JWST, CF, Code Signing, Web3, VLC, ORC, WOOP

1. Studied James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) (@ Wikipedia)  instruments in detail to get better knowledge about it's capabilities.  NIRSpec (@ Wikipedia) is very interesting solution with it's micro shutters to making observations more time efficient.

2. Noticed that Cloudflare is again routing traffic via Moscow, Russia. I don't personally mind it too much, but there might be some parties which aren't completely happy about that.

3. Absolutely awesome post: Linux in a Pixel Shader - A RISC-V Emulator for VRChat (@ blog.pimaker.at). - True hacking in the classical sense. Can it be done? Hmmm, I can't find any real reason why it wouldn't work? - Ok, let's then get it done.

4. Wondered Cheap Code Sign site, they offer Comodo Code Signing Certificates really cheaply (Authenticode (@ Wikipedia)) . Yet, it's not listed as Comodo official resellers, so I think it's safe to order from Comodo directly. Also the Comodo support didn't acknowledge that the Cheap Code Sign would be their official affiliate / reseller. kw: code signing

5. Xubuntu 20.04 LTS update broke my desktop login screen. There's no way to login anymore. Yet I don't know what the problem exactly is, it might be that USB dies. Yet, there's strange workaround. If I enter terminal immediately after boot, wait for a while, and then return to X, then it works out. Go figure. Not really eager to troubleshoot this right now.

6. My first impressions of web3 (@ moxie.org) - Any platform where everyone runs single code base isn't truly distributed, it's still managed by single entity technically. Let's see the rest. -  Hmm. Nothing new. I've been following development and design of distributed systems so long. But it's good to bring these things to attention. Fact is that mobile devices killed distributed platforms. Most of distributed platforms require constant communication, coordination, data storage, etc. Which simply is unacceptable drain on mobile devices and people don't want to run their own servers, even if the server would be integrated in full "server-client" peer-to-peer (p2p) network node application. (No I'm not referring to NodeJS in this case).

7. VLC Subtitles: It's silly that video and display resolution both affects subtitles font size with VLC. For different displays and videos you'll have to manually adjust the subtitle font size. kw: VideoLAN client

8. Had a few strange followers on Twitter and some other platforms as well. But I guess those are classic let's see if you're gullible enough to be scammed attempts. Nope, no thank you. Anyway, good test for them is to say, that if you want to talk to me, send me PGP encrypted mail, and let's talk. That's usually ends the discussion.

9. One data analysis task required reading lots of data and often just summarizing it, ORC file format (@ docs.cloudera.com) turned out to be very well suited data storage format for this task. 

10. A celebration of code: 6 pieces of code that had an impact (@ reaktor.com) - Nice post about algorithms and solutions and how these change and affect the real world.

11. How to Recognize Anxiety-Induced Procrastination (@ psychologytoday.com) and Why procrastination is about managing emotions, not time (@ bbc.com). - At least when investing it's perfectionism / anxiety, you'll know you'll need to get it right and then you'll end up in analysis paralysis where you want to get more data to analyze and when it's not obvious what to do, kind of get stuck in the loop. Yet it was kind of funny, how I felt reading those articles to be so comfortable, I wanted to watch cat videos. Haha, no not my stuff really. But some light tech YouTube stuff like Technology Connections. Anyway, this is great example why habits are so important. Tasks which are really boring, or require high focus would easily slip, unless those are habits / scheduled routines, which you just do without really questioning, if this is necessary or not and if I could do something else or let it slip. Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan (WOOP) (@ woopmylife.org). Tasks which are non-negotiable routines, are very easy. Like updating this blog, backups, etc.

2023-03-26