I think evil is too strong a word for Amazon, I think benzos is one of the nicer billionaires but I have heard the horror stories from Amazon warehouses.

I think they are cool I haven't really had the time or stuff to do much with them besides install a Linux distro, but a very nice thing to have around. I thought about making a 3D printer or maybe a phone with one.

Also the list is cool you should read it. I'm sure you will find at least one thing you didn't know you needed.

So unhygienic! Definitely don't want to sit on someone elsees fart cushion all day.

Some people really undervalue the idea of having workers not feel pressured and having some privacy. You might get 10-20% more productivity out of them in the short term, but it raises stress a ton, destroys their mental health, and you probably lose that extra efficiency in burn out and depressed workers anyways. Over the long term it taints everything the company touches. It destroys morale, makes every interaction with a customer slightly worse, makes every work they do worse. It breeds resentment and a culture of dishonesty and irresponsibility.

Open layouts are terrible, humans are not designed to exist in an environment where they are constantly monitored. People have to take breaks sometimes, people have bad days sometimes. Everyone probably has a day at least once a year where they just really need a nap and a workday at once. The way you deal with this from a management perspective is you look at their average efficiency over longer periods of time and judge their worth based on that, but while preserving their humanity and autonomy. Humans are not meant to be drones, and good workers come from having happy and healthy workers. Give workers space, give them privacy, treat them well and they will care about your company, and if they don't then they are just not good people and never will be, so you should just let them go.

Efficiency also isn't everything. Life is not meant to be perfectly efficient. I understand capitalism makes this very difficult but real efficiency tends to be many micro optimizations over time without the actual workload increasing. You should expect that every worker is going to have some downtime everyday if they are working more than a few hours per day. This is not an issue, there are so many other ways to increase efficiency besides abusing workers.

I think it depends a lot on what you are doing. For game dev, there is really nothing else but C++. Also most bad code can be good code if someone is intelligent about it, and use good names and comments. Also if they know how to search through the code and trace things. For massive group projects I can kind of see your point. Being ina. Rush makes it very difficult to write good code, something that is laid out well, is interfacable and modular which makes it easier to understand. I personally try to write all my code to where it's mostly an API to anyone else wanting to use it. Something where they don't necessarily have to dig through tons of esoteric and confusing code, but I like to have everything wrapped in nice little function calls, that handle all the edge cases within and have a little description.

I understand rushing makes this hard but that's more so a failure of the team leadership prioritizing the wrong things. If you are going to write code that's going to be used for 20 years, it's actually a much better use of your time to just write really clean and easy to understand and adapt code up front, and save yourself so much time in the future. The only time other people should really have to dig beyond the API layer of your code is when they need to debug or modify the functionality of your code. So to me it seems like you want to write the most abstract and stable and simple interfaces code when working on long term projects with multiple people, even if it takes 4x as long, and for little personal projects and stuff that will only be compiled once, you may just want to through 100k lines of code in a file and compile it and then forget about it.

Other things I do is wrap things and simplify things myself. I create my own libraries which I know that you as a professional programmer hate to hear, but I do believe in the power of simplicity and abstract compression if you really want readable code. Libraries have to be maintained if they are to be used in production, but inlining some of your own code into every project you do is very useful and doesn't rely on external libraries and can greatly simplify the code you need to write. I wrapped many C std lib stuff in my own code for this reason. It cuts my code in half often times, makes the code very readable and descriptive, and I can just add it to all my projects as a header instead of link libraries and stuff. Idk. Maybe sometimes you just have to weigh the upfront development time and cost with later reliability and simplicity, which I'm sure you do, but your managers might be wise to consider that as well. Having bad code isn't just bad for developers, it makes people using your product dislike the products. There are many reasons to just take the time to write better code and use better techniques at the cost of time, and to truly be successful you have to look beyond the next quarterly report and stock price and do everything in view of the long term. Efficiencies are often small by themselves and not worth it, but overtime efficiencies and good habits snowball into massive permanent buffs.

Idk I feel for you corporate software devs. I like coding but I can't imagine coding stuff all day that I'm not interested in and dealing with corporate code and libraries all day. I never really got into tech as a job for various reasons but one of the big ones is that I can't handle the stress of debugging other people's stuff for days on end. I can't deal with crunch culture. I get worse jobs in many ways but at least I'm not stressed all the time. Sometimes heavy mental loads are just too much and I have tol stop programming for the day or the rest of the day. I don't like the idea of being forced to think at a job, but I do jobs that many other people wouldn't like and it doesn't bother me.

Haha well I see you haven't met C yet.

All jokes aside complexity and chaos isn't just there for a reason. It has a purpose. Java and C are complex but also powerful. Things that are easy to use are often very limited in what you can do. Not always but often times.

Next time try bazzite. It mostly just works out of the box and the only tools you really need extra are lutris and protonup-qt which are both guis and can be downloaded from the package store. You don't really ever have to touch the terminal in bazzite. It comes out of the box with wine and stream and proton already configured and it has the best performing driver installed by default for your device.

