rmason

I have ported programs from PERL and PHP. I think it is a personal preference but I didn't care for them. I did like Ruby on Rails immensely and did a couple of projects in it prior to it reaching version 1.0. But the jobs at that time were with CFML so I migrated back.

My user group recently had a presentation on Wheels, which is a CF version of Ruby on Rails. Its been around for a few years but never quite delivered what it promised. But it has a new project leader and has been totally rewritten. There will also be a book coming out. It uses another open-source project RustCFML which is an interpreter that converts the code to Rust. CF is pretty fast all by itself but this is lightning fast. You can also now run CF programs on Cloudflare. So the community does keep moving along. Lots of AI work being done as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgIwXMlinJw&t=1487s

ColdFusion has a very lively community and there are two open-source versions: Lucee and BoxLang. The language has also stayed very modern and something like two thirds of the Fortune 500 are using it. Also there are a few well-known startups like DistroKid using it.

No BBC sub: https://archive.is/K6KDD#selection-567.0-567.69

No BBC subscription: https://archive.is/xqVtq#selection-553.0-553.93

Which browsers contain reader mode? Is it new because I never heard of it before.

As I have mentioned on here before I spent twenty years as a fertilizer company agronomist before moving into tech and startups. In the fertilizer business one of the hottest trends is self-driving sprayers and fertilizer spreader trucks. I am guessing in ten years it's maybe 60% of the market. Its not moving the driver out of the cab but eliminating skips while lowering the stress of their 16-18 hour days.

So I have wondered if it would be possible for the farmer to work land and plant autonomously. But it has taken much longer because of the additional complexity. The first to adopt the technology will be the largest farmers. Crop farming is such a low margin business eliminating the cost of seasonal farm workers I predict will get quickly adopted.

No BBC sub: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/Wad1a

I think this is one of the most amazing science fiction birthing a real life achievement I've ever known about. Guy writes a novel about the atom bomb process in 1913 predicting the first successful experiment will happen in 1933. A scientist reading the novel in 1933 is intrigued, decides to try and is successful.

I am kind of excited as well about measuring fruit in the supermarket. Know some locals who run a couple of supermarkets. They throw away a lot of fruit that gets overly ripe.

But what if their displays could be sorted? On the endcap with a sign it could indicate fruit that should be consumed that day. Behind that would be fruit to be consumed in 24 to 48 hours. After that would be fruit to ripen in over 48 hours. A little bit of labor to sort the display every day but to me its a huge value offering to shoppers plus I am willing to bet at the same time they'd throw less fruit away.

I read the scientific paper and its says they are trying to get software that lets this measuring work with a mobile phone. If they do, there is no reason for supermarkets not to do it.

Without BBC subscription: https://archive.is/oIIN6#selection-573.0-573.38

No subscription: https://archive.is/iOt5I#selection-573.0-573.86

Interesting the different takes different nations take over dropping birth rates. I posted a story here on the Lisdoonvarna dating festival in Ireland. This is a village with a lot of bars wanting to encourage tourism. It has had so much success that the government is now sponsoring it. Quite different than America where the government mandates something as opposed to funding something that has proven successful in a given area.

https://matchmakerireland.com/

Social media had a story on an American lady disappointed with dating choices in her city who went over there for fun, met an Irishman and in less than a year of transatlantic dating got married.

Bet you have just as much a chance of finding a life partner there than any online dating service, probably much better.

No subscription? https://archive.is/EJMvI

For those without a BBC subscription: https://archive.is/8Ccuz

For those lacking a subscription: https://archive.is/uXhe9

Note this site seems slow today, it will eventually load.

I got interested in civic coding because of the essays by Tim O'Reilly. When I was running the Code Michigan hackathon for a couple of years with the State Of Michigan I tried getting him as a speaker with no luck.

I'd like to be able to search if any of my content made the list. Also search the entire stack for stuff not likely to rise high enough for its own category but definitely in there, like less popular languages to see what people are saying. I check HN every couple of hours all day long but its amazing the stuff that you can miss.

Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.

https://www.reoldsmuseum.org/

Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.

https://impression5.org/home

If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.

https://www.michigan.gov/mhc/museums/mhm

Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.

https://broadmuseum.msu.edu/

Course all that pales to Detroit where you could literally spend ten days if you wanted to visit every museum.

Over a hundred years before the database was invented this guy created it manually from ships logs and the data within proved magical. But years later he chose the wrong side in the civil war and isn't as well known as he probably should be.

For those lacking a NY Times subscription: https://archive.is/feYca

without a BBC subscription: https://archive.is/owXPm

We have an excellent library in East Lansing. My sister and I went there every week with our late Mother when we were kids. I was in there recently at an AI meeting and I noticed that it was changing into a bit of a community hub as well.

Wouldn't have ever thought of it as a meeting place for user groups but they are starting to actively encourage it. I saw it as a very positive development. During COVID they advertised that anyone could use their parking lot for the free Wi-Fi. They must have had the coverage cause the rather large parking lot was packed. They must have tuned it because I sure can't get coverage in most of the parking lots of the fast food franchises where most of their customers these days only use drive-thru.

I did not know this back story. The script was so good it called into question for me was why it was ever rejected for the stage. Movies has been repurposed for Broadway.

So I did a little searching and found in the nineties it was in the planning stages. The play ran on London's West End for only six short weeks and the Broadway producers abandoned the idea. Maybe the couple did not realize they were not writing a play but a movie script instead?

I read the article and know the discovery was made in Ireland. This is how science is supposed to work. Is it 'cultural imperialism' if American universities build on the work of these Irish girls? Science would move a lot slower if a countries scientists all had to operate in national silos.

For years the holy grail has been for corn to produce its own nitrogen. This could be a small step in the right direction. Interested to see what happens when some of the great American agricultural schools further this experiment.

Exactly, but he was in the New York media market and didn't get investigated if I remember correctly until he was already in office.

I am a journalism grad and 25 years ago the local press would investigate all candidates and this would have been discovered long before the primary. Now it is left to the independent journalists who lack the resources but are punching way above their weight. She isn't likely to win as this is a solid Democratic district. Because she stood little chance of winning even the state party didn't investigate her background either.

This makes about as much sense to me as banning all personal computers in the eighties from schools. You are putting these kids at a decided disadvantage.

What if someone created a culturally oriented AI for black people? Well a team of black Detroit women did just that. I think its an interesting idea but I am not the target audience.

This is the same guy who said users would never need machines with more than 640K of RAM. Decades later he denied every saying it. But I am old enough to remember when he said it. He never claimed to have been misquoted at the time!