Yes. As far as I’m concerned, with notable exceptions of stuff like Andor (this is AMAZING), the real Star Wars story is the pre-Disney EU, which was, contrary to popular refrain, fairly consistent once they got the “keeper of the Holocron” to make sure the stories were relatively cohesive and didn’t contradict one-another.

A bunch of the authors even worked to retcon-remove the Dark Empire storyline with the reborn Emperor in their various series by referring to that as “mere rumors” and whatnot.

That’s not to say the entire EU was marvelous. But I read the vast majority of it - overall it entirely eclipses what Disney has been doing in terms of quality and depth. Not to mention…Disney, with their tabula rasa, still have stories contradicting one another and introducing inconsistencies…

For me, Disney’s Episodes 7-9 never happened. I consume and recognize anything that doesn’t materially contradict the prior EU - I’m O.K. with smoothing over, explaining away, and massaging stuff to make it work. But “Kylo Ren” is a dollar store knock-off of Darth Caedus.

Former USAF JAG here (lawyer). I was always a tech geek, undergrad major was in MIS actually, but I didn’t enjoy coding. Always ran Plex on the side, built my own computers, etc. Grew up with my Dad using Linux everywhere (I found this annoying as I just wanted to play games on Windows).

I didn’t enjoy law (surprise!). I was disillusioned with the criminal justice system too. Quit the law in 2020. Then suddenly had quality time by global happenstance to rethink my life path.

I work in IT now. Restarted at the bottom of a new career but I’m in deep nerd territory now - Proxmox servers, Home Assistant, networks with VLANs, OPNsense router, 22U server rack, Linux as my daily driver, etc.

Much happier now.

Hello friend. Indian American here. My parents immigrated here, and their ticket in was education. I understand your grades aren’t great, and I also acknowledge that my parents did come from middle-to-upper-class privilege.

I work for an IT company who employees (not outsources) individuals in India. Several of them have left India to come to the U.S. or Canada. For all of them, education has always been the way out. They knew they wanted out, so they grinded hard in the short-term, and applied aggressively abroad for graduate-level education.

Find a niche in something that does interest you. It seems you are very socioeconomically aware, consider something in such a realm that makes you stand out (yes, I understand this is easier said than done, especially in a nation of 1.3…1.4? billion).

Saying that, also understand that STEM-related expertise areas are much more sought after. So it might not be a bad idea to focus on that side and/or diversify.

I won’t contest a lot of what you said about India - much of that is accurate. Some of that is more cynical than necessary. But change is slow and it would be wrong of me to tell you to stay and change a nation in a region notoriously resistant to change. Unless you’re the next coming of Barack Obama charisma, in which case, please help change India, hahaha.

You’re young, you have plenty of time. So don’t feel burdened not finding a spark at this era in your life. My Mom immigrated here only after marriage, when she was 28. The coworkers I’ve mentioned have all been in their late 20s or early-to-mid 30s.

I want to add - you’re not worthless. Don’t devalue yourself needlessly based on the decrees of an unfair and unjust society or uncaring peers and family.

If you are on iOS, I recommend using the following:

https://ente.io/auth/

It’s open-source and recommended by PrivacyGuides.

I’m on Android, where that’s also an option I believe, but I’m using Aegis.

Bitwarden also came out with an open-source MFA app, though it’s a bit new so I’d recommend waiting to see what folks say about it.

Raivo uses to be a good (and the only decent) choice for iOS but I believe it was acquired by an insidious company.

As a huge fan of Star Wars content from before Disney got involved and poisoned it (notable exceptions of Rogue One, Andor, some of the animated shows, etc.), I utilize warship names from the Expanded Universe (now called “Legends”) - what I like to call True Star Wars.

My main server is Chimaera. My backup server that also performs as an NVR is Lusankya. My separate mostly-NAS server away from my server rack is Admonitor.

I have sci-fi themed names (not all Star Wars - two other franchises represented here, virtual kudos to those who can identify) for the storage pools too (using TrueNAS SCALE on all three servers):

• Chimaera (Main Server)
  • Star-Forge (Apps/VM Pool)
  • Holocron (Data Pool)
• Lusankya (Backup + NVR Server)
  • Shadow-Broker (Apps Pool)
  • Resurrection (Backup Pool)
  • Spynet (NVR Pool)
• Admonitor (NAS Server)
  • Mount-Tantiss (Apps Pool)
  • Datacron (Data Pool)

Conservatism.

CNN is now owned by a MAGA-loving billionaire. Definitely not a liberal news source at all - hence the many changes happening at a slow trickle.

Society.