25 years in the industry here. As I said there’s nothing against learning something new but I doubt it’s as easy as “leveling up”.

Both fields profit a lot from experience and it’s as much gain for a scientist do become a software dev as an architect becoming a carpenter. It’s simply not productive.

there is so much time lost in research institutes because of shoddy programming

Well, that’s the way it is. Scientific code and production code have different requirements. To me that sounds like “that machine prototype is inefficient - just skip the prototype next time and build the real thing right away.”

It’s always good to learn new stuff but in terms of productivity: Don’t attempt to be a programmer. Rather attempt to write better research code (clean up code, revision control, better commenting, maybe testing…)

Rather try to improve cooperation with programmers, if necessary. Close cooperation, asking stupid questions instead of making assumptions etc. makes the process easy for both of you.

Also don’t be afraid to consult different programmers since beyond a certain level, experience and expertise in programming is vastly fragmented.

Experienced programmers mostly suck on your field and vice versa and that’s a good thing.

Consequence:

Software can only be good, when enough people WANT to work on it and with it along the complete life-cycle. There’s a critical amount of developers/contributors/testers and (feedback providing) users.

Hence a lot of critical consumer stuff is based on popular opensource.

Also, we’re entering an aera where the difference between hardware/firmware/software gets increasingly blurred. So all of this applies to more and more hardware, too.

• do one thing and do it well

byebye unix principles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_programming might be an interesting read.

check carefully what you signed. If you didn’t sign anything saying otherwise, there’s nothing to prevent you from doing it.

If there’s something, you could still work around it (e.g. remove company secrets).

If the resulting product is provable better, then it’s objectively not the same thing you did for your boss.

After checking all of this, your local FSF might give you free legal advice to get going (keep all notes/correspondence secure for later if anything comes up. It proves you tried to act responsibly).

Sure it’s cancellation fees? This doesn’t seem legal.

When you refund a mattress they just surface clean it

yuck. I doubt that. It’s manual work and far more expensive than a machine.

but getting them dry would be a challenge

seriously? I mean, there is a chance no such service exists in your town. Bad luck then. But there is close to zero chance it doesn’t exist in your country.

What do you think hospitals do? (Or good hotels, as mentioned). Source: Worked in an elderly home that used such a service regularly.

Here’s an image of such a mattress washing machine.

They work.

That’s not true. All mattresses except the cheapest foam ones are washable (they are, too but they might change properties then). But why get a used cheap one?

There are mattress washing services with giant washing machines that are used by hotels. Ask hotel staff to find one.

You can’t get rid of most of the build-up.

You actually can get rid of all the buildups. Just like with clothes. Also don’t think sellers throw it away when you refund a mattress - they wash it and sell it again.

just ask beforehand if you can test it quickly. while that’s not 100% proof, most people are honest (at least when giving away stuff for cheap/free). There’s a risk, but at worst you get free trash. Never happened to me, tho.

Also most high-quality stuff is always salvageable. Surely it’s more hassle then if you have to order spare parts or such.

Some things basically come for free when they were used. Washing machine, stoves… Disassembling them to fully clean them takes a day or two, but it’s still faster than buying new and chances are good, someone wants to get rid of their high quality stuff near you and will give it away for cheap if you “dispose” it for them.

You can even wash a mattress for a few bucks. If it’s good quality, a decade old used filthy mattress can come out like brand new.

People finding that gross or poorish are the reason, stuff is so cheap

DE-mail was doomed to fail from the start. Here, they did some things right. Let’s see how it turns out.

yep. IF sleep/idle/s2r/wakeup would work decently, it would already be a step in the right direction.

I want a PI zero that can run off small batteries for a long time. Form factor, prize, ecosystem is all perfect. But power consumption (even with WIFI etc. turned off)… is-too-damn-high.jpg

OSMAnd+ is a feature beast. It seems like you can customize EVERYTHING.

I find search improved a lot tho.

it will run in termux and on anything that can run a full python. Also you could run it remotely via ssh. Textual also offers a web interface to access apps via browsers but I never looked into that.

you could check textual, it’s a TUI framework that yields quick results.

you don’t need to know electrical engineering to design an airplane control panel

lol, of course you do. and A LOT more. Hence it’s usually done by a team of experts. Pilots, eengineers, manufacturing, regulation/standards, safety,…

UX is just one of many parts of the expertise needed. same in software.

What you’re claiming is wishful thinking that has nothing to do with real world workflows. I also don’t know a single UI designer having the troubles you are pointing out.

The majority of designers (not all) I have worked with have been very shy about technical work, so having no clear “non-technical” contribution pathway is a deterent.

That’s the difference between designer and UI Designer. Just because you can draw an UI with your favourite tool, doesn’t make you an UI design expert.

the hoster will take care usually as low energy costs is a primary goal for them.

you can start by opening an issue, sharing your idea, uploading drafts etc. like I mentioned.

is usually entirely technical.

because what you wish contributing to is a technical matter. You can’t modify airplane design without a single clue on aerodynamics. Same with software.