Put any distro in front of me and provided I don’t need to master it, I’m good. Ubuntu is fine. Debian is fine. RedHat is fine. Fedora is fine. I even have a tiny low-end system that is using Bohdi. Whatever. We’re all using mostly the same kernel anyway.

90% of what I do is in a container anyway so it almost doesn’t matter; half the time that means Alpine, but not really. That includes both consuming products from upstream as well as software development. I also practically live in the terminal, so I couldn’t care less what GUI subsystem is in play, even while I’m using it.

The only time I’ve encountered people that care a little too much about what distro is being used, is right after having transitioned to Linux; the sheer liberating potential of the thing can make you lose your head.

I’ve come across a lot of professional bias about Linux distros, but that’s usually due to real-world experience with tough or bad projects. Some times, decisions are made that make a given distro the villain or even the hero of the story. In the end, you’ll hear a lot of praise and hate, but context absolutely matters.

There’s also the very natural tendency to seek external validation for your actions/decisions. But some people just can’t self-actualize in a way that’s healthy. Sprinkle a little personal insecurity into the mix and presto: “someone is getting on great with that other Linux I don’t use, so Imma get big mad.”

Wood smoked salmon: ✅😀

Tobacco smoked salmon: ❌🤮

Honestly, Sony really sees itself as a premium(ish) brand that puts a heavy emphasis on novelty with a bit of sophistication thrown in. They also see Nintendo as a kid’s toy company. So, the expense (and some of the scarcity) is entirely the point.

Here’s a version for my fellow gluten-free peeps:

I just want to echo your sentiment with something I’ve been saying here for a while now:

Do not confuse information technology use for computer literacy.

Yup. Nobody else gets those cookies.

“this is as far as you can go if you don’t want to get involved in management”

Yes. That exactly. This typically comes with a nice perk: Principals are supposed to have the same clout as lower-level managers. Which is to say they usually report to Directors or even the CTO in some organizations.

Another one is “Independent Contributor” which is similar but, as the name would suggest, is very self sufficient and does not work on (or for) a team. They’re basically one-man engineering shops and are expected to perform well everywhere in the company’s tech and talent stacks. As a result, ICs are very rare.

The other pivot point is The Pragmatic Programmer, which is totally understandable.

That book does a good job of grounding the reader through examples and parables from everywhere else but IT. By the end, you realize that good software engineering makes the best of general problem-solving skills, rather than some magical skillset peculiar to computing. You wind up reaching a place where you can begin to solve nearly any problem through use of the same principles. So @codex here, perhaps effortlessly, went on to management instead.

Same. Let’s rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrqQxl5o3eg

Printed on the bomb:

| In case of accidental detonation: have a nice day. Thanks for reading.

I’ve tried to enjoy IPAs, really. I’m not discounting the role of interesting terpenes and flavonoids here, but the raw in-your-face excessive bitterness of IPA-level hops pushes all that great stuff so far from the stage of my experience, that it’s all left waiting in the lobby to get seated. For me, it’s like someone mixed LaCroix, light beer, and a drop of dish soap in a glass. Every time.

Pretty sure you just triggered every developer and/or person who had to sit through a product meeting.

NGL, I was feeling very uncomfortable myself by the end of typing said list. Is it hot in here? I need to lie down.

Common language used to dismiss bad decisions like this:

• We need to track and meet our metrics for the quarter
• Engagement for $FEATURE is down, so we have to take measures to get people to take notice
• It’s opt-in/opt-out, so it’s the right thing to do
• It’s only a one time thing and then the system remembers¹ what the user selected
• Only new users are affected - our power users will put up with it
• It’s just a minor inconvenience, really
• It’s just a website

1 - Oh, did you turn off cookies or clear your cache? Sorry about that.

This thought exercise has been explored in Dead Boy Detective Agency. You probably don’t want a demon using your body as a hot-rod.

Estimate for CD lifespans was in the 100 year range, but the only way to really put that to the test is to try them in 100 years.

FWIW, I have some CDs that are pushing 40+ years at this point. They work fine, scratches and all.

In my experience, CDRs and other record-able media can’t handle a single summer in a hot car. Mistakes were made. If you have your hands on anything like that, I agree: focus there first for your data hoarding activities.

I completely understand the sentiment here, but I have to respectfully disagree with part of your argument.

The internet itself is this fundamentally ephemeral, thing. Our relationship to it, as a medium, has persisted for decades at this point and may continue to do so for a long time. At the same time, it lives and dies by the whims of corporations and millions of other users, and so its trajectory is largely beyond the control of any one individual. It’s like this by design: properties like distributed control, flexible routing, easy duplication/destruction of data, give it resilience but also make it temporary. This also makes it a volatile place to keep things permanently, which is a real problem for a lot of different mediums.

With that in mind, there exists a lot of media today that has no non-digital equivalent. So, having a local data cache you control - DVD, BluRay, forvever moving data between online services, even a personal NAS - is the only hedge you can get for the net’s volatility. And even then, that medium has a service life.

So I don’t think it’s a shame, per se, that things are like this now. Rather, it always has been. It’s never been easier to consume (and pirate) media online, but the underlying rules have not changed.

That’s my plan-B should I wind up in a home. I’ll be there to take you all on any day: cataracts, arthritis, and nap-time be damned.

Can confirm, Gen-X here. We’re all either Boomers or Millennials depending on whatever is coming out of our mouths.

To all that noise, I say: Meh, whatever.