oblib

2. I took a "learn as you go as needed" approach.

After learning the basics of how to use desktop PC on a Commodore 64 I moved to a Mac Plus and then bought my 1st new computer, a Mac PowerPC 6100. I used the "Apple Media Tool" to create a CD-ROM running in an "Interactive Kiosk" I put in hotels that had ads for local businesses. Mostly restaurants and tourist attractions.

The Apple Media Tool had a GUI to do most of the work, but it also had a feature that let you edit the code it produced and not long after the internet took off and I started making websites for businesses. I started off using Adobe Pagemill and that too let you view and edit the html code. From there I started hacking Perl CGI scripts and then writing my own using CGI.pm mostly.

I avoided Javascript for the first few years after it came on the scene but started using "Prototype.js" shortly after it came out. Not long after that I rewrote most of the server side code for an app I made with Javascript and jQuery and that's still what I use most.

I still use Perl on the server side but for the most part my apps run in the web browser. I use CouchDB or the web browser's IndexedDB for the back end. Never did really like SQL for web apps but CouchDB/PouchDB.js has been easy for me to work with.

So for the most part I have depended on the kindness of others for the code I use most, and have only written code on an as needed basis, or just to play around and experiment.

I really like the tools I use to make web apps. I've been able to hand off the hard parts to them and focus on the features I want to create. And if something comes out that's better it's generally easy to implement it. The move from Prototype to jQuery is an example.

I spent some time going over frameworks at https://todomvc.com/ and when I'd went over those I was interested in I decided to keep doing things my way.

You know... we already have vehicle IDs on the body, the frame, and the engine on/in our cars. Those do lead to arrest every day here in the U.S.

Well, it starts locally. A meth head stealing a converter isn't going very far to sell it. Odds are most are sold to junkyards that sell them to a larger recycler that processes the PGMs.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to assume that entire illegal market could move offshore without a trace.

I've never been a morning person, but I have worked circles around some of those who valued that far more than it's worth.

Anyone who thinks getting up early makes them superior to those who don't is only boosting their ego. Getting stuff done right it what's truly important.

That would be ironic af, but yes, that is basically what I'm suggesting.

You have to license the buyers and make them account for every lb they recycle by having the serial numbers to compare it. They would have to submit those number as soon as the buy one. If the converter doesn't have one they can't buy it, and setting up stings for that would be pretty easy.

As someone who lives in a rural area I and most of those who live in such places around here tend to frown on that sort of thing. We put a high very value on our clean air.

I think taking down the buyers is a the best tool we have right now for this issue.

And there are things we could do to make that easier, like putting a serial number on the converter on new cars and replacement parts. Requiring the make, model, and serial number of the car it was removed from, and a web site with a DB that has the ID number of cars they've been stolen from so buyers could check it.

Make those who buy and sell and steal them pay for it. For new car buyers all they be paying for is the addition of the serial number. Can't add much cost to engrave those during production.

I was complaining to a friend about someone who "didn't know shit about what I was working on" and they told me "You can learn from everyone you if you listen to them".

My first reaction to that was thinking "No, some people are just annoying and clueless" but after a few days of pondering that I realized that me being dismissive would get in the way of proving him wrong.

Just a few days later the person I was complaining about did suggest a different way of doing something that I had been doing for years and that advice saved me a lot of time, which made me a lot more money, and was a big improvement over how I'd been doing it.

Looks like they mucked up a CSS link or something, but it's displaying a mess on all my web browsers today.

I'm curious, does Medium have a reputation for algorithmic banning with no review process?

If it's a person who's reviewing keywords I'd have to think the context would be obvious, and could be specifically crafted to be so if needed.

But if I had reason to be worried about that I'd go set up an inexpensive server at DigitalOcean (etc) and just reference stuff from a medium post if that's where I had an audience I wanted to share it with.

Aside from that, "showing Huckleberry Finn and Pudd'nhead Wilson as anti-racist works" is probably a worthwhile and necessary thing right now, and easy to do. Anyone who's read Twain knows he deliberately exposed the ignorance of racism and cruelty of slavery but apparently he's not read as much these days. If all you're looking for are "offensive words" by today's standards you'll find them there.

His "Joan of Arc" does the same for women's rights. She's tougher, smarter, and more courageous and moral than all the men in that story. I really cannot see how focusing on those attributes of Twain's works could get you booted off Medium, but I could be surprised to learn it can in these "interesting times" we're living in.

I decided not to use a framework. I spent about a month going over the "TodoMVC.com" demos with the intent to choose one but after a few weeks of pondering which one I concluded I didn't want to invest in any of them.

jQuery and Mustache.js do a lot and are easy to use. CouchDB and PouchDB are too and that gave me user authentication, a powerful server side DB, and offline-first/local-first features.

