a small local social network i made around 2008 as a replacement for the original which the owner closed down.

i missed the people from there, so it motivated me to make a replacement in a week, while learning html+php+mysql+js.

it worked for about 3 years and i redid it from scratch 3 times as i gradually learned more.

it was cool to be basically a host of a community i've come to like in the years before, and it was basically the only project i felt, really felt, had meaning, a point. people were grateful that i made a replacement for the original closed-down site, and i was grateful that they were using it and that i could keep talking to all of them on it.

at the height of its popularity it had about 1500 registered accounts, 150 daily logged in ones, and about 30-40 very active ones.

it was also the place where i went to implement all the cool stuff i learned and came up with.

it had a pretty cool questionnaire creator (originally just a test of how deppressed users are, but then i thought "why not let people make their own tests/questionnaires?"), which tracked people's results over time and showed them on a cool interactive flash-based chart.

also a whole forum system made from scratch, wysiwyg article editor, later seamlessly integrated admin controls for those who had privileges, like, not a separate admin ui, but the admin buttons right on the site, later even a realtime chat persistent across page reloads where you could put special links which, on click, would highlight site elements/buttons, or even complete step-by-step path to them if it was more clicks. would highlight the first step, after clicking would then highlight the second one, and so on...

it was pretty cool stuff for 2008, and afaik it basically landed me my first two full-time jobs with almost no actual job interview, basically just "we looked at the site, interesting stuff, tell us how you did x and y and z on it, okay, hired"

back then i kinda felt i have a bright future ahead of me =D

If you were to start making a lightweight, fast, multiplatform client app, architecturally clean and simple, with as little of the JS(style) libraries and packages and transpilers and weird convoluted and/or unpleasant syntax trends like JS or flutter...

ideally (or at least minimally) something at least as straightforward as making a WinForms app in C#

...what language/tool/platform/tech stack would you choose?

...asking for a friend with totally not an absolutely cool idea that needs to exist.

the text in the grey-ish rectangles says "Advert"
the text in brackets above the bottom grey-ish rectangle says "(Content continues below advert)"

and yes, the thing in the middle is the actual whole content, there's no continuation below that non-advert

(it's a dictionary showing a very simple word that's just a direct synonym of another very simple one)

Great video about JS
https://youtube.com/watch/...

!dev
did you ever have a few days of total emotional turmoil and chaos when you were doing weird things, unsure why, and then it resolved in a way which made you feel as if your mind and soul were just reset and pointed in the right direction, and you suddenly felt at peace, knowing what to do, focused, calm and unafraid?

now a funny thing that happened to me a few weeks ago:

a recruiter contacted me on linkedin... wait, don't laugh yet, that's not the whole joke (this time)...

...asking whether I'm interested in something, I was like yeah, but I'm looking for part-time because i'd like to not have a mental breakdown after 6 months this time...

her response: "well... I don't have any part-times, but I have an almost part-time..."

" 'almost part-time'? first time I've heard that phrase, what exactly does that mean?"

"it means about 160 hours"

... i sit in confused silence for a bit, then write back as I calculate: "i'm assuming you mean 160 hours a month, which is 40 hours a week, which is 8 hours a day, which is full-time. please point out where am I mistaken."

recruiter: * crickets *

Interesting (worrying) thing that happened to me a few weeks ago:

One day, every time I clicked on youtube the button "add to playlist" on any video, youtube requested access to my microphone.

"Let's create this tech so that people don't have to only use JS in web scripting."

People:

Seems to me that shitty youtube shorts "explaining" basic programming concepts via shitty JavaScript snippets.

Yesterday I've seen dude basically badly explain/demonstrate currying, on such a contrived example that it didn't explain WHY would you ever want to use it, and apparently without being aware that's what it's called, and using like 5 nested/chained ternaries.

so far, a pretty nice tutorial book about making a parser and interpreter, but when i saw this, my thought was "don't you fucking dare..."

...but he does. flow control via exceptions.
shame.

!rant
I have realized that I need to redefine the meaning of the word "work" in my brain to mean "anything that needs to be done regardless of whether it's fun/interesting/engaging or not".
I should have realized and done that a long time ago.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm dumb as fuck.