Sometimes you have to add repos. Many more user friendly distros come with small repos for various reasons.

If you can find a package that works with your package manager, you can install most software with the manager or use a flatpack, but even install scripts are very easy once you learn to cd into the folder. You should really ask chatGPT to help you when you run into issues. It really helps. You can just copy and paste console output when you get errors and it will guide you through it.

Bazzite also comes with a built in onscreen keyboard and many things have it under the accessibility options. I run on screen keyboards on all my Linux devices for the occasional need, I also bought a pocket sized mini keyboard that is Bluetooth.

Welcome brother or sister or nb thing inbetween! This is the way!

Yeah well bazzite was sort of my first real long term use of Linux, it was good for that purpose. Let me mostly just use the machine without needing to be a Linux hacker. I will probably move on to a more simple system after it breaks. It works fine as it is, I can solve many little issues it might have with repos or keys or something. Flatpaks are cool and all that, but some of the software I use like my tethering app, binary decompilers and compilers, and little misc tools aren't available in flatpaks. Sometimes if something is simple enough I just copy it into the bin folder I can't imagine that would cause many issues other than not automatically updating.

Using containers is just too much of headache for me rn. I'm usually pretty limited in my time, I work overtime most weeks. I'm often spending hours just trying to get one or a few simple things done in my off time. Fooling with extra complexity quickly just gets out of control. I don't want to use containers because, it's not integrated into the system, the file system isn't unified, it's tons of extra stuff to learn to essentially gain little to no benefit, and it often breaks more documented ways of doing things, and I rely a lot on documentation and forum posts and chatGPT and stuff to do these things because I'm just not on that level of Linux user yet. Reinstalling an operating system is fairly trivial to me. It's maybe a day, where adding all the complexity multiplies my inefficiencies over many days.

I bought a pocket sized mini keyboard the other day.

Here are some other good buys under $100

-Used graphics cards and computer hardware in general, sometimes you can get 1070s and 1080s for under 100 bucks and they still play most modern games just fine at highish settings. If you don't have the budget to build a powerful new system.

-Some cool tool kits

-Mini projector that is pocket sized.

-Pocket sized arm computer consoles. Made for emulation. Most run android which is a big downside but a surprisingly capable little computer if your cell phone isn't enough.

-Accessories, necklaces, wristbands, earrings, etc. Never a bad time to improve your looks.

-Buying shirts on eBay, it's a good place to find actually cool shirts.

-Rotary cutter and high quality scissors - good for modifying clothing to get a style you like, crop your own shirts to turn guy shirts into girl shirts, i got into this when I transitioned. Looking nice really helps with being trans.

-A large battery or battery case for your phone.

-Some used phones which have open bootloaders, which greatly increases the utility of your device. Be careful about devices which require signing. I made this mistake with buying a moto G. The unlockable bootloader on the moto G is mostly false advertising.

-Smart lights, led strips.

-Wifi mesh extender.

-A good set of Bluetooth headphones. I like brands like Sony.

-A wireless Xbox controller. You need stupid windows to update the firmware to make it work on Bluetooth often times, but it's nice to have a wireless controller to play PC games with.

-Old laptops to throw Linux on

-Microcontrollers with gpio, probably has enough processing power to get you to the moon and back if you are clever. A cool way to learn a bit about electronics.

-A nice high quality blanket, I spent 120 on a blanket many years ago, and it's amazing in the cold. Improves sleep quality significantly.

-Colored/RP contact lenses, upgrade your cosplay.

-Greek drachma coin, carry a bit of silver history in your pocket from 2000 years ago. Can be useful against the undead

-Handheld audio recorder. In many states you are allowed to record conversations and can use these in courts to force companies to honor their promises and verbal contracts. Phone companies have tried to make it impossible to record these conversations with corporations, but you can still do it.

-An old MP3 player.

-.22 revolver. Good for hunting and ammo is cheapish and lightweight.

-Folding chair/portable hammock - never be without a chair or bed!

-nice backpack, there are some cool ones with built in solar panels that can put out a few watts, when coupled with a power bank or two then you can always have a bit of portable power for charging your devices.

-used handheld ham radio, always a useful tool to have in uncertain economic and political times.

-Scout hat/ranger hat/sunscreen - take care of your skin if you work in the sun alot. Mineral based sunscreens are the least invasive even if they are kind of gross sometimes.

-Pinetime watch - cool little smart watch for 20 bucks that is open source, and you can easily write your own apps for

-cheap impact drill + adapter bits - once you use an impact with bits to fit all your sockets and screwdriver bits, you will hardly ever have to use screw drivers and sockets again, you will cut all of your repair times in multiples, go from a 1 hour repair to a 10 minute repair. Wallmart has some cheap ones that are plenty good for light duty use and will last many years.

