There’s a great book, Capital In The 21st Century, that goes into a lot of detail on why inflation is common in modern economies despite there being large stretches of time just a few centuries ago without any noticeable inflation.

The author’s argument is that inflation benefits governments that are in debt. If the government owes a trillion dollars that has to be paid off over a 100 year loan, the government has the tools to raise inflation over that time span to where a trillion dollars is no longer a lot of money. And during that 100 years the government can just keep paying the minimum interest payment and let the rest of the loan become worthless overtime.

For us regular folk, we can get some of the same advantages with fixed interest loans over 30 years, etc.

I made the mistake of becoming a manager about 4 years ago. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the job. If you have a good relationship with your team they’ll usually tell you something like “I’ve been getting contacted about other offers, here’s what they’re offering.”

It’s usually about a 20% bump. I’ve not once been able to convince the company I’m at to match it. Usually the best I’m allowed to do is something like a 5-6% raise in the next salary increase cycle.

I’ll usually know for 2-3 months a team member is leaving before it actually happens because of this. Of course, if I’m allowed to hire a replacement they’ll let me pay market value.

Job hopping is definitely the best way to get a pay increase.

I buy those canisters of pizza dough at the grocery store. Make a simple sauce by warning canned tomato sauce, adding a little olive oil, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and just a pinch of red pepper flakes. I spread the dough thin, add some olive oil and bake. After the doughs baked on its own for 5-6 minutes I add the sauce, spread spinach around and depending on the time of year some basil leaves from my herb garden, then top with mozzarella cheese. Continue baking until the cheese is melted.

Simple and refreshing.

It’s interesting how you can guess the age of this tweet based on the prices listed. Is this from the pre-Covid days?

I’d also be interested in learning about IRC servers that were more social and less technology driven.

When you’re in school you’re often stuck with the software they require. No harm in that. Once you’re finished with school you can reevaluate. If you want to be more privacy focused you could make sure you’re only using Gmail for in a Firefox container tab for instance or look into sandboxing it other ways.

For the same reasons don’t worry about keeping Windows on your computer for classes. It’ll get easier when you’re out of college, any job will give you work equipment with the software and tools they make you use and you can keep all personal information out of those. You’ll be able to use what you want on your personal items.

Privacy is important, but not important as passing your classes.

You’re doing great!

I still haven’t been able to give up reddit but I have always been a lurker there. Here I’m trying to make a conscious effort to participate in conversations. I’m trying to be positive, kind, and thoughtful because that’s what I want lemmy to be.

That looks really good. I might have to consider something like this for my projects. I’ve done a little sewing but never worked with leather before. Do you have any recommendations for learning?

I believe you have a great honor. When I opened up this community it tells me there have been exactly 420 posts. When I sort by new this is the one that comes up. I think you’re lucky number 420!

Cool greenhouse btw!

I’ve found for the last 3-4 years I haven’t had to fall back to Google. DDG results have been good enough I can use it full time.

AI for me as well. I’ve played with it a little and it’s kinda fun. Every company is pushing AI now including in areas where it doesn’t make any sense or is many years away from being useful. I’m also seeing a lot of developers being assigned to use AI without any directions on what to use it for.

I’m far enough along in my career I don’t need to worry about being replaced by AI. If it’s ever good enough to take my job I’ll be happily retired writing software for fun and living my life without AI. I just don’t have any interest.

After decades of using different window managers, fixing broken configs with major updates, fretting about multi monitor config etc I started using GNOME. It might not look as sleek but I’m a lot more productive now.

In the end I’m just glad we have so many choices.