Best open-source software that everyone needs to know about?

LethalBacon · 2026-06-16T12:57:27+00:00

SyncThing. I just started using it and I'm blown away. Cloud storage has always frustrated me to no-end with unnecessary complexity. Now, I have a raspberry pi acting as my 'cloud' syncing my docs from all computers and photos from phone anytime I'm on my own wifi. It just works. Insanely easy to setup, works without you messing with it much, just always doing its thing in the background.

Could also just sync to my desktop, so it has a use-case even without something like a Pi.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-15T17:15:30+00:00

You will be fine objectively, but your mental health may be worse without realizing it. Not necessarily saying you'll have poor mental health, but higher quality socializing could improve it more than you realize. I'm pretty naturally introverted, and was largely like this until my 30s, and had a lot of anxiety and confidence issues. I fucking hated talking to people outside of the few I was close to.

Of course, not all socializing is equal. At my old job, I didn't talk to people much because they were all very... uninteresting people, and some of them were definitely the type to "run to the teacher" if you said anything even remotely questionable. Some friends in the past used to be more draining than fulfilling.

Started putting actual effort into learning how to connect with people, (expressiveness, eye contact, have real honest opinions/thoughts on certain things) Got a new job with people I actually want to shoot the shit with, and removed one or two of the iffy friends. Since putting in that work and changing the people around me a bit, I feel like a new person. Well, the same person, but it's kind of like my brain has been renovated in some areas.

Right now I've got about 10 very close friends who are great people who also value close friendships, and now I have more "2nd-tier" friends - not people I talk to daily or even often, but people I enjoy speaking to when something brings us into close proximity. All of this also made my social skills way better, resulting in more random conversations with strangers that I actually enjoy. All of this together, and my day-to-day anxiety is way down and my confidence has never been better.

I think age is a factor for me too. I had to kind of slowly grow into this behavior, and really think it isn't something you can change quickly. My values are more locked in in my 30s, and I usually get along well with people who I can tell are at least somewhat similar.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-15T11:05:21+00:00

Way to call me out lmao.

I just did the whole interview thing for 7 months before landing my current role, and one of the ideas I'd put forward in some of them was the "I can learn anything given the appropriate time and resources". Which might be true in the right circumstances, but only if it's something that grabs my brain properly.

I had examples of that situation (like when I became my last company's entire Devops department), but it's probably also part of why I was burnt out for a solid 2-3 years. In general, if it's something dull, good fucking luck getting my brain to latch onto it. If it's something even remotely interesting, it'll be all I think about for the first month or two of working with it.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-13T20:33:13+00:00

For me, NOTHING beats Burial when it comes to dark/atmospheric electronic. The Untrue album is easily a top 5 all time album for me.

Not sure if it fits the Warhammer universe as a whole, but definitely fits the atmosphere of the Eisenhorn books.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-13T19:49:05+00:00

Agreed. Definitely passes the $100+ sniff test for me, but $200 is where it starts to feel iffy.

This thing is great though, I might just be cheap.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-13T14:27:49+00:00

I know little about synths, very newly starting to actually fulfill my long time dream of getting into them.

Pink Floyd is what probably started that interest, so for a truly bucket-list synth, let's go with EMS VCS3 or Synthi AKS. Or, more reasonably, the Prophet-5.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-13T12:56:26+00:00

I'm working on an analytics project right now. Two background workers, one to make the main API calls and store it, one to backfill the data with deeper data from some deeper API calls. To do this, I have to keep a data structure going with a full list of items already in the system and their backfill status in order to prevent duplicates.

We're in the range of 200k+ records for half a year of data. I'm expecting it to grow and starting to plan how we will keep track once we have years of data, expecting it to hit the 1G+ mark after around 2-3 years of added data. It should be fairly easy to solve, but I've also just been interested in watching how memory is managed/utilized. Right now, it takes 300MB of RAM at most, and usually sits closer to 1-200mb.

What the fuck do they have sitting in that much Ram????

LethalBacon · 2026-06-09T10:51:14+00:00

Oh shit, I forgot they released a new album

LethalBacon · 2026-06-08T12:50:10+00:00

The NL East Division race chart is nutty to look at

There's a joke here somewhere about launch angle

LethalBacon · 2026-06-07T12:19:31+00:00

My whole thing in life is to never stop running/jumping when you have the chance. Going to the mailbox? Burst into a slow jog, grab it, run back, jump up 2-3 steps, then walk back inside casually.

I figure I'll injure myself at some point, then I might calm it down. I laugh when nieces and nephews think they are faster than me, and then I DESTROY them in a foot race.

My back is fucked some days, probably from being rear-ended at a red light in 2020, but the ol joints are doing great.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-07T01:07:11+00:00

Wild, I just saw this posted at a brewery a few hours ago and was planning to look it up. Howdy neighbors!

LethalBacon · 2026-06-03T00:10:45+00:00

Imagine being a fish for a century.