I've never regretted those decisions but I had no investment in SQL DBs. Over the years since I've seen other's who've did struggle with CouchDB and I get that. I came from using CGI.pm's "Save" and "Get" functions and CouchDB/PouchDB.js are similar in how you use them, but way better.

Hmmm... I was looking into global poverty yesterday and came across this:

  Some figures from the United Nations Development Programme [*]:

    More than a billion people live with less than a dollar per day.
    2.8 billion people, that is to say almost half of the global population, live with less than 2 dollars per day.
    448 million children are underweight.
    876 million adults are illiterate, two thirds of which are women.
    Every day, 30,000 children under 5 die from avoidable diseases.
    More than a billion people don’t have access to healthy water.
    20% of the global population have 90% of the wealth.

I know the cost of a ride around the moon doesn't solve that, but it sure feels selfish when I think about it.

* https://www.atd-fourthworld.org/who-we-are/faq/how-many-peop...

I'm progressive but I don't think they really even came close to my thoughts or opinions on this issue so it feels to me like they just tossed that phrase in there because they're conservative capitalists looking to justify their profiteering.

I have no problem with for profit businesses, but there are some things that really shouldn't corporatized, like health care, schools, roads, policing, fire depts, water depts, ambulance services, social services.

I live in an area where our electric is provided by a user owned co-opt. Last year we had a pretty hard cold snap and those who live outside the co-opt were getting electric bills that way higher than what we paid. Not as bad as what Texans went through a year or two ago when they had that vicious ice storm, but still a huge corporate gouging scam because there are no laws to prevent them from doing that.

And the same thing happened with those using propane to heat their homes here. We had a propane tank too but hadn't been using it for a few years. When that happened I called them and told them to come get it and they were stunned. Couldn't believe that we'd do that after they literally raped folks here who depended on them.

>>I'd like to see similar study about the original gateway drug: "24-hour News Channels"

Back in the early 80s I was living in LA and I'd grab some food on the way home from work and the "News" on an independent station. They had 3 half hour News show back to back. They started out with "Local News", then moved on to "National News", and finally "World News".

At first it didn't seem much different than the big 3 Networks. Everyday I'd come home from work feeling fine but after a few months of doing that I realized by the end of the last broadcast I was very depressed.

It finally occurred to me, after a few months, that the station was gathering every tragedy they could find, rapes, robberies, murders, wars, airplane and auto crashes, etc. So I decided to stop watching it and immediately went back to my normal, happy, content self.

Since I've learned to monitor the "News" as opposed to consuming it and that's much easier to do when we can pick and choose what to consume and ignore it with just a click or tap. And since then I've had quite a few friends and relatives who're happy and content before and are now in a constant state of rage because they're pretty much addicted to watching FOX/CNN/MSNBC, etc.

That said, I would love to see a serious study on this because it's grown into a serious and national mental heath problem here in the U.S.

I've been making and drinking Mullein tea and it will give you a very nice, lightweight, mellow euphoric buzz.

It takes quite a bit of mullein to make a strong tea. I make mine in our little espresso maker and run just an ounce or two of water through it and then let the mullein sit and steep for about a 1/2 an hour or more, and then I run a full carafe of water through. I put a filter in the bottom of the coffee holder to keep the tiny hairs on the leaves out of the tea. A coffee filter will work fine but you'll have to cut it size.

After the first run of the water the tea will be a weak looking light green, but the 2nd round it will come out looking like a strong Black tea, and it tastes very similar to that. I add a teaspoon of raw honey to it and it's delicious.

You can buy it online but where I live it grows wild and is abundant and easy to find, and it can be found most everywhere in the U.S. and is very easy to ID.

You've nailed it. I'd never really given the UK Monarchy much thought but a few years ago I spent a little time looking into it and was fairly well shocked by how immense their power and wealth is.

I think it's fair to say that Elizabeth was exceptional for how she handled her position as Queen but the United Kingdom is always just one "King" away from a disastrous ruler and that could get very ugly very fast and potentially for a very long time.

That said, same could happen here and for much the same reasons, which basically comes down to issues of common sense and fealty. If the first is low and the second high the odds of getting caught up in a shit storm are pretty good.

Yes I was, but that was just a part of it. The "United Kingdom" is huge. It's hard for me to imagine, for example, how Australians are still owned and controlled by that Monarchy.

In practice it's not much different here since we still have the military draft but so far we can still fire a "President" via impeachment if they go crazy on us. The UK's "subjects" do not have that power, they are truly akin to chattel.

I've never really understood how we can still have monarchies but I do believe Elizabeth was probably one the better ones that have sat on those thrones.

A few years ago I looked into how much power she had and I was shocked. I was also shocked by how much that monarchy owns.

I agree that source is lacking. I did find this though, and it says "Verified Tesla Autopilot Death" are at 15 now, but the total deaths from Tesla involved crashes are at 290 since 2013. So you may be more likely to die from being smacked by a Tesla than being in one using their autopilot feature:

https://www.tesladeaths.com/

I couldn't find much on this, but I did find this:

https://getjerry.com/questions/how-many-fatalities-have-been...