I have been stuck on this trivial problem for 1 HOUR AND 46 MINUTES...

https://leetcode.com/problems/...

maybe, hopefully, just because i'm trying to do it in a "clever" way, maybe if i just did it the dumbest, most inefficient way i can think of, it would take me "only" like 15 minutes, but at this point i'm not so sure... :(

What do you think about my solution to two sum?
https://leetcode.com/problems/...

It took me about 10 seconds to realize it can be solved this way, and then FUCKING HALF AN HOUR until i finally wrote the actual code in a way that worked as it should...

...i really should sleep more. and get examined for brain decomposition or something.

so my father is on psychiatry, because he tried to kill himself. he invited me to join, which was very tempting, but his method was very stupid, and i have a bit more time of enjoying watching the apocalypse in progress, so i declined.

he's alive, because his attempt was thwarted by his instinct not to take anyone else with him who didn't consent.

i told him killing himself by crashing a car is the stupidest way ever.

i'm glad he didn't listen, because i was right.

so after several hours of irritated detective work, I've finally found out what is the thing that periodically, every about 10-15 seconds, starts two PowerShell processes which run for about a second or two and during that time take about 20% of my CPU capacity...

They're being launched from a commandline, to do GetPackages with name of OmenLightStudio, and the result is then piped into find.exe to find InstallLocation part.

...for whatever reason.
and this is done every 10 seconds by... *drumroll*
HP SYSTEM OPTIMIZER.

GOD. FUCKING. DAMMIT. YOU. MORONS.

...now only to find how the fuck do I uninstall that, since it's some plugin-ish kind of stuff for Omen Studio, and I can't find uninstall for it anywhere in the system nor Omen Studio itself...

!rant
"What's the best browser that doesn't devour all of my HW resources?"

Seriously guys, Opera GX. You can set how much ram and cpu it eats, and it only eats that much. Yes, even to the point of it being unresponsive and laggy, because it keeps itself within the boundaries you set.

Seriously. Regardless of the number of tabs.
Also, it looks nice.

Downsides: You forget WHY it lags sometimes, so you get irritated, but when you remember, the irritation turns to smile.

I am not a paid shill, i'm just a user and I use it primarily and only for that single feature.

lol, OBS.
also probably the ONLY open-source thing i'm using, in general.

... oh ok, i occasionally use VSCode, but only occasionally since i use it exclusively as a note-taking app regarding my language, since as an IDE it's useless

!dev && !rant
so in my native language (slovak), basically any noun has a neutral (default), diminutive, and augmentative form.

including (first) names.
for literally decade and a half, SOME names sounded weird to me, as if there was something... unnatural about them, but I had no idea what, or why.

and then one day i finally gave it a proper thought, and realized:
those names don't have all three forms, only two.
because they basically lack the neutral form, and their default form is simultaneously their diminutive.

so i was happy to have figured it out, finally. but then i noticed that some names still sound weird, unnatural.

and then i realized, there's another cathegory - those which only have two forms, because their default is simultaneously their augmentative.

and so I finally had all the name cathegories figured out.

funny thing though, even though i now know this, and even though i've reminded myself of this many times...
...every time i think about it, I have huge trouble remembering even a single name for either of the two special cathegories, precisely as I have this time.

except right now i can't be bothered.
if anyone is curious, poke me in the comments and i'll come up with examples later.

i have just realized that the main source of my unhappiness and emotional imbalances is interacting with the world.

when at home, i am zen. i leave everything alone and everything leaves me alone, i am at peace, i am happy.

as soon as i get out and start being barraged by the everpresent dumbfuckery of the world, and on top of that my own dumbfuckery,... it becomes difficult to not hate existence.

What convinced me, and keeps convincing me
https://youtube.com/watch/...

so... not really a rant because i'm happy to be in the long-term zenlike state where i don't really give a fuck about anything anymore, but...

so today's my birthday (thanks in advance for all the semi-mandatory "cheers" reactions and such)

the agency i do temp jobs through sends money weekly (for the one week back) (which is the main and only reason i use them). they arrive at friday 12:25, so that's when i know to go "check" by withdrawing it, and it's also awesome because it's the best time to provide funds to reward myself (by booze/weed) at the end of the week.

last week, nothing came in. i called them and learned it was due to the contact person in the company i did job in being too late on sending the agency list of people who showed up at the work, i was told it's gonna arrive one week later together with the proper payment for the week-1,so effectively i was one week without any money (literally), but on the next week double was going to arrive, which is nice.

