Would someone inform me why UCLA has Panda Express, Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr and more in their student union and Berkeley has 3 overpriced cafes on our whole campus?
I wish I could personally speak to all the Berkeley kids applying to high-profile clubs and tell them there’s much better things to do.
Perhaps ironic because my club has multiple interview stages but it never gets easier to send a rejection email.
Building this chip was such a cool experience because I finally felt that I understood computers across the entire stack, only to uncover infinite areas of knowledge I could never fully grasp.
Best project partner ever
@hridonculous
💪 always pulls through when it’s crunch time
My first integrated circuit! A 32-bit RISC-V processor equipped with a 3-stage pipeline and a direct-mapped cache using 256x32bit SRAMs, made with
@SkyWaterFoundry
SKY130 technology.
Competed in my first kickboxing fight two weeks ago! Though I didn’t win, I had so much fun and learned a lot. I’ll definitely compete again next year!
(I’m in the white shirt)
Tech recruiting for students would be much nicer if they could dip their toes into different fields early on.
My interest in hardware has grown significantly since I started college, but it’s difficult to land a hardware internship with only software experiences on my resume.
A 30 minute bus trip doesn’t take 30 minutes.
+10 minutes - waiting for the bus to arrive
+5 minutes - figuring out which bus takes you where
+5 minutes - looking for the stop
+30 minutes - because you missed the bus while looking for the stop.
My internship so far:
10% onboarding
10% setting up the dev environment
20% coding
60% waiting for the CI pipeline to inevitably fail because I set up the dev environment wrong
Went to DC, the literal CAPITAL OF AMERICA and saw exactly 0 people tap their card to ride the bus. The fare is $1.
How can public transportation function when no one pays the fare? How does the driver get paid? What incentive is there to even run the bus system?
Sometimes I wonder what a world with only self-driving cars would like.
If we could eliminate every human-operated car in an instant, it would be a lot easier to get there.
Takes me back to the RLC circuits of EECS 16B, derived from Maxwell's equations of Physics 7B that dictated the circuit timing of CS 61C that influence all of OS design in 162...
Whether or not classes translate to jobs, they sure make me feel like I know how a computer works.
Crazy to realize that a lot of the basics of systems are rooted in physics, ie cache being faster than memory being faster than disk, SSDs storing data via circuits, etc.
Update on this: ~50 pages into the Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and all I have to say is:
2020s America has more in common with 1920s Russia than you might think.
After growing up in the Bay Area, the NYC subway system is an incredible feat of engineering and infrastructure in my eyes. Yet it’s clear that it wasn’t designed with wheelchair accessibility in mind.
I understand how difficult this is, though I hope things improve from here.
@Akshat_Jain2002
@DStrachman
I would argue that social media and other online content are just ways of satisfying curiosity. Curiosity is what motivates us to read one more tweet, watch one more TikTok, etc. Exploiting curiosity is exactly why creators do things like lying in thumbnails.
@hridonculous
@MaanavKhaitan
@itsandrewgao
@Berkeley
I agree that it is hyperbolic, but Berkeley CS does tend to be more difficult than necessary for the average student, which is why Berkeley produces highly competent engineers - even if you barely scrape by for 4 years, you’re very well suited for a SWE position.
@hridonculous
Weirdly enough Slack vs. Discord goes against this rule; I thought Slack copied much of Discord’s product and reframed it but TIL that Slack came out first.
We really have no idea how many levels of abstraction our computers run on.
Even after peeling away all of the software abstractions, there's an endless abyss of hardware to sift through before we get to a point where even physics can't explain what's happening.
In my opinion, NYC is the only city that solved this problem in America. The subway takes no space above ground and it renders cars nearly useless.
I was really hoping the hyperloop would work out
@elonmusk
A terrifying headline, but one that completely misrepresents the scenario and sent people all over America running to the nearest Costco to hoard as much rice as possible.
The endless cycle of a SWE trying to find their niche:
"Your resume indicates that you have a lot of full-stack experience, so we'll place you on our web dev team."
"But I want to expand my knowledge, could I move to the ML team?"
"You don't have enough experience."
Berkeley has always been the hub of progressive thought, which arguably brought us more tech innovation than any other city in America.
The byproduct - immense pressure to become engrossed in political issues, radicalizing people on all sides.
In the midst of this "AI inflection point," remember to continue working towards what you like instead of flocking to put another buzz word on your resume.
Something may be profitable now, but that doesn't mean we don't need someone like you.
@hardeep_gambhir
Definitely enjoying it once I start reading, but there’s always that little hill I have to climb to stop whatever else I’m doing and open the book.
This makes it so no one has to travel more than a half mile for daily errands, hence more walking and less driving. Contrasting that with my parents driving 3 miles for groceries in a relatively nice Bay Area neighborhood, it’s easy to see why we have this problem.
@hridonculous
@warpdotdev
@browsercompany
I love Arc but I was never able to get accustomed to Warp. How did Warp help your workflows?
