laurentdc

Manual work is underrated. Especially the kind of work where you can see an immediate end result from your efforts. I worked in a kitchen for two years and I can tell you slicing food is way more satisfying than coding frontend.

Not the average software engineer and definitely not at the entry level. I always had a feeling that "engineer shortage" articles are only made to push people into studying CS so employers can drive wages (even) lower.

For what it's worth, we've been running about 15 TP-Link EAP225 in a warehouse without any hiccups so far. Most importantly they don't randomly die or lose the controller pairing like some low end Ubiquiti units tried in the past. The only quirk is that on Windows Server you have to configure the service manually, but it's no big deal. [0]

[0] https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/2915/

Just wondering, is job hopping as engineering manager as easy as coder/individual contributor?

It seems like the market for people with focus on soft skills is way more saturated (we get many more applications for project management roles than for software developers for example).

Most of my friends from university who went into recruiting burned out and quit within 6 months. The turnover (especially in temp agencies) is insane

It was me! Thanks for the tip about M -> H. Sorry I deleted the comment - I wasn't 100% sure about the models (I don't have the laptops near me at the moment and I didn't want to spread misinformation).

I've quit toxic competitive gaming (League of Legends, Overwatch) and replaced it with Netflix and shortwave radio listening. I'm still procrastinating because I work a bullshit job, but at least I don't rage as much and I always have some topics for small talk and conversation, which I feel is boosting my mood by a lot.

Sure. Unless there's a generous bonus on quality of work or project completion, the only rational way to play the game as a random employee is to maximize the gain and minimize the effort.

I've noticed the used video card prices have skyrocketed. I've put up an eBay auction for a GTX 1060 6GB and it ended up selling for twice than what I bought it used two years ago. Also lots of people DMing me asking if I have more to sell. Is there some mining craze going on with old cards?

My bet is that the improvement in integrated graphics (think Apple M1 or Vega 11) will solve the "gaming on a low end laptop" problem far before game streaming.

> 90% – maybe 93% – of project managers, could probably disappear tomorrow to either no effect or a net gain in efficiency.

True especially when you get a project manager with no CS/IT background at all (pretty common in consulting for some reason). Then the project is really doomed from minute one.

I just use my own domain and then forward incoming email to whatever service. This way it doesn't really matter what I use: if I get locked out I simply change the forwarding email. It's free with most providers.

I don't know how much things have changed in ten years but when I was in university I simply couldn't find a computer calculator software that had the same easy to use UI as my HP 40gs or even a basic Casio fx-991ES.

Sure I could fire up Matlab with the Symbolic toolbox or even Derive under wine but nothing came close to just typing in what I wanted and pressing a button. I guess it's more a matter of dedicated physical buttons and muscle memory.

eGPU support

Me and my brother share the same gaming PC. I suck, he's pretty good at the game. So when it's my turn to play, I encounter though opponents and rank down, and when it's his turn to play, he completely obliterates the lower ranked players that I should have gotten instead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's not caught by VAC. I changed the glow colour (which probably changed the signature), tested it a few months ago on local server and then played some Valve deathmatch on official servers, account is still good. I'd expect the game to at least throw me out of the server if I tamper with what objects should light up, but nope.

I still don't get why they can't make a basic anticheat or protect the process memory like most other games (even the Faceit AC client itself for CS:GO!). Is there some explanation like keeping compatibility with very low end PCs?

You can get wallhacks in multiplayer by simply using WriteProcessMemory calls. [0]

[0] https://github.com/Snaacky/Diamond/blob/master/diamond.py

It's in my cart, I'll place the order as soon as CS:GO launches fine on M1. So far it goes to black screen - other Source games work fine though, so I think it's just a matter of time. I already have a 2017 13" MBP but for some reason (dual channel memory? throttling?) the gaming experience is terrible, worse than a 2012 Mini in Bootcamp.

I've wanted a gaming laptop (or better put, a laptop that I can also game on) for years but couldn't stand the crappy quality of ASUS/MSI/Lenovo in sub-2k price range. As I said in another comment, I can't believe it's going to be a MacBook :)

The onboard graphics performance seems to be impressive (1050Ti - 1060 range). I wonder if Valve and Epic will start compiling games for ARM. This MacBook could be my first gaming laptop, who would have thought

I used to work in a kitchen for a while. My back hurt most of the time and I always had burns or cuts somewhere, but I was definitely way more happy. Mentally for sure. Also the feeling of building something, I feel like peeling a potato is more enjoyable than shipping modern frontend.

