Internet Addict. Reddit refugee. Motorsports Enthusiast. Gamer. Traveler. Napper.
He/Him.
So I've been a fed for nearly a year. It hybrid when I started, 2 days a week, til February of this year. Sigh.
My last job went full remote in April 2023. And was hybrid since Spring 2021. And it was pretty liberal hybrid, like sometimes I'd show up one day a week or every two weeks.
But I heard from friends still at that job that they recently got ordered to RTO. At least those still in the area where HQ was + the CEO. Though I think the staff is getting caught in a fight between the board and the CEO. Staff just happens to be collateral damage. Either way, seems like opportunities are fading.
Honestly, I'd even take one day of WFH per week.
Haven't commented here in awhile. Week is going OK so far. Took Monday (and last Friday) off for mental health days. Was just kinda in a "blah" mood. Think it's "emotional contagion" from listening to friends' problems and such. Glad to do it, to be there for them, but every once in awhile, it makes me think about stuff and my own life.
But otherwise, I'm back to it. On a plus side, I get to work from home today (Thursday)! My apt complex is closing the streets to do repaving. Rather than messing around with temporarily parking my car elsewhere, I asked my supervisor and he's like "Yup, that's cool." I work for the US govt, and regular telework is verboten. But here and there? It's acceptable. Besides, it's only the first time since February that I've teleworked due to a personal situation.
I was talking to my dad today. He's close to retirement and he was kinda reminiscing about his early days with his employer, the US fed govt, especially with all the shit lately.
He told me the story again of how he got his first federal position. He went to some job fair in like 1990 after he finally finished his degree, and the guy manning the booth offered him a job on the spot. And the rest is history.
I'm also a federal employee. It took me 15+ yrs of applying for numerous federal positions, having to do stupid aptitude tests online, or even in person -- I once flew across the country to literally sit for an ACT/SAT-type aptitude test, on my own dime -- all to get two interviews over that whole time period. It was only in 2023 that I finally got an offer, which I started like 5mo ago.
Offer on the spot at a job fair? That's unheard of these days. I don't even see the point of going to job fairs anymore, since all they do is say, "just apply online!" The few I've been to in the past weren't even accepting resumes in person or doing any on-the-spot interviews. Then what's the point of this?
And having sat on the "other side" of the table, helping conduct interviews, it's all shit. Not the candidates (well...sometimes), but the process. If the whole rigmarole is to help find and select better candidates, then it's not working. I'd rather pick a couple candidates, hire them on probation for 90 days, and evaluate them that way. Then let go of the less-performing one. Or both if neither are worth it. We'd be able to really evaluate them, while at least they'd maybe learn something and get paid.
Not that I care about TikTok one way or another, but one of the best arguments I've seen against banning it dealt with supposed protection of Americans' data. And I'm pretty sure that's the approach that lawmakers have taken with this; it's not that Chinese propaganda is bad, it's that China shouldn't have this much private info on Americans. I believe that's the primary angle they've taken to get around First Amendment concerns.
Anyway, the argument is, "Oh, but it's OK for US tech companies to harvest data? That's it's OK that we have weak privacy and data protection laws? As long as US companies are doing it, then it's not a problem?" Because, remember the laws says that the company becomes "unavailable" in the US if not sold to an American company. Presumably, if TikTok were sold to a US company, then the app could continue with no issue, tracking and collecting tons of data on Americans to be packaged and sold to the highest bidders.
I will admit, I was somewhat more pro-ban before hearing that argument. But now I'm more neutral. I don't use it, so I'm not/shouldn't be affected. But the government trying to hide behind data privacy and protection to ban TikTok does feel rather empty.
It'd be interesting if everyone "started" in the same place. For example, Mastodon.social. But then eventually, like maybe after 90 days, one was forced to choose a "home" instance to migrate to. Could be through a list of servers presented, or maybe a user has found one through friends, so they just type in the server and it kicks off a migration process. I'm almost thinking like an MMO starting area.
