dginovker's blog

Like any drug, I had a reason - I wanted to break into FAANG and get paid 3x my salary.

I got my first hit after completing a Leetcode Hard - It took me over 6 hours to do - on a Saturday morning while visiting my Grandmother's house. But damn was I proud.

My second hit was when I reached a 30 day streak. A successful friend - who was launching a startup at the time - gave a heartfelt congratulations, and told me to go for 60.

And while I'm glad I did it, this has gone on too long. There's too many reasons not to continue any longer:

• Validation: Neither myself nor anyone else cares about my streak anymore. I would like to say "it only matters if I care", but reality hits different.
• What I gave up: I used to spend significant amounts of time contributing to Open Source. This stopped when I started Leetcoding
• Time: Leetcode takes time. You can't multitask it when you're hanging out with friends, and there's a feeling of anxiety when you haven't solved the daily problem yet
• Need: I don't need to get into FAANG anymore. I'm already here. I don't plan on going back into Big Tech once I leave, and if I ever do, I can easily learn Leetcode again.
• Cheat: During a trip to Yosemite, twice I used a "Streak Freeze"; but once you corrupt it a little, the value loses a lot.

In 2 days I will be at a 1234 streak. That will be my last day doing Leetcode for a very long time.

https://leetcode.com/u/dginovker/

Realistically I wouldn't think of these things because I'd be too sad being paralyzed. But if I was able to....

• Based on my estimations, I would be eligible for ~1k/yr from CPP-D
• It seems that this is something I could continue to receive outside the country, so I would either move in with relatives or some third world country that's dirt poor
• Become a dedicated meme finder for my friends - Watch the best Youtube videos and give them custom curated content
• Sign up for Neurolink
• Depending on my paralysis level, get a wheelchair and learn to do terrain park with it (X Games Example)
• Work with some of the open source wheelchair projects to make wheelchairs more customizable and affordable to other people
• Honestly I already spend 12 hours a day in front of a computer, now that I think of it, I would lose some hobbies, but not much else would change :)

I had to double check that I hadn't written about this already.

Yesterday, I went for a group run as part of a founders meetup in San Francisco. When I told one bloke I was from Canada, he asked my thoughts about Trump saying we should be the 51st state.

For a moment I remembered I wasn't at work, and refreshingly gave my thoughts.

I don't give a fuck. Like debates on transgender issues, people love talking about this because it's easier and more fun than discussing real issues.

There is a war in Gaza happening right now. There are literally asylum seekers from Russia running in our group. 30% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck[0].

When you focus on surface level issues, you feel like the people "against you" are the people in the same boat as you. You end up in-fighting with the same class workers with the same struggles as you, while billionaires buy property in their 3rd escape country.

Stop talking about these pointless issues. Pick a couple real issues and get educated on it. Global warming, proxy wars, wealth inequality, human rights, gov't corruption, the list goes on. If you're not interested in debating these, you don't moral high ground. You have moral role-play hobbies.

In 2021, I moved to Korea. I asked my boss to go remote, and since I had been performing well, he agreed. He even offered me the option to work Korean hours, but I opted to keep Toronto hours (an 11-hour offset) to make it last.

My work hours were 10pm to 6am most of the year, and 11pm to 7am during daylight savings. I’d sleep from 7am to 3pm, living my life from 3pm to 10pm.

The Benefits

Money

The biggest benefit: I earned 110k CAD while living in Korea. While mid-level tech jobs in Korea pay around ₩60,000,000, I had an income nearly double that. My post-tax savings were equivalent to ₩45,000,000, compared to the ₩10,000,000 I would have saved on a local salary. With double the income, I had 4.5x the spending power. I splurged—vacations, fine dining, daily outings—and still saved more than I did in Canada.

Exploiting globalization? That's the real "American Dream".

Life

Anyone who's gone to renew their driver's license at 2pm on a Thursday knows being on a different schedule is amazing. The gym was empty, services had no lines, and the solitude was invaluable. I remember hiking mountains at 10pm or walking the city streets at 4am—it was peaceful and refreshing.

Though I made friends through night school and climbing, the quiet hours allowed me to experience life at a slower pace.

The Bad Things

Social Activities

Weekend trips were brutal; I’d leave in the morning, when I normally slept, and rely on caffeine to get through the first day. More than once, I’d fall asleep at my friends' houses.

Events starting at 10am? A struggle. Corrective naps became essential. If you wanted to hang out for 4+ hours, it had to go until after sunset.

Sleep

Sleep hygiene required intense care - No phones in bed. White noise. Eye mask to block out all light. Strict sleep and wake up times (that got wrecked and had to be rebuilt after trips). I got by and learned how to power nap like a machine, but my immune system took a toll. I got sick more frequently, and took longer to recover. But yolo :P

Now, You

If you want to move to Asia on a remote job:

• It’s doable with the right motivation and discipline.
• Visas and taxes are complicated but manageable—just ask ChatGPT.
• Learn to sleep; I never used to be able to take a nap, I can borderline do it on command now. Like anything else, it's a skill that can be mastered (:

My grandfather Andrei, nicknamed Phoenix for stepping up in hopeless situations, is remembered in poor light. That doesn't do justice for the world he lived through.

Born as a Jew in Nazi Germany in 1939, at only one day old, his mother left the hospital on a boat to Estonia.

That boat would be the last one to leave Germany without being turned around.

They made it to Russia, and the family was split, with Andrei being left with his father. At age five, his mother went to Israel and hired a man to kidnap him; but since Andrei no longer knew his own mother, he didn't cooperate. Clinging onto a pole at a train station screaming for help until others intervened, he was left on his own to make his way back to his father. Whether it was at this point or later, Andrei developed several mental illnesses, including PTSD and bipolar disorder, but kept it together.

