I'm dead excited, and I just wanted to share somewhere!
Since graduating from my Bachelor's I've been working in IT support, and it's slowly killing me. Progression is slow, the work is boring, and at the end of the day all I have to show for my efforts is (hopefully) a slightly lower number of open tickets than at the start. It all feels incredibly pointless, and like I'm not making a difference in peoples' lives.

I decided earlier this year to start looking into possible Master's degree programs, to help me enter a different field, and I'm happy to say that from next September I'll be returning to my alma mater to study Linguistics and English Language Teaching. From there, I'm hoping to go into teaching English as a foreign language, first abroad, and then to immigrants and refugees back here in the UK.

I'm super excited, and also a little nervous. I coasted through my Bachelor's and the past few years of my working life, so it'll be a shock to the system to have a proper workload again. I've got to get through the next 8 months or so first, but that will be easier knowing that I have something different and exciting waiting for me at the end of this particular career path. I'm desperately saving up as much money as I can to cover my living expenses for the year (I don't intend to work during my degree), which is another thing to feel nervous about.

But right now, I'm mostly just ecstatic, and wanted to share! In the interest of discussion, I'd love to hear about your experiences studying a Master's degree, and whether or not it helped you in your life after graduation.

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?

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/16

Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

When I was a child I never seemed to mind the winter, but in the past two or three years it's become exponentially harder for me to live through the cold and dark. I'm dreading the next few months.

The lockdowns in March and April were pretty agonizing because I had too many responsibilities but suddenly none of the support systems I had built up in my friend groups. I got through that because it was slowly getting warmer and I could just go on a walk if I needed space. But it's started snowing this week and I don't know how well I'm going to manage for the rest of the season, with it getting dark at 4 PM and seeing so few people. I get caught up in my own head in these destructive patterns of anxiety about past friendships and relationships and obligations that are very hard to escape from around this time of year. I have a lot of hobbies but I can't do most of them right now, so I kind of just end of staring at the wall or my phone for half the day, feeling bad that I screwed up a relationship or said something weird 6 months ago or whatever. On repeat for every day. I have some friends in the area who I like a lot, but I'm a little scared to leave my house from what I hear about the virus on the internet. I've been trying to do phone calls sometimes but they kinda just burn me out and make me feel worse.

I'm wondering if anyone else has a recurring problem with the winter like I do. I'm not sure if this is a normal thing and I'm just naive and haven't figured it out, or if most people are automatically as happy in the winter as they are in the summer. I've brought this up sometimes with people irl and they say "haha yeah I have seasonal depression too," but they mostly seem to just not like the cold (?), it's not the issue of banal-yet-existential dread and torturous self-probing that I can't avoid. I have a very sweet cat who will keep me company, and she's a good listener, but she doesn't talk a lot and she's hiding in another dimension half the time anyway. I journal and meditate every night, and that helps a little, but I really mostly rely on being able to go to pretty places to keep myself happy, and it's hard to do that when they're all closed or when it's too cold to be outside for a long time. If people have any thoughts or experiences I would love to read them.

thank you xoxo

Notice: This has been cross-posted to another website, and re-worded

I currently work in the eCommerce industry, and have hands-on experience building up a Shopify site from the ground up. As I watch all of the developments that Shopify makes both from a technical development standpoint and logistical standpoint, it becomes more and more clear to me that Shopify can begin to take on Amazon directly.

The introduction of Shop app, which aggregates all shipments into a single application including those outside of Amazon, also allows users to browse products from any particular Shopify store. The app also notifies you of any shipping updates, and when packages have been delivered.

From a technical standpoint, Shopify's main attractions come down to a few things: order management, credit card processing, customer management, and plugin integrations. This is the core of Shopify's platform for both larger and smaller businesses. Though due to Shopify's requirement of using their CMS to serve your content, enterprise users have to look elsewhere in order to build something called "headless builds", which essentially use alternate CMS mixed with Shopify's CMS to continue serving their content.

There are a few companies that make such software in order to build out a fully custom site while still using the Shopify platform as its core, though at the moment they are a little 'hacky' but still fully functional. Given the interest in Shopify's platform at such a high level, they are very likely working on their own headless framework which could allow for 1) mainstream stores to integrate their existing platforms into a unified Shopify marketplace, and 2) to allow stores to build out fully custom websites using the Shopify platform at its core and also enroll them into a unified Shopify marketplace.

Amazon has mostly become a front for cheap Chinese-made products, laden with review manipulation and questionable product quality. By instead bringing large brands on board with a unified Shopify marketplace, those stores can sell quality products backed by their brands which can gain trust from customers, and will give rise to smaller brands that may have been unnoticed by larger populations.
[ For example, I recently bought a pair of shoes from a very popular Shopify store: they represent quality, comfort, and eco-friendliness. I personally find myself more willing to spend money on quality products from companies I know I can trust. ]

What's everyone's thoughts? Are there any general problems that could come from Shopify trying to jump-start a full-blown marketplace? Do you think that companies would be willing to integrate their ERP's and CMS's with whatever API's or headless framework Shopify decides to build out?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/15

Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>