Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1, then I switched to CyanogenMod until my father rage-bought me a new phone in 2016 because it crashed so much he had trouble contacting me. I still kept it up to date with LineageOS and then unofficial versions for fun (it's at Android 13 last I checked).
Do I expect a Samsung Galaxy SII to do as well with 2026 software as it did in 2013? No, but I can run a 2013 computer with 2026 software without needing to track down dodgy homebrews on xdaforums.com and that reflects badly on the smartphone ecosystem.
>That reminds me of my own Samsung Galaxy SII.
Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1
Even that was amazing for Samsung's standards back then.
For example my former Samsung Note II shipped with Android 4.1.1 Jellybean and they only supported it till 4.4.2 KitKat. Just let that sink in. I basically bought a flagship e-waste device.
Custom ROMs didn't help much since you'd lose S-pen functionality if you went past 4.4.2 as modders couldn't port the needed firmware blobs past that kernel or something like that.
Oh, and also, using custom ROMs could brick your wifi from working as the FW of the wifi chip was tied to Knox tripping the e-fuse on custom ROMs, so then you'd need to use some voodoo to patch wifi back. That is, if you were lucky and your phone wouldn't brick itself due to the FW bug in Samsung's eMMC, that would lock itself to read-only mode out of nowhere.
Seriously, fuck Samsung for that PoS phone, fuck them in the a**. That phone should have been a lemon recall with full refund to consumers.
I rooted my old S3 probably around 2016 I had laying around. There was an exploit called "let it rain" and that got me root access.
Then on XDA Developers I found several custom ROM'S. Someone even created a Nougat ROM for that thing later on. That was the last version I was able to load on it. I sure did learn a lot back then.
The current US administration wants a captive Europe. One that buys its defense, energy and technology products from them. One that sells its territory, regulations and know-how to them.
Ask the Department of State if they'd like a European-sized French attitude and strategic autonomy.
Current admin has been on record for years saying the same thing. Warning EU about russia, warning EU about China, warning them about not innovating.
I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them.
Current admin has gotten more out of EU than 20years of asking nicely.
Before:
US: "please increase military spending"
EU: "no"
US: "please do not support our advesaries"
EU: "builds nordstream"
US: "stop killing innovation"
EU: " more regulation"
Now:
US: "We will invade greenland"
EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!"
US: "we will pull out of nato"
EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry"
US: "our tech companies will not listen to you"
EU: "omg big bad america, we should try to make out own"
I don't like it but at the same time, it works? Let EU rally against US who cares as long as they actually do something.
Simply put absolute best thing for US is a strong EU. China is an advesary that will take the entire US system to challenge if EU can handle the rest then it's a win.
> Before: US: "please increase military spending" EU: "no"
What this meant between the lines for 60+ years is “please increase military spending on US overpriced weapons that we gonna sell you, weapons will be degraded versions of native counterparts and don’t think about making your own independent military industry. Oh by the way bring those weapons when we will do 20 years of failed occupation in Middle East, because we are the only country in NATO that triggered article 5 and bunch of Euros died for nothing. Because that’s the deal, we protect you, for the economic price of helping our imperial hegemony since 1940s stay at the top, but suddenly we decided this is a bad deal after all.”
It really did not mean that -- it meant to increase spending to the targets set by NATO and to meet realistic defense needs.
A lot of EU weaponry was and is produced in the EU and the US has known that all along, cooperated and fostered it. The Leopard tank, the Eurofighter, the Rafale, the Lynx, the FV432, the Gazelle -- there is a long list of domestic weapons systems. I'm not sure if they still can do it, but the English made nuclear submarines. The US has at various times partnered with Europe on the development of these systems, and Europe has been able to produce almost all major weapons systems continuously since the end of World War 2.
Europe's much weakened defense posture -- and weakened defense industry -- are their own fault and the result of their own choices. At one time, European countries had much, much larger militaries and could sustain manufacturing of their specific weapon systems -- their own tanks, APCs -- but not after the military drawdowns following the end of the Cold War. There are at least 3 major domestic European tank types -- the Leopard, the Challenger and the Leclerc -- but only the Leopard is manufactured anymore. Europe should probably have consolidated on the Leopard a long time ago.
