Here is a little struggle I have. If Good Store sends me a 20% off code (SUMMER) for their coffee/tea; and I buy the 5-pound bag of coffee, which is a considerable savings per ounce over the 12-ounce bags (5 pounds, which is 80 ounces, costs approximately the same as two-and-three-quarters 12-ounce bags, or 33 ounces; it’s $.86/ounce vs $2.08/ounce); and I use my “dots” (little reward points that accumulate from purchases) to get free shipping; and of course I got the 20% off as well; then am I…
The lines between transactional systems, analytical systems, hybrid systems, and shared storage architectures are getting blurry. This post proposes a small taxonomy for describing the different ways systems, workloads, storage tiers, visibility, and durable copies relate to each other.OLTP, OLAP, HTAP, and now LTAP?We can think of the first two as two types of workload which have specialized query engines and storage systems to support them. OLTP such as the RDBMS like Postgres and MySQL use…
In the game of football (i.e. soccer), players pass the ball around, and eventually someone takes a shot. If the ball breaches the net, the team scores a point, and the game restarts from the center. If an errant shot surpasses the goal line, the opposing goalkeeper restarts the action; if the shot is intercepted by an opponent pushing the ball out of bounds, the attacking team retains possession and restarts the action with a corner or a throw-in. The action can also be stopped and restarted…
The ultimate source of all miscreation and abomination. The gray mass quobbled and quivered, and swelled perpetually – and from within it, in manifold fission, were spawned anatomies that crept away on every side through the grotto. Here there were things like bodiless legs or arms that flailed in the slime, or heads that rolled, or floundering bellies with the fines of fishes; and all manner of things malformed and monstrous. And those that escaped not swiftly ashore when they fell from the…
… a sporting event that can bring a small African island country together is a good thing. imagine! Imagine if a sporting event could bring nations and continents together.Imagine humans seperated only by land mass and water - not by skin and culture. Asé Peace & Blessings,"Guided by the Ancestors"
Someone pointed me to a series of applied economics papers: 1. George Borjas and Nate Breznau, Ideological bias in the production of research findings: Our study exploits an opportunity to observe 158 researchers working independently in 71 teams during an experiment. After being asked their position on immigration policy, they used the same data to answer the same empirical question: Does immigration affect public support for social welfare programs? . . . teams composed of pro-immigration…
Hemel has long been known for its military and tool watches, and while it has continued those themes with its Eyelandt collection, the sub-brand has also provided a place to… The post Hemel Eyelandt Aurelian appeared first on The Time Bum.
Kris Kristofferson as “Rubber Duck” in Convoy (1978) Vitals Kris Kristofferson as Martin “Rubber Duck” Penwald, maverick trucker Arizona to New Mexico, Summer 1978 Film: Convoy Release Date: June 28, 1978 Director: Sam Peckinpah Costumers: Carol James & Kent James WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background Today would have been the 90th birthday of the late Kris Kristofferson, likely best known as a pioneering singer-songwriter in the 1970s “outlaw country” movement alongside friends and fellow…
When I review a new color or style of a product that I’ve already reviewed many times, I am looking to answer two things: 1. Has anything about the core feature changed, and 2. Why would I choose this model over any other within the same series of products?In the case of the Uni Kuru Toga Metal Mechanical Pencil, the mechanism is the core feature, with its auto-rotation lead system, and this model is the premium barrel Metal version, in this case a brilliant Orange. The best thing I can say…
If you look back at the "cardboard starship" tag, you'll see there have been a couple of previous builds... and #3 was never updated. That's because I never finished it. I was unhappy with the foam I'd used to make it, and decided to scrap it. That was 5 years ago. Now that I'm actually playing Stargrave again, and the next official scenario requires a crashed ship with a 10x4 cargo area that the crew can go into, it's time to build my next cardboard spaceship!The only requirement for the…
Brides, have you ever had a lofty cake dream... ...fall flat? Or have you ever wished for pretty-as-a-picture polka dots... ...only to get gravity-defying cow patties? How about something that should have been simply sublime... ...that turned terrifying? Perhaps your "something blue"... ...has you seeing red? Have you ever wanted creamy lace and bows... ...only to get "AAAAUUUGGHH!!" Well, have you?Yes?Oh, good!Then send me a picture, won't you?This stuff cracks. me. up. Thanks to brides Ashley…
I felt like a skating coach hearing someone say that it's impossible to do a triple axel. Of course it's possible. It's hard, but it's possible. -- Paul Graham on earning a billion dollars***In the wake of the latest populist drivel against "billionaires" by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, venture capitalist Paul Graham decimates her assertion, notably its smuggled-in premise that one must necessarily cheat others on the way to amassing a net worth of billion dollars.The crux of Graham's argument is…
In September, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor will be bringing out the above, this year’s big book on fascism. Given Klein’s well-earned public reputation, as well as the genius of her book Doppelganger, this book is likely to be popular with activists. For people who want to get a taste of its contents; there’s the […]
London is a dizzying delight, full of pomp and pedigree, a place where high culture and cutting-edge trends feed off one another. Suzane Rowan Kelleher, Donald Olson and Darwin Porter, Frommer’s Europe by Rail
Dire Garden of the AgesOut 29th May on Naturmacht Productions The second album from this Irish solo project could be framed as a transfer of styles from one zone to another. Whilst the debut behaved like an epic fable heavily rooted in Viking and Celtic metal stylings, the follow up offers a rather dramatic volte-face into industrial and electronic territory. But both expressions are characterised by a swirling, atmospheric panorama that creates a clear continuity within this project despite…
