How do I make enough money to live?
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 90%

    First, I'm sorry that you find yourself in this situation.

    Second, there's no magic bullet that's going to get you out of this. A tight budget might help, and perhaps tinkering at the edges might get you a little closer.

    There's a few things that might help:

    1. Check what your paying for what. Can you save a few bucks by switching contacts? Phone companies are crap at offering good deals to existing customers, for example. Make sure your not paying for any long-forgotten warranty given in your account.

    2. Upskill yourself: things like Alison offer free training, and a small cost for the certificate. While not enough to match a degree, that can give you the leg up to the next pay band. Often worth checking out New Skills Academy as well for offers.

    3. Check out your local college/university for free short courses. Many of them will do short courses that can help improve you're CV. Even if they are just in a subject you're interested in, having a university course on a CV can really help.

    4. Google your CV type: every type of work has a different CV requirement. Some want the biggest qualification first, some want a skill profile. We've all been taught to do a CV, but there are hundreds of different ways to do it. Check out what's popular in your line of work, and update accordingly

    5. Job hunt now: if your current job isn't paying the bills, it's time to job hunt. Look at the salary you need, then what you need to know to do the job. If you have 70% of what they are asking for, apply. Luck plays a bigger part in job hunting than we like to think.

    6. Side hustle or not to side hustle: if you have a salaried job with regular hours, check your contract. It's always good to know what requirements your current job has on having a second job. If your not feeling like a content creator, then Only Fans may not be for you: unless you happen to be really well endowed with good features. If that's out, consider an evening job or weekend job. You might be able to pick up a few hours stacking shelves at your corner shop, or on the till/cash register. Two nights a week might be enough to help you make those ends meet. You can also try side-hustles like dog walking, or handy-person. Perhaps even a paid befriending service for the elderly (be aware there may be legal requirements in your area)

    7. Plan: having a goal helps keep you focused. Knowing what job you'd like to do will help you work out what training and skills you need. Having a goal being that can also make the grind of two jobs easier as you can see yourself building towards a goal.

    These are some broad-brush ideas that I hope gives you the idea that is it's not totally hopeless.

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  • Much ado about "nothing" - Xe Iaso (==Goodbye NixOS)
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    There are two tensions here:

    1. Community building
    2. Code production

    Community building can be done without any coding, coding can be done without any community. However, to build a large project you need them both.

    In a large volunteer project like this, not everything can be worked on. You become selective. We are going to major on this thing, or specifically talk about that project to get community engagement and get the thing done. This drives the project, she helps it to stop chasing hairs. Someone has to decide what feature is going in this release to make it ready to be a release candidate.

    That group of people, ultimately making and influencing those decisions, is the CoC.

    Let's take a for-instance: Sign up boxes.

    For years, Linux sign up allows you to record random data into your profile, office, phone number, etc. These are text, and can be anything. Now, what if there's a rising need to add a minicom number(minix, used to be used by the deaf to send messages to an organisation, before email). As a hearing person, this is going to be a low priority for me, so I work on something else. I've got spare capacity, so if the project leaders are calling for help on this thing, I can go and help.

    This, ultimately, builds a better over-all product, but it's not something I'd have noticed by myself, because I'm not part of the deaf community.

    In our example with NixOS, asking for someone from the community to be a representative on it is not about code quality, but about the issue of visibility. Is there some need that that section of the community needs? Is there a way that the community can do y thing to make the os as a whole more accessible? I don't know the answer, because I'm not a member of that community, just as I'm not a member of the deaf community.

    In this case, the merit, the qualification, for being on the CoC is being a member of a section of the community. It brings valuable a viewpoint, and adds a voice at the table that can make a real difference. Most coders know that having a wish list of features at the start can make it infinitely easier to add them, than having to go back an rewrite to make them happen. Having a voice that might need that feature makes a difference

    The debate for CoC is about merit, but merit isn't just stubbornly focused on a single talent, it can also be about life experience.

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  • Why the heck do I need to pay for security updates???
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 66%

    I don't run Ubuntu, but was surprised I'd not heard of this.

    This is canonical trying to make money for security updates, and stopping companies just running it for free, instead of using a licence (my own take). They are following a model by IBM, apparently.

    You can get round it by getting a 'pro' licence for free for up to 5 machines. At least according to ask Ubuntu. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1452299/im-getting-the-message-the-following-security-updates-require-ubuntu-pro-with

    More reasons to avoid Ubuntu, imo.

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  • Liz Truss endorses Donald Trump to win US presidential election
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    Quick, someone ask the lettuce their opinion! We need an experienced post-holder as a counter point!

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  • Tips on making your data less sellable?
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    Choose an unclear gender (other, agender, etc) and your data becomes less useful. Marketing campaigns are based on broad categories, like male or female, so choosing neither lowers your data's value.

    Similarly, lie about your education and your employment. Pick a made up job, be a wizard, or a spaceman. Jobs, again, are wide categories, so nonsense jobs, the more niche the better, the less they have to market things to you.

