Those little things add up though, and it’s not just good at boilerplate. Also just having a more intelligent context-aware auto complete itself I’ve found to be super valuable.

That’s a 50% time reduction for the same output which sounds great to me.

I’d much rather let an LLM do the menial shit with my validation while I focus on larger problems such as system and API design, or creating rollback plans for major upgrades instead of expending mental energy writing something that has been written a thousand times. They’re not gonna rewrite your entire codebase, but they’re incredibly useful for the small stuff.

I’m not even particularly into LLMs, and they’re definitely not gonna change the world in the way big tech would like you to believe. However, to deny their usefulness is silly.

Not that I agree with the person you’re responding to but this is unheard of so long as you’re simply possessing or growing it, and not doing so in amounts that would be considered intent to distribute. At which point the state government would get you first anyway because it’s ultimately their taxes.

The last Californian in prison for federal marijuana charges was released in 2023. I can’t even find an article referencing any federal arrests in California, or any data, that weren’t giant illegal grow ops or smuggling of ridiculous amounts of weed. The feds don’t give a shit and probably want it legalized so they can deal with shit that actually matters. After all 54% of Americans live in recreationally legal states, and 74% in medically legal states.

You can also just mail order hemp-derived delta 8 if you’re really concerned because that’s legal at the federal level.

There was a demo for a technology put out recently that circumvents this. I don’t remember the exact mechanisms, but it obscured DNS such that your ISP couldn’t see the DNS record you requested, and then used a proxy to route traffic before it hit the final endpoint eliminating exposing the IP to your ISP. It worked very similar to a VPN, but without the encrypted connection, and had some speed focused optimizations including the proxy being proximate to your ISP. It was pretty interesting.

This was almost definitely it lmao

Whoops, idk why I misread it as Japanese. Will fix thanks.

Not that they’re the same, but this feels like not letting people be strippers because some people may feel degraded by it. I could understand having legislation that provides protections for employees through employer obligations to ensure a safe environment, but ultimately it’s the choice of the individual if they’re okay with the work or not. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but this feels like Chinese conservatism forcing “modesty” on women.

I went into this deeper in another response and having triple the salary while having a much lower effective tax rate is almost impossible to make up for. Not to mention I’d want to live in a big city if I did move which would make the cost of living a lot closer.

A lot of places put SF at 40% higher cost of living than Berlin, but the prices they list for things here are way too high. Assuming the numbers are high for Berlin too triple the salary with lower taxes easily beats the measly 40% cost of living increase. I’m sure engineers in Germany have a comfortable life, but the math doesn’t work out in my favor.

As for lifestyles my friends and I almost never talk about work either as we very much want to leave work at work. I probably average 30 hours as do many of my friends so it’s not like we’re grinding. Just trying to do our time and leave.

I’m not saying it’s a bad life at all, but I do not have to think about money at all in my day to day life because I make so much in the US. I’m really not trying to flex and genuinely live my life pretty frugally, but to drive the point I’m trying to make I bought $2500 worth of snowboarding shit and didn’t even have to think about it. This was after donating $5k to my childhood elementary school for a yearly scholarship I started, maxing out a traditional IRA ($6.5k) and nearly maxing out my 401k ($18k). There’s absolutely no way I’d break even in Germany given I’d have an after tax income of ~50k euros of which the above is over half and it’s only April.

To go a bit deeper, I work for a healthcare data company so my healthcare is some of the best in the country with premiums 100% covered by my employer. My yearly out of pocket for deductibles is under $200 and my max out of pocket is $2500 in the absolute worst case scenario. I spend $40/month between life, dental, and renter’s insurance.

Rent seems to be equivalent, maybe slightly cheaper, as I’d want to live in a big city and my current share of rent is $2000/month for a 148 sq meter apartment I share with my partner.

Then there’s the much higher tax burden through things like VAT and extremely high income taxes in Germany.

The unfortunate part about the US is it is an amazing place to have a lot of money, and an awful place to be if you’re poor. It would definitely make sense for someone in a lower income bracket, but once you clear $150k/year here most of the problems of the country no longer apply to you. I still very much want things to get better for the less fortunate, but I have no incentive or desire to leave given my current situation.

Edit: Someone mentioned kids. We don’t plan on ever having any, but my partner and I have a combined income of over $400k per year so kids are more than feasible. Even just on one of our incomes it would be a comfortable life.

If the pay for engineers wasn’t shit I’d genuinely consider it, but getting 1/3 of my current pay to leave San Francisco ain’t worth it. Especially given all my friends are here and I don’t need a car.

