Nostr notes by Thomas Baekdal

I think I just killed Claude ;) ... So, I was watching a video ...

2026-05-07T23:47:07Z

I think I just killed Claude ;) ... So, I was watching a video about finding a working parker square (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stpiBy6gWOA) ... and people have already tested all numbers up to 19 digits (insane). So, just for fun, I asked Claude AI to find it. It has now been running for 20 minutes ;)

It's like in that Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold", where Spock asks a computer to calculate "the last digit of Pi"

I just spent three days building a new automated accounting ...

2026-02-19T12:05:36Z

I just spent three days building a new automated accounting system, instead of spending half a day actually doing the accounting ... why? Well.. ;)

This is the game we play. I try to sweep the leaves out of my ...

2026-02-16T15:43:03Z

This is the game we play. I try to sweep the leaves out of my carport, and Thor, the Nordic weather god, is trying to blow them back in again. This game lasts all year. ;)

I'm currently in the process of moving all my systems away ...

2026-01-26T22:15:45Z

I'm currently in the process of moving all my systems away from US tech companies to EU-based providers. I'm tired of having to worry about whatever crazy thing Trump will do next, and whether that will have a negative impact on my business. So, last weekend, I moved by newsletter system to a Brevo, a French service provider ... and I though that was solved. Until someone pointed me towards this.

I mean... for f... sake!!!

So what are you doing on a Saturday evening? Me? ... oh, you ...

2026-01-24T19:21:23Z

So what are you doing on a Saturday evening? Me? ... oh, you know, just moving my newsletter sending system to a EU-based provider instead of using one in the USA.

(I'm moving all my business infrastructure to EU because it has become too risky to use US-based services)

It's actually insane to listen to Trump's speech at ...

2026-01-21T14:49:04Z

It's actually insane to listen to Trump's speech at Davos. He is offending everyone. It's one offensive remark after another. In the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy, there was a person who decided to insult everyone in the entire universe in alphabetical order. That's what Trump is doing today.

The error code I'm getting now is that the hardware is dead. ...

2026-01-21T13:10:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…8hq8
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The error code I'm getting now is that the hardware is dead. As in the physical chip is dead. So... I think this is the end of that.

It's not the keyboard that is the problem. It's the ...

2026-01-21T12:29:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…pxje
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It's not the keyboard that is the problem. It's the bluetooth itself. My computer is saying that there is no longer any bluetooth in the system. The bluetooth chip can no longer be found by Windows. The keyboard is fine. I can connect it to my other computer with no problem :)

I have tried everything. I'm currently doing a system restore ...

2026-01-21T12:05:51Z

In reply to nevent1q…sxul
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I have tried everything. I'm currently doing a system restore because nothing works.

What the frak?!?! ... I have a deadline today, but all of a ...

2026-01-21T11:15:46Z

What the frak?!?! ... I have a deadline today, but all of a sudden my keyboard stopped working. The keyboard itself seems fine, but the bluetooth adapter is just gone from my computer. I have now spent almost two hours troubleshooting, but nothing works. It's just not there anymore.

I have run the numbers, and if I were to move my business to use ...

2026-01-20T13:30:26Z

I have run the numbers, and if I were to move my business to use Proton instead, it would cost me €12 more per year.

Today is a crazy day. It has been 15 years since I launched my ...

2025-12-10T11:26:30Z

Today is a crazy day. It has been 15 years since I launched my independent publication and started working as a media analyst full time. https://www.baekdal.com/newsletter/15-years-of-professional-media-analysis/

The extended one (I bought the set many years ago. I had to ...

2025-12-01T16:33:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…5sjq
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The extended one (I bought the set many years ago. I had to check, but the version is the extended version (208 minutes for Fellowship)

Too late, I watched the Fellowship last night :) ... but year, I ...

2025-12-01T12:30:58Z

In reply to nevent1q…20e7
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Too late, I watched the Fellowship last night :) ... but year, I need to get back to The Hobbit afterwards

I'm casually contemplating if I should watch Lord of the ...

