TimButterfield

The Pilot Custom 823 (amber demonstrator) is my favorite pen. I love the way it writes, the quantity of ink it holds, and that the screw down piston knob also blocks ink flow so it doesn't dry out. I have the Sailor 1911 and Pro Gear also, but prefer the Realo piston fill for the larger ink capacity. I enjoy the Rhodia paper also.

Your mention of 'pivot' brings to mind this analogy. I want to pivot from riding a motorcycle to driving a car. Which brand, model, and trim level would you recommend (without knowing anything else about intended usage)? Except, your choices of technology may be even wider.

The problem is there are too many things that are interesting and desirable to learn and not enough time for everything.

I recently had a similar conversation of a younger person who wanted to learn development and wondered on what to focus on to start. You need some way to filter the very broad scope of possibilities to something narrow enough to begin a focus. One possibility is to decide on a platform. Do you prefer to work on web apps, desktop apps, back-end, DB, mobile, etc.? That selection will help to narrow down which tech may be better suited. Another option is to pick an open-source project that you use and like. You could then learn that tech stack and begin to contribute to it, thus getting your efforts and new knowledge documented.

Apple could mitigate this risk to some extent. If some tracker that is not mine remains in proximity to me while I move around (or my iDevice does), it should warn me and then help me to find and identify/eliminate that tracker. If that tracker belongs to a member of my family or immediate circle, I could mark that tracker as accepted and not a risk. It would also be good to know who that tracker belongs to so I could be aware of the risk coming from that person.

For efficiency, a form of short-hand may be faster. But, if what you write needs to be legible to others, a printed form can be beneficial for this. Cursive is not always as legible to others. James Pickering used to have some pages describing his use of italics based on the teachings of Bennardino Cataneo. I like it and used it some when I was more active in writing with fountain pens (a whole 'nother topic). Since most of my writing is with a keyboard, I never practiced enough to write quickly. His site is no longer active, but it can be found in the archive. Here is one page describing this italics. https://web.archive.org/web/20190728053426/http://jp29.org/i...

As an additional suggestion for audio practice, try to get Google Translate audio input to recognize your speech. I have found it to be more strict than a native speaker in recognizing words. So, if I can get Google Translate to recognize my speech, it is likely a native speaker can also recognize it.

I have a small collection of fountain pens and have bought and sold many others. I have found that much of this is personal taste and how you use it. Some pens feel comfortable in the hand. Different pens sizes (length and diameter), shapes, and weights will feel good to different people. Some prefer to post the cap on the end of the pen while writing. Others prefer not doing that. Doing it affects balances differently for different pens.

There are also a wide variety of nibs to choose from. They can vary in material, widths, firmness, and how they flow across different papers. If you mostly like a nib, but it's still not quite right for you, you can have a nibmeister tune it more to your liking.

Some who write a great deal are not comfortable with the smaller quantity of ink in a cartridge converter or the shorter refill cartridges. I have used pens with these and still have some, but prefer a piston filler for the usually larger quantity of ink it can hold. It is even better (for me) when I can also look at it and see how much ink remains. But, if you have those and then rarely use it, ink can dry in the feed. In that case, something with an ink cut-off, like the Pilot Custom 823 Amber, may let the majority of ink remain even if not used. That pen is one of my favorites.

You can try any pen as a starter. But, if you don't like it, remember the preferences. That pen may not suit you, but another may be a perfect fit. Welcome to the hunt for the perfect pen.

I am a NordVPN subscriber. I have found some 'location' issues while using their software. Using something like iplocation.net will show the correct location. However, one of my clients uses search.arin.net as part of their security, which then flags the location as 'out of country'. This is because arin uses the whois location instead of the physical location. In this case, it came back as Panama instead of USA. The client had to baseline my connection to avoid it continually raising that error. Connecting through my dedicated IP address always does that. Connecting through another IP address might or might not.

Here are just a couple of things.

Often, decomposition is based on areas of domain or functionality. There are some downsides to doing it this way. The method in the book proposes it be based on areas of volatility instead. As an example, imagine writing a piece of software for FedEx shipping. What would change to use that same software for UPS instead? That may identify some areas of volatility. If you can plan that something might change, you can limit the ripple effect of those changes in future. Just an example of one benefit of doing it this way. The book explains some of how to approach designing this way.

Another point: Architecture is not just about designing the software. It is also designing the project to build that software. This involves things like critical paths, staffing, risk management, etc. Understanding these is important if you want to be able to deliver on time and on budget.

You may wish to take a look at the book, Righting Software, by Juval Löwy. It is not specific to any particular application or language, but can be generally applied to different projects and systems.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0136524036

The code may be technically excellent, but solve the wrong problem. Communication with others, especially with the stakeholders and/or users, will help to distinguish wants vs needs vs nice to haves. It is not always easy to know how to ask the right questions to bring those differences to the surface. Good communication skills are very valuable, both in software development and in life.

It may partly depend on what you want to do when you get there. Will you work in the country in which you live or continue to work for companies in the US? If it is the latter, living in Europe or the eastern edge of those time zone ranges might allow for work to overlap US business times. But, instead of free evenings, you have late mornings and early afternoons to do other things. A mail forwarding/scanning service will let you keep US ties for banking. Living in a generally lower cost area such as, for example, the republic of Georgia, lets you earn at a higher US rate while living at a lower cost. That difference may allow you to travel more and explore other areas.

Use a VM (local or in the cloud). I do this for each client. If they have certain software, such as VPN, RDP launcher, etc., it gets installed in the VM. If they wanted an agent in the VM, I would add that also. This protects my main system from their software and, once the project is over, I can easily archive or delete the VM and not worry about a corrupted or compromised local system.

I read quite a bit. Reading fiction before sleep helps me to relax. I like a variety of fiction, mostly science fiction, but also some general, historical, legal and spy thrillers, etc. The Overdrive and Libby apps are good for books from the local library as are borrowing from Amazon (Prime or unlimited). I don't really buy fiction books, only borrow, read, and return them. I read some non-fiction. I have purchased some tech/dev books, but have an O'Reilly Learning subscription. It's cool to be able to read in-depth on about any tech topic I have an interest in (or watch some of their video courses). I am now trying out Blinkist to read/listen to blinks (brief synopsis segments) of popular non-fiction. I have a few more days before my trial expires, but will probably keep it. With limited time for this kind of reading, I like being able to get the gist of some interesting books without having to give them a full read.

There is also a Docusign phish email going around. I received a couple of them yesterday from mail2world, though signed by [company name].onmicrosoft.com for that user's business email address. They purported to be from people I knew.