I am a 90s child, so I don’t completely fit your timespan, but I remember the first PC with SuSe Linux that I built with my father from old server hardware he got from his job.

Back then his job used unix and it was pretty common in his field of work. So Linux was the natural choice for a home pc. SuSe was popular back then, I think mainly because it came on CDs and had books available.

One of the main things I remember is the hassle with network drivers, having to download them on a working pc first.

I live in a country with socialised healthcare.

I am at the point that I am looking into diagnosis mainly to be able to get meds because just living is hard. I remember being diagnosed as kid, but I might have a mixed up memory with my brother getting diagnosed and the IQ assessment I had.

I walked into my GP, who is usually very compassionate and even understanding of mental health things telling them that, speaking about what I struggle with and they go „it is a trend diagnosis too and I personally know a man that says he doesn’t feel a difference with meds“ and give me a referral for a neuropsychologist. No expedited, no like guaranteed thing (there are a kind of slots for that). Tbf they named two good options they can recommend even if they aren’t allowed to show bias. My first „checking if we can help you“ date is on the 8th of August, and I filled their entry questionnaire over two weeks ago. Mind that is a first date, nothing in the way of diagnosis and they might say they can’t help me.

The only other option is to either pay out of pocket for it (there are loads of private only doctors for it, in fact I did accounting for one of them), which I don’t want for two reasons: not having money laying around and not wanting to just walk out with a predetermined diagnosis. I am pretty sure I have ADHD, but autism plays a role as does childhood trauma and other things. So just treating the ADHD part could be detrimental. Or go call some helpline/emergency line and tell them I am suicidal and getting institutionalised. Judging by the treatment my childhood best friend got for that, I‘ld rather not.

I am female and females present differently, so that plays a role too.

My brother didn’t get treated btw, because my mother believed the stories about ADHD vanishing with puberty and that not happening when people get meds. He is also seeking diagnosis currently.

But then you look at a gravel field and get overwhelmed to stay with your metaphorical picture. Yes, that is part of what happens with ADHD and detailed lists.

I haven’t used Linux in a decade and half (I know myself and I wouldn’t reboot once done gaming and I have one game that is not just wine or whatever and done and it’s my main one) and I still miss things from it. The first few PCs I used were Linux. It just sticks with you.

If you have to go back and forth with PSDs, GIMP falls of with layers and such. I had it happen that it basically rolls which ones to open every time on a layer heavy PSD.

Bought a moonlander about 2 months ago. It comes fully assembled, there are multiple switches to choose from and blank or qwerty style keycaps. It is hotswap and comes with a tool for pulling caps and switches included, so you can change things up as needed. Iirc you can buy it barebones without switches if none of the ones they have are right for you.

It runs on QMK but they have their own configurator which is super handy imo.

I interpreted your comment as between countries, my bad then.

So you are always at least at the maximum average we have and often higher, with less PTO and holidays?

You also missed my core statement: how would the salary comparison go if we break it down to a hourly one? How would the gap look then?

How do these comparisons look if we go by pay per hour worked? Because here in Germany the maximum amount you are allowed to work in a week is 60 hours. Unless in special positions (like the ones that have harvesting season or mine stuff), this has to be equalised down to 48 over a 6 week period at max (the special ones just have a longer period for it or a different timing system on what counts as break). If you are in a position that equals to 48 hours a week (6 day week), your minimum PTO is 24 days. If you have a 5 day week it is 20 days, and the numbers above shift down to 50 and 40 respectively. Most jobs that have any kind of skilled work behind them have 30 days PTO. Plus there are a lot of national holidays.

I work in taxes and the average days worked in a year is assumed at 230 (if we don’t have information otherwise ofc). That is less than 2/3 of the year.

Whereas my knowledge on the US is that 60 hour weeks are not necessarily an exception, you get way less PTO, you have less national holidays and you often need to network after hours to even be successful to a moderate degree (of course networking is a thing here as well, but it isn’t that necessary at a medium level, only if you want to get the high positions).

Vacations maybe because that also depends on where you want to go. Cars can differ wildly, unless you want a sportscar or some such. Same goes for phones, often you get one „free“ with your contract for mobile. Gas/Petrol vary a lot, because of taxes and other state side things attached to them. Same goes for electricity plus those also depend on availability.

Discord needs to be maintained too. The way rights for users are handled is confusing, even when you’re used to handling such.

And it isn’t fast to use. You have to register, you need the app which does not function well, it uses a lot of system resources, the list goes on.

Define medium size.

All messages notifications? Hell no never, not even on my own less than 10 persons server.

Stuff like announcement role pings? In servers I care or the roles let me filter very finely yes, irrespective of size.

@everyone pings? Only on servers I care a lot about or that use them sparely.

Thanks! Due to how queueing abilities work in FFXIV, rotation macros ain’t a thing even on predictable classes.

I see what you mean with the number row. I also like to have F1-F4 accessible plus tab.

Good thing the moonlander is on the big side there.

Accountant here too (well assistant tax adviser doing mainly accounting) and I have the numpad on a layer on the right hand and often used shortcuts on the left hand. It is really nice and only took me like a week to get comfy with.

The extra shortcuts also help a lot, because they are hardcoded into the software and some of them are pretty dumb (shift+F8 and ctrl+numpad / f.e.).

One thing I haven’t seen in this thread yet is how lower number keys allow for an even split and this ergo boards that allow for better posture, especially for the shoulders.

Weird tangential question: what is the cutoff point for FFXIV for you and why?

I recently swapped to a moonlander and I feel okay with a gaming layer, but I also do not do savage raids or above.

While it might not be as much, it still will be something.

I work in a purely windows environment because our main software does not really exist outside of it. The hours of IT troubleshooting for the most inane things I see happening is a pretty penny as well. The newest curiosity is Teams killing my RDP session once it loads in the GUI and the IT team is utterly clueless why. It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t happen to anyone else and the only way to stop it is to kill the process via taskmanager.

And while a government might not be able to go FOSS, there are tools for communication that aren’t built like Teams.

My SO is in a government job and most of their software is some adaption on SAP or similar. They don’t have any chat apps. They use mails or telephone. They do have Skype, but that thing is a performance nightmare in their environment so they only use it if they absolutely have to.

Same goes for stuff like OneDrive. Even if you could wrangle it enough that it fits data security laws, it isn’t something they use in their daily work.

I would love to go back to Firefox, but ironically Edge is better at syncing things regularly for me. And I need that sync so that I don’t need to have all the 50 or so tabs on my phone too.