I’ve gone the other way recently, from a senior programming position to management temporarily. Not just of developers but operations management.
I do miss the coding, the building of things and saying “I did that”.
But there is satisfaction to be gained from getting projects started, motivating people, planning and monitoring.
I didn’t enjoy laying off people after senior staff left before they could do it. Finding out your upper management were out of their depth and sinking the company was frightening.
Before you take that management promotion, be aware that everything you guessed about the C suite being incompetent boobs is likely true. And you’ll be expected to fix it.
If the job application requires leetcode, just do it. The worst thing that could happen is you learn something.
I’ve been in the industry since the 1980s. I don’t see AI as any kind of threat. We expected a lot of the waves of technology would reduce the need for programmers but I now view it like Jevon’s paradox: AI will expand IT uses not reduce the number of programmers.
My colleagues all lived through various paradigm shifts (visual programming, no-code, low-code, objects, client server, etc) the work never really changes for the vast majority of programmers doing productivity work like CRUD systems.
FWIW you do not have to do leetcode to get a job. I’m a staff level SWE and I’ve had no problems finding non-leetcode companies, both through my own network and through browsing job listings.
I have literally never done a leetcode “whiteboard code this random problem that has nothing to do with our actual work” interview, in 25+ years in the industry.
Or you can just learn a handful of puzzle patterns in exchange for more job opportunities that would have the potential for higher overall pay. Seems like a fair trade to me.
It just feels obstinate to me. Most people will jump through all sort of bureaucratic/performative hoops when they're in a job to keep it or angle for promotions/minor raises, but this one that has a much higher average RoI turns them off. If you put your foot down on that sort of thing too then fair enough I suppose.
To be fair though, I don’t really want a Big Tech job. Several of the FAANGs, especially Facebook, are morally objectionable to me and I would switch careers before working for them. Most others have shitty working conditions with in-office policies, open office layouts, etc, that are detrimental to me getting work done.
So it’s not just about the financial RoI for me.
And I think I’m at least consistent: I’ve never been one to jump through hoops for raises or promotions either.
Cheaper? Not sure how. While an ICE engine does have cooling systems and fuelling systems, water pumps and fuel pumps are relatively cheap and simple devices.
An EV generally has a battery cooling system along with regenerative braking.
EVs have roughly the same mechanical things as an ICE vehicle too, HVAC, suspension, brakes, in car entertainment, heated seats. Lighting. An entire 12v subsystem to power all that stuff as well.
A good old ICE car will be cheaper to make than an EV because the powertrain is cheaper when you account for batteries. Even taking into account the gearbox you don’t need in an EV.
> A good old ICE car will be cheaper to make than an EV
How much of that is the result of the relatively maturity of the technology? We've been continuously improving ICE based transportation for well over a hundred years. It's been a lot shorter for electric vehicles.
I suspect that there are bigger strides to make with electrics that may eventually turn that around.
> I suspect that there are bigger strides to make with electrics that may eventually turn that around.
After many more billions are spent.
Is the American consumer going to eat that cost? The government clearly lost its appetite as it isn't subsidizing EVs anymore.
The US has cheap fuel and it isn't a strategic issue to develop EVs except to keep US auto internationally competitive.
US consumers are still really into big SUVs and trucks and almost all of the models are ICE instead of EVs. The EV manufacturers don't really fit the shape of the American consumer that they haven't already sold to.
China jumped on EVs because they wanted to start an automotive sector for (1) heavy industry, (2) adjacency to national defense, (3) strong new domestic and export market they could corner, (4) it's adjacent to their other manufacturing industries. Critically, they had a deep reservoir of Chinese citizens who were first time car buyers that they could nudge into buying domestic auto. No other nation on earth has the outsized advantage of having such a deep bench of new customers to subsidize a new industry. The stars aligned for China.
America has neither the interest nor the capital to chase EVs or force them down American consumer throats.
> America has neither the interest nor the capital to chase EVs or force them down American consumer throats.
