Cats (and perhaps other mammals/animals with complex nervous systems) have the tendency to „disappear“ a few days before they die.
I lived in the countryside as a kid and saw several generations of our farm cats come & go. We never found out where and when they died, but all of them lived a long (cat) life and I‘m pretty sure most of them died of old age.
My assumption is that humans can feel that their time is coming as well, and apparently the experience seems to be similar for all of us.
Mathematik für Ingenieure und Wissenschaftler I, II and III from Lothar Papula (in German). The solutions are detailed, making it perfect for self-studying.
Book of Proof by Richard Hammack. A great introduction to proofs in mathematics. The book is available free online [0], but also I bought the physical version because I really enjoyed it.
An ex-colleague of mine worked for OneCoin (another crypto scam originating from Bulgaria) when their offices got raided a few years ago. Now he’s an engineering manager at Nexo.
I honestly think a lot of the employees of these companies don’t know about the underlying fraud. The cryptocurrency world is full of rationalizations and illogical beliefs that make a lot of these businesses sound legitimate to the underinformed.
That said, I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with cryptocurrency obsessed hires and peers in the workplace. This got especially bad in 2022 when people’s portfolios were up and they all believed they were on the verge of retiring wealthy. There’s something about buying into the crypto dream that makes people think they’ve found a cheat code to financial freedom while the rest of us are stupidly working our jobs.
I’ve watched the same exact pattern play out with coworkers who bought into MLM schemes or self-help guru courses. These fantasies about breaking free from the world through “secret” financial instruments will always be attractive to some subset of people.
Human psychology allows for these traps and while people eventually realize what are traps new ones emerge and the cycle continues. Too bad this whole phenomena takes away any benefit crypto could have brought
Shady. Willing to be paid in strange currencies deposited in overseas banks. Likely to have tax troubles one day. Knows how to buy a plane ticket using cash. Strong opinions on Krugerrand valuation. Owns a motorcycle without an odometer. Bought a house with a series of 9,999$ travelers checks. More likely to install a Kim Dotcom-type panic room than run for public office.
> Willing to be paid in strange currencies deposited in overseas banks.
I'd need a more concrete definition for 'strange currencies', but discriminatory behaviour shouldn't be applied to anyone that has an account overseas, especially in the age of global banking & cross-border payments.
> Likely to have tax troubles one day.
On the one hand, this will definitely happen: Internationally-acquired income often subsequently leads to poor tax handling, especially if the individual involved is unfamiliar with the intricacies of filing taxes for such sources of income.
However, it is also a consequence of overlapping jurisdictions & law enforcement, with unified, clear & unambiguous definitions being the exception rather than the norm.
> Knows how to buy a plane ticket using cash.
Why is using cash a problematic behaviour now? Just because I still use cash doesn't mean that I should be classified as 'shady'.
> Strong opinions on Krugerrand valuation.
Tried to search this & only found references to the gold coin with the same name. As similarly stated beforehand, why is being a goldbug now 'shady'?
> Owns a motorcycle without an odometer.
...I can see why: An odometer, coupled with the motorcycle's purchase histories, is a good way of finding out the roads that a person used to travel on with some reliability.
> Bought a house with a series of 9,999$ travelers checks.
Same as the plane ticket: The large denomination will raise eyebrows, but it shouldn't be used as a marker for discrimination.
> More likely to install a Kim Dotcom-type panic room than run for public office.
...This is similar to the odometer-less motorcycle: The individual wanting to install a panic room is likely someone that's thinking about worst case scenarios, & planning with that in mind.
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All of the listed "shady" traits stem from a core: Paranoia, specifically paranoia of a malicious State. More generally, it's the fear that the State will use the information it gathered about a person for unwarranted surveillance & eventually prosecution over the slightest infractions.
In earnest: Why is paranoia suddenly a "shady" thing?
A bike without an odometer is "true mileage unknown" (TMU) which makes selling/insuring/valuing it somewhat difficult. On a custom chopper that is normal. Many choppers don't even have speedometers. But on a normal bike missing such instruments is seen as a red flag that the bike is stolen and/or made from stolen parts.
odometer value is easily modified, even with digital ones. Even then, it is often not accurate at all, especially on motorcycles, due to the fact that it is usually driven by a cable attached to the front wheel (just disconnect the cable and number never goes up).
Maybe in the 1980s. On a modern bike it is integrated into the transmission, usually on the drive sprocket. And then the signal is used in slightly different ways, with the odometer being accurate and the speedometer generally reading a few % higher than the actual speed. Some bikes may also use it for electronic engine/emission controls too.
