I know some petrochemical engineers, analysts, and a tribologist. I asked them about exactly this. Their responses, to a one, is: the oil will not run out; it will just become too expensive to extract. Now, I’m just some jerkwad on the internet, and my anecdote is only that.
That’s a long time to be eating one thing.
Pure fucking luck applying to an ad on Indeed. I was summarily fired from my previous job under deeply perplexing and seriously odd circumstances. Over the next seven months, I sent out over 800 tailored resumes and cover letters. Job applications were more work than a full time job. In the prior seven months, I had a grand total of 12 actual rejection letters, 2 ghostings, and 1 interview that never got past the first round.
I applied to an ad that popped up on a Saturday morning and the recruiter called me less than 30 minutes after my application. I thought it was a scam. Turns out the dude is just motivated and deliberately posts his ads on weekends to also find motivated people. Not sure I agree with that bit, but hey, I’m an engineer, not a recruiter.
So, yeah, the job market is really feeling like a sheer numbers game. FWIW, my whole 35+ year career, I have been accustomed to sending 1 resume or application and getting the job I want. Usually, recruiters, companies, or former coworkers poach me from my employer. There’s been some massive shift in things, and it feels like something intentional to disempowee workers.
It’s the enterprise level backend stuff, technical systems management for Outlook, implementing rules and policies, assigning account group memberships, reports, SharePoint administration, etc.
Thanks. And now all I can hear is “BRUSH brush ~brush brush~ FLOSS floss ~floss floss~.”
Well, clearly YOU didn’t learn your lesson! :D
I’d cook people flavorful meals, packaged up and ready to grab in the morning. Maybe they’d come home to a dinner spread after a rough day. And then I would infiltrate banking systems and regularly but stochastically credit poor people’s accounts with amounts below the revenue departments structuring threshold.
Finally, I’d find people with test anxiety and coach them through the problems.
Not electronic, but definitely a (set of) gadgets: a compact set of tools. Specifically, I carry a Wera Tool Check, but most any multi-tool with bits and adapters will do, e.g. the old Gerber Diesel with the bit set and carrier.
Regarding useful and reliable, it’s Wera, so high quality, and I’ve saved so much bacon (including my own) with this kit.
But where is “Damn, I just suck at this game?” You know how some people are utterly amazing at games? That’s not me. At all.
They were acquired by Opta Group in 2023. Since then, the quality has declined while prices increased. And around the time of their acquisition, they started doing some shady stuff when claiming USB-IF compliance. The cables were blatantly not USB-IF compliant.
Another example: I personally love my Anker GaN Prime power bricks and 737. Unfortunately, among my friends and peers, I am the exception. The Prime chargers are known for incorrectly reading cable eMarkers and then failing to deliver the correct power. This has so far been an issue for me twice, but was able to be worked around.
This is absolutely by design. The corporate raider playbook is well-read. See: Sears, Fluke, DeWalt, Boeing, HP, Intel, Anker, any company purchased by Vista (RIP Smartsheet, we barely knew ye), and so on. Find a brand with an excellent reputation, gut it, strip mine that goodwill, abandon the husk on a golden parachute, and make sure to not be the one holding the bag.
“It’s what … I do?”
The US really needs a replacement, for example a national digital ID based on PKI… you revoke their access to the account, and everything else that uses the account can keep working
There is already an open standard growing around exactly this concept, Web5 Distributed IDs (DID): https://dev.to/tbdevs/what-is-web5-233o
Disclosure: I worked on the implementation for an Open Banking company (does that need to be disclosed? <shrug> I’m including it lest someone think I’m a shill)
Not to be confused with transcoding, which is important to viewing media.
Got a source on that? According to Backblaze, Seagate seems to be doing okay (Backblaze Drive Stats for Q1 2024 https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2024/), especially given how many models are in operation.
Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording. It uses a laser to heat the drive platter, allowing for higher areal density and increased capacity.
I am ignorant on the CMR/SMR differences in performance
Pssh… call me when they’re dipping in McD Szechuan sauce. That’s the real sign of intelligence.
I grew up in NY. The gun control laws were draconian 45 years ago. I can’t imagine they have become more lax since I departed the state 30 years ago.
My misguided, ignorant younger self would absolutely assume self-blame.
Now I’ve got engineering powers and skillz! I can rationalize… errrr, I mean EXPLAIN my missteps with root cause analyses and preventative actions! 😆
In the link that @naught101 shared, Koha is the first suggestion. I configured and deployed Koha to a group of early adopter libraries in Vermont. It’s super powerful and probably has all the features a Stuff Library could ever need. Unfortunately, as you commented, it’s bringing a lot of features unnecessary to a Stuff Library. The built-in OPAC is my favorite part, but the deep customization is a close second.
As an aside New Zealand just dominates the library FOSS space. It amazes me how any of the big corporate players can even compete. For anyone who wants to put together an online digital library, check out Greenstone.