crimsonpoodle

To set the stage: I've heard the recent news about layoffs with Intel. Before that I read from their new CEO "On training, I think it is too late for us". Lastly there has been some offhand comments (from LTT) that they're preparing to sell the company.

Yet while I have no doubt that they are behind; their revenue is about 55 billion since 2023, down from the high of 78-80ish Billion during the pandemic, but about the same as the plateau leading up to the pandemic 2015-2019.

Maybe i'm naive about the way businesses work; but if your still profitable, and you know you need to "catch up" why lay off people and close sites? Maybe that works for a consumer goods company; if your overhead is too high and your not making a profit: slim down.

However for a company where RND is really where the value is, like Intel, it just doesn't seem to make sense; your not going to get better designs and processes by reducing your experienced staff and letting them go work for the competition. Maybe some restructuring, (in the engineering sense not the euphemism for layoffs).

I generally don’t order alcoholic beverages in restaurants with the exception of Mexican restaurants. At home, on fajita night, my dad always makes margaritas. There is just something nice about being buzzed and eating guac, chips, and softshell tacos.

Is this conditioning? Because my family often does this— or is this a more general phenomenon because Mexican food; by some quality yet unknown, be it texture, flavor, or smell, is uniquely well suited to being paired with alcohol?

After two previous interviews today I got this like email:

“I spoke with {} recently and he shared that he’d like to invite you to a final round of interviews for the Mobile Software Engineer role onsite in {} – congrats!    What does your availability look like on the following dates to come onsite to {} for your interviews (July 21 – 25, 2025 or July 28 – August 1, 2025)?  The interviews will be about a half day.  When I receive confirmation of your availability, I’ll begin scheduling your final round of interviews and will send you final confirmation details via email when that’s complete.”

— I’ve never had a real job besides research in University and entry level stuff like sign spinning; what should I expect when I go in? What should/shouldn’t I do?

— does this mostly mean they’re checking to see if I’m not a psycho? But if I’m not I’ve got the job?

— it might just be reading into it but they said interviews plural— am I going in multiple days? Or does this mean there are other people interviewing?

Thanks! Crazy excited after hundreds of applications. I know I can knock there socks off if I get a chance— I really don’t want to mess this up.

I understand the historical significance since the nationalists retreated to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War.

Back then, and for perhaps the middle part of the 20th century, there was a threat of a government in exile claiming mainland China. Historically, then, there was your impetus for invasion.

However, China has since grown significantly, and Taiwan no longer claims to be the government of mainland China, so that reason goes away.

Another reason people give: control the supply of chips. Yet, wouldn’t the Fabs, given their sensitive nature, be likely to be significantly destroyed in the process of an invasion?

Even still, China now has its own academia and engineering, and is larger than Taiwan. Hence, even without the corporate espionage mainland China is known for, wouldn’t investing in their burgeoning semiconductor industry make more sense, rather than spending that money on war?

People mention that taking Taiwan would be a breakout from the “containment” imposed by the ring of U.S. allies in the region.

Yet while taking Taiwan would mean access to deep-water ports, it’s not as though Taiwan would ever pose a threat to Chinese power projection—their stance is wholly defensive. If China decided to pull an “America” and send a carrier to the Middle East or something, no one would stop them and risk a war.

So what is it then? Is it just for national pride and glory? Is it to create a legacy for their leadership? The gamble just doesn’t really seem worth it.

Anyway, appreciate your opinions thanks!

I think it’s a healthy thing to do to admit when your wrong as it places importance on truth rather than self image.

Some examples:

I thought pay-per-view was paper-view because you had to fill out a form to watch it.

This morning I insisted there was a noise outside to my partner and it was in fact the refrigerant in the fridge gurgling.

I thought the cat wanted to be pet— it did not.

I’ve tried putting it under the little spoons pillow, but it always gets weird pins and needles numb and hurts by morning. Thanks!

I’ve heard people say, (paraphrased) “work is work: if your going to give me free time then let me go home.”.

On the other side, an impromptu surprise that you get to be relieved of your responsibilities for the day and go do something fun seems like it would be beneficial for people’s mental health and creativity.