The US weapons are not "overpriced", and certainly not compared to European weapons, beyond the sense in which basically all western weapons are overpriced. One reason we see consolidation on US weapons in Europe is that the US weapons are frequently very good, having received a lot of use, but also because the US still has some scale in its manufacturing capabilities.
> I'm not sure if they still can do it, but the English made nuclear submarines.
Not really. The Polaris and Trident SLBM systems as well as the nukes they carry are US designs that the UK is allowed to use. And while their current PWR2 reactor is a British design, it is lacking. Therefore the next PWR3 design will be based on US S9G reactors.
The Trafalgar class were nuclear attack submarines made at Barrow-in-Furness shipyard in Cumbria. The current Astute class were also made there.
A nuclear submarine is one with nuclear propulsion, not nuclear weapons (just like a diesel-electric submarine is one with a diesel engine and batteries, not diesel weapons).
It never ceases to amaze me the contortions some people put themselves through to make this US administration seem sane or even vaguely interested in the flourishing of Europe, Canada or the wider west.
When the US points out faults with what EU is doing, the EU just digs its heels deeper out of spite, instead of self reflecting that maybe the US might be right.
It's not contortions, it's the truth, since these points have nothing to do with this US administration specifically.
Contortions is trying to blame EU's multi decade political faults on Trump.
Germany: Ties its economy to Russia despite warnings from the US
Russia: Invades Ukraine
Germany: Destroys its manufacturing economy after energy prices spike from decoupling from Russian gas
Germany and libs/dems: This is all Trump's fault
Something tells me when the 'something' is a major trade deal with China suddenly it'll be 'oh my god how could you'. The US wants a EU vassal, what they're going to get is an EU that realigned itself to be politically and economically equidistant from the US and China.
The whole point is the USA has been complaining that the EU was/is reducing itself to a vassal. No matter what the USA said or did before they didn't seem to care that they had no power anymore because the USA was there to take care of them.
The EU can't realign itself with China because that would destroy the last fragile bits of the EU economy that are left. They are already having issues with the excess supply lands on their shores even since the USA started tariffs with China. They can't deal with this long term.
No, the USA does not, in any way, and has never wanted or even accepted EU countries being independent. They wanted the EU to spend more on US weaponry, and maybe on their own - but would have vehemently opposed any attempt by any EU country to buy Russian, Chinese, Iranian or any such weaponry. They want the EU to stop regulating American companies, but they certainly don't want EU companies being too successful in the USA. They certainly wouldn't allow EU tech companies access to the US defense market, while of course insisting that the EU and other NATO members buy US built weaponry.
They certainly wouldn't allow EU tech companies access to the US defense market, while of course insisting that the EU and other NATO members buy US built weaponry.
This is really ridiculous. There are many successful EU vendors of defense technology to the US military. Safran, Schmidt & Bender, Heckler & Koch, Saab, Glock, Fabrique National -- there is a long list. The USA has built real partnerships in these areas.
One amusing example is the C7 and C8. These are AR-15 (M16) variants made by Colt Canada and adopted by the militaries of the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway; and used by special forces in the UK.
Where are you getting your information from, that the US wouldn't allow wouldn't allow EU tech companies access to the US defense market?
The right play is to maintain relationships (including arms trading) with multiple major powers - as Canada's PM very deftly pointed out at Davos. Getting closer to China doesn't mean exchanging one master for another - it can and should be a way to increase the alternatives available, without going all the way in the other direction.
> The EU would also have opposed it if the US bought Russian, Chinese or Iranian weaponry.
This is such an implausible counter-factual that I can't even begin to imagine what would have actually happened. Still, I doubt any more than some "public letters" would have been issued, whereas I'm sure that the opposite would have resulted in actual economic pressure from the USA against the EU/NATO country that would have dared, under any administration.
