So a few weeks back it’s been officially confirmed I’m being made redundant.

I had a job interview last Friday - late stage. I’m hoping they come back with some positive news. The interview went okay. I think I did well with the Java stuff, but when I was asked about Javascript Event Loops, I was completely befuzzled.

Back at work, and we all have to act like we give a shit. Not too great, I wish I was done with the company overall.

Luckily I have another job interview next week - something to look forward too!

Overall, a pretty resounding “meh”.

Fun fact, back in 2018, Tesla factories have less safety signs and signals because Elon Musk hates yellow (so no safety tape telling people where not to stand) and cannot stand the beeping noise forklifts make when they reverse.

Source: https://revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/

Absolutely baffled how more people aren’t killed at Tesla factories, tbh.

D:

Backpack: maybe not, but as long as it doesn’t wear off. For example, I got myself an anti-theft laptop backpack (didn’t even realise it was anti-theft when I bought it lol) and it was £25. I’m not going to pretend it has the utmost premium of materials woven into the backpack or anything, but honestly? It’s not absolute crap either and it’s still going one year later. All my other bags have been the same - not the most premium materials (prob. pretty simple stuff) but it does the job and sticks around forever.

Screwdrivers: So I found a ratchetng screwdriver for £21 - which comes with the bits (unlike from what I can see in LTT store, they seem to be sold separately!!!).

As for “professional grade”, I have searched and searched online for an exact definition for what this could even mean for a screwdriver (because the implication is that other screwdrivers are Fischer Price plastic screwdrivers or something, which is absolutely hilarious to me and I kind of wish it was true) and I get wildly varying definitions (and that’s from the ones I could even find. The most I can work out is that it had more random bits - which I think my example provides (with torx etc). If it has something to do with the “materials” of the screwdriver, then I will say I cannot remember a single time in my life when a screwdriver has broke on me. Generally I buy them (no matter how cheap) and I have it for life.

And yes, just because something is cheaper, doesn’t make it better. But just because something is expensive, doesn’t mean it is naturally better too. Clothing and quite frankly the backpack is incredibly subjective, so I can appreciate we don’t see eye-to-eye on it. But the screwdriver? The LTT screwdriver is such blatant markup on standard screwdrivers that it boggles my mind how anyone could defend it. If they were something along the lines of $30-$40, i would think “yeah, they’re expensive, but it’s clear LTT has got to eat and the people who buy it are clearly supporting the channel” but at $70 it’s practically robbery as an artform.

Fun fact: When I was trying to find the words “professional grade” (hint: couldn’t find it) on the screwdriver page for the LTT store, I noticed this disclaimer text in the product description:

NOTE: Bits are a consumable item and will wear or break down over time. Visual wear to the black phosphate coating is normal and expected.

Now, to be fair, this is true with my cheap-o screwdrivers with the interchangeable bits too. However, I didn’t fork out lots of money for the privilege.

I thought you were joking about the screwdriver until I had a check.

Christ alive. I saw the other items you mentioned as well. I’m impressed how they’ve managed to extort their fanbase for generic items.

For what it’s worth, I can get a set of 8 screwdrivers in the UK for £5 (set of 42 for £21), a laptop backpack for £30, and hoodies for ~£30.

Well… it has a headphone jack (at least according to this)

About damn time

I was using unhook to do the same thing! Thanks, Google!

So I have phenylketonuria, and a big part of this is being in tune with my brain and my mental/emotional/physical well-being as to try and gauge when my phenylalanine levels are high.

Since I’ve had my phenylalanine levels so low, I was able to correctly find out my levels were high.

As to catastrophising, unfortunately that is a symptom of high phe levels. I’ve been working on lowering my phe levels, and today was the first day I didn’t feel any anxiety or catastrophe despite starting something 24h support at work today for a week.

Sorry to hear about your depression. Sounds like a hell of a bump from your old job - good on you for getting the job!!

I feel a lot better today. I think part of it is writing things out and actually visualising my situation. I think another part was your reply, which helped me feel seen, so thank you.

Seeing what folks have said, I kind of feel bad griping about my own issues, but as of now I have nobody else to really talk to (or at least that’s the way it feels), so here goes:

• Work has been up and down. It has been super stressful and intense at times - especially on Mondays, and then calms down as the week goes on. It doesn’t help that we have half our team members and next week our team lead is going on holiday. And next week is going to be the start of support, where I’ll need to be available 24/7 (it’s a thing, and apparently it pays super well and also can help for a promotion)
• I bought a house in March and things are still ongoing from the sellers side despite being virtually done on my side. This wouldn’t be so stressful had it not been for the fact that I have a mortgage offer that will expire at the end of October, and given how the seller wants 4 weeks to paint their new house before I get the keys(!!!) that means I’ll need to factor the 4 weeks into the expiry and eventually consider putting my foot down and pulling out (which I don’t want to do, but interest rates have drastically changed in the UK, so I’m unlikely to have an extension or the same offer again)
• A few weeks ago I got shingles, and I had medicine for that (stress from house and work). Went over to my sisters and she started talking to me about the foot fungus she saw on my feet as well as fungal infection behind my ear. The behind-the-ear requires a shampoo, so that’s simple. The toenail fungal infection requires toenail clippings as well as blood test to check my liver. Yesterday the results came back slightly borderline for my kidneys, so I’m going to have to repeat the results (also I have to avoid alcohol and eat more fruit). At this point I can’t help but feel like my body is a Rube Goldberg machine and while it’s nice that my sister is spotting these issues, it just makes me feel slightly depressed about my body.
• The weather in the UK as well as the health issues has left me a bit house bound, and more importantly, I feel incredibly lonely.

But on the plus side:

• I have a very, very well paid job that seems to actually compensate me for the effort I put in - much, much more than my last job
• I have a genuinely very caring family that wants the best for me
• I’m lucky to live in a time when I can just write this post and several strangers will see it, even if they don’t respond. In some ways, the loneliness is much more in my head
• I already ate 3 bits of fruit yesterday and I had one before my dinner (this is actually quite a big deal for me) :D
• I’m self aware enough to spot when I’m catastrophising and (hopefully) I can make an active effort to nip it in the bud. Sometimes its easy, and other times it’s mentally exhausting.
• I’m sure there are others out there who are doing much worse with taking care of their bodies than me.
• I am not depressed yet. I may have bouts of anxiety through the day, but I think this is manageable.

I’m pretty sure it started with Lil B “Thank You Based God”.

Lil B was an underground rapper with… varying levels of quality (at least at the time). His thing was calling himself “Based God” as people were calling him “based” as a negative (presumably to mean he was dumb), but thanks to his music and understanding internet culture and turning it in his favour, he managed to turn “based” from something that was negative to a positive.

Then 4chan got ahold of it for Donald Trump’s election and that word has never recovered.

No worries. I’m genuinely relieved you were joking too!!

It’s a joke.

Guys, I’m starting to think this Elon guy isn’t as smart as he claims…

Your avatar gets cat ears (more like extra triangles like cat ears on your avatar)

I actually just set up my very own SearXNG instance and oh my god it easily smokes every search engine I’ve used in the past decade or so out of the water. And it doesn’t even need much in terms of resources!! I’m spending $6/mo on Digital Cloud’s cheapest option, and it all just works flawlessly!

Thanks for the shoutout!

Like others have said, there are multiple factors at play:

1. The official reddit app sucks in terms of basic usability
2. The offiical reddit app has poor accessibility
3. The official website, while generally well optimised for mobile, keeps forcing users to use the reddit app - see point 1
4. Reddit is trying to position themselves as an ad company (see here for one user’s explanation), so it’s in their benefit to get people using the mobile version where they can hoover up sensitive information for serving ads.
5. Reddit are trying to grow their ad platform. Third party apps interfere with that. Reddit understandably wants to kill them off.
6. Reddit are aware that people like third party apps and people don’t like their official app.

Now, if Reddit had been honest and transparent throughout the entire process and just killed off the APIs without charging for it and gave the straightforward explanation, I think people would be sad as they are emotionally invested in their apps, and there would be some people who would go for good. But a lot more people would come back to Reddit - let alone seek alternatives like Lemmy, KBin, Tildes, etc.

What has happened is that the CEO has tried to make apps “the villain” and reddit the “poor little company” - sort of like DARVO but for 3rd party apps, so they could paint their official Reddit as the “wholesome” one.

Except the reddit community is large and pretty smart - technically and legally too. Receipts were kept, the CEO was exposed for his blatant lies, and then he has become incredibly unhinged and angry that things haven’t gone his way, giving incredibly aggressive interviews. And the Reddit community notices, because whenever Reddit is in the news, it’s very rarely for a good reason. The CEO was shown to be wearning no clothes after all.

I’ve seen Reddit go through drama, but never quite like this. It’s quite incredible and astonishing how one person could fuck up a transition this badly. Spez has repeated that the Automod is going to be killed, but given the blatant lies that came before, it’s no wonder why folks aren’t trusting him on his word. He’s made his bed, he has to lie in it.

Man, I’m enjoying life since I got off Reddit, which was when they first announced the API changes. Deleted my account there and then. Same goes with Twitter.

Turns out all these places just churn dumb online drama that is so inaccessible to the general public, that I ended up being a bit withdrawn because I had all this online drama in my head and I couldn’t really talk to folks about it.

Now I’m ironically much more sociable that I’ve moved over to the fediverse. Outside of the reddit drama, conversations have been much more human. And even with the drama, I’ve learned to stop caring about such things - everything is in change, it will be okay. Companies don’t matter - people do.