He grew up and got a PhD in physics, and his research contributed to some of the earliest flash drives. His wife had a post-doc in physics, and they lived in a research town where their two kids would get the most excellent education. But due to the lack of employment opportunities, they looked elsewhere.

A few years before the USSR collapsed, they immigrated to Italy, then Spain, and finally landing in Canada. My uncle describes my mother as cursing the family out for betraying the USSR during this time. But for Andrei, he was doing anything he could for his family.

Andrei became depressed; years later, they found electric shock therapy worked for him. He would phase in and out of it, attempting to startup various businesses.. Until one day he snapped.

He was put in a mental institution for 6 months, and upon release, my grandmother described him as aging 15 years. His red hair went entirely grey. His face was old.

While my parents worked, Andrei took great care of my siblings. But retiring peacefully was out of the question; Andrei wanted more. He left his wife, sold his assets, and bought a huge truck. He drove it down to my parents place, ripped up their lawn, disappeared for a few months, showed up at my uncle's place in the US, ripped up their lawn, and proceeded to do this on and off sporadically for around a year. Everyone disavowed his actions, but I felt differently.

One day, he called me up to work on his new business in the basement of a house he was renting. Clearly off the rails, and told me to hide under my mother's skirt when I declined. A few months later, he was hit by a car while crossing the highway at night.

My mother said she felt bad for whoever hit him.

But I still feel differently. People didn't appreciate Andrei. He lived a life of pushing forwards, despite his background - footsteps I respect and intend to closely follow. He helped his family. He never gave up. He didn't waste his final years in bed. He drove a truck until his adventures killed him.

Andrei's passion is commendable. He turned bipolar disorder into a pendulum for swinging forwards. He may have gone insane, but there were never excuses. That's what made him great. Let this post be a memory for that.

It's hard to imagine that breaking up Google would allow for innovation; they brought us Google Search, Gmail, and surely nobody can afford to host Youtube. They gave us Android, Chrome, and so much more.

But good grief - If it weren't for knowing how simple things can be, you wouldn't realize how poorly they're running these clown shows.

Take Android for example. If you want to upload an app to F-Droid, you make a Merge Request like shown here. 10 - 20 minute job. Let's check in on what it's like at Google Play...

The Frustration

So you want to upload something on Google Play. Register on the Google Console. Fill out a 9 page form talking about your past Android experience. Pay 25$. Account verification! We'll get back to you in 3 days. Ah, we need more info. Please upload your ID. We'll get back to you later. Oh you want to publish an app? First select the countries, and your category, and agree to 6 different terms and conditions, as well as the laws for every country you selected your app to be available in. Ah wait, you need more screenshots. Those dimensions are invalid. You're missing tablet screenshots. Your app icon doesn't have the background and foreground as different images. Wait, your app looks too similar to another app, denied. Hold on, are you trying to go to production without running an internal test first? Denied. Got all your ducks in a row? Good luck in the Review Gauntlet.

Ahh, so I see you want to integrate Google Play Games services. Follow this 7 step guide, go to Google Cloud, register for 3 different services, follow more UI steps that don't align with the tutorial, and get the SHA-1 of the key you're using in Google Play. Oh, you haven't released your app yet? LOL. Anyways, you need to have a privacy policy page on a website you own. You own a website, right? Also we're going to make your email public, to everyone, permanently, and you'll get a lot of spam for that. Oh sorry, we couldn't verify you owned the domain for the website you linked your privacy policy on. Denied.

How We Got Here

Google, as a monopoly, can continue to make horrendous decisions that force the ecosystem users (in this case app developers) to spend hours on workarounds and debugging the broken system; and app developers have no other choice. Smaller companies would collapse under the weight of these issues, but Google stands proud and tall, since you have no where else to go.

The Result

This stops app developers from making work out of passion. The tools Google leverages stops third party app stores from taking off. Take a step back for a moment: apps do not need to go through this for verification. It's nonsense. It's a result of Google becoming too large, and the Play Store becoming too centralized.

What Should Be Done

If you're an Android user, consider using third party app stores like F-Droid. If you're the DOJ, force Google to sell off Android. And if you're a citizen of the EU passionate about this area, submit a petition to break Google up yourself: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/petitions/en/home

This has gone on for too long.

"Odysee is a bunch of neonazi crap!"

For the last two weeks, I've been trying to kill a boss on Oldschool Runescape Leagues - The Inferno. Some of my online friends knew of this goal, so I wanted to make a video of the final challenge.

Most people, when making a video, immediately upload it to Youtube (or TikTok.. until next January Oo). Myself included - Many years ago, I had an active Youtube channel. But for the past couple years, anytime I made a video, it went up on Odysee instead.

There are three things I want in regards to videos:

1. The people I care about can see them
2. The videos can be archived and found in the future
3. The content helps communities I care about

Youtube ticks off the first two boxes.. But uploading to Youtube doesn't "help the communities I care about". Youtube is actively hostile to users through ads and tracking, and Google's monopoly over so many areas makes so many systems suck - Email, App development, Search, and more.

Furthermore, none of my goals are about "making it big". I'm not trying to get a bunch of subscribers (I have far too many other hobbies already). So for me, uploading on anything that's "Not Youtube" is already enough.

But going one step further is better. Remember at the start, how I said "Odysee is a bunch of neonazi crap!"? The truth is all alternative tech starts up from people leaving mainstream platforms. Fun fact, the first federated Lemmy instances were Lemmy.ml and Lemmygrad.ml; this entire corner of the fediverse was a mashup of Marxists and North Korean sympathizers. But more people came, shared normal content, and now we have a great alternative to Reddit.

Long story short - Support alternative tech. This is how we get tools For The People. Also go like my Infero Cape video on Odysee :)

I'm going to preface this article with everything I believe should be done to have a more fair society and world:

• Everyone, regardless of their race, sexual orientation, or cultural background should have the same opportunities
• The only exception to the above rule are those who harm others in pursuit of their identity

If soceity doesn't have the above, how do you get there? Lately, it's been by "systematic reparations".