"It was not a self driving car"

That doesn't work for me. The car was clearly "self driving" when it crossed the lane line. Even at very slow speeds that can be deadly because we're talking about something that can happen in less than a second or two.

You cannot tell someone "this car can drive itself but you must be ready to take control at all times because if it fails it's your fault" while knowing that a failure can happen in less than a second.

From what I've found you're more than twice as likely to get into a wreck when using this tech.

This is just wrong. Innocents being injured or killed while testing this tech is more akin to a negligent murder via technology than an "accident".

Many years ago the 3M company created a magnetic tape for the lane lines on roads and a device to detect those for automobiles, along with a gizmo that would vibrate the driver's seat on the side the vehicle was getting too close to crossing the lane lines.

That could help prevent these kinds of incidents, but cameras trying to detect painted lane lines have many obvious fail points and one of them is keeping the car in it's lane. This incident proves that once again.

You cannot tell a human "this car can drive itself but you need to be ready to take control at all times" because that's a clear oxymoron. It either works, or it doesn't, and if it doesn't it's potentially deadly, and it only takes a second to become deadly, and humans cannot react to that failure 100% of the time. That's been proven too many times already.

Yeah, I burned through a few new Macs in late 90s early 2000s. They all were obsoleted pretty fast. I have an old Silver Door Mac G4 that was really just crap new out of the box.

But, the Late `09 Mac Mini I bought new has been as solid as one could ever hope for. I just ordered a refurbished late `14 Mac Mini from OWC to replace it and I expect it should last a few years too.

I mostly just write code for a web app I sell so I don't need the latest or most powerful Mac and the `14 model will run the current Mac OS and the latest versions of the software I use most, mainly BBEdit and web browsers.

I know I'd be pretty disappointed if I'd bought a Macbook M1 and that happened to me.

I made an ultralight tent made with SOL Emergency Blankets that will warm up inside to over 80° in below freezing weather with a small campfire burning in front of it.

I had a lot of fun testing the concept with quick and dirty prototypes and then making one that I could use on my backpacking trips. It's by far the best tent I've ever used for backpacking. And it also provide a cool place to sit when it's sunny and hot because it can be configured to reflect the sun and radiant heat as well.

I never marketed it because there are way too many people who really shouldn't ever start campfires and I didn't want to expose myself to lawsuits.

https://youtu.be/FdekfNtx65c

Some of ours are pretty heavy too. We also have some stainless steel pots and pans we use a lot and they're quite a bit lighter. But I should also mention we stopped using aluminum cookware back then too.

My wife and I tossed out all the Teflon cookware we had about 25 years ago and replaced it with cast iron and stainless steel. We've not missed it at all.

"but that ship has sailed" is a perfect summary of the situation because that ship is now the size of the Titanic in shallow water that will most certainly strand it and the only way to avoid that is to turn it around.

"Ten Civilizations or Nations That Collapsed From Drought":

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/ten-civilizati...

"When it comes to the food people want to eat, each [4] of these regions more than pull their own weight [6]."

I don't have a problem with moving water to support agriculture in those State. That's something that was fairly well solved in the San Joaquin Valley long ago.

But that is not what this opinion piece purposes. They summed that up with "Los Angeles couldn’t exist without the California Aqueduct. Phoenix and other cities in the Southwest are in the same boat. Their future survival depends upon finding large amounts of new water."

That is an entirely different issue. In all of Arizona there are approximately 138,000 people that work in agriculture. That's not even in the top 10 industries in Phoenix. About 40% of the water used in Phoenix is used for farming. Phoenix-area residents use over 50% of the water they get from city water supplies for watering lawns and maintaining swimming pools. [1]

When you look at the growth of metro areas there it seems pretty clear to me that growth is not sustainable.

1: https://askabiologist.asu.edu/questions/how-much-water-are-w...

From what I gathered this is not about the San Joaquin Valley farms, it's about Vegas, Phoenix, Palm Springs & Desert Hot Springs (Riverside County) and water for people living there.

Vegas went from 230,000 in 1970 to over 2.5 million residents in those years.

Phoenix from 870,000 to 4,652,000.

Riverside County from 44,579 to 2,544,820

So now we've got over 10 Million people living in the desert in just 3 those areas.

Aside from that, I lived in Sylmar, Ca in the `70s on the last parcel of ag zoned land there, so yeah, we did grow there.

When we bought our place there was a small 2 bedroon home on it, an orchard of fruit trees, a large garden, and we raised chickens and rabbits and a few cows (one at a time) there.

Our home was the oldest house in Sylmar at the time and it was akin to an oasis compared to most of the homes there. Because of the ag zoning we had two water lines, one for the home and one for the orchard & garden and we got a huge discount on the ag water line.