I actually first came across you on the Internet for the cool stuff you did reverse engineering the Obsidian sync engine! (On that note, I remember the CEO's response was praised for being measured/reasonable, but if I'm not wrong they subsequently broke it.)
> As a child, I was always told by everyone around me, family, friends, teachers that going to the US or UK should be my dream. Those that manage to go either via scholarship or wealth are described as geniuses and assumed to be smarter than the rest of us.
On this particular point, similar phenomenon here in Singapore and I studied overseas and came to a similar realization as you. But one irony is it's not something you can credibly say/know without actually having done it.
Now that you're there, my advice is to make the most of it and aggressively filter for people with similar interests as you and accept that you probably won't assimilate in with the mainstream and that's OK!
I’m actually surprised that there would be such a phenomenon in Singapore. Many of my classmates in Malaysia were from Singapore and wanted to escape from the strict education system so I’ve always assumed that education is better there (in some sense, I understand it’s not for everyone). I actually tried applying to some SG universities but was rejected (I have terrible grades)
Re: the Obsidian Sync stuff
The CEO categorized it as a “security vulnerability” during our discussion on GitHub. I’m still using it by patching the JavaScript manually but it’s too much work for general use by others.
> The CEO categorized it as a “security vulnerability” during our discussion on GitHub.
Have you tried making a HN post or otherwise bring attention to this? My impression is he got a bunch of undeserved clout, especially in light of how things turned out subsequently.
> Many of my classmates in Malaysia were from Singapore and wanted to escape from the strict education system so I’ve always assumed that education is better there (in some sense, I understand it’s not for everyone).
Oh that's new to me, I didn't know that's a trend (Singaporeans going to Malaysia to escape the education system).
> I actually tried applying to some SG universities but was rejected (I have terrible grades)
Sorry to hear that. Something I have learned much later in life is that whereas schooling rewards individuals for being "all-rounded" and naturally caps the returns for being good at something (at most you can get 100 or 4.0 or wtv), in the real world, the returns for being really good at something (as you seem to be) are really uncapped.
> Have you tried making a HN post or otherwise bring attention to this? My impression is he got a bunch of undeserved clout, especially in light of how things turned out subsequently.
I don’t really have the energy to argue over it. I was also advised by my lecturers to stay away from reverse engineering / anything that can be used against me legally now that I’m in the UK which has quite murky laws.
I’m not one to hold a grudge so him getting clout for his original response doesn’t concern me. If I knew he was on HN, I wouldn’t have posted it.
> As a child, I was always told by everyone around me, family, friends, teachers that going to the US or UK should be my dream. Those that manage to go either via scholarship or wealth are described as geniuses and assumed to be smarter than the rest of us.
On this particular point, similar phenomenon here in Singapore and I studied overseas and came to a similar realization as you. But one irony is it's not something you can credibly say/know without actually having done it.
Now that you're there, my advice is to make the most of it and aggressively filter for people with similar interests as you and accept that you probably won't assimilate in with the mainstream and that's OK!