GLM-5.2 arrived last week. It boasts excellent benchmarks and looks strong. Benchmarks here are a de facto ceiling of how good it is, not a point estimate. Essentially all other aspects of an open model like this, beyond speed and price, will almost always be worse than the numbers suggest. Still, impressive. It is definitely a large step up from GLM-5.1, and likely the strongest open model. GLM-5.2 is still substantially behind the absolute frontier, although plausibly on the cost-benefit…
i have been looking for the next job for a little bit, and i've noticed that most job ads now not only rely heavily on ai for writing the actual job description, but working with ai is one of the main tasks on the job. one such position i had applied for "ai-powered fullstack engineer" (they ended up going with someone else for the position). i am fighting an internal battle: do i go deeper into the ai bubble, apply for "ai-first" companies, or do i try to do what i feel deep within me is right…
American robin fledgling in Frick Park, 16 May 2021 (photo by Charity Kheshgi) 22 June 2026 Nesting is at its peak, June flowers are blooming, bugs are buzzing, and robins are fledging their second brood(*). Join me for a bird and nature walk in Schenley Park on Sunday, June 28, 8:30am to 10:30am. Meet at the Schenley Park Cafe and Visitor Center where Panther Hollow Road joins Schenley Drive. In addition to birds we’ll see wild urban plants, including native Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus)…
gonna rank from worst to best song ranking system 😇- need to have a looong conversation with whoever made this song 🥹- teared up a little 🥰- i love love love 😊- very good 🙂- good with some issues 🤔- i would let it play in the background ig.. 😪- not feeling it 😠- no this is bad. 😡- this is really bad. 🤬- play this around me and im taking a gun out. for both of us. pinocchio 😡 you're not serious. 96ers 😡 you're not serious. stupid idiot 😠 you're not serious. overall this is what happens when you…
“The University of Dundee has announced it plans to cease offering Philosophy as a named degree from 2027. This news has come as a complete shock to students, staff and the wider Scottish community. We, the philosophy community of Dundee, are determined to fight this.” So begins a petition protesting an aspect of the University of Dundee’s administration plan to address a large financial deficit. According to the BBC, “Despite already cutting about 675 jobs through voluntary redundancies, the…
Learn how to write a coding agent in Python in this tutorial that teaches how to interact with an LLM through an API, how to manage the context, and how to do tool calling. Introduction This tutorial will show you how to create your own coding agent from first principles. By doing so, you'll understand how coding agents work under the hood. Prerequisites To be able to follow this tutorial, you'll need prior Python experience: this tutorial is not suitable for people who don't have programming…
Learn how to use Eloquent Query Classes to organize important database logic in Laravel without adding a full repository layer. Read more
Big Tech bad. We probably agree that much since we are here in Bear. Big Tech US-based (at least mostly). US not privacy friendly. US ran by absolutely insane unit of a person. Need to run from US. Change tech to EU-based alternatives. Because EU has GDPR. EU privacy friendly. EU friendlier in general. They are on Mastodon too! If you believe that EU-based technology is fundamentally "good" you are either uninformed or crazy bananas. If you believe that the EU is friendly to its citizens'…
Exploring GIFs, flexiGIF and LZW compression
What is Dave wearing today? Dave looks athletic this morning in a a white running top, green running shorts, white socks, and gray sneakers. How does Dave feel today? Dave feels good and you knew that he would now. What are the factors affecting Dave's mood? Dave enjoyed a sunrise constitutional, and the reality of the new workweek has not yet set in. What are Dave's thoughts about the World Cup so far? Dave is befuddled by the lackluster showing of some powerhouse teams, and was surprised by…
Laravel Octane promises a faster Laravel: keep your app booted in memory, skip the framework bootstrap on every request, do less work per request. We run a fleet of uptime-checker boxes at Oh Dear that do nothing but fire HTTP, TCP, and ping checks at the sites we monitor, so I figured they’d be a good, low-risk place to try it. We moved a handful of them from PHP-FPM to Octane on FrankenPHP , measured it properly, and then moved every one of them back.
On Saturday Michael and I went to Public Knitoxication, a knit in public event at a local winery – we’d gone to this event back in 2018 and had a great time. Michael worked on the second sock of his Ugly Christmas Socks, which is already past the gusset decreases and onto the foot… …and while we sampled tasting flights of white wine and cider and listened to an excellent guitar/drum duo playing all the songs we like, I finished a slouchy hat that I’d started the day before on the machine,…
I wanted to put yesterday into perspective. Or better yet, I wanted to add color so that I could find contrast in the shadows of this thing I called my youth.And, so, I had to count backwards to make this possible. Of course, counting the years that went back was enough to make me shake my head. This is crazy for me to realize that, including yesterday, 38 Father’s Days have passed since The Old Man, my Father, was around. 37 years have gone by. This means I have made 37 trips around the sun…
[Now “excellence” means “A.I. hallucinations”] Last fall, a report on how businesses are using A.I. contained A.I. hallucinations about A.I. usage by businesses A KPMG report on how AI is being used by businesses across the world exaggerated adoption of the technology with bogus case studies that appear to have been based on AI hallucinations. The October report, “Redefining excellence in the age of agentic AI”, made numerous false claims about the use of AI by organisations including the Swiss…
Had a very nice Father's Day yesterday, beginning with a wonderful brunch at the Stonecat Café. Perfect weather, three guys playing some blues, and an excellent meal. We stopped at Overlook Coffee in Burdett on the way, so Caitie could get coffee up to her fancy LA standards. I missed the turn into the parking lot, so I parked in the back and it was a fortuitous mistake because I'd never seen the falls the shop is named for! There they were, right behind the place! Very cool. We came home from…
