This sounds like an idea related to the InterPlanetary File System, where files are peer-to-peer and cannot be taken offline. It’s not a terribly new idea, but I’ve not seen any widespread implementations of it.

I think people underestimate how difficult moderation is at scale. There’s a reason why The Algorithm exists: past a certain scale, even just wading through a chronological feed of posts and keeping illegal content out of it becomes laborious. You will see influencers on the fediverse complaining about that already. With a P2P system, moderation isn’t just difficult, it’s impossible. Once something is out there it can’t be removed. Finding and maintaining a good balance is just a really, really difficult problem to solve.

Sometimes, that of course is a feature, like IPFS being used to bypass government censorship, but every coin has a flipside.

Yes, Rawtherapee, like Lightroom and other tools that use a non-destructive workflow basically just save the steps you take to edit something and save it separately. In my case, in the sidecar file. So my changes are there, but saved separate from the image.

Lightroom does the same thing, and I had it save my edits in a sidecar as well, but because every editor is a little different, the results will not be the same if I were to try and have RT reproduce the steps that LR used (if they are even available). Basically, if I want to revisit my old photos processed in LR, I have to develop them again.

The sidecar files are just XML. You can open them in a text editor and poke around to see what it looks like.

I don’t really shoot much video, so I can’t speak to that. With digikam I mostly just use it to find photos and videos by date and/or metadata. digikam creates fingerprints for assets that it uses to locate things. I think I tweaked some settings to make digikam only compare the file hash instead of trying to match things visually. I’d rather have two copies of something than not importing a separate image.

I have used kdenlive for some basic video editing, but there are many options. You can even use Blender for video editing.

I’ve only moved to Linux a couple of months ago. I always had a simple workflow. I only make minute adjustments, crop things, etc.

On Windows I used Lightroom for everything. I recently cancelled my Adobe subscription and moved to this workflow:

• Import everything (raw images) with digikam onto my NAS
• Add additional metadata tags and run face recognition if needed
• Look for shots I want to develop further and flag them
• Do my adjustments in Rawtherapee. Save in sidecar file. (Digikam will not see the changes.)
• Export edits to jpg in different sizes for posting online. These are not imported to the catalog because I can just export them again anytime.

It’s not ideal but it works and it’s simple enough for my use.

I tried using darktable but I found it too confusing. It may be better for power users. I am still trying to learn RT.

The Unicode standard allows, but recommends against, adding a BOM for utf8 files. Utf8 does not need them.

I’ve only seen Microsoft tools adding that, and it breaks some parsers.

Please don’t add BOM to utf8 files unless for some reason you need them.

Character encoding and type coercion errors are so common. But a lot of bugs also come from programs trying to do “the right thing”. Like in OP’s case: they are just trying to import some data and maybe the data was never even intended to be interpreted as utf8, but the tool they are using to remove the commands wants to treat it that way. Sometimes the safest thing to do is to just assume data is binary until you care otherwise.

Not sure if this helps you, but for anyone working with utf8 and MySQL, it’s worth reading up on the details of their Unicode support. Especially the part where it says that ‘utf8’ is an alias for ‘utf8mb3’, which may not be compatible with what other systems consider to be ‘utf8’. If you aren’t careful with this you will have problems, especially with high code points, like emoji.

I hear you, and I agree. I did just upgrade my ok PC because I had saved up the money and wanted to get the most for them before the tariffs take effect. Before that I was gaming in a decently capable laptop about 4 years old, and before that I used hand-me-downs and upgraded maybe every 5-10 years. With the exception of this last upgrade, I’ve stayed about mid-tier for GPU and other components.

While consoles may be less expensive up front, I don’t care about exclusives and I grew up as a PC gamer who still can’t use a controller right. I’m also a developer so I can justify the upgrades when I have the money for it.

When asked, I typically tell people to pick a budget and get the most computer you can get within that. If you’re always wanting “the best” your can always spend more money for some increase in performance. Don’t spend money you don’t have.

The cost of PC gaming keeps getting worse every year and the near future doesn’t look very promising. With fewer gamers being able to afford upgrades, I except that will have a chilling effect on game studios and independent developers as well.

Yes. The periods are just part of the name like any other letter, so 5 is compared to m, and numbers sort before letters. You can add something like ‘.0’ to make it sort more naturally. Look up an ASCII table to get a feeling for how strings are sorted.

Yep, I’m a big fan. It’s definitely an acquired taste, though.

Salty licorice

It’s still legal tender so they have to accept it. They don’t like it, but they do. Last time I visited Norway I held up the line at the grocery store trying to buy candy with cash that had been gifted to me. I’m not sure the cashier knew what to do with it.

Edit: many people telling me they are not required. From what I could find, cash is still “tvunget betalingsmiddel”, but there are some broad exceptions. Ref. So, I don’t think I was out of line expecting to pay cash at the grocery store. However, that was the only time I paid cash when I visited last time, so yeah, it’s basically cashless already.

This needs to go viral and be posted in reviews for every monitor with this “feature”. Heck, make a convenient warning icon indicating “adware” for such reviews so I can scroll past them faster.

No way I’m risking buying a TV or monitor from LG after seeing this. It would go right back in the box to be returned.

Yep. And for very good reasons, as explained in the article. But knowing that domains can be a significant source of income for a small nation, it does seem a shame to both waste that resource and break tons of sites in the process. I wish there were better ways to do this that didn’t mean shutting it down or even selling it off to the highest bidder (who already has enough money).

I doubt this will happen, but they should just reassign it to the Mauritius authority. The citizens of the islands could then potentially see some benefit from it, not Google or ICANN or whoever selflessly offers to take it over.

For those not in the US: it may be covered, but normally it’s a separate insurance plan and not covered by your regular health insurance.

It also varies what type of “dental” care. Some mouth/gum surgeries may be covered by the health plan. I think most dental plans cover checkups. All this varies wildly with your employer and insurance election, though.

Check with your employer if they will help with your continued education somehow. My employer, for example, will reimburse some tuition costs if you get a degree while working there.

As a nurse you can continue up to and including a PhD. Or you can go to medical school and become an MD. There are many options. Try to find a few that sound interesting and learn more about them.

If you feel you have unused potential, maybe making a change in your career is just what you need. Even if you just look into what it would take, it could put things in perspective for you.

Your move, Blizzard and Bethesda. This is the boss fight we need.

Everywhere I’ve worked it didn’t matter if I used my equipment or theirs. All IP I created while employed there was the property of my employer. If you’re in the USA, check your contracts.

I don’t mind them when used appropriately, but remember that us old people may struggle to make out which emoji we’re looking at when the text is small.

To my eyes it also looks out of place in professional writing, so I would find it hard to take you seriously if you use emojis in such a context.

TL;DR: in a casual context, go nuts, but avoid for important communication where clarity and professionalism matters.