're told to placate your feelings of powerlessness by the powers-that-be. Any form of real threat to power through protest is squashed before it even begins. There is evidence it is fostered by the government itself.

There are always personal risks when you engage with society at a political level.

If you see a police stop on the highway, should you pull over and record to observe? Could this stop make you a person of interest, or at least a known nuisance, to the average law enforcement agency? Would footage of interactions between the detained driver, police, and yourself be of interest on social media? Does the U.S. government possess a vast well of data of each citizen's interactions on communication networks?

Let's be honest here - what was this person's intentions? A quick Google search of "Xenia Pantos" shows details about this person's life and practice that would place them a political/social enemy of the current U.S. administration's voting base.

My advice is to treat all interactions with the government as neutral at best, and to avoid any reason for them to target you. If you decide to become a political, expect some negative attention from the opposing side, especially if that opposing side is in power. The ideal world where a citizen exercises their rights crumbles into brutal reality the second one of these interactions being observed becomes physically contentious or violent.

The real AI psychosis is the expectation of 5x/10x productivity gains akin to the mythical 10x developer during the 2010s JS growth period.

At the end of the day, we can only read so much and take on so much work before we bottleneck ourselves. Cognitive overload leads to burnout. Rumplestiltskin vibes with this AI stuff…

>credentials required

There are no credentials required.

>authoritatively say

Experience beats credentials.

>qualified labor pool

No degree required outside of a HR checklist. CS students are not necessarily qualified outside of academia in the real world. H-1B just means you jumped through the hoops of credentialism to be a "qualified" candidate. Many universities require you to have a CS degree to work as an tech employee, so they shut out many qualified candidates. Their loss, and eventual downfall.

>Do you think the deep engineering knowledge and practices to solve hard problems is overrated?

Yes, extremely overrated. The emergence of AI is at least proof that "deep engineering knowledge" can be easily summoned by a prompt. The practices are on their way to automation. The hard work has been done.

A nice relocation package to a sunny climate would be pretty attractive to many qualified U.S. residents in the northern states.

Why are universities not creating a talent pool for their self-sustainment? Many of us have had to suffer through college lectures of dubious real-world application and near-incomprehensible accents. I am not alone when I realized that I could just enter the tech world with self-study, self-promotion, and applying to open positions.

They say, "those who can, do - those who can't, teach", and I believe it. Maybe the real question is: Are universities going the way of the physical newspaper, the personal blog, the dinosaur...?

Take a break for a few months to recalibrate what you want from life. Tech will still be here when you’re ready again. Go travel, use your physical body to walk and hike and lift, have a couple of flings, go to a bar at noon, work a few temp jobs, apply minimalism in your life, learn about something you like, etc.

Terrible CSS on mobile.

Angular v1 was absolutely the game-changer for sane UI patterns. Although it could choke on large datasets and models were iffy, it allowed us to worry less about the framework and more about the work at hand.

Did they try asking Claude to fix these issues? If it turns out this problem is AI-related, I'd love to see the AAR.

Have a baby! You’ll definitely live in the moment when the attention is on another rather than yourself. It’s hard to wax philosophical when you’re trying to keep another human alive.

Looks great! Now add AI and you’ll be page 1 of HN!!