It sounds like you didn't have a very good coach. My first coach wasn't very helpful, my second was amazing. Keep looking!
Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.
Every now and then there's a post on Reddit like "I ordered this thing from UNARFI and it is nothing like the pictures" and I'm like, what do you expect when ordering from a site named after an incorrect guess on wordle?
Right, unless we're talking ads for a brand I already know and trust, I just assume that all ads are scams. Even Googles ads, which was previous very good at finding me the products I wanted, from good sources, a now overrun by scams (or borderline scams).
The online adverting industry is raking in billions on scamming people, while providing questionable value for actual good brands. Even if your company is honest and makes good products, you're competing with the scammers for ad space and that pushes up your cost.
I've said this on multiple occasions, but I do not believe that the honest companies are able to fund the tech industry in it's current form. Meta, Google, Apple and everyone else, expects increasing revenue, year on year, most of which is suppose to be delivered by ads, bought by other companies. Those companies just aren't see the same level of growth, nor do they see enough value from ads to increase their advertising. So the big websites take in more and more questionable ads to pad their numbers. So what if consumers get scammed? They should have been more critical.
That’s not a good time, I love these things. I’ve been able to indulge myself so much. Possibly good for job security but would suck in every other way.
This is why local models are so important. Even if the non-local ones shut down, and even if you can't run local ones on your own hardware, there will still be inference providers willing to serve your requests.
Recently I was thinking about how some (expensive) customer electronics like the Mac Studio can run pretty powerful open source models with a pretty efficient power consumption, that could pretty easily run on private renewable energy, and that are on most (all?) fronts much more powerful than the original ChatGPT especially if connected to a good knowledge base. Meaning that aside from very extreme scenarios I think it is safe to say that there will always be a way not to go back to how we used to code, as long as we can offer the correct hardware and energy.
Of course personally I think we will never need to go to such extreme ends... despite knowing of people who seem to seriously think developed countries heavily run out of electricity one day, which, while I reckon there might be tensions, seems like a laughable idea IMHO.
My first introduction to the internet was through the telnet-based EW-too talkers like Foothills (Boston U) and Forest (UTS). I have very fond memories of staying up late talking to people from all over the globe. It was truly amazing to me.
The best part was how the users moderated behaviour - bad actors were ejected swiftly but rarely permanently.
This represents a fork in the road that becomes apparent by your mid-40s.
Those who ignore it will be overweight, unfit, and on daily meds. Those who change their lifestyle will not.
The fix is:
> Leading a healthy life is simple: sleep well, exercise three times a week, have an active social life, eat a variety of vegetables and whole foods, avoid sugar, processed foods, alcohol and drugs. That's 90%. Everything else is optimisation.
Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.
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