Anecdotal, but when I hear of people working impossible hours and with a clueless boss it's almost always a startup or some small shop.

I know of at least two insurance companies in my country that still have their administrative software written in VB6 (probably along with some shoddy web app for IE8).

Also see "IT runs on Java 8" https://veekaybee.github.io/2019/05/10/java8/

I used to do that in Counter-Strike Source days and it wasn't even worth it back then. I was losing about $100/mo but still did it for the fun. Also got booted off multiple providers for the inevitable DDoS attacks you get as retailation because some mad kid lost a match and wants to ruin the fun for everyone.

Learned a lot about Linux administration though, and UDP flood mitigation :)

I've ordered three Xbox Play and Charge kits from Amazon, two were blatantly counterfeit (came in a plastic bag, scratched and with no markings, I don't believe it's "OEM"), the other was genuine but with batteries manufactured four years before and pretty much DOA (probably used and sent back by someone?)

I had to order from Microsoft directly to get an acceptable product.

> The Nespresso system made every customer feel like a connoisseur: you had to make a choice every time you put a capsule in the machine, even if it was just between black or purple.

Ironically this is what turned me off. After borrowing a Nespresso machine from my brother and buying ~50 different capsules to try out I got stuck in analysis paralysis and decided to go back to my trusted Bialetti moka.

If anyone's curious out of all the variants I've tasted my favourite were two of the cheapest off brands, Kimbo Armonia and Starbucks Blonde - the rest just felt either too "fruity" or too "acidic" for my taste.

PHP to me is a bit like the new Perl. Sometimes you just need a small script that does one thing well. Took me 10-15 minutes to implement an interface for customer support so they can look up a clients last order based on incoming phone number (via Aircall) or name and surname. FTP'd it to an already existing company server and it just works. And saves them weeks of time over a year probably. Nobody cares that I debugged it via die("error");

With Python I'd be stuck reading the latest tutorial on how to deploy virtualenv properly. Java/Spring I'd die of boredom before I figure out where WebMvcAutoConfigurationAdapter wants me to put Bootstrap css this year. Sometimes you just want a quick solution to an easy problem and move on to other things than coding, and I find PHP fits that use case perfectly.

I'm wondering, what's to gain in all this? Does switching to slightly different parts (e.g. Micron vs Spansion flash module) make the final BOM so much cheaper that it's worth manufacturing a fake Ethernet switch?

Just by taking a look at PCB pictures it looks like the counterfeiter managed to get their hands on some scrap or older revision boards and even went through more hoops (like that "modchip" design) to make them boot. Seems so overkill for a switch that goes for 250$ used - am I missing something?

Ubuntu LTS. I chose it because it mostly just works and there's plenty of documentation and q&a online (StackOverflow)

As for the problems, on the desktop side I wish it was more polished. For some reason every time there's a wireless printer in the network it tries to reinstall it (fix: sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed), error reporting is annoying (fix: sudo systemctl disable apport), can't easily set full RGB out on HDMI (fix: xrandr --output HDMI-1 --set "Broadcast RGB" "Full"), volume change is laggy on some soundcards (fix: enable-deferred-volume = no) and small quirks like this.

In my experience for many professors teaching is pretty much a side activity, more like a chore. Fun fact: Galileo was envied by his colleagues because despite being paid full time by University of Pisa he was exempted from teaching and could devote all of his time to research. (source should be Biagioli, Galileo Courtier, 159)

What's with the hate against wires? Wires always work. My wireless printer never worked. Well it prints once, then I have to power cycle it to print again. Thanks Samsung.

The minimalism point doesn't really cut it: you still need a wire to charge batteries inside things, so it's one more item. And batteries go bad in a matter of years, so you need to buy a soldering iron and a LiPo cell from shady sources unless you're into replacing >$100 devices every three years or so. Or buy external AAA batteries and a wall charger like 90s toy cars.

I don't mind the aesthetics of wires. I love the mess behind my desk and the thought that electrons are being pushed at 40 Gb/s to form an image. Mix and match different colors and braid types for a free steampunk look.