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Are you tired of seeing people say that you have to have a dedicated side project to be a “real” developer? That’s simply not the case. Here’s what makes a “real” developer, and you probably already meet the criteria.

The vast majority of phones feature exactly two things on the back: cameras and flash. But if you have a recent Google Pixel, there's an inconspicuous little circle next to those lenses that unlocks a weirdly specific superpower most other phones simply can’t match.

Just because you can use a Raspberry Pi as a media server doesn’t mean that you should. I’d say there are better uses for your single-board computer, especially when media server duties can be passed off to a machine that’s better-suited to video operations.

Linux taught me many things. And as it turns out, some of the lessons I've learned from Linux come in handy when using Windows. As a daily driver of both operating systems, here are six ways that Linux has made me a better Windows user.

ChatGPT can act even friendlier now, with new personality customization options that let users choose just how warm and enthusiastic the bot is in conversation.

SEE ALSO: ChatGPT is changing the abortion landscape

OpenAI announced the new personality settings in a Friday post on X. The update rolled out immediately to ChatGPT users alongside a long-awaited pinned chats feature, new ways to generate or edit emails, and updates to ChatGPT browser Atlas.

The new tools add more fine tuning of ChatGPT's personality using levels of warmth and enthusiasm (labelled as "more," "less," or "default"). Users can also adjust the way the bot organizes its responses, such as how frequently it generates lists, as well as the amount of emojis it employs, in addition to its base style and tone. There's still no option to exclude emojis entirely.

Professionals have warned that overly anthropomorphic and sycophantic chatbots can exacerbate mental health concerns, including AI psychosis and dependency. A previous ChatGPT model, the still-available GPT-4o, was adjusted earlier this year after facing criticism for "overly agreeable" behavior. CEO Sam Altman has referred to the issue as a "personality problem."

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OpenAI launched its new GPT-5.2 model series one week ago, boasting new capabilities for "professional knowledge work" that include better processing benchmarks and less hallucinations, the company reports.

ChatGPT's developers also recommitted itself to its mental health and teen safety promises amid escalating lawsuits. In a blog post published Thursday, OpenAI explained it was introducing a new set of under-18 user principles to GPT-5.2 intended to create additional guardrails around sensitive topics and encourage age-appropriate interactions. It's also working on a new age verification system for young users. GPT-5.2 reportedly scores higher on internal mental health safety tests, including stress testing for self harm, than previous models.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

Clean code is one of the first ideas that makes developers feel like professionals. For many developers, though, it can stop being a helpful guideline and become a trap instead. That's why you need to learn where to draw the line and recognize when it starts working against you.

Memory prices are through the roof, SSDs aren't far behind, and soon GPUs will be feeling the brunt of market forces too. If you've been saving up money to upgrade or build a PC, you may have been looking at rising prices with dismay and are probably thinking about weathering the storm.

FREE BOOKS: The latest Stuff Your Kindle Day takes place on Dec. 16-20. Winter Wonderland, hosted by Indie Author Central, is offering free wintery reads for Kindle e-readers.

Stuff Your Kindle Day is back again, and this time it's festive.

Winter Wonderland, hosted by Indie Author Central, is offering wintery books for free or just $0.99. And the books that you download are yours to keep forever. Does your library desperately need a boost? It doesn't matter. These books are free to download, so you might as well stock up.

SEE ALSO: I tested the best Kindles to help you find the perfect e-reader

Looking to make the most of the latest Stuff Your Kindle Day? We've lined up everything you need to know about this popular event.

When is Stuff Your Kindle Day?

Winter Wonderland takes place from Dec. 16-20. Unlike a lot of Stuff Your Kindle Days that take place over 24 hours, this event runs for five days. That gives you time to properly assess your options, make a list of top priorities, and then download everything you want to read. Take your time and enjoy the process.

Who can take part in Stuff Your Kindle Day?

There are many great things about Stuff Your Kindle Day, including the fact that everyone can participate. Kindle, Kobo, and Nook readers can download these books for free. You can even download these books on your preferred app and read them straight from your phone.

Which e-books are free?

