Here's a follow-up to my New Year's resolutions rant six months ago:

( https://devrant.com/rants/1117379/... )

I've completed (or made significant strides in) 5 of my 7 resolutions:

1) Rid and keep my like free of toxic people.  This includes parents.

I have had a serious conversation with everyone who made my life worse and whom I wanted to keep around, outlining my issues with them and my expectations should they want to remain in my life.  I happily cut out everyone who refused to change their behavior, including my parents.  My life is quieter now, and much nicer.

3) Take care of myself for a change!

I've started this, but with work, a monster, etc. it's been almost prohibitively difficult.  Minimal lasting progress despite considerable effort.  I will make more time for it and make it happen. (I was down 12 pounds at one point! Though this isn't just about weight.)

4) Stop putting up with things I don't have to.

If I don't like something optional, snip snip!
I no longer wait patiently (fuming) for slow-moving people.  If something prevents me from being productive or going about my day, I no longer let it.  Carpe diem; calcitrare culus! I have been much more productive and energetic because of this.

5) Actually enjoy things I enjoy.

Okay, this one is very difficult.  Whenever I'm not working, I feel like I'm wasting my time.  However, I have made a conceited effort every day to take time off and do something that sounds fun.  Sometimes that's more work, but usually it's music, a game, a book, exercise, or bed.   I'm still working on actually enjoying my time away from work, however, but I'm making progress!

7) Finish de-googling my life.

I no longer use a gmail account (except a work-provided account), nor do I use any of their services unless absolutely necessary (and I do so through TOR).  My phone still has Google Play Services; however, I'm working on finding a replacement that I can @Root.  (Suggestions welcome!)

------
The two resolutions I haven't yet addressed:

2) Find a well-paying job that isn't also toxic.

My job has gotten less toxic of late, with the boss actually listening and everyone writing up feature requests (with co-sponsors) instead of just dumping them in my lap.  I perform an effort analysis on them, and everyone discusses them as a team to determine which actually deserve development time.  This is tens of times better than before.  I also no longer have to be at the office.  In fact, I haven't been there in months -- and don't even remember the alarm codes haha.  I may also be getting another developer, though I suspect this is actually a lie.

6) Finally buy a harp. I've wanted one since I was 3 ffs.

I haven't done any research yet on which harp(s) I should buy.  Also, I have no idea where I would keep it, so I may defer this until we move, or just get a tiny one (lap-sized and cute!) to practice on. Probably both!

------

It's been six moths, and I'm happy with my progress. 😄

Years ago, when i was a teenager (13,14 or smth) and internet at home was a very uncommon thing, there was that places where ppl can play lan games, have a beer (or coke) and have fun (spacenet internet cafe). It was like 1€ per hour to get a pc. Os was win98, if you just cancel the boot progress (reset button) to get an error boot menu, and then into the dos mode "edit c:/windows/win.ini" and remove theyr client startup setting from there, than u could use the pc for free. How much hours we spend there...

The more fun thing where the open network config, without the client running i could access all computers c drives (they was just shared i think so admin have it easy) was fun to locate the counter strike 1.6 control settings of other players. And bind the w key to "kill"... Round begins and you hear alot ppl raging. I could even acess the server settings of unreal tournament and fck up the gravity and such things. Good old time, the only game i played fair was broodwar and d3 lod

I did it: I built up another PC identical to my machine (https://devrant.com/rants/2923002/...) for my SO and installed Linux Mint for her, too. That had been my primary motive for an easy and stable distro in the first place.

Now that didn't come out of the blue. We were discussing the end of Win 7 already two years ago where I brought up my concerns with Win 10 - mainly the forced, lousy updates and the integrated spyware, and that I was considering Linux as way out.

I had expected quite some pushback because she had been exclusively on Windows since the 90s. However, I didn't sell Linux as upgrade. It's just that Win 7 is over, progress under Windows as well, and we're in damage control mode. Went down pretty well.

Fast forward three weeks - remember, first time Linux user and no IT-geek:

- it just works, including web, videos, and music.
- she likes Cinnamon.
- nice desktop themes.
- Redshift is as good as f.lux.
- software installation is just like an app store.
- updates work via an easy tray icon.
- quote: "Linux is great!"
- given this alternative, she doesn't understand why people willingly put up with Win 10.
- no drive letters: already forgotten.
- popcorn for upcoming Win 10 disaster stories.
- why do Windows updates take that long?
- why does Windows need to reboot for every update?
- why does Windows hang in that update boot screen for so long?

