cubano

Yes...I do currently have 0.75 BTC in a locked wallet where I forgot the password and it's totally frustrating.

Currently, I'm converting all the jpegs to webp at 55 compression at the time of import and I love both the quality and the sizes of the files, and so far couldn't be happier with the results[0] I managed to shave some 20GB from the disk usage as well.

The 800lb gorilla is, however, Safari. We all know that Safari does not currently support webp and due to internal politics, may never do so.

So the first "solution" is to keep copies of both formats and use the <picture> tag. This just won't do I have zero interest in doubling my already prodigal disk usage.

There are some rather complicated OS libs that will take a jpg and convert on the fly to webp...I want to do it the other way around.

One thing I hate are "kitchen sink" libs that do SO much that you are often left confused on how to do the specific thing you want to do, so I am in the process of rolling my own solution by using GD and intelligently converting the 11% of all requests that are Safari and using nginx caching to keep these converted images ready to go.

I would like to hear of anyone with better solutions, if possable, since as you can see, I haven't yet implemented my ideas.

[0]https://lasvegasluxerealty.com

They certainly make bold claims and some cites sure would help to convince me as to their claims.

I know I could use use therapy, although the fabulous graduate-level textbook I once read that I believe nailed the root cause of my issues (deep neglect as an infant) basically said that the only "cure" to most of my issues would be to, and I paraphrase here, to constantly reinforce that I am no longer a helpless child and I need to take control of my decisions as an adult.

Also, the book postulated that deep early-childhood trauma is one of the most devastating things that can happen to person and could very well be the primary driver of addiction later in life, and I remember quite clearly that the author (a German lady from the 20's if I remember correctly) said that it would be better to be addicted to heroin then to be neglected as an infant.

I read the book while in prison, so I am unable, thankfully, to figure out the author or ISBN number, but I sure wish I could find it again.

Thanks to all for the intense reprimands.

In fact, I am currently unemployed after I rather unwisely completed a 20-week job in 11, and I was literally given no notice and a week's pay.

So now its back to the Upwork slog and trying to convince someone (again) that yes, since I have been a professional programmer for 25 years I can for sure fix those database issues and add those rather pedantic features to your app or website.

Like I often want to shout..."Do you think I'm lying when you read the years and years of experience on my CV that literally lay out me fixing the same issues that you have, and much much more complex ones as well?"

Trying to pin the "blame" (whatever that even means) will get you nowhere...it's like blaming the "wind" when a hurricane comes and blows off you roof. Yes, the "wind" did cause your roof to fly away, but it was simply the endpoint for a huge number of directly connected and unconnected forcess, too many to measure, that were in place for that bit of wind to do its dirty work.

I feel the only sane way to look at work nowadays is to always have an eye out for opportunities that may work career-wise, and get better at interviewing.

[edits]

Well, that's an interesting spin on the Opium Wars. You say "tea" could have been exchanged for opium?

Last time I checked, "tea" doesn't create addicted zombies that will pretty much totally destroy their lives to get another sip, does it?

Saying opium wasn't the reason is disingenuous...yes, the only thing China was willing to trade Britain for their much desired tea was India's opium, but the widespread social destruction that was created by this trade had to be ended.

I often think that few things in history show just how uncaring governments can be then how the Brit's went to war not once by twice to force the Chinese to continue to accept opium (and thus keep their population addicted and in terrible crisis) as payment for tea.

Furthermore, the sheer number of quite profitable high speed trading platforms seems to totally rebuke your assertion.

I have recently been made aware of relatively inexpensive massive high density tree planting projects as a way to potentially solve the CO2 "problem"[0] I personally find ideas such as these are far better for world's ultra-poor then raising the price of energy thru carbon taxes, as pretty much the only way people can move into a significantly better living situation is thru the use of energy.

[0] https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2019/07/massive-tree-...

Excuse me, but this just doesn't make any sense. Applications are the reason we use computers, not OSs, and to have to make such sacrifices is IMHO just silly. The whole OS holy-war thing seems so played out to me...its 2019 just use whatever works..no one care really.

Add to that the apparent political nature of the openbsd "manifesto" and guidelines and I'll just say that I, personally, am not a fan of mixing politics and OSs.

We got to walk besides the Crawler-Transporter 2 as it was moving to the launch pad...that was awesome. Touring the VAB and taking a ride to the top...amazing view. Same for the actual launch pad and them describing why the lightning arrestors had to be aligned perfectly to the N-S magnetic poles (to maximize dissipation, of course).

The saddest part of the tour is when we went to the KSC version of the Apollo control room and it was in total disrepair (this was 1988 remember). I remember thinking "what a shame this looks like this..I don't get it", but this was the time between the first Challenger explosion and overall, the place wasn't at its best.

I think it's amazing that Gene led the restoration of the Johnson control room...I just hope that people don't forget to do the same at KSC.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/norway-to-test-free-heroin-pro...

Also, don't forget to mention that Norway is currently running a test program to give free heroin to its addicts.[0]

[0] https://www.foxnews.com/world/norway-to-test-free-heroin-pro...