I'm going to take one concrete example, and let anyone in the audience extrapolate from it: DEI hiring initiatives.

• DEI hiring brings under-represented groups into different fields. This is good, as it makes the great individuals feel welcome to put their best work forwards
• DEI hiring, by increasing the likelyhood of interview/offer also makes the average underrepresented person perform worse during their employment, tarnishing the reputation of those who were competitive on their own merit
• By favoring under-represented groups in the hiring stage, DEI hiring harms people in over-represented groups

I hope that one day we will succeed in our DEI initiatives and not need to worry about diversity quotas - But the truth is, for the negative side effects of DEI, many people oppose DEI hiring in private. These people are afraid to speak up.

This isn't an anti-DEI post. This is a post for people who think they're the crazy ones for being opposed to these social policies. You're not crazy. A lot of people think these policies range from odd to borderline insane. But for the same reason you don't say it, they don't either.

I really hope future generations look at today's society and our intolerance of certain groups with the same criticism modern Americans look at the KKK. But the truth is, in private, a lot of people disagree with these reparations, but they don't know how to express it without being counter-productive to the movement. And so if we reach a breaking point where this backfires, let it be known for the history books it didn't come from nowhere. It's been bubbling.

Some important notes:

• There are people who publicly oppose these DEI and likewise initiatives. That is not the focus of the point - the focus is to let it be known for history, that many more people oppose it in private, but fear speaking out
• You can replace DEI with many things such as right wing political ideology, LGBT acceptance, opinions on immigration, pedophilia, etc.
• This is not a post of me confessing of my opinions, I'm not and never have been afraid to share my opinions

It was a life goal of mine to break into FAANG. For years I didn't think I could make it, and then for years I started to try - finally breaking into Meta as a Software Engineer.

My first 4 or 5 months were great. Low stress, meaningful work, and my technical skills matched or exceeded expectations. I loved the free food, the free transit, the dental services, the people, everything. With a corporate policy mandating working from office 3 days a week, I joyfully came in all 5.

But things changed. I found myself on a new team, all with the same perks.. But less meaningful work. It's hard to explain what lack of work and lack of interesting work does to your motivation.

• There's less work to go around, so you have a looming feeling that you should be "doing something", but you don't know what
• You spend time justifying your work to higher-ups, even though you don't believe in the work yourself
• Meetings become politics, and you start counting the days until the weekend

The months I worked on interesting projects were amazing - I felt like I could stay at Meta forever. Climb the ladder, and be somewhere. Yet less than 45 days on this team - and I can't believe it's only been 45 - makes time feel so wasteful. 진짜 아깝다.

During an honest chat with a great teammate, he said I was "unlucky" for how I got team transferred and will get a subpar rating despite being a "Great engineer". I don't think I'm unlucky. In fact, I'm very lucky to still be working at FAANG making bank. People who never got a job after college are unlucky.

But still, I want to go back. I reminisce about returning to Korea every day. If I spend 6, 7 years here - When will I get married? When will I start a family or my own business? When will I go back to Korea and have fun? These thoughts become so much more intrusive when the days go by so slow.

It's kind of funny. 8 months ago I wrote about how great my job is. In that post, I wrote a line near the end:

I don’t regret anything, and I will come back and touch grass

It seems like I may go back and touch grass sooner than I expected.

(Post blog note: I'm not "giving up", so to speak. I'm solving my issues at work by turning "Nothing to do" into "Let me push this project idea" - Hopefully this will rekindle the motivation fire, which is something I need regardless of how long I stay here.)

Today is my 8th year anniversary dating my girlfriend Ena, so I wanted to write about a random memory.

Many years ago, Ena and I played a game called Realm of the Mad God. It's an old multiplayer bullet-hell game where you spend hours getting upgrades and fighting monsters, with one twist: When you die, you lose all your levels and gear on you.

"oh no what happened..." - Ena after losing hours of progress in 1.3 seconds

We picked up the game again recently, and after every death Ena would pick the same class: Sorcerer. I would change my class around, and while Ena would occasionally ask for a rundown of different classes, she would always pick Sorcerer.

Finally, one day, after restarting from scratch on a Sorcerer one too many times, she was determined to change her class. She read the description of Rogue,

Cloak ability: Turn invisible for a few seconds

"Oh so like you don't take damage?", Ena asked.

"No no, you take damage, but like enemies won't shoot at you, so I guess you don't take damage?"

"Ok, I'll try it out".

Ena goes to the market to trade some of her stored items for rogue pieces, and starts talking about the item abilities.

"Ohhh, this one makes me invincible for 3 seconds", Ena said.

"What? Damn, that's pretty good. There's a few items that make you temporarily invincible, but very few for more than a second."

"Yea this one is invincible for 4 seconds"

"??? Let me see... ..No, it's invisible. Not invincible.". I was a bit confused, but whatever, Ena understood.

We start playing the game, doing dungeons, and Ena is getting demolished. Never hitting anything, always getting hit.

"Rogue sucks!!", I remember Ena saying. She said it a lot actually. She wasn't a fan of it. "Even when I go invincible, I feel like the enemies are shooting at me".

"No, Ena, you're not invincible. You're invisible. You still have to dodge the bullets that are on the screen, but the enemy won't target you. Stand like, away from me, because even if you're invisible they'll be shooting at..."

"Wait I'm not invincible?", Ena asked.

"No ?? It says invisible. Invincible is something else". I felt like I was taking the crazy pills.

"Rogue sucks!! Invisible is useless..."

After dying (or suiciding) shortly after, Ena went back to playing Sorcerer. Some things never change, I suppose.

Since my blogs are usually serious, I'll end on a serious note. This is why it's hard for couples to break up; a better candidate can't simply "show up"- they have to surmount all the past experiences you've had with your partner together. Everything you cherished together needs to be surmounted. That grows less and less likely, day by day. Keep your relationship healthy and reinforced, and the stability will carry it forwards ever on.

