Peruse this relevant meme. It depicts the magical transformation that occurs at the moment one taps the Android build number for the seventh and final time, as the arcane ritual transforms one from a chill dude in a business suit into that powerful, shadowy figure known only as "a developer".

It's a joke, obviously, but only half a joke. The "You are now a developer!" message that the developers at Google programmed your phone to display, when it grants you this set of powers that Google permitted them to program it to grant you, is doing something in the model of the world that its authors live in.

"Developer mode" isn't just for Android. The browser you are reading this in has a little panel you can open to inspect or adjust the content of the page. It's useful for things like composing humorous screenshots, deleting annoying ads, and downloading images and videos, but it's called the "Developer Tools", a set of tools defined not by what they do but by who they are intended or imagined to be doing it for. Discord has not only a "developer mode" that lets you get the permanent identifiers for messages, but also additional developer-exclusive functions that are activated by enabling the Electron developer tools and injecting code to set the isDeveloper flag. Windows has a Developer Mode. ChatGPT ~got one for some reason~ has a popular jailbreak based around convincing it that it has one. This notion that a special class of people called "developers" exist, and that they must or should be afforded extra power in our society's digital spaces, is woven into the structure of the digital environment.

Why is it like this? Big Tech doesn't give any power for free. Is it something their labor force of developers demands to be able to grant to their counterparts outside the company? Is it a Ballmer-Doctorow gambit of courting programmers as potential business customers by temporarily empowering them, before they start putting up the prices on the code signing certificates? Is it to distract and mollify hackers, to keep them from seizing similar powers in a more destabilizing way?

Is there any truth to the notion that "developers", independent of whether or not they are currently testing or programming something, are a class with different needs and rights from normal humans?

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?

Hello I hope you all have a good [insert time of Day] !!!

Maybe a bit of background about me:
(25 Age idk if that is relevant, but it could be interesting how other age groups see that)
I really like unique stuff. If it's design or clothes or web design or whatever you might think of. I have been working privately on my own website, and I built it almost from scratch. I really like unique-looking websites, and I also like the 2000s era style of design (not only limited to web-design).

I have been noticing a lot of websites that they look more and more the same. The same structure, design, similar colors, similar pictures etc, etc...

And I think this is just very boring and it just feels like more and more the web isn't made for us humans. It feels everything is being more and more optimized either for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or for AI scrapping. And I feel like being alienated from using the internet (Yes, also sadly that's the case in many other areas).

And I asked some people and what they basically told me is that they like that everything looks the same and everything feels the same. Since they can go on every website and understand the layout and know how to navigate every website.

So I wanted to ask what is your opinion about this topic?
Do you care what the Internet looks like? Do you mind that everything looks same~ier?

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.

I wanted to share this nice little story that happened just minutes ago. I'm putting this on a post because perhaps people would like to share their own stories for the vibes.

I went for a quick grocery run. On the way back, I realized that I did not have my wallet in my pocket anymore. It wasn't in my pocket and it wasn't in the grocery bag.

The walk to the store was quite short but I did not see it after backtracking. A guy spotted me looking for something on the floor and asked me what I was looking for. With some diligence, he verified that I was indeed looking for a wallet and he pointed me to a barbershop close by. There, two guys were looking for me by searching my name on Facebook using the ID in my wallet.

I thanked them (in the local language, neither my first nor second language) and went about my way because I didn't know what else to say. I felt like I could have done more. Like thanked them with more words or given them a small reward etc. I was overwhelmed by the unusual situation that I didn't have any time to think.

I got home and searched for a non-monetary token of appreciation but by the time I came back they were already gone. I didn't even think they were going for a haircut.

Anyway, that was a super nice experience even though I kinda feel bad for not having shown more appreciation. I was already at the point of transferring money out of my card but I was lucky enough to have found such kind souls.

Anyone have similar experiences recently or otherwise?

Inspired by the recurring topic every Steam sale over at /r/GameDealsMeta:

• What are some lesser-known Steam games that you recommend?

• Are there any genres you’d like hidden gem recommendations for?

