u/RolandMT32

I have a HDHomerun Flex 4K tuner (from SiliconDust), and it has DVR capabilities. I wanted to have it record one of the FIFA World Cup Soccer games which is being broadcast on an ATSC 3.0 channel in my area, but I've just realized that channel has DRM, which means it won't let met DRM it, and it won't even let met stream the channel to my network.. I don't think they've always had DRM enabled, because I've watched that channel before using my HDHomerun tuner. What's even the point if you can't even watch the channel using your tuner device?

Thankfully, the same channel also broadcasts an ATSC 1.0 channel in my area that isn't DRM-restricted; however, that channel doesn't have quite as good reception for me as their ATSC 3.0 channel. I do have Plex Media Server set up with DRM capability (and I also have a Hauppauge PCI Express TV tuner in that PC), and I've set that to record the game - Hopefully the reception is good and it's able to successfully get all of it.

I have a HDHomerun Flex 4K tuner (from SiliconDust), and it has DVR capabilities. I wanted to have it record one of the FIFA World Cup Soccer games which is being broadcast on an ATSC 3.0 channel in my area, but I've just realized that channel has DRM, which means it won't let met DRM it, and it won't even let met stream the channel to my network.. I don't think they've always had DRM enabled, because I've watched that channel before using my HDHomerun tuner. What's even the point if you can't even watch the channel using your tuner device?

Thankfully, the same channel also broadcasts an ATSC 1.0 channel in my area that isn't DRM-restricted; however, that channel doesn't have quite as good reception for me as their ATSC 3.0 channel. I do have Plex Media Server set up with DRM capability (and I also have a Hauppauge PCI Express TV tuner in that PC), and I've set that to record the game - Hopefully the reception is good and it's able to successfully get all of it.

It sounds like this is official now. I've been looking forward to the opening of this location in Oregon.

I feel like I've always been very nostalgic, and I miss people, and I miss good old times. When I was a kid, I remember being fairly sad when kids I knew (or knew of) at school would move away with their families, knowing I'd never see them again. I still miss people sometimes and wonder what happened to them, if I went out of touch with them, or even if they were acquaintances. Also, these days, I've been sometimes really missing old days in the late 80s to early 2000s when my family often got together & hung out, as well as other old times that I thought were good. Sometimes I feel really sad about this, like a lot of my good times are behind me now, though I still feel positive about the future too. I'm wondering what I could do to feel better about this?

I've had a couple interviews (at 2 different companies) where it seemed at least one of the interviewers didn't read through my resume or the work I submitted during the application process. Should I be discouraged at all about that?

I was laid off from my last job in September, and my resume clearly states the dates of employment in my work history. In one interview, the interviewer (one of 2 interviewers) asked "Why do you want to leave your current role?" I felt like he didn't know I'm not currently employed, and I started to wonder if he had even read my resume.. Also, when discussing one of my previous roles, he asked if that was my first professional role - It wasn't, and I do have my previous experience before that on my resume.

At another interview, I had already done an online interview and a take-home project; for my take-home project, I recorded a video to walk through my submittal for them, and they liked it enough for me to come interview in person. While I was there in person, they thanked me for making the video and said that was helpful. Then he asked me a question which I had clearly answered in my walk-through video (near the beginning).. I felt a bit disappointed at that, because I had the impression they liked my submittal enough to ask me to come do an in-person interview, only for me to find out it seemed they might not have really paid much attention to it.

Recently I've been getting multiple phone calls that are all the same, and I think they're all AIs talking to me. When I answer, it takes a moment before they say anything, and they all ask for a Lopez. I'll tell them they have the wrong number, but then they go on to ask "Are you associated with the property on 6th Street?" I say no, and then they say "Well while I have you on the line, would you be interested in <such-and-such>" (where such-and-such is something related to property ownership). Now when I hear it ask about Lopez, I just hang up now, as it's always exactly the same. My phone says it's potential spam, but I sometimes answer because I'm looking for work, and sometimes it could be a job recruiter calling me.

Has anyone else received these calls lately?

I've been a software engineer for over 22 years, but I've never used Smalltalk (and have never worked on a project that involved Smalltalk). I'm currently interviewing for a software engineer job at a company that uses Smalltalk, and I think it should be interesting, as I enjoy learning new things. Smalltalk actually isn't mentioned on the job description, but I've heard from people who work there that they use Smalltalk. I'm a little surprised that I'm only now hearing about a company that uses Smalltalk after my 22+ years as a software engineer.

I used to always eat breakfast at home before leaving for work, but in recent years, I've started getting in the habit of not taking/making time to eat breakfast at home, and bringing breakfast food with me to work (such as instant oatmeal, a microwaveable breakfast sandwich, etc.) and eating it at my desk while I read my work emails & such for the morning. Sometimes I'll stop somewhere (such as McDonald's) to pick up breakfast on the way to work (perhaps odd, since I may as well use that time to eat something at home?). Many times I felt like it was a non-issue, but sometimes I'd be a little self-conscious about it if someone saw me with the food. Do you think that would be weird?

I tried McDonald's in Paris, France in October 2025 - I tried a 280 Original burger and potato wedges (which aren't on the menu in the US). I thought this was fairly tasty, and it was good to have something that isn't available where I'm from. I'd be curious to see other unique items in other countries.

https://preview.redd.it/gmmi34ryoc3h1.jpg?width=8160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=01d6de58bec5ba2827fbaa35e01482ed107f79fd

https://preview.redd.it/s4xos5yzoc3h1.jpg?width=6144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=651f021cef124637d8e11d8b6cb076c28cd2caaf

I recently applied to a software engineer job at a local company. They did a screening with me yesterday, and today, they sent me a take-home coding assignment. The assignment seems fairly big for an interview assignment, and it sounds directly related to something the interviewer mentioned they're currently working on (is it unpaid labor?) - I'm wondering if this seems reasonable for a take-home coding assignment for an interview?

