Once upon a time, I built a proof of concept distributed social network that ran entirely on cell phones.

I eventually ran into enough complications that I abandoned the project. But the tech did work. I could create posts, add friends, etc. (It just wasn't reliable in its sync mechanism and I gave up trying to fix it.)

So... Imagine Lemmy, but a community's data is stored collaboratively on mobile devices, the load shared by all its subscribers.

We all walk around with goddamn supercomputers in our pockets. We should put them to work.

Programming success is more closely associated with language skills than math skills.

Yes, if you need to invent a new algorithm you'll need math. Computer Science is definitely mathematics heavy.

But writing a program is all about expressing your intent in a programming language, step by step. It's about "communicating" with the machine (and your users).

All this to say, I got C- and D grades in my math courses in college and still became a successful computer programmer. I'm not pushing the boundaries of computation, but if you need an app for your business, I can build that for you in a reliable, tested, and flexible manner.

Edit: Also! I love Common LISP. It's such an amazing language and I'm so sad that it isn't more popular in the industry.

Scale is sometimes hard to tell in a photo.

...Which is why I thought Odo was on a novelty condom wrapper. Hell, the text still made sense.

Yeah, start here.

When you first launch Automatic1111, it'll automatically download and install everything you need.

Mess around with txt2img and img2img modes for a bit. Then look at the extensions and start plugging in new tools.

Edit: I just noticed that you said you have an Intel graphics chip. It may work. But you'll need to be able to run CUDA, which usually requires an NVidia card, but definitely at least 6GB of video RAM. The more VRAM you have, the faster you can generate images. (Kinda)

I suppose that's gonna be engine dependent, but godot works fine. ...assuming your project is a fit for godot!

Aw man, you can't write all that and then not give an example!

Ruby makes scripting drop-dead simple. You can run any shell command by surrounding it with back ticks.

# simple example, just grab files: 
files = `ls`.split("\n")

# pipes work inside back ticks
files.map {|f| `cat #{f} | grep "can I use grep w/out cat"`}
  .compact
  .each { |match| puts match }
# easy to build a pipeline on the data in ruby, too! 

That's it! No messing around with popen3, or figuring out pipes or signals. Those are there too if you really need them, but if you just wanna write a quick script with a less arcane syntax - try Ruby!

Ubuntu is a decent place to start.

Before anybody decides to jump down my throat over it, there are some very good reasons to not use Ubuntu generally. I know.

That said, I still recommend it as a first distro because it's

• well supported - if someone puts out Linux support, it's likely been tested on Ubuntu.
• simple to install - everything from WSL to a live boot USB drive to a full install, you've got lots of options
• pragmatic - yes, it's compromised vs being truly FOSS. Otoh, your consumer grade Windows-supported hardware will likely work out of the box. For a first timer, I think that's critical.

There are many other, better distros out there for specific needs. Manjaro is a great one for gaming in particular, but can be a little harder to get setup with, or to find help for when things go wrong. But I still think Ubuntu is the best "starter" distro I've encountered.

Fwiw, there was a "remastered" version of TOS, which updated many of the special effects. It's a lot less egregious vs Lucas' Star Wars remasters, but it's still a definite change. Some liked it, some didn't. But if the old effects and visual artifacts are putting you off, it may be worth a try.

I loved (and still do) the rush of solving the puzzle. Programming languages give you a constrained set of rules to express yourself with. And yet we know that you can create literally anything with those rules if you can just put them together in the right way.

I love when a program actually comes together and it works for the first time! When I've started from nothing but a vague desire and then pulled a solution from out of the void. It's as close to actual magic as anything else I can think of.

I compel lightning and stone to my will, commanding them in unspoken tongues.

Thanks to the CPRA (recent legislation, it only took effect at the start of this year), most companies must delete everything they know about you when asked to do so.

There are now companies that will automatically submit those requests on your behalf.

So.

When you're ready to stop the flow, check out services like Incogni. They'll submit requests to data brokers on your behalf automatically.

You'll want to keep it up for awhile, because one of the things that gets deleted (by law) is the record that you requested your data be deleted. (They have to delete everything with your info in it) So any new data with your name on it is fair game.

But if you slow the flow of traceable data, then sign up with a data removal service, you stand a solid chance of getting yourself off the advertiser's radars.

I have literally written my own terminal. (In Rust, btw) It took me three years and four major rewrites. It's way more than 20 loc.

Also, I know way too much about ANSI escape codes now.

My 0.02 - I've been developing a code diagramming tool in Godot. It's been really nice to work with. I think its much easier to build a decent App UI in Godot than in, say, Android or (fucking) Swing.

