just speculation on my part (and an opinion, I don't know about you, but even if someone says it's safe to eat irradiated food, I would strongly prefer not to eat it)

I would imagine is difficult to avoid irradiating other things while in the process of irradiating food, also NIMBY probably? I don't think the FDA is trustworthy enough for everyone, so even if they say that it's safe, I think many people would prefer non-irradiated food, to the point of it not being worth it for companies to irradiate it

if you're getting into the paralysis trap, you don't really know what you need, based on that, I'd say you don't need it, and shouldn't buy it

I weigh in the money I'd spend, the time it might save me, whether I want it, whether I need it, what other people say (but only in aggregate, 10k x 4.5 stars > 1k x 5 stars, I had a better formula, but I can usually "eyeball" it now)

I do

want + save time ~= need need > want need > save time save time > want

as an example, I don't need a KVM switch, but it saves me having to disconnect and reconnect cables between my work laptop and own computer, so I got one

but for something like, a shirt, I don't care, I just get any of them, lowest price that's still got a decent rating

work out, you don't necessarily need to spend money on it (I may be assuming money's a concern for you, maybe it isn't?) if you are suffering from depression, you could also consider therapy, if that's a viable option

interacting with people in some way, specially family (if you have any left), is likely to improve your mood

you don't mention where you live, but given that you know English, if it's not something undesirable, consider teaching it, while having some sort of qualification/certification might be useful, what's important is that you know it to teach it, at least in a "getting people to talk" way

another job option that seems viable (at least to my mind) is becoming a teacher of what you studied

for the "wife and kids" thing, I don't think I could give advice, I myself have been single for over a decade

if you truly want to do something, you do it

I don't remember who I heard it from

I contrast that with how some people say "I'd like to learn X language" (like Japanese, or Italian, not like Rust) and they don't, some languages are difficult (German comes to mind), but ultimately, if you want to learn a language, you do it

get as bored as you possibly can, put yourself in a situation where your only alternative to boredom is doing something that you think you can only do with motivation, figure out what that is, and then don't allow yourself to do anything but that, so if you're not doing that, you should literally look at paint dry, or be in an empty room (completely empty, no bed, no chair, possibly, no lights)

you can "nudge" instead of going cold turkey, set your phone to grayscale, turn notifications off, close social media accounts (or at least uninstall apps), stop binging tv shows (if you do), or watching tv, you probably get the gist of it, make it so that what to you now requires motivation, is the fun option

tldr; mute everything, also, you can just get another job

I only use slack on my work laptop (no work-related anything on my phone, or any other device), and mute absolutely every channel that is not with my immediate team, and I set times during the day when I check muted channels (once or twice a day), depending on your job title, that might not be viable, but if it is, I highly recommend it

if you are at a position that doesn't allow that, that's kind of the reason you get paid what you get paid, you might've heard that "engineering's all about tradeoffs", but it's really life that's about tradeoffs, you either choose to make a lot of money, or spend time with kids, you either choose to work 80h/w or to have hobbies... my point is that you have control over your life, maybe not complete control, but you can get another job, or accept that the way your life is because of the choices you've both made, and continue to make

if you went for guaranteed salary, you value peace of mind over exciting, or meaningful work, anyway, and you acted upon that, maybe for your family or whatever

you can find meaning in things other than work anyway

it might seem a bit extremist, but if a job for which you are not overqualified is not on the level of the polio vaccine, insulin, penicillin, glass lenses, the wheel, etc. you know, "changing the course of human history"-level, then what does it matter what the job is anyway?

for mutt, I use Luke Smith's mutt-wizard and can do several accounts, I switch accounts with `i1`, `i2`, etc. for the different accounts, though I'm not sure if that fits your use case

for the question I'd say "depends on what you want to do", if you have to interact with people who use slack, then probably no, unless you make your own CLI client to it, same with the web

useful how? for work? leisure?

not sure how youtube-dl would be useful during an internet outage, could elaborate on how you'd see a use for it?, I could see rsync still being useful for LAN file transfers (sincerely not trying to be annoying/condescending, just thinking there might be more to youtube-dl than how I've used it)

but not sure if you mean like downloading a library of documentaries/videos in local hard drives while you do have access to youtube, and then using something like plex to watch them

I do that, except for the plex part, I use mpv in my computer, and don't have a tv with LAN/network capabilities

I also have some PDF ebooks from nostarch, and use zeal for offline documentation browsing, for reference when programming, be it for work, or my own stuff

you only mentioned software/digital things, so I assume not physical tools, like multitool (like the ones that can open cans and/or start fires)

I'd get a at least a couple of physical books, in case if you mean losing not just internet connectivity, but also electricity

I also think it's possible to download libgen to local media, though I haven't done it myself

I saw at least one answer mentioning survival things so I'm not sure if I went off-base here

throughput

newer CPUs have higher levels of parallelism, therefore having higher throughput, even at the same frequency

the parallelism can be achieved via vector instructions, out of order execution, along with other changes, like better or more caching

system performance as a whole doesn't just depend on the CPU though, a beefy CPU with shitty RAM or an HDD might be worse than a mid CPU with high-speed RAM and an SSD (even a SATA one)