Take Home Assignment

Write a simple audio mixing API that takes in multiple streams of audio, mixes them into 1

stream, and outputs in real time.

Key considerations

• Must be written in C++ (preferred), C#, or C99.
• Leverage primary language and common libraries
• Input streams should be tones (sinusoidal waveforms in the audible spectrum)
• Needs to run indefinitely
• Output to some kind of stream interface, don’t need to implement
• Needs to have the ability to add/remove input streams
• Needs to have the ability to assign an output stream
• When and how is the audio mixed to keep it in real time?

Assumptions

• Sample rate can be the same for all streams (no need to resample)
• Each stream only has 1 channel of audio
• Only one output stream
• All streams are in the same format
• Stream format is a series of samples in PCM or floating point (your choice)

Stretch Goals

• Extend the mixer to handle another interesting capability
• Create a system test for the mixer

I've seen this topic every so often, but more and more lately, I've been thinking it could be good to have a worker's union for software engineers. Over the past 22+ years, I've been laid off multiple times, and I feel like this is a type of job that is unstable, and you never know when you'd be let go. Sometimes you might see it coming as a possibility, but other times it can be sudden and unexpected. It feels like a lot of companies don't really care much about their employees - We put in the time & effort doing the work, building up relationships with our co-workers, etc., and then they let us go. I know unions can lead to corruption, but I feel like it would be good for something to be done to try to help ensure that companies treat their employees better with regard to job stability.

I've applied to a few Autodesk jobs recently, including one in January where it says my application is still under review. I'm curious if anyone here knows if there's a phone number any way to get in touch with Autodesk HR to follow up/check up on my job application? I found a phone number to call, but it was an automated system and it seems there isn't a good way to get connected to a real person that way.

About a week and a half ago, I had a 2nd-round in-person interview with a company which seemed to go fairly well overall. The manager said they should make a decision by the end of that week, but I still haven't received a response either way. I followed up with the manager via email a week after my interview but I haven't received a response.

I feel like they may have chosen another candidate. I'd like to work at this company though, so I'm wondering if it would be okay to apply to other positions at the same company? I think there's a chance that some of the applications could go to the same manager, so I'm wondering if that would look bad on my part, especially if they didn't choose me for the other role I interviewed for.

This is in no way meant to come across as discriminatory. I've just noticed what feels like odd behavior from recruiters who are from India. I'm curious if other people have encountered behavior like this, and if it bothers you?

I've had some odd interactions with Indian recruiters recently. I've interacted with them a lot over the years, but it seems like behavior from them has become worse in the last couple years.

Recently, one thing I've noticed is they seem to have extreme urgency sometimes - They'll call me on the phone and say they've sent me the job description via email, and they want me to read & reply immediately while they're still on the phone. They've never done that with me until recently.

I've always heard it's good to avoid double submittals for a job. I've always told recruiters when I've already been submitted for a job, but recently there have been some recruiters asking me if I have an alternate email address & phone number to use for submitting me, even an email address or phone number from a relative, so they can go ahead and submit me anyway.

There's also a language barrier sometimes. Recently, there was a recruiter who called me on the phone about a job, and I kept telling him I've already been submitted for the role, and he kept saying "So, can I submit your profile?"

Years ago, there was a recruiter who called me on the phone, and I couldn't understand a word he was saying. I said so, and he continued and I still couldn't understand anything.

There was another recruiter who contacted me about a job recently, and he asked me to update my resume and put keywords about the job on my resume in past jobs where I didn't use that skill. I thought that was sketchy and dishonest, and I didn't do it.

There was another recruiter who contacted me about a role via email & phone. And although I had already provided my name, he asked me to copy & paste a few lines with my name reply back to him. I told him I already gave that information, but apparently he wanted me to copy a few lines verbatim that he provided and reply with that in an email, because their applicant system needed it to be submitted that way. I was thinking, they're the ones submitting the information, so why do they need me to paste something verbatim in an email? Then, they kept texting me from different phone numbers asking me to do that again and again.. It seemed suspicious to me, so I stopped responding and blocked them. When they kept contacting me from different phone numbers, I said I'd report them to the authorities if they don't stop, and then I didn't receive anything more from them.

I'm an experienced software engineer, and when interviewing for jobs, sometimes they ask candidates to do a whiteboard coding exercise. I feel confident in my skills, but I feel like I often don't do well with whiteboard coding interviews due to being asked to write code on the spot with very limited time, and without a computer to test my solution. Often, they mention a way I could have a done it better. I feel like this can put my skills in a negative light, even though I feel like I am a good and experienced software engineer.

I feel like this could get some criticism, but for instance, recently I had an interview where one of the interviewers asked me to write some code to reverse a string in a language of my choosing. I decided on C++, as it's a language I have quite a bit of experience in (including modern C++). This is what my mind came up with off the top of my head:

std::string reverseStr(const std::string& str)
{
    std::string reversedStr;
    size_t len = str.size();
    for (size_t i = len - 1; i >= 0; --i)
        reversedStr += str[i];
    return reversedStr;
}

The interviewer said it was very C-like, and he mentioned another way to do it would be to use iterators, as such:

for (std::string::const_iterator iter = str.rend(); iter != str.rbegin(); ++iter)
    reversedStr += *iter;

The interviewer asked my why that might be better. I said it's a style that's more generic and could work with other containers as well. But also, what I didn't think to mention at the time was you don't need to worry about the specific type of characters that way (though I'm not sure if that's what he was going for).

I am totally familiar with iterators and the STL; I just didn't think about that with my initial solution. I worry that something like that could make me look bad during an interview, even though I am familiar with what he said.