2025-11-30T19:12:41Z

I'm casually contemplating if I should watch Lord of the Rings tonight... I never watched it. Back when the movies came out, I got so annoyed that I had to wait for 2 and 3 that I decided to wait until they had all been released, and then I forgot all about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mf06IwdpVM

So, I have been using VScode for a long time, but, it's ...

2025-11-27T13:50:23Z

So, I have been using VScode for a long time, but, it's getting slow, especially when live editing on a remote server. In fact, it has taken down my site three times over the past month during to how it does that (running out of memory).

So, two weeks ago I switched Sublime text, and OMG it's so many times faster.

No, this is the live dynamic output. And it also shows different ...

2025-11-20T18:33:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…9wtn
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No, this is the live dynamic output. And it also shows different things depending on which level of subscriber that has logged in.

Heh... my new site loads in 42 ms... That's the entire site, ...

2025-11-20T17:48:39Z

Heh... my new site loads in 42 ms... That's the entire site, including getting all the data from the database, checking login, running security, processing the headers, building the html, rendering the page, etc.

But, it's even crazier than that because the python code itself only takes 3.5ms to run. So, it's using 38.5ms for 'networking' and the rest is the site.

I mean, Google.com takes 142ms to load.

I have dropped OpenAI ... I wrote about why here: ...

2025-10-20T10:28:16Z

I have dropped OpenAI ... I wrote about why here: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7385980504593883138/

I have been fighting Nazi's my entire adult life, starting in ...

2025-10-17T18:04:48Z

I have been fighting Nazi's my entire adult life, starting in 1992 all the way to 2025 ;)

Thank you. I already have Cloudflare system for this (which is ...

2025-10-14T16:19:19Z

In reply to nevent1q…dl6a
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Thank you. I already have Cloudflare system for this (which is more advanced than Anubis). But thanks!

This is absolutely insane. I just took a list of the last 1000 ...

2025-10-14T15:26:03Z

This is absolutely insane. I just took a list of the last 1000 raw request to my website (not page views, but every request). Only 81 of them were real, the rest are bots.

We need a bot tax. This is utterly ridicules!

I am Danish, and I live in Denmark. And my mom sent me an email, ...

2025-09-28T14:37:33Z

I am Danish, and I live in Denmark. And my mom sent me an email, in Danish. So Gmail said that it appeared to be in Norwegian and offered to translate it to English ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I asked it to describe the floor plan, which it did, and it then ...

2025-09-26T21:20:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…tn0x
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I asked it to describe the floor plan, which it did, and it then suggested it could create a 3D visualization of it furnished. And it made this:

Just a casual reminder that generative AI has no idea what ...

2025-09-26T21:12:40Z

Just a casual reminder that generative AI has no idea what it's doing, nor does it understand anything.

But not 90 degrees through the side of a tube ;)

2025-09-16T14:07:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…z6nl
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But not 90 degrees through the side of a tube ;)

What the actual... I have had a lot of problems with flooding ...

2025-09-16T12:33:31Z

What the actual... I have had a lot of problems with flooding around my house because the drains kept overflowing, so today I had the professionals out to look at it, and it turns out that my internet company shot my fiber internet line directly through the main drain pipe, destroying it... 😯

Some days I get small packages, other days my delivery needs a ...

2025-09-10T13:36:58Z

Some days I get small packages, other days my delivery needs a crane ;)

Let's not pretend that we don't know what is happening in ...

2025-09-06T07:14:23Z

Let's not pretend that we don't know what is happening in the USA. This is the 'Third Reich' being rebuilt. It is identical to how Hitler acted in the late 1930s.

Holy moly... the best episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation ...

2025-09-04T12:33:44Z

Holy moly... the best episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is 'Inner light'. An episode where Captain Picard is put into a coma by a space probe, causing him to live an imaginary life with another civilization. And during this episode, he plays this flute ... which is now up for sale: https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/456/lot/172142/1

Did you know that the famous quote from Apollo 13, "Houston, ...