Imagine this: Your sister starts dating someone you don't like. Or there's someone on your team at work who made your life harder.

It's natural to retaliate: Put them down, get them removed, and surround yourself with people more like you. But this is a losing game.

Imagine everyone has a reputation bar - You start at 100%, and at 0%, you're kicked out (of the relationship, or the job). You're capable of bringing down other people's reputation bars, but at the cost of your own - You might be able to get your sister to break up with her boyfriend, but your reputation will drop to 80%. You might be able to get your coworker fired, but your reputation will drop to 50%. Besides, it's a lot of work.

Driving people out doesn't scale.

Imagine this - Your sister's ex-boyfriend ends up as a retailer, and you're looking for a house. Your ex-coworker is now working at a better company, and is referring your other colleagues. You want to take advantage of these relationships, but you can't.

For a moment, ignore all concepts of what's "fair"- Whether this is about your ex wife or a boss who screwed you over. Think only about yourself. How do you maximize the best outcome for yourself?

By helping them.

Ignore how this helps them. It might eat you up inside at first. You'll probably help them more than they help you, but it doesn't matter; because this is an investment that grows.

If that coworker you hated, but helped, helps you get a better job down the line, does it really matter if you helped 10 other coworkers you hate? If helping your ex-husband means your relationship was better, causing your kid to get into college, does it really matter if your help made him get another girlfriend too?

If there's someone you don't like, it's highly likely you're going to be around them for a while. Helping them makes them a better person - someone who you might even end up liking more. The effort to bring people down isn't worth it. Spend that effort bringing people up; it only has to pay off once in a while.

Stop calling it that.

• In 1989, the US home ownership rate was 64%. Now, it's 63%.
• There is an estimated 15 million vacant homes in the US (compared to only 600k unhoused people).
• The number of houses in the US has gone from 78 million in 1975 to 145 million in 2023 (an 85% increase) while the population has gone from 211 million to 340 million (a 61% increase) in the same time.

"But dginovker", you might say. The median house price in 1980 was 64k, in 2015 it was 275k. How is that not a housing crisis?

Because it's a wealth inequality crisis.

This data checks out with statistica and cadtm

If we had an actual housing crisis, the issue could be resolved in 5 years by building a couple apartments (and yes, that is good even if you don't want to live in apartments, since other people moving into apartments makes detached homes cheaper). But we don't have a housing crisis. We have a crisis where inflation made your job pay 50% less. We have a crisis where the government is going broke to the billionaires. The housing crisis is a symptom of this issue.

We don't have a housing crisis. Stop calling it that.

Anyways, time for dinner 🎩🍴

Today is October 25, 2024. I met my beautiful girlfriend Ena on October 27, 2017, at a computer lab in University (a fact she doesn't remember..)

Lots of people ask us how we dated for so long - partially because our friend group is also young - but there are also a few, very conscious decisions, Ena and I made to get here.

The Tips

One thing that helped us enjoy a long, happy relationship, is being long distance. We spend months apart and months together at a time; the time apart gives you a chance to focus on yourself, improve your skills, and importantly, miss each other. The time together is savored. Every time we see each other, we have new stories to tell, and slightly new characteristics: It's like dating again for the first time, but you already know it's going to work out.

Long distance isn't the only way to keep the smiles. Do things for the other person. Know your partner doesn't do the dishes? Don't nag them, do the dishes for them. Want to light a spark? Buy a gift as a surprise. The mindset is not "I'm doing X for them, so they will do X to me" - the mindset is "I'm doing X for them because seeing them happy makes me happy". This mindset is critical.

There's also deeper investments to be made. Focus on yourself; how your career is going and how good you look is important. Nobody wants to date someone who was destined for med school but watch them give up. Nobody wants to date a 10 and watch them turn into a 6. On the latter note, one rule we have is that flirting with other people is allowed; it's a great way to keep us on our toes, but also keep us looking decent for the other person.

Minimum expectations are clear and well defined. We are not allowed to fight (calm down and use your brain). We are not allowed to take each other to McDonalds (put in more effort). We are not allowed to cheat on each other (no explanation needed). These are non-negotiable. You would be surprised how few couples have non-negotiables clearly defined.

Mindset

If I ever meet a girl better than Ena, I will break up with Ena and date that girl instead.

This is a statement I've told Ena multiple times, and I expect her to treat me the same way. At first it seems scary, but it encompasses two important points:

1. We are here because we like each other
2. We must keep improving

Now, you might say "if Ed Sheeran came along, you wouldn't stand a chance!", and that is true- Compared to Ed Sheeran, I'm a broke potato. Which is why the bar is high: The more I improve, the smaller the chance someone better can come along. The more effort I put in, the better the future looks.

Investment

It's easy to look at someone and say "This person is better because they're richer; because they're younger; because they're healthier; .." or any variety of things. But even if Rhianna came up to me at this point, I'm tired.

Ena and I have invested so much into each other. Fixing the things that annoy the other person. Pushing each other further in their careers. Sharing hobbies. Encouraging each other in sports. Growing roots through debate and vacations.

These are not things that are done overnight. These are mountains. The thought of starting over again is tiring.

What You Want

At the end of the day, seeing Ena happy makes me happy, so I put in effort to make her smile. I'm content long-term knowing that with rules in place, we're improving for each other, and each year it gets better.

I asked Ena what she would do if we broke up, and she said she would probably take a few years off dating. The investment effort is too high. But a simple, happy relationship is the payoff you're looking for.

🦆

Imagine you're back to your college years. Times are hard. You're poor. You're insecure. You're tired and you're stressed.

Imagine you've got a tray of food you bought at the cafeteria, and you're on your way to get a seat. Boom. Someone walks into you. Your food is not only on the ground, but also on your clothes.

