Triple-check that our mortage is paid off in the event of my death, so that my wife and children will have a place to live after I (sole breadwinner) am gone.

I think the root cause is the complexity.

Split the problem into manageable chunks, then attack the chunks. Apply recursion as needed.

This is part of a more senior skillset, as some times a senior will be breaking up the problem and assigning the smaller pieces to other devs.

I can’t connect to my car’s audio with Bluetooth, and can’t afford to replace the car stereo with one that supports Bluetooth - it’s just not a priority. When I upgrade my phone, I’ll stay with an earphone jack.

My therapist, provided I reach the breaking point at a convenient time when we have a session scheduled.

When you think about it, there were a lot of populist movements growing through Twitter. It probably pissed a lot of wealthy, powerful people off.

Then Musk and Zuckerberg were called to private meetings with the president, weren’t they? And Twitter was taken over and shut down. Then Threads, owned by Facebook who is known to help out law enforcement quite happily as well as track everything, takes off as an alternative.

I was using chatGPT to design up a human/computer interface to allow stoners to control a lightshow. The goal was to collect data to train an AI to make the light show “trippier”.

It started complaining about using untested technology to alter people’s mental state, and how experimentation on people wasn’t ethical.

Me, with 20 years experience making software: yes, totally happy about this. (This makes it much easier to keep up with the latest newfangled bullshit.)

Laser cutter control software is windows only, just haven’t had the time/energy to rip out the entire control system and rework it to be open source.

aka “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”

It just feels wrong to me to take the paycheck and not put my heart into the work.

I felt the same way, until after the second corporate buyout. The company I started with my career with is gone, the company that bought them is gone, and the company that bought them is gone as well. The product I worked on for six years is gone and the company website only exists in the internet archive and a few archived press releases.

I put my heart into it and it’s just… gone entirely.

It’s one of the last times I put my heart into my work, because all that happened in the long run is the board of directors got more wealthy.

The subsequent buyouts (and layoffs) I’ve been through have gone much better for me, personally, because I wasn’t as emotionally involved in the company/product.

I’m at the point now where I’m in a more senior role, doing consulting, and I dgaf about the client’s business or project beyond getting my work done on time and to the required quality. I start at 9, log off at 5pm, get my work done by noon, and enjoy spending more time with my kids in the summer.

Bluetooth speakers for music in the kitchen, attached sound system for steaming TV, over-ear noise cancelling bluetooth headphones for desk work, over-ear bluetooth ear protection headphones for shop/yard work, earbuds for shopping/etc (fuck store muzak).

Learned the default account password and figured out which teachers had not changed their password from the default. Learned that all teachers had access to a share drive with all student records. Read through a lot of information.

Did not look at porn on school computers, because wtf?

At grad event, in front of elderly relatives, was called out for looking at porn on the school computers, other student was credited for breaking into all systems. More pissed about the latter.