Do you have access to businesses upgrading computers or shutting down that division? They tend to have some interesting stuff for playing with on Linux.

Trying to escape Hell.

Have you done this from a position of not having a job in tech though? Having thousands of other employees also vie-ing for that same position with equivalent experience or better?

If you have obligations any job is better than no job from a position of no job, no pay.

Might sound like a bit of a conspiracy theorist here, but if all of the big tech companies lay off people at the same time, why could they not hire their recently laid off competitors for a fraction of the cost?

Obviously it drives down the cost of the salaries and lowers the average hiring rate. Huge wins for all these massive companies.

And to prove that they all did this "together" when they all did it a few weeks apart will be rather difficult too.

Maybe that's just me thinking from both corporations and employees side at the same time, though...

It says you can create a new CDPR account at any time. Could you not do that and then migrate your GOG info over without the email address from GOG?

Just wondering if it had been attempted.

We're DINKs just starting to push into the "living a comfortable life" range. As in, we can do what we want and enjoy doing it.

However, bringing a kid into that picture throws all of that away. Hospital bills, diapers, just the costs in general would wipe us out.

We most likely wouldn't qualify for any reimbursements and are already maximizing the ones we have such as house financing and taxes.

I obsessively try to keep my "IOUs" to a minimum meaning aggressive mortgage payments and credit cards within the limitations of what I can pay off immediately but even that is difficult.

The house needs work - new siding and windows, unexpected issues like the boiler dieing etc. And I'm generally fearful of what we'd find behind the siding (termites??? everything not up to code?) A new job like that could turn into $40-50K that we just don't have floating around.

I don't go to doctors because I was afraid of what I might find. I'm lucky in the fact that my insurance is now pushing in the correct direction but still ludicrously expensive... And I mean ludicrously for the lack of services available that won't cost me an additional fortune.

The wife also works a must-commute 9-5. Not sure how she, or both of us would be able to handle childcare needs and not feel like we would be neglecting the kid.

When would I ever be able to afford a kid in these situations?

And I am lucky to say that we are DINKs that are getting paid relatively well... How can people that are below us in income survive having kids?

If you're not into the whole Google Home/Alexa/Apple Home echo system, and have Home Assistant already running, you could use them to build a bunch of smart assistants with Open Thread Border Routers.

I was just looking at doing this in my house but the cost of Pis vs used Google Gen2s with Thread Border Routers built in was cost prohibitive for me.

It also looks like it requires a main network hub that handles 2.5GbE, along with the network cables (Cat6) to support it.

The current UDM Pro SE doesn't even support that with the Network ports.

The standard and professional switches don't even cover 2.5GbE. You would have to deploy Pro Max or Enterprise switches if you haven't already.

For me it's a wait and see. Nothing in my network requires 7 yet or the speeds that 7 can push. Most can't even really utilize 6E.

Try the Heinz Simply line. Personally, I find it tastes better than the classic which has turned bland.