It's seems to have been common sense for a while now that Windows has good-enough security software that you don't need 3rd party tools but is it actually the case now? Is there anything to lose or gain from trusting 3rd party with this stuff?

I'm constantly using the Better Than Bouillon vegetable base when I need vegetable broth, because it's so convenient, space efficient, and it keeps longer than those cartons of vegetable broth.

But, I recently looked at the ingredients and was a bit put off, as I've been trying to eat healthier (less salt, sugar, and processed ingredients.)

Does anyone have any recommendations for something with a similar level of convenience and shelf life?

I am super bummed about Aaron Rodgers' injury. I was rooting for him individually, but also it is sad for the Jets and the league as a whole. Do you have any suggestions for what the Jets should do now? Just stay the course with Zach Wilson? Make a trade? Take someone off their couch?

This book uses cartoon mascots assigned to three areas of music training on the keyboard: dexterity skills, reading/writing/listening, and repertoire performance.

Each mascot starts off as a cute lil’ dude and evolves into huge powerful creatures as the child “levels up.” My ultimate vision is a book or book series that utilizes the mascots in figurine form for prize-incentives and mascot videos to offer help and guidance for individual activities.

The first prototype will only feature the books, and I expect to finish it in the next 1-2 months.

I was hoping to get a list of potentially interested parties that would beta-test the book without cost in exchange for feedback/testimonial.

If you’re interested, please send a message through my website— https://alexgoodhart.com/lessons (you won’t see any mention of the book there, but can send your contact info through the inquiry form).

If you’ve any thoughts to share here I’m all ears! Thank you — Alex

As you may well know, Fairphone is a company that originally arose from a kickstarter campaign and makes phones that are as easily repairable, as sustainable and as fairly sourced as possible. They do have their issues, but compared to other big phone companies they've done a great job with this.

Now it appears that Fairphone is due to announce the so called 'Fairphone Keep Club' on the 14th of September - a bonus program as we all know it. You buy stuff, you get points for what you buy, and when you've got enough points you can redeem them to buy more stuff.

The keep club website claims that it's the only rewards program that gives back to those who keep their Fairphones as long as possible, but judging by the listed 'challenges' it appears that the most efficient way to gain points is to simply buy new stuff.

Personally I'm a bit torn on this, due to the idealistic viewpoints I tend to judge Fairphone under in accordance with their stated sustainability goals. I do realize that is a much higher standard than the big-players in the phone industry achieve. I also get that Fairphone wants to build its brand identity and create incentives to keep customers and sell their products. But at the same time I can't help but think that in the end that program is an incentive to be less sustainable, as it ultimately provides you with those fancy points as a psychological incentive to buy the newest and latest Fairphone product.

So I wanted to bring this topic into a wider community that may not currently be as deep in the Fairphone bubble: Do you think such bonus programs will rather help spread the idea of a more repairable, sustainable approach to phones, or will it rather serve as an incentive to artificially shorten a phone's lifecycle by prematurely buying a new one? And more generally speking: Do you think advertising strategies rooted in consumerism and classic capitalistic company goals are compatible with sustainable product lifecycles somehow, despite not exactly having aligned interests?

Note that I also posted this on Lemmy. I'm interested to see how those discussions will compare.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?