You're hungry. You're embarrassed. You're pissed off. The person who walks into you says "Sorry sorry!!", and runs off.

I saw this happen 8 years ago. Shocked, but not surprised. I felt bad for the person who had their food dropped, but I also felt bad for the person who walked in to them.

See, I used to save every penny. A 19.95$ meal at the cafeteria was a once-a-week occurence I felt guilty buying, not a daily price. I would never want to be in a situation where my behavior caused someone to need to purchase another meal.

Every so often, I would revisit this memory, and debate myself. Would I help pay for them to get another meal, or would I walk away? It's difficult but quick to walk away..

Now, I see it differently. The morally correct thing to do is buy the person another lunch. That is the right thing to do. Being a bystander doesn't change anything. Anyone can say it's not their fault, but I wish I was the solution. That could have been a moment to be proud of.

Democrats and Republicans know 3rd parties are trash. They split the vote, have crazy candidates and can't win.

But this isn't a post bashing 3rd parties.

As a Democratic voter in the US, you're told "if the other party takes office, it's the end of democracy". As a Republican voter, you're told it's a chance to execute Project 2025. But this poses a serious problem, especially for the Democrats - Unless you have a way to get Dems into power perpetually, the Republicans will eventually enter office and execute Project 2025.

Let's face it. The Democrats and Republicans brought the US to where it is in 2024. If you're fine with how things are, keep voting Republicans or Democrats. If you don't like how things are, it's time to look at tactical voting.

Tactical Voting

"I would vote for the Socialist party, but since they won't win, it's effectively a vote for Trump"

3rd parties aren't trying to win. They're trying to take small steps. The electoral college is not going away, and ranked voting is never coming. But that doesn't mean you can't support 3rd party candidates.

Thanks to the Electoral College, if you're not in a Swing state, your vote doesn't affect the election outcome, but it does affect the popularity of 3rd party candidates.

Put simply: If you do not live in a Swing state, you can vote for a 3rd party this November.

Candidates

First, if you find yourself fully agreeing with all the policies from Democrats or Republicans, then it's highly unlikely you're forming your own opinion.

Second, no 3rd party candidate is perfect. It would be a stretch to even call some of them good. But this isn't about winning, it's about a future where they're on the debate stage.

Libertarian: Chase Oliver

• Pro gun
• Pro police reform
• Pro choice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Oliver

Green: Jill Stein

• Anti-war
• Universal healthcare
• Free public education
• Eco-socialism
• Worker rights

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jill_Stein

Party for Socialism and Liberation: Claudia De la Cruz

• Cut military budget by 90%
• Seize largest US corporations
• Tax billionaires out of existence
• Universal healthcare
• Better public transportation
• Forgive student loan debt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_De_la_Cruz

American Solidarity Party: Peter Sonski

• Anti-war
• Pro-life
• Anti-same sex marriage
• Increased border security

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sonski

(Independent): Cornel West

• Universal healthcare
• Public housing
• Cut military budget

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel_West

Think

The US is not going to magically get better. The US is not going to magically undergo major reform. The Republican and Democratic parties have every incentive to keep things how they are - but your vote still counts. Vote for the future you believe in, and stop fearing third parties.

A few months back, we had a team dinner. My new skip was present, and I sat nearby for a chance to small talk.

She said:

I absolutely hate when people come to me with a problem. It's the worst possible thing you can do for yourself and your career. Only come to me when you have a solution.

In a lot of places, this attitude might come off as not caring, laziness, or harsh. But on a team of ex-FAANG engineers who all came from Ivy Leagues, the bar is a little higher.

I love discussing complex topics with friends, but I too hate when people just talk about problems. How are you going to solve it? If not you, who can solve it and how would they? If not that, what can you do as an individual to benefit from the situation?

The Problem Mentality

A younger friend of mine is going through an emotional relationship. Comments to the tune of "I didn't like your attitude during dinner", or "I don't feel like you're making me a priority".

The problem here is you're identifying issues, but expecting the other person to both make a the solution and execute it. You're running emotionally exhausted going nowhere.

Let's look at a few more examples:

• I can't sleep at night
• We're not going to get the project done on time
• Global warming is inevitable

The Solution Mentality

How are you going to solve it?

Going back to the relationship example, understand no one changes their attitude over night. Now we can clearly see this isn't even a problem the other party can solve; either break up, or focus on a proxy to solve the problem.

It doesn't matter if you're "in a long term relationship", you should do things that make yourself more desirable, and let the natural level of respect you earn go up. Whether this is reaching new goals academically or in your career, or even "hitting the gym", if you feel like your partner doesn't care about you, this will help change their mind. You can also follow the "Golden Rule", and treat your partner better first. On one hand, this sounds like gaslighting manipulation, on the other, "The grass is greener where you water it".

Notice how I'm not even addressing the "why should I do X when he needs to do Y" - That question is a derivative of the Problem Mentality. Go to the Solution Mentality.

Let's look at a few other examples:

• Sister married someone you don't like? Befriend them, you're in for a long ride
• Going to be driven to homelessness due to cost of rent? Start paying "what you can" - it makes eviction harder
• Don't know what to do with your life? Focus on making money so you have the opportunity to decide later
• Became wheelchair bound? Join wheelchair sports

Who could solve it?

Throwing this one in to address bigger questions. Who can solve the failing education system in Canada? How would they do it, and what could you do to help?

These are fun thought experiments that you shouldn't shy away from. Even if your think your answer is stupid, at least you're practicing solution brainstorming.

For fun, let's do this. One way to make the education system better is to pay teachers 300k a year, making it a very desirable job. Now more top (financially) motivated talent will consider a career in education instead, putting more smart people back in schools. Where will the money come from? Quick estimates show there's 400k teachers, so this would 2x the education budget and increase taxes by roughly 10%. Let's be real though; that's a small price to pay if the next generation of kids are all geniuses. To push for a change like this, you could ~~meme about it online~~ contact provincial reps and bring it up.