During that 90 days, the user has to (or should) learn about federation, why decentralization is important for privacy and security, what defederation means and blocking options, how and why instances are a thing, how to migrate an account, etc. Maybe even some info on how and why one could stand up their own instance.
And this doesn't have to like a classroom/book setting. It doesn't have to be "read this documentation." Maybe some 1min video clips, brief tooltips, little reminders to read a brief paragraph of two on some Mastodon topic. Gamify it; let people collect badges and achievements.
During all this, users have full access to everything Mastodon users can do. They can interact with anyone on the entry server, plus any server that's federated with it. Or maybe they're an already experienced user and want to go straight to another instance; they can either skip all this and migrate or start straight at another instance.
Though I wonder if that's still too much friction.
Because Mastodon and the Fediverse is confusing, especially at first. I'm a techy person. I work in IT. But when I started to looking at the Fediverse back in 2023, it was confusing. Where do I go to sign-up? There are different services on the Fediverse? Which do I get access to? Do I need an account for each service? How do I know that this instance for this service (Pixelfed, Lemmy, Masto, etc.) is a decent one? What happens if my friends/people I follow are on a different server? Will we be able to interact? What does it even mean to federate/defederate?
These are all the questions I asked as I was looking to all this. And it wasn't a quick 15min look. No, I spent a few hours looking into it.
But the average person isn't going to ask all this and research this. They just want a place to follow famous people, post about their life, and post pictures of their food and pets. When these people (myself included) signed up for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, etc, they just went to the appropriate site and signed-up.
It's not nearly as simple for Mastodon. Sure, Mastodon.social acts as the flagship and "gateway," but there are still the other questions that probably need some answers. Otherwise, a user may have a bad experience ("Oh, my friends aren't on this Mastodon server thing? And we're not federated? I gotta make a new account there? Ugh..."). Twitter and even Bluesky don't require those questions. Everyone is on the same instance, all the time.
The reality is that most don't really care for options and choice. Or even security and privacy. They want ease of accessibility. Mastodon is likely a better product (in most regards; I have and use both Mastodon and Bluesky, daily; Bluesky does a few things better), but the options Mastodon provides, especially at the start, are really more roadblocks or offramps than anything.
Oof, sorry to hear that. Lots of illnesses going around this time of year, which is expected, but Strep can't be particularly fun. Nor getting your tonsils out. When I got back from visiting my family for Xmas, I definitely picked up a little something. Had a scratchy throat, minor body aches, and a low fever. But it was gone within a couple days.
Otherwise, pretty chill this week so far. Unplanned WFH on Monday and Tuesday due to snowstorm. Then today (Thurs) is a paid "holiday" for Pres. Carter's funeral, and I took Friday off to make a 4-day weekend. So yesterday (Weds) was the only day I went into the office. I could've WFH again today, but thought I should make an appearance. Been a week since I was last in office, due to holidays, and next week I'm full WFH for online training. It was good to see people, anyway.
Thinking about visiting NYC for a day or overnight trip this weekend. I'd just take Amtrak up. I've been all over the States, but somehow never to NYC. So why not do something other than game and sleep for 4 days? Only thing I'm worried about is another potential snowstorm headed to the region. I don't want to get stuck in NYC if trains get cancelled for weather. But right now, the plan is to go. Just need to, you know, actually buy the train tickets and perhaps book a hotel room. The important things.
Wonder when we'll see US-style tariffs in Europe on Chinese vehicles, particularly EVs. In the name of protecting European jobs and auto marketshare. Which would be unfortunate, given the need to move to EVs to mitigate climate change. As an American, I would've loved to have a $20k Chinese EV. I don't think there are ICE vehicles in the US that cheap these days.
But I also get the jobs issue, too. I think much of the West is in the situation we're in because of offshoring of jobs and competition from cheaper labor overseas. Loss of jobs, income, ability to support family, etc.