2025-08-27T23:49:47Z

Did you know that the famous quote from Apollo 13, "Houston, we have a problem" is not actually what they said. It's close to the real thing, but they actually said:

"Okay, Houston ... I believe we've had a problem here."

Full transcript here: https://www.nasa.gov/history/alsj/a13/a13trans.html

Here is something crazy... I bought a pallet of birds seeds about ...

2025-08-24T15:55:09Z

Here is something crazy... I bought a pallet of birds seeds about 6 months ago and the birds in my garden has now eaten all of it...

I asked a good friend of mine, who is a bit of a cycling expert, ...

2025-08-02T10:35:51Z

I asked a good friend of mine, who is a bit of a cycling expert, about my exercise bike setup... and his conclusion was: "Your setup doesn’t make sense; your power transfer is quite poor – it needs to be moved much further forward." :)

However, I also have the wrong saddle (it doesn't fit my sit bones, which is the main reason why I cannot get it to work the way I want to. So, new saddle it is...

One thing I will never understand is why bank still say that it ...

2025-07-25T10:31:47Z

One thing I will never understand is why bank still say that it takes three days to transfer money when it's clearly possible to do it instantly. We do that on web shops all the time.

For decades, people have said: "Work smarter, not harder" ...

2025-07-21T19:15:17Z

For decades, people have said: "Work smarter, not harder" ... but I don't think they meant: "Create AI slob, not quality journalism"

Nope... external keyboard ;) ...

2025-07-19T23:34:09Z

In reply to nevent1q…2w9q
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Nope... external keyboard ;)

You know how when you order something online, and the web shop ...

2025-07-19T20:20:19Z

You know how when you order something online, and the web shop sends you the tracking number telling you that the order has been shipped ... but then when you click on it, you see that the shipping company hasn't actually gotten the package yet (aka, it hasn't been shipped, they only created the label) ... and that was 9 days ago!!

Me: Renaming a folder. My backup system: Complete chaos, ...

2025-06-15T11:16:47Z

Me: Renaming a folder.
My backup system: Complete chaos, something dramatic happened to all the files. Must do a complete reindexing!!

Apple before: skeuomorphic UI is the future Apple then: No wait, ...

2025-06-10T04:54:10Z

Apple before: skeuomorphic UI is the future
Apple then: No wait, nothing should be skeuomorphic.
Apple now: Wait, everything should be skeuomorphic again. Look at how we can make glass look like water droplets.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(I stopped buying Apple products many years ago)

When I first subscribed to NordVPN three years ago, it was ...

2025-06-08T21:25:14Z

When I first subscribed to NordVPN three years ago, it was $99/year... now!! 😯

Same person, same voice actor, same character style. ...

2025-06-03T08:12:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…5fxk
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Same person, same voice actor, same character style.

Did you know that Don Karnage (Disney TaleSpin) and Hondo Ohnaka ...

2025-06-02T18:38:45Z

Did you know that Don Karnage (Disney TaleSpin) and Hondo Ohnaka (Star Wars) is actually the same person? ;)

Home studio... ...

2025-05-26T21:16:36Z

Home studio...

I have one right next to my bed. But, when a tablet runs out of ...

2025-05-24T21:52:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…y5x3
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I have one right next to my bed. But, when a tablet runs out of power this, even after plugging it in, it still takes several minutes before I can turn it on again...

The worst thing ever is when you are lying in bed, watching a ...

2025-05-24T21:40:50Z

The worst thing ever is when you are lying in bed, watching a movie, and it's getting to the point where it's really exciting, and then your tablet runs out of power.

BTW: I was watching 'North by Northwest' (1959) with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint.

I speak nine languages fluently... Danish, English, Shell Bash, ...