Not all bikes. 2023 DRZ 400sm still has a cable (they haven't modified the design in years). Most scooters/motorbikes are cables too.
Even still, it is easily hacked on almost any vehicle (Tesla is a great example of a connected car making it much harder) and there is plenty of YT all about it...
The same reason your cell phone fell out of your pocket in the driveway before the trip. So that it never happened.
I think this is easier with bikes because there's more repair culture and more off-roading. Off-road bikes generally have all non-essentials stripped and left in a box, blinkers, odometer, fancy fenders...
A famous short seller, I think it was Chanos but I can't remember, once said in an interview that they follow where the management of past frauds go as a signal to determine future frauds.
Just like every ponzi scheme, the trick is to get out in time. I wonder how many people worked for Madoff but left before it all fell apart. How many of them are now working in other financial jobs? or Lehman bros.
Fun fact, one of the biggest benificiaries of madoff's scheme is believed to be madoff's victim/investor Jeffry Picower.
Picower may have figured out it was a Ponzi and agreed to "invest" in the scheme when Madoff became desperate for liquidity. But there was plausible deniability as he was just a guy who bought in at times and sold off at others.
So maybe the actual trick is people like Picower, who identify these schemes and then leverage the scheme to their advantage while all along looking like another victim and never once speaking about their suspicions or getting involved in the mechanics. Which brings me to think perhaps the Picowers in SBF's scheme were some of his investors who figured out it was a scheme but believed they could cash out before it toppled.
Scheme no, but it was a company that fell apart quickly. Employees would be better served to get out and secure a new job the day before a crash rather than the day after.
This brings memories. I also got „asked to leave“ after raising our first round.
I was young (25) and naive, with no experience in business within the family. But what was really crucial back then was that I lacked a mentor who’d make me aware of the risks before letting the sharks in.
It took me three years to bounce back and start something new. On the positive side, I learned a lot.
Author here - Given that I‘m not in the US puts me at a disadvantage. But if you can forward me a good lawyer who is willing to work with me on this, I may give it a shot.
I don't think that is necessarily a disadvantage - it could even work to your benefit as most of Google's legal muscle is in the US.
Did some googling (lol), was looking for any lawyers who have won successful defamation cases against Google. The top results that were successful suits in non-US jurisdictions (Australia, Japan, Ireland, Hong Kong).
I am not a lawyer, I just find law very interesting. I'd recommend reaching out to a few lawyers that deal with defamation claims in your current jurisdiction to see if they think you have a claim.
IMO getting better at Leetcode problems is similar to getting better at mathematics and physics - you become familiar on a topic by doing problems on a daily basis, trying to wrap your mind around the concepts and at times doing a bit of drilling just to stamp the things that need to be memorized.
Both require you to be disciplined and dedicate time on a daily basis, otherwise you won’t get further.
Having the time to address this is absolute luxury to me. Only when I became relatively rich (I‘m coming from a poor background) could I consider learning Leetcode problems. Before that point, I was learning whatever earns me survival money.
I am from a poor background and I did the same thing. There was more important stuff to worry about than Leets. I'm only focusing on it because I'm already successful now and just want to take things to the next level and get "better" work.
I had a similar life and I fully concur to your sentiment - it took me the better part of my life to get out of poverty, and I missed out on so many things that normal people regard as a given.
These days I‘m studying physics and mathematics while having a cushy engineering job and I‘m so genuinely happy that I can sit down and study for hours without having to worry about making ends meet at the end of the month. It’s a blessing.
Most of the people I know who did competitive programming in high school spent a just a few evenings preparing for FAANG interviews and still got offers in the end.
I have the feeling that all the bitterness towards this interview process comes from people who refuse to do the initial investment of time to learn the foundation for solving coding challenges. Once you go through and understand a few hundred coding challenges, things start to repeat themselves and then it just takes practice and consistency.
Personally, I find coding challenges fun and even quite enjoyable at times, so I don’t see why it’s a waste of time to get good at them. At the very least, I learned a lot about Java doing them than I would‘ve learned if I did a side project where I‘d need to use some framework or library that’s based on Java.
The problem is that coding challenges are OK if you are hiring for an entry level position and need to make sure that the fresh grad can actually write some code at all (surprising amount of them does not).
However, what exactly are you hoping to achieve with this when hiring a senior engineer who is likely to have 10+ years of experience in the field? With verifiable references?
You are only wasting everyone's time. Sorry but I am really not going to spend a month preparing for a single interview where I have no guarantee of neither an offer and not even knowledge of the team/project I would be working on (Google recruiter calling me seriously thought that this is normal - you apply "blind" and only after passing through their hiring "torture test" of 7 or how many interview rounds you get told which position may be "the best" for you. I said "No, thank you" and hung up.)