    In theory you can do the same with hobbies, but three points of data, even made up data, is sellable somewhere.

    Lie, of course, if you can. I'm sure there are more denizens of Hell on Facebook than the real place.

    Where possible, choose other.

    12
  • Unity is reviewing its product portfolio and says layoffs are "likely"
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    Oh lookit! Trying to fleece people using your product in good faith backfires.

    Who'd have think?/s

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  • What are some ways that you can grow a website/blog?
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 80%

    In the modern world, I'm not sure a blog without advertising is going to work - especially hosted on your own domain.

    You will have better luck with substack or koffi, who's search algorithms will at least suggest related sites - and increase your visibility.

    For decent views you are going to need a way of generating audience - that used to be Facebook and Twitter, but Twitter is dead, and Facebook is showing reduced returns of a saturated market. However, reduced is but 0, so it's still worth throwing up a page.

    After that, a public Mastodon profile will help in audience creation, but that's very much a slow burn, and you'll have to make sure you #tag properly.

    3
  • ℍappy ℍamilton Day! (Sorry, a nerdy math joke)
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    Comrade lemming, I love your enthusiasm. I think I get the basic idea that a quaternion is a number made up of 4 squares.

    I love your belief that I know a complex number! (I don't).

    I would love to have a better grip on maths, but it has always alluded me. I once got a maths PhD student to tutor me, and they said I lacked a fundamental understanding of number.

    I will keep reading, it may click!

    Thanks for your reply!

    2
  • Please check you kids' Halloween candy, everyone
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    I would be very interested in the list of banned books, and how it would be curated.

    For 64gb, you might have to extend the years to be: banned books ever, and then break down that list by reason. Just to fill space you'd end up including dubious books, and you'd need to be clear on where/who/why a book got banned.

    A book being 'banned' from a pre-school for being 'not age appropriate' by some pointless helicopter parent wouldn't count unless the book was actually age appropriate.

    Then you would need a category of 'banned by author banned'(or similar). Books that were considered age appropriate at the time, but now definitely aren't. I'm thinking here of the recent removal/editing of Dr Seuss books to remove problematic racial stereotype. Not necessarily banned in their original form, perhaps, but still censored (perhaps, rightly so for the target age).

    64GB is a lot of books. You would end up even including 'The tale of (Darth) Pelagius'

    (Pelagius was considered a heretic in the early years of the church, and his writings were banned)

    14
  • ℍappy ℍamilton Day! (Sorry, a nerdy math joke)
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    I did not understand a word of it, but I appreciate the length of post, comrade lemming. One day I will understand quaternions - today is not that day. Gave me flash-backs to my Undergrad maths for software engineering. I didn't understand it then, either.

    That said, I should probably understand vectors first.

    Your post needs more love by people who do get it.

    5
  • Dealing with a partner who talks and acts like a small child?
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 93%

    It seems like a form of age-play.

    Age-play is a kink where an adult enjoys some of the pleasures of being child-like. This may or may not be sexual.

    However, what she's doing is involving you in her play without your consent. That's a big no-no in most kink-like relationships.

    My advice is that you both do some research on reputable kink-sites around the nature of kink in general, and then (and only then) explore and read about age-play. I say this because like most kinks there's a lot of missinformation out there.

    Once you've done both done some reading, it's time to open up a proper dialogue around this issue. Part of that dialog will have to be how important this is to both/either of you.

    You may be able to 'scene' together- that is, have a defined start/end time to this kind of play. It may well be that there are other ways that your partner can fulfill this need, and hopefully your research will have helped you put together some of these. Not everything needs to be fulfilled by the partner. Or, you may find that you have clashing red-lines. That is, it's something you can't do, but something she needs, and you can't find your own compromises.

    At that point, you may need a kink-friendly couples therapist. A good one will help you work out how to make this work for you, and ask the equality important questions about what you need.

    Do you research well, but do point out that all kink must be confidential.

    27
  • Hitler’s American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman | Long Read Review
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 87%

    An incredibly well-written piece. Even if the subject matter and conclusion are chilling.

    6
  • Is there something better than SQL?
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    I don't know if there is, but it feels like the email protocol problem.

    Like, while the protocol sucks in many, many ways, it would take something revolutionary to replace it because it's everywhere.

    It's been around so long that everything talks the protocol, the binaries that handle it are mature and stable.

    Then you have to ask: what would you replace it with? It does the job it's designed to do very well. There's nothing the matter with the protocol, and it's still fit-for-purpose.

    That doesn't mean there aren't problems - spam, bad actors, and so on, but ultimately that's not the fault of the protocol (though, maybe, for email, people have been arguing about protocol-level ways of dealing with spam for years).

    I don't have an answer, but I feel like there should be one, but I doubt the is.

    15
  • A message to new users
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    However, unlike Reddit, there's alternatives. You might not like the community on @lemmy.world, but you might like the community on @anotherlemmythatmight.exist.

