chaosplay

Ingredients

• 8 (4 oz each) skin-on chicken drumsticks (about 2 lb. total weight)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon chilli pepper

Instructions

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange the drumsticks in a single layer on the parchment.
• Make the seasoning paste: In a medium bowl, use a fork or a spatula to mix the olive oil, salt, pepper, and spices.
• Using a pastry brush or your hands, coat the chicken pieces with the seasoning paste.
• Bake the drumsticks uncovered until their internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F, about 40 minutes.
• Baste the drumsticks with the pan juices using a clean pastry brush. Serve immediately.

Via https://healthyrecipesblogs.com/wprm_print/22974

I don’t really have much understanding of these terms in the headline. I mostly associate NFT with scams, metaverse with Second Life in VR. But recently I have been thinking about all the times I lost big opportunities because I didn’t understand innovations.

Back in late 2000s, I had a friend who was talking about Bitcoin and how it will change everything. I think he even send me some. But I didn’t understand it and didn’t really wanted to learn it. Of course, in 2018, I was searching my emails and texts trying to find those bitcoins.

When first smart phones came, my friends started making apps for them for fun, and some of them end up getting nice new jobs. I stuck with the web, which also was not a bad decision but I had never imagined mobile apps would ever be anything serious.

Then I am big believer in passive index funds and I just invest in SPY. I had friends who told me to invest in Google, Facebook, Tesla, but I didn’t think we mere mortals can be smarter than Warren Buffet. Of course, returns from index funds are nowhere near what one could have earned by investing in individual companies. If you think it is hard, check out another successful fund manager, Peter Lynch. He believes regular people can successfully research companies and invest in a few individual companies to beat index funds.

So now I am learning about Web 3.0, DeFi, and Metaverse. My first half of career, I focused on safe and proven technologies. I think it is about time I start exploring emerging technologies. Exploration was what that got me first into programming.

This may not pay off but it is actually exciting.

Recent thread on Hacker News, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29360119, was very interesting for me especially since I turned 40 this year.

Programming is something I enjoy and pretty good at it. I’m still not at the top of salary range for programmers but this is a tough question. I can get into FAANG but there is still a ceiling of how much one can earn as a software engineer.

This comment says it best:

What does a welder, carpenter, or plumber do when they’ve hit 35 and mostly mastered their field? Answer: come to terms with the fact that their mastery is not very much in demand, they will never make more (inflation-adjusted) than they do now, and either plan for retirement or find a new job (usually management or small business owner) where their hard-won skills are mostly wasted.

I think same situation applies to programmers. Very few businesses are working on extremely hard problems that only top programmers can solve. Perhaps my next move should be business owner and start consulting firm.

Hotel California is such a beautiful song. And it’s deep meaning can apply to pretty much any situation. I have been especially thinking of last line, “You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

A lot of people think this song is about about drugs and Hollywood life that is hard to leave. But it can apply to anything. One can never leave their corporate life, they are stuck there forever because they got bills, family, and fear of going on their own. So all they can do is mentally checkout.