I don't do it in my head. I do diagrams, then discuss them with other people until everyone is on the same page. It's amazing how convoluted get data from db, do something to it, send it back can get, especially if there is a queue or multiple consumers in play, when it's actually the simplest thing in the world, which is why people get over-confident and write super-confusing code.
Diagrams are what I tend to use as well, my background is Engineering (the non software kind) for solving engineering problems one of the first thing we are taught to do at uni is to sketch out the problem and I have somewhat carried that habit over when I need to write a computer program.
I map out on paper the logical steps my code needs to follow a bit like a flow chart tracking the change in states.
When I write code I'll create like a skeleton with placeholder functions I think I'll need as stubs and fill them out as I go, I'm not wedded to the design sometimes I'll remove/ replace etc whole sections as I get further in but it helps me think about it if I have the whole skeleton "on the page"
Wish the Anunnaki just left notes on how they did it. Joking aside, suddenly gold is all over the news, e.g.: "Composite material adorned with gold nanoparticles improves infectious disease testing"* Gold is also going up in value due to global instability. What I am really getting at is - are there any "actual" applications at this time? Also, if anyone feels like summarizing what I could google - did graphene ever live up to the hype, or still too expensive to produce and not quite what it was advertised as?
> What I am really getting at is - are there any "actual" applications at this time?
Of course not, they literally just figured out how to make it in a lab through what sounds like a very labor intensive process. They haven't (presumably) figured out how to mass manufacture it. They've probably just begun to characterize it's actual properties. Engineers haven't had their hands on it at all yet.
It's a very cool advance in science IMO! It's not a "product" and won't be for awhile. That's normal. Science isn't about making products.
Science drives products, though. Very few people would be interested in a square inch of refined sand flipping electric charges between positive and negative, if it didn’t result in a yellow circular man eating dots and chasing ghosts.
Graphene shows some interesting properties, perhaps less widely marketable than video games, but time will tell. We’re still before the 8086 on that time scale.
For single atom thick gold? I dare not even speculate.
Though gold grabs extra attention due to its financial role, its over hyped in this particular regard. It doesn’t degrade and the global reserves can easily absorb some scientific research. All discussions of inflation and / or monetary value tossed completely aside
You still need to have some delineation. Science drives new applications, yes - that's why approximately anyone with money is interested in funding it[0]. But it's also not why it's done by practitioners. Scientists tend to be interested in things just because. And then there's rarely a direct connection between foundational research and applications. Like, I doubt any of the physicists that gave us quantum mechanics, nor any of those who gave them the mathematical tools for it, were remotely thinking that this will enable Netflix and HDR TVs.
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[0] - Though FWIW, refined sand flipping electric charges was found to be very interesting not because of a yellow circle eating white circles, but because it helped with designing bombs that eat cities.
Real Estate is in a bubble and as much of a scam as everything else. Your age, with two older acquaintances who made millions from RE. The environment is NOT the same as when they were doing it. Every garbage house gets picked up by "investors" now that either scam (pain rotting drywall and put a new heater in, bump price 40%) or lose money on it. Or it gets picked up by real investors that have crews that can gut it entirely cost effectively. It's the same for flipping cars - the profit margins are razor thin.
The only RE investing that still works is buy, rent, have retirement equity in 30 years, maybe. Occasionally put some money IN. Potentially lose a lot of money mid term and hold paper losses if RE bubble pops. And guess what? Maybe not even that with the current rates.
It's funny to see people acting like RE is some bastion of stability. Stock market is inflated atm too.
> The only RE investing that still works is buy, rent, have retirement equity in 30 years, maybe
Yes. What other way could you possibly reliably generate positive cash flow with real estate as a normal person without a lot(!) of initial equity?
Common advice where I'm from is buy tiny apartments without rent cap in good locations (Stuttgart, Vienna, etc.) on maximum loan runtime to refinance later and rent them out. Preferably one every 1-2 years. These typically cost anywhere around € 120-150k and the common 20% deposit can be earned reasonably quickly. Banks will usually be completely fine with this as long as you have positive cash flow and you can write off a lot of things around your business as a renter on your income tax forms in most countries.
I have only ever heard variations of this advice. Never anything else.
There are a 1000 real estate schemes/strategies being marketed to people:
1. Flip - buy undervalued property, fix it, sell it. Variation: buy in bad neighborhood, fix, rent, neighborhood gets better, sell it.
2. "Buy cashflow" - e.g. find properties where rent > monthly payment/taxes/interest/maintenance. Impossible now.
3. Split and short term rental - buy house, fix, split single family home into 5 units (garage == unit, basement == 2 units, each room == unit, etc. I see this in the US more and more now, which is an indication of the economy.
4. Rent, short term rent out (often fully legally with consent of apartment / house owner). Benefit to this is no cash investment.
5. Houses at foreclosure auctions. tldr: Sell for more than normal open market houses now because everyone goes.
I can list about 15 more, but again, the point is that the market isn't what it used to be so none of these really work anymore, but it doesn't keep people from pushing them.
The ycombinator title is made misleading by swapping "gambling" for "blowing" money - these are not the same words at all. One implies they are just living in the moment, the other implies they are trying to get rich quick at high risk.
An interesting distinction. My view of gambling is that it is basically investing with an expectation of negative return. In other words, donating at least a few pennies of every dollar you wager to a casino or sports bookie, in the long run. I think the numbers support that. Given that mental model, the only difference I can see between gambling and blowing money is that some people enjoy the experience of gambling, and say they're paying for that experience.
But you can make that argument about anything, I guess, and if you make that argument I don't think it's even possible to think of yourself as blowing money, no matter what.
I wonder if the publisher is A/B testing various titles? For me, the title is
"The big new way to get rich" with a sub-heading of "Want to make a fortune? Target bored young men who want to make a fortune."