These examples are silly, but let's entertain them.

• How can we solve traffic congestion? Add friction to car usage so more people use public transportation -> Push for carpool lanes and tariffs on automobiles
• How can we reduce corruption? Hold politicians accountable -> Create a website that tracks politicians' corruption history
• How can we reduce crime? Help people get on their feet -> Donate to local shelters/food kitchens

How can you benefit?

Let's go back to daily life. My girlfriend was talking about the interest rates in the US and how it will ripple throughout the world. While it's interesting to talk about global trade and rent prices, there's one place I made sure to stop by in the conversation.

So what should we do?

"Buy hard assets, like gold".

Good. Actionable advice I can work with. Although I personally think gold is a terrible idea, I can work with the info she gave. You don't have to solve problems to benefit from them.

Let's look at a few more examples:

• Your company is going bankrupt? Network with your coworkers harder; they'll be jumping ship (statistically for more pay) as QoL goes down
• Worried your sports team will lose? Bet against them so you come out on top either way
• Global warming going to ruin your region? Insurance prices will skyrocket, so sell your house and lock in to rent control

Closing Thoughts

We covered practical and silly examples in this post. The key to remember is even when situation is shot, you can always do little things to stack the deck in your favor. It's not guaranteed to work, but over time the effort will leave you in a better place.

While hiking, some neurons fired. If I was offered a billion dollars, would I step off this cliff?

[I would insert an image of said cliff, but iCloud isn't working so I can't]

"Yes". After all - think about how far that billion dollars could go for the causes I support and the people I care about. I could practically yell out a will on the way to the bottom - "300M to Ena! 400M to my mum! Rest to KDE!"

But then I thought about it more. What if I had 10 minutes to decide my will? How would I break it up more granularly? How would I ensure there's as little room for interpreation as possible, as to prevent lawsuits among the claimants?

Much like the Trolly Problem, I naturally assumed everyone would think the same way as me (after all, who wouldn't pull that lever?)

So without even thinking of the original premise, I turned to my girlfriend and said: You get 1 billion dollars for jumping off this cliff. Who do you distribute it to?

My girlfriend looks at me blankly.

"Do I die?", she asked.

"Well, yea..", I replied. I was caught off guard by the question. "Let's say it's 99% chance of dying."

"That's stupid. Why would anyone do that?"

In 1981, during the Cold War, Roger Fisher made a proposal for how the nuclear launch codes should be handled:

"My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry with him a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the President. If ever the President wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him first, with his own hands, to kill one human being [...]"

Ever since I first heard of this idea, I thought it was brilliant. A simple sacrafice with the potential to save millions. What a great honor that would be.

(As an aside, this quote started my belief that, to ensure a President always put their country - not themselves - first, the president should be voluntarily executed 8 years post-election)

But both of these ideas are continuously met by people asking "Who would do that??". But to be honest, a lot of people. Let's break it down:

• If it costs 50$ to gain 100$, you make money.
• If it costs 50$ to give a loved one 100$, that's probably worthwhile.
• If there's a 50% chance your life ends to give 1,000,000 people a 1% higher chance of survival - You're basically every lifeguard on the planet, combined.

So it may be materialistic, but a 99% chance of death to give family, friends and charities unfathomable amounts of wealth is a damn good bet. Money buys opportunities of happiness and relief of suffering. One life is a small cost to unlock that. Heck, you could probably give 1,000,000 people a 1% higher chance of survival with 1 billion dollars.

Since I would hope others jump (and give me a share!), I have to expect myself to do at least the same. So yes - I would jump.

As an aside, I don't think people really appreciate just how much 1 billion dollars is.

So on to you: Would you jump for a billion dollars?

Maximum libertarian style freedom - no police, lax laws and no control - is obviously dangerous. This is understood, so let's not pretend the US is a "fully free". But the US isn't even the "Land of the Free".

In practice, freedom is being able to do what you want. It's the ability to walk out your door and go places. It's the ability to buy the house you want. You can easily imagine the Founding Fathers thinking, "Everyone should be able to live this way", as they looked out their own windows.

So how do you enjoy your freedom if your too poor to leave your city? The roads in New York were deliberately designed so that you couldn't. Why can so few millennials afford homes? Builders profited off building houses instead of apartments, which doesn't scale. How can you enjoy a night with drinks, if you had to drive to get there? Well this one is just a nation-wide failure of urban planning. The point is, these questions all have explainable answers, but they don't excuse the result.

The result is, freedom was traded for something else at every turn. Now look at Texas; in the name of big homes and trucks, you can't go anywhere without a car. You have no freedom to walk to a restaurant 15 minutes away. Even the most walkable cities in the US, like San Francisco or Boston - are only walkable within the city themselves. Contrast this to Korea, where the entirety province of Seoul is walkable, or Indonesia, where any kid can hop on a moped and travel around.

The US is freedom on paper. They've remained to protect your rights to own (some) guns and yell schizo, but for the spirit of freedom - the ability to do what you want - it does not stand up as the "Land of the Free".

The US dollar (and the dollar of most countries) is not backed by anything. Therefore if the amount of money in circulation is x, and overnight it becomes 2x, that must mean the value of the dollar has halved.

During COVID, the US government injected $4.6 trillion into the economy. If you didn't get at least 13,800$, you lost money.

But the bigger point here is the value of money has significantly decreased - And it's not just what the inflation calculators are saying. Let's look at some examples:

Besides this graph suggesting the value of your salary has halved in 20 years, it begs a deeper question - Where is the money going? Is the economy just bad? Or is there a group benefiting from this?

We could analyze government debt vs inflation (hint: the governments are going bankrupt, and the only way to stop that is a wealth tax), but that's a whole different topic.

Look at the distribution of wealth of the top 5 richest people in the world:

Oh look at that, we found the missing money.