Finding all of these free wintery books is straightforward thanks to the helpful hub page on Indie Author Central. Everything is neatly organized with filters for genre, content level, spice level, and availability. You can head directly to what you want to read thanks to the nice people at Indie Author Central.

Is Stuff Your Kindle Day the same as Amazon Kindle Unlimited?

Everything you download on Stuff Your Kindle Day is yours to keep, and there's no limit on the number of books you can download. Stuff Your Kindle Day downloads don't count towards the 20 books that Amazon Kindle Unlimited subscribers can borrow at the same time, so don't hold back.

The best Stuff Your Kindle Day deal Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Kindle (16GB) $89.99 at Amazon
$109.99 Save $20   Get Deal Why we like it

These popular e-readers help you take your entire library on the go. With weeks of battery life and an anti-glare display, you can read anywhere and anytime with the Kindle. The price is down to $89.99 for a limited time, saving you $30.

Holiday streaming is a seasonal joy that only rolls around once a year, and I always look forward to relaxing with my collection of holiday music. I like to use YouTube Music to stream tunes during this season for many reasons, the main one being its YouTube integration.

Are you just starting out with soldering and want to practice on a few cheap and easy projects? That’s exactly where I am in my microcontroller journey, and these are the simple projects I did first to really start to hone my soldering skills.

I've been using the free tier of Google Gemini's API to generate snarky descriptions of visitors captured on my video doorbell in Home Assistant. It worked perfectly until very recently. Google has unfortunately slashed the number of free requests for many of its models, with Gemini 2.5 Flash cut down to just 20 requests per day. If you've been hit by the same problem, here's what to try instead.

This was another busy week in tech, with big updates for Home Assistant, Steam's 2025 replay going live, a revamped Jellyfin desktop app, iRobot's bankruptcy, and much more. Here are the biggest stories from this past week you might have missed.

Canonical has given cute animal-themed codenames to Ubuntu releases since the earliest versions of the operating system, but these releases didn't always come with default animal-themed wallpapers. A lot of default Ubuntu wallpapers have just been abstract blobs and waves of light, but starting with version 17.10, every Ubuntu version has defaulted to an animal-themed wallpaper to go with its animal-themed name. Here are my favorite picks.

This was another busy week in the Linux ecosystem, with a new major release for Kali Linux, updates to Docker and Armbian, and much more. Here are the biggest stories you might have missed.

Compact sedans are evolving quickly, but not always in ways enthusiasts appreciate. For 2026, one premium Japanese brand has updated its compact sedan with fresh styling, improved tech, and subtle refinements aimed at keeping it competitive in a shrinking segment. While many rivals use refreshes as an excuse to simplify lineups or remove enthusiast-focused elements, this update takes a more thoughtful approach, modernizing where it matters without losing the character that helped the car stand out in the first place.

Much of the world runs on open-source software that is free to deploy, adapt, and incorporate into other projects. Even though this software is offered at no charge (or has a significant free option), that doesn’t mean that the projects don’t have costs associated with them.

Whole-column references in Excel are silent performance killers, often forcing the program to manage a range of over a million rows. As a result, they can significantly slow your workbook's performance. So, stop using A:A references and, instead, create dynamic ranges.

When it comes to ultralight gaming mice, aesthetics and feel are normally left in the dust in favor of cutting that extra half a gram. Somehow, with the Sabre v2 Pro, Corsair managed to create what is essentially a near-perfect ultralight gaming mouse that’s the lightest I’ve ever used—and it even has a full shell.

"Elite gift giver" is a title we all strive to achieve in life. But I'd argue that finding a unique eco-friendly gift is the final boss of thoughtful gifting — thoughtful because you clearly carefully considered what'd make them happy, and because you made a conscious effort to not fall into the wasteful overconsumption trap.

I mean, consumerism really puts a damper on holiday cheer, particularly as it applies to waste and ethics. Consider how much non-recyclable packaging will be used, how many old tech devices will be trashed to make room for new ones, or how many underpaid workers put in extra hours to get those Shein prices so sketchily low. Of course, there's always the question of whether your giftee will even use that gift you bought in a hasty scramble, or if they'll gift it to the trash can to keep the peace in their junk drawer.

