Burnout and depression can be connected to, but aren't the same thing as a mid-life crisis.
I would distinguish a mid-life crisis (or in the positive case, mid-life inspiration) by the realisation that you don't have infinite time left to do everything you dream to do.
In your 20s, it's easy to think that your entire life is still ahead of you, and you will have time for everything. It doesn't matter if you spend a few years in a mediocre relationship, a career that won't work out in the long run, on a terrible startup idea, and so on.
Somewhere in your 30s you realise that you do need to get started on what you really dream to do, or you might never have the chance to. Whether it's a crisis or inspiration depends on how far off your previous life was from it.
These sort of reports can be very misleading because they are often based surveying local companies competing for employees with other local companies. The salaries are very different when working for example for a local bank, vs. for an international tech company or well-funded international startup.
> For example, Aldi can just decide to hire a contractor that they know does good work at a reasonable price. In contrast, the govt has to use a lengthy fair and open bid process and if they want to select a bid that isn't the lowest, it's a painstaking process to justify that selection.
It's unfortunate, but probably better than the corruption that anything else will enable in the long run. Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For government spending, lowest bidder is the worst form of contracts, except for all the others.
I think the point that gets lost when you see comments like the GP is that they are operating under different sets of constraints because they are trying to optimize for different things.
FWIW, the govt can do "best value" contracts instead of lowest bid. But there is an asymmetry in risk to those making the selection. If something goes wrong in the design/construction, or if corruption is found, there's a lot more explaining to do. Like the old quote, "Nobody got fired for hiring IBM," except in this case "Nobody got fired for selecting the lowest bid."
But let's say you take two current chatbots, make them converse with each other without human participants. Add full internet access. Add a directive to read HN, Twitter and latest news often.
Interesting emergent behaviour could emerge very soon.
Worse, you need only plug a chatbot into itself, with some kind of basic bash script and very simple "goal prompt", and suddenly you get an agent with long term context. You could do that today. I don't think people realize how close these generic undirected intelligences are to unpredictable complex behavior.
Developers will care if they are spending their time waiting for a build.
Both could be satisfied with a single-threaded make keeps the standard order to ensure backwards compatibility, but `make -j` that also turns on --shuffle. Which is also backwards compatible, because timing of each target might rearrange them.
Despite the electrical risks, it's crazy how much Christmas safety has improved.
I remember https://i.imgur.com/vKbfzEs.jpg from my childhood. Small metal clips to attach real candles to the Christmas tree. 20-50 open flame candles on a dried out Spruce, one of the best fire starters possible.
Could be worse: use last-year's spruce/fir preserved using glycerine and/or formaldehyde. Try eco-friendly or self-made decoration from real hay, paper, and wood instead of metal or plastic. Use combustible adhesive to bend into form. Also, use candles from bee's wax instead of parrafin or stearin for extra temperature, flame height, and CO. No risk, no fun ;)
It somehow never occurred to me that - obviously the traditional Christmas lights were candles. Unless the original method was to cut at tree, decorate a still wet one for a day, and then toss it - how did anyone ever consider that a good idea?
Why? That looks like a guaranteed way to result in an accident for a pretty minor novelty. If nothing else, using leds that look like candles would be less maintenance with the huge upside that they are incredibly unlikely to be able to start a fire.
Some people in Central Europe still use real candles on the Christmas tree. Of course, you place the candles carefully and don't leave them unattended.
(I have no idea how common it is, but I've seen the candles and brackets for sale.)
It is fairly common in Germany. There’s a special size of candles that fits those holders (Christbaumkerzen) and they’re a thing you’ll find everywhere in shops around Christmas time. I’ve never had a tree with LED in my entire life.
You must observe some safety rules, have a bucket of water or an extinguisher at hand (not under the tree) and never leave the candles unattended. And yes, be careful where you place the candles. Can’t have a branch that’s hanging over them.
If it was a guaranteed accident like you suggest people wouldn't have done it for decades. Not the safest thing, but judging by the news it seems not even close to all the injuries weeks later from fireworks.
I've got to wonder if part of the reason it seems insane is because we've gotten used to single/dual generation households. If you light candles on a tree, then it's a commitment for you or your partner to be in the same room as that tree until the candles are extinguished. But if there is an older generation sitting around to be on firewatch, then it doesn't seem so limiting.