2025-05-19T16:56:59Z

I speak nine languages fluently... Danish, English, Shell Bash, ASP (but not used in 25 years), Python, SQL, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS ;)

I'm building a new site (in python), and currently, it loads ...

2025-05-17T21:00:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…qnat
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I'm building a new site (in python), and currently, it loads the page in 0.1 seconds ... so it's faster than Google ;)

Sometimes your optimization can go to far... I just spent 30 ...

2025-05-17T18:10:18Z

Sometimes your optimization can go to far... I just spent 30 minutes optimizing some code that only runs one (per visit), but then I wondering how much of a difference it really made:

Before: 0.000039 seconds
After: 0.000006 seconds

Yeah... I don't think this matters. I mean, it is 6.5 times faster, but we are talking 6 microseconds... ;) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Heh... I tried to crash ChatGPT. I remember an old TV show where ...

2025-05-15T13:42:35Z

Heh... I tried to crash ChatGPT. I remember an old TV show where an AI was defeated by being asked to solve a problem that was too complex for it to handle.

So I asked it to give me every possible combination of four words.

This, of course, was no problem. There are 24 combinations, and it gave them to me almost instantly.

Then I stepped it up to six words... and again, it did just fine.

But then I asked it to do twelve words... and it refused. ;)

So, we cannot defeat AIs this way. ;)

In my latest Baekdal/Executive article, I talk about why this ...

2025-05-14T10:04:51Z

In my latest Baekdal/Executive article, I talk about why this graph is not a good way to measure paywall interactions, and what you should be measuring and focusing on instead. https://baekdal.com/monetization/nobody-subscribes-when-they-first-see-a-paywall-but-thats-not-a-problem/

Yeah... that changes things :) ... thanks!

2025-05-10T14:08:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…ywz7
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Yeah... that changes things :) ... thanks!

Wait... what?!

2025-05-10T14:04:35Z

In reply to nevent1q…c8c4
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Wait... what?!

Yeah, I have. But that costs money. If I had a much bigger ...

2025-05-10T13:59:03Z

In reply to nevent1q…ynlj
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Yeah, I have. But that costs money. If I had a much bigger business, I would use that.

I have never liked Ubuntu's auto-update with how it is ...

2025-05-10T12:54:09Z

I have never liked Ubuntu's auto-update with how it is focusing on uptime rather than security. And, I get it, uptime is important. But it often leaves the system in an insecure state.

So, I have now created my own auto-update script for my server. What this does is to force a full update every time, and, if needed, restarts the server immediately.

This doesn't actually cause any more downtime, since the server would have had to be restarted manually anyway. Now, it's just automatic.

I was being very productive last night. But... ...

2025-05-02T10:07:42Z

I was being very productive last night. But...

How do you count to 10 on your fingers? Do you start with the ...

2025-04-26T16:26:29Z

How do you count to 10 on your fingers? Do you start with the thumb, your index finger ... or maybe with your pinky?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhOFQ7eruE

I was supposed to make pizza, but then I got this idea... and ...

2025-04-24T16:38:48Z

I was supposed to make pizza, but then I got this idea... and I'm pretty sure this is illegal ;) ... stuffed bread wrapped in bacon! Basically a pizza inside a bread.

Oh yes... and don't even get me started on all the other ...

2025-04-17T22:38:11Z

In reply to nevent1q…7d65
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Oh yes... and don't even get me started on all the other problems, like text encoding mismatch ;))

Yeah, Cloudflare is doing something about this. It has bot ...

2025-04-17T22:37:06Z

In reply to nevent1q…fvwl
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Yeah, Cloudflare is doing something about this. It has bot detection, and a known (good) bots list. It's 'work-in-progress', and I find it misses quite a lot of bots.

Yeah... I mean, how do they even work with those files? Also, the ...

2025-04-17T21:48:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…8qwa
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Yeah... I mean, how do they even work with those files? Also, the separators are completely inconsistent. Some are put in brackets, others in quotes ... but then some elements are combined into the same quote block. It's just madness ;)

Last week, my domains had over 350,000 bot requests...

