Is it fair? Probably, yeah. But I don’t think it’s an effective way of framing or addressing the problem.

The challenge is always getting enough people to do enough of an action that it makes an impact. It is certainly more effective, in terms of reducing emissions, to target policy interventions at leverage points - like forcing energy companies to adopt renewables by law and banning further fossil fuel extraction.

Personal action can be useful to live in alignment with your values and to provide examples to others for ways to get involved in the climate movement, but we can’t consume our way out of this.

What do you typically use your computer for? That’s going to have a major impact. If it’s pretty basic stuff (web browsing, text editing, etc) you shouldn’t have any issue. If it’s something that’s more complicated or unusual, then sometimes it’s easy to do and sometimes not, depending on what you want to do. In general, a little bit of comfort searching the web and working in the command line helps a lot with troubleshooting Linux

It continues to be buggy shit. I tried switching from Google Maps to OSMAnd on iOS and didn’t last a week

Everyone is capable of change. And I mean this as gently as possible, but it looks from your post history that you might benefit from talking to a therapist. It seems like you’re in a deep depression hole, and I know it can be hard to see it in the moment, but therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes can really do wonders for improving your mood and outlook on life.

Not with that attitude

Well, I’ve read a lot of theory, and I’m pretty sure our best bet is posting memes online, crossing our fingers, and hoping for the best. We definitely shouldn’t go outside and talk to people, that’ll never work

Yep. Winter in Michigan is a long gray hell. The summers are beautiful though! It’s enough that by June you’ve forgiven yourself for moving to a place with winters like that, until it’s January again and you’re wishing for a single ray of sunshine.

Aw darn, I usually like Vox. I guess I won’t be getting news from them as much anymore

Honestly, I think there is something to that. You probably do need to be a sociopath in order to become a CEO like that, but I’d also buy that becoming wealthy, by any means, is probably going to change you and your worldview whether you like it or not

Neat! I’ll probably try it out. Like it or not, short form video is really popular now, so this feels like a good thing to grow Pixelfed and the fediverse

It’s convention, I think. If I remember correctly, you always put y on the left, because you can also write equations as functions of a variable, x, with the symbology f(x) = mx + b. That way you can integrate and derive the function easily, since m and b are constants, and all your x variables are on one side.

If I were to encounter x = my + b, the first thing I would do, just by nature at this point, would be to convert it to y = (x - b) / m.

It’s been a while since I took math, and I was never the best, so others should feel free to correct me.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald and the brave men who died on board

I don’t think there is anything in particular that makes me uneasy in this job, but it has happened to me before that I thought things were fine when I was unexpectedly let go. So the fear is a little more real in that sense

Of course there are times when I look at the internet on my phone or whatever, but I have plenty of work to keep me busy, and I’m not falling behind either. So I assume that I’m doing the right amount of work, since no one is complaining

Yeah, impostor syndrome is a good way to describe it, and it does indeed suck. That’s all good advice though, thank you! It is such a strange change of pace to be judged on perception and not purely ability, especially since I feel like I’m not very good at reading other people and knowing how to manage relationships like that. People skills aren’t my forte, hence a career in engineering lol

Fortunately I think my manager does view me well, so I can try to reassure myself with that

Switch your browser (Firefox or Librewolf) and use uBlock Origin. Tweak settings for privacy and security (check the guide on /c/piracy). Use DuckDuckGo as your default search engine. Remove personal details from social media, especially anything public-facing.

No problem!

Relevant XKCD

Do you need to pay for your email provider with Monero? If it’s the VPN that you primarily care about, then I believe Mullvad accepts Monero

I mean, you’re more than welcome to try! I’m just curious why this issue in particular strikes you as a high priority