It's not as expressive as the combo of html/css/js, but it's also much faster to get something useful put together with standard widgets.

I've been able to put together a combination of a text editor, buttons, menus and then my own custom graph-drawing widget.

Highly recommend!

Fortunately, my PC is a gods damned packrat. I had a half million extra daggers, several great swords and so forth sitting in my camp chest. One quick detour and Astorion's got a shiny new dagger...

So.... Yes, Amazon has a contract with the CIA. They have for well over a decade now. In fact, I happened to work in AWS when that program first began.

It's called GovCloud and it's just a physically separated, hardened version of AWS. It's separate hardware to meet US govt requirements for handling data and the networks are not accessible from the public internet. Otherwise, it's just standard AWS stuff. The Men in Black want to use S3 too.

Anyway, yes, the CIA (like JPL and NASA and a bunch of non-scary orgs) makes use of GovCloud. That's not evidence that they're spying on Signal messages. And even if they are, they wouldn't have needed to set up a very public contract with Amazon. They'd just make a backroom deal and you and I would never hear about it. E.g. Even if signal switched to Azure is no guarantee.

Finally... If you're in the US, it's not the CIA you need to be worried about anyway. CIA is focused on foreign threats. The NSA is the group that spies on US citizens. And they have a massive data capture facility in Utah. They've got taps all over the backbone internet hardware in the USA. If anybody's watching your signal metadata, it's them. ...and they don't need Amazon's help to do it.

I'm familiar with some of these, but there are some new tools in there I can't wait to try out!

Yesbut...

Rust's GUI frameworks are all (afaik) still pretty early and a little clunky to use.

...and compiling for Windows is a little clunky.

From a purely yes/no perspective, you can absolutely use Rust for building desktop GUI apps... But I'd recommend using a different language unless your app has really tight performance requirements.

If you want to make a cross platform app with good GUI support, I'd a actually recommend checking out Godot. It's technically a game engine, but the built in scripting language (gdscript) and GUI components are really great. If gdscript is too slow for your purposes you can swap in a lot of other languages (including Rust) though C# is the best supported of these.

Good:

• fast
• high-level language constructs like iterators
• memory bugs harder to write vs C/C++
• compiler errors are ridiculously helpful
• borrow checker makes some hard things easier (memory management; Inter-thread communication)

Not so good:

• you will not like the borrow checker, even as it saves you from yourself
• executables are larger due to static linking
• language is BIIIG
• compilation is slow (but getting better)

Overall, I like Rust a lot. I think its reputation as a great language is well-deserved. It's not an "easy" language to use, but it prevents so many footguns... It takes me longer to get to a working prototype in Rust. But the first time it compiles successfully... it's probably right.

If I'm working on a project that needs to be fast, I'll reach for Rust over C these days.

As a DM I don't mind rules-lawyering, but you better be prepared for Consequences later on.

I am a big believer in the rule of cool and as long as everybody is having a good time, I don't mind looking the other way if a player makes a creative interpretation of the rules.

...But you better believe I'm gonna spend some time thinking about what should happen thematically if your wizard starts draining their own death energy to revive themselves.

I like a number of the suggestions here. I think my "solution" here would be to let once slide. The second time, I hand the player a folded note informing them that the toes on their left foot didn't come back with them, causing a visible limp, reduced movement speed and -1 to DEX.

...And we can build from there. Possibly start building a Final Destination style plan.

Cheating Death must have Consequences.

Like others have said, eighteen months is fine. As is any other time unit - unless it forms a pattern. Leaving a job after two days is fine as a one-off, but if you consistently job hop every six months your resume will raise eyebrows in a bad way.

That said, two years give or take is pretty common in our industry. Nobody's going to raise an eyebrow at 18 months.

Some interview advice - when they ask why you're looking, don't discuss things the company is doing wrong. It makes you sound negative and I've witnessed more than one interview board that decided not to hire somebody based largely on their complaints about their old job! A lot of your points above are already listing out things you want, which is great! Use those! For the rest, flip your concerns around and discuss the positive aspect you're looking for.

E.g. instead of something like, "My managers don't care about my career development", say something like, "I want to find a place where I can grow my skills to the next level".

Finally, the job market isn't as crazy hot as during the pandemic, but it's still not horrible. There's work to be found, even if the salaries aren't as high as a couple years ago. If you want remote work, focus on SMB companies, a lot of them are happier to let go of renting real estate vs Fortune 500 corps that own or have 20 year leases on idle real estate.

Best of luck to you!

It's like ten lbs, right? ...don't ask me how I know that.