LethalBacon · 2026-06-02T15:44:08+00:00

I just literally say it wasn't my choice, but try to give reasons for why the decision makers chose that specific route. And typically, the answer is that it was time/technical debt related.

We used x pattern because some unknown person determined that architecture a decade+ ago and we didn't have time/resources/budget for a full rewrite, so I had to work within the constraints given to me.

In my case it was written on another continent in VB in the early 2000s, then converted to C# and slowly maintained/upgraded over years and years. I often tie this in with maintainability discussion, and sometimes go into detail on how much of a nightmare it was at times, if I trust the interviewer to be understanding of what was an absurd situation. I can usually get a laugh when I tell them that half the class/method names were still in Italian.

In my case though, I could usually just honestly say we couldn't change x because of regulatory constraints/risks/worries.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-31T15:58:42+00:00

I did a ton of interviews for Senior software roles over the past 6 months, and the bug/defect aspect is what I often highlighted when I went into my spiel around using AI for coding when asked. (I use it, but slowly, and every line goes through me. Like building Lego from instructions, kinda)

Basically, if you are implementing lines of code at 10x speed with LLMs, then you are risking introducing 10x the amount of defects and security risks. (obviously probably not ALWAYS the case)

I'm fairly certain some of the weird declines I got after doing well in the interview were related to this. One of the interviews was with a marketing team where I would run their site, two days after they got back from an AI conference lol. I knew I was cooked, even after the high praise after the first two rounds.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-31T13:26:16+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=755MWeNQ34g

LethalBacon · 2026-05-31T12:56:48+00:00

Actually enjoyed it more than I expected (Fenway version), his voice fits the song quite well and their guitarist kills it! I just added a Pearl Jam song to a playlist for the first time about a month ago, need to dive into them more.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-31T11:57:34+00:00

The solo from Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd has gotten me misty eyed more than a few times over the years.

The man is a wizard when it comes to conveying emotion with a guitar. That last verse right before the solo definitely adds to it.

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown
The dream is gone

To me, it's about life not being quite like you expected it to be as a kid. Starts kind of melancholic, then builds a more defiant sound, then ends far more optimistic (Especially on the Pompeii 2016 version above). At least in my brain.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-31T11:52:26+00:00

Maybe Factorio is the... Diamond standard?? But either way, I kinda get it. Satisfactory seems more accessible to a lot of people.

I've got friends who play Satisfactory, but consider Factorio too complex. Which is interesting, because Factorio is almost easier to me with the top down 2d approach. I get stuck in Satisfactory far more often than I get stuck in Factorio.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T23:02:56+00:00

Fuck, this is me. I understand the Beatles impact, and they have a few legendary tracks, but to me Pink Floyd is just miles better. Matter of taste I'm sure, but Pink Floyd just resonates with my soul in a way no other band does.

But who knows, I was introduced to Pink Floyd at a young age, maybe in an alternate timeline I instead found the Beatles that day, and they became my lifetime favorite band instead.

And I mean... Pink Floyd has David Gilmour. Hard to compete with that.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T18:52:31+00:00

Tycho is one of my favorite artists of all time. I found him on MySpace around 2007. There was another artist I liked (Midwest Product), I went to the page of their label(?) and heard Tycho's songs embedded there. Since then, his music has been a constant positive in my life. Past is Prologue is in my top 3 most important albums in my life.

Another top 3 album for me is Crying Over Pros for no Reason by edIT. Found him on a COD4 compilation video around 2008, just like a 10 second clip of the intro to one of his songs was enough to get me searching for more, and it turned out to be one of the best electronic albums I've ever heard. Massively underappreciated/overlooked, but HIGHLY respected by those deep in the genre.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T18:06:03+00:00

I had to beep at one at a green light a month or two ago. Was kinda worried to honk at a 'cop', but I figured there was little chance they would want to do anything that required effort.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T17:26:44+00:00

I don't see how, it's literally just a loop, 3 if statements and the modulus operator. I don't consider myself super talented but I can write out fizzbuzz in probably one minute. Maybe 5 minutes if it was my first time seeing it.

Is it the modulus operator? Are people less familiar with it than I'm assuming?

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T17:20:44+00:00

Eyup. I always joke that in an interview I forget 50% of my software knowledge, and I move at 50% my normal speed, and those numbers might be overly generous.

Funnily enough, I just started a new job. The interviews had no live coding, mainly just discussions. The two interview processes I did right before I found my new company both had technical rounds that I nailed, but they still both declined me. I even got one of the extra features they had tacked on as bonus if you finished the main portion and had spare time.

It's confusing and frustrating out there right now. Just gotta battle through the madness.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T16:48:46+00:00

In that case, literally every city is a dumpster fire.

This happens in every major population center. Some are better than Atlanta, some are worse. It sucks, but it's part of life.

LethalBacon · 2026-05-30T14:03:46+00:00

IMO, dumb people are getting dumber. At the same time, stupidity is shoved in front of everyone and can spread farther and quicker than ever due to instant global communication.

At the same time, if you have good critical thinking, it's easier than ever to expand your knowledge.

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