I am not sure how this fact lines up well with a 40yo lifestyle. This is usually the time of life where you are raising kids or making career moves, so I am not sure just how many available hours one has for study.

Well, if all you have to do is compare the patient's health outcome of, say, 3 days with water vs. 3 days without, I am sure you could find a very positive correlation between the two treatment paths.

I was deeply involved with BBS software development at the time, and after 2 years of futzing with ANSI graphics, the whole BBS community was looking for a new terminal paradigm, something that would (finally!) allows us to display pictures (porn?), change fonts, and even stream video (oh, the raw ambition).

Back then, your modem dialer was also your software terminal (yeah, makes perfect sense right?). Soft terminals emulated popular-but-limited UNIX-based hard terminals like VT52 or VT100 etc. Remember, software used to be EXPENSIVE because, of course, memory was expensive!

Oh yeah, Hypercard...so I remember discussing the problem with my partner, Tim Stark, and the folks at Galacticomm, the BBS company we worked with. Someone mentioned Hypercard as an almost ideal paradigm for building a frontend that allowed for hot-linking of text, graphics, and sound.

We actually built basic hypercard functionality into our flagship product, Magisearch, that I still contend was one of the very first online search engines ever created for general purpose online searching. We quickly realized that since we already had the indexes built for all the documents, or pages, we could quickly scan the returned text and highlight any already indexed words and "link" them.

Then one day, a true programming genius (I unfortunately cannot remember his name this morning, and thats a shame because he deserves full credit for his efforts) dropped a floppy on my desk and said "run it"...and up came a hybrid dialer/BROWSER!

This guy had done it!! I can't remember what he called the product, but I'll never forget the date...January 19th, 1993...my mom's birthday. Our BBSes were finally going to have rich text capabilities...hyperstacks!

And then came January 23rd and I product I DO remember the name of, Mosaic, dropped, signalling the end for BBS's and my software business.

This is absolutely brilliant work. I had no idea that experimenters had found a way around the quantum measurement problem.

I have always wondered "how in hell can people experiment with something that is actually affected by simply LOOKING at it?" This gives me my answer.

Even though this idea is only one step in the findings of this article, I am so glad I came across it.

I thought Digg's vote system was simply being gamed by bad actors. The idea that someone at Digg thought it would be even a reasonably good thing to have the system you describe is totally bonkers.

They are literally making the same exact mistakes, and its leading to the same exact results...karma whoring, piling on, ingroup/outgroup ete etc.

It seems beyond comprehension to me that they wouldn't have thoroughly looked at the rise and fall of Digg and not made every effort not to follow the same path.

Furthermore, I feel this this could be an ideal application for AI. AI is outstanding at recognizing patterns that are often impossible for other systems to discover, so what would be better then to "train" a group of AI on nuclear plant safety and let them monitor all the systems in real time, looking for any group of subtle changes that, in the past, have lead to severe problems?

I'm sure I'm hardly the first person to consider this, so I was wondering if anyone has any info about using AI in this way?

One caveat though...you gotta know your shit. The days of babysitting websites and charging fairly outrageous fees are mostly over, and good riddance.

I've found that true LAMP or MEAN-full stack dev is really in demand now...so much so that I recently raised my hourly to a once-only-dreamed-about $100/hr US on Upwork, and I'm getting more interest in my services by the day.

Sometimes I actually have to pinch myself to believe this work environment is real...I often tell my friends, as sincerely as possible and with true humility, that I work in an absolute dream world that, up to now, only Rock Stars inhabited.

I mean...who else gets to work their own hours?...do whatever I really want while working?...travel the country/hemisphere on a whim?...goto music festivals and get paid while doing so?...live on the beach one month and on a mountain top another?

Well..I do. And man, am I grateful.

I consider myself lucky that during my formative years in tech in the 90's, I was also playing guitar in a semi-professional band touring Florida during the year. I feel that due to these experiences, I was always able to see what many of my colleagues couldn't.

That tying your emotional, social, and financial happiness to your tech job is a dangerous place to be.

Russian troll farms...influencers..BFuckingD. People are responsible for their behavior, and just because some good looking tool on Social does this or votes for that sure doesn't mean you're absolved from responsibility for choosing to follow or not.

Sure...kids need to ABSOLUTELY be protected and the punishments to those who attempt to lead them astray should be as deep as any we have for any criminal.

But draconian speech suppression aimed at adult-to-adult communications? No thanks.

I just don't see how that eventually leads to anywhere I would want to live.

2bil is so easy. Highly rated tax-free munibonds...a very safe 3% coupon will net you completely tax-free 60mil/yr...I would say plenty to live off of and even reinvest.

It's a very difficult thing to do, and ever since my younger son started battling (and winning) his weight issues, I have become much more sensitive to how unfairly some people treat overweight people.

I actually recoil in horror at the thought. Just the time wasted in traffic and associated costs is too much to bear.

However, hardly anyone at "the office" is looking to create a relationship with a 50-something senior dev anyway. Without a doubt we are the invisible workers at tech companies, if we ever even get the job in the first place, so that's actually another plus for remote.

However, I've never been the type to mix work life with a social circle, so I'm probably just buried in cognitive biases here.