Curious to see how this plays out.
Hope everyone's 2025 plans come to fruition!
When I want to pirate, torrenting is my go to. I don't do it very often, so I'm not really up-to-date on more modern methods. For some movies, I know there are those websites like 123movies or whatever. And I've used those. But Idek what additional methods there are anymore.
That said, I've tried torrenting over I2P, but it's just slow. Not necessarily super slow, but obviously slower than doing it over the clearweb with a commercial VPN. Additionally it seems like there's less available content with torrenting over I2P. At least in the little experience I've had with it.
Ah fair point. Yeah, I rarely look at political content on YouTube, Instagram, and even Bluesky. Mainly because I use my real name on these platforms.
I reserve that for reddit, Lemmy, Tildes, and Mastodon, where I use screennames. And Mastodon doesn't have an algorithm.
On Twitter, I did engage in political content, even with my real name, but I largely stopped using Twitter daily years ago. I went from tweeting regularly, to only lurking, and just maybe once or twice a week at that. By the end, I was checking maybe once a month. The Twitter algorithm probably didn't have enough info on me, given my weak activity levels.
Same. And I am a racial minority (though not black, so that may color things...excuse the unintentional pun). That said, on Mastodon, I mainly interact with the people on my instance. And it's small. There's probably only a core group of like 50 active individuals, and I'm one of them. So there I'm not surprised I don't see racism.
Interestingly, I have the same experience on even the proprietary social media sites. I was on Twitter from 2009 to 2023. I can't say I was ever served up far-right content by the algorithms. I'm still on YouTube; same experience. Same on Instagram. Same on Bluesky.
I'm not trying to discount other people's experiences, and I've seen the horrible tweets referenced in news articles and reddit comments and such. So I know it exists, but why am I not being served this content, while so many others apparently are? I mean, I'm OK with not getting far right wing content, lol. Leave me out of it! Makes my online life easier and more enjoyable. But it's just odd.
Oh god, please no. I need some mind's-eyebleach.
Mitigations
Just use another torrent client. Deluge and Transmission etc do not have this vulnerability.
Was wondering what the takeaway is here. I updated to 5.0.1. Does that fix all these? If not, guess I'll try a different torrent client.
Jfc. Can't, or rather won't, refurbish? That's beyond stupid.
Yeah that'd be cool if the opened it up and recreate it as a platform for people to mess around with it. Like a rPi or Arduino or something. Because in it's current form...pretty much useless. But you're right; they'd have to drop that price point significantly and incentivize people even if it were open.
6ys is definitely a long time for a phone. Personally, I'm trying for 5yrs on my 13 Pro. It'll be 3yrs in February.
For each iPhone I've had, I've extended the time between upgrades by a year. 4S to 6+ was about 2yrs. Then to the X was 3yrs. And then 4yrs til my 13 Pro. The cost is one of bigger reasons driving me to do this, but I take the opposite opinion: the advances model to model aren't that major to me. I don't need a more powerful/capable camera or a screen with a deeper black or whatever. Aside from calls, messaging, emails, and reading news, and the occasional photo/video -- usually of nothing of great importance -- nothing I do really pushes my phone to its limits.
That said, I'm somewhat considering doing an earlier upgrade because of that satellite connectivity feature. Not that I go off-grid or anywhere with poor reception with any regularity, but I feel like that's a nice safety feature in case of an emergency.
Gasp, that would never happen! =D
I didn't say it since I didn't want to bring US
shithouserypolitics into the thread.Philippines has gotta stop with these actors and celebrities entering politics. And also the dynasties (sometimes composed of entertainers). How does being on a variety show or a soap opera qualify someone for high office?
100%, but I think some of us are like "Why are you self-censoring? This isn't TikTok!" Let's not use seggs* and PDF files.
*Unless we're talking about sexy eggs for some reason. Sorry, "seggzy eggs."