Depends on how niche. Some stuff unfortunately only comes from truly large user bases. At a guess, the further you go from a tech/liberal core and overlapping hobbies, the longer it will take for the content to emerge.

The people who are here are more willing to post. So less of us overall but also less lurkers.

Hey now! Gitlab ci is totally fine so long as your simply running your build.sh file out of it. Anything more and your risking madness.

It’s a little more complex then that.

First we need to draft a project to keep the PMs happy. Then test the change…

Then get it through change management…

Or just have our friends in secops make it a security call and a priority. Not saying I’ve done this before - no sir.

First off, aiming to start in security is a fools errand. Security is one of the many paths that your career might take after you gain some knowledge.

Some more random thoughts before real advice. The two hardest things in IT are getting into help desk, and getting out of it. The reason is two fold: 1) help desk is the great entry point for the greater IT industry, and 2) one person in a help desk role is fairly similar to another when it’s time to move out of help desk.

Now: If you have the time, go to your local community college and take their it/networking/security program. The degree will help - you won’t skip help desk (unless your lucky), but you are better equipped for getting out of it. You will also learn a bunch of stuff, get some projects to stick on a resume, etc.

If you don’t have that time you can go the cert route. Be warned however - certs do not substitute for real experience. Do not fall for the trap of thinking that getting X cert is your ticket to Y job. You will be in for a ride awakening when your sitting across from someone like me that only asks situational, hypotheticall questions with no correct answer ( I care about how you think and approach problems over book smarts).

Ok. Last bit of advice: the 10 things I look for (in order) when interviewing entry level help desk.

1. customer service skills,
2. ability to learn,
3. customer service.
4. some mild interest in tech.
5. customer service.
6. the ability to learn troubleshooting.
7. customer service.
8. the ability to admit you don’t know…
9. customer service.
10. not being an asshole.

I can teach you how to fix a printer, design a network, or spin up infrastructure in the cloud. I can’t teach you how to act around people.

It’s $100. In 2023 that does not even cover groceries for a middle class household of four for a week.

If you want to advocate absolute austerity to someone who has no expenses yet - go for it. Me? The world is shitty enough as is - of something’s going to make you happy, and you have no other expenses, go for it.

Don’t spend your money because it’s a " good deal". In theory your guardian(s) are covering the expenses the rest of as as adults just accept. Therefore take advantage and spend your money on what brings you joy.

You being up an interesting point. Let’s expand electricity a little bit.

If I flip a switch the lights come on. I don’t need to understand it but someone does. And because electricity can be deadly of handled wrong, everyone in your proximity handles electricity the exact same way (and this is enforced via law). This means only a few people anywhere need to have the deep knowledge of how it works for the rest of us to get light.

Compare this to computing - sure you click the button and get Facebook but that button could be designed any number of ways. Like electricity the generation who tinkered is past (well passing), but unlike electricity firm standards on how to design your Facebook button have not been written in blood.

I for one am terrified of what the next 10 years of the business IT landscape is going to look like as we need to start absorbing kids who grew up on iPads.

As someone who manages a tailscale network at my work…I just want to point out that tailscale is a tiny bit more complicated than just downloading and installing. Not much but…

That said the ability to automate wireguard connections is wonderful and everyone should check it out.

Honestly? It’s enjoyable. Some of its predictable, some of the dialogue is brilliant, and sometimes the combat is a slog (or just not balanced well - especially early on when you don’t have a lot of options). I do wish it had branching dialogue options but that’s just me. Oh and the art is top notch.

I’m playing through it, and my house mate described it as a love letter to Chrono Trigger.

Also it’s gorgeous. Play it just for the eye candy if nothing else.

Honest advice? Brew it your self.

I started making my own beer because I couldn’t find a good Scotch ale. I now have a pile of recipes for English style of ale (which I’m happy to share for those interested).

Yes? If you don’t like your clutch? Mid 30s in the PNW. Now to be fair, one of my cars is an ev, the other is a cvt transmission.

Interesting footnote about p and q. You see them turn up on formal logic proofs (for philosophy)

I don’t know what part your unaware of - so let me do the ELI5. They (HashiCorp) created a tool called teraform which is used for defining what servers/other infrastructure you use in places like AWS. Up until recently this was open source under the Mozilla license to something that’s not quite open, but not fully closed source (yet).

Fyi. If your IT department is remotely on top of things - they know. They just might have larger fish to fry.

We can see all kinds of things about any devices that log on to check email, connect to the VPN, etc.

I’m a native English speaker so take this with a grain of salt.

Usernet? If memory holds there are a few German language indexers.

Before the flood of people beehaw was one of the main instances. Now just an interesting group of people (and nowhere near the size of world).