Lazy.

If you’re a software engineer, memorizing an ASCII table (particularly the hex numbers of each character code) is definitely helpful. If for no other reason than so that you can read things that are randomly written in binary without having to consult a table.

Something not really otherwise terribly useful that nonetheless helped me keep my sanity: learn how to convert to base64 in your head. At work, we had really boring 8-hours-a-day training for a couple of weeks. To pass the time, I came up with random strings to base64 encode in my head. “Hat is 48 61 7a. The first six bits are 010010 which in base64 is an S. The next six bits would be 000110 which in base64 is G.” Etc. I’d write down the base64 strings character by character as I derived them and then check my results for errors when I got back to my desk.

How to convert various units of measurement. (Including between imperial and metric.)

2.54 centimeters in an inch. Degrees Fahrenheit is nine fifths of degrees Celsius plus 32. Stuff like that.

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Star Trek: Voyager. I was raised on that shit. Not objectively the “best” Star Trek. (Far from the worst, though.) But it’s the one that’s most nostalgic and, indeed, “cozy” for me.

Crocheting gloves for rancors.

5-MTHF.

Okay so Emperor Shaddam gave the fifedom of Arrakis to House Atraides after… okay so the houses all make up the Landsraad which was established right after the Butlerian Jih- Okay see the Butlerian Jihad was a war waged between the humans and the thinking machines and the titons- Ok, but before that humans were enslaved by…

That sounds like exactly the sort of thing therapy is for. I’m no kind of expert, but it’s very likely there’s a lot of deeper things keeping you from developing achieving the kind of skills you’re wanting. And it sounds very much like it’s a problem in your life that’s causing you a lot of anxiety and pain. I think if there’s any way you can do talk therapy, that’s the place to start.

Wow. Huge topic. And it depends on a ton of things. And I definitely don’t feel like I’ve got it all figured out myself.

If you’re young and just for the first time having to manage your own affairs rather than depend on parents to help with that, then self-help kind of stuff might well be a fine place to start. (Just avoid Jordan Peterson.) If you’re older and feel like you’ve had the time needed to develop those skills and still don’t have them, it’s likely there’s something deeper going on that might benefit from therapy.

I personally cared for my ailing grandmother for a long time. And that shit’s hard work, and takes a lot of time. In the process, I let a lot of things go by the wayside like yardwork, home repair, and organization. Now that she has passed, I find myself with a lot of remedial work to catch up on. I feel like I’m making progress. It’s frustrating and slow, but it is progressing and that’s the important part.

Send help.

Every time you see a Grimreaper thread, I want you all to remember…

I can’t imagine you’re the only one in this situation. If I were in your shoes, I’d search for similar stories online and see if I could get a sense of how friendly the company is to swapping OSs. For some companies, changing the OS is a complete deal breaker. Other companies are pretty willing to assume the issue was indeed strictly hardware and had nothing to do with changing the OS, and thus will go ahead and do the repair.

If you find that company is more like the former, install Windows. If not, just start the warranty repair process.

“The country”. U.S.A.? The respondent’s country (whichever that might happen to be)?

Also, presidents mostly don’t have complete dictatorial power… the current president of the U.S. notwithstanding, but do you mean for respondents to give answers that a president could realistically make happen, or is the spirit of your question more about what respondents would like to see changed by someone with dictatorial power?

Depends how he responds now that that article came out, I’d say.

Doubtful, unfortunately. FUTO seems like the sort of narcissistic assholes who won’t be swayed in any way, shape, or form

There’s no third option between FOSS and proprietary (unless there are licenses that match the Free Software definition but not the Open Source definition or vice versa, I suppose, but I’m not aware of any). All software that is not FOSS is proprietary by definition, whether the source is available or not. It’s not “disingenuous” to call FUTO software proprietary. It’s simply factual.

They’re openly disdainful of all things Open Source and OSI, and their software is not Open Source.

They’re a fully for-profit company using consumer rights kind of rhetoric to manipulate people in service to FUTO’s own pocketbook. Don’t fall for their use of the .org tld or promises to “never abuse customers”.

I’ve written many times about what assholes FUTO is. I’m fully convinced they’re way more part of the problem than part of the solution and they’re not to be trusted.

They’ve soured me on Rossman. Back when he was doing coverage of things like the court cases around right to repair and tractors and stuff, I watched a few videos of his and thought he was awesome. And then he got involved with FUTO and started billing Grayjay as “Open Source” and I’ve gotten sufficiently disillusioned with FUTO that I haven’t followed Rossman at all. I’ve got coworkers changing their avatars to Clippy and shit, and I believe their hearts are in the right place, but I can’t in good conscience really get behind anything or anyone associated with FUTO.

Edit: Oh. I honesty didn’t even see this OP was a link to an article. Lol. Now I’m very interested to go read that article.

Edit 2: Shite. I’ve now read the article. I knew FUTO was assholes in a lot of different ways, but now I know how deeply, completely irredeemable they really are.

Mechanical keyboards have several (clicky/thocky/tactile/linear/etc switches, Cherry MX Browns, etc), but if I had to choose one, maybe ortholinear vs staggered.

A picture will probably illustrate it best:

Ortholinear evangelists contend that the staggered layout was invented for mechanical typewriters exclusively to reduce the incidence of typebar collisions and is detrimental to optimal ergonomics. I, as someone who prefers staggered keyboards, just don’t want to be ruined for the majority of keyboards out there. (If my muscle memory “learns” that “m” is “here” because I use an ortholinear keyboard at home, I’m worried it’ll be awkward to use a standard keyboard on a laptop or whatever and I’ll be fat-fingering keys all over the place.) I might switch sides someday. Who knows. But for now, I’ll stick with staggered.

I’m conflicted. I prided myself as a kid on having exclusively on-brand LEGOs and always considered Megablox and such inferior in quality, aesthetic, “cool factor”, etc.

But on the other hand:

Plus I’m into 3D printing and like the “stick it to the man” aspect of 3D printing that might reduce people’s dependence on serving some company’s profit motive for things like shoes (Nike, etc), replacement parts (like parts for my washing machine, improving repairability), figurines (D&D miniatures, for instance), and, indeed, toys like LEGO-compatible pieces.

Maybe I should go 3D print me some Bionicles.