Every single backpack I've seen that is functional and has at least some basic organizational features (see Bellroy, Peak Design, Alpaka, etc.) is usually pretty ugly and makes you look like a weird tech bro. And every single backpack that looks good is usually made by a fashion company (eg Zara, Pull&Bear or luxury brands like Prada) and don't have any utility features, only a single big pocket and maybe a laptop sleeve if you're lucky.

I have managed to find one backpack that looks awesome and is actually useful - Sympl Day Backpack. However, I'm out of luck here, because it has been discontinued by the company, and their other backpack models also have that "tech nerd" look to them (although they're not as bad as some other options)

Do you, by any chance, know some backpacks that both look fashionable AND have more than two pockets at the same time?

Edit: there's also Topo Design Daypack Classic which looks good in the black and white variant, but it does lack some useful stuff like laptop sleeve padding

Edit 2: I managed to find another awesome looking backpack! The ISM Bag. I might actually get this one, although $300 is somewhat expensive

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I've been looking at job postings at tech companies. Many of them have pretty bad Glassdoor reviews
(and I tried pretty hard to play Devil's Advocate while reading!). I think there's no perfect company out there. Still, I notice a lot of mentions of overvaluation, layoffs / diminishing culture, stressed employees / long hours, insurmountable tech debt, junior / inexperienced leadership, "toxic" culture, Hire-to-Fire 15% PIP cultures, etc. I feel differently about a lot of companies I used to aspire to join.

In the midst of all that, I also then see small startups. 10, 20 people. It sounded like way too much work at first, but I know some people who seem pretty fulfilled by such a setup and not (visibly) half as stressed as I was at a ~70 person mismanaged startup (although engineering headcount was pretty small). Some part of me wonders if a small company, even of strangers, would actually be less stress because we wouldn't yet have made the mistakes on culture mismatch, growing headcount, adding features to get growth that may never come, etc.

edit: adding clarification

Oh yes, to be totally clear-- a lot of the Glassdoors / Blinds were actually for large tech companies, including but not limited to "startups" originating from 10 years ago. Some were also smedium sized (~6 years old, ~50 people, typically Series A or earlier) so had been doing the startup thing long enough where you can see the team is starting to fray.

In my post, it's basically a slightly unhealthy comparison between older companies that have had lots of time to screw up, and companies that have not yet publicly or irrevocably screwed up (the small, new startups). Of course, I'm then kind of assuming I won't be the reason something fails when I totally could be lol.

Does anyone else find themselves in the loop of always starting a new project? Of looking up tips and tricks to clean their room but then never get around to the actual cleaning? You want to buy just this one extra thing and THAT will change everything (spoiler: it doesn't). If I could just make a schedule for myself, then I could...

That's the "getting started" loop. Where you're always looking for the newest, so-called solution without enacting any of them.

Disclaimer: I have diagnosed ADHD and take Vyvanse Monday-Friday. But ADHD meds aren't a magical panacea. I'm a less anxious person. I'm able to get my work done. I've got the basics covered. But my personal life is really...neglected? I'm certainly not thriving. I don't have a good role model for what "adulting" looks like. Yknow the people who have thriving social lives, who can do their laundry without procrastinating, who get their butts into the gym without overthinking it.

I have so many hopes and dreams from being able to finally cleaning up my room and keeping it organized to wanting to stream and make videos for Youtube. I want to go back to school. But I am so afraid of change and not doing a good job, of not doing it perfectly, that I just don't start anything.

How do you avoid the loop?

Fundraising has always been a part of campaigning but ever since I made a small donation several years ago, Ive been getting constant appeals to donate more (in Canada). I always wonder though, what exactly that money gets spent on? Are they just buying ads on tv and online? Or where does it all get directed?

I recently moved to a new place with a new ISP, and my Mullvad VPN isn't playing nicely with Firefox like it used to. Can any of you networking gurus please help me troubleshoot?

When the VPN is enabled, most requests from the browser fail immediately. If I pull up the dev tools Network tab, I can see that these requests fail with an NS_ERROR_FAILURE message before any data is transferred.

I have Firefox configured to use "strict" Enhanced Tracking Protection. When I reduce it to "standard" my requests go through.

I'm also trying to use DNS over HTTPS with a custom provider (Mullvad, via https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query). I'm configuring this in Firefox, using the "Increased Protection" DoH setting. When I do that, Firefox reports the DoH status as "Status: Not active (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)". This happens even when Enhanced Tracking Protection is set to "standard" — in other words, that reduced setting fixed the NS_ERROR_FAILURE for HTTP requests, but not for DoH.

So how do I fix this so Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection, DNS over HTTPS, and Mullvad all work together? I never had this problem with my old ISP, so I suspect something's being blocked at the WAN level that I need to circumvent.

• OS: macOS Sonoma 14.5
• VPN protocol: WireGuard
• ISP: AT&T Fiber

I'm just using the official Mullvad client app with mostly default settings. The fiber gateway modem/router came with some default packet filtering firewall rules but I disabled everything in the admin panel. Weirdly, rebooting my machine fixed this temporarily, but the next time I disconnected/reconnected the VPN it broke again. Other browsers (with default settings and no DoH) are working fine when the VPN is connected.

Edit: Solved! Solution here.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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