SEE ALSO: The best 'buy it for life' products, backed by Mashable reporters and editors

Outside of voting, using your dollar to shop and gift sustainably is a tangible way to get involved at the individual level. I've gathered a list of the best unique sustainable gift ideas below, including several items that I personally use and tell loved ones about. This isn't your average list of fancy reusable grocery bags and succulent gift boxes: There are affordable stocking stuffers that simply act as a less-wasteful version of something people already use regularly, as well as more creative, premium eco-friendly gifts like comfiest comforter ever that happens to be made from recycled plastic bottles. There's a gift for every point (and budget) on the journey to create less waste.

Writer-director Rian Johnson hits the books to craft the locked room mystery of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and so does the Spring Book Club of the film's church. And if you're quick, you'll spy an entire whodunnit reading list onscreen to add to your TBR pile.

There's a scene crucial to debonair detective Benoit Blanc's (Daniel Craig) investigation into the "stuff of detective fiction" murder at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, in which accused priest Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) helps him rifle through the parish office for clues. They find one, a simple piece of paper.

SEE ALSO: Why 'The Hollow Man' novel is crucial to 'Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery'

On the page, the priest and the detective find a list of the church's book club titles, and the parishioners seem to be having quite the classic whodunnit mystery binge. Not only does the list include the key "syllabus of how to commit the perfect crime," John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man, but there's also enough Agatha Christie and Edgar Allan Poe to make an impossible crime seem possible.

Here's everything on the Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude book club list — and there's some pretty major ties to the murder at the heart of Wake Up Dead Man (but no spoilers).

The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr Credit: Mashable / Orion

American author John Dickson Carr's 1935 mystery novel, The Hollow Man, featuring his recurring investigator protagonist Gideon Fell, has become synonymous with determining the elements of an impossible crime. In Chapter 17, the detective gives his famous "locked room lecture" directly to the reader, detailing "the general mechanics" of how a murder — like, say, that of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) — could be committed in seemingly impossible circumstances. In fact, Blanc himself uses this book to solve the case in Wake Up Dead Man, dubbing it "a syllabus of how to commit the perfect crime."

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers Credit: Mashable / Warber Classics

Published in 1923, the spectacularly named Whose Body? is the first of English crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers' 14-book detective series. It introduces the iconic Lord Peter Wimsey, Sayers' aristocratic amateur detective. His first case? A London financier is murdered and left in a bathtub, naked but for a golden pince-nez. Hear that Wake Up Dead Man viewers? A bathtub.

The Murders In The Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe Credit: Mashable / Vintage Classics

Netflix titles love a bit of Edgar Allan Poe, from Wednesday to The Fall of the House of Usher. In Wake Up Dead Man, there's a famous title from the American writer on the list, 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. The tale features the first appearance of the character regarded as the first fictional detective, Poe's great C. Auguste Dupin, who had immeasurable impact on one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his own detective, Sherlock Holmes. The investigator is faced with a locked-door mystery, a brutal and grisly double murder with the last killer you'd ever suspect.

Featured Video For You Rian Johnson on 'Wake Up Dead Man,' Josh O'Connor's neck tattoo, and AI slop The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie Credit: Mashable / HarperCollins

Who among you crime fiction fiends doesn't know Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's famous Belgian, moustachioed detective or Miss Marple, her famous elderly, English, amateur detective. The British writer has two titles on the Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude book club list, starring her leading investigators. Published in 1926, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is an absolute masterpiece of a twisty crime novel, with Poirot pulled away from his vegetable garden to solve the murder of a wealthy widower. There's blackmail, clandestine meetings, mysterious footprints, and yes, the crime scene is a locked room.

The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie Credit: Mashable / HarperCollins

Miss Marple's first appearance was in Christie's 1930 novel The Murder at the Vicarage, a murder mystery set in the small English town parish of St Mary Mead — big Wake Up Dead Man vibes. In this whodunnit, the town's local magistrate and churchwarden is widely hated by everyone in the village — and then he turns up dead in his study. Everyone has a motive, and no one is safe from the watchful eye of Miss Marple.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is streaming on Netflix Dec. 12.