That's a very good point to keep in mind. I've seen that go wrong!
There are lots of connectors out there where the pins never short. The tricky thing is finding ones that can be plugged and unplugged often, while still being small. I've misused USB B connectors for this purpose; it's not common enough for someone to have the wrong cable to plug in, yet very easy to solder and to get the parts. There are also some circular connectors (M5, M6) where the connector on the device is decently small and the bulk tends to be on the cable side.
With a small crimper there are even more compact options which still handle many mating cycles, like Samtec's various Tiger Eye product lines.
I found Webex to be quite a lot worse than Zoom in my limited experience. I attended a few IEEE presentations hosted on the platform. Audio didn't connect smoothly and needed a few restarts. The talk was constantly interrupted by a chiming noise whenever a person joined or left the meeting. I remember finding a configuration setting for this but the hosts didn't see my message (another bad feature), as this was a meeting-wide setting rather than a client one. Even if it were configurable per-user, that chime turned on is an unexpected and intrusive default setting.
Beyond that, I couldn't see the presented content in full-screen. There was a lot of junk in the form of perpetual UI elements for the "fullscreen mode".
These seemed like pretty fundamental misses for the platform to make.
I attended a webex earlier this year and I found the experience was far better than Zoom. The audio and video quality was better, and also the presentation controls were much more sophisticated.
this entry beep is a typical example of security vs. usability. The entry beep is meant for everyone to know if someone joined, even if they have joined using a phone only. It is also configurable. I think it was a huge mistake from cisco to make it a default though, the security benefit is too small. In the latest version is is now automatically disabled after 25 participants I believe, so they heard the feedback (took their time though).
It sounds like you've felt motivated in the past to pursue study on your own terms, but now you no longer feel that same passion. That's a loss that you are truly regretting and I'm sorry to hear it.
Your list of possible directions exemplifies the diversity in topics that are all exciting to some people, but are meanwhile completely uninteresting to the average person off the street. In fact, the same person who can't stop thinking about A doesn't necessarily like B even if they're next to each other on your list. In this post you're looking for someone to tell you something to feel that passion about, but honestly: good, actionable advice would require the advice giver to know you personally and understand what sorts of things would have that sort of pull for you. Any specific answers to this question from strangers will be shots in the dark.
So with that, is there anyone among your close friends and family who you could pose this question to? If so, that should be your next step. If not, you've got the tougher challenge of asking yourself. Why do you want to address either of the problems you've outlined? What is captivating to you? These are very personal questions and deciding "none of the above" is perfectly valid as well, you might just need a break from CS. And that break can be indefinite or even permanent. Fortunately it's clear that you're introspective here and that will be an asset in figuring things out.
If it would help in any way, feel free to reach out directly and I'd be happy to chat. I just made sure my profile here points to contact information.
I don't know about Vim, but Emacs will do this easily with `persp-mode`. To skip a bit of customization work, get doom-emacs and enable the `workspaces` module, which will save sessions for you by default.
Today the mini languages torch is most prominently carried by Racket. The most accessible ease-in to this I've come across is Matthew Flatt's 'Creating Languages in Racket' https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2068896
http://geekring.net/site/0/random should work, but it's not a .html though, maybe the server choked at some point? To ensure maximum oldskooleability, this does run on a computer in my home, hosted on my very own homely private Internet connection ;-)
The basic idea of making a phone to last for longer than current contenders is appealing. No mention about the battery being replaceable though, which in my experience is the real limiting factor on current phone longevity. Edit: it includes a free battery change, impressive at this price
Not sure what the business argument is to have far better specs /and/ warranty than other phones at the low price point (early bird is $200 for an octa core with 6GB RAM). I wondered if they are subsidized by VC but didn't see anything on AngelList. Curious if anyone knows more.
Teracube is not backed by VC but the founders themselves. They provide free battery replacements (not just one time but as many as it takes throughout the 4-year warranty). It is true that users cannot replace the battery themselves but that's why the warranty comes with free parts, labor and two-way shipping.
The business idea is that by prolonging the phone's life, we can reduce 1/ e-waste (45M tons of e-waste produced by US and 135M WW) produced by people discarding their old phones, and 2/ raw materials used to produce the phones which not only the planet is running short but also the pollution caused during mining and manufacturing process.
The most surprising conclusion was about the final plot discussed, regarding scientific publications. The author says that it contains too much information and is confusing for that reason, and postulates it might be better to summarize the different fields and plot as a single variable.
The truth is, it is not a confusing visualization. There is no rule that says to remove variables for the sake of reducing a variable count. It is useful to see that health sciences stands apart from other fields, and other points can be seen as a cluster or examined more deeply by the reader. It is actually one of the best plots shown in the entire article.
In effect it is a grouped bar chart, a visualization that many publications shy away from in favor of stacked bars. While that is good for showing a total, it is often a less effective way of visualizing data—it's difficult to compare magnitude of anything but the base bar. That fault can be seen in the stacked bars of the budget surplus example, which still exists for the improved version.
At any rate, I'm glad the Economist is looking to improve their visualizations and isn't afraid to share mistakes.
There are lots of connectors out there where the pins never short. The tricky thing is finding ones that can be plugged and unplugged often, while still being small. I've misused USB B connectors for this purpose; it's not common enough for someone to have the wrong cable to plug in, yet very easy to solder and to get the parts. There are also some circular connectors (M5, M6) where the connector on the device is decently small and the bulk tends to be on the cable side.
With a small crimper there are even more compact options which still handle many mating cycles, like Samtec's various Tiger Eye product lines.