It’s excessive if you’re only thinking short term, but longer term it is 100% worth it. It’s one of those things you’ll kick yourself for in 5 years.

Poor insulation, and even if you had drop ceilings you still have headers you’d have to drill through at the top of every wall. Not to mention they look awful and damage easily.

Conduit everywhere. Every cable will be obsolete eventually, a conduit run to every room with pull cables makes it so replacing cables doesn’t require a remodel.

I don’t necessarily agree. If a brand makes high quality stuff I’m not gonna avoid them just because they put their logo on their stuff. I have a kickass Adidas backpack from 2014 that is by far my favorite, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna get rid of it just because it has an Adidas logo on it.

I also have perfectly good clothes with various brands on them, and I’m not just gonna throw them away because that’s wasteful as hell. I don’t go out of my way to buy stuff with brands on them, but that won’t stop me from buying something I genuinely like and find to be high quality.

Should be at least double in the US since it would be consultancy work which brings higher taxes (1099 vs W2) and no benefits. A $500 full day consultation is super cheap.

Every method I’ve encountered in the past was thwarted by a good ole VPN. This was all on unlocked or rooted phones though so YMMV work carrier phones.

That takes an immense amount of fuel. We orbit the sun at 30 km/s, of which you have to cancel about 24 km/s to actually hit it. This is after escaping Earth’s atmosphere (another 11 km/s of delta V) and effective sphere of influence which takes even more fuel. We could use some gravity assists off the moon and inner planets to get there, but even then it’s not really economical. Our best bet would be to send him out super far using ~9 km/s of dV, and then use a very small amount to cancel out any remaining angular momentum and let him slowly fall into the sun. Unfortunately, as with all efficient space maneuvers, you pay for them in time, and this maneuver would take you 3 years. We’d have to somehow support the little bastard all that time but it might just be doable.

I often use that as a source of encouragement rather than defeat. My two favorite sports are snowboarding and muay thai which are filled with people who’ve been practicing before they formed memories. If a child is better than me then I’m almost certainly capable of becoming that good with continued practice. Even if it takes years it’s something to aspire to regardless of the relative age difference. I was one of those kids who was way better than a lot of people on a dirt bike. I was put on a dirt bike at the age of 4 and don’t even remember learning, so it’s not like it’s a fair comparison. Just run your own race and aspire to be like those around you.

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Preface: I realize after writing this I possibly came off as one of those, “just learn to code” people. I’m not. People should only join the field if they’re passionate about or at least enjoy it otherwise they will burn out fast. With that said, I don’t think the field as a whole should be written off by those who enjoy the work, and CS degrees are as useful to software engineers as physics is to a mechanical engineer. Back to the main discussion.

I think we just have different views on where AI is headed and what it is capable of. Neither job is going to be replaced any time soon by AI IMO, but I’m pretty certain a UPS driver will be replaced much sooner as it’s a fundamentally simpler problem to solve.

For comparison, software engineering is critical thinking turned up to 11 with tons of ambiguity and guesswork as to what people actually want vs what they’re asking for. It’s very people and communication focused despite what stereotypes might portray, and you often have to figure out and tell people what they actually want instead of doing what they say they want. Automating software engineering would be more like automating an entire supply chain as opposed to one part of the supply chain (delivery driver) because there’s so many different types of software engineers out there. Not to mention you need software engineers to automate software engineering.

As for pay, that $170k is the absolute top end for UPS drivers and you have to work your way up from warehouse to a delivery position. Software engineers top end is generally around $500k (you can get up to $1 mil but it’s rare enough I wouldn’t consider it fair for the point of this conversation), with starting being ~$95k for most new grads. Absolute worst case scenario you go work for the government for $70k and earn a healthy pension with dope benefits, regular raises, and amazing work life balance.

Student loans are definitely a consideration and can be high risk, but attending a community college for your first two years before state school you can get out under $30k of debt. My total tuition cost for 5 1/2 years of college was <$20k in California. I was fortunate enough that my mom paid for my education, but I could’ve covered the cost with loans and paid them back by now. This is all ignoring that software engineering internships regularly pay in excess of $50/hr making it possible to put yourself through school while working summers just like your grandparents did.

I agree somewhat with your concern over the uncertainty of the world, but I figure no one really knows where we’re headed so I might as well do what I love and make as much money as possible in the meantime. Neither are bad career options IMO and trades can be awesome, but it’s important to consider the long-term risks that often come from certain occupations including those sitting at a desk all day.