Oh cool! I haven’t tried in some time. Thanks for adding your experience. That’s great news. (I’ll add a correction above, as well.)

Yeah. I could figure out how to make a PC do all that, but I would rather pay for a Steam console that does all of that for me out of the box.

That being said, it would also put pressure on underdeveloped properties, like your home on a street with rising property values.

Yeah. I feel like people would get out and vote if they understood this.

and for the large majority of people it would decrease appreciably.

I’m still concerned, since I’m planning to own a huge international chain of retail stores when I strike it rich and become a billionaire. (This is Sarcasm.)

Great explanation. Thank you.

Right, and when tenants aren’t paying taxes?

Then tenants will keep more money, in any case where there’s any competition in housing.

And in any case where there’s no competition in the housing supply, tenants will still be unharmed because they’re already paying the maximum amount that landlords can get away with.

It’s risk free for tenants.

Ooh. Nice.

Great write up. Thank you!

I feel that after my kid was born, I lost the possibility of having a good night of sleep.

That resonates with me.

Hang in there. The sleep and free time stuff does get better.

I’ve been leading a fully remote team for most of the last decade, and I lately think a lot about modeling behaviors for my team, such as stepping away for 20 minutes to take a walk, or run some dishes or laundry.

What kind of government job specifically?

Most of them. Certainly the ones that have unionized. If you know someone in the inside, they probably know if there’s a union.

You’ll see more unions in government work because while private organizations breaking up unions is ethically questionable; governments breaking up unions is just openly totalitarian.

If I can’t negotiate with a private employer, I might be a wage slave, but I can ask the government for help.

If I can’t negotiate with my government job, it’s not actually a job, I’m just a slave.

So true.

And literally a line I use to recruit peers to try out learning to code.

“I’m afraid I’ll be unhappy.”

“You might be. Many of us are. But the extra money helps.”

“Heeeey… What!”

Yeah. I felt the same as a kid, and officially I’ve grown out of it.

Except, in my heart, I know that if they would sell that kind of thing and more for modern adult bikes…I would be out a lot of money.

I would gladly carry an extra 20 lbs of cheesy plastic on my bike if it looks cool enough.

Yeah. I get that. Gotta do what you gotta do!

I’ve made some progress at organizations like that by setting up a private workflow in Python “just to check my work”.

Sure! Feel free to ask for clarification. I’ve been in your shoes. I’ve had debloat software help a ton (and I don’t recall it causing issues.) I’ve also reinstalled Windows fresh (from a recovery disk) to buy time. And of course I’ve switched older computers to Linux, too.

Yes.

Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon. None would still be business after recent decisions, if not for their market dominating capital size.

That is, their recent decisions provide no value to anyone else, and are made solely because they can, due to their size and anti-capitalist practices they have been allowed to get away with.

Edit: I just saw:

including my Windows 11

No. Windows ships already well compressed. There’s no way it’ll compress further by 50%. Correction: Someone who has actually tried it says it can!

Also, as I mention below, backing up and restoring a full copy of Windows can set off anti-piracy tools that keep you from restoring your own copy of Windows. It can be done, either by waiting on the phone with Microsoft, or (presumably) by having an accomplished software pirate friend.

But look for the Windows tool “create a recovery disk”. You’ll need another separate drive than your 63GB one, but it probably doesn’t need to be as big as a full Windows install.

Otherwise, yes.

Yes, if your drive has 133GB occupied, and you’re running Windows, it is likely that Windows, itself, is over half of that.

I’ve not, personally, seen Windows, itself, occupy less than 70GB, in recent years. (Usually much more.)

So what’s left, your files that you care about, is likely 133-70=63GB or less. (Probably much less. Windows is usually huge - usually around 120GB.)

Note that you can’t just blindly backup the whole drive. You’ll have to go find the files you care about and just back those up.

Backing up entire copies of the Windows operating system has gone very poorly for me, when I tried, anyway. Windows, itself, does not like to be relocated, because it tends to decide it has been stolen. I ended up on the phone with Microsoft waiting for permission, last time I moved a Windows install. So if I had a big enough drive to backup the whole Windows drive, I wouldn’t bother.

There may be a utility for Windows that backs up just your files. Mac has had one for awhile. Something like the free tier of Crash plan would probably do a nice job guiding you to where the files you care about are.

Beware, file compression doesn’t go far, today. The days when we stored our files in ludicrously inefficient formats are over.

I’ve only seen 10%-20% differences with compressed files, in 2024.

So, in your shoes, I would backup my files to the 63GB USB drive with something like CrashPlan. I wouldn’t bother with compression since I don’t think it will help much and I don’t think you’ll need it.

I would also accept that this is probably a one way trip. If the debloater works, fantastic.

If it corrupts your Windows install, you’ll need to reinstall. You can use a recovery disk or download Windows 11 install media from Microsoft, which will take less space than a full install, but still takes space.

Personally, I wouldn’t hassle with reinstalling Windows in 2024. Especially on a small hard drive. That’s more work for a much worse outcome. I would switch to Debian. I’m fact, the first time I switched, was so being new life into an older computer.

Debian does most of the same things, takes dramatically less space, doesn’t grow in size over time, is completely free, and is now much easier to install than a Windows reinstall. (Neither is pure sunshine and joy, but I would rather search for correct UEFI settings for 15 minutes than wait on hold with Microsoft for an hour.)

However you do it, resurrecting an old computer that Windows has mucked up is totally worth the effort. It’s easy to forget how faster a Windows computer was when it was new.

The 10 speeds is important, so that, after being inexpertly assembled by a big box store employee, at least 4 speeds will function!

This is another mentoring sprint, for my team. So lots of cleaning up “welcome” documents and practicing my elevator pitches for what the team does.

On the personal side, making Raspberry Pi projects with the kids. PhonieBox is pretty neat.

OWASP has some free resources that are meant to be widely accessible:

https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/

So instead you patch it on your end and call it a day.

Yep!

I’m looking forward to the horror stories that emerge once some percentage of those changes are made solely by unmanaged hallucination-prone AI.

I would feel bad for the developera who have to clean up the mess, but honestly, it’s their chance to make $$$$$$ off of that cleanup. If they manage not to, their union is completely incompetent.