If they’re doing a bit, it’s too mean-spirited to be a good one.

I also respect their grind and commitment.

I don’t. They’re a dipshit screaming into the void.

I’ve heard it called a “Shatner comma.”

YOU ARE LITERALLY THE FUCKING DICTIONARY. YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT! 😡

Nah, SteamOS is a normal Linux. It counts.

Do you understand what being a professional (in the formal sense) actually is? It means your first responsibility is to the public, not your employer, and you are legally responsible for the work that you do. That goes for doctors, lawyers, and yes, engineers.

If you as a civil engineer design an unsafe structure and it kills people, you can go to prison. If your employer demands you approve an unsafe design, the fact that you have to stamp the plans that get filed with the government gives you the power to resist. That’s what being licensed means.

If people making software don’t have that level of accountability – again, to the public, not to their megalomaniacal tech bro boss – then they ain’t engineers.

It only varies by jurisdiction in the sense that some jurisdictions care about protecting the public and some apparently don’t.

The other key requirements I hope your licensing has are continuing education requirements and, most importantly, the notion of being a professional and having accountability to the public, not just your employer. Just taking one college class where you learn about Therac-25 isn’t enough; a professional software engineer also needs to have the power to refuse unethical demands by their employer (e.g. to build dark patterns or otherwise enshittify the software) and have that judgement be backed up by the state.

Assuming the provincial or national government requires you to have such a license or be working under supervision of someone who does in order to be employed in the practice of making software, then yes.

Just upload it straight into the post.

You’ve not experienced Avenue Q until you’ve seen it in the original World of Warcraft machinima.

“Software engineer” will be a thing when it’s licensed by the state. Until then, we’re all just glorified cowboy-coders with no accountability.

(Speaking as computer programmer with an EIT in a different field.)

Even just the phrase “EU Commission Mastodon account” is good news.

It boggles my mind that so many people have so little self-respect that they put up with having an abusive relationship with their computer.

Remember this scene in Ratatouille where Colette talks about the sordid pasts of the kitchen staff? Now consider that that was bowdlerized for a kids’ movie, compared to reality.

Sounds like they’re trying a new way of competing with ARM. I doubt it’ll work.

I use Linux and have done exclusively for almost a decade, dipshit. Get some reading comprehension skills.

Free Software package managers are good, because having somebody who knows what they’re doing curate the apps for you is helpful. “App stores” are evil, because you’ve replaced that expert with a salesperson with a vested interest in exploiting you.

Off the top of my head, I wouldn’t know the right domain to download CrystalDiskMark or EasyBCD, for example.

The way to find out the correct domain is to go to the Wikipedia page about the software.

But actually, the right way to do it is to install software using your Linux distro’s package manager.

Rolls 20: “but instead you lightly caress his back, and he likes it”?