Ok so dont, but take the tariffs off batteries, and allow foreign EVs to compete fairly. We'll get affordable EVs, and then we'll see what the american consumer actually wants. No? Oh, i guess its about something other than consumer choice after all.
>America has neither the interest nor the capital to chase EVs or force them down American consumer throats.
But America always has the interest and capital to protect oil interests and supply chains worldwide by being the biggest spender on military, funded by taxpayers.
The rest of the world is continuing to move to EVs, and while the US has a different taste in vehicles than most of the world, the underlying tech is the same, so they'll benefit from the advances made in Europe and Asia.
> America has neither the interest nor the capital to chase EVs or force them down American consumer throats.
Only if you see the market continue to be dominated by human drivers. We are potentially moving to self-driving cars like Waymo, Tesla etc then they will get the choice to force what car they like.
> The government clearly lost its appetite as it isn't subsidizing EVs anymore.
More like "the current" government. It can always change.
It did take a few years after 2007 before it became obvious to pretty much everyone that the iPhone was going to be a huge hit but took a little while before some oddities in the original software were corrected and people adjusted to not having a physical keyboard which some thought was going to be a dealbreaker out of the gate.
I don't understand this comparison. An EV's battery cooling system is a cooling system. Regen braking isn't more complicated than an alternator.
The rest, yeah. The chemical stacks in the batteries are expensive, and dealer markup was a problem (now they're 47-56k new). But the energy costs! $7-12 for a fill-up on home power overnight instead of $75-85 at the gas station.
And maintenance. So little maintenance. For local non-towing fleets these would save a lot.
Only if you have a home or some other super convenient always available spot. I don't and EVs are non-existing to me for another decade at least, simply too much hassle even if ignoring all other downsides (I don't buy new but mildly used for 25-30% of price of new which for ICE means 95% of the car, I do sometimes family 1500km drives like another one in 2 days - PITA with overcrowded electric cars, in cold which is normal here they become fraction of their capacity and drain battery continuously when parked and so on).
Its future but its coming/will come at very different time for various folks
> Regen braking isn't more complicated than an alternator.
Either disingenuous or ill-informed. one is ~1KW for a few seconds a day, the other is > 100KW of power for dozens of seconds, multiple dozens of times a day. completely engineering
China subsidises electric car companies to the tune of billions of dollars[0], as well as providing some tax breaks, so that's not a useful comparison.
They're not worse, China has (arguably) the best batteries in the world.
NMC and LFP (of the same cost) are about even, but pricier NMC packs can add maybe 10% more range for the same weight. Which is why most EV companies offer a "long-range version" that's just the same car with an NMC pack swapped in. It's mostly an irrelevant gimmick.
The truth is that range isn't limited by batteries, it's limited by weight and cost - a bigger battery weighs more, which means the car (frame) needs to support more weight, which means the car (frame) costs more. Most EVs have a range of ~300 miles (~500KM) and any battery gains don't go into extending the range, they go into reducing the weight (and therefore cost) of the car. Lighter frame, fewer battery cells. Because most people don't care past 300miles (500KM). Not enough to pay an extra $5k, at least.
Thank you. That's interesting. The infographic calls them cheaper which I assumed (incorrectly?) meant worse. 10% does seem gimmicky, though I am seeing claims on a number of sites that NMC is around 50% better per unit of weight (but way worse for longevity), so I don't know what to think.
Best 2nd hand TVs seem to be Panasonic Viera at least in my experience. You still need a set top box of some kind as they don’t understand H264 channels only mpeg (at least here in Australia). I like them because the back lighting is quite diffuse compared to other brands. Those plus a google TV streamer is more than good enough without laying out piles of cash or subjecting yourself to a smart TV.
I admire the confidence but a bunch of meat bags prone to bacterial and viral infection, impact damage and with limited use by dates would need some serious luck to survive a simple impact on earth let alone living in cans around the solar system. If we don’t mess our nest so much that we make it uninhabitable. We’re stuck here with short term horizon psychopaths pulling the strings remember.