It's not quite as straight forward when it comes to ECU reprogramming/tuning. While it seems legal to modify an ECU or use an aftermarket ECU, states like California now won't allow cars with these sorts of mods to pass smog tests, and there's nothing to stop manufacturers from voiding your warranty for soft-modifying the ECU. It's a small leap for states to decide that not having the latest ECU firmware causes a failed smog test or even an "emissions fine" regardless of the actual exhaust composition.
> states like California now won't allow cars with these sorts of mods to pass smog tests
Thankfully, a lot of us live in better-governed states than California. And even if it is illegal where you live, stuff you own shouldn't try to enforce laws against you.
Generally speaking, yes, unless a dealer believes they can blame your modification for the issue. The ECU affects the entire powertrain, so there's incentive for the dealer to blame the mod for even just a cracked engine mount, while counting on you paying for a repair as opposed to filing a lawsuit.
After all, your engine must have been running hot and accelerated the wear on the mount. Oh, logging shows it wasn't? Must be a malfunctioning thermostat. That'll be $3,000 for the mount, the thermostat, and the labor. Not including any extra charges, fees, surcharges, taxes, or overcharges.
Car dealers are no different from insurance companies. Whether it's warranty or insurance, they make money by denying claims. The ECU is enough of a black box that practically anything critical can be blamed on it if it's not using factory settings.
Many ECUs are not equipped with adequate tamper detection to detect having been modified, and then flashed back to stock before returning to a service center. This an extremely common practice in the auto enthusiast community.
Wouldn’t they need to demonstrate that the ECU modifications _caused_ the damage? Of course they have incentive to get out of the warranty, but isn’t the whole point of the act to prevent them from getting out of it _unless_ they can demonstrate your mods to the ECU caused the damage?
Technically, yes in the US, but that does not mean that they can't still deny you claiming a modification did it. You could then take them to court but here's the rub there.
Consider, how much just a single lawyer cost per hour I don't think it would be worth it a lot of the times unless the entire car was basically destroyed or something very expensive has failed to have enough value to justify it. Otherwise the repair is gonna be a lot times in a similar ballpark cost wise (for most cars) as a law suite.
-Edit-
Moreover if the case is not decided quickly or settled it could also end up costing a lot more.
Okay sure but in that case the dealer/manufacturer is willing to _lie_. I.e. to claim that your actions caused it without any proof. At that point everything is a bit out the window. They could simply make up any justification to deny your claim if they're willing to lie. I don't really see what's so special about the ECU in this case.
Apple will won't honor their warranty if you jailbreak your phone which is kinda similar to modding the firmware on ECU. Do you think car companies are going to be any different if they can get away with it.
In the case of Apple it's pretty hard to justify the court costs for a 1000 dollar device. So Apple rarely has to prove that the Jail break was the cause of the failure. They technically can't deny warranty claim if a modification was not the cause of the failure. However, Apple operates basically by default for almost all failures if Jail Broken you get no warranty which is technically not legal.
> They could simply make up any justification to deny your claim if they're willing to lie.
Yes, but only if they think they can get away with it. This kind of thing happens all the time.
Arguably, the fact that the ECU was modified is evidence enough. It's pretty difficult to argue that an aftermarket stereo head unit, or air intake, or "ooga" horn caused engine damage. That would be a fairly easy win in court if the dealer is foolish enough to think anyone would buy that explanation.
Remapping an ECU is very different. If an ECU is remapped, that likely means the engine is operating outside of the intended parameters, and dealers would probably argue that the ECU is not intended to be modified by 3rd parties. From their perspective, why should they foot the bill for damage caused by changing how the engine functions? The dealer can deny your warranty claim because they know there's a 99.9% chance you won't fight it, and that you'll probably lose anyway if you do.
In the case of Mercedes and their paywall for faster acceleration, they could argue that any "hack" to enable faster acceleration is not only a form of piracy but that a hack could lead to dangerous situations; when say a bit is flipped to enable the acceleration, but the rest of the conditionals in the programming aren't aware of this change, the behavior of the vehicle can't be entirely predicted.
I don't necessarily agree with any of that reasoning, but this is how car companies not only defend their ability to deny warranty but extract more revenue from its customers going forward into the digital future.
> Wouldn’t the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still apply?
