In the Mojave? Mountain lions, coyotes, maybe a dog, and snakes (though that is more a matter of “avoid” than “defend”).

I mean, that’s basically the option. Set up a domain, set up dynamic DNS, and safely do the right port forwarding and IP reservations in your router.

Unfortunately this is not easy for a lot of people, and the overall picture of home automation requires a combination of skills that not everyone has. Then they basically get two choices: pay for a company to maintain the system, or use someone else’s cloud. A lot of people will pick option 2.

Unlike a lot of DIY tasks, it’s not even one that I would suggest to someone who is hesitant. It’s not a “oh just try planting tomatoes this year, see how it turns out.” Someone who messes up their port forwarding rules could potentially open their home network to a lot of trouble.

I mean, I agree, but the target market of a lot of this stuff couldn’t care less. They want their hot tub synced up to their Outlook calendar or whatever, and can afford a monthly maintenance contract to keep that working.

For the rest of us, there’s this sort of odd limbo. Most people expect some kind of remote control app as part of their smart stuff, which means either going through an outside cloud service, or running your own server and contending with the fact that most of us don’t have a static IP. Of course there are services like no-ip, but again, you’re stuck using someone else’s cloud service, just for a much smaller part of the overall task.

My point at the end though is that I don’t necessarily want “all in one” control, whether open source or proprietary. I’ve seen what well-implemented smarthome looks like, and it does not (to me) seem worth the money or time. I’ll take the ecobee, maybe the security cameras, and I’ll even go though their commercial cloud to get that remote connectivity, but I’d rather keep my services separate, than go all-in on one hardware/provider/app.

I know someone living in a really high-end “smart” home. We’re talking about a ton of hardware and proprietary software controlling practically everything in the house. From one app in a phone or iPad, you can control everything from the security cameras to the heater to the pool.

It’s basically the pinnacle of what all this technology intends to achieve, and tbh, it’s all a bit of a pain.

Diagnosing anything in the house has an extra layer of work. Is it the pool heater not working? Oh, no, it’s the app not working. Security alert from the house? A fly walked across the camera lens. Everything acting weird all the sudden? Guess the shitty monopoly broadband cable provider in the city is having issues again.

The system only stays afloat because of a 24/7 service contract with a company that specializes in these houses. Give a few months without that support, and things will start falling apart.

I get that this is a different class from the products from Google and Amazon, or even the various open source products, but tbh, I’ll take fragmented over monolithic and overarching.

The $1M salary is really typical of California tech job postings, and it is essentially meaningless. Under the new transparency law, employers have to list the salary range on job advertisements. For many of these speculative or open-application type roles, it’s common to list $90k-$900k as the range.

It makes great headlines, but nobody in that job is actually going to make 900k.

Not in Windows 10/11. You can still “eject” if it makes you feel better, but it’s basically redundant. They reworked the support for removable media so they are always ready to remove except during active read/write operations.

Look how many jobs in the private sector also require a security clearance. Most things in aerospace, but also a lot of enterprise/cloud/telecom computing will have a “federal” arm, and they need cleared workers for that. Amazon, Google, AT&T, Verizon, Microsoft and many other big names have divisions that do classified work. They pay a premium over regular positions because the clearance is a PITA for everyone involved.

Putin took some steps to strategically wreck any semblance of politics in Russia. One of his advisors, Vladislav Surkov, secretly funded a variety of opposition parties, ranging from “green” environmental parties to openly Nazi groups. They let these groups grow in an organic way before “leaking” the information that they were all funded by the state/FSB.

This type of move, and similar actions, have made true political engagement very difficult. That march, protest, Facebook group, or underground newspaper? One has no idea whether it’s legitimate grassroots movement, or purely astroturfed campaign. Unless you have significant time and resources to study the issue, it is impossible to tell.

This was the exact objective: to basically make politics inaccessible for 99% of people. Sure there will be 1% who do have a good picture of what’s going on and who try to create movements, but their voices are drowned in the confusion. The average person may simply find that it’s too difficult to participate in a meaningful way. Even someone with full intentions to learn and participate may find themselves sidelined into a fake movement and essentially neutralized from a political perspective.

