2023 September. Interviewing and Fasting.

Looking for a new position. Looking into Vegan Diets and Fasting for weight loss.

Books I'm reading #

System Design Interview – An insider's guide by Alex Xu.

Books I've read #

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig. I have a hard time with this one. I've found it disturbing, insightful, boring, incorrect, and too vague to be useful. Didn't change my mind, but I've enjoyed the philosophical take on quality.

Grokking Algorithms An Illustrated Guide For Programmers and Other Curious People by Aditya Y. Bhargava. I'm not a fan of "interview" books so this is a welcome relief. The book is focused on teaching you something useful instead of hopping through the hoops. Great intro to even some advanced algorithms. Easy and fun to read. Highly recommended.

The Senior Engineer Jobsearch. I can recommend this free online course. The market is much different than when they made it, but it's solid advice.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I do not recommend this one. The audiobook in Polish is 65 hours long and there are only short parts of it that are interesting. I've made a mistake of taking this book as a personal challenge, don't make my mistakes and just ignore it.

Elsewhere on the Web #

Tech layoffs are all but a thing of the past by Alex Wilhelm from TechCrunch

Working at a Startup vs. in Big Tech by Gergely Orosz

The Worst Programmer I Know by Dan North

State of HTML 2023 is now open! — Lea Verou

YouTube #

The Drone That Changed The Rules of War, Then Got Banned by Not What You Think.
Use of FPV drones in Ukraine.
Sociopath Businessman Tells The Truth About Capitalism by Novara Media

Tech #

Bun is disrupting JavaScript land by Fireship
How to Set up VS Code for Data Science & AI by Dave Ebbelaar

Personal #

Unlock Unlimited Motivation With This Hidden Brain Switch by Rian Doris

Curiosity
Purpose (What is important to other people?)
Mastery (Want to improve every day)
Autotelicity (To like the activity itself/Flow)
Autonomy (Feeling in control of your work)

How To Actually Recharge for Maximum Productivity by Rian Doris

cold/heat exposure
meditation
breathwork
nap
sleep
nature
exercise

I can recommend The Vegan Gym YouTube channel and some recent videos:

Lion's Mane Mushrooms Actually DO SOMETHING! by SciShow

Personal Thoughts #

Orthodontist. #

I'm doing a lot of small things this month. The most annoying is probably dentical/orthodontal treatment. I won't go into detail, but it's a constant pull on my time and attention.

Fasting. #

Still trying to lose weight. It's getting harder and harder, but I'm finally under my target weight of 65kg most of days. I want to make this a little more stable before I start celebrating, but I'm getting there. I started to think more about other ways of keeping my weight from increasing other than fasting. While it's great to lose weight, it's really hard to keep muscles. The tradeoff was worth it so far, but it may not be much longer.

Interviews. #

While layoffs are almost over it's a pretty bad time to look for a new job. Some companies are still looking, but a lot of them are only posting fake openings. A lot of people are looking for new positions because of the layoffs as well. I have 14 years of experience and have the freedom to take my time to find something interesting it's a tough job market at the moment.

Music #

Somewhere I Belong – Linkin Park. I'm really getting old, but this one comes back to me one of those days. Hope you can enjoy it too.


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