Since oil is making the front page here, if you're interested in the history of American oil industry, "The History of the Standard Oil Company" by Ida Tarbell is a fantastic read. It's also a great example of investigative journalism.

In early chapters of the book she covers the initial rush to pump oil in the Oil Regions and the history of pipelines and storage facilities as it all ties into business practices of Rockefeller.

Oil storage facilities were an interesting startup idea back then, in the beginning producers would pump the oil into open pits where it would seep back into the ground if it wasn't transferred fast enough, then of course new ways of storing and transporting the oil were experimented with. It also goes into how much supply/demand were at odds in the beginning leading to several collapses in the price of oil when there wasn't such a diverse market. Again some of the issues we still see where land locked areas of producers struggled to get their product out of the region and how local economies caused drastic prices differences that we're seeing right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Standard_Oi...

Ida Tarbell's father was an oilman who was ruined by Rockefeller and Standard Oil while she was a girl, which is important to keep in mind when contextualizing her work. She lived her life in part as a crusade against Standard Oil and Rockefeller. Obviously she was heavily biased, this being instilled in her early on.

For a less biased look at the history of the American oil industry by way of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, I strongly recommend Titan by Ron Chernow - author of Hamilton - which is an excellent account of Rockefeller and Standard Oil, both the good and the bad.

Also recommend "The Prize" which is incredible.

recommend -- The Taking of Getty Oil by Steve Coll; written in a readable way, many situational details

I was looking over pictures of this place last night actually. There's a national park there too which looks other worldly.

Then of course I looked at flights and it's about 40hrs of travel and $1300 so probably not making that trip in this lifetime.

Yeah so the trick I used is to find a cheap deal to Oslo, and then use Star Alliance miles to get the Oslo-Longyearbyen segment as a reward flight on SAS. It counts as a domestic EU flight as far as mileage goes.

FYI unlike mainland Norway's national parks, you cannot "randomly" go to the national parks in Svalbard. Svalbard is almost completely devoid of infrastructure (no roads outside the couple of towns) so you'd have to make a completely self-sufficient expedition across arctic terrain to get there. You also need someone with rifle skills in case of a polar bear attack, and it's required to carry a rifle and register all plans with the Governor of Svalbard to leave the town. It's possible, but definitely needs a properly-equipped team -- not a casual trip.

If you can make it, you should...

I was lucky enough to go there for a trip a couple of years ago and it was incredible, in all the ways that others have described.

They're probably the largest hospital provider in the country. Looking at their wiki it says there's 152 hospitals and 1400 outpatient facilities. Plus all the other VA responsibilities they fulfill.

It's a big organization and they have a lot of 'customers'

Now how are the bankers supposed to get any work done.

This guy is still active on reddit too. If you look at the user profile. He's made a few posts over the years I guess on this. Also apparently he was a male model in case any of you think you might be so fortunate as to so day share his experiences ;)

When I used to work on turbo generators, the kind you find at power plants I saw carnage of what happens when those blow up. The retaining rings on the ends, typically a few thousand pounds were prone to breaking on older generators because of the alloy used. When that would happen it would send the projectiles through steel and concrete walls.

The balance bunker for load testing and balancing these at the shop I worked in was a pit 40 feet underground with 50 ton caps placed over top.

You're right, I should have been more clear. I wasn't applying for junior positions anymore but most of the technique is what I did the last time I applied for jobs when I was looking for more junior positions.

Thanks for the kind words.

For cover letters, I think I'm using template more loosely and probably should have provided examples. The template part is for describing myself, however I still write out a paragraph or two specific to that company. I think I noted on researching the place before hand so you can include your favorite things about the place in the letter.

I completely agree. It's incredibly frustrating to stop working on any side projects and stop learning any framework/library stuff to focus exclusively on algorithmic questions for weeks or months. That's why I tried to make it clear you have to just push through and give it everything you can so you can get back to doing fun stuff again. No one likes doing this but lowly developers that just need a job can't do much about it unfortunately.

I mentioned I track everything and try to apply in a small timeline to bunch interviews together. Most places want 2-3 phone interviews before anything else which at most meant leaving work a half hour early (I just go in early or stay late another day). When it comes to on sites, well I guess I had a lot of vacation time from not taking any previously.

I hadn't really thought about that before, but yes the time issues could be very challenging to juggle if you aren't in an ideal situation.