The issue with this is that you are both testing the wrong skills (senior engineer really shouldn't be doing basic algorithms but system design, leading teams and managing projects!) and that this is "senior engineer" position is likely senior only in name because the recruiters want to attract more competent people. In reality it is an entry level job ...
You're taking a personal feeling and extrapolating onto others. Not everybody finds sitting on leetcode 3 hours a day a fun task. I'm one of those people. It's absolutely mind numbing.
A few hundred coding challenges is months and months of preparation if you're actually trying to internalize everything very well. Kudos to those who can do it and have the willpower to, but I can't seem to get past 3 weeks tops before my body starts physically rejecting these problems.
It also seems to skew towards recent grads and single people that can spend all of that time on these problems.
> I have the feeling that all the bitterness towards this interview process comes from people who refuse to do the initial investment of time to learn the foundation for solving coding challenges.
My bitterness comes from the fact that the interview process does not reflect what happens in day-to-day work. If I had to invert a n-ary tree, I would google how to do that, which I can't do during the interview.
> Once you go through and understand a few hundred coding challenges, things start to repeat themselves and then it just takes practice and consistency.
Assuming you spend about an hour to solve and understand a given coding challenge, that's a couple of hundred hours. Assuming an hour a day, that's about 3 months for 100 questions. That's not a trivial amount of prep.
>Personally, I find coding challenges fun and even quite enjoyable at times, so I don’t see why it’s a waste of time to get good at them.
Personally, I would prefer to spend that time enjoying my life. Whatever floats your boat.
In my experience, most people who do coding challenges are the younger folks. As we get older, we have better things to do than do coding challenges, especially a "few hundred" on our spare time. They might have other hobbies or responsibilities.
the problem is that DS/Algos interview questions, besides deep in low level programming, have little relevance in real life work scenarios. The only thing of value that my formal CS education gave me in respect to my day to day, really is the ability to problem solve.
Also, the reverse can be said about this - that individuals who had a more formal CS education are feeling bitter that more and more people are starting to realize that their time spent in "coding challenges" prove to be of low value in their work, so they keep hammering them in the only place they can - interviews.
Mainly it's just annoying if you've been working for 4+ years and haven't touched that stuff in a while. It's an entirely separate skillset separate from your role as a developer. The fact that there have now been several studies showing it doesn't correlate with job performance makes its emphasis in interviews questionable.
There's also some fear on the "poseur" factor that people worry about. If candidates can simply rote-learn their way into senior roles I wouldn't really feel comfortable having them as team members.
With that said, I do like think the advice of reading Programming Pearls and Designing Data-Intensive Applications -- two books useful for the job at hand, and just your general knowledge of how systems work and how to approach problems. Leetcode, by contrast, is empty calories.
> Personally, I find coding challenges fun and even quite enjoyable at times, so I don’t see why it’s a waste of time to get good at them.
You really can't imagine that someone feels differently? Please try to have a more open mind.
I, for one, would much rather spend my free time on my side-project that is actually used by people. I would have a hard time working on something that was a throwaway. (Which is what actually happened when I tried to interview at FB. I spent more time working on the side-project than studying leetcode. FB promptly told me I couldn't code... "OK")
> Eastern Europe is state of mind, not a geographical location.
Author here. Perhaps I put a little bit too much drama in the classic Eastern European issues. I'm not complaining, I do acknowledge the advancement of Bulgaria's economy (it's definitely not like the 90s as far as the narratives go), but I'm not very satisfied with the competitiveness of our country on the global scene. Take Singapore for example - it's more deprived than Bulgaria in numerous aspects, yet it is one of the technological powerhouses of Asia. I'm not focusing on the problems; I'm focusing on what could be improved and leveraged from the current situation.
> ...there are numerous large-scale companies w/ strong regional presence, as well various small outsourcing shops...
True, but for how long have the co-working spaces been around? Around 5 years. Healthy companies? Since we joined the EU (~10 years). All the companies before that period (Sciant, Telerik, Chaos Group etc.) were made of a bunch of extremely talented young people willing to work almost for free in order to gain reputation and recognition from outside.
Plus, the working conditions you mentioned apply only for no more than 20,000 people employed in the tech industry in Bulgaria. The majority of the population is in survival mode.
I lived in the countryside as a kid and saw several generations of our farm cats come & go. We never found out where and when they died, but all of them lived a long (cat) life and I‘m pretty sure most of them died of old age.
My assumption is that humans can feel that their time is coming as well, and apparently the experience seems to be similar for all of us.