2025-04-17T21:36:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…xy7k
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Last week, my domains had over 350,000 bot requests...

This whole bot thing is just out of control. I setup a new web ...

2025-04-17T21:35:58Z

This whole bot thing is just out of control. I setup a new web server this evening, and it took 17 minutes from the domain was pointed to it that a bot coming from Microsoft Azure Datacenter started attacking it. 2 minutes later, another bot from a Swiss data center started trying to find php files (there is no php on my new server. It's completely empty).

I have now created a custom log format because I cannot stand ...

2025-04-17T21:24:37Z

In reply to nevent1q…l7kw
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I have now created a custom log format because I cannot stand trying to read the nginx access log in the way it does it by default ;)

There are a lot of really stupid date formats out there, but the ...

2025-04-17T20:32:11Z

There are a lot of really stupid date formats out there, but the one used by apache/nginx is just beyond moronic:

17/Apr/2025:20:23:23 +0000

I mean, why!??!? ... Why not use a completely standard ISO format?

YYYY/MM/DD HH/MM/SS +0000

Heh... ;) ...

2025-04-15T18:49:16Z

Heh... ;)

Note to publishers: Stop doing this. Do not expire your "keep ...

2025-04-14T07:11:58Z

Note to publishers: Stop doing this. Do not expire your "keep me logged in" cookie after only a single week. Unless you are a bank, there is no reason to do this. In fact, you are going to annoy your subscribers, see lower conversions, and your statistics will be all messed up.

The way it works on my site is very simple: the login automatically remembers people for one full year, and the cookie renews every time they visit. So, it's always "1 year from your last visit."

Anyone who has ever coded anything will know that writing the ...

2025-04-13T12:50:16Z

Anyone who has ever coded anything will know that writing the code takes 10% of the time, while the remaining 90% is writing the error handling

Nice!!

2025-04-09T18:09:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…5dr7
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Nice!!

We have colors ;) ...

2025-04-09T13:33:22Z

In reply to nevent1q…ejdt
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We have colors ;)

Ahh... the joy of the Google Docs API ... (I am being sarcastic ...

2025-04-09T10:08:22Z

Ahh... the joy of the Google Docs API ... (I am being sarcastic ;))

Note to tech companies. I don't want a NAS with built in AI ...

2025-04-07T11:29:49Z

Note to tech companies. I don't want a NAS with built in AI and cloud based service. I want a NAS with plenty of storage expansion slots, running stock Ubuntu so that I can do whatever I want with it, and I want it to be fanless so that it makes no noise whatsoever in my home.

Thanks!

2025-04-06T16:02:14Z

In reply to nevent1q…4rg5
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Thanks!

I do very much like the idea of 'no cloud' :)

2025-04-06T08:56:41Z

In reply to nevent1q…0atc
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I do very much like the idea of 'no cloud' :)

Question: Are smart homes just generally bad? I have several ...

2025-04-05T17:34:10Z

Question: Are smart homes just generally bad? I have several devices connected to my smart home, but 1 out of 5 times, it just doesn't work. For instance, I wanted to turn on the light in my living room, of which I have six, so I said, "Turn on living room lights," and it turned on four of them.

I did... and no matter what color scheme I choose, the colors ...

2025-03-30T11:27:59Z

In reply to nevent1q…nkvg
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I did... and no matter what color scheme I choose, the colors stay the same. So it looks like it's defined by the python package

So, I updated to the latest version of Python, which now has ...

2025-03-30T10:07:17Z

So, I updated to the latest version of Python, which now has color-coded error messages (which is great), but who the f... decided that the colors should be dark purple on a black background?!?!

Seriously developers. Lean something about colors, contrast, etc.

It turns out LEGO has changed even more pages on their website to ...