Yet, one can imagine if someone had a sick child at home, or some other concern that infinitely more important than work that it might be a bit torturous to go out and try to have fun with your coworkers when you would rather, and rightly so, want to be home attending to the more important thing.

Although I would want to be the type of leader that I person would feel comfortable just telling that they needed to go home if such a matter of importance were to arise.

If you gave a person a choice at the beginning of their job between a day off or an office field trip, most would probably just choose an extra day off.

Yet, much like buying a gift card for someone you know would never spend money on themselves perhaps it could be a more memorable and helpful experience for them to go out and have fun with no responsibilities.

Yet this may simply be an expression of the lonely ness and desire for human connection that I personally feel, due the current circumstances of semi isolation (just me and my partner) in a new and strange city.

I am not a CEO, I just graduated and I’m working to get my first job. One day I would like to lead people, and perhaps this, per my lack of knowledge, seems a bit farcical, but I wanted to gather some opinions, thanks!

24 M at a 3‑way fork for my life:

 ① Seattle/Portland SWE job, 

 ② unfunded CS PhD (live with in‑laws),

 ③ $90 k Columbia BME master’s. 

Which of these should I do?

Stats:

Me: 

24 M, fresh BS CS (+ physics minor, 4.45 GPA, undergraduate research internships, swift student challenge winner, US citizen)

Spouse: 

27 M, tech lead remote, $210 k comp, recession resistant job, very smart. But is not yet a citizen, temporary protective status from Syria, been in US since he was 13, scary times but ignoring it. 

Current debt: 60 k @ 14 % (2k / mo) (Consolidated credit card debt)

Accepted programs: 

• PhD CS @ UCCS  (3-4yrs, 20k per year est)

• MS Bio Medical Engineering @ Columbia (18 mo, $90 k tuition) (Have two weeks to accept/decline)

We like the PNW, the humidity and rain, and culture have been so nice(at ABnB right now). I could maybe get a tech job at about 100k, but slightly concerned with this economy, love research, my dream job would be R&D engineering job in the long term, but often requires masters/PhD. 

Or maybe I pay money and network with rich people and create a start up at Columbia, or maybe I should start working now in case my spouse gets deported and we need to do something(sorta in denial about this option for now).

Or maybe we live in big house with my spouses parents (adoptive US citizens) in the country, like we have for 5 years now, but the 40 minute commute for UCCS PhD and isolation in Colorado Springs is something my partner, and to some extent I, want to leave. (Very loving and supportive, very grateful for them but we want to be adults and decide things like what’s for dinner for ourselves). 

Or maybe I’m young and dumb and lack perspective and we should stay there until we pay down debt, but maybe moving is the jolt we need to start budgeting properly.

(Consolidated credit card debt is going down from 80k, just that partner used to have slightly excessive lifestyle, and has paid my way through college)

What do I do with my life?

So many choices right now, and they feel so final, difficulty sleeping for the past few nights.

Thank you for all your thoughts ahead of time!

Hi all, 

I'm working on my personal website, my first forway into javascript and web development.

I wanted to create a flip dot style display which has since morphed into more of a CRT look. 

You can take a look here if you like:  https://343f-66-113-2-158.ngrok-free.app/main.html

However, I've recently, when sending it to a friend, we found it only seems to work with any performance on Safari, sometimes in fact failing entirely on Chrome and Firefox.

I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on how I might change my design to migigate this or whether there is some way to give myself more resources on firefox and chrome.

A cursary look into fixing this seems to suggest I should use RequestAnimationFrame, however, this drawing of all elements smoothly at once, while efficent, destroyes the organic effect that the timeouts gave both on the individual dot level and when refreshing line by line.

My general design is outlined here: 

I'm using HTML5 canvas; each dot is a class which redraws its section of the canvas with a 50-300 ms delay to emulate the per dot lag of a given hinge on a flip dot display. The display class again using setTimeOut(), schedules each line of the display, consisting of dots, to update at a slight offset so that you can see the display refresh from left to right. Then the rest of the program modifies the "next frame" array with text or images which I wish to be displayed. 

Thank you!

I’ve seen some digitizers on amazon that would do the trick but they’re rather clunky and don’t split songs as they are played or save any meta data. I presume this would be possible given that the song title is often displayed on various Bluetooth car stereos. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated for hardware / software.