I mean, you offered a basically similar, implausible counterfactual. I think we can agree that it is at least parties that the EU would have opposed purchases of Chinese, Russian or Iranian weapons by the USA and vice versa -- but Russia and Iran have been sanctioned for long periods of time (Iran, basically continuously) by both the EU and the USA, and Russia is the main territorial threat to the EU, so maybe only China is really an interesting possibility here.
Arms trading with China is probably not a good idea at all.
I don't see much sign of the EU becoming a Chinese vassal as in relying on it for defence in return for being told what to do. Trading with China is not the same thing.
I'm not sure that's how it is. Sure NATO countries aren't keen on any of the members being reliant on weapons from potential NATO enemies, for example Turkey buying Russian S-400s but it doesn't mean the countries aren't mostly independent.
Likewise NATO countries aren't keen if one of their members gets a leader who rolls out the red carpet to the Russians and threatens to invade other NATO states. It's not like all the members have to do what the US likes.
No. The US wants the EU to be a vassal, this should be obvious. Why would they want an EU that is more capable of acting against US interests?
The US wants EU to be a vassal, but got tired of paying the protection money for that. Now they are trying, and failing, to keep the EU under their control despite bringing less to the table every day.
Or more obviously the US views China as an existential threat that is about to pop.
US has numerous public docs stating China is prepping for war and has WW2 levels of production. US knows it will be out manufactured in this conflict.
So the US needs:
1. Fully focus on China without distractions.
2. Allies able to handle their own security or help in the fight.
3. Weaken the smaller axis forces as much as possible now before the big event occurs.
Through this lens it alls lines up pretty nicely. Every single world event including US poking europe all work towards these goals.
As of now:
1. EU is finally spending on spending
2. Nato has expanded (sweden)
3. Russia is weakened
4. Iran is weakened
5. Oil production is secure (venuzuela, US internal, middle east)
6. East asia is also spending more on military and heavily aligning with the west (more bases in phillipines)
To me this is going about as smoothly as anyone would expect the buildup to WW3 would go. And it's all going pretty well for western forces. The west is now stronger than it has ever been and getting stronger and the axis forces are all weaker and getting weaker.
You really think EU is going to ally with China over japan, south korea, philipines, and Australia?
You really think Russia's current number 1 ally is all of a sudden going to be best friends with EU?
China and North korea are ACTIVELY supporting a war in Europe! China has openly threatened Australia. There are literal north korean troops shooting Europeans right now. Who is north korea's number 1 supporter?
> US: "We will invade greenland" EU: "omg we need to invest in greenland and increase its military support, we will send more troops immediately!"
> US: "we will pull out of nato" EU: "omg we hate US we need to massively increase military spending and industry"
It's in both the EU and the US's interest to ensure NATO is the strongest partnership possible and the US's actions over the last few weeks have undermined it almost perfectly.
If you look at actions and results the western alliance is the strongest it has ever been and going to be significantly stronger over the next decade.
Again my point is a theory that either EU and US found a way to make EU citizens get behind military spending or the US found a way to manipulate EU to do it.
You'll know if US and EU are actually not aligned if EU sides with China over USA (which would be suprising to say the least)
Tell me which NATO country came crying, triggered NATO Article 5 and as a consequence a good number of EU NATO (and even non-NATO) soldiers have died for the sole interests of said country?
Why are you moving the goalposts from your parent's point?
Yes, the middle eastern wars were a huge issue form the US, but that doesn't explain EU own goaling itself for 20+ years with terrible policies and choices, with or without helping the US in the middle east.
I am saying that for last 30 years actions of European NATO counterparts was not "undermining the relationship".
Also since 2014 there was a 10 year plan devised to get everyone to strictly follow 2% budget commitment. Which happened before you and I even heard about trump starting a presidential campaign (or even if it was there was nothing about NATO, etc). This happened (better later than never) due to ruzzian attack on eastern Ukraine and with a nudge from Obama administration.
Due to 2022 total war from ruzzia against Ukraine - I believe right now there are talks to commit up to 5% in long run, with at least up to 3.5% in next decade.