that next week of double was now. i found out that no double arrived, only single-value payment. i called them to ask why.
i was told that what arrived was the late payment, and the dude in company was again late with sending the presence list, so the other payment, for the proper week's work, will be a week late again.

so... that kinda ruined my financial planning tor tge week that's going to happen.

i guess my point (if i have any) is... funny how when someone fucks up, there's nobody for me to be angry at and hold responsible in any way, but when i have delays in my work due to delays upstream, nobody gives a shit about my excuses and it's my fault and i should have compensated, it was my responsibility and duty, and me not doing it (to my own detriment, for someone else) is me failing.

funny how the subjective dynamics of the world always somehow works out in a way where everyone else fucks up and i either have to suck it up and be okay with it otherwise i'm a selfish unreliable entitled asshole, or suck it up and extinguish their fire for them, otherwise i'm a selfish unreliable entitled asshole XD

anyone else noticed this in their life?
how does it work? what is the factor that decides whether you're in the "suck it up" class or the "fuck it, someone else will suck it up" class?

doesn't seem to (just) be the money(flow), i've seen this thing happen even in situations where the money/client dynamics were flowing the opposite way to what would be natural for the shit fall direction.

wasn't a fight, really, just me having gotten frustrated after half an hour of trying to explain to a 2D animator what smear frames are, since we were making a flying hummingbird, found out that multiframe animations for the wingflaps looked like crap for its flapping speed, so i was like "oh, i know, let's just make the whole wing flap a 3frame anim, one frame wings down, one smear frame, one frame wings up, done"

cue the UNIVERSITY EDUCATED ANIMATOR looking at me with confusion, asking what are smear frames.

cue half an hour of repeated attempts at explanation, each attempt imagining him to be a younger and younger child, last 3 attempts i was actually sketching it out for him in photoshop and playing it to him (via photoshop's timeline for making animated gifs) so that he could see how it looks, which still didn't help him get it.

it turned very unpleasant towards the end, due to me getting very dumbfounded and irritated and interlacing the last couple of explanation attempts with remarks on my fascinated disbelief that a university educated and graduated animator not only had no idea what smear frames are, but isn't even getting it after having it explained multiple times as if he was an elementary school child.

at that point my boss stepped in, told me to go have a smoke, and when i came back, he managed to explain it to the animator by some of the interpersonal magic he (the boss) had.

that dude (the boss) was amazing.

p. s. the hummingbird turned out looking amazing, thanks to the smear frames.

Fun stuff from the few most recent pages in Dwarf Fortress bug tracker:

Human civilization's soldier is an Alligator Recruit.

Dead suspects confess to crimes

Crash due to zero-size weasel

Pets and other animals from retired fortresses appear as selectable 'workers' in request screen, die of old age on arrival

Some animal people have extra fingers

People dying twice?
Most confusingly, one necromancer shows as having died from old age twice, despite this not being possible.

My Nature Hating Adventurer Who Lacks Altruism And Is Very Cruel Isn't Happy After Butchering Animals

bat man males don't have geldables

Reanimated severed werebeast necromancer hand has a full body

Dwarf likes "cacao wood wood"

Dwarves turn hostile againt the player and defend their prison from raid sent to free them

Visitors giving birth during visit leave their baby behind

a water buffalo got stuck inside a rough tetrahedrite wall

Animals which retract into body parts forget to come out

Herbalist stuck on stepladder, starving to death.

Artifact has an image of nothing

Cave Dragons are sometimes intelligent, and sometimes join human civilizations

A goblin knocked over a workshop and now my dwarves are killing each other

Ambusher elves are being spotted, but the giant monsters they're riding on aren't.

runs with food from table to table. Can't eat

Intelligent Undead Sent on Mission Return as Ghosts

Horrified merchants immediately destroy their wagons, pack their goods and leave the depot

Dwarf king abdictates to become commoner necromancer apprentice

Internal body parts with certain tags can still wear clothing & armor, without being otherwise accessible

Necromancer marries zombie

Single dad dwarf with buggy dead wife leaves kid behind when he takes over holding

Large quantities of adamantine coins causes trade depot to burst into flame

a bet:
this birthday, i will get:
lemon glutenfree cake (if any) because mom can't have gluten and sister likes lemon cake. i hate both of those. but that's irrelevant as it always was.

