Get a library card! My local library card includes free digital access to newspapers " from 100 countries in 60 languages" as well as streaming video, audiobooks etc. They also have a makerspace with 3d printing, green screen, recording studios, video games, tool rental etc. all at low or no cost. I let my card expire but I see it's still free in my city.

No, but the U.S. needs to catch up with plastic cash. Laundering cash can be a good thing ...especially during a pandemic!

I recently agreed that yes, "the vaccines have been tested on millions of sheep"... and now the chickens can get shots.

I didn't get the opportunity to use that in person.. let me know how it goes ;)

I'm in a similar situation but with an even bigger gap. My strategy, so far untested, is to concentrate on a newer technology where I can be a bit rusty but no worse than anyone else. I'm looking forward to other comments here.

Just remember that knowing the tools isn’t the part they really care about. They wanna know if you can build stuff that someone asks you to build, maintain legacy code, communicate well enough, etc.

That's encouraging to me as I feel that those are areas in which I've done well. I guess I get the most value out of staying up to date on the newest tools by knowing when NOT to use them.

Unless someone is hyper committed to a laser focused tech stack (e.g. we're a React/Node shop), I don't think you'll have much trouble. If you only know older stuff, say mid-2000s PHP & .NET, but you take a month or three to pick up Python & JavaScript, you don't need to advertise that your PHP & .NET are much stronger than Python & JavaScript. Just say you know all four. Talk about what you've built, and what you know, and let them dig into what you built w/ what you know. If you really want to modernize your skillset, by all means keep working on it, but don't let your ancient tech subtract deflate or inflate your confidence. Focus on being effective, not a myopic "you can do anything with my tech" weenie.

Think of it this way:

- If someone worked in a 100% Perl shop, but they were doing things that sounded modern-ish & had dabbled in React after hours, would you still want to interview them?

- Now if think of a Perl developer who is maintaining a server by hand, pushing tarballs of code with FTP, not using version control, and hadn't learned anything new since jQuery, would you want to interview that person?

I thought I'd see if I could build an 8mm film scanner using stuff you can buy at the dollarstore to leverage your smartphone. So kinda the google cardboard of film scanners.

I've set up a kickstarter preview here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2114964482/17400909?ref...

Apart from the higher numbers a good reason to be concerned about the novel coronavirus is the "novel" part. The 1918 pandemic was initially known as the three day flu but the second wave mutated into a 12 hour death sentence.

Then one of the whatsap co-founders initiated the Signal Foundation! See "2018–present" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_%28software%29

Maybe they didn't fail us... Wikipedia: On February 21, 2018, Moxie Marlinspike and WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton announced the formation of the Signal Foundation

They failed us to sell WhatsApp to FB while the networks effects are (at least in Europe) in full effect. I simply can't abandon WhatsApp due to this now.

This is very interesting and reminds me of something I read 4 years ago. I had wondered about data compression related to brain research after I had read this blog: https://probablydance.com/2016/04/30/neural-networks-are-imp...

Not only that.. but depending on where you're from and where you traveled you might have more trouble with reverse culture shock. We in the west tend to be quite wasteful and this is even more acute in North America. Commercialism drives our workforce and the continuing arms race of work and buy is even more apparent once you've seen more of the world.