I know that Europe doesn't have great PR team, but USA is getting better and better at gaslighting (ruzzia has decades of experience in divide and conquer tactics) that Europeans are allegedly freeloading. Europe has it's problems, but it's solving them democratically, whereas USA needs to see herself in a mirror, before it's too late.
My understanding is that the 2% budget commitment was met or exceeded by all NATO countries only as late as 2025. The Obama administration ended in 2017.
Europeans not taking care of themselves has been "undermining the relationship".
If this is some kind of move, fair play, but its ham fisted because rank and file westerners across the world have lost respect and faith in America, that wont be rebuilt by some other president. Nobody will want fighter jets etc controlled by America. Perhaps USA is fine with it but to me it feels severely damaging.
The western alliance as of today is about as strong as its ever been.
No it is not. Very few people in Europe believe that the US would uphold NATO Article 5. The US did arguably not uphold the Budapest memorandum. Allies have stopped sharing intelligence with the US in many areas because they don't trust the US anymore (Trump would burn allied assets in a Truth Social post). Trump has done a lot of bidding for Putin in the Ukraine-Russian war because he does not care about a good outcome for the rest of the Western alliance, he only cares about some peace prize or whatever.
The Western alliance is almost shattered, NATO is on its lasts legs (well, technically, NATO with the US, I think a new NATO with Canada and Europe would rise from its ashes).
"Shattered" as they have together massively increased military spending and weakened their enemies at every step through heavy cooperation. And added sweden to nato.
If you ignored words actions show a big difference.
No. The US does not want an independent EU.
It wants an EU that lets any US company do here whatever it wants.
It wants the EU to split up so it can force bad trade deals on our countries.
We don't want a trade deal that lets you sell chlorinated chicken or other stuff that is currently banned here.
The US wants us to spend more on military but not on our own weapons but to spend all our money buying US made stuff.
Now what the president of the US achieved is that we want to spend more to develop our own local alternatives and improve them, not buy more from the US. Why would we buy from you if your president threatens to invade Greenland?
Also - military spending was increased not because Trump bullied us into it doing it. It was seen as necessary because of russian attack on Ukraine. Trump was not some genius diplomacy mastermind. He is a man child that is pissed of for not getting the Nobel peace price. How childish is that? This is not some person who can be taken seriously in any way.
Regulation is good, Micro-USB and USB-C for phones and computer chargers is better than the dozens of different chargers that was before. Only Apple was unhappy and didn't want it.
We don't want big US tech companies to steal our personal data and do whatever they want wit it.
Also - now trump is pissed off at Canada for trying to get a trade deal with China, when it was he himself who first said Canada should become a part of the US, started with random bs tariffs on canadian goods, etc. What else can you expect from Canada, why should they not try to find a more reliable trade partner? How can it be rational, what Trump is doing?
> I don't know if this was planned internally but it seems the way they figured out how to get EU to actually do something is to make it seem like big bad trump is going to hurt them.
This is an interesting take. You appear to be suggesting that the US has the EU's best interests at heart.
It ignores the fact that, on the rare occasion the Trump administration was not actively trying to undermine the EU, their "helpful advice" has always boiled down to "you should be more like us, and not being like us means you're failing."
My opinion, which I believe is common among Europeans, is that the opposite is true.
I would like to think US has EU interest at heart, a kind of tough love you would hope. But even if they don't all of their reactions have actively helped the US geopolitical goals.
> You appear to be suggesting that the US has the EU's best interests at heart.
The US might or might not have Europe's best interest at heart or the European peoples' best interest at heart. But certainly not the European Union's best interest.
Honestly so often I take my EU consumer and worker rights for granted, only to hear that they simply don't exist for 90+% of Americans. Amd then I wonder how they even live over there.
I looked up to the US as a kid. Then I went to the US about 8-10 times in my teenage years (lost the count) due to my dad's work. We travelled through ~20 states. Only during those trips I realized in what poor life standards most Americans live. My wife lived in the US for a year and had the same experience. She also found that average Americans have real weird believes about the rest of the world (this was in the nineties), like they would ask her whether Hitler is still alive, whether Europe only has US radio stations, and some believed that Europeans don't have fridges.