2025-03-29T23:43:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…ykqc
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It turns out LEGO has changed even more pages on their website to make it more Trump friendly: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7311893927979065345/

What the actual LEGO!!! ... You are a f... Danish company. And ...

2025-03-28T21:35:04Z

What the actual LEGO!!! ... You are a f... Danish company. And even if you were a US company, this would be cowardice and unacceptable!

Now it not the time to remove diversity. Now is the time to firmly prove that you stand for it!

(source: https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/lgbtq-og-diversitet-er-forsvundet-fra-legos-aarsrapport)

Everyone who has ever coded something will know about the ...

2025-03-22T16:43:54Z

Everyone who has ever coded something will know about the problems with text encoding. Turns out this was also the fuel of old conspiracy theories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrScmDK5FAY

I hears about it (neowim), but I haven't tried it.

2025-03-14T22:30:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…40z8
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I hears about it (neowim), but I haven't tried it.

Yep ... or the good old Commodore tape drives ;)

2025-03-14T22:04:10Z

In reply to nevent1q…svpr
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Yep ... or the good old Commodore tape drives ;)

Uh... I don't actually know. They are just images, ...

2025-03-14T22:01:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…w9l6
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Uh... I don't actually know. They are just images, screenshots, etc. in my photo library. Pretty much a mix of everything. But my phone is 12mpix, so that a bit more than 4K (as far as I know), but there are a ton of other images too.

BTW: I have spent about 10,000 DKK on storage server over the ...

2025-03-14T19:43:25Z

In reply to nevent1q…rhs8
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BTW: I have spent about 10,000 DKK on storage server over the past 5 years, so definitely not cheap :)

The test just finished. 25,000 pictures (originally stored as ...

2025-03-14T19:42:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…tyl7
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The test just finished.

25,000 pictures (originally stored as JPG), and when using AVIF, the file size dropped from 22.3 GB to 12.2 GB... so almost reducing the total HD space needed by half!

And the images are visually identical.

Very interesting. Thank you. In my quick test, AVIF displayed ...

2025-03-14T18:48:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…6e4c
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Very interesting. Thank you. In my quick test, AVIF displayed images slightly faster in my browser than JPG and WebP (when loading a page with 1000 small images).

I'm currently running a 'storage' test with 25,000 images (totalling 22 GB in size) ... it will be interesting to see how much space it manages to save.

I need more power!!! ... while AVIF is much smaller and also load ...

2025-03-14T16:38:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…yzys
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I need more power!!! ... while AVIF is much smaller and also load considerable faster (not just because of it's small size, but also generally), converting to AVIF is quite computationally heavy...

A geek moment: I'm running out of hard disk space, so I was ...

2025-03-14T15:42:35Z

A geek moment: I'm running out of hard disk space, so I was thinking I could save all my images in a better format. So, I did a test where I converted an image to JPG, PNG, WEBP, and AVIF, from 0-100 in quality, and then I compared them to see at what point I could no longer visually see a difference.

AVIF wins by a wide margin!

In school, you learn that the USA is next to Europe, across the ...

2025-03-06T09:30:43Z

In school, you learn that the USA is next to Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean. And that Canada is above the US. But in reality, Canada sits between the USA and Europe.

Just saying this in case Canada wants to join the EU to get away from all the madness ;)

I'm getting really tired of European politicians and press ...

2025-03-01T16:35:43Z

I'm getting really tired of European politicians and press downplaying the European market and capabilities. Yes, it would be much better for everyone to have a good alliance and partnership with the US, but Europe is massive on its own.

sources: GDP (Wikipedia, Army size (Macrotrends, spending (government websites + estimated/wikipedia)

It's astonishing how easy it was for Putin to manipulate ...

2025-02-19T16:41:13Z

It's astonishing how easy it was for Putin to manipulate Trump into saying exactly what we wanted him to say.

What the actual ... Mastodon. This is worst than spam. ...

2024-12-19T18:36:10Z

What the actual ... Mastodon. This is worst than spam.