Reminder that “suicide” has a lot of gray areas, and when less stigmatizing labels exist, officials may choose to apply those instead.

On one hand, we have deaths such as by overdose or auto accident that may be labelled as accidental, but were in fact a suicide.

On the other hand, there are deaths which may be quickly closed as a suicide, but where the details suggest some other kind of foul play.

All this to say, that any comparison between to between countries is to be taken with a margin of error, because specific interpretations and data-collection methods may differ.

And then you use a generator and vault, but there’s some stupid caveat like “you can’t use the ^ character.”

That’s pretty normal for meh-tier kind of jobs in the US, though usually you “graduate” to two weeks sooner, like after a year.

In many workplaces there’s a culture of taking as little as possible of the allowed vacation time. Sometimes it can lead to a small bonus when those days get “paid out” at the year end. Other times, the only encouragement is just pressure from the boss or coworkers. Note that there is neither a legal minimum for vacation days, not a requirement that employees actually use the days they have.

Not just East Germany. If you dig enough, you will find mental health abuse in every country on earth, whether historical or ongoing. Of course in the USSR as you mentioned, also in China, the USA, and elsewhere.

“Abusive” in this case can mean abusive treatments, or treatments against things that are not diseases, such as homosexuality, promiscuity, or unfavorable political ideas.

In the US, read about the published papers of the mkultra project, and look as well into the ongoing existence of centers such as Elan school (now closed) and the Judge Rottenberg center (still in practice).

In my experience, having friends go through mental crises, the modern US system is hard enough to navigate even when one desperately needs and wants care. Try finding yourself a therapist when in such a depression that you can hardly get out of bed, much less search out who takes your insurance, has openings in their availability, and is a good match for your personality. Meanwhile true inpatient care seems reserved for either the fully disabled, or those who have already attempted suicide. Can you imagine if a profession like dentistry made care this difficult to access?

But for people who are either marginalized or truly mentally disabled, this is a harsh system that can make one suspicious, especially when the history of lobotomies, electroshocks, hydrotherapy, and other abuses are within living memory.

I’ve felt this way about twice in my life, and it’s when I had a really well crafted Jupyter notebook running in VSCode.

It’s definitely the kind of thing you want to pop open when boss is showing some new sponsors/customers around.

This really hit me hard once I had a kid.

The degree to which those small early lessons will stick in their mind, much less something that’s ingrained in their heads every single day.

I think I get it now - if kids are hearing this stuff day in and out from the moment they can talk - that they absolutely could be convinced that Trump or Putin or Xi are some kind of divinity. Even when they later learn otherwise, there will be some kernel of that propaganda remaining in their head.

Some people reach a phase where they’re really ready to question these things, but I met plenty of people in college for whom that dissonance was just too unexpected and painful. They simply retreated into what they already identified with.

You probably can, just need to find out how the screen is attached. Usually it’s a rubber “bead’” that has been pressed into a notch to hold the screen. Just make sure to replace the bead too when you replace the screen.

The screen should come off from the window frame - it is mounted in its own frame made of lightweight metal.

It’s like $20 in tools and new screen to replace. Best to start on a smaller window for practice, but once you’ve done one, they go easy.

Depends on your country and employer. In some situations, your job description could be a big deal. For example if you’re in a union, you are probably required to only do the specific tasks as described in the job description.

Some countries may also have laws about your work contract. If that applies to you, then it’s probably important on your employer’s part to have the right description for your job.

But in many places, it really doesn’t matter: your job description vs what you actually do, as long as you aren’t being asked to do something that needs licensure or other regulations. Many job descriptions will have a catch-all like “… And other duties as directed” to fill in the gap.

Suing for what though?

Unless the landlord is breaking a law or a contract by raising the rent, there’s no damages or breach oc contract.

Meanwhile, suing your landlord is a great way to prevent your lease being renewed, if you want to keep living there.

It’s especially noticable in cities where the storefronts close with rolling metal doors, and the windows close over with shutters. It is very apparent that the city is “closed.”

Of course these doors and shutters have very practical purposes. Just that if they’re not common in your home country, it can be jarring.