I'm impressed that Linux has come so far that it's suitable for end users. Next in line is her father who wants to try Linux, but that will be a story for tomorrow.

Continuation from :
https://devrant.io/rants/835693/...

Hi everybody! I am sorry that as a first time poster I am building 2 long stories, but I really like the idea of connecting with other people here!

Well, as I was mentioning before, I got a job in Android development and had a blast with it. Me and the developer clicked and would spend our time discussing PHP, the move to other stacks (I was making him love the idea of Django or Spring Java) games, bands and cool stuff like that. This dude was my hero, his own stack was developed in a similar MVC fashion that he had implemented from scratch before for many projects. It was through him that I learned how to use my own code (rather than frameworks and other libraries) to build what I wanted. I seriously thought that I had it made with a position that respected me and placed me in the lead mobile development position of the company. Then it happened. He had taken 2 weeks of unauthorized leave, which was ok since he was best friends with the owner of the company, those 2 along another asshole started it so they could do whatever they wanted. And I could not make much progress without him being there since there were things that he needed to do, that I was not allowed, for me to continue. When he came back I was quickly rushed to the owner of the company's office to discuss my lack of progress. The lead developer was livid, as if he knew that he had fucked up. He blamed the whole thing on me (literally told the owner that it was my fault before I was summoned) and that we lost 2 weeks of business time because I did not had the initiative to make progress on my own. I felt absolutely horrible, someone that I had trusted and befriended doing something like that, I really felt like shit. I had mad respect and love for this guy. It got heated, I showed the owner the text messages in which I showed him my pleas to led me finish the parts that were needed while he was away. Funny enough, he acted betrayed. After that it was 3 months of barely talking to one another except for work related stuff. He got cold and would barely let me touch the internal code that he was developing. It was painful. The owner kept complaining about progress and demanded that I do a document scanner for the company, which was to be attached to their mobile application. Not only that but it had to be done with OpenCV. Now, CV is great, but it is its own area, it takes a while to be able to develop something nice with it that is efficient and not a shitstorm.
I had two weeks.
Finished in one. After burning my brain and ensuring that the c++ code was not giving issues and the project was steady I turned it in...to their dismay. And I say so because I felt that they gave me such a huge project with the intention of firing me if it was not done. After that it was constant shit from the owner and the lead developer. I was asked then to port the code to the IOS version. I had some knowledge of it already so I started working on it. Progress was fast since the initial idea was already there and I really love working on Apple devices. And when I was 70% done the owner decided to cut me loose. At first he cited things such as lack of funding and him being unable to pay my salary. I was fine with that even though I knew it was not true. So at the time I just nodded and thanked the company for my time there. Before I left, he decided to blame it on me, stating that if they were not producing money that it was perhaps my fault. I lost my shit, and started using my military voice to explain to him how a software company is normally ran. Then I stormed out.
It was known to me, that the lead developer had actually argued against me being laid off. And that he was upset about it, we made amends, but the fact remains that I was laid off because the owner did not think of me as an asset, regardless of how many times I worked alongside the lead developer or how valuable I was actually to the company, their infrastructure did get better while we worked together, so I just assumed that he never actually did any mention of my value.

I lasted 2 months without a job, feeling horribly shitty because my wife had to work harder to ensure our stability whilst I was without any sort of salary. At this time I had already my degree, so all I had to do was look better. In the meantime I decided to study more about other technologies. I learn React, and got way better at JS and Node that I thought I could and was finally able to get another job as a full stack developer for another company.
I have been here since 2 months. It has been weird, we do classic ASP, which is completely pointless at this time, but meh. At this time though, I just don't really have the same motivation. Its really hard for me to trust the people that I work with and would like to connect with more developers.

So today installed this plugin on all my compatible JetBrains IDEs:
https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugi...

Especially as an Android dev I look at Gradle build progress bars about 99% of the time, so better make them look great while I'm at it.

A follow up for this rant : https://devrant.com/rants/1429631/...

its morning and i have been awoke all night, but i am so happy and feel like crying seeing you people's response. :''''') Thank-You for helping a young birdie like me from getting exploit.

In Summery, I am successfully out of this trickery, but with cowardice, a little exploited and being continuously nagged by my friend as a 'fool'.

Although i would be honest, i did took a time to take my decision and got carried away by his words.

