This consternation is definitely common. It’s hard to apply skills to something with no long term impact of benefit. I’ve improved my skills by finding stuff I can help on in the communities I participate in.

It’s natural to be overwhelmed, so deciding on a project does scope what you can learn, but a hard part is architecting the foundation of that project.

Introducing new features to an existing project is a great way to get your feet wet - it has multiple benefits, for one of you do take a position as a developer in the future, you likely won’t be architecting anything initially, primarily improving on existing projects. So participating in OSS projects is a similar mechanism to that - you have to learn their codebase to a degree, you have to learn their style and requirements, etc.

Even if you don’t ultimately contribute, it’s still a learning experience.

That’s what I thought at first, but the person who wrote the article is named Simon, and based on the context given in the article I’m assuming that was a test unit he had on his desk, but the planned implementation is in bathrooms.

Considering it only detects if someone in the bathroom is vaping and not who, disciplinary action just isn’t really possible with your typical school restroom.

Programming and self hosting the results when I was ~14 is what led me to a tech background. No university, but I’ve been working professionally in both IT and software for over a decade and self hosting even longer.

The article that user links is referring to GrapheneOS (and other OSS software) as not being “free software” - and they (GNU) delves into it more here.

Basically, GNU is saying software shouldn’t claim to be free and open source if they contain non free binaries / other non-free blobs.

The nuances between FOSS and OSS can be confusing. GrapheneOS is not claiming to be FOSS.

What we can work on is awareness. If iOS users are aware, they can choose to simply go to the website directly and make the purchase, instead of using the app. They can still use the app for consumption.

Running Fedora Atomic (Silverblue) has definitely saved ms a few times already, being able to roll back to the previous state, or to a state I pinned. The first time was due to the ublue signing key change, the second had no apparent cause. Both issues would have given me more of a headache without the built in ability to roll back.

Man, they just keep burying their head further. I still have Windows 10 on my gaming PC, and that’s more because I plan on replacing it and will use that moment to transition to Linux, but up until a few months ago I could have been convinced to keep using Windows.

That was until they popped up a full screen ad in the middle of gaming, telling me my PC doesn’t work with 11 but they have great financing options forn a 11 capable PC. Followed by my lock screen having ads of a similar nature. Fucking gross.

Or just skip it entirely, I use the Consent-O-Matic extension which has a surprising amount of features.

The post is describing the scripts to disable telemetry, OneDrive, ads, etc.

Reject UUID embrace ULID.

Copilot / LLM code completion feels like having a somewhat intelligent helper who can think faster than I can, however they have no understanding of how to actually code, but are good at mimicry.

So it’s helpful for saving time typing some stuff, and sometimes the absolutely weird suggestions make me think of other scenarios I should consider, but it’s not going to do the job itself.

I use Groupy by Stardock for this. It’s a neat little tool that lets you make pretty much any application into a tab by grouping them.

It isn’t open source nor free though, and I didn’t even realize there was a Groupy 2 until I searched it to get you a link. For something I use daily, it was worth it for $10.

For future reference, the two hour window is more of a suggestion not a requirement. Just last week I refunded a game with 4 hours.

I had a friend that played civ, he invited me to multiplayer. Little did I know, he plays against the hardest bots on a regular basis. I had only done like, two single player games.

I don’t play with him anymore.

I’ve had to carrier unlock two devices from T-Mobile. You’ve already returned it, but if anyone else faces a similar situation: for whatever godforsaken reason, DMing them on Twitter is the way that has always worked for me. There is back and forth, but usually they set you right.

I’ve been using fastfetch for a long while.

The law is for devices that come out of the box with a weak default. Like buying a wifi hotspot where the default is “admin123” would be bad. The default being random and printed on a label in the device is probably what this is aiming to usher in.

You don’t?

Just download it from a third party and compare the checksum with the official information. Granted, the official checksums on their website are behind a few steps, but you already tried on public Wi-Fi - once you generate the link a “Verify your Download” section should appear.