If you're interested in previous Hidden Gem topics, you can find them here.

For popular recommendations and general purpose sale discussion, please use the main Steam Sale topic.

Optional: Feel free to categorize your recommendations by number of reviews (as a proxy for popularity)

Following this guide (linuxtechi) and got Mint Cinnamon 22.2 (Zara) - yes the iso is verified, created bootable USB with Etcher, and after the screen where I input user details and password, well along the install process, got a fatal error (screenshot) :
Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda
Executing 'grub-install/dev/sda' failed
This is a fatal error
Here is a screenshot of the GParted, fdisk, df, lsblk and what re-running the install now looks like.

Restarting (after pulling out USB) , instead of going to Windows 10, goes to a black screen that says

This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any key to try again ...
Turn it off, back on with USB, at least I can still boot from there into USB-space mint for now.

I'm guessing this has something to do with some peculiar hardware/BIOS settings than the fault of Mint. Worth mentioning that this is a refurbished 2013 HP box (order excerpt) , with a windows 10 digital key license, and that upon every fresh boot up (first time ever to now) it shows a black-background screen that says

The preboot authentication application cannot be found.
Press any key to attempt boot without authenticating.
so it's very possible something is bork'd from the get go or else it has some very unorthodox settings to begin with.

Can confirm running Mint off the USB is fine. The screencaps are sent from Firefox within, and I'm super happy with how clean everything is. Just not sure what to do now. If it's complicated, I can try sending the box back for refund and try again with another brand new box. But now I'm shy about trying dual boot on my regular desktop.

Questions after looking around for help:

1. am I booting from UEFI or Legacy? I don't know -- how do I check ?
2. Fatal error installation hard stop: is there a way to access a log of what happened ?
3. How do I boot back into Windows 10 for now ? use GParted to delete all the "new" partitions and try booting again?

Edit: gave up . It's now a Mint box. Goodbye Windows you can kiss my dust

Hi all,

I've got (probably) a few thousand family photographs that I plan on scanning/digitizing. These photographs are organized into dozens or hundreds of envelopes with month/year and sometimes event description written on them. I'm on the fence between using a service to do it or DIYing it with a scanning machine.

The way I see it is -

Service pros:

1. I don't have to do it myself

Service cons:

1. I may have no control over how the digitized photos are tagged or organized (date tagged, filename)
2. Risk of photographs being lost/damaged
3. $$$$

DIY pros:

1. I can tag and organize the photos exactly how I want
2. Much less expensive

DIY cons:

1. I have little spare time and this project could be extremely time consuming.

I would love to hear if anyone here has experience doing this and what techniques or pitfalls you may have discovered along the way.

I've been having a difficult time recently, which has been leading to my absence here and a lot of crying in my real life. I don't deal with letting go too well. I keep texts and pictures and messages and every once in a while I like to look back at them and remember that somebody out there at one point was capable of loving me.

It's not like I don't have friends that love me either, I've spent days and days at other people's houses just crying, people have taken me out to eat and cry and just feel my feelings, and people have been reminding me about the things they like about me too. I mentioned it to a friend that I've been having trouble letting go and we dug into it a bit more, about why I want to keep these things. My friend asks why I need the love to come from other people first. Where is the self love?

My core issue has always been needing to be reminded that I am loved. It's really silly sometimes, because on some level I know that I am. But something is missing.

There's an old saying that we judge other people by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a bad person. Or if I think I am. Because if I didn't have that, why would I have such a hard time forgiving myself?

I don't really know how to self love, to be honest. I spent all day today barely working, just mindlessly staring at a screen playing a stupid game and not leaving the house. I dunno. Maybe I just need some ideas. I set up a couple more appointments with my therapist this week, but sometimes when it's 2 in the morning like it is now I just can't sleep and spend more time hurting myself in my own head.

Inspired by https://tildes.net/~life/1q0v/what_is_a_business_org_thats_so_terrible_no_one_should_use_if_possible

If you're finding it hard to come up with something, remember that medium, small, and local businesses do exist ;)

Also, good deeds are not enough; their product must be awesome too!

If at all possible, let's keep this positive!