So as an individual investor, what can we do with this information? Well billionaires have most of their value in their assets - Specifically, publicly traded assets.

S&P 500 index:

The takeaway is that simple.

1. Have rich parents
2. If you fail at step 1, try again
3. Buy in the S&P 500

As long as your living expenses are a small enough fraction of your take-home income, you can still stay on top of the curve. Save and invest in index funds.

"You know what's the difference between like, IC8s, IC9s and other regular ICs?"

They get paid a lot more?

"Yea they make like- they make millio-- I don't even know how much they make a year. But it's a lot. But it's that they can write well. Like they'll be writing about a subject I don't even begin to understand, but by the time I read their post, I feel like everything is crystal clear"

Communication is everything. Politicians convince. Designers show. Engineers explain.

If the only difference between a "good" and "great" employee was their work output, you could find a output/cost function and just hire more "good" employees.

Parabola

  |    
O |  
u |              *
t |         *         *
p |      *   ^-- Optimal!
u |    *                   *
t |   *                     *
  + -----------------------------
        Cost for employee

But that's not what makes an employee great (and hiring x employees also doesn't scale). Employees bring three things to a company:

• Overhead
• Additive impact
• Multiplicative impact

Let's look at these individually. But first, a log function:

Log function

  |    
O |  
u |                         *
t |                *
p |          *
u |      *
t |   *
  + -----------------------------
             Employees

This log function is why consultancy companies are both very profitable but unscalable

Overhead is why big companies move slow. When you have one employee, the company is working at 1x output. When you add a second employee, you don't go to 2x output; that's because of overhead. You're closer to 1.8x. Third employee, 2.5x.

Additive impact is how much work an employee delivers. If you hire the best artist, your output might go up more than 1x for this employee.

But multiplicative impact is the multiplier an employee gives to their peers. Multiplicative impact is why CEOs make 1,000x more than juniors for the same level of effort. Multiplicative impact is the only way to fight overhead.

So why do companies like Meta pay their IC7s $1M/year, or their IC9s $3M+/year? Because Meta has 60,000 employees, and hiring anyone except those who bring multiplicative impact gives you the next Broadcom.

I need to write more posts.

"Exactly! That's why I want to get into blogging. I used to blog a lot but I don't as much anymore"

Every Friday. Let's do it!

And so, it begins. Before midnight every Friday, I'll be putting up something here, and I will do it as long as I can (and trust me, I can do streaks for a long time). Here goes! 🎓

I used to spend every day doing open source development. Then my friend, who never contributed to FOSS in his life, got a 160k offer from Mozilla. Mozilla, I thought. The open source browser company. Back then, I was doing it wrong. Today, I work at Meta.

Random QA

(Because I know your attention span is short)

• You never get better at reading other people's solutions
• I still cannot do binary search without getting off-by-1 errors
• I've never implemented Quick Sort, or memorized any algorithms (like Djikstra)
  • You "get a feel" for most algos and can make something that works on the fly
  • Data structures are different; I have practiced implementing heaps, queues, union find, etc
• Contests are depressing
• Leetcode does not make you a better software engineer. (More on that below)
  • System Design on the other hand (shoutout SDFC) is amazing

Getting good at Leetcode is a hard grind - If you're looking for a schedule, start with DSA fundamentals, then do Neetcode 150.

The Journey

After attempting Blind75 (Neetcode 150 wasn't a thing back then), I was mentally broken. Asking myself "When will I use this?", or "How did other people solve this?" was pure demotivation. I calmed myself knowing each LC problem solved was worth a couple thousand dollars. So for months, I grinded through it.

I started doing the Leetcode contests. If you think Blind75 gets you depressed, wait until you score 1/4 in a contest.

I decided to go for a 30 day streak on the Daily Questions. I knew FAANG+ wouldn't be interested in me since I only had ~1 year of experience back then, but I figured if I learned how to study Leetcode, I could grind it when the time came.

Those 30 days were some of the most mentally challenging in my life. I probably had a headache 25/30 of them. About 5 days in, a Leetcode hard that took me over 6 hours to complete. I knew that if I didn't give up then, I could make it until the end. After a surprisingly small sense of accomplishment, my said "Why not go for 60?". Thinking of them salaries, I reluctantly agreed.

It didn't matter what else happened in my day, my Leetcode got done. I Leetcoded before work. If I couldn't finish it in time, I Leetcoded after work. I Leetcoded when I was camping. I Leetcoded at parties. I Leetcoded when I was sick and when I was on vacation. I Leetcoded on the bus or on the subway - I even did Leetcode on a chairlift. Multiple times. I Leetcoded on my phone, on my girlfriend's tablet, and at gaming cafes - almost like an alcoholic, using everything around me.

On a trip in Busan with my friends, at a small cafe (on land that, for those who don't know the history, tens of thousands of refugees suffered at), I was looking over the water and cracking a Leetcode hard. Something about the stark contrast between what I was doing and what is "important" made that solve memorable. Smelling the ocean salt while my friends ate breakfast , I finished just in time not to hold them back.

God, Leetcode is stupid.

Why Do Companies Interview with Leetcode?

The reason Mozilla hires people who can Leetcode instead of people who contribute to open source is because the question "Can the candidate solve Number of Islands in 15 minutes?" is a binary answer that scales across all your interviewers.

Leetcode is great because it became the "industry standard". It doesn't matter if you're front-end, infra, or ops: We all learn Leetcode, and can all interview others in it. Leetcode is a "rite of passage" that shows you put in the wor--

Nah just kidding. Leetcode is BS. I have a vested interested in keeping it around since I'm "good at it", but it's the lazy way out for companies to have a "bar" and do "unbiased interviewing". If you're a startup and you're asking Leetcode questions, you're getting table scraps. The most effective interviews I've found are unique so you grab the talent most other companies pass out on, but that's a story for another time.