    Because of the federated nature, communities will naturally fracture and focus. Here, a bad faith mod will just kill a community on instance a, and people will move to instance b.

    We've already seen things happen like this under the banner of 'free speech', where people believe that free speech means free from consequences. If you think that, there are plenty of instances out there. Lemmy.world isn't one of them.

    This means that you can find your favourite community in places with different server rules. Which means it will be the community - the people, the mods, the knowledge, that grows one, not just the fact the names taken.

    6
  • Steam won't run The Sims 4 [Linux Mint]
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 50%

    You may want to look into Lutris. They've done a lot of work on bringing windows games to Linux, and basically do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

    It will also link to your Steam, EA, Origen, Cog etc accounts and do the same for games there as well.

    0
  • Unity rushes to clarify price increase plan, as game developers fume
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    So, Game Pass would have to pay per installation huh?

    Which is going to mean a lot fewer Unity-based games showing up, because no company is going to suddenly be okay with fees out of nowhere. Especially something that allows you, the user, by design to install something, try it, then delete it if you didn't like it. Not only that, but gamepass is from pc and console. You find a game, love it, install it on console. Then discover you can mod it, so you install it on pc. Gamepass is now on the hook twice.

    Yeah, unity did not think this through. Even if that is unity working as intended, that's still a stupid policy. Either games will now have to be more expensive, just in case, or have install licences, requiring even more dial-home to monitor.

    Add to that unity not saying whether or not it's going to use dial-home as a counter, and that works for games written years ago. Indy developers are now going to have to think long and hard about advertising old games, or discounting them. I would imagine a few of them will be pulled from stores, just in case.

    There's a lot of lack of detail here: like, how do you as a developer know how many installs there are?

    The free 200k limit, does that mean profit you made, or is that 200k sales? These two things are not the same.

    Time to revisit Goddot.

    19
  • CPU load over 70 means I can't even ssh into my server
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    The last time I saw this was on a slow-failing HDD.

    Check a quick fsck might get you a few answers. You can find more info in the Linux manual. It could just be one or two bad blocks that you can recover and fix the problem (though, ofc, it's time to backup your data).

    The other, slightly unusual time I've seen it is with mixed RAM. 16gb made of 2x6g and then 2x4gb did some real odd things to the system. If it's not the disk, and your box will boot with one stick of ram, try it to see if it fixes the issue. It could be that your RAM speeds are off (or your like me and just put two sticks you had lying around, and it basically worked until it didn't).

    An outlier, that I've not seen on modern machines is io/wait for a CD-ROM to spin up, even if your not accessing the CD-ROM. Normally caused by bad cabling. Based on the age of your machine, this is unlikely, but it might be worth unplugging devices to see if one is bad and not reporting properly.

    This is, if course, assuming dmsg is empty

    Final thought: see if your running SELinux. If you are, turn it off and try again. Those policies are complex, and something installed in a non-standard place could be causing SELinux to slow IO as it fills your logs with warnings.

    Hope that helps,

    12
  • [Help] making a persistent Debian live install from Windows
  • BlackXanthus BlackXanthus Now 100%

    No preventing me from formatting, but from resizing the disk so I can make space for the linux on the internal SSD.

    1
  • Hello Everyone, I have a Windows laptop that I want to run Linux on. Due to the drivers being encrypted (on install, from the factory), I can't repartition the drive and dual boot. My plan is to run a live install from a USB stick. I've tried a live Debian ISO, and it works fine for my purposes (WebDev). However, the live install isn't persistent, and doesn't use all the space on the 64gb usb stick for storage. There are tutorials online that show how to make a live install while *already* running Linux, but for some reason, the live install doesn't see anything plugged into the other usb slots. So, my question is, how do I get a persistent, usable version of Debian on a USB stick from Windows? Thanks, -BX Edit: Laptop is a HP Envy, with touchscreen. The reason for keeping windows is that (as of yet) I have not found a way to use the touch-screen/pen combo with Linux. Being able to boot off USB will allow me to test solutions without losing what works

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    Hello Everyone, The issue: I have created a page that loads two other pages into div's at the press of a button, and then removes them on another press Both these pages contain JavaScript. On one of the pages, the JavaScript fires when the page is loaded to fill out values pulled from a database. The pages are loaded using a simple Ajax call, that puts the contents in the div. The problem: obviously loading pages this way means I can't use 'document.load' to fire the JavaScript. I'm also finding that none of the scripts are loaded either. I have a solution that can load the JavaScript after completion of the document.load, but for some reason it's not detecting the global variables with the initial Json data in it. Both pages work individually. The question: 1. How do I get this to work? 2. Is there a better (preferably non-iframe) way of doing this? 3. Why, when the JavaScript is loaded manually, is it seeing the global Json values as 'not yet defined'? Happy to offer any other information needed. Thanks in advance

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    BlackXanthus Now
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    Black Xanthus

    BlackXanthus@ lemmy.world