The act is intended to allow voiding the warranty after modding the ECU (even though the act predates ECUs and so doesn't mention them). Well your radio warranty would probably still apply, but modding the ECU has potential to damage the engine, and therefore the engine is out of warranty if you touch the ECU code.
You're talking about the possibility of maybe eventually causing some kind of damage, but isn't the important question whether it caused the specific damage that the owner wants to be repaired under warranty?
Git provides all of those things, as long as everyone agrees on what the current HEAD commit id (hash) is. You could publish that hash in a printed newspaper or with a government regulator. After publishing it is impossible to rewrite commit history without evidence of tampering.
Rewriting history and amending commits forces the recalculation of all commit hashes that follow it, and you end up with a completely different final hash.
AWS QLDB does the same thing with Amazon holding the final hash.
Publishing a commit ID in a printed newspaper does not prevent the data loss nor the tampering with the data.
Destructive operations in a ledger database are simply not available at the API/interface contract level.
A delete operation in a ledger database is non-destructive and does not delete the data but rather creates a new «deleted» revision in the history table. The deleted revision is always available, and it can be «undeleted» as there is nothing special about the deleted revision: it is merely another document revision with the N+1 revision number. The document can be deleted (revision N+1), undeleted (revision N+2), updated multiple times (revision N + M1, N + M2 …), deleted again (revision N + M1 + M2 + P), yet the entire history of all past and current revision(s) is always available, and it can be retrieved/inspected; even after the table is dropped, it can still be undropped without incurring a data loss – all of that is the append-only ledger guarantee.
The only destructive operation that is practically possible is tearing down the entire ledger at the infrastructure level, which is irreversible and will result in a full data loss. However it can be mitigated (to a very large extent) through segregating and locking down access to the infrastructure.
git does not provide the immutability guarantee as it allows destructive operations, therefore it does not qualify for a ledger proper. A commit history can be rewritten or deleted resulting in a data loss. Published commit ID's are of no use if the data has been tampered with later and valuable revisions have been deleted in perpetuity.
It's not empty, it's just way, way! too politely phrased. It's not advice on how to find ideas or how to become that person, but advice on who is ready to give founding a startup a try.
During my career I did freelance mobile app and web development for about 10 years.
In that time I came across many people who wanted to found a tech startup because "that's where the money is" and being a tech startup founder being a status symbol. Some enthusiastic youngsters, but mostly people who had a successful non-tech small business. And they were not the right sort of person and did not have the right hunches, they didn't use what they learned from their non-tech business, but instead sat down over a beer with friends to brainstorm "social-local-viral" app ideas.
The advice instead should be that if you are struggling to come up with startup ideas, you probably aren't the right sort of person at this time. You should do something entirely different for a while until you find a product that just has to exist.
Unfortunately, they had never read HN or PG, nor could I do more than politely refuse their business.
> I would say that proper password manager is the best investment you can do from any app.
My bed is the best investment in the sense that I spend 1/3 of my life there. That doesn't mean it would be a good idea to pay 1/3 of my income towards a bed and mattress subscription.
Healthy competition from many suppliers means that I can buy a bed for a one-time, materials cost + profit margin price instead of purely value-based pricing, and spend the surplus elsewhere.
The bed is a great example.
Saying that investment should go linear with a time spent is a bit of a harsh generalization.
Instead, you certainly want to get a good enough bed.
However, at some point, you get diminishing gains when investing more into it, and it does not matter anymore.
Usually, good enough is the point to which healthy competition leads—an affordable price and with a not too high-profit margin.
Similarly, with password managers, are free alternatives good enough?
The initial comment implied that it is not worth paying at all, but I think the good enough is not met with current free alternatives, at least for non-tech people.
To be honest, free version of BitWarden might be the best you can get at the moment and it is enough for the majority.
But you have to pay for better two-factor security.
I would distinguish a mid-life crisis (or in the positive case, mid-life inspiration) by the realisation that you don't have infinite time left to do everything you dream to do.
In your 20s, it's easy to think that your entire life is still ahead of you, and you will have time for everything. It doesn't matter if you spend a few years in a mediocre relationship, a career that won't work out in the long run, on a terrible startup idea, and so on.
Somewhere in your 30s you realise that you do need to get started on what you really dream to do, or you might never have the chance to. Whether it's a crisis or inspiration depends on how far off your previous life was from it.