There is not a single website that I register to and go "oh yes, I would love to see your promotional material!". So whenever I get something promotional in my inbox, I mark it spam. I mark it spam with a smile on my face, knowing that:

1. My email provider (Google) receives a copy of the email, and they use it to enhance their spam filters on it
2. Spam compliance rate is a thing - if 0.1 to 0.3% of recipients report a business' email as spam, that affects the deliverability rate to other users as well

"You can just click unsubscribe"

You can just make your spam opt-in!

"It's hard to grow a business"

I DON'T CARE! I care more about the other people you're annoying, hence why I'm reporting your garbage. I've started 3 failed businesses and several open source projects. I know how hard it is to get users, and I know spamming works. But guess what, that's the tradeoff you make!

"Think about the bigger picture; by making it harder to advertise, you're only supporting the bigger players"

Look, I still don't care. To avoid getting philosophical, I'll just say this: The battle against mega-corps isn't going to be helped significantly by people having inboxes full of spam.

From a federation perspective, Email is already screwed. The trust is already centralized. These days, many sites require a user's registration email provider to be one that verifies phone numbers, and self-hosting an email service too frequently ends up with your important emails (like job applications) going to spam. (Ask me how I know!).

Godspeed to those who are still self-hosting, or using a service like Tuta or Proton, but I'm out. Hate the game, not the player. I'll be over here on Gmail until it enshittifies, aiming to get these trash services at their 0.3%.

And by the way, do you work in marketing for a terrorist organization like Shell or Coca-Cola? Make sure to trash their compliance rate before you leave!

First blog post on this community. Yipee!

Intelligence at Meta

On the bus to work, I and spoke with a senior about intelligence. She said, "Only like 1% of the general population are actually really smart. At Meta, it's maybe more like 5%". I somewhat disagree.

The top people on my team are good, but I must admit the "top person" simply worked on a feature that gets referenced any time we discuss our product; everyone is constantly reminded what they did, and that pays dividends to their reputation. This is proof your project is more important than your daily contributions.

The bottom people however are more surprising. Usually bad engineers leave you scratching your head (for various reasons), which is still true at Meta, but the bad engineers here are still brilliant. While pair programming with one, I was simply floored by how fast they analyzed and debugged code, and how many diffs (PRs) they were pushing each day. People here are good.

It's not just engineers either. Everybody here has enthusiasm, communication ability, and is well rounded. Even the service staff are excellent. I wonder how much that has to do with "Meta picking the best" vs "Meta pays so much that people give it their all". Which leads me to my second point..

Perks & Compensation

Levels.fyi is fairly accurate. People get paid a lot. Granted, everyone making less than US$150k/year is padding the pockets to an oblivious billionaire, but at US$300k/year, I'm not complaining. Remember the senior engineer I referenced earlier? I'm not 100% sure on their level, but at 8 YOE, they're making between US$1.4M and US$2M a year (and they still complain about daycare costs while riding the bus).

The nice thing besides the salary is how Meta doesn't cheap out on things. Before the "Year of Efficiency" it was apparently better, but we still get:

• On-campus haircuts, dental, vision, and healthcare (all nearly free)
• Free breakfast/lunch/dinner
• Free Meta busses to work, and free shared Uber-like service if we're within 10 miles
• Lots of financial perks (too many to list, but things like discounted lifestyle/activities/travel/etc)

Overall, studying 1-2 hours every day for 3 years to reach this lifestyle isn't too bad.

Leetcode & System Design

So many people hate Leetcode. So why is it used?

• It doesn't matter if good coders can't Leetcode. The important part is most bad coders can't Leetcode.
• Leetcode reduces the complexity of an individual person into a number: How fast did you solve problem X?
• You might be a pro at React; I might be a pro at databases; but the unofficial industry standard was arbitrarily chosen to be data structures and algorithms, so if we both learn it, I can judge your coding ability in an interview.
• Your interviewer studied Leetcode for months to get their job. They have an incentive to keep Leetcode as the standard.

What about other interview methods like MR review, coding assignments, or judging someone's open source contributions? None of these things address even 2/4 bulletpoints above. Sorry everyone, Leetcode is here to stay.

What about System Design?

First, Apple doesn't ask System Design questions, and it shows. Anyone who's dealt with Apple's APIs know they're slow as crap, awkward to use, and have fundamental limitations in the same way Amazon/Google/Meta don't have.

Second, system design tests your communication skills, big picture skills, and gives an interviewer ample ammunition to deep dive and test your knowledge. SD is crucial in the age of cloud computing, and much easier to study than Leetcode. I highly recommend Donne Martin's System Design Primer if you're ever feeling unsure.

Only 24 Hours a Day: Giving Things Up

Here's a rough timeline of hobbies I gave up over the last 5 years:

• 2016: Reddit, Gaming, Drinking, Studying, Sleep
• 2018: Reddit, Studying, Rock Climbing, Open Source, Sleep
• 2020: Reddit, Rock Climbing, Open Source x2, Sleep
• 2021: Reddit, Rock Climbing, Leetcode, Open Source, Korean, Sleep
• 2023: Rock Climbing, Leetcode, Open Source, Korean, Sleep
• 2024: Rock Climbing, Leetcode, Sleep

Thank god Reddit went to garbage, that was a hard addiction to break. I want to get back into Korean and Open Source, but I'm getting paid too much to screw this up. While my job is surprisingly chill - most people on my team work less than 40 hours a week - if I can get a single promotion, that's an extra US$150,000 a year. 3 promotions and I'll make US$1,400,000. I'm addicted to the money. Why would I not grind?

I envy the times I played Minecraft without a care for the world. I miss my old hobbies. It's not that I can't get it back, it's only that getting here over the last 8 years shifted my mentality. The hiscores are now my bank account. I don't regret anything, and I will come back and touch grass - But I easily see how many people don't.