I’d also highly recommend Cursor for text editor - better than Copilot imo
Is it just America that’s built this way? This TikTok that went viral a few weeks ago suggests that it might be true. Check out the glaring lack of parking at the MCG compared to these stadiums in Kansas City.
This culture is also shaped by the way cities are organized in India. The sheer size of the population increases density of housing and shops, squeezing out space for roads.
They also utilize the vertical axis very well. Most families live in apartments with underground parking.
What can we do about this? Guilt tripping drivers isn’t the answer. Ads like this from BART look at the problem from a high level, using statistics to paint YOU as the bad guy. The reality is, each of those drivers have a unique set of circumstances that dictate their choices.
What did these countries do that America couldn’t? The obvious answer is good public transit; Sydney was ranked 14th out of 60 cities for best public transportation. But NYC is 13th, SF is 16th, and LA isn’t last for some reason. Clearly there are more factors at play.
India specifically banned exports of non-basmati rice, so we still have enough basmati to sustain everyone in America, not to mention local-grown rice and imports from other countries like China.
I joined PlexTech when it was much smaller and younger, and it appealed to me because I felt that I had a lot to give to the community; I saw the opportunity to build something great.
"We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them" - Albert Einstein
Maybe this is why I feel a lot less anxious after going to the gym; the problem is, my mood for the whole day depends on how my lift went.
I can’t blame the applicants who try their best to be professional and fake to impress execs, but it’s very easy to spot someone like that.
If you feel that you can’t be yourself in order to get into a club, you probably won’t have the best time when you get in.
I honestly don’t know what a full solution would look like without completely uprooting our infrastructure, but there have to be economic incentives for all sides involved. Solutions like “drive less” won’t do the trick at a large enough scale.
SF & Berkeley suck for all kinds of reasons, but at least they’re somewhat navigable by public transit.
Suburban areas (e.g. Dublin) are covered in urban sprawl to the point that taking a walk almost feels psychotic.
@Ar_boian
@_buildspace
@FarzaTV
Awesome idea not only for Alzheimer’s but for prosopragnosia, a neurological condition that affects people of all ages that prevents them from recognizing faces.
Fun fact: Brad Pitt has face blindness, although he hasn’t been diagnosed with prosopragnosia
Adding stores where there are now roads and parking is a clear incentive, combined with the rise of self driving taxis. Converting swaths of outdoor parking to vertical parking structures is another almost “free lunch.”
Truth is, involving yourself in every issue that comes your way after learning <10% of the whole picture probably isn’t the best for your mental health or anyone else’s.
@hardeep_gambhir
I think the laws are meant to be concerning; it’s a guide to power but it makes no promises or guarantees about mental health, being likeable, etc. It might even be a cautionary tale that tells you what characteristics to watch out for in coworkers, etc.
@etpuisfume
I think this is something unique to Berkeley (source: literally anyone from another school). 100s of applicants with single digit acceptance rates. It’s a chain reaction where people want to join competitive clubs, which makes them more competitive because more people apply.
The total amount of digital data in the world is estimated to be in the tens to hundreds of zettabytes.
How much of that data do you think is program data vs actual user data?
@hridonculous
Can’t imagine the headache of scaling employees, leadership, investors, offices, etc. We often get so focused on the tech that we forget how important the people aspect is for companies.
@Akshat_Jain2002
Lmao I ordered it from Amazon I didn’t know it was gonna be 500 pages and 3 volumes. I actually do find myself wanting to read this book than less dense books, maybe because I have to think about it more.
It’s not uncommon to see shops stacked on top of each other, too.
Notice I’m saying “shops” instead of “stores.” There aren’t many Targets in India, but there are hundreds of street vendors and small merchant shops scattered throughout urban areas.
@morajabi
I really hope Slack acquires Noor at some point. Noor is clearly superior in terms of design and tech, but the biggest barrier for me is losing all of my previous channels and messages. It would be a no brainer to switch if Noor literally became the new Slack.
The time complexity of the stable marriage algorithm is O(n^2) so running it on the whole world would take roughly 1.6 * 10^19 steps to complete.
This would take over 100 years on a 5 GHz processor even if each step was a single instruction.
@hridonculous
@debarghya_das
Agreed, but I think for people starting from 0 when it comes to working in industry, consulting clubs can be close simulations of real teams.
I’m in a software consulting club so I get to work on projects with clients, but also joined a space tech club to do more technical work.
@etpuisfume
@heyashleybee
Increasing the acceptance rate would balloon the club so much that there’s no sense of community. Consulting clubs also need enough clients to support that many members, which is hard to achieve.
People do create new clubs, but not quickly enough to support the demand.
@morajabi
Thanks, that gives a lot more context. It could be interesting if there could be some sort of integration like how Reddit has many apps that are sort of like skins. Or Noor will have to acquire Slack!