Popup ads? Where are they? That’s not something I’ve heard of, but then I always use an adblocker…

I used it for years on a raspberry pi, and it was great, very easy to manage storages and different ways of sharing over a network.

If you are after a Debian based system, with an interface for file server/backups/network storage, with a (web) interface, you are pretty much describing https://www.openmediavault.org/ . Decent plugin ecosystem to set up Wireguard, as well as a web interface to set up docker based containers for anything.

This Mitchell & Webb sketch comes to mind… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY

What kind of dystopia are you living in that listening to music or podcasts would ‘raise the alarm’? Yes, don’t do anything inappropriate (definitely no piracy, obviously), or detrimental to productivity, but listening to music? Would definitely quit if an employer had a problem with that.

Is this a thing that’s considered ‘normal’ in the US? (I’m assuming US mainly because other countries are not generally so hostile towards employees)

True, just clarifying to clarify the last sentence:

In UK, it is just the legal term everyone goes by for when you lose your job

Since I think there’s room for misunderstanding that it’s more generic than it is

That’s not quite true, it’s a very specific reason for losing your job. If you are fired for doing a bad job, and said you were made redundant, that would be a lie. Redundancy is about the role, not the individual.

It’s not quite the same thing. If you are ‘fired’ that’s generally to do with performance or conduct of the individual. Redundancy is about not needing (or affording) the role any more (i.e. it is redundant). There are specific legal protections for each case that work quite differently. (You cannot rehire for the same position after a redundancy, for example)

Possible counterpoint: their use as a generic is isolated within the US (maybe some other countries, but certainly not universal), whereas ‘google’ has arguably become a pretty global term (at least in the Anglophone world, and I believe in some other languages, too), so the reach is very different in scope.

(e.g. Despite Kleenex still a big brand in the UK, nobody uses it as a generic. The product is called a ‘tissue’)

In the same way vibe coding has transformed software development

So, that is to say, they expect it to have no impact on serious work whatsoever?

Surely, if you forget it’s even running, you aren’t using it, and it doesn’t matter if it stops running? (With a couple of obvious exceptions like automated backups, etc)