if any, then gifts will be anything except cigarettes which is basically the only thing within price range they're willing to spend, that i would actually be happy about.

birthday is just an artificially glorified ordinary day. and i'm not the type to do hysterics to artificially glorify it. and it's fine. but then, why are they artificially glorifying it while unwilling to actually glorify it properly, as in, glorify it for me?

pick fucking one. artificially glorify it, in which case, FOR ME, or just don't give a fucking shit same as i don't.

but why are you artificially glorifying it for the purpose of ignoring me and glorifying everything exactly in spite of me, without even being aware that you're doing that?

like seriously, what? make your "i love not you, but my daughter" day, as an extra to her birthday. i don't give a shit, i'm happy you have a nice relationship. but doing all of the "i love my daugther day" shit on my birthday, AND PRETENDING IT WAS DONE FOR MY BIRTHDAY, FOR ME, and being sad about me being sad that all you did "for me" was in fact for yourself and for everyone else, that's the combo that gets me.

"oh why u making me so sad by being so sad that i ignored everything you like and kept telling me you like for the past X years and i just ignored it because it's not my nor your sister's preference?"

guess why, you fucktard. how about you ignore the day next time instead of making it an unconscious (that's the worst, that they don't even realize it) mockery of the day.

"oh why are you sadand shitty feeling that we made this bullshit ignorable "celebrate you" day about ignoring everything that celebrates you, and made it into the opposite instead? why are you so demanding and cruel?"

SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.
go have a walk with your beloved daughter and please ignore me as you always do.
just leave me the fuck alone.

1. our public transport added a free wifi to busses, some years ago already. it's got a "login" page, connect to wifi, get a phone notification, tap it, opens page with an ad and 10 second timer on a "click to continue to internet" button.
... okay.
recently, the geniuses decided to harvest mail addresses, which... *gritting teeth* if you must...
BUT... "please input your mail address". i input and submit.
"we have sent a mail with confirmation link to that address, please click the link to confirm to get access".

FUCKING BRAINZOMBIES, HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO ACCESS MY MAILBOX TO ACCESS INTERNET WITHOUT THE ACCESS TO INTERNET?

2. i had a second unrelated minirant, but i forgot what it was, so another one instead:
a long time ago, in a country where i live, the transaction slip the ATM gives you after withdrawing money used to contain info about remaining funds after withdrawal.
then, the info was removed from the slip, and a "feature" was added to atms where you "can" check the money on the account.
doing so costs you 0.50€

greedy asshole fuckers.

very easily, since i have no social life and i have almost no work either.

! rant
so i finally got back to Control (the game), since i finally got the dlcs.
finished the main story long time ago, even though i didn't finish all the sidequests, so i'm kinda doing that now before starting the dlc.

it might be just that i didn't explore all the nooks and crannies of the oldest house before, since even the place where the "hunt down and finally fire Tomassi" was a place i haven't been to before, and all question marks on the map (and i assume that place was there even before the dlc, because the quest existed too), but i'm noticing a surprising amount of unvisited rooms now, and i assume at least some of them were added by the dlc.

which made me think: how cool that the lore of the game just enables them to add new extensions to the building without breaking it because just yeah, they appeared recently, it's the oldest house...

however i still hope that maybe at least after 100%ing the main game, the place will get to some more... homely state? i'd love a state where it would feel at least a bit more like a place i'm in charge of, and less than a battlefield perpetually in progress.

anyways, still a great game, i forgot how nice it feels to be in that place. looking forward to the dlcs, just have to find the proper time and mood to immerse in it fully.

probably when 8 hours before rushed release i pushed my part of the codebase into the wrong branch which fucked up everyone else's rushed release of different parts of that codebase and now a colleague had to spend several hours unfucking the repo on top of finishing the rushed release of his part of the codebase.

oh and in the end my code didn't even work as it was supposed to.

everything is shit and getting worse. everyone is retarded and getting worse. (including me of course)

no reason to be trying.

peace in my soul.

finally.

!rant
can you give me/point me to some good example problem/exercise for multithreading? as in, something that's small in scope, but actually requires dealing with most of the multithreading issues & complications? race conditions, synchronization, locks, shared memory access, cross-thread calls/callbacks, etc?