After a few hours of creating a group, he scheduled a conference call , and asked me to submit the flow by which my junior devs will work.
At that time i was still unclear about weather to work or not and had just took a break from studies. So thought of checking the progress and after a few minutes, came up with a work-flow, dropped in the group and muted it.

At night i thought of checking my personal messages , and that guy had PMed me that team is not working, check on their progress. This got me pissed and i diverted the topic by asking when he would be mailing my letter of joining.
His fucking reply to this was :"After the project gets completed!"

(One more Example of his attempts to be manipulative coming up, but along with my cowardice ) :/

WTF? with a team like this and their leader being 'me'( who still calls him noob after 2 internships and 10 months android exp), this project would have taken at least one month and i was not even counting myself in the coding part(The Exams).
So just to clarify what would be the precise date by which he is expecting the task, to which he said "27th"(i.e, tomorrow!)

I didn't responded. And rather checked about the details of the guy( knew that the company was start-up, but start-ups does sound hopeful, if they are doing it right) .A quick social media search gave me the results that he is a fuckin 25 year old guy who just did a masters and started this company. there was no mention of investors anywhere but his company's linkedin profile showed up and with "11-50" members.

After half an hour i told him that am not in this anymore, left the group and went back to study.(He wanted to ask for reasons, but i denied by saying a change of mind ,personal problems, etc)

Well the reality is over but here comes the cowardice part:
1)Our team was working on a private repo hosted on my account and i voluntarily asked him to take back the ownership, just to come out of this safely w/o pissing him off.
2)The "test" he took of me was the wireframe given by their client and which was the actual project we 5 were working on. So, as a "test", i created 15 activities of their client's app and have willingly transferred it to them.
3) in my defence, i only did it because (i) i feared this small start-up could harm my reputation on open platforms like linkedin and (ii)the things i developed were so easy that i don't mind giving them. they were just ui, designed a lot quickly but except that, they were nothing(even a button needs a code in the backend to perform something and i had not done it) . moreover, the guys working under me had changed a lot of things, so i felt bad for them and dropped the idea of damaging it.

Right now am just out of sleep, null of thoughts and just wondering weather am a good person, a safe player or just a stupid, easily manipulated fool

But Once again My deepest regard from my heart for @RustyCookie , @geaz ,@tarstrong ,and @YouAreAPIRate for a positive advice.

My love for devrant is growing everyday <3 <3 <3 <3

UPDATE ON MY GAME DASH WAVE :D
From last time that I showed you my game that we made on global game jam, I and my programming partner decided that we would take this game as a hobby project. So we upgraded it a little:
- we added the tutorial,
- leaderboards,
- indication where you clicked,
- tweaked enemy behaviour,
- changed the way the score is calculated
-and other small fixes.
But we didn't do anything to the core mechanic.
I would really thank all devranters and also my family and friend that downloaded the game, played the game and gave it positive feedback and pointed out some bugs to fix. You really gave me motivation.
Here is link android version: https://play.google.com/store/apps/...
Here is link windows version: https://rokkos.itch.io/dashwave
So do you want to be updated with the game progress and maybe also some rants about developing?

I hoped I would write about other things than EU internet regulation... But I hoped wrong.
The new online antiterror regulation is flawed, too.

What will the new regulation change?
The EU plans stricter anti terror laws for online platforms. In a nutshell, reported terroristic content has to be removed in <1 hour> after reporting. While automated filters are not required (the EVP party and the EU commission wanted those, but couldn't get a majority in the perliament), but it is unclear how to fulfill the regulation without.

What is the current progress of the regulation?
The EU parliament approved the draft, the trialogue will begin after election. The parliament has to approve the final trialogue result again and might reject it then. The characteristics of the regulation might change, too.

Who (platforms) will be affected?
All platforms, "offering servicd in the EU, independent of their business address" (free translation from German).

Will there be exceptions (e.g. for smaller or non commercial platforms)?
No.
At the very first report, the platform will have 12h time.

What are the consequences of not following?
Regularly breaking the law _constantly_, up to 4%/of the total yearly revenue.

Sources?
- The "fact sheet" of last year (upload filters were still a requirement): https://ec.europa.eu/commission/...
- The law proposal itself (also outdated): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-con...
- Proposed changes by the EU parliament (I'm not sure which ones were approved): http://europarl.europa.eu/doceo/...
- German news article: https://golem.de/news/...