Is there an iCloud Photos uploader?

I have a script to scan files from my camera and add a compressed copy to a folder. This folder was supposed to work with the iCloud for windows (10) program, but one day it just stopped working.

In 2019 I left my cushy job because I wanted $$$ but couldn't push myself to leetcode.

I spent much of that year on personal projects and family before I could seriously commit myself. Then covid happened.

It took 2.5yr before I worked again, in FAANG. There were many moments of feeling down and alone.

I'm unemployed again, 3 months now, this time after being laid off. I wish I could just concentrate my efforts on developing products and monetizing them. But since I have a family to support, I decided to spend time on these projects only to reward myself for grinding leetcode & system design.

How much time do you spend talking to people about hiring you?

The leetcode and system design can FEEL productive but it’s 2 steps removed from what you want and what’s probably uncomfortable.

A) How can I find a proper optician? B) how do you determine whether or not you’re satisfied?

Throughout 30 years of wearing glasses, I’ve questioned many times whether the glasses are right for me. I may resist for a month or two but I always end up “adapting” to the new pair. When is this acceptable and how do I know when to speak up?

First of: adapting to new glasses is normal and can take a couple of weeks.

For A: I don’t really know, but use the ones that gives you B. Depending on the country, high end / non-chain stores can have better customer service and listen to your wishes, and answer your questions. There’s also smoke and mirrors and upselling so see if you trust the person.

B: for simple distance vision (if you are under 40) do a quick pin hole test and look at tree leaves or something. If your vision quality increases a lot you should not be satisfied. Same if you notice eye strain when looking at things in the distance.

Now for multifocal glasses it really depends on your use case (reading, computer work, etc), and it’s very difficult to get a really good correction. There’s no silver bullet. Find an optometrist or optician that you trust, so back to A ;)

I had a similar situation at my previous company. After rewriting a web app for another team, I started E2E testing and questioned the entire app’s existence and whether the business process could be automated.

After verifying in the server logs that the users never really validated data (always clicking “submit” after a second or two), I discussed this idea with our business analyst and got the go-ahead, and spent another couple of weeks to automate everything.

Long story short, it was a mess. There was actually one piece of the puzzle that they owned that I couldn’t automate away (essentially clicking a button). So when presenting it all to them (via email), the team lied and told us it “wasn’t working” and CC’d our managers and one level up the chain as well. This manual business process stayed with them. They kept the web app tho.

My advice is to make sure this kind of thing is known to management, and to make sure you can prove to them that this entire process can be automated without problems. Or let it go if you don’t think you can handle the backlash.

I too once scoffed at grinding leetcode. I’d rather work on side projects or blog instead.

But after 5 years of failing to get a job offer, I finally caved. Putting in the effort to deeply understand DS/algos and grind away leetcode led me to getting offers I liked and IMO has made me a better engineer.

I now have a “gold star” on my resume and am confident I can still answer most leetcode questions. I consider that time spent as a great time investment, since landing my next job will be much easier.

Money wasn’t my original goal when I got into CS, but it eventually became my driving force. I regret taking so long to notice this, and letting my feelings get in my way (of how it “should be”) / resisting leetcode for so long.

> Money wasn’t my original goal when I got into CS, but it eventually became my driving force.

Same, once I realized that the reasons I originally loved programming were never going to present in a my career.

Though currently I'm more tempted to eat the loss, shed the golden handcuffs and go do something else.

Achieve financial independence first. You never know what life will throw at you

I’ve been journaling for 6 years and I was diagnosed a year ago (which I reflect on sometimes). I used to have multi-month gaps but am more consistent now despite having more responsibilities.

My secrets:

Set a time and place beforehand. Somewhere you know it’ll be quiet and you’LL have time and focus. Consistency is key also. For me, I do when I poop or when I commute. (Unsuccessful: with other people around, at night when tired, during workout)

Also I have a physical notebook that I bring with me most places. I prefer this over a phone. Separation of concerns. Jotting down quick thoughts to journal about later helps with externalization (a useful keyword I learned when reading about our condition). And I can’t mysteriously start browsing the Internet from pulling out my notebook.

Also, experiment. Find out what works for you or things you want to try. Habit tracker. Phone reminders. Recently I tried coupling journaling after meditation, another habit I’m picking up (my mind was blank but I still want to try that again)

I am in the minority here but I also love TikTok for the same reason. I trained it to deliver content that aligns with my interests. In order to do this, I had to consciously use it, being aware of (how I think) the algorithm works.

I’d even force myself to watch videos I didn’t like if the subject was highly interesting me and I wasn’t getting enough of that type of content. Using TikTok in this way frequently inspires me to be better

The type of content I receive with this account is extremely different than another that I use when I’m on “autopilot.”

But you didnt train it. It trained itself to you.

Its not yours its theirs. it might sound like just a way of speech or semantics but its a fundamental difference.

That users think the application is their own creation is an intentional effect from the developers.

It's like Apple in a way. A brand is not just a thing, it's part of your identity. Tiktok becomes a (e.g. small, frivolous) part of your very self.

If course it's a fundamental difference. It's just irrelevant for most purposes.

I will take a stab at this since I am transitioning away from this mindset myself.

Find your highest priority item, break it down, and work on each task, one at a time.

If it’s not critical, let go of control and be okay failure, both from yourself and others.

Since you are also the type who wishes to analyze, dedicate some time once a week for a retrospective (what went well, what didn’t go well, what could have improved) and use those to come up with action items.

Or, if that’s too much, my original advice for you was “just do it.”

Hopefully a move like this will help with their declining birthrate problem

As an only child, I used to spend my summers playing board games by myself. It started with monopoly (which my babysitter introduced me to) and carried over to chess and beyond.

For many of the games, I ended up assigning one player to be “me” and different personalities to “the other players,” who each had different styles. I also tried my best to stop “myself” from cheating by forgetting what cards “everyone else” had. After all, games are not fun when someone is cheating.

Thankfully, my days of playing board games by myself is long over. However, I still have a tendency to take a long time to calculate my next move since I’m always trying to factor in what everyone else is doing.

I figured a bunch of only children would reply here.

I spent 4-5 years playing Avalon Hill wargames alone (Panzer Blitz, Squad Leader, 1776, etc.), trying to play each side's strategy as accurately as I could. I don't know if it made me a better tactician but it certainly threw open the gates of historical curiosity to the point that 12-year-old me knew more about WWII than my parents.

I'm also an only child and I'm thankful that I was raised in an area with plenty of kids. I never missed having real siblings. (Future) Parents of this world remember this when choosing a place to live, specially nowadays that only childs are becoming the norm.

Aside from being in that area, did you wish you had a sibling growing up? Selfishly my partner and I want to stick with a single child but for his sake we are thinking of having another.

I never wished I had real siblings, I had 2 "brothers" and an older "sister" living next doors while a kid. Despite my personal anecdata, I would prefer to have more than one child. Being a single child has more negatives than positives. Parents always expect/demand more and can't avoid to treat them as scarce.

Please stop thinking of your choice as selfish.

Another only child here. Solitaire, a Game Boy, and later Minesweeper, Hearts, and Freecell were some of my single-player entertainment. It never occurred to me to play a board game by myself; major props to your young imagination!

Never occurred to me to play a board game solo as a kid either, and I used to bring my NES controller and a Super Mario Brothers 3 Strategy Guide full of maps to my grandmother's to pretend to play through the game.

But I design board games now, and boy do I ever play my own games against myself now. I'll play up to 4 players solo for playtesting purposes, no problem. So far the only types of games that it's seemed pretty impossible to do this with are social deduction and party games.