Former USAF JAG here (lawyer). I was always a tech geek, undergrad major was in MIS actually, but I didn’t enjoy coding. Always ran Plex on the side, built my own computers, etc. Grew up with my Dad using Linux everywhere (I found this annoying as I just wanted to play games on Windows).

I didn’t enjoy law (surprise!). I was disillusioned with the criminal justice system too. Quit the law in 2020. Then suddenly had quality time by global happenstance to rethink my life path.

I work in IT now. Restarted at the bottom of a new career but I’m in deep nerd territory now - Proxmox servers, Home Assistant, networks with VLANs, OPNsense router, 22U server rack, Linux as my daily driver, etc.

Much happier now.

Yes it only works on Pixel phones. For other devices I recommend looking at DivestOS, CalyxOS, and LineageOS - in that order from best to worst insofar as de-Googling and privacy are concerned.

Hello friend. Indian American here. My parents immigrated here, and their ticket in was education. I understand your grades aren’t great, and I also acknowledge that my parents did come from middle-to-upper-class privilege.

I work for an IT company who employees (not outsources) individuals in India. Several of them have left India to come to the U.S. or Canada. For all of them, education has always been the way out. They knew they wanted out, so they grinded hard in the short-term, and applied aggressively abroad for graduate-level education.

Find a niche in something that does interest you. It seems you are very socioeconomically aware, consider something in such a realm that makes you stand out (yes, I understand this is easier said than done, especially in a nation of 1.3…1.4? billion).

Saying that, also understand that STEM-related expertise areas are much more sought after. So it might not be a bad idea to focus on that side and/or diversify.

I won’t contest a lot of what you said about India - much of that is accurate. Some of that is more cynical than necessary. But change is slow and it would be wrong of me to tell you to stay and change a nation in a region notoriously resistant to change. Unless you’re the next coming of Barack Obama charisma, in which case, please help change India, hahaha.

You’re young, you have plenty of time. So don’t feel burdened not finding a spark at this era in your life. My Mom immigrated here only after marriage, when she was 28. The coworkers I’ve mentioned have all been in their late 20s or early-to-mid 30s.

I want to add - you’re not worthless. Don’t devalue yourself needlessly based on the decrees of an unfair and unjust society or uncaring peers and family.

If you are on iOS, I recommend using the following:

https://ente.io/auth/

It’s open-source and recommended by PrivacyGuides.

I’m on Android, where that’s also an option I believe, but I’m using Aegis.

Bitwarden also came out with an open-source MFA app, though it’s a bit new so I’d recommend waiting to see what folks say about it.

Raivo uses to be a good (and the only decent) choice for iOS but I believe it was acquired by an insidious company.

As a huge fan of Star Wars content from before Disney got involved and poisoned it (notable exceptions of Rogue One, Andor, some of the animated shows, etc.), I utilize warship names from the Expanded Universe (now called “Legends”) - what I like to call True Star Wars.

My main server is Chimaera. My backup server that also performs as an NVR is Lusankya. My separate mostly-NAS server away from my server rack is Admonitor.

I have sci-fi themed names (not all Star Wars - two other franchises represented here, virtual kudos to those who can identify) for the storage pools too (using TrueNAS SCALE on all three servers):

• Chimaera (Main Server)
  • Star-Forge (Apps/VM Pool)
  • Holocron (Data Pool)
• Lusankya (Backup + NVR Server)
  • Shadow-Broker (Apps Pool)
  • Resurrection (Backup Pool)
  • Spynet (NVR Pool)
• Admonitor (NAS Server)
  • Mount-Tantiss (Apps Pool)
  • Datacron (Data Pool)

Conservatism.

I’m a leftist and former practicing attorney who has interest in geopolitics and public international law - I studied this world as my niche previously.

They’re not correct. Constitutionally, the Executive has very broad powers in international affairs. The War Powers Resolution (WPR) was an attempt to constrain this. Administrations have largely been careful to state their actions are “consistent with” the WPR. Courts have not properly come to any real decision of its bounds, keeping this lane very gray and deferring to inherent Executive authority regarding foreign affairs. Obama was the only one who partially paid it some heed when he asked for Congressional authorization to militarily intervene in Syria as al-Assad began use of chemical weapons on his citizens in the midst of the Syrian Civil War (who remembers the red line to not be crossed…that got crossed?). The legal framework authorizing the use of force has basically been the AUMF, plus other broader, vaguer legal concepts that have held up under judicial review.

Anyway, big fan of the Justice Democrats and always concerned with U.S. use of force abroad, especially after it became apparent how fascist despots like Trump can come to power and do great harm to international peace and security. But on this topic - Biden’s within legal bounds, by all accounts.

Believe me, you won’t feel this way by the end. Best show in the universe. The dark aspects are necessary for the story, but the payout is amazing. I constantly want to rewatch it.

Instead of LineageOS, see if DivestOS exists for your device. It’s more secure and private than LineageOS, and forked from it.

For your launcher - try Neo Launcher and its companion, Neo Feed.

QKSMS is best for SMS at the moment.

For contacts and phone, try using whatever comes stock with DivestOS. It’s probably the AOSP base of what Google uses for Google Contacts and their Phone app.

I use Google Camera for my Pixel solely because of the processing you can’t get elsewhere that lets me use my phone’s camera to its full potential.

Otherwise try Secure Camera from GrapheneOS team, and/or Open Camera.

The FossifyOrg forks of the Simple Mobile Tools suite is also worth investigating.

Everything is political. Everything. Only the ignorant ignore this.

You might have missed when they tried to overthrow democracy in the January 6th terrorist attack. These people are not our people. It’s a brewing war. They refused compromise for decades - it has been tried. Your lack of knowledge of history and politics is showing.

You’re too naive.

There is a paradox of tolerating the intolerant.

Our enemy are fascists, plain and simple. They don’t deserve a voice. The only intelligent approsch is to combat them, as their purpose is to subvert democracy, however horribly flawed a system it is, with exclusionary autocracy. This era isn’t one of two parties who both believe in democracy, finding some disagreement on issues. This is a crisis, “post-fact” era where truth is ignored, corruption and power-grabs are blatant and undisguised, and bigotry is rampant.

No.

Society tolerating people with evil views begets more evil.

I don’t have one - it took me a very long time to find it - back before also-MAGA Elon bought Twitter, I scrolled back to his history and saw re-tweets and comments in November/December 2020 regarding the election denial nonsense.

If you’re able to find archive of this, I’m sure you’ll stumble into it (assuming it’s not able to be found on the website now).

The trigger for me to even look for this was a random video in which he was badmouthing LA/California in the video/comments and it made me grow suspicious.

I was so disappointed to see that this guy was a MAGA supporter and election denier.

Yes, I do care about the politics of people not in the political space. I don’t think people harboring such lunatic views should be legitimized.

Something extremely modular and upgradable like the Framework, but with a 4K 120Hz HDR OLED display, that can fold back into 2-in-1 mode and that has connectivity for full bandwidth of an external GPU. Additionally, some way to connect to up to 3 displays at full 48Gbps HDMI 2.1 bandwidth (each) - at least - DP 2.1 would be even better. Maybe via multiple display outputs or some insanely-high-bandwidth port like Thunderbolt 5 for dock connectivity.

The intent is to basically have a tablet-to-laptop-to-desktop experience, with virtually no compromises.

CNN is now owned by a MAGA-loving billionaire. Definitely not a liberal news source at all - hence the many changes happening at a slow trickle.

Society.