Another thing that surprised me was the segregation. One time we went out to eat something while crossing some states. Apparently we drove into a black neighborhood, and we walked into a large place with a buffet. And suddenly almost everyone was looking at us completely stunned. Then the other shoe dropped, we were the only white people, and they were probably surprised that white people showed up. They were extremely nice to us, but for me it also uncovered how weird the US is.
Slavery was a major economic drain, it wasnt a boon to the us economy. There is a reason the south remained agricultural and under developed, it was slavery.
They're going to the US for the VC funds and the capital markets, which is America's great competitive advantage globally. In the few industries I went through (PaaS, Health, Finance) what I got was that the regulatory environment in Europe was welcome for being stable and clear, or existing at all in a few cases. There's been one case where I've seen regulation being an issue and preventing business from being fully conducted in Europe, and that was related to banking (in that instance that company had to be set up in Dubai).
> The US and France are both nuclear armed, including nuclear armed submarines, which are the ultimate defence deterrent.
Except for France's ASMP-A nuclear warning shot (which is not a tactical option by the way), all other independent European nuclear options (French or British SSBNs) are not only strategic, but they imply wiping entire countries off the map. All options also depend on whether the French President or the British Prime Minister decides that this course of action is warranted.
If Trump indeed invades Greenland, shoving a French-made nuclear fireball in front of an American carrier battle group off the coast of Greenland would probably not be our first option. Besides the massive political cost of breaking the nuclear taboo, if kinetic actions are deemed necessary, deterrent also comes in conventional varieties.
Also, while the British nuclear deterrent might be operationally independent, it relies on American-supplied Trident missiles.
I'm pretty sure ASMPA-R is precise enough to be considered tactical, and the fallout small enough to easily consider its firing over blue water. Yes, the number of French tactical (sorry, "pre-strategic") nuke is limited (around 50), but i think that's enough of a detterent.
It's not about the precision, it's the yield. We've divested our tactical options back in the 1990s because our nuclear policy is one of strict sufficiency and all our nukes are above a hundred kilotons of TNT. That doesn't leave a lot of room to thread any needle.
Also, our nuclear doctrine says that it's a nuclear warning shot, meaning that the next step on the ladder is French-delivered Armageddon by SSBNs. We're not supposed to keep lobbing them in case of a persistent problem.
I used to, when I was in a classroom or at a bar. Actually managed to get quite good at it through sheer boredom in grande école. Then life happened and that faded away, alongside my mental health. Recently I've rediscovered doodling while attending ACM CCS 2025 as an independent (long story) and I want to improve my mental health in 2026, to the point where I can draw regularly again.
I was in the same boat and started drawing again at around 30.
Remember that paper is cheap and that experimentation is valuable. Make all the bad art you can. The cost of all the paper I wasted in the last 5 years is probably less than the cost of a pizza. There is a valuable life lesson in there about being okay with making mistakes so that you can learn from them.
Nowadays I always carry a notebook, and more often than not pens and watercolours. You can build a really tiny kit out of makeup palettes.
I also loved taking painting lessons and going to live nude drawing at one of my favourite pubs. Making art is such a pleasant disconnect from work and digital life.
> The cost of all the paper I wasted in the last 5 years is probably less than the cost of a pizza.
Once you get into it, there is an amazing assortment of papers that can cost up to a pizza per sheet. Especially if you're going for the larger formats.
Yes, but let's not nitpick our way out of understanding the point. Don't be afraid to soil a notebook with bad drawings, and waste as much paper as it takes. Mistakes are part of the process, not something to avoid.
That's awesome! I feel similar, I drew a lot back in the days because growing up in a small town I was bored so often. I did portrait art only but today I struggle because I just don't know what to draw and I'm just not good at doodling.
Best of luck to you!
Thanks for your openness about with struggling with mental health. It is brutal. For me, exercise really helped. For others, it is reconnecting (or getting closer) with friends and family. Keep at it -- you can beat it!
I have the same setup and I like it, but traditional media is just much more pleasant.