Looks like the HN post title has now been updated to that subheading.
As far as writing an interpreter or compiler are concerned, what you're describing is more like making one for an existing production grade language that's compatible with it's wider ecosystem.
These exercises are more like building a rubber band powered toy car. Useless (but not worthless), fun to build (if building things is something you enjoy), and something you can learn fundamentals of the domain from.
Also, I wish I could take a swing at any of what you mentioned for as little up front investment in money or space as giving these software exercises a shot, it'd be an incredible learning experience and awesome fun!
Well, my previous trolling aside, you can build an internal combustion (or electric!) go-kart type deal on a mid software developer budget. There are plenty of university students doing so for under a couple of thousand USD. You can also experiment with RC planes.
I do realize how relative money is - it's "nothing" to a FAANG dev (though they probably don't have the time), it's potentially years of savings for someone working in the the 2nd / 3rd world.
For sure! My current personal enrichment hobby of choice is machining metal. Tons to learn and great fun, but an engineer's salary definitely helps as you say.
It might sound humorous, but I’m not 10x programmer. An educational lexer and interpreter is something you can study and implement in 2 weekends. Assemblers are very very small amounts of code that spit out predefined binary from already made instructions (chip—8 is good for this). I think there should be MORE resources around simplifying what people think is incredibly complex. Production grade compiler tools like LLVM are incredibly complicated, but learning how the systems work isnt. While your comment is humorous, it’s toxic for those who actually want to understand fundamentals well
I agree with you bosch_mind. Building an interpreter is not hard, building a well optimized interpreter definitely is.
But that is not needed for an educational project. I encourage people to do things out of curiosity. Just ask yourself, what else is there that I could do that I haven't yet tried? (if you have the time)
It's not a flex or resume building or whatever (who cares about that?), it's a learning opportunity. I do think that sometimes there is a collective "this is hard" stance for things that we haven't had to do in a while because maybe they have been abstracted away or good solutions already exist. But the "this is hard" stance is actually harmful if it scares one away even though things turn out to be totally doable once one overcomes that mental hurdle.
Personal growth and enjoyment mainly. Understanding how languages work at a deeper level. Pure enjoyment of learning my craft as is any project I do involving programming outside of work.
When you understand your tools, you understand your job more. You also can appreciate things more from a different perspective.
TSMC controls 60% of global semiconductor production, not "90%+." If your argument is: "well, they control the advanced nodes!!" - if Taiwan is attacked, the things you're using these advanced chips for will no longer be relevant.
Missiles and radar powered by Intel/Altera chips will do the job just fine until more domestic fab capacity can be spun up. Most defense products are running on processes from two decades or more ago and are already legally forced to consider adversarial supply chain issues.
2. "the things you're using these advanced chips for will no longer be relevant", "Missiles and radar powered by Intel/Altera chips will do the job just fine until more domestic fab capacity can be spun up." Hard-disagree. US advantage is in high resolution AESA sensors, thermals, and fast advanced processing and comms. We aren't talking Tomahawks and PESA radars when it comes to competitive advantage.
Finally, there is a reason why domestic fab capacity is ramping up slowly in the US and Russia doesn't have such capability to speak of - it's hard and the major powers are behind.
Which defense contractor is using a sub-10nm process node for products? Every F35 chip is >90nm.
Which adversary would these chips yield an advantage against in a nuclear war?
Domestic fab capacity is ramping up slowly because these facilities are multi-billion-dollar, multi-decade endeavors. Intel's existing domestic fabs can make everything a war-fighting nation could need, capacity and capability-wise.
If true, and I have no reason to doubt you based on the accuracy of your previous messages, you have made your point. I definitely don't know the F-35 chip specs.
> Recent Armenia vs Azerbaijan (supported by Turkey) war. More tension on border.
I completely missed the Armenia/Azerbaijan conflict, but from what I can tell, tensions there don't seem likely to pull many other countries into it. Curious if you have thoughts on that.
> Posturing in Africa by Russia, France, and China.
Can you explain why this would lead to a potential world war? Most of what I can find about this is foreign countries vying for economic influence, which seems unlikely to burst into conflict, especially one that would become a world war.
See what BirAdam said - he is correct. Armenia / Azer is a direct cause of Russia being drawn into Ukraine, insofar that Russia "guaranteed" peace and had a contingent of "peacekeepers" in Armenia. What you see is an acceleration on conflicts in areas that were held back by global stability before. Now that Russia couldn't react, Azer backed by Turkey (and arguably other powers in the West) pushed Armenia out of Nagorny Karabakh. If Russia wasn't in Ukraine, this would likely look like Georgia in 2008 where Russia would use this as an excuse to take some land. Instead they did nothing, because they are busy.
Africa is too much to summarize - basically look into what Wagner and US PMCs were doing there. It's just more proxy conflict.
To support this, all of these proxy wars have covert units by the major nuclear powers conducting efforts directly against the other side. If these are ever exposed directly, political pressures will likely escalate the war. The moment one side starts to lose decidedly, nuclear war will likely occur.
Top 10% is basically a frugal tech-bro in a flyover. FAANG is top 5%. Assuming "over the course of at least 5-10 years" for both to get there. I doubt these are the people being discussed. These are basically millenials/zoomers that can actually afford the "American dream middle class lifestyle" - house, kids, savings, etc without an inheritance, but not much more.
Article is probably focusing on 10mil+ net worths at least, but likely "UHNWI" which are 30 mil+ who have time to think about this stuff.
Whoah, your friend is a badass! I also didn't know Ireland still allowed duels. Do you know if it's just short swords or what? Cool benefit for his dual citizenship. (sorry, sorry, had to).