-VPN subscription - Make it harder for people to spy on you, steal your keys, and censor you. Protect your IP from snoops.

-A domain + cheap webhosting - create your own website and buy at least a year if webhosting, you can find some cheap options for under $5 a month. Have a off-site cheap little virtual server that you can use for many things. Storing files, hosting websites, reverse proxy and reverse ssh behind bad routers.

-A good toothbrush

-Rechargable AA batteries - make sure they are 1.5v and not 1.2 v

-Pepper spray and/or a nice knife.

-Youtube premium subscription - more then 100 a year but get your time back with no ads, offline playback, free music streaming, and support creators more than ads do.

-ChatGPT+ - more expensive than 100 a year but nearly invaluable as a resource. The chatGPT5 model is excellent for many tasks and is significantly smarter and more aware of context than the free models. Use it for anything from helping you write scripts and bash, to understanding Linux. Use it to research and educate yourself.

-Better pillow, you spend 1/3 of your life sleeping, don't cheap out on it.

-Nice coat/shoes/gloves/etc - you spend 2/3rds of your life wearing clothes, don't cheap out on them.

-Reusable razor, clippers, maybe a waxing kit - Again, looks are important, how you look has a significant effect on how people treat you and effects nearly every aspect of your life and happiness.

-Old books, knowledge is increasingly being erased and manipulated by current regimes, don't rely on the internet for all your knowledge, pick up old reference books from thrift stores, medical, language, engineering, history, and anything else.

-Medkit, and then expand it, get stuff to do emergency surgeries. Keep a notebook in it with notes and also references for common things and instructions to use them safely. So e good emergency recipes to have are lidocaine from aspirin, a local anesthetic, and chloroform for emergency surgeries, dangerous but potentially life saving in some situations. Keep some extra stuff in there if you come across it, opiates, wide spectrum antibiotics, antipsychotics, benzos, iodine tablets whatever. Gauge and medical tape, stitches, Tylenol, alcohol, and other useful things.

-Survival seed banks, water filters.

-An offline battery device configured with offline AI models, can be useful for looking up information, even if it's really slow. Good for conversions, medical advice, and just general knowledge.

-Geiger counter - always a useful tool to have around, just to be sure, it also detects Radeon gas emmisions usually.

-Good quality pen, sketchpads, charcoal, erasers, colored pencils.

-Flute - make sure it's well designed

-Sex toys - life is too short for shame, be happy and practice good hygiene and don't do things you wouldn't want others to do to you, like touch your things after they have been weird.

-Good quality sunglass

-OBD reader - very useful for working on cars

-Serial bus to USB - If you are inclined to white hat hacking.

-A few high quality tools if you have the money to spend, get a good high quality set of magnetic screw drivers and some decent rachet wrenches but don't break them! Have a set of regular wrenches for breaking bolts first. Other useful tools are things like, magnetic parts bowl, mechanic gloves, safety glasses, extendable magnet.

-Nonplastic eating utensils, cut down on micro plastics!

-Glass bowl pipe - I don't smoke weed anymore, but when I did I always preferred a fine glass bowl to keep exposure to plastic and metal low

-A good quality belt or two

-Logic analyzer/good quality multimeter

-Mini vacuum - upgrade your cleaning

-flags - hang a flag to represent!

-Mini statue of Athena or whatever you choose - Improve your aesthetics, while making little offerings and prayers

-Compass, humidity detector, barometer - Never get lost if you can't remember the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, and predict the weather yourself, low pressure and higher humidity, and higher temps means its more likely to rain, high pressure, low humidity, lower temps on average means your weather is likely to be more stable.

-Laser carpentry level, used surveying level, be careful that it's calibrated - can be useful to have various levels for any construction tasks.

-Political pamphlets - hand out pamphlets to people to inform them that they have voted consistently for years to fund mass surveillance and genocide and brainwashing, hand out pamphlets at the courthouse to inform people about their right to nullify unethical legal proceedings as a juror, even in the face of jury intimidation and manipulation by the state. Make sure they know that the state belongs to the people, not billionaires, not stuck up moralists, not corporations, not to foreigners, it belongs to us, the citizens who work and build this land, and pay taxes, and are not corrupted by power.

-Old moniters or tvs from thrift stores - often damaged or has dead pixels but you can find some gems occasionally

-USB long range WiFi adapter - improve your life when using Far away internet.

-Laundry baskets/higher quality trash cans/storage containers - little micro optimizations add up over time to improve your happiness and time efficiency.

-Portable SSD - much faster than SD cards especially for random read and write.

-High quality large thumb drive - through a very well built Linux distro on it, perhaps hirens boot CD for windows repairs, some disk images, a few Linux distros, reference material, ebooks, documentation, old video games that are small so you can pack many on there, emulators with roms, offline copy of Wikipedia, AI models, if you have the space or multiple drives then make copies so your data doesn't get corrupted.