rboyd

It really hits you in the feels. You get so used to receiving them and then all of a sudden it's a bit of a gut check and it reminds you your baby is growing up so fast. Plus the reminder of Dolly's kindness. Unexpected in what was just a simple trip to the mailbox.

Been programming since 12 (now 44). I still remember the pure joy of writing the QBasic and Turbo Pascal programs to draw random colored pixels at random locations on a mode 13h or interface with a sound blaster.

Went through this identity crisis super strong about a year and a half ago.

I feel like I'm mostly over it now. The surface area of interesting things to learn seems ever expansive. It's fun to find the frontier and the spaces where the models still struggle, and then work together to overcome a hurdle and achieve something neither of us could have achieved individually.

I suppose that frontier too will thin and eventually vanish.

For now though I think it's best to take whatever time you need to be nostalgic, but then realize how awesome it is to get to be a programmer at this inflection point.

buy an existing business and scale it up

Ask for some leniency. Let your account rep know about your budget difficulties and ask if you can make good faith payments of a few billion per month until you get back on your feet.

also unrelated to a private repo I have in my github named flux

I've found it's always best to calibrate around expecting something like the ice cream sandwich episode of The Office. Never feel too much of a letdown this way.

correctly guessed I was funny

double down on betting your career on being a css expert? what could go wrong

1) I was hooked on day one. Logged on every day, mostly read message boards, paged/chatted with sysops or played door games at first. But very quickly fell down the "hpcva" rabbit hole, which paved the way for the infosec undertones of my career. I'm fuzzy on the program names, seem to remember Telex, Terminate, ToneLoc (a random dialer where you'd scan an entire NPA for interesting carriers).

2) We got a small list of boards from the family friend who helped install our modem, and after you had the first few boards most of the logout screens had a long list of others. There were also lists (by area code) that you could sometimes download from the files section, or some of the grey area ones were traded (usually required NUP/NUV anyway -- new user password/new user voting).

3) Both. Some 20+ node boards were legendary. Some boards were so empty that the sysop would break in after barely giving you time to login because they were so happy to finally see a caller.

4) Drama seemed to matter a lot more. Today it's mostly just drive-by arguing on X or something, and after you exchange unplesantries you move on with your life. On early boards (and into IRC) the communities felt more insular and drama really could divide an entire community and leave lasting marks. Topics were all over the place. Flirting seemed more open, and plenty of fights were just over girls because at the time the female side of tech was extremely unrepresented.

5) How to troubleshoot/fix computers was common. Discussing specific programming languages really bloomed with Usenet and IRC. The t-files on boards that were most interesting to me were about making computers do things they weren't meant to do. Fravia/ORC+ reversing tutorials, or phrack, etc etc.

they'll just click the "close eyes" filter button soon enough

I'm raising for Tinder for AI agents. (DM)

so how much of a factor is it that safety guardrails may be keeping the current models from achieving higher scores in whatever red teaming benchmarks exist?

Would you integrate with existing POS systems or is this a new one? If a new one do you integrate with some existing hardware for card scans?

I saw the POS systems often have developer/partner programs but at this late stage are they granting those partnerships or is this a gatekeeping system?

Do you have to sell the customer on migrating away from their existing system? How do you convince a massage parlor to migrate from Square? A sushi restaurant away from Toast?

Price?

Thanks.

We have multiple openings for Senior and Principal Scapegoat Engineers. DM for referral.