But it is a bit of a bait and switch, making a weird transition toward the very end into an advert for brilliant.org.
That fact doesn't negate the well-done informational portion, and brilliant.org sounds like a cool offering, but what a yucky tactic for such a high-ground video.
I have a feeling you are selling yourself short (and being overly hard on yourself, something I'm well acquainted with but more easily recognize in others).
Based on your technical focus, you're clearly (in my opinion) way above the "average" developer in technical ambition and appreciation for computer science.
A bit of unsolicited advice: If you organize your preparations around the concept of providing value to a prospective employer, rather than merely getting hired to write code, then I bet your outlook will change. One book (and definitely not the only one) that can help with that is Bob Martin's The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers:
I'm a long-time bike commuter in the U.S (Portland, OR suburbs). Your comment reminds me of a Dutch colleague I once worked with. He was adamant that cycling conditions were too dangerous here. As a relative statement compared to the Netherlands, I'm sure that's true. For me personally, the health benefits and general enjoyment make it worthwhile. Also, it's important to know what you're doing when cycling in traffic, even in a "bike friendly" city. Unfortunately, there's no formal education in the USA around that topic, like there is for driving an automobile.
Mind if I ask what software you're using? I'm planning to do this soon, using qmail, just for the ability to have email integration with some personal project sites, and for the learning. I don't foresee discontinuing use of Fastmail for my personal email, but who knows.
Interesting. I didn't read any snobbery into the article. From the tone, my take is he's talking about an interest and willingness to acquire CS knowledge and skills. He framed it in terms of degree or not because he was responding to a question about somebody who's in college wondering what to do.
I started playing with OpenBSD 6.3 as a desktop (actually laptop) OS a couple of months ago. Installation was very straightforward. In my case I used the whole disk, no dual boot.
Here's a tribute/introduction written by Derek Sivers:
As for my own experience, I don't know if I'm ready to give up Debian as my primary desktop OS, but I really like OpenBSD on my coding-or-surfing-on-the-couch laptop.
On the server side, I also use both (as VPS) for personal projects.
Same experience here. I buy books from them frequently (Prime) and it's been years since they had proper packaging for books. It must save them time and money. I can't help but wonder if they're playing a numbers game, with a spreadsheet model showing it's more profitable to do it that way because "enough" customers will tolerate it and not demand an exchange. If a book arrives damaged I request an exchange, and have never had a problem doing that.
PS: Been reading HN for a while now. This is my first post.
I'm Jewish too, and was never religious.
The parent is not selling anything, simply describing a recurring experience in a lovely way. It's not an argument or a pitch. To each his or her own.