Financially, preorders without a “preorder bonus” are a zero interest loan to the developer. Preorders with the “preorder bonus” are a loan with the bonus as interest. Even if the game were guaranteed to be good, you could most likely be doing something better with the money until it comes out. Since the game is not guaranteed to be good, it is a risky loan as well. Without any of the protections you get when you make an actual loan.

This should work with some caveats.

1. Tbis probably won't work on WSL (Linux needs direct access to your hardware).
2. For DVDs, you need to be sure libdvdcss is installed for this to work correctly

• You probably already have this on your system if you have successfully watched a dvd in Linux.

3. You may need to replace /dev/cdrom with the name of the device file corresponding to your drive.

• See https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Optical_disc_drive#Learning_the_name_of_your_optical_drive.

4. This creates an exact copy of the disk, including the unallocated space. You would probably want to follow the guide https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Optical_disc_drive#Creating_an_ISO_image_from_a_CD,_DVD,_or_BD

• (@BustedPancake@lemmy.world's use of mkisofs does the same thing because they copy the files on the disk rather than the whole disk. But you don't need makemkv. You should be able to use any method of copying the files and Linux should use libdvdcss to decrypt them.).

::: spoiler “deep magic” Linux trys to treat devices like files. If you ran xxd /dev/cdrom, you would see every bit on the disk (not just those of the files, but those in the free space as well) in order from the first to the last (converted to base-16 in what is called a hexdump). Not that you need to see this, but your video player does. The “DRM cracking” is actually a feature of libdvdcss that makes it possible for the system to treat the disk this way. dd is just a general copying command and if Stack Exchange is to be believed, it isn't necessarily the best option (https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/12532/dd-vs-cat-is-dd-still-relevant-these-days). But it probably is necessary for the linked guide to work because it has dd truncate the file. :::

edit: caveats is note spalled caceats

edit: file → files on the disk

I would've appreciated a trigger warning on the post since it uses a slur, but wow, it is amusing (I'm sure it'll be less amusing once I experience more overt transphobia).

Couldn't a Chromium clone relicensed under some copyleft license also be a viable option against Chromiums? Chromium is licensed under BSD-3 which Wikipedia claims is compatible with the GPL, so there wouldn't be any legal reason this couldn't be done, right? Other than not really wanting to split a project with excessive forks (which is only bad if you think that the Chromium project itself is a net good), is there some technical or other reason why this would be a bad idea?

Thank you for the quick advice. I remember seeing something similar to the two years you'd mentioned when I was applying. The MS route scares me a bit because the CS degree itself is a second bachelors and I could imagine rationalizing pursuing more education because I'm scared of how the workforce would treat me. But I remember meeting a few people doing a Masters program for that reason, so could see taking that path if necessary.

Thank you so much for replying and I'm grateful for your insight. In regards to your first point, it is interesting that it is not completely required to be an active contributor to get your foot in the door. I do think it would help with the substantive issue of being a bit rusty at coding and my confidence (as well as being a good thing to do), but it is good to know that there are differing opinions in industry about that.

I had the same impression as you in regards to the helpfulness of a degree. I had wondered how much I missed out by not going to a flagship state university or a well regarded private school, so knowing that some people view good grades at a mid-tier university as qualifying is helpful. It is also helpful to know that while not ideal, mediocre is at least acceptable in the beginning. I probably have been letting tropes about “genius tech founder” influence my perception of necessary qualifications. Even though intellectually I know that both not everyone is incredibly technically competent and that the trope is usually hype to attract VC funding.

Also, that roadmaps.sh site looks really helpful in that it shows the concrete skills necessary. Thanks!

I completely agree with you about motivation in isolation. I've been doing a bit more this past week, but I need to keep pushing myself to stay focused on the same project after a day or so. It was easier in college because I had more external motivation. I did have the idea recently that I could learn a bit of graphics and get a bit more motivation out of what I code. I'll probably stick with that for a couple of months because it is a fairly versatile skill to know how to tell the GPU to do things. Additionally, thank you for letting me know about the Out in Tech group. It sounds like it would be helpful.

That was the joke

Don't worry. It was a bit ambiguous 👍

She seemed pretty cool. I can't tell if the gender envy or the competence envy (for lack of a better word) was strongest

That's certainly true. I'd still say that for the online stores, for which that policy applies, there isn't a lot of upside to preordering. Because the purchase is digital, you will always be able to get a copy on release day (unless the publisher artificially limits how many games it will sell, but I've never heard of a publisher doing this).

::: spoiler Uninformed copyright law speculation IANAL, but a hash of music is not the music itself, something that can be converted to music, or in any way protected by copyright AFAIK. That being said, I think the rest of your comment is correct. ::: Edit: fixed bad spoiler/cw syntax