A single colony would be a huge investment… it’s doubtful there would be thousands of attempts if success rate is low
And we would have to establish the reason for the colony … I’m not talking about a research base, but a place where people would settle, do useful ecomonic activity, raise families and live out most of their lives … I cannot 5hink of a reason why people would want to do 5hat anywhere but Earth.
There is no "thousand colonies". There might be one colony, and that might not ever be self sufficient.
Interstellar travel is a physics problem, not an engineering one. Even make believe nuclear propulsion is still aggressively limited by the rocket equation and still wont get you anywhere in a meaningful time frame.
There will never be an interstellar empire. It will never make sense to do trade between two planets that are otherwise capable of producing things, because the energy cost of doing anything in space absolutely dwarfs any possible industrial process. It doesn't matter how low quality your local iron ore is, importing ore from a different planet will never be a better option because transportation costs are effectively infinite.
Human trade is almost entirely based on the fun quirk that sea based transportation is ludicrously efficient, such that you can ship a single pound of product all over the globe and it can still be cheap. The physics of space are essentially the opposite of the physics of sea travel, in that it is dramatically harder and more energetically expensive than almost anything else you can do, and the energy regime it operates in will dwarf any other consideration.
If there was a magical way to turn joules directly into a change in kinetic energy, as in a machine that could magically extract every joule of "energy" from matter in an E=mc^2 way and directly reduce an object's kinetic energy by that much, taking a 100 kilogram human up to half the speed of light and eventually slowing them down again would take 31 kilograms of matter to "burn", and you have to accelerate all that matter too. That matter would require another like 10kg of matter to "burn" and then you have to accelerate that matter too and so on and so on.
And we do not come even remotely close to any mechanism, real or theoretical, that could convert mass to a change in kinetic energy. Even if you had like a magic antimatter machine that could come very close to turning a gram of matter into it's entire "energy" content, ways of turning thermal or electrical energy into thrust have their own inefficiencies, difficulties, and do not even come close to mapping to "Each joule of energy equals a joule of kinetic energy change".
And even with our magic spacecraft machine that cheats physics, that's still an 8 year round trip to Alpha Centauri and back, with something like a 50%-65% payload fraction.
The scale of things in space combined with the nature of that space makes interstellar anything nonsensical. Even interstellar travel of just information is fairly mediocre. SciFi will never exist in our world, and at this point should probably just be called "Fantasy with more plastic"
I liked it although that was maybe because Windows 2000 was a great OS. Having seen the awful mess the Unix vendors made of CDE/Motif, 2000 felt more professional.
Harley backed themselves into a niche and only have themselves to blame. I ride motorcycles but have zero interest in Harley’s because most of the riders seem to be cosplaying a 1%er vibe that is off putting in the extreme.
The clothing lines are a giveaway as to who their market is.
I divide riders into Harley enthusiasts and everybody else. People who like motorcycles generally have wide tastes or at least can appreciate all kinds of bikes. Harley riders wobble to a stop outside a bar and pretend to be hard men.
When I rode a Honda, I loved to see Harley riders putting their bikes on trailers and taking them everywhere. They would take them to an event on the back of a trailer, and then just ride around the area near the hotel. Then back on the trailer to go home.
I just sold my Harley (literally this morning). And you're totally right about the vibe. I had a 2017 Roadster (a much more upright bike than the cruisers you think of when you think of Harleys) and any time someone asked, I'd explain "I ride a Harley, but I'm not a 'Harley guy'". I would never roll around with other Harley riders.
I think the most telling thing was that when I priced my bike out, average mileage for that bike at that age was ~6500 miles. Which made my 52,000 miles a liability.
Likely they wouldn’t listen. Modern languages and environments seem intent on reinventing bad solutions to solved problems. I get it if it’s a bunch of kids that have never seen anything better but there is no excuse these days not to have at least a passing knowledge of older systems if you’ve been around a while.
there's certainly a piece of it. Also most seasoned people are not very interested in new languages and environments, and most languages are not 'spec built' by experts like Rob Pike building Go who explicitly set out to solve a lot of his problems, but are more naturally grown and born.
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