In any case, practice. Keep drawing, and try drawing the same thing multiple times. Don't just start over, fix your mistakes. Step back and take time off to let the mistakes come out.
Above all, remember to have fun. Mistakes are an integral part of learning, and if you take yourself too seriously, you will never make any. Waste as much paper as you need, if it means that you will keep practicing.
Practice. Lots and lots of practice. There's no way around that.
Besides that, there are plenty of resources to learn particular topics/techniques out there. For drawing people with any degree of realism, you'll need at least drawing proportions at first and then anatomy later on.
While you can brute-force it from zero on your own like I did, I wouldn't recommend it. You'll learn faster if you study it like a proper discipline.
I am pretty good at drawing, and would highly recommend starting with traditional media rather than digital tools.
Drawing on paper allows for a wide range of physical setups, such as using a notebook on your lap or on a table, large sheets mounted on a wall, or a board on an easel. Each configuration engages different muscle groups. Large-format drawing relies primarily on shoulder movement, whereas smaller, more detailed work involves the wrist, forearm, and fingers. I'm convinced that deliberately training hand–eye coordination at multiple scales (finger–eye, wrist–eye, or shoulder–eye), is beneficial in learning to draw better.
It is also a good idea to experiment with a variety of media: pens, pencils, chalk, charcoal, and different surfaces such as paper, wood, or canvas. The differing tactile feedback and resistance will improve your motor control. You don't need to spend a fortune on this, but don't limit yourself to the cheapest color pencils and toilet paper.
That said, if your primary goal is accurate photo replication, it's probably easiest to start with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain [1], along with some YouTube tutorials.
Being entirely self-taught, I'm not sure how to describe my style. If I have to, it's kinda a nondescript knock-off of Gisèle Lagacé's recent webcomics.
As for the subjects, being a horny teenager at the time I mostly drew scantily clad women. Sometimes portraits/caricatures of teachers or other students, mostly on request. All together, that led to an unfathomable number of hijinks.
Thankfully, the one time that a teacher came across their caricature, it ended well. A fellow student requested it while in class (of handwriting Java of all things). She then took my handout and brought it to the teacher, proudly stating with glee "look at what boricj drew!". Cue the laughter. Then the teacher stated flipping pages and stumbled upon the rest of my usual bodywork, so to speak. Cue the laughter again. By that point, I was rolling on the floor, my sides hurting.
I don't think I'll ever top that, but the reception of my doodles at the conference by academics reminded me of that past. Hopefully I'll manage to rekindle it.
I'm working with JSON schema through OpenAPI specifications at work. I think it's a bit of a double-edged sword: it's very nice to write things in, but it's a little bit too flexible when it comes to writing tools that don't involve validating JSON documents.
I'm in the process of writing a toolchain of sorts, with the OpenAPI document as an abstract syntax tree that goes through various passes (parsing, validation, aggregation, analysis, transformation, serialization...). My immediate use-case is generating C++ type/class headers from component schemas, with the intent to eventually auto-generate as much code as I can from a single source of truth specification (like binding these generated C++ data classes with serializers/deserializers, generating a command-line interface...).
JSON schema is so flexible that I have several passes to normalize/canonicalize the component schemas of an OpenAPI document into something that I can then project into the C++ language. It works, but this was significantly trickier to accomplish than I anticipated.
I used to believe that I was working with JSON schema through OpenAPI 3.0, but then I learned a hard lesson that it uses an “extended subset” of it. And what does that mean? It “means that some keywords are supported and some are not, some keywords have slightly different usage than in JSON Schema, and additional keywords are introduced.” [1]. Yes, that’s a bonkers way to say “this is not JSON schema although it looks similar enough to deceive you”. This word game and engineering choice is so bizarre that it’s almost funny.
OpenAPI 3.1 replaced the not-a-superset-or-subset of JSON Schema with the actual JSON Schema (latest version) over five years ago. No one should be using 3.0.x anymore. And 3.2 came out a few months ago, containing lots of features that have been in high demand (support for arbitrary HTTP methods, full expression of multipart and streaming messages, etc).
Many users are stuck at 3.0 or even Swagger 2.0 because the libraries they use refuse to support recent versions. Also OpenAPI is still not a strict superset because things like `discriminator` are still missing in JSON schema.
If you're building a brand new, multi-language, multi-platform system that uses advanced open-api features - you will get bitten by lack of support in 3.1 versions of tooling for features that already existed and work fine right now in 3.0 tool versions. Especially if you're using a schema-first workflow (which you should be). For example, $ref's to files across windows/linux/macos across multiple different language tools - java, .net, typescript, etc.
If you need (or just want) maximum compatibility across tools, platforms and languages - open-api 3.1 is still not viable, and isn't looking like it will be anytime soon.
The solution here is to demand support for the most recent specification version from your tooling vendors. We (the OpenAPI TSC) sometimes hear from vendors "we're not moving quickly to support the latest version because our users aren't asking for it." So it's a catch-22 unless you make your needs known.
I am thankful for my coworkers. I'm the kind of software engineer who is a mad scientist in disguise.
Bridging dissimilar message busses with data-driven Lua scripts. Creating a Jenkins SCM plugin that exposes the sources packages of a Debian repository (complete with binary dependency tracking) as an organization folder to turn it into a package builder. Improvising a Git proxy/cache with a hundred lines of Bash to lessen the load on the lab uplink (still load-bearing to this day). Writing a toolchain in Python that takes OpenAPI documents as an abstract syntax tree and run passes on it to parse, validate, aggregate, transform and format it for various needs (such as generating C++ code for data models, dataframe bindings and so on). Delinking programs back into object files and creating Frankenstein monsters from salvaged pieces, and somehow landing a poster presentation about that at ACM CCS 2025 as a hobbyist (this one outside of office hours, but it still triggers brain meltdowns when I talk about it). And so many, many more sins.
I honestly don't know how they are putting up with the incarnation of chaos that is me.
Instead of dedicating an entire Raspberry Pi with fancy pinning and temperature management by burning CPU time, wouldn't a micro-controller and a precise external oscillator fare better for time-keeping stability? I would assume that a STM32 discovery kit running a NTP server on its Ethernet port could probably do better.
In general, NTP is a time sensitive process, and application processor/SoC are indeed going to have far greater rates of clock slips than an MCU running off an XTAL or TCXO.
RTLinux has a module feature to sync the scheduler to an external pin state. It is an obscure feature...
Adding more processors creates a well-known named-problem with metastability:
I do have that as well, but haven't done a write up on it yet. It was a $70 GPSDO from eBay (BH3SAP variant running Fredzo firmware with some changes to enable flywheel (generating pulse in absence of GPS PPS)). I have verified it can feed the Pi for NTP. Believe the STM32 driving the GPSDO can as well but it has no ethernet capability as-is
> And in many ways I think this was a positive energy to bring to the world!
Or in other words, becoming the landfill of negative energy of the world.
As someone who used to be that person for over a decade, having people endlessly confiding their relationship/health/mental/work/legal/family/gender issues will over time completely wreck your sanity. Because when you're that someone, people will not just tell you the light stuff, but also some really heavyweight and/or deeply fucked up things.
Oh, certainly. And if you have any resources besides attention - money, or social capital, for instance - people will happily take those too. It's not that they are wrong to ask, but the need is truly infinite, and no one will create guardrails for you except yourself.
Take care of your mental health proactively. Do not let depression run unchecked, or it will end up robbing you of everything you hold dear before you realize it.
Shipped out of the box with Android 2.3, Samsung supported it up until Android 4.1, then I switched to CyanogenMod until my father rage-bought me a new phone in 2016 because it crashed so much he had trouble contacting me. I still kept it up to date with LineageOS and then unofficial versions for fun (it's at Android 13 last I checked).
Do I expect a Samsung Galaxy SII to do as well with 2026 software as it did in 2013? No, but I can run a 2013 computer with 2026 software without needing to track down dodgy homebrews